‘You could if I gave them to you. And before you say anything—don’t. I can afford it and I want to. Please, Carly. Don’t let pride stop you from taking what I am able to give. At least that way, you’ll get your happy ending.’
She looked at him and thought that she wasn’t the only one who could be naïve. Did he really think that this was her happy ending? She thought about the father who had betrayed him and the mother who had slowly slipped away from the world. She thought about how alone he was, amid all his trophies and homes and enough money in the bank to secure the future of the children he would never have.
And something made her say it. Made her kick her pride into touch and have the courage to declare what she’d known for a long time now. Couldn’t she give him something, too? Not money, but something much more precious.
Hope.
‘Okay, I’ll take it. And I want you to know that I am very grateful to you for your...generosity, in all its many forms.’ She sucked in a lungful of air but her next words still came out in a breathless rush, full of nerves and apprehension.
‘But you should know something else, too, and that is that I’ve grown to love you, Luis. And I’m sorry about that, because I know it’s the last thing you ever wanted. I didn’t want to fall in love with you, but, somewhere along the way, I did. And I’m not saying it because I want anything in return, because I don’t. I don’t expect anything. I’m saying it because, deep down, you are loveable. And you need to believe that. It’s not because you’re sexy, or rich and not because you have a whole roomful of silver trophies and can fly a plane. You are loveable because you can be a very kind and thoughtful man, when you let yourself be. And maybe one day you might start believing in that enough to open your heart and let someone in.’
Her words died out to the sound of silence. There wasn’t a flicker of response from the rigid figure who stood in front of her, though she thought she saw something flare briefly in the depths of those empty black eyes. But then it was gone, and he smiled. That easy, charming smile he could turn on like a tap, a smile which was as cool and as transparent as water itself.
‘Interesting hypothesis,’ he said, in a voice which sounded faintly bored. ‘But you know that I’m not really interested in the emotional stuff you women are so fond of spouting. All I will say, for what it’s worth, is that I think you’re going to be a brilliant doctor.’
Carly stared at him. He had completely ignored what she’d just said. Had treated her words with contempt. Of course he had. Why should she be surprised when he was just being true to himself? He didn’t do that emotional stuff and he never would. He’d told her that all along.
And it was that which made her quickly turn and walk towards her room, before she added to her humiliation by letting him see her cry.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUIS STARED OUT of the window, without really seeing the sombre grey of the November day. Why was he feeling like this? As if there were some heavy weight on his shoulders which was perpetually weighing him down? As if there were something gnawing away inside him, which he couldn’t work out how to fix. And that didn’t make sense. Especially since he’d kept so busy after putting Carly on a plane back to London and saying goodbye to her.
He had left the Côte d’Azur and travelled to New York, where he’d hired a personal trainer before getting straight back behind the wheel and winning a charity race in Brazil. He remembered staring at the gleaming trophy and thinking it would have been around the same time that Carly was starting at med school in England. And he couldn’t shake off his feeling of disappointment that she hadn’t bothered to contact him to say well done.
He knew their relationship was over—he was the one who had ended it, wasn’t he?—but the race had been big news internationally, and hadn’t he expected some kind of acknowledgement? If not exactly praise, then surely something. Perhaps a faintly mocking communication noting that he still seemed hooked on danger, but congratulating him on winning the race, all the same.
But there was nothing.
Not a phone call. Not a postcard.
Nothing.
Never had a silence seemed quite so deafening.
He remembered feeling disbelief, closely followed by a slow and simmering anger. After all he’d done for her she didn’t even have the generosity of spirit to say well done.
He had buried himself in his work, throwing himself into every new task with the enthusiasm of someone who was just starting out in the cut-throat world of business.
But something inside him had altered. Something he hadn’t expected. He found himself looking at things differently. He started making changes he suspected had been a long time coming. He sold two of his houses and a whole heap of office space in Manhattan. He realised that he preferred life without all the hangers-on and so he reduced the size of his entourage, and told Diego so. A Diego who kept looking at him from between narrowed eyes and asking was he sure he was okay?
Was he okay? Luis had felt his mouth harden in response to the question. Of course he was. Physically, he’d never felt better. His brush with death had made him look at the world with a sharper focus. His senses felt raw and heightened. In many ways, he had never been so grateful just to be alive.
Yet all he could think about was Carly. Carly lying naked in his arms, with her hair spread over his chest, talking in that soft, sweet way she had. Carly running her finger along his jaw and teasing him. Carly sending him a silent glance, which would make him think about something in a way he hadn’t thought about it before.
He tried going to parties to get her out of his head, and there were plenty of parties. Slick, pared-down affairs in minimalist New York loft spaces or wild, pool-side extravaganzas held outside the city.
Trouble was that he couldn’t look at a swimming pool without thinking about her.
He couldn’t look at a damned bed without thinking about her.
He would find himself standing motionless while some impossibly glamorous woman came onto him in a way which made his stomach crawl. And that was when he started to get worried.
He tried looking at the situation logically. He was only fantasising about her because she’d been like no other lover he’d ever had. Because she had walked away without a backward glance and seemed happy to leave it that way.
Yet she’d been part of his life for a long time, way before they’d become lovers. He told himself he was interested to see how her ambition was playing out—hell, didn’t he have some sort of right to know?
And now he was back in England on the second round of interviews for a new housekeeper to replace her and it was proving harder than he’d imagined. The first stream of women he’d seen had been hopeless, even though they’d all been eager for the job. But there was something wrong with each and every one of them. Too flirty, or too unimaginative. Several had been no good at cooking and one even had a criminal record she’d tried to conceal. He had rejected them all and demanded that Diego find him someone more suitable.