Bitter Memories

‘And Beatriz, I presume?’

Tanya frowned. ‘Beatriz? Who’s she?’

‘You seem to think that she’s my girlfriend too,’ he rasped coldly. ‘Can you tell me what gave you that idea?’

‘If You’re talking about the woman whose dress Matilde’s making, I didn’t think she was your girlfriend,’ snapped Tanya. ‘I thought she was your wife, but if she isn’t then You’re simply confirming my already rock-bottom opinion of you.’

He looked at her sharply, questioningly. ‘You’d heard I was married?’

‘Yes, I had.’ Tanya’s tone was bitter. ‘And I think what You’re doing to her is diabolical. You want stringing up.’

‘When did you hear? How did you hear?’ He seemed not to notice her harsh words.

‘Is it important?’ she snapped.

‘I’d like to know.’ His eyes were narrowed on hers, his expression unreadable.

Tanya lifted her shoulders in a careless gesture. ‘Someone Charlene met in the hotel told her. He came from Tenerife, knew you, apparently.’

‘Was this before or after you’d married Peter?’

Suddenly she could see the way his mind was working. ‘Heavens,’ she cried sharply, ‘I didn’t marry him on the rebound, if that’s what You’re thinking. I didn’t marry him because I’d heard you’d got married; it was a long time afterwards. And as Charlene said last night, we were extremely happy together. I would never have dreamt of seeing another man behind his back.’

She was so indignant that she was out of breath, her chest heaving as she looked at him belligerently and coldly, her fingers curled into her palms so tightly that her nails dug in and hurt, but she did nothing about it; in fact she welcomed the pain.

His eyes glittered with a cold light that Tanya had never seen before; his nostrils dilated. ‘After all we had going for us, Tanya, I would never have believed that you could think so harshly of me.’

‘All we had going for us?’ she echoed loudly. ‘We had nothing. It was a brief, glorious fling that was over the moment you left England.’ And she was lying again! But what the hell—she refused to succumb to the indignity of confessing that she had spent hours and hours crying, pining, longing, wondering.

‘You forgot me so instantly?’

His expression was so incredulous that she almost laughed. ‘Indeed I did. What did you expect? It was fun while it lasted, I admit, but once you were out of sight, Alejandro, you were out of mind. And why am I telling you all this when it’s your wife who’s the person I feel sorry for? You really are a swine, aren’t you? What do you tell her—that it’s business keeping you away from home? Or have you some other fancy excuses?’

Alejandro looked at her long and hard. ‘I hardly feel you deserve the truth.’

‘Truth?’ Tanya’s brows slid up. ‘You mean a pack of lies? Some way of attempting to absolve yourself? I don’t think I want to hear it.’ He had lied by omission nine years ago, proving he wasn’t a man of integrity. Why should she believe anything he tried to tell her now? And lord, she wished he would move. Her hostility was mixed with an awareness that was proving a very real threat to her sanity.

‘In that case there is nothing else I have to say.’ He turned abruptly and marched towards the house, and perversely Tanya wished she hadn’t been so sharp. It would have been interesting to hear what sort of an excuse he came up with. It was too late now, though. Matilde had appeared in the doorway and was beaming a smile of welcome. He was obviously a great favourite of hers.

Tanya sat down again and closed her eyes. She looked completely relaxed, as though she hadn’t a care in the world, no hint on her face of her rioting body and mind. Not only was she battling with a desire to know what he had been going to say, but she was struggling with feelings that set her on fire, feelings she had thought long since dead. Why, when she knew only too well how immoral he was, did she respond like this? What was there about him that drew her like a moth to a flame?