‘I would’ve started the evening sober, for a start.’
‘Sí, but you weren’t drunk by the end of it.’
Unable to resist, she grazed her fingers over his morning stubble. ‘That’s because you made sure I wasn’t. Can you imagine if it’d been someone else less honourable than you?’
He tensed. ‘Did we agree not to mention other people while you’re in my bed?’
‘I didn’t mean...that was a hypothetical question, Javier,’ she admonished.
He gave a stiff, arrogant shrug. ‘Spare yourself my hypothetical wrath and stick to your story, querida,’ he suggested.
‘I woke up the next morning hating myself for hiding behind my mother and not facing my father. I hated the circumstances that brought us together and I didn’t handle it well.’
‘So you deliberately let me believe you were going from my bed to Angelis’s?’
Heat crawled up her face. ‘Mi dispiace molto.’
‘And the dates in London? The kiss in Tuscany?’
‘All completely platonic. I’m not in love with Draco, Javier. I swear. I never have been.’
He stared at her in silence for a full minute, before he nodded. ‘Bene,’ he replied gruffly, then took her mouth in another heart-stopping kiss.
After several minutes, he raised his head. ‘We seem to have come full circle, Carla. Give me your word that you’re mine and I’ll let this matter rest.’
‘I’m yours,’ she affirmed.
He kissed her again, then nodded for her to continue.
‘For years I’d been promising myself that when I could I would walk away from my father. But in the end I wanted everything. My career, my father, my mother, everything in harmony. A stupid wish, of course.’
His mouth twisted. ‘The day we stop dreaming and striving for the unachievable is the day we die. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘But don’t you see? I wanted too much. Because she died.’
He stiffened. ‘But you said you don’t know how she died. How do you know it’s because of what you asked of her?’
The thorns that had never quite melted away from her heart pierced her unbearably. ‘Because if I hadn’t got her involved she would still be alive. I begged her to intercede with my father, and she died because of it.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JAVIER SLOWLY PULLED back from her. The absence of his warmth struck her almost as deeply as the pain ravaging her insides. He sat with his back against the massive headboard, his features inscrutable. In the next instant, he pulled her up against him, one strong arm around her shoulders as he leaned her back against him.
‘You believe your father did something to her or you wouldn’t be torturing yourself this way,’ he stated, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
Her breath caught. ‘I don’t want to think that...but I can’t help myself.’
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘Not much. All I know is she went to Tuscany to talk to him. She didn’t leave there alive. I found out she was dead a week after I left you, after I’d completed my three-day competition in Switzerland.’
‘Dios mio. He didn’t tell you?’
‘He didn’t want the news to affect my performance. The first I knew of her death was on the way to the funeral home. He said it was an accident, that he was sorry, but I needed to put it behind me as soon as possible.’
Carla didn’t realise she was crying until his thumb brushed the moisture from her cheeks. Then, as if the floodgates of her grief had been ripped open, thick sobs exploded from her heart. Javier held her closer, both arms folding her into his body as she purged her grief. Selfishly, she clung to him, knowing deep down that it was unwise, but unable to stop herself from soaking up his support.
Gentle words spoken in Spanish floated over her. Long moments later, her hiccups the only sound in the room, Carla attempted to pull away.