her fingers, and played her ace. ‘Do you really want that sort of blot on the revered family name? Somehow, I don’t think so. Imagine the gossip when it becomes known that Roman Fernandez’s brother-in-law is behind bars.’
He moved into her line of vision, standing over her, his height, his breadth, the power of him suddenly and unwelcomingly intimidating.
‘The sympathy would all be with my family for its association with yours. We would be seen as upholding the rule of law, no matter what the cost. Quite noble, you must agree.’ He smiled, but his eyes were still cold and hard. ‘You will have to do better than that.’
Cassie muffled a sigh and reined back the urge to slap that beautiful, arrogant face. There was no point in appealing to his better nature. Still less point in trying to get through to him. She had never been able to do that, not even when they were first married.
‘I’ll repay every peseta he stole from you,’ she offered without a great deal of hope. She had no idea how much that was—Roy, to put it mildly, had been incoherent on that subject. It could take her the rest of her life, but it would be worth it. She lifted eyes to him that were now sparkling with defiance—she refused to admit that the emotion raging inside her was hurt—and said, ‘You’ll get your money back, get me and Roy out of your sight. In a year we can divorce and you can forget your precious family was ever associated with mine! And then—’ she drew in a breath, surprised by the pain that gripped her heart in a cruel vice ‘—you can marry that highly suitable Delfina who was always hanging around. Make your mother and the aunts happy—Delfina, too. The way she flirted with you, and the way you played up to her, used to make me sick!’
Too late, she deeply regretted the unguarded words that had revealed some of those earlier painful insecurities. She was over them now; she didn’t care who he eventually married. But his ego was too large to let him believe that simple fact, as was clearly demonstrated by the upward drift of one dark brow, the knowing tilt of his head.
He thought she was jealous, that she still felt something for him. It was intolerable!
Cassie shot to her feet, smoothing the non-existent wrinkles out of her skirt with unsteady hands. She was beginning to get a headache and her stomach was tying itself in tense knots because, so far, her visit hadn’t achieved a thing except to remind herself of two of the most unhappy years of her life.
Still, she had to try. She tilted her chin. ‘Do we have a deal?’
She couldn’t plead with him, not even for her twin’s sake. She had pleaded with Roman too often in the past—to no effect whatsoever—to want to go through that humiliating experience again, to put her pride on the line for him to trample on.
‘No,’ he said implacably. ‘At least, not the one you outline. You surprise me, Cassandra,’ he added, as if he questioned her sanity. ‘When we married I found work for your brother in the Jerez accounts office because, according to him, he didn’t want to cut the apron strings and go back to England without you and he didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps and study medicine. In fact he almost shed tears when I reminded him that that was what his father had wanted.’
‘He was barely twenty-one and he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He’d not long lost his father, had had to face the fact that the family home had to be sold to pay Dad’s debts—and, unlike you, he hadn’t come into this world cushioned by money and holding the entrenched belief that he was superior to everyone else on the planet!’
He ignored her protective outburst as if the heated words had never been said, just as he had ignored every opinion, every need of hers, in the past. ‘I gave Roy a job with a living wage, then paid the rent on an apartment because after a while he complained that he wanted to be independent of the family household in Jerez. He repaid me by going in to the office late and leaving early—when he bothered to go at all—and finally betrayed me and my family by embezzling a not insubstantial amount of money.’ He lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug, as if the conversation was beginning to bore him. ‘Having you rescue him from the consequences of his crime and repay the money he stole would not build his character, I think.’
Cassie winced. She hated to admit it, but in a way he was right. But she knew her brother far better than Roman did, and a spell in prison wouldn’t help Roy achieve responsible adulthood.
She put her fingers to her temples. The pain was getting worse. She’d made this journey, come face to face with Roman again, had the humiliation of seeing her offer brushed aside as if it had been made by a fool, and accomplished precisely nothing. She felt as if she’d been chewed up and spat out, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. She pushed herself to her feet.
‘If that’s your final word, I’ll leave, but I’d like to see Roy before I go,’ she said thickly. ‘I’ll wait here until he finishes work.’ Surely he couldn’t be heartless enough to deny her that? She had to see her twin, let him know she’d done her best. Advise him to take his punishment like a man and tell him to come back to England, to her, when he was free, and she’d do everything she could to help him to make a fresh start.
‘And here was I, beginning to think you’d developed a backbone,’ he said lightly. ‘I think you give up too easily.’
Perspiration was slicking her skin and she folded her arms jerkily across her chest as she tried to contain the feeling that she was about to have hysterics. ‘And I think you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, hanging on to what little poise she had left. ‘You won’t listen to what I have to say so what am I supposed to do? Sit in my chair like a good little girl until I grow roots?’
‘I listened,’ Roman remarked with an indolence that made her hackles rise.
She felt her face go red. ‘Maybe. But you still refused to consider what I said!’
‘I wasn’t aware that it was mandatory.’ One broad shoulder lifted in a very slight shrug.
He was impossible! Swallowing fury, she hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She was leaving! But easier said than done, because a graceful long-legged stride, one hand on her arm, stopped her.
She didn’t want him touching her. The heat of his hand through the fine fabric of her sleeve brought back memories she had no desire to acknowledge. Her tongue, though, was welded to the roof of her mouth and, before she could unstick it, he said at a smooth tangent, ‘You’ve gained weight. For most of our two years together you reminded me of a stick. Sometimes I used to worry about you.’
What a lie! Concern for her happiness and well-being had been so low on his list of priorities it had fallen off the bottom of the paper!
‘Liar!’ she accused scornfully. ‘The only people who worried about my weight loss were your mother and aunts. And that, according to the precious Delfina, was because they thought I was anorexic and possibly infertile. She even told me that having your child was the only way they would ever accept me.’ Seized by a wild, uncontrollable anger, she surged on, ‘I should have told them that I lost weight because I was desperately unhappy. That I couldn’t conceive because you never came near me!’
The words blistered her mouth but she didn’t regret them. It was time Roman faced the truth.
‘I thought you didn’t want me to?’ The sensual line of his mouth tightened. ‘You rejected me, or don’t you remember?’
It was framed as a question but he’d wait until hell froze over before he got an answer. She’d die before she admitted how much she’d
