His tawny eyes flared, his strong jawline clenching. He thrust the door closed. ‘I have the feeling that you are going to disappoint me. Caterina can entertain herself for a few minutes.’
‘You think I am going to disappoint you?’ Her voice was shaking and she couldn’t stop it shaking. ‘You are so right, Rafael! If there hadn’t been a photograph, I wouldn’t have known…’
Being found out did not appear to bother him in the slightest. His narrow-eyed scrutiny was cool. ‘But what do you know, Sarah?’
She bent her head in an agony of pain, quivering with the force of her emotions. ‘I know that I will never trust you again. How could you bring her here?’ she gasped. ‘Is there some continuing affair that makes it worthwhile? Or does it give you some sort of a thrill to sit down to lunch with your mistress and your wife?’
‘No, it does not give me a thrill, because Caterina has never been my mistress,’ he imparted shortly. ‘I would still like to know why an hour or two alone in a hotel room constitutes indisputable evidence of infidelity.’
‘It’s sufficient for a divorce!’ Sarah flung wildly. ‘If you’re still trying to insist that there’s some other explanation, I’m afraid that I’m not even going to listen to it.’
‘You’re going to listen all right,’ Rafael grated rawly. ‘You don’t trust me. You do not even make the slightest attempt to even pretend that you trust me. But how very gracious of you to forgive and forget something which I didn’t do!’
‘I can’t believe that!’ There was a slight sob in the assurance. ‘I’ll never believe that.’
‘Tell me, Sarah, what sort of man would introduce his mistress to his wife?’ he demanded fiercely. ‘Is that how you see me? I wanted you to know the truth in the kindest possible way without distressing Caterina. I didn’t know there was a photograph. I wanted you to meet. I intended to lead the conversation in a certain direction and leave you to do your own detective work. And how were you to achieve that? By asking me. Not by behaving like the hysterical insecure adolescent you were five years ago when it happened!’
Blind fury was beginning to take hold of Sarah. ‘If you don’t get out of here, I am going to lose my head!’ she warned.
He slashed an enraged hand through the air. ‘Caterina came to the gallery to see me. It was three years since I had seen her. I didn’t know how her marriage turned out. We had a lot to catch up on and I took her back to my hotel. I took her to my room because she was crying, Sarah. No doubt you would have expected me to make her sit in the public bar in that state!’ he condemned. ‘She told me about Gerry and we sat up talking into the early hours of the morning. He was away on business at the time and she was all wound up because he was due back later that day. Are you listening to me, Sarah?’
His voice cracked across the room like a whiplash and her head jerked up, complete confusion in her eyes. ‘You could tell me anything,’ she whispered, refusing to let the conviction of years be torn away and destroyed within seconds.
‘I am telling you everything,’ he gritted roughly. ‘When I heard what he had been doing to her, I told her to get out because he wasn’t going to stop. She had confided in no one but Lucia. She desperately needed someone to tell her that it was not the most wicked thing in the world for her to leave him. And I did it. She decided to sell her jewellery and fly home to Spain where she eventually sought refuge with my grandparents.’
Tiny little tremors of shock were quivering through her. His raw explanation was sinking in word by word like stones settling to the bottom of a turbulent pond. ‘Is this true?’ she muttered, scarcely knowing what she was saying.
‘Dios, do you still think I am telling lies? What do I have to do to establish my innocence?’ Golden eyes fierce as a hawk’s slammed into her. ‘Caterina has no idea of what that night cost me. It cost me my marriage. It cost me my children. And I wouldn’t hurt her with that knowledge. Let me be the one to remove any lingering doubts that you might have.’
Sarah sank down heavily on a chair because her legs felt hollow. ‘You don’t need to say any more. I believe you.’
He expelled his breath in a pent-up rush and sighed. ‘Lucia was pregnant when my father jilted her. That is why Ramon married her…’
Sarah looked up dazedly. ‘But that means—’
‘She’s my half-sister.’
Sarah swallowed hard as the final pieces fell into place. It explained the depth of Lucia’s bitterness, her harshness towards her only daughter.
‘But not according to her birth certificate,’ Rafael continued drily. ‘Publicly she was a premature baby. I think it’s time we rejoined our guest.’
Sarah’s head jerked up in dismay. ‘I can’t face her like this!’
Rafael closed a powerful hand over hers, forcing her upright. ‘Think of it as penance.’
‘You can’t blame me for what I thought,’ she gasped strickenly. ‘Why are you so angry? I thought what anybody would have thought.’
‘You are not anybody,’ he countered thinly. ‘You are my wife. I wanted you to ask me what had happened that night. I wanted you to ask yourself now whether I would have done such a thing to you.’
If he was trying to make her feel horribly guilty, he was succeeding. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No doubt I am unfashionably idealistic but I want you to get one fact straight in your head for all time,’ he snapped. ‘I am not promiscuous. I am not a womaniser. I like women but I don’t flirt with them. When I’m with you, I don’t even look at other women.’
He trailed her down the stairs and swept her in to meet Caterina without pause.
‘I have been so excited about meeting you,’ Caterina confided warmly as she rose from her seat. ‘It’s a long time ago but Rafael once told me so much about you and he made me very curious.’ She exchanged a rueful glance with Rafael. ‘Do you remember that night? I was full of my troubles and you were trying to cheer me up by telling me about Sarah.’
Lunch was over and Caterina was gone before the hectic flush had completely died from her complexion. The last fear and the last cloud had vanished from her horizon but it had left a nasty after-taste in her mouth. At last she understood something of the emotions that had seethed in Rafael when he had met her again and she marvelled that he could still say that he loved her. Or was he still saying it? He had wanted her to doubt his guilt for herself. And she had let him down, there was no denying that. Now that she knew the truth, she wondered why she had ever doubted him.
He had never lied to her, never, ever lied to her—but he had been much too proud to actually deny his infidelity. All he had done was hint about extenuating circumstances and that had merely fitted in with what she had assumed had happened. And after five years of ingrained bitter acceptance of his betrayal doubts did not come easily. Why couldn’t he just have told her?
Oh, that would have been far too simple for Rafael. He had tried to manipulate her into giving him the response he wanted and if it hadn’t been for the photograph he probably would have succeeded.
‘Are you going to forgive me?’
She had been studying the bedroom carpet, having whisked herself upstairs as soon as Caterina departed. Her head jerked up, stark pain in her eyes. ‘Are you going to forgive me?’
‘Sarah, if you killed me, I would forgive you from heaven.’ He studied her for a torturous split second and then, with a groan, he bent down and reached for her, hauling her into his arms. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come downstairs,’ he confessed.
‘And I’ve been waiting for you to come up.’ With a shaky little laugh she met the tawny eyes sweeping adoringly over her face. ‘I trust you, I really do trust you. Do I pass?’
‘With honours.’ He brought her up against the hungry thrust of his body. ‘I just wanted to wipe the slate clean and I got a little carried away with the plot,’ he muttered feverishly.
‘A little?’
‘And a little angry when it didn’t work out.’ He ravished her parted lips, passed an arm beneath her hips and lifted her all in the same motion. By the time she opened her eyes again she was on the bed. Rafael was surveying it with satisfaction. ‘This is a bed for making babies in.’
‘P-pardon?’
Dark colour accentuated his hard cheekbones. ‘I was thinking out loud.’
Sarah reached up and twisted her arms round his neck. ‘Tell me more.’
‘You mean—’
‘Why not?’ She toyed with a black luxuriant strand of hair. ‘I’ll swamp you with domesticity.’
‘Swamp?’ he queried.
‘Drown.’ There was so much tenderness in his eyes that she ached.
‘I like to drown with you…to see you fat—’
‘What?’ she mock shrieked.
‘Round,’ he adjusted hurriedly but his wide, passionate mouth was sliding into a wicked grin. ‘Voluptuous, sexy…’ His voice sank to a husky murmur as he moved against her, letting her feel his need, making her quiver deliciously beneath him.
‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘Are we going to talk all afternoon?’
‘I am going to love you all afternoon, querida,’ he promised huskily. ‘All afternoon and forever.’
And he did.