who the hell did?’ A deep male voice crashed into the tension that had built between him and Lydia, as if striking all ten pins on a bowling alley in one fatal blow.
He heard Lydia gasp and drag in a deep breath as he turned and looked his brother in the eye for the first time. It was like looking at himself and he clenched his teeth hard; the hope that his father had got it all wrong vanished with one glittering look from his firstborn son.
‘It certainly wasn’t me.’ Lydia began to speak again, fast bubbling words, which as far as he was concerned underlined her guilt in red, not because she had genuinely wanted to help him because of her deepening feelings for him. ‘I want the debt settled. I want out of your life.’
‘Then get out, Lydia,’ Raul snapped without even looking at her. Now was not the time for Lydia’s nervous chatter.
His brother’s gaze didn’t leave his face, didn’t break the contact and there was no way he was going to back down, give this man the upper hand. It seemed an eternity as he stood there assessing and being assessed by the half-brother who had taken his place in his father’s affections, who’d become the only son he’d ever wanted.
He should hate him for it.
Lydia moved closer to him. Every nerve in his body felt it—heightened to even the smallest movement from this woman. It wasn’t right that she had such power over him. He heard the crinkle of paper but remained resolutely locked in eye combat with his half-brother. He couldn’t bring himself to think his name, much less say it. Not whilst the anger and pain of his childhood years surged through him.
‘You should have this.’ Lydia’s whispered words finally caught his attention and he looked at her, then at the old, discoloured envelope she held out to him. ‘It’s from your mother.’
In that moment it was just the two of them—him and the woman who had slipped under his defensive barrier and into his heart, rendering him as weak as a newborn colt. The very same woman who’d betrayed him in the most spectacular way. And it hurt—like hell. He’d watched his mother’s heartache at his father’s betrayal as he’d grown from a boy into a man, seen it all around him and vowed never, ever, to be the victim of such emotions.
Now he too knew the bitter taste of betrayal from a loved one.
He took the envelope in a firm, decisive move then looked into those green eyes he’d thought so sexy, so full of something special for him. His lip curled into a snarl. ‘I never want to see you again. Ever.’
* * *
Lydia burst through the door of the restaurant, desperate to leave the charged atmosphere of the room. She couldn’t bear to stand there and see the anger in Raul’s eyes, anger that made him despise her.
She swiped at a tear as it sprang from her eye and pulled all her anger to the fore, smothering the need to cry. ‘Damn Christmas tree.’ She brushed her hair back with both hands and raised her chin as she glared at the offending fir tree, decked out in gold with twinkling lights. ‘What are you looking so happy about?’
‘Are you okay?’ A female voice came from behind her and Lydia whirled round to see a woman sitting in one of the large comfortable armchairs of the foyer, looking anything but comfortable if her perched position on the edge of the seat was anything to go by.
‘Y-yes. Sorry,’ Lydia stammered, realising how silly she must have looked to the glamorous redhead as she’d rushed out and begun her tirade at the Christmas tree. ‘It’s that time of year for stress overload, I guess.’
‘Tell me about it,’ the other woman said and Lydia relaxed a little, feeling as if she’d met a kindred spirit. ‘A man?’
‘The very same.’ Lydia smiled, noticing how pale the redhead looked beneath her heavily applied make-up, as if she too was trying to hide something.
The woman smiled, but as raised male voices echoed from the restaurant both women looked at the door. For a moment Lydia wondered if she should say something. Was the beautiful woman waiting for Raul’s brother? She decided against it. Raul was nothing to do with her any more. She’d found his brother and had unlocked the funds that would pay off her father’s debt. She was free to go.
With that thought racing in her mind she rushed from the hotel, conscious of her hurried footsteps echoing after her and even feeling the redhead’s curious gaze. Or was she just being fanciful? Was she in such a heightened state of emotions she wasn’t thinking clearly?
The cold December wind took her breath away as she stood on the streets, the London traffic whizzing by, oblivious to the turmoil she was in. People passed her, some bumping her as she walked slowly in a daze of disbelief, not even aware of where she was going. Everyone around her seemed to be caught up in the buzz of Christmas and all she could do was think about what she’d lost.
The man she loved hated her. She’d seen it in his eyes. There was no doubt.
Christmas Eve was a week away. Now was no time to be nursing a broken heart. She pulled her coat tighter around her in an attempt to keep the cold at bay, but inside she was already frozen, her heart turned to ice by one look of contempt from Raul, and his last words played in her head like a Christmas carol turned sour.
‘I never want to see you again. Ever.’
RAUL COULDN’T COMPREHEND how alike he and Max were. There was no disputing they were brothers. It wasn’t just the dark hair, which Max wore shorter, or the piercingly dark eyes, but the way he stood. Every line in his body was poised and commanding. Raul had not only met his brother, but his match, of that he was in no doubt, but right now he was far too angry with Lydia for her deception.
Because of her he’d lost a big deal and she’d caused him and Max unnecessary embarrassment. He wanted to believe she hadn’t sold his story, that she hadn’t used their passionate affair in order to gain all the information she could about the story of his brother and his father’s double life, but it was just too coincidental. She’d gone from not wanting anything to do with him to seeking a passionate affair. He’d thought it had been desire driven, but he’d been wrong. Very wrong.
‘Was that necessary?’ his brother’s voice fired accusingly at him. ‘There was no need to be so hard on her.’
‘Don’t you dare presume that as my older brother you can tell me what I can and can’t do.’ Raul hurled the angry words back at Max. Thanks to Lydia and her indiscretion, this whole meeting had catapulted out of control. He couldn’t even think clearly at the moment, saying the first thing that came to him in such an uncontrolled way, he didn’t even recognise himself.
‘Now we get to the crux of it.’ Max strode towards him, the same purposeful strides he would use if he weren’t rooted to the spot with shock and anger at the sudden realisation that Lydia had gone. Not just left the hotel, but gone. Out of his life for good.
Focus, he demanded himself. Now was not the time to reminisce over a love affair that had ended. Now was the time to focus on his future, to move forward from the lies his father had inflicted on him—and Max. To do the one thing his father had thought him incapable of—welcoming his brother into his life.
‘That minor detail has nothing to do with it,’ he shot back
