Wrapped in a colourful silk wrap, Julieta put her head round the door to tell Molly that the limo had arrived to take her home and to ask her if she wanted any breakfast before she left. Molly shook her head and asked her sister if she could call her back later. Awash with wondering thoughts about seeing Ophelia again and getting to know her brother and both their families, she dressed in the combat trousers and T-shirt she had packed. By then she had also discovered that most of the missed calls on her phone were from Leandro. Guilt engulfed her and she felt remarkably like a misbehaving teenager who had broken her curfew, and who now had to go home to face the music.
She was dismayed to find a clutch of paparazzi outside the apartment block, apparently awaiting her appearance. Questions were shouted at her in Spanish and she hurried into the limo, grateful for the presence of Leandro’s security men who prevented the photographers from filming her.
She entered the castle, which was unusually silent. Basilio greeted her oozing an attitude of funereal calm and gloom. She was surprised when Leandro strode out of his study, for she was aware that he had a business trip to Geneva that day. ‘I assumed you would have already left.’
‘I waited to show you the morning paper.’ Molly followed him into his study and glanced down enquiringly at the publication lying open on his desk. Horror seized her by the throat and she went rigid when she studied the photos on the page. One depicted a bleary-eyed and tousled woman being helped across a pavement and the second the same woman lying flat and apparently unconscious on the rear seat of a limo. That woman was her and her first foolish thought was that she had never seen more unflattering pictures. Her skirt had ridden up over her thighs and her pregnant tummy rose above them like a mountain.
‘How could you get in such a condition?’ Leandro raked at her furiously. ‘Didn’t you consider the health of the child you carry?’
‘I was just very tired…I swear I wasn’t drinking alcohol!’ Molly protested shakily. ‘The photos are very misleading-’
‘You mean you weren’t in a nightclub until four this morning with our estate manager? And you didn’t require him to practically carry you out of it again?’
Molly swallowed hard, belatedly taking in the reality that Fernando Santos was the individual urging her shambling and sleepy self towards the car. ‘I was one of a large party of people which included him.’
Her husband’s strong bone structure was bone-white with tension below his bronzed skin. ‘He spent the night at my sister’s apartment with you. He was seen leaving early this morning!’
Molly didn’t quite know what to say to that without dropping Julieta straight into a mire from which there would be no clean return. How could Leandro think that she would sleep with another man? Why did he believe she could be so untrustworthy and disloyal? She was carrying his baby. Didn’t he have any respect for her at all?
‘I’m not having an affair with Fernando. He’s really not my type-although I have to confess that, right now, when you’re standing over me like a hanging judge, you’re not my type either,’ Molly confided tartly. ‘I’m very sorry if the photos cause you embarrassment, but I wasn’t in any way under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. I was simply very, very sleepy and I have nothing else to apologise for.’
Brilliant dark eyes cut into hers like abrasive diamond cutters. ‘I don’t believe you. I want the truth…’
‘I’ve told you the truth.’ Molly was torn between feeling hugely intimidated and hugely resentful that he could have so little faith in her that he instantly dismissed her explanation. ‘I went out with Julieta to celebrate her birthday.’
‘Then why wouldn’t you tell me where you were so that I could join you?’
Molly shuffled her feet, knowing that there was no acceptable answer to that and wishing she didn’t feel obligated to cover up for Julieta’s private life. It was not a friendship she wanted to put at risk. ‘I just wanted a night off from being your wife. Is that a crime?’
His classic features hardened at that facetious response. ‘How long have you been seeing Santos?’
‘Maybe you’d like me to be an unfaithful wife and then you would have grounds for divorcing me. Is that what this is about? You’ve realised that you made a mistake marrying me and you want an escape route?’ Molly slung at him accusingly.
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Leandro drawled icily.
‘No, I’m not. I want an escape route!’ Molly threw at him in a rage. ‘I want my life back, so why shouldn’t you? You’re an absentee husband and I’m lonely. I want a man who’s interested me and who I can share stuff with. But you’re so busy making money and putting everything else ahead of me, you don’t have time for me or the baby that’s coming. Why shouldn’t I want more than your precious money, your title and social position? None of those things are important to me!’