had been sucked in by a gold-digger and had managed to get out of it in one piece. End of story. Being called upon to revisit that intensely disillusioning and personal slice of his past evoked a primitive, negative response and a searing resentment that the matter had been raised at all. Gut reaction bypassed common sense.
‘What do you want me to say, Sofia? It was something that happened. That was then and this is now and I don’t see the relevance of digging into the past.’
‘You don’t see the relevance of digging into the past?’ Sofia exploded, storming towards him, every nerve in her body reacting with rage at his casual dismissal of something she considered perfectly reasonable. She had had a couple of hours to think the thing through and there was now a seething mass of hurt and pain roiling inside her. Casual dismissal of what she was feeling just wasn’t going to cut it.
‘We’re sleeping together, Rafael! I think a certain amount of meaningful conversation is to be expected!’
Rafael clenched his fists, fighting down the urge to reach out, pull her towards him and sort things out the most effective way he knew how. Face to face, naked body pressed against naked body, his mouth on hers, silencing all those intrusive questions he was not inclined to answer.
For a few seconds, something rushed through him, a hesitation that was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was unsettling, disconcerting. Why, he wondered, was he so anchored in a desire for privacy? She was making a simple enough request that required a simple enough answer. Where was the harm in relenting? He remembered Gemma and the unravelling of juvenile dreams—remembered what it felt like to know that someone was using you. He’d made sure to protect himself from ever going down that road again. He’d made himself invulnerable. As far as he was concerned, confession was never good for the soul.
Never. Age-old defences and behaviour patterns killed all uncomfortable hesitation stone-dead.
‘There’s nothing to tell, Sofia. It happened and I just don’t see the value in dredging it up. Things didn’t work out between us. I was young, too young to see the pitfalls. Unfortunately.’
‘That’s it?’
‘What do you mean?’ He frowned, incredulous that another onslaught might be in the making.
One sentence! The briefest of explanations! Plus it had been like drawing blood from a stone.
It didn’t matter whether he found it hard to discuss feelings or whether he’d put the past to bed and wasn’t interested in resurrecting it. The fact was that she was owed more than this. Furthermore, if she accepted this and overlooked it, she would set a precedent that could never be broken—a precedent of always having to keep quiet about anything troublesome he might not be interested in hearing.
Even if he yielded sufficiently to want longer together, even if he admitted that there was more to their relationship than convenience and sex, was this the sort relationship she was after? For herself? Long-term?
‘Nothing. I don’t mean anything.’ She swerved away and clattered around for a few seconds, getting her thoughts together. Calm was settling over her.
She wasn’t going to rant and rave. She heated the food in silence and was dimly aware of him sitting at the table, watching her, dark eyes alert, speculative. But notably he wasn’t going near any more thorny issues. It seemed that awkward silence was a lot more comfortable than questions he didn’t want to answer.
‘You’re not eating.’ He stated the obvious when there was a plate of food in front of him. ‘Are you sulking?’ He pushed the plate away from him and sat back, hands linked on his chest, watching her in a way that could still set her pulses racing even though she couldn’t have been angrier or more miserable than she was just at the moment.
Sofia thought it typical of Rafael to reduce her very valid concerns to a simple case of sulking.
‘Sofia.’ He raked his hands through his hair and vaulted upright, prowling towards her so that she backed away until she was pressed up against the counter, at which point she resolutely folded her arms, forming a barrier between them, and stared at him. His eyes were a hot spot so she looked a bit lower, only to realise that his mouth was also a hot spot. She gazed past his shoulder and tried to remain neutral and stony-faced.
‘You haven’t eaten,’ was all Rafael could find to say.
‘I’ve lost my appetite. Rafael, I think I need to take time out on...on us. On this.’
‘What?’
His expression would have been comical if she had been in the mood for laughing.
‘I’m going to go upstairs.’ Stunned silence. ‘To pack.’
‘Sofia, is all this about me not wanting to wallow in long explanations about a relationship I had a lifetime ago? Jesus, this is ridiculous!’
‘I don’t want to listen to this. You don’t have to talk about your past, Rafael, but likewise I don’t have to put up with your silence on the subject.’
‘You’re being illogical!’
Sofia swerved past him, out of reach, and walked quickly towards the door. When she glanced back, it was to find him staring at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.
There was so much she wanted to say to him that she wouldn’t have known where to begin. If she started, she would never stop. There was an angry, hurting roar inside her that had to be contained because she didn’t want to descend into being the sort of shrieking, hysterical woman she was so close to being.
‘This marriage has done what it was supposed to do,’ she said neutrally.
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘I mean, Rafael, that I’ve built a bridge with my father. We no longer need you as an intermediary. And as for Freddy? I’m pretty sure you’ll sort that business out because if my suspicions about him are correct, and I’m pretty sure they are, you’ll have a powerful incentive for him to listen to what you have to say. Weren’t those the reasons behind this convenient marriage?’
Their eyes met and she didn’t look away.
He was so spectacular on so many fronts, she thought weakly. How had she ever been so stupid as to think that she could protect herself against the sheer force of his dangerous, vital charisma? He was a stalking panther to her inexperienced gazelle.
‘My aunt and Miguel have moved closer to the hospital where he’s having his treatments,’ she intoned, ‘and their house is more than big enough for me for a while. And after that I have options, Rafael. I’ll work out what to do next. But I won’t be doing it as your wife.’
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