One Night in Buenos Aires: The Vásquez Mistress

It wasn’t the shirt, he decided grimly, it was the woman.

Faith would have looked sexy dressed in her grandmother’s clothes.

And she was looking straight at him, her green eyes wide and intelligent. ‘Talk to me, Raul,’ she urged softly, all the fight suddenly leaving her. ‘Tell me why you’re thinking like this. Is there something I need to know? Did someone hurt you? Did someone betray your trust?’

She’d changed tactic in mid-fight but this alternative, gentler assault was infinitely more deadly than the fierce blast of her temper.

She was getting close. Too close. Closer than any woman had ever dared tread before.

‘We’ve been talking non-stop,’ he said coldly, retreating mentally and physically from the question he saw in her eyes.

‘Maybe we haven’t been talking about the right things.’

Swiftly, he sidestepped an issue he had no intention of exploring further. ‘You betrayed my trust.’

‘No.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Why would you even think that?’

‘Because you went to astonishing lengths to drag me into this marriage.’

‘That is not what happened!’

‘Then what did happen, Faith? Why are we standing here, as husband and wife, because I sure as hell don’t know!’ His words thickened, his usually faultless accent tinged with a hint of his South American heritage.

She stood in front of him and he could actually see her slim legs shaking. In fact she was shaking so badly that for a moment he wondered whether she might actually collapse. Her face had lost every last hint of colour and she looked as though she were in shock. ‘We’re here because I thought it was what you wanted. You proposed, Raul. You asked me to marry you.’

‘Because you gave me no other option! Have you listened to anything I’ve said over the past ten months?’ With a supreme effort of will, he kept his voice level even though the temptation to vent his wrath was extreme. ‘Right from the beginning I made it clear to you—no marriage, no babies. If that’s what you had planned then you should have been with another man.’

But even as he uttered the words he knew them for a lie. He would never have let her go to another man.

‘I didn’t have anything planned. I didn’t plan any of this!’ Some of her spirit returned. ‘I came to your wretched estancia because the job was interesting and I wanted to see something of South America. All you were to me was a name. A guy who knew about horses!’

Watching her trembling and shaking in front of him, Raul frowned. ‘Calm down.’ She looked impossibly fragile and he watched with a mixture of concern and exasperation as she grew more and more agitated, her slender hands clasping and unclasping by her sides.

‘Don’t tell me to calm down! How can I possibly calm down when you’re accusing me of planning as though I’m some sort of s-s—’ she stumbled over the word ‘—scheming woman, out to trap you. I’m not scheming. I never planned or plotted. I had an accident! It happens to millions of women every day! And it wasn’t just my fault! You were there, too! You’re very quick to blame me, but I wasn’t alone in this. I didn’t have sex by myself. You were there, Raul, every time. You were there in our bed every night. You were there in the shower, in the stables, in your office, in the fields—wherever I was, you were. I didn’t do this by myself!’

Her passionate diatribe conjured up images of such disturbing clarity that it took him a moment to formulate a response. ‘You assured me that you were protected.’

‘Well, it seems that nothing is foolproof. I’ve thought about it and thought about it.’ Faith swallowed. ‘I was sick, if you remember. I picked up that bug when we spent the night in that hotel outside Cordoba, when you were looking at a horse. I didn’t even think of it at the time, but it was probably enough—’

He digested that information in silence. ‘It’s history now.’

‘No, it isn’t history. I can’t be with a man who would think that badly of me!’

‘All marriages hit sticky patches.’

‘But not within hours of the ceremony! I hate you, Raul.’ The tears spilled down her cheeks and she started to sob. Not delicate, controlled sobs designed to win a man round, but tearing, anguished sobs that seemed to place great strain on her slender frame. ‘I hate you for not believing me, I hate you for marrying me when that wasn’t what you really wanted, but most of all I really, really hate you for not caring that I lost the baby.’

Raul swore fluently and stepped towards her but she held up a hand to stop him.

‘Don’t come near me,’ she choked. ‘Don’t you dare touch me or I’ll injure you.’

He stiffened. ‘You’re obviously distressed—’

‘And you are the reason for that distress! Make up your mind, Raul. You can’t accuse me of lying and manipulating one minute and then offer to support me the next. When I told you that I’d lost the baby—that was when I needed your support.’ Her voice was thickened and clogged with tears. ‘But what did you do? You accused me of having become pregnant on purpose to trap you into marriage. I didn’t just lose the baby, I lost you because I realised then that I couldn’t be with a man who would think me capable of something like that.’

‘What was I supposed to think?’ Infuriated by her totally unjust accusations, Raul felt his own tension levels soar.

‘ You were supposed to think that I wouldn’t have done that to you. To us! That was what you were supposed to think.’ Her face was streaked with tears but for some reason she didn’t look pathetic or sorry for herself, just angry and passionate and very, very beautiful. ‘I know you find it hard to show your feelings, but I assumed you loved me. I assumed you cared about me. It didn’t occur to me to even question that because I thought we were happy together. So at the time, all I was really thinking about was the baby and how sad I was.’

Raul turned away and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘It might have helped if you’d told me about the miscarriage before the wedding.’

‘Well if I’d known how jaded and cynical you are then perhaps I would have done, although goodness knows when!

You arrived five minutes before the ceremony! If I’d talked about it then I would have broken down and I thought it would be bad for your image to be seen marrying a woman who was sobbing.’

‘Faith—’

‘Answer me honestly, Raul.’ Her voice trembled and shook with emotion. ‘Why did you propose to me? If you were truly so against marriage, why did you propose? If you remember, when I first discovered I was pregnant I told you that I did not expect you to marry me.’

‘Yes, that was clever.’

‘It wasn’t clever! It was how I felt.’ Increasingly agitated, Faith paced across the floor, her back to him as if she couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. ‘It was bad enough finding myself pregnant and knowing that you were going to blame me for that. Do you know how much courage it took to tell you I was pregnant? Do you know?’ She turned, her eyes flashing. ‘I could have vanished into the sunset and brought your baby up on my own, but I didn’t do that because I decided that it wasn’t right or honest. I decided that it wouldn’t be fair to you.’

Raul stilled, black clouds from his past rolling towards him like a deadly storm. ‘I would not have wanted you to do that,’ he said hoarsely, sliding a finger round the neck of his shirt in an attempt to ease his breathing. ‘I wouldn’t have allowed that.’ Never.

‘Why not? If you’re really so allergic to the thought of parenthood, then that would have been a perfectly reasonable option to consider.’

Not for him. Ruthlessly battling to rein in emotions that he hadn’t experienced for years, Raul rubbed his fingers over his temples in the hope that touch might erase the memories. Not now. He wasn’t going to think about this now. And not later, either. It was gone. Done. Finished.

‘I’m trying to understand you, Raul.’ Her eyes glittered like jade. ‘And you’re not helping.’

He inhaled deeply. ‘When you told me that you were pregnant, I did not react badly.’

‘You stood there, looking as though you’d been shot through the head at close range.’ She turned away from him and he saw her chest rise and fall under the soft fabric of his shirt. She looked traumatised, fragile and desperately upset. ‘What is going on here, Raul? Is this some sort of billionaire hang-up? Is that it? Woman gets pregnant so it must be because she wants your money?’

Raul watched her in tense silence. Their relationship was in shreds around them and he had no idea how to fix it because he’d never actually bothered fixing a relationship before. If it wasn’t right, it ended. Simple as that.

So why wasn’t he ending this one? ‘You need to calm down—’

‘Stop telling me to calm down! I don’t feel calm. I’m angry, Raul. Angry with you. And angry with myself for believing that we had something special. It was bad enough telling you that I was pregnant, but I reassured myself that our relationship was strong enough to take it. We loved each other, or so I thought. I really believed that we’d weather this and make it work.’ Her voice faltered and she gave a tiny intake of breath. ‘And then I lost it.’ That last statement was an anguished gasp and Raul felt his own tension rocket and every muscle in his body tensed in readiness for more female tears.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? I called you that night,’ he reminded her. ‘I called you every night I was away on business. You had ample opportunity.’

‘I just couldn’t do it over the phone …’ Her voice faded to a whisper and she dropped back onto the sofa as if her legs had lost their strength. ‘How do you do that? I don’t know—

I mean, should I have said, “How was your day, dear? By the way, I lost the baby”?’

‘Faith—’

‘I was devastated and you hate emotional scenes, you know you do. Look at you now—you’re standing there thinking to yourself, “I hope she doesn’t cry again. Once was enough.”’

‘That isn’t true,’ Raul lied swiftly but her soft, derisive laugh told him that he’d been less than convincing. He paced to the furthest end of the living room although why, he didn’t really know. There was already an enormous gulf between them. Physically and emotionally they were as far apart as it was possible for two people to be.

‘It’s all irrelevant. What matters now is that we’re married. And we have to find a way of moving forward from here.’ He thought of the past year and the passion they’d shared. He’d loved the fact that she hadn’t known who he was at their first meeting. Loved the fact that the chemistry between them had been raw and explosive and nothing to do with who he was.

And even when she’d discovered his identity, it hadn’t changed her. She’d continued to be herself, challenging him constantly without guarding what she said. Surrounded by people who deferred to him, he’d found Faith a revelation. And then there had been the sex.

‘Raul, it’s over.’

‘You’re my wife, Faith. I want you back in my bed.’

She gaped at him. ‘You have to be kidding.’

Taken aback by her less than enthusiastic response to his statement, Raul frowned. ‘Every relationship goes through rocky patches.’

‘This isn’t a rocky patch, Raul, it’s a mountain range!’

‘I told you earlier that there wouldn’t be a divorce.’

‘I assumed you didn’t mean it.’

‘We were good together.’

‘At sex. You’re just being ridiculously possessive and macho. You’re doing it again—that whole Argentine-man thing.’ Her face was terrifyingly pale and she rose to her feet so suddenly that her body swayed.

With a sharp frown, Raul stepped towards her but before he could reach her her legs gave way and she sank to the floor, unconscious.

‘These things happen after a head injury, but it’s important that she avoids any unnecessary stress.’

Faith woke to find herself lying on the bed with a doctor hovering over her and groaned. Not more doctors.

‘She really needs peace and quiet,’ he was saying and Faith struggled to sit up.

‘What happened?’

‘You fainted,’ the man said calmly and Faith frowned.

‘I never faint.’

The man closed his bag. ‘You can’t expect to return to full health immediately. You need to take it gently.’

‘I intended to take her back to the estancia tomorrow.’ Raul’s face was strained and the doctor nodded.

‘It’s only a short drive. She will be fine, I’m sure. But you need to remember that a miscarriage followed by a head injury—it’s a lot for anyone to cope with.’ He picked up his medical bag and left the room with Raul.

A few moments later Raul was back, a wary expression on his handsome face.

Faith lay still, just watching him. ‘Why are you staring at me like that? I’m not about to break in two.’

‘The doctors think that the reason you’re so emotional could be because of the miscarriage,’ he said tightly. ‘They think you should be encouraged to talk about it.’

‘Talk?’ Faith gave a weak laugh. ‘They don’t know you very well, do they? Now I understand why you’re looking green around the gills. You’re afraid I suddenly want to expose you to my inner feelings. Relax, Raul. I wouldn’t discuss it with you if you were the last person on earth.’

He absorbed the insult without attempt at retaliation, his face grim as he studied her in silence. Then he dropped something into her lap.

Faith looked at it and her heart stopped dead.

‘It’s your wedding ring,’ he said in a harsh voice. ‘The wedding ring you threw at me only two hours after I’d placed it on your finger. Put it on. You’re mine and don’t ever forget it again.’

Remembering how she’d felt when she’d removed it, Faith felt the lump return to her throat. ‘Do you know something?’ she said in a shaky voice that didn’t sound like her own. ‘Until I met you, I could never understand why a woman would be so stupid as to cry over a man. And here I am, doing exactly that.’

‘Put it on. You should never have taken it off your finger.’

‘You should never have put it on my finger, feeling the way you felt.’ She took the ring in her hand but didn’t put it on.

‘I did not intentionally upset you.’

‘Don’t say that, Raul, because if you’ve achieved this level of devastation without even trying, I don’t even want to think about what you might manage if you really applied yourself.’

‘I’m willing to admit that I was thinking of my feelings rather than yours.’ His surprising admission left her speechless and he sat on the edge of the bed, his dense lashes lowered as he studied her. ‘I am trying.’

‘Are you?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Claiming your “possession”; wasn’t that the word you used? Give me one reason why I should even think about putting this ring back on my finger.’

‘Because you love me.’

His arrogant statement rocked her to the core. Did she love him? Was she really such a poor judge of character? ‘Go away, Raul. You heard the doctor—I’m not supposed to be subjected to any stress and you definitely fall under the category of stress.’

‘You love me, Faith.’ His voice was dangerously intimate and she glared at him angrily but the anger was as much directed towards herself as him. She shouldn’t be listening to him. She shouldn’t be giving him air-time.

‘Do you want to have to explain to the doctor why I’ve collapsed again?’

His response to that was to take her cold fingers in his warm, strong grip and slide the ring onto her finger in a decisive gesture. ‘Don’t take it off again. And now I want you to tell me how you feel.’

‘No, you don’t.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Trust me, you really don’t want to go there. And anyway, we both know that you would sooner eat glass than discuss my feelings.’

‘That is not true.’ His fingers tightened on hers. ‘Whatever you may think, I do care about you. The doctors say you need to talk about the miscarriage. I explained that the pregnancy was an accident, but they didn’t seem to think that would make any difference to the emotional impact.’

‘And that was news to you?’ Her voice shook as the pain shot through her. ‘You think that made any difference to my feelings? Do you think that made it hurt any the less?’

‘I don’t know.’ His tone was cool and detached. ‘I have no experience in this area.’ And he hadn’t wanted any experience; that much was obvious from every taut, stiff line of his powerful frame.

‘I don’t know why we’re talking about this.’

‘Because the doctors seem to think it might help you. Did it hurt, physically?’ His voice was gruff and she stared at the ceiling, feeling as though the bottom was dropping out of her world, yet again.

‘Raul, I really don’t—’

‘Talk to me!’

‘Why? So that you can watch me unravel like a ball of wool?’ Her strangled laugh was like a warning bell, indicating that the volumes of tension building inside her were reaching danger levels. ‘Is that what you’re asking?’

‘Dios mío, do not attack me when I am trying to help! Tell me what is in your head.’

His hand rested close to hers and the fact that her own fingers tingled with the need to touch shocked her. He wasn’t capable of giving comfort, so why was she hoping for it? ‘I’m angry. That’s how I feel.’

‘Sí, that much I can see for myself,’ he growled. ‘What else?’

‘Sad,’ she whispered, curling her fingers into the soft duvet that covered her. ‘And guilty. Because I was so worried about what the baby would do to you and to us. It didn’t occur to me that I might lose it. And now I’m wondering—’

‘It was not your fault.’ The fact that he’d read her mind surprised her because she hadn’t thought he was capable of being so connected with her thoughts.

‘You don’t know that. It feels as though it is.’ Her voice was clogged with tears. ‘Perhaps that baby knew that it had stirred up a hornet’s nest between us. Perhaps it knew, Raul.’

‘You are torturing yourself for no reason.’

‘You wanted to know how I feel. I’m telling you. I feel guilty. Sad. Disappointed. Angry with you.’ She swallowed painfully and her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And empty. Really, really empty. Because I’ve lost something that was part of me. Part of us. And I know it wasn’t planned, but once I found out about it I just wanted it.’ It was too much. Letting a tiny drop of emotion escape was dangerous when so much of it was bottled up.

‘You always were maternal. I watched you delivering foals and I knew then that you were trouble.’ His tone was gruff and she knew he was acknowledging what they’d both known: that this was always going to be an enormous issue between them.

‘I didn’t think it would be a problem,’ she admitted hoarsely. ‘I had no plans to settle down and get married. Children were something in the far-distant future so when you told me that wasn’t what you wanted, I suppose it just didn’t really seem relevant. We were having fun and we were happy. That was what mattered.’

‘The problem was always there.’

‘Only if you were thinking in terms of marriage and a future, and I wasn’t.’ Her fingers tightened on the duvet. ‘I didn’t see it as a problem.’

‘You mean you hoped I would wake up one morning longing to be a father.’

‘No, I mean I wasn’t thinking about parenthood. I was just enjoying our relationship.’

His gaze didn’t shift from her face. ‘And now?’

‘Well, I don’t think this is the most fun we’ve ever had together, if that’s what you’re asking me,’ she croaked and he rose to his feet and gave her a long, speculative look that made her stomach tumble and turn.

‘I never wanted to hurt you.’

‘Raul, don’t—’

‘I love being with you.’

It was as close to a declaration of love as he’d ever come, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Afraid that she’d make a fool of herself, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘Getting soppy on me, Raul?’

‘Perhaps.’

She gave a soft moan of agony. ‘It’s easier to deal with you when you’re angry and unreasonable. Why are you doing this to me now, when it’s too late for us?’

‘It isn’t too late.’

If she’d thought she was confused before, she was doubly so now. ‘How can you claim to care about me when you hurt me?’

‘If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here now.’ He didn’t try and touch her but somehow that made his simple statement all the more compelling and she screwed her eyes tightly shut.

‘We make each other miserable.’

‘Until we married we were extremely happy together.’ His voice was tense. ‘We need to put all this behind us and move on. Concentrate on our relationship.’

‘I can’t just put it behind me—’

‘So what are you going to do?’ His voice was brutal. ‘Carry on like this? Walking under cars, winding yourself up to a state of such anxiety that you pass out?’

Numb, she looked at him. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘You,’ he said simply. ‘Back in my bed where you belong.’ It was such a typically macho declaration that she closed her eyes tightly, hating herself for even considering it.

‘You hurt me, Raul.’

‘And you hurt me.’

Accepting that as a truth, she opened her eyes. ‘You seriously expect to carry on with our marriage?’

‘You are getting upset again and you are very pale. Last time we talked about this you collapsed on the floor at my feet,’ he bit out. ‘So we’re going to leave the subject until you’re feeling stronger. In the meantime you’ll just have to accept the fact that we’re married and that we’re staying that way. We’re not going to talk about this again, now.’ He turned and strode towards the bedroom door. ‘Get some rest. I need to do some work.’

Too exhausted and drained to argue with him further, Faith collapsed against the pillows, feeling as though she’d been run over all over again. Now what?

Part of her was worried that she felt so lousy, but another part of her was far too distracted by her relationship with Raul to pay much attention to her own health.

Why was he so determined that they should stay married when it was clear that he’d only married her because of the baby?

What hope was there for them?

And then she remembered just how good their relationship had been—how much she loved him.

Just how much could a person forgive?

Did she dare try to make their marriage work?

If she chose that path, how much pain lay ahead of her?

Her head full of doubts and questions, she couldn’t relax or lie still so she slid out of bed and padded on bare feet out of the bedroom and into the living room.

Raul was sprawled on the sofa, his eyes closed. His shirt was undone at the collar, his sleeves were rolled up and dark stubble emphasised the lean, hard lines of his handsome face.

He looked exhausted and Faith felt her heart twist. Five minutes earlier she’d wanted to slap him. Now she wanted to put her arms round him and hug him.

Confused and infuriated with herself, she was about to turn away when his eyes opened and he saw her.

For a moment they just stared at each other and she felt her cheeks burn as she saw the sudden flare of heat in his eyes. Every feminine part of her exploded with awareness and she knew from the sudden tension in his shoulders that he was experiencing the same powerful reaction.

Acknowledging the strength of the force that drew them together, he gave a cynical laugh. ‘Complicated, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ It would have been foolish to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. She stood for a moment, trying to catch her breath, needing to speak and not knowing how to say what needed to be said. ‘I didn’t mean to force your hand. I thought we were good together.’

‘We were.’

‘But—you never would have wanted marriage.’