The Twelve-Month Mistress (8 page)

He couldn’t mean this! He just
couldn’t
!

He had to be joking—but then, if he was, it was the most dreadful, sick form of black humour imaginable. It was vicious and cruel and totally hateful.

‘So what’s your answer?’

‘My answer!’

Pushed beyond endurance, Cassie felt that her head might explode. But at least his taunting tone drove the tears away, drying them in an instant. She welcomed the tiny flame of rage that lit inside her, fanning it until it flared into a healthy blaze.

‘What do you think my answer is? What would any sane woman answer to such a travesty of a proposal? I don’t know how you even dare to think I might have to consider it.’

Wasn’t that enough for him to get the message? But looking into the bleak darkness of his eyes she saw that no, it wasn’t. He was actually waiting for her response. Waiting for her to say something more—to give him an answer to his hateful suggestion.

‘My answer is no!
No!
Never! No way! Not in my life
time! I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man alive on this earth and the future of the human race depended on it.’

Drawing a deep breath, she locked her blazing blue gaze with his cold jet one and repeated, with insulting slowness and clarity, ‘My answer is no—I will not marry you!’

In the deathly silence that fell as her words died away she tensed instinctively, waiting for the explosion that she was sure was to come. An explosion of anger, or protest, or rejection—she wasn’t sure which. But she was positive that there was no way at all that he was just going to take that and leave it, without coming back at her in some way.

So she was stunned when once again he just shrugged his shoulders in nonchalant dismissal.

‘Fine. Okay, if that’s your answer.’

‘It is.’

She sounded as breathless as if she had been running for hours, the words escaping on shaken gasps.

‘Believe me—it is.’

‘Well, in that case, then, I won’t stay around.’ His tone was as stiff as the muscles in his neck and jaw, drawing his mouth tight and hard. ‘I’m sure—just from looking at you—that you’re expecting my brother any moment now, and it would probably be best if I wasn’t here when he arrived.
Buenas noches
, Cassie.’

This time Cassie knew she was really gaping, but she couldn’t stop herself. She just didn’t believe what she was seeing as he turned on his heel and marched towards the door.

‘Joaquin…’ she managed, not really knowing what she meant to say.

But her voice had no strength and Joaquin didn’t hear her. Or if he did he ignored her and kept on walking, his head arrogantly high, the broad shoulders and stiff, straight back expressing eloquently his total rejection of her without a word needing to be spoken.

He didn’t look back either, but then she had never expected that he would. And she couldn’t move, the aftereffects of shock and the wild emotional storm that had raged through her leaving her shaken and weak, unable even to think.

She let him go. Let him walk through the door, and watched it slam closed behind him, the terrible, unfocused, dreary sense of inevitability swamping her mind so that there was no room for anything else.

It was a dreadfully bitter irony that now, at last, Joaquin had done what she had wanted most in all the world. He had told her that he wanted her; that he didn’t want to lose her. He had even proposed
marriage
, for heaven’s sake!

But it hadn’t been for heaven, had it? Instead it had produced Cassie’s own personal form of hell. A hell in which by apparently offering her everything she had ever wanted, a future with him, he had shown that the real truth of the way he was feeling was the exact opposite of what she truly needed.

He wanted her. He didn’t want to lose her. He thought of her as ‘his woman’—but he didn’t love her. He would marry her, but only as a way of possessing her. The offer of marriage had been only to ensure that she had no relationship with his brother.

His brother!

‘Ramón!’ Cassie muttered aloud, the name bringing her out of the trancelike shock and into action again.

Joaquin still believed that she was having a relationship with his brother! He thought that he had left her here awaiting the arrival of her lover—of Ramón!

She couldn’t let that continue; couldn’t let him go on believing that his brother had made a move on ‘his woman’ while, ostensibly at least, Joaquin and Cassie had still been together. It was the sort of thing that Joaquin’s pride could never tolerate. The sort of thing that no man with any sense
of honour would do to a friend, let alone a member of his own family.

Joaquin would never speak to his brother again if he continued to believe that was what had happened. And Cassie could not be the cause of anger and division between the two brothers. She knew that they had had a difficult enough time getting to be friends in the past. Joaquin had seen his half-brother as evidence of their father’s adultery, his unfaithfulness to his wife, and so had had to struggle to accept both the younger man and then the other, half-English brother Alex who had appeared later. She had to make sure that Joaquin knew the truth. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least try.

‘Joaquin!’

Heedless of the fact that she was still wearing only the flimsy robe and that her feet were bare, Cassie yanked open the door and ran out into the big hallway, the third floor landing in the apartment block.

‘Joaquin!’

Her call echoed round the empty space. Of course. The mood he had been in, Joaquin was clearly in no frame of mind to hang around. But somewhere in the distance, a floor or so away, she caught the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs, going down. Perhaps if she ran, she might just have a chance to catch him.

Bare feet making no sound, her hand clutching the polished wooden banister rail as she swung round the corners, she dashed down the big staircase, her breath catching in her throat at the thought that he might get away before she could speak to him.

‘Joaquin, please wait!’

Had the footsteps below her slowed, maybe even stilled, just for a second? She didn’t know and she couldn’t risk a pause to listen for fear that he might get right away from her. If he went out into the street she would lose him…

‘Oh, please!’

She landed on the marble tiled floor of the main entrance hall with a soft thud, her heart lifting jerkily at the realisation that she could just see Joaquin’s tall, dark figure on the other side of the glass-paned door that was still swinging with the force of his exit through it.

‘Joaquin!’

Somehow she found the strength to wrench it open, fling herself out into the evening air where a sudden rainstorm had soaked the street, the shallow stone steps leading up to the apartment building.

‘Joaquin, oh, please! Please wait! Please listen! I
have
to talk to you.’

He’d heard her.

She saw him stiffen, hesitate, then whirl round, spinning on his heel.

And as he did so it seemed as if time suddenly slowed, went out of focus and blurred. Even her own breathing suddenly seemed suspended and she watched in a sense of hopeless horror as the scene before her was played out in a sort of dreadful slow motion that she could do nothing to stop.

She saw Joaquin’s swift stride down the steps, the way his foot had gone out to move from one to the next. Then his check as she called his name. The swift, sudden turn, his head coming round to glance at her, that threw him totally off balance. The way that, still moving forward at the same time, he missed his footing, slipped, lost his balance completely.

She thought that she screamed. She knew that she opened her mouth to do so, but no sound came out.

And she could only watch in silent dread as Joaquin pitched forward, fell headlong down the remainder of the steps, landing awkwardly on the rain-soaked pavement below.

Fear froze her with her hands to her mouth as she saw his dark head strike hard against the hard stone of the final
step, his long body rolling a couple of inches more then coming to a complete halt, lying dreadfully limp and unmoving on the pavement while the heavy rain lashed down onto his pale, still face.

A
MAN
like Joaquin didn’t belong in a hospital bed.

He was too big, too strong, too forceful, too vibrant, too
alive
to be contained in such a small space. And lying there, silent and still, unnervingly pale in spite of his tan, he looked shockingly reduced, younger, and infinitely more vulnerable.

Cassie didn’t know how many times this particular thought had crossed her mind throughout this, the longest night of her life. She only knew that it was the one she most often came back to, unhappy and unwilling, wishing there were something—anything she could do to ease the situation.

But Joaquin just lay there, unconscious and unmoving, his handsome face disfigured by the ugly bruise that had spread across his forehead, marking the spot where his skull had collided with the hard stone of the steps.

And Cassie sat by his bed, holding his limp hand and willing him to wake up, open his eyes.

‘Joaquin, can you hear me? Please show me that you can!’ she pleaded with him. ‘Please—just open your eyes—show me you’re all right. Please!’

She couldn’t believe the way that the world she thought she knew had turned to a waking nightmare. One minute she had been running down the stairs calling to Joaquin to stop, to wait—the next she had found herself crouched in the lashing rain beside his unconscious form, heedless of the way that the downpour had soaked into the thin silk of her skimpy robe, moulding it wetly to her body.

She had screamed at the hovering security guard to call an ambulance, tried to protect Joaquin’s face from the ap
palling weather, and waited for what seemed like an age for help to arrive. All the time she had held his hand, stroking it softly, telling him that everything was going to be all right—that he was going to be fine.

It had been there that Ramón had found her. Arriving home at last, he had taken in the situation in a glance, and immediately taken charge. After that things had happened fast. The ambulance had arrived; Joaquin had been lifted gently into it and they had set off for the hospital. Cassie had wanted to go with them, and only Ramón’s gentle logic had persuaded her otherwise.

‘You’re soaked through, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t get changed out of that wet robe. Believe me, Joaquin’s in good hands—and you’ll be much better able to help if you’re dry and comfortable. This could be a long night.’

And he was right.

Cassie dried herself off and dressed in a navy shirt and jeans as quickly as she could, throwing a white cotton cardigan over her shoulders as protection against the chill that the rain had brought to the night air, and pushing her bare feet into lightweight slip-on shoes. Before Ramón had time to down the coffee he’d made for himself, she was ready to go, anxious to reach the hospital as soon as possible.

But after that things slowed down again. Once they reached the hospital it was to find that nothing very much happened fast. There were what seemed to Cassie like endless long hours spent waiting, with very little news to tell at the end of them.

As far as the doctors could tell, Joaquin hadn’t sustained any major injury. There was no fracture, nothing to worry about there. But he had had a nasty blow to his head, and he was deeply unconscious. They would monitor the situation overnight and watch what happened.

So Cassie settled in for the long vigil through the dark hours of the night. She settled in a chair beside the bed,
took hold of Joaquin’s hand, fixed her eyes on his face, and waited…

She wasn’t alone. From the start, Ramón had stayed with her, and later, after he had phoned his brother’s family, Joaquin’s father and his younger sister Mercedes arrived in the small private room too.

The other brother, Alex, they discovered, was already at the hospital for his own reasons. His wife, Louise, who was expecting their first child, had gone into labour earlier that evening and he was in the maternity ward with her. He was obviously torn between two loyalties until Cassie took pity on him.

‘You should be with Louise,’ she told him. ‘She needs you. And everyone’s sure that Joaquin’s going to be all right. There’s no need for all of us to stay here. If anything happens, Ramón and I will let you know.’

If the truth was told, she much preferred being on her own, or with just the silent, watchful Ramón for company. The doctors had told her that it could do some good to keep talking to Joaquin, that he might be able to hear her and the sound of her voice might bring him out of the coma he had fallen into.

After the long, lonely week of being separated from him she welcomed the chance to be able to speak to him at last. And because of the darkness and the stillness of the night, because Joaquin’s eyes were closed and she didn’t have to face his reaction to anything she said, she snatched at the chance to tell him the truth about how she felt, murmuring to him how much she cared for him, telling him that he was her love, her life, her reason for existing. All the things that she would never dare to tell him to his face, because she was afraid of seeing the way his expression would change, the cynical scorn that would darken his strongly carved features.

She didn’t know whether she prayed that he could hear her or hoped devoutly that he did not. All she knew was
that for once and perhaps for the only time in her life she had her chance to tell the man she loved just how she felt about him, and she couldn’t let that go without taking full advantage of it.

But telling Joaquin of her love reminded her of the brutal marriage proposal he had made to her earlier that evening, the grim travesty of a declaration of feeling that had accompanied it. And in her mind she heard again his voice declaring: ‘I want you all to myself. I’m not prepared to share you with any man—even my brother.’

‘Ramón,’ she said hastily, turning to where he sat in the corner, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’

‘Can’t it wait?’ Joaquin’s brother asked. ‘It’s late—we’re both tired…’

‘It’s important!’

She couldn’t leave Ramón in the dark about what had happened between her and Joaquin earlier that evening. She had to let him know about the suspicions his brother had had, the faulty conclusion he had jumped to about their relationship. If she left it unsaid, and Joaquin came round to find his brother here, with her, then she shuddered to think of the possible repercussions that might follow. Recalling Joaquin’s rage, his savage bitterness, she couldn’t let his brother face that unprepared.

‘Okay.’

Cassie drew a breath, wondering where to start.

‘If it helps, I think I know what this is about,’ Ramón put in. ‘You were lying when you said you and Joaquin had come to the end of the line.
He
might have, but there’s no way that you—’

He broke off, staring hard at his unconscious brother.

‘Did he just…?’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Cassie began.

But at that moment a faint sound from the bed brought her head swinging round. Joaquin’s eyelids were fluttering,
lifting slightly, half opening, then falling closed again as he gave a heavy, tired sigh.

‘Joaquin!’

At once all her attention was focused on him, her hand reaching for and clasping his fingers tight.

‘Joaquin, can you hear me? Are you okay?’

Another sigh was his only response. His eyes remained tightly closed.

But then he stirred again, moving his head slightly on the crisp white pillows. Clearly the movement disturbed him because he frowned faintly, made a small murmur of protest.

‘Joaquin?’ Cassie tried again.

Joaquin, darling, she wanted to say. Joaquin, my love, wake up! Let me see that you’re all right…

But she didn’t dare.

Remembering how she and Joaquin had parted—the blunt, outright rejection of his mockery of a proposal; the way that he had stormed from Ramón’s apartment—she had little doubt that he would rebuff any attempt on her part to show him the way she really felt. So she had to content herself with simply repeating his name, trying to draw him out of his dazed, half-conscious state into more awareness.

‘Joaquin? Can you hear me?’

This time she got a definite response. The heavy eyelids lifted slowly again and his dark, dark eyes looked straight into her anxious blue ones. But Joaquin’s gaze was clouded with confusion and lack of focus and when he frowned again in bewilderment she knew that he was only conscious, but still not thinking straight.

‘Where…?’ he managed and his voice croaked so badly, it was clearly such an effort to speak, that it tore at Cassie’s already far too sensitive heart just to hear it.

She was so used to knowing the Joaquin who was always totally strong, totally composed, totally in control, that to
see him like this, struggling even to focus, was almost more than she could bear.

‘You’re in hospital. You had a fall—and hit your head. Do you remember?’

‘No…’

Again it was just a sigh and his hand went up to touch the spot on his forehead where the bruising was worst, flinching away swiftly at even the faintest pressure on a tender point.

‘Careful!’

Cassie moved instinctively to lift his hand, then hesitated, her teeth worrying at her lower lip at the thought that she didn’t know how he would react. She couldn’t take it if he pulled away from her, or rejected her in some other, more forceful way.

‘That’s where you hit your head,’ she said, schooling her voice into neutrality with an effort. ‘It’s bound to be a bit sore.’

Was she imagining things or did Joaquin’s mouth twitch into a faint, ironic smile at the deliberate understatement? He seemed to be coming round fast and that was something that filled her with painfully ambiguous feelings. She wanted him to wake properly, needed desperately to see that he was all right and was well on the road to recovery, but a nasty little worm of fear was eating at her heart at the thought of what that would mean.

She would lose this quiet, peaceful time with him. It would become just the lull between two storms. When he woke fully and recalled the scene in Ramón’s apartment, she wouldn’t be able to sit here, beside his bed, holding his hand. He wouldn’t want her close to him. In fact he probably wouldn’t even let her stay in the room at all. If she knew Joaquin, he would order her out of his presence at once—and he would fully expect to be obeyed.

‘Just relax,’ she said cautiously. ‘Don’t try to fight things.’

His eyes were opening again, a little more easily, more definitely this time. His black gaze was better focused too, which made her heart give a little kick of excitement at the way he was improving.

The next moment, that excitement grew into a real glow of delight. Joaquin managed to open his eyes fully, shifting his head slightly on the pillows again, and looking straight at her.

And he smiled.

It was a little vague, a little lopsided, but it was directed solely at her. The anger and rejection she had expected wasn’t there. Instead, Joaquin smiled straight at her.

‘Hi,’ she said softly.

‘I’d better tell the nurses he’s come round.’ It was Ramón’s voice, coming from directly behind her. ‘And Papá and Mercedes will want to know too.’

‘Mmm.’

The strangled sound that might have been one of agreement was all that Cassie could manage. She felt as if she had just been slapped in the face with a very cold and slimy, nasty-smelling cloth.

Had that smile, from which she had taken such pleasure, and such comfort, not been meant for her? Ramón had been standing just behind her at that moment, directly in Joaquin’s line of sight.

So had he in fact been smiling, not at her, but at his
brother
?

The rush of joy fled swiftly, dissipating like air from a pricked balloon, and leaving her as limp and deflated as the flat piece of coloured rubber that was all that would be left behind.

Joaquin’s eyes had drifted shut again. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness again. She shouldn’t disturb him, but the unanswered question was nagging at her brain, fretting in her heart.

She
had
to know the answer!

Had Joaquin meant that smile for her? If he woke again, properly this time, would he welcome her presence at his side as he had seemed to do a moment ago? Or had she been totally mistaken, and he had in fact been looking at Ramón? Would the anger and the bitterness of the time in his brother’s apartment resurface? Or had he actually decided to forgive her?

‘Joaquin?’ she tried again softly. ‘Joaquin, are you awake?’

‘Tired…’

His response was a vaguely formed murmur, but at least he had heard her, was still listening.

‘Shall—?’ She had to force herself to ask the question. ‘Shall I go?’

The jet-black brows twitched together sharply in a frown, his eyes still staying closed. Apart from that one tiny reaction, he didn’t speak, but lay silent and still as before.

The bubble of hope that had formed inside Cassie’s heart disintegrated in a rush. Perhaps that smile
had
been for Ramón.

‘Shall I go?’

Still no answer.

She studied Joaquin’s still face, seeing the way that the long, lush black lashes lay fanned out above the high slanting cheekbones, illuminated by the light from a lamp at the side of the bed. The ebony sheen of his hair was stark against the crisp white of the pillowcases, his skin looking a darker bronze.

Her gaze was drawn to the beautifully sensual shape of his mouth. The need to lean forward and press her own lips to that mouth was like a hard kick in her guts, one she had to fight so hard to resist. But she was relieved to see that his features were more relaxed, the total unconsciousness of earlier, outside the apartment building, easing away.

Seen like this, with the jet-hard darkness of his eyes hidden behind the closed lids, he looked younger, gentler, less
dangerous somehow. Even though she knew she was probably deceiving herself, Cassie was tempted to let herself believe that this Joaquin, this quiet, peaceful man, would have smiled at her. That he would be able to accept that she wasn’t living with Ramón in the way that he had originally believed, and that maybe—maybe they could have more?