reassured by his, ‘You catch on quickly; well done! You are my wife, you’re here, and you suit my purposes—but don’t forget, the deal includes you sleeping with me, as a good wife should…’
Cassie swallowed hard and forced an edge into her voice, ‘Point taken. You don’t have to paint a picture. I’ll keep my part of the bargain, but not here.’
‘Is that an ultimatum, mi esposa?’
‘Take it or leave it.’ She echoed his former words, trying to blank out the knowledge that he was not a man to be coerced, trying to look as if she wouldn’t back down while all the time knowing that she would have to if he didn’t agree.
‘I wonder what it is about Las Colinas Verdes that you dislike so much?’ he queried idly. Cassie shot him a suspicious glance from beneath her lashes. Buttering a roll, spreading it with honey, he gave every appearance of being totally relaxed about the whole surreal situation. ‘I seem to recall a previous time when you asked if we might make a home somewhere else.’
She hadn’t simply asked, she’d begged—practically pleaded with him on her knees! She hadn’t been able to bear being left here, watched over and criticised by his mother and his aunts, enduring Delfina’s visits—visits which had always miraculously coincided with Roman’s own.
But he had barely listened. But then why should he have when her misery—the feeling of being abandoned, a prisoner—hadn’t been important to him? After their disastrous wedding night, it had suited him to have her out of sight and out of mind.
‘It isn’t the place,’ she corrected sharply. ‘It’s the people.’ And if that was insulting to his family, tough! She had grown out of pussy-footing around him, trying to please him, vainly hoping he would start to feel something for her beyond indifference. ‘If we were here, they’d be watching like hawks to see if I got pregnant. I’ve been there, done that. And I don’t want a repetition.’
‘You could have told them they were wasting their time,’ he said coldly. ‘That the likelihood of your conceiving my child was non-existent because you couldn’t bear me to touch you.’
Cassie swallowed the instinctive, vehement response that the blame for that was just as much his as hers. After all, she’d broached this subject yesterday; the snap of his eyes and the tightening of his jaw line had showed her that her criticism of his family had made him angry.
She took a deliberate sip of coffee, then took a deep breath and made her tone entirely reasonable as she told him, ‘I don’t want to get into a fight, Roman. Our marriage was a mistake. It didn’t work for all sorts of reasons. The past is best forgotten; it’s no longer important. What matters right now is deciding how we’re going to handle the next three months, and where we’ll spend them.’
Another few sips while she weathered the startling frisson that racketed through her body at the mere thought of the coming three months. And, if anything, her prosaic words—meant to pour oil on waters that were beginning to look ominously turbulent—seemed to have worsened the situation, because his black brows were drawn together, his haughty Spanish disdain sharp enough to cut.
‘We’ll spend them together. That was the bargain.’ He got to his feet, the dappled shade reinforcing the mystery of the man. He was a complex character, many-faceted; she had never been able to understand him. ‘I will break the news of our reconciliation to my family. Be ready to leave in an hour.’
His mouth pulled back against his teeth, he stared down at her, as if daring her to say another word, then swung round and walked away. He left her wondering at his change of mood.
Set to charm the socks off her to start with—most probably in an attempt to persuade her to fall in with his wishes. Then showing flashes of simmering black temper after she’d agreed to what he wanted: the pretence of a reconciliation!
No, she never had been able to understand him. But it really didn’t matter now, did it?
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