A Wild Affair

at demand made her stiffen from head to foot. 'You have no right…' she began, and was interrupted.

'I've every right. It wouldn't look good in the papers if you had another guy hanging around when you were supposed to be crazy about me.'

She gave a gasp, burning with embarrassed anger. 'If that's the impression your publicity people have been giving, they can eat their words! I'm not crazy about you…'

'Aren't you?' he intervened smoothly, but she ignored him.

'And I won't have lies like that put into Carmen's magazine! I'm going to pack my case and go home, and you can find someone else to go through this ridiculous charade. You have thousands of fans—get one of them to do it, they'll leap at the chance.'

'Too late,' Joe drawled coolly. 'The publicity is right in full swing—haven't you been reading about yourself in the papers?'

She stared, her lips parted in surprise, and he read her expression with intent-curiosity, his mouth twisting.

'Obviously not,' he said. 'Carmen has really hooked the public with her stories about you—you've caught the popular imagination. Right from that first photograph of you they were interested. Carmen's nose was right, you were a gift. It was a stroke of luck that you chose to stay with your sister, the press couldn't find you, so they had to rely on Carmen for information and she's been feeding them the sort of stuff she wanted to get into print.'

'What sort of stuff?' Quincy asked dazedly, aghast at the images he was conjuring up. What had the press been printing about her? Carmen had not breathed a word of all this, and nor had Lilli, although Lilli must have known what was going on—or had she been so involved with her rehearsals that she had missed the press stories altogether?

Joe shrugged. 'Background stories about your family and home life, about how much you love my records, how thrilled you are to actually meet me!'

Quincy turned and slowly walked into the sitting-room, sitting down before her legs gave out under her. Joe followed her and stood watching her, his long body lounging casually a foot away.

'How can you bear to let them print stories like that?' she asked bitterly, lifting her eyes to stare at him with chill hostility. 'You've made a fool of me.' In more ways than one, she reminded herself. He lived in an artificial world with a spotlight constantly surrounding him and Quincy had wandered innocently into the glare of that light, not realising at first that although her own reactions were genuine and impulsive, Joe Aldonez was never unconscious of being watched, of performing for a worldwide audience. Everything he did was a performance, Quincy thought. Outside the flat she had stupidly imagined he was unconscious of the woman watching them from the top of the stairs— she should have known better. Joe Aldonez was always aware of the eyes on him and what he did and said was never genuine.

He frowned, his brows a savage slash across his forehead, the charm absent suddenly, only the dark power visible.

'Don't be ridiculous, we've done nothing of the kind! All the coverage has been favourable, you come over as a charming girl…'

'It's all phoney,' Quincy flung at him, and his frown deepened. 'Like you,' she added, so angry she no longer knew exactly what she was saying, her own sense of hurt and confusion bewildering her, making her hit out wildly.

'Thank you,' he said in a deep, cold voice. 'That's what you think of me, is it?'

'Isn't that what you are? You're not real at all, you're a beautiful plastic image dreamed up by your publicity department. I bet they switch you off at night, like a Christmas tree in a shop window.'

Joe's black eyes had frozen over as he listened, the taut lines of his face locked together as though he struggled to keep his temper in the face of her angry, excited accusations.

'I'm not switched off now,' he said tersely as she stammered to a halt, hearing her own voice echoing inside her head with a sense of disbelief—had she really said such things to him? It was so out of character that she couldn't believe it had been herself talking. Even as she was biting her lower lip, Joe took a stride across the space between them and his hands closed over her shoulders, lifting her bodily from the couch.

'Let go!' Quincy yelled, and he shook her violently, looming over her and sending her heart into her mouth at the expression on his strong, dark face.

'No, Quincy, you've had your say—now you'll do some listening for a change. Do you think I enjoy all the publicity, the lack of privacy, the invasions of the fans? I put up with it because it's part of the deal. What I like to do is sing and I work hard at it—the rest of the job is a drag I could very happily do without. I have to keep reminding myself that my fans are the ones the music is for—and I try to understand why they behave the way they do, I try to give them what they're screaming for, and it isn't as simple as you may think. Life can be pretty grim for some of them these days. How many millions are unemployed here and in the States? If life's grey twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, anyone could be excused for needing a little happiness pretty desperately. I'm very proud to think my music brings some colour into their lives, and I never forget that but for the grace of God I might be out there looking for a job and not finding one. I owe the world all the colour I can give it.'

Quincy was held immobile, like a rag doll, between his powerful fingers, but it was not force which held her captive, listening with widening eyes. It was the depth in his gaze, the low hard note of his voice. Joe wasn't acting now, his eyes sombre, his face harsh.

'I told you my mother came from Spain,' he said. 'Do you know what year she arrived in the States? 1939.'

'1939?' Quincy began, and he nodded.

'The year war broke out in Europe. My mother's family had been through a nightmare in Spain—two of her brothers had been killed and their little farm had been destroyed. Madre had an aunt in California who sent her a ticket to come over to the States. She worked on her aunt's fruit farm for long, hard months until her uncle died and the farm was sold off, then Madre was out of a job and couldn't get one for a long time. She starved, Quincy. God knows what would have happened to her if she hadn't met my father. They fell in love and got married, but my mother never forgot her first two years in America—she'd been so lonely and afraid she'd almost turned tail and gone home. If she had had the fare, she would have done just that, I guess.'

'It must have been terrifying,' Quincy said slowly. 'How old was she?'

'Seventeen when she first arrived, nearly twenty when she married my father. My mother brought us up to remember that it's what you put into life that counts, not what you get out. If you're lucky, you should share your luck. She always said to us: if an apple drops off the tree into your hands, cut it in half and give one half to someone else. Never be greedy with life, be grateful. I think Madre half expected the bad times to come back one day and she was afraid we wouldn't be prepared to face them if she didn't warn us.'

'Who was us? Have you got brothers?'

'Two sisters, a brother,' Joe said.

'Are they older or younger?'