One Night in Buenos Aires: The Vásquez Mistress

One look was all it had ever taken.

And that was why they were here, of course, in this horrible mess.

If the physical attraction hadn’t been so overwhelming, perhaps they would have discovered their fundamental differences a great deal sooner.

Abandoning the food on his plate, he made an impatient sound and dropped the fork with a clatter. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking and I’ve given up guessing,’ he growled. ‘Why did you run?’

She gasped and suddenly her palms literally ached with the desire to swipe the arrogant look from his indecently handsome face. ‘If that is a serious question then you’re even more insensitive than I think you are.’

‘I am not insensitive.’ He pushed the chair back and it scraped on the terrace, the dark flash in his eyes hinting at the degree of volatility that lurked beneath the veneer of control and sophistication. ‘But I fail to see why anyone would go to the lengths you went to and then just walk away.’

‘The lengths I went to?’ Her voice shook. ‘You make me sound like some sort of manipulative gold-digger.’

He looked at her and the derisive glint in his eyes spoke volumes. ‘Yes?’

She swallowed, determined not to cry in front of him. How could he think that of her? ‘I walked away because the things you said to me were awful! Heartless, callous and cruel. Did you really think I’d stick around for second helpings? I was hurt and sad—I needed support—and all I got was a double helping of blind, cynical insensitivity.’

His gaze locked on hers with the deadly accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. ‘You created the situation. You should have stayed to see it through.’

‘What was the point of that?’ she forced herself to answer.

‘You made your position more than clear. Hearing it once was bad enough.’ Enough to kill her dreams and her childish, naïve belief that they’d had something special.

‘If you are going to run at the first sign of trouble, our marriage is going to be extremely interesting.’ He was infuriatingly sure of himself, forceful and arrogant, if he thought he could make her bow to his will by simply applying sufficient psychological pressure. ‘If you’d talked to me, we could have sorted it out.’

‘You weren’t “talking” Raul. You were accusing! Judge and jury rolled into one—only you weren’t prepared to listen to my defence.’ She broke off in horror, unable to believe what she’d just said. ‘You see what being with you has done for me? You’ve turned me from a rational, questioning human being into a meek, subservient blob with no brain! I don’t need a defence because I’ve done nothing wrong!’

‘You are the least subservient woman I have ever met,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And I have never questioned your intelligence.’

‘Then why are you behaving like this, Raul? Why are you so willing to believe the worst of me? You’re talking as if I committed a crime, but you were there too!’

‘You assured me that you were protected.’

‘I thought I was!’

There. It was out. The subject that both of them had been avoiding since he’d first strode into her hospital ward.

She was trembling now despite the blazing sunshine, tiny shivers that took over her whole body, but whether it was as a reaction to her accident or his words, she didn’t know. ‘I didn’t mean to get pregnant.’ And she wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. Hadn’t thought that he’d follow her. ‘Go away,’ she croaked. ‘Go back to your work because that’s all you really care about. We no longer have anything else to say to each other.’

Her response sent shards of hostility cracking through the air and Raul rose to his feet and walked away from her, as if he were considering precisely that option. But he didn’t leave the terrace. Instead he stood still, all coiled, suppressed tension like a jungle cat ready to leap on the first unwary animal that crossed its path.

She knew him well enough to know that he was at the outer limits of his patience and that surprised her because it was his razor-sharp thinking and icy control in all situations that had driven him to billionaire status. Where his competitors just cracked and folded under pressure, Raul showed nerves of steel.

But she still didn’t understand why he had brought her here.

Searching for clues, she studied his taut, handsome profile through a hot haze of tears, noticing with almost detached curiosity that the hard lines of his jaw were darkened by stubble. Since when had Raul ever forgotten to shave?

Somehow that observation made her feel better.

If she was suffering then she wanted to know that he was suffering, too.

He turned back to her, control firmly back in his grasp, his tone icily formal. ‘How are you feeling, physically? Have the medical staff I employed treated you well?’ Deliberately he’d stepped aside from the unstable, shifting surface of their emotions.

‘They’ve been fine.’ She was equally polite. ‘Offhand I can’t think of a single person you need to fire or sue.’

A ghost of a smile touched his firm mouth as he acknowledged her accurate assessment of his personality. ‘I think that comment confirms that your brain is still in perfect working order.’

‘My brain is fine. I’m fine. You can let them all go now. They must be costing you a fortune.’

‘“They” are one of the perks of being my wife, cariño.’

‘I was never interested in your money and you know it.’ The first time they’d met she hadn’t even known about his money. It was only after she’d been scorched alive by the chemistry between them that she’d discovered his real identity. And by then it hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered, not even the fact that he was difficult and complex. She’d thought she had what it took to handle him.

She’d been wrong.

She lifted her chin. ‘When I met you, I had a career. Don’t insult our relationship by implying that your money was ever part of what we shared.’

‘So why are you worrying about cost? We have enough problems piled up between us. Let’s not add more.’ His tone harsh, he swept aside her protest with a single, decisive stroke and she sank against the sun-lounger, all the energy draining out of her.

‘I’m worrying because we’re not together any more and I don’t want to owe you anything.’

‘Now I’m starting to wonder whether your brain might be damaged after all.’ He stood looking at her, his legs planted firmly apart in a stance that shrieked control. ‘Did you walk under that car on purpose?’

She gasped with shock. ‘No! How can you ask me that?’

‘Because I don’t shirk from the difficult or the awkward,’ he ground out. ‘Unlike you. You were upset.’ His hard stare allowed her no escape and Faith felt a sudden stab of agony.

Upset?

It was such an insignificant word to describe the utter devastation inside her. ‘Of course I was upset. And that’s why I didn’t look where I was going.’ She’d been blind with misery, her brain disconnected from everything except the enormity of her loss.

‘You told the hospital that you had no next of kin. I can’t believe that you were capable of such unbelievably selfish behaviour. Why didn’t you call me?’ His tone was thickened by raw, red, molten anger and this time when she looked at him her eyes were dry.

‘Why would I have called you?’

His features were set and grim. ‘It should have been obvious to you to let me know that you were safe.’

‘I had no reason to believe you’d even care.’

‘Now you’re being childish.’

‘I’m being honest! Our last meeting was hardly a loving encounter—you hurt me, Raul. You hurt me so much.’

‘I was honest about my feelings.’ His savage rejoinder showed no hint of self-reproach or apology and her shivering intensified, as if someone had dropped her in the Arctic wearing nothing more than her underwear.

‘You don’t have feelings and I can’t do this, Raul. I don’t know you any more. You’re not the man I was with.’ Her head was spinning alarmingly and her stomach rolled and lurched. ‘Go away. Just go away. It’s over, Raul.’

He swore softly and fluently and turned away from her, as if he didn’t trust himself to look at her and not explode. ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to know me. This is who I am, Faith. The real me. You saw only what you wanted to see. What suited you.’