Bitter Memories

Tanya felt her blood begin to boil. He was two-timing his wife again! Although he hadn’t been married when he was in England, it amounted to the same thing. What a swine, what a cheat, what a bastard! How many other women had he had affairs with? At that moment he looked up and saw her.

If looks could kill he should have dropped dead; instead he offered her a surprised smile. Tanya glared icily and turned to her sister, who had been frantically looking for an empty table. ‘There don’t seem to be any,’ she muttered. ‘We ought to have booked.’

Then let’s get out of here,’ hissed Tanya. ‘I’ve just seen Alejandro—and he’s with another woman.’

‘Where?’ Charlene scanned the room, and at the same time Alejandro rose from his table and came over to them.

His easy smile belied the fact that he had been caught deceiving his wife. ‘As there are no tables perhaps you’d care to join us.’

‘Like hell we would,’ hurled Tanya. ‘We’ll find somewhere else to eat. It would be criminal to spoil your pleasure.’

Her deliberate emphasis on the last word caused a swift frown of annoyance. ‘You’re being extremely childish, Tanya. Inocente and I would be more than pleased to have your company.’

Inocente! Tanya glanced across at the black-haired girl and thought, Who are you trying to fool? This girl in no way wanted their presence at the table; it was there in her expression, in the hostility in her eyes, and Tanya could not believe it when Charlene accepted gracefully.

‘Thank you, Alejandro. I really did want Tanya to experience this place.’

He gave a pleased smile and led the way back to their corner table. ‘What did you do that for?’ Tanya whispered fiercely to her sister as she trailed behind. ‘This is the last thing I want.’

Charlene grinned. ‘I thought it would be fun to ruin his evening.’

And ruin mine too, thought Tanya, though she relaxed a mite. Charlene’s evil pleasure was infectious.

Introductions were made and the dark-haired girl smiled, though it was a surface smile only. She clearly wished them a thousand miles away, and must have wondered why her companion had insisted on inviting them to their table.

Inocente’s English was good, and she listened attentively while Alejandro explained how he had met Tanya and Charlene, though her eyes were sharp as she looked from one sister to the other, evidently wondering whether either of them had been his lover.

A waiter came and set their places, handing each of them a menu, enquiring whether they would like an aperitif. Charlene declined, and Alejandro offered Tanya some of their wine. It was an excellent Marqués de Cáceres red, and Tanya drank half of it straight away, needing the courage it would give her to get through the rest of the evening. Alejandro raised an eyebrow and topped up her glass.

It was not easy to concentrate on the menu; she was far too aware of Alejandro at her side. She and her sister had effectively split him and his companion up. Inocente remained opposite him, while she and Charlene were opposite each other. Tanya knew that Alejandro always liked his girlfriend to sit facing him so that he could look at her while they ate and talked, but the way it had turned out this evening Tanya wished she hadn’t been forced to sit so close.

‘I certainly never expected to see you two here tonight,’ said Alejandro.

I bet you didn’t, she wanted to scream. I bet you thought you’d be nice and safe here in this out-of-the-way place. Her eyes flashed daggers, but somehow she managed to keep her tone even. ‘We seem to be meeting a lot in unexpected circumstances.’

‘Indeed we do.’

His leg brushed hers as he spoke, maybe accidentally, maybe not. Tanya quickly tucked her feet beneath her chair. He was the world’s worst louse, she decided, and yet, despite her adverse feelings, she could not ignore the very real triggers of sensation that chased through her. Even knowing he was deceiving his wife, she still felt an incredible awareness. She was no better than the girl sitting next to her, she concluded angrily. ‘It’s strange that Charlene’s been here for two years and you’ve not met, and now I’ve come we seem to be bumping into each other all the time.’

‘Very strange,’ he admitted, and then in a voice so low neither of the others heard, ‘Or kismet.’

Tanya wanted to yell at him, to ask him what the devil he thought he was doing. Casanova had nothing on him. But she did not want to cause a scene in the restaurant and so she pretended not to have heard, and when the waiter came for their order she turned to him with relief.

It was a very long, tense next few hours. Inocente kept trying to dominate Alejandro’s attention, but he insisted on bringing Tanya and Charlene into the conversation, and in the end the Tinerfeño girl lapsed into sullen silence.

Charlene insisted on talking about Tanya’s husband, Peter. ‘They were so much in love,’ she concluded.

Tanya had tried to tell her sister to shut up by flashing her messages with her eyes, but Charlene either did not see or did not want to see, and by the end of the evening tempers were beginning to get short all round—except for Charlene’s; she was thoroughly enjoying the situation. She could see by the tightening of Alejandro’s face that he did not want to hear about Peter, but deliberately went on stressing his and Tanya’s perfect relationship.

Tanya was glad when it was all over, when they pushed back their chairs and stood up to leave, though not so happy when Alejandro insisted on settling their bill. It made her feel indebted to him, and she did not want that; she did not want to feel any obligation whatsoever.

‘I wish you hadn’t said anything about Peter,’ she said crossly to her sister as they made their way back down the mountain. Alejandro had sped off in front of them and was already well out of sight.

Charlene grimaced cheerfully. ‘It’s what he deserves. I hope it put him strictly in his place; the man’s dissolute. I wonder if Inocente knows he’s married. I felt like telling her, except that I didn’t want to cause a scene, and I’m certainly glad that it all ended between you two. Imagine if you’d married him and he carried on like this.’

Tanya had already thought of that. The person she felt sorry for was Juanita. ‘I guess that was never on the cards. I was just one of many.’

There must have been something in her voice that gave her away, because Charlene looked at her sharply. ‘Hey, You’re not still carrying a torch for him?’

‘Charlene! Keep your eyes on the road,’ screeched Tanya as they veered dangerously close towards the edge. The mountainside dropped sharply away and there were no barriers.

‘Whoops!’ exclaimed her sister, correcting the car. ‘But if you do feel something for Alejandro, then you’d better get rid of it straight away. That man is bad news without a doubt.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ replied Tanya, ‘I know exactly what he’s like, and don’t worry, I have no intention of getting involved with him again. I learned my lesson a long time ago.’ She closed her eyes as Charlene negotiated another sharp bend. This wasn’t her idea of fun at all. She hadn’t enjoyed it coming up, but it was even more scary going down, especially when all they had to guide them was the moon and the stars. Charlene seemed to have no qualms, but as far as she was concerned it was distinctly perilous.

They lapsed into silence, and she could not get Alejandro out of her mind. She kept thinking of him with Inocente while his wife sat unsuspectingly at home. There was no doubt that he was having an affair with the girl; it was there in the way she looked at him, the way he spoke to her, the way they had walked out to his car with their arms around each other. Tanya felt quite sick at the thought.

When they got back home she feigned tiredness and went straight to her room. It had been bad enough discovering that she had meant nothing to Alejandro all those years ago, but to find out that he was still two-timing Juanita was devastating in the extreme. She had never thought in those early days that Alejandro was a womaniser. It was hard to believe that he had set out on this treacherous path of deceit at the early age of twenty-three. The saying that a leopard never changed its spots was certainly true where he was concerned. She wondered how many other girls there had been.

The next day Matilde came home and Alejandro turned up to collect the dress. This time Tanya had been half expecting him, knowing that he would want to make some sort of excuse for the night before.

She was outside when he came, sitting on a chair in the tiny square of back garden, soaking up the sun-shine, Matilde’s tan and white dog keeping her company, although he lay in the shade of the wall. She was out of sight of the front door, and although she had heard Alejandro’s car had thought herself relatively safe. Until she heard him call her name.

Ought she to pretend not to hear? Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily, pulses jerked, and she knew there was no way she could ignore him. Like him or hate him, it was all the same; the animal magnetism was there—getting stronger by the day!

Slowly she turned her head. ‘Señora Guerra’s in the house.’ Her tone was hard, belying her tumultuous feelings.

‘I’d like a word with you first.’ He pushed open the gate and strode the few feet to her side.

‘If it’s about last night I don’t want to hear.’ There was irritation in her tone, and her sloe-shaped blue eyes were cold and distant. ‘You’ll never change, will you, Alejandro?’ He loomed over her, tall and somehow threatening, putting her at a distinct disadvantage. She jumped to her feet and faced him.

He frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Don’t come the innocent with me,’ she cried. ‘How many other women have there been?’

‘Other women?’

‘Yes, affairs on the side. It’s a good job you didn’t bring your wife along today or I might have been tempted to tell her.’ Fury added strength to her words, and she was speaking much more loudly than she intended. Matilde popped her head out of the door, frowned in their direction, and disappeared again.

Tanya was so uptight that she missed the shadow that crossed Alejandro’s face, saw only the tightening of his jaw, the suppression of his anger. ‘My words have struck home, have they?’

‘You don’t know what You’re talking about, Tanya.’ His normally generous lips were clamped thinly, his dark eyes as hard as polished jet.

‘Don’t I?’ She lifted her fine brows and eyed him coldly. ‘How can I not know when you flaunt your girlfriends under everyone’s nose?’

‘You’re talking about Inocente?’

‘That’s right.’