‘We spent Christmas together.’ Lisa sketched around the truth, avoiding the reason that had brought her and Angelina’s brother back together. While Angelina would have to know her brother was going to make her an aunt, it was up to him to tell her. Just as it was up to him to say he was the one who now wanted to go through with the divorce.
‘And I hear congratulations are in order. That you are expecting.’ Angelina raised her brows at the elderflower cocktail and stood back, smiling at Lisa, then her expression turned more serious. ‘How’s Max taking it?’
‘Max? Taking it?’ Lisa couldn’t work out what Angelina meant, but she was going to find out. ‘What do you mean precisely?’
‘You don’t know, do you?’ Shock filled Angelina’s face, the light and fun mood of moments ago slipped away as if they’d walked out of the party, and if Lisa wasn’t mistaken there was pity in her eyes too.
‘No, but you are going to tell me right now,’ Lisa demanded. She’d get the truth from Angelina, but would she really want to hear it?
Angelina finished her champagne, deposited the flute on a nearby table and took Lisa’s arm and guided her away from the fun and laughter of the party. She stopped when they reached a long and very grand corridor. The noise of the party was subdued as the doors closed behind them and Lisa wondered what it was that was coming next that needed such drastic action. She looked at Angelina as nerves took flight in her stomach, bringing back the nausea she’d been struggling to keep at bay since she’d got up this morning.
‘My mother, Max’s mother, died when I was two years old,’ Angelina began, but Lisa’s patience was wearing thin.
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Has he also told you that she was diagnosed with cancer while she was carrying me and that she delayed treatment, for me?’ Angelina swallowed and Lisa knew this was affecting her far more than she was letting on. That she too hid behind a mask of being the bubbly life and soul of the party to hide her pain and that she was telling her this most guarded secret because it affected Max, affected her.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She reached out and touched the young woman’s arm and for a moment the two of them were lost in their own world. ‘That must be hard on you.’
‘It is, yes. Mostly because it made Max into a dominating brother, always insistent that I do things his way. The arguments he and my father had over everything from what school I should attend to what I should eat or wear were impossible.’
‘I have an older stepbrother who doesn’t care one jot for me.’ Lisa couldn’t help confiding in her.
‘I’d much rather that.’ Angelina laughed, lightening the mood. ‘Please don’t let on that I told you. I just thought you would already know.’
‘I won’t.’ Already the cloud of doubt was hanging over Lisa. Why hadn’t he told her? Was it that he didn’t trust her or didn’t care enough to tell her? Either way, it rocked the foundations of all the good the last few days had created. Now she knew the only option for them was to go their separate ways. They couldn’t hope to remain married, just for the baby. He didn’t trust her and certainly wouldn’t ever love her. It was over.
‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Max’s voice was raised over the noise of the party as he pushed open the doors and stood glaring first at his sister, then at her. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’
‘She’s fine,’ Angelina injected as she stood a little closer to her. ‘We were just having a catch up.’
‘You are required by your guests,’ Max said curtly, and a spark of mutiny slipped over Lisa. What would he do if she just walked out now, dropped the act of togetherness? She was on the verge of doing just than when she thought of Angelina. This was her party. She didn’t want to give Max the satisfaction of making her spoil it, especially after such a heartfelt admission.
Angelina looked from her to her brother. ‘I shall leave you two to it, then.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Max watched his sister as she slipped back into the party and Lisa bristled with indignation. He didn’t trust her and was trying to control her just as he’d done with his sister. From the things Angelina had just said, Lisa guessed that she wasn’t the only person Max couldn’t open up to. Not that it made any difference. They were finished. She might have felt love for him, but it had only ever been lust in his world and lust would not hold them together any longer.
‘She was only congratulating me.’ Lisa glared up at him and when he turned and frowned at her, that annoyance increased. Had he dismissed his child from his thoughts already? ‘The baby.’
* * *
The baby. Those two words dripped through him, heightening his anger, his irritation. He hadn’t given any thought to the fact that Angelina might want to be involved in his child’s life. Of course she would. As always, she would want to do anything she could to annoy him, anything that he didn’t want her to do.
He looked at his little sister and the ever-present guilt rushed forward like a runaway train. He hadn’t ever been able to open his heart to her, hadn’t been able to love her, just as he hadn’t been able to love Lisa. How the hell was he going to be a father, a proper father, one who loved his child unconditionally? Getting a divorce was the right thing to do. Lisa and the baby would be better off with him out of their lives and overhearing her conversation with her mother had been just the spur he’d needed to come to that decision.
‘You can talk more later but right now I wish to dance with my wife.’ It was the last thing he wanted to do. Just the thought of holding Lisa close, of feeling her body against his as they moved to the slow sultry music now playing, had a bad effect on his senses—his body. One he couldn’t listen to, couldn’t act on.
Before Lisa could back out he took her hand and began to lead her to the dance floor, but didn’t miss the look his sister flung his way. Irritation at having to deal with impending fatherhood in such a public way, brought about by the headlines regarding his brother, Raul, was beginning to take its toll on him. It was as if an unknown force were pushing him backward into his past and everything he’d thought locked safely away, forcing him to drag it all out and own it.
‘You could have been a bit kinder.’ Lisa’s reproach as he took her in his arms and began to move slowly, going through the motions in an obligatory way, only added to his guilt.
‘She likes to test me.’ The curtness of his words wasn’t what he intended and he ignored Lisa’s movement as she looked up at him, knowing that if he looked down into her beautiful face he would want to act on the desire building within him. Desire that was totally at odds with the anger and irritation of their situation, with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be his wife for much longer.
‘I know how she feels,’ she said softly, so softly it was hard to hear her above the music that filled the room.
‘Because you like to do the same?’ He clenched his back teeth together, determined to calm his irrational anger and regain control. This was so unlike him. Only two women had ever done this to him. Angelina and now Lisa.
She stopped dancing and glared up at him. ‘Because my older stepbrother hated me too.’
She thought he hated Angelina? ‘I do not hate her,’ he ground out.
‘Well,
