The Alcolar Family: The Twelve-Month Mistress / The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife / Bound by Blackmail

‘I have a lot to get done before Friday. You know Friday is a very important day.’

Oh, she knew that all right. But was he thinking of it as important for the same reasons she was?

CHAPTER FOUR

GIVING in to cowardice, Cassie decided she was no longer so sure she wanted to risk finding out. Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, her mother always said. And there was one answer to this that she did not want to hear at all.

‘Friday?’ she asked, trying to distract herself with a glance in the mirror and grimacing in distaste as she saw the way she looked.

Swamped by the black robe that was designed for Joaquin’s tall, masculine frame and not her own feminine one, and with her blonde hair tangled into an appalling bird’s nest, she looked a wreck, nothing like the elegant professional woman who had first caught Joaquin’s eye at that first business meeting.

She was going to ask him if they had a future together, looking like this? Where was her pride? Her self-esteem?

Reaching for her hairbrush, she started to pull it through her hair, wincing sharply as it caught in a particularly tight knot.

‘Why is Friday so important?’

She knew she was prevaricating, delaying the moment and the question that would decide her fate. If she really had to ask it? Couldn’t she give it a miss just for today? Couldn’t they go on as they were for a little while yet? Have one more night like last night?

‘What’s happening then?’

‘I’m meeting the buyers from London—we’re meeting the buyers from London,’ Joaquin amended.

‘We?’ Cassie echoed, frowning her confusion at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You want me to be there?’

‘Of course—you’re my interpreter.’

‘But they’re English! You don’t need an interpreter for them! You speak perfect English—quite possibly better than some of them!’

Joaquin’s grin was wide and wicked, a flash of brilliantly white teeth in his darkly tanned face.

‘I know that and you do too. But I don’t necessarily want them to know that. At least, not at this stage of the game. I would prefer them to think that I might not understand everything they say. That way they might not be quite so guarded in their opinions—they might let something slip.’

‘Something you can use to your advantage?’

‘Obviamente. What else?’

What else? Cassie asked herself privately. What else would Joaquin be thinking of but business? What else would matter to him as much as making money, wheeling and dealing?

Why was she fooling herself even trying to hope that he might have something more personal, more emotional on his mind?

Her hair was almost brushed smooth now. Every tangle had been tugged out of it and it was no longer a bird’s nest. But it looked as flat and as limp as she felt deep inside.

To her horror hot tears stung at her eyes and she blinked hard to fight them back, slowly turning to face Joaquin where he stood in the middle of the room, eyes dark, a faint frown on his face, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.

‘So you want me to come and sit in on a business meeting on Friday?’

‘A business dinner,’ Joaquin corrected. ‘We’re taking them out to dinner in the evening—now what the hell was that look for?’

‘What look?’ Cassie tried to hedge, though she knew from his dark scowl that it hadn’t worked.

He had always been able to see right through her when she tried to avoid telling him the truth. That was why she had had such a terrible time keeping the way she was feeling from him just lately. For once she had had cause to be thankful that he was a workaholic. When he was out of the house, she could let her mask slip, admit to the fears she was facing about the future.

‘What look?’ Joaquin echoed, lacing the words with dark mockery.

He strode across the room towards her, catching hold of her shoulders and spinning her round so that she faced the mirror once more. When she tried to avoid looking at her own reflection, afraid of what she might see, he caught her chin firmly between hard finger and thumb and turned her face so that she couldn’t do anything else.

‘That look! The one that tells me I have committed some appalling sin, one for which I should beg forgiveness on my knees before you, clad in sackcloth and ashes.’

‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous!’

‘Am I?’ Joaquin questioned darkly. ‘Am I really? Look at yourself, Cassie—look!’ he commanded when she stubbornly struggled to avert her face, not wanting to meet her own eyes in the glass.

Cassie knew what she saw—but what was it that Joaquin saw in her face? Was it really possible that he could have misinterpreted her expression? That where she saw eyes clouded by anxiety, and a face that struggled to hide the pain and fear she had lived with for days, he saw something else? Something that made him think she was angry and distant from him? That she was the one whose mood was likely to prove difficult and disruptive?

Right now, feeling as vulnerable as she did, just the idea seemed like a welcome relief. Clearly the thought that their all-important anniversary was coming up meant little to him. Less than little—nothing at all! He’d even arranged a business meeting for the day. And wanted her to act as his employee!

‘Do you know what day it is on Friday?’

His reaction was so swift, so revealing that it tore at her heart. His head went back, very slightly, his eyes narrowing. And then there was a total blanking out of his expression, all trace of anything wiped from his features so that they were as smooth and unrevealing as those of a marble statue, the dark eyes as opaque as the unseeing sockets in a carved head.

‘Of course I know what day it is. The day we met—a year ago.’

‘Then…’

‘Oh, I see—I’m supposed to go the whole sentimental road, am I? Flowers and chocolates?’

He was taunting her now, provoking deliberately, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself from rising to the provocation. Besides, it was probably so much better than letting him see how devastated she really was deep inside.

‘Well, I’d expected something!’

Was that cold, tight little voice really hers?

‘What I get is a business meeting! And, what’s more, a business meeting at which I’m supposed to be working!’

‘That meeting has been arranged for a long time.’

‘Oh, I’ll just bet it has!’

And she should know exactly what came first in Joaquin’s mind. Business first and foremost every time. No matter what else might be involved.

‘And even if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t cancel it.’

‘No.’

It was cold and flat and totally unmovable. Of course.

‘I couldn’t cancel it even if I wanted to.’