and linen trousers she wore suiting her slenderness, her red hair secured loosely on top of her head.
‘You really don’t need to even pretend a polite interest in what I’m doing, you know, Alejandro,’ she dismissed with a derisive laugh. ‘We both know I’m only here on sufferance!’
Alejandro frowned his irritation at Brynne’s tone—
that irritation at complete variance with his earlier decision to instigate a distance between them. ‘As you are Miguel’s aunt, I of course owe you a debt of gratitude for the way in which—’
‘Michael’s aunt through marriage,’ Brynne corrected pointedly as she carefully replaced her coffee cup in the saucer. ‘And as anything I may or may not have done for Michael was done out of love for him, I’m sure you know what you can do with your gratitude!’ she added forcefully.
Alejandro had let her know quite clearly the night before that he regretted whatever lapse had induced him to make love to her—a lapse that Brynne probably regretted more than he did! He didn’t have to treat her like some polite stranger this morning in order to emphasize that point!
He frowned darkly. ‘I was merely—’
‘I’m really not interested, Alejandro,’ Brynne snapped irritably, pushing back her chair with the intention of standing up, but prevented from doing so as Alejandro reached out and grasped her hand. She trembled slightly. ‘What are you doing?’ She sighed her exasperation with this man’s hot-and-cold moods.
He had no idea, Alejandro acknowledged with inward impatience for his own actions; he only felt a need to stop Brynne from leaving with things so strained between them.
He removed his hand, resting his elbows on the table as he steepled his fingers together. ‘You wanted to say something to me last night …’ he reminded huskily.
Brynne gave him a scathing glance. ‘I’m sure that Antonia was only too eager, once I had gone to bed, to tell you all about our little chat yesterday morning!’
Antonia …? What did Antonia have to do with what had been troubling Brynne when he had arrived home yesterday evening?
What was it Brynne had said—attacked him with—last night? Something about that woman telling her he wanted her to leave, he recalled frowningly. He had been too tired and irritable at the time to consider Brynne’s anger as anything more than yet another misunderstanding between them. But her mention of Antonia put an altogether different connotation on things.
Antonia had been the woman Brynne referred to …?
Alejandro’s gaze became guarded as he looked across at a Brynne, who was obviously angry once again, a flush to her cheeks, her eyes sparkling with the emotion. ‘Perhaps I would rather hear it from you …?’ he said slowly.
‘Well, that’s just too bad!’ she told him scathingly, standing up to look down at him. ‘Because I have no intention of satisfying your curiosity! Suffice to say, I am not leaving here before my month is up, and nothing you can say, or do—or that your girlfriend says or does!—is going to make me leave any sooner. Is that clear enough for you?’ she challenged.
‘Very clear,’ he acknowledged distractedly.
Antonia had come here yesterday while he was out? While she had known he was out in Palma at a meeting with her father?
Exactly what had she said to Brynne …?
Whatever it was he deeply resented Antonia thinking she had the right to come here when he was out and say anything at all of a personal nature to Brynne.
Yes, he had used Antonia’s unexpected arrival yesterday evening as a means of ending that tense situation between himself and Brynne, which might or might not have given Antonia completely the wrong idea about their own relationship, but her conversation with Brynne had taken place before that …
‘Perhaps you misunderstood Antonia? Her English was perhaps not as fluent—’
‘Yes, you would like me to think that, wouldn’t you?’ Brynne scorned as she gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘It hardly fits in with her claim of you “always being the gentleman”, does it, to ask your mistress to come here and tell me it would be a good idea if I left?’
Alejandro’s expression darkened even more. ‘Antonia is not my mistress,’ he bit out coldly. ‘And I did not ask her to speak to you on this subject—’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Brynne dismissed wearily.
‘Or any other,’ Alejandro finished firmly, throwing his napkin down on the table before standing up, tall and forbidding in a black tee shirt and black denims. ‘You will forget this conversation with Antonia ever happened,’ he instructed arrogantly. ‘I will speak to her—’
‘In bed or out of it?’ Brynne taunted, her anger of yesterday increased by the humiliation she had suffered after being in this man’s arms last night.
Alejandro looked every inch the arrogant Spaniard at that moment, his eyes cold, his mouth a thin, angry line. ‘You will forget the things Antonia has said to you,’ he repeated icily. ‘As I will do my best to forget that you have once again insulted my honour with your accusations—’
‘Oh, please, Alejandro.’ Brynne gave another weary sigh. ‘This display of injured Spanish pride may work on some people, but it doesn’t work on me!’
Alejandro wanted to make her listen to him. To take hold of her and shake her until her teeth rattled. To take her in his arms and kiss her until she was senselessly compliant …!
He forced himself to do none of those things, instead clenching his hands into fists at his sides. ‘Nevertheless, I will ensure that Antonia does not talk to you in this way again,’ he assured Brynne coldly. ‘And I apologize on her behalf for any misunderstanding that may have arisen between the two of you,’ he added stiffly.
‘There was no misunderstanding,’ Brynne assured him with a derisive shake of her head. ‘And I’m sure she wouldn’t thank you for implying that there was!’
His mouth tightened. He did not care whether Antonia thanked him or not. He allowed no one, absolutely no one, to act on his behalf in the way that Brynne claimed Antonia Roig had done yesterday.
‘I am taking Miguel out with me today,’ he informed Brynne distantly. ‘Perhaps you would care to get his bathing things together while I ask Maria to pack a picnic lunch for the two of us? You may, if you wish, use one of the cars in the garage to go for the drive you were so keen to go on yesterday,’ he added dismissively.
No suggestion of her accompanying the two of them, Brynne noted painfully, knowing that her hurt feelings on being excluded from the outing weren’t in the least logical after her comments to Alejandro yesterday about not spending time with his young son, but feeling slightly put out anyway.
Michael, she knew, was still a little nervous of the man who was his father, and would still have welcomed her presence on any outing, so it had to be Alejandro who didn’t want her with them …
Not surprisingly, really, she accepted heavily; the two of them were never exactly harmonious when they were together, were they?
Alejandro paused in the
