One Night in Buenos Aires: The Vásquez Mistress

For a moment she had no idea what to say to him. She wanted to shout at him, she wanted to hit him until she made dents in that spectacular body of his, but most of all she just wanted to lie down and sob because it just never should have been like this between them.

In the end she just stayed on the sun-lounger and didn’t move, too drained to do any of the things in her mind.

The fact that he looked perfectly groomed despite the pressure of the situation came as no surprise to her. Raul had been born and bred in Buenos Aires and if there was one thing that her travels in South America had taught her, it was that the body-conscious Brazilians were nothing compared to the pride of the average Argentine male.

In fact, Raul was less obsessed than most but she’d long ago come to the conclusion that that was because he was so much more beautiful than most. He didn’t have to try. Even if he never glanced in a mirror again, he would still be unable to walk down a street without attracting an almost stifling degree of dazed female attention.

‘Next time you decide to run away, stop when you reach the end of the drive,’ he advised in an acid tone. ‘I have just spent the entire morning unravelling problems that occurred while I was chasing you across the globe.’

‘I didn’t ask you to come after me.’

‘You left me no choice. If you wanted an open marriage, you shouldn’t have picked a South American male.’ He turned his head and miraculously a team of staff appeared.

Faith watched in silence as they laid a table and served lunch. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You need to eat.’

She glanced at him then and immediately wished she hadn’t because it was immediately apparent that the way he’d treated her hadn’t done anything to reduce the physical impact of the man.

He was well over six feet tall, lean and hard muscled and he moved with a predatory grace that was unequivocally male. Strong and athletic, he pushed himself to the limits in every aspect of his life—work, play, exercise, sex—for Raul it was all about being the best and he accepted nothing less.

‘Don’t let me hold you up,’ she said politely. ‘I’m sure you’re dying to eat and return to your work.’

‘Having solved the immediate crisis I have no intention of working this afternoon.’ His expression grim, he sat down on one of the chairs and served himself. ‘There are more important issues at stake.’

‘More important than your work?’ Despite everything that lay between them, she found herself laughing but she stopped herself quickly because she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t going to end in a sob. ‘And I thought I was the one who had the bang on the head.’

She felt strangely disconnected, making polite conversation with a man who didn’t know the meaning of the term, when beneath the surface of conventional chat there lay a deep chasm of trouble and turbulence.

They’d never resorted to ‘polite’ before.

Their entire relationship had been a full-on explosion of exquisite passion, so uncontrolled and ferocious in its intensity that it had burned everything in its path.

She’d been crazy about him. And crazy to get involved with him when she had known his reputation for hurting women.

What had made her think she would be different?

What had made her think she could handle him when plenty of women before her had tried and failed?

She’d thought she understood him but she’d discovered too late that she’d barely scratched the surface. Raul Vásquez was a complex, volatile man, his character so full of dark, hidden corners that she suspected no woman would ever know him.

And now she was seeing a different side to him—the side that had made him a billionaire.

He was sharply intelligent but instead of his usual dry observations and smart comments, he was focused and on his guard. Intimidating. She’d been brought up to question and challenge and never to be afraid of anyone, but there was something about the harsh lines of his impossibly handsome features that made her want to just shrink into silence.

Over the past couple of weeks she’d gone from lover to adversary and no one in their right mind would choose Raul as an opponent.

His sexy mouth was set in a grim line and the unshakeable confidence that had made her weak at the knees made him seem more formidable than ever.

No wonder everyone just rolled over and played ball when he walked into a room, Faith thought hopelessly as she watched him take a sip of wine. In his current mood he wasn’t a man that anybody would bother challenging.

Faith felt her stomach drop and told herself it was just part of the head injury. Hadn’t they warned her she’d feel nauseous from time to time? It was nothing to do with Raul’s presence. She couldn’t possibly still feel anything for him. Not after what he’d said to her. What he’d believed of her.

Their relationship was dead in the water.

And she really didn’t know what he was doing here.

He rolled his shoulders to ease the tension and despite all her determined resolutions, Faith’s eyes were drawn to the swell of muscle visible beneath the fabric of his shirt. He had an incredible body. Hard, strong, powerful and capable of encouraging an unbelievable response from hers.

Raul caught the look and his eyes darkened. ‘Don’t,’ he warned and his eyes seemed to deepen in colour to a dangerous, stormy shade of black. ‘Don’t look at me like that and don’t bring sex into this or so help me I’ll—’ He broke off, his emotions so close to the surface that he clearly didn’t trust himself to finish the sentence.

‘Do you seriously think I’m lying here thinking about sex?’ Her defence was attack, but the truth was that she had been thinking about sex and she knew that while she was still able to breathe, this man would always have that effect on her. And she on him. There was something between them that transcended all the rules.

One look was all it took.

One look was all it had ever taken.

And that was why they were here, of course, in this horrible mess.

If the physical attraction hadn’t been so overwhelming, perhaps they would have discovered their fundamental differences a great deal sooner.

Abandoning the food on his plate, he made an impatient sound and dropped the fork with a clatter. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking and I’ve given up guessing,’ he growled. ‘Why did you run?’

She gasped and suddenly her palms literally ached with the desire to swipe the arrogant look from his indecently handsome face. ‘If that is a serious question then you’re even more insensitive than I think you are.’

‘I am not insensitive.’ He pushed the chair back and it scraped on the terrace, the dark flash in his eyes hinting at the degree of volatility that lurked beneath the veneer of control and sophistication. ‘But I fail to see why anyone would go to the lengths you went to and then just walk away.’

‘The lengths I went to?’ Her voice shook. ‘You make me sound like some sort of manipulative gold-digger.’

He looked at her and the derisive glint in his eyes spoke volumes. ‘Yes?’

She swallowed, determined not to cry in front of him. How could he think that of her? ‘I walked away because the things you said to me were awful! Heartless, callous and cruel. Did you really think I’d stick around for second helpings? I was hurt and sad—I needed support—and all I got was a double helping of blind, cynical insensitivity.’

His gaze locked on hers with the deadly accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. ‘You created the situation. You should have stayed to see it through.’

‘What was the point of that?’ she forced herself to answer.

‘You made your position more than clear. Hearing it once was bad enough.’ Enough to kill her dreams and her childish, naïve belief that they’d had something special.

‘If you are going to run at the first sign of trouble, our marriage is going to be extremely interesting.’ He was infuriatingly sure of himself, forceful and arrogant, if he thought he could make her bow to his will by simply applying sufficient psychological pressure. ‘If you’d talked to me, we could have sorted it out.’

‘You weren’t “talking” Raul. You were accusing! Judge and jury rolled into one—only you weren’t prepared to listen to my defence.’ She broke off in horror, unable to believe what she’d just said. ‘You see what being with you has done for me? You’ve turned me from a rational, questioning human being into a meek, subservient blob with no brain! I don’t need a defence because I’ve done nothing wrong!’

‘You are the least subservient woman I have ever met,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And I have never questioned your intelligence.’

‘Then why are you behaving like this, Raul? Why are you so willing to believe the worst of me? You’re talking as if I committed a crime, but you were there too!’

‘You assured me that you were protected.’

‘I thought I was!’

There. It was out. The subject that both of them had been avoiding since he’d first strode into her hospital ward.

She was trembling now despite the blazing sunshine, tiny shivers that took over her whole body, but whether it was as a reaction to her accident or his words, she didn’t know. ‘I didn’t mean to get pregnant.’ And she wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. Hadn’t thought that he’d follow her. ‘Go away,’ she croaked. ‘Go back to your work because that’s all you really care about. We no longer have anything else to say to each other.’

Her response sent shards of hostility cracking through the air and Raul rose to his feet and walked away from her, as if he were considering precisely that option. But he didn’t leave the terrace. Instead he stood still, all coiled, suppressed tension like a jungle cat ready to leap on the first unwary animal that crossed its path.

She knew him well enough to know that he was at the outer limits of his patience and that surprised her because it was his razor-sharp thinking and icy control in all situations that had driven him to billionaire status. Where his competitors just cracked and folded under pressure, Raul showed nerves of steel.

But she still didn’t understand why he had brought her here.

Searching for clues, she studied his taut, handsome profile through a hot haze of tears, noticing with almost detached curiosity that the hard lines of his jaw were darkened by stubble. Since when had Raul ever forgotten to shave?

Somehow that observation made her feel better.

If she was suffering then she wanted to know that he was suffering, too.

He turned back to her, control firmly back in his grasp, his tone icily formal. ‘How are you feeling, physically? Have the medical staff I employed treated you well?’ Deliberately he’d stepped aside from the unstable, shifting surface of their emotions.

‘They’ve been fine.’ She was equally polite. ‘Offhand I can’t think of a single person you need to fire or sue.’

A ghost of a smile touched his firm mouth as he acknowledged her accurate assessment of his personality. ‘I think that comment confirms that your brain is still in perfect working order.’

‘My brain is fine. I’m fine. You can let them all go now. They must be costing you a fortune.’

‘“They” are one of the perks of being my wife, cariño.’

‘I was never interested in your money and you know it.’ The first time they’d met she hadn’t even known about his money. It was only after she’d been scorched alive by the chemistry between them that she’d discovered his real identity. And by then it hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered, not even the fact that he was difficult and complex. She’d thought she had what it took to handle him.

She’d been wrong.

She lifted her chin. ‘When I met you, I had a career. Don’t insult our relationship by implying that your money was ever part of what we shared.’

‘So why are you worrying about cost? We have enough problems piled up between us. Let’s not add more.’ His tone harsh, he swept aside her protest with a single, decisive stroke and she sank against the sun-lounger, all the energy draining out of her.

‘I’m worrying because we’re not together any more and I don’t want to owe you anything.’

‘Now I’m starting to wonder whether your brain might be damaged after all.’ He stood looking at her, his legs planted firmly apart in a stance that shrieked control. ‘Did you walk under that car on purpose?’

She gasped with shock. ‘No! How can you ask me that?’

‘Because I don’t shirk from the difficult or the awkward,’ he ground out. ‘Unlike you. You were upset.’ His hard stare allowed her no escape and Faith felt a sudden stab of agony.

Upset?

It was such an insignificant word to describe the utter devastation inside her. ‘Of course I was upset. And that’s why I didn’t look where I was going.’ She’d been blind with misery, her brain disconnected from everything except the enormity of her loss.

‘You told the hospital that you had no next of kin. I can’t believe that you were capable of such unbelievably selfish behaviour. Why didn’t you call me?’ His tone was thickened by raw, red, molten anger and this time when she looked at him her eyes were dry.

‘Why would I have called you?’

His features were set and grim. ‘It should have been obvious to you to let me know that you were safe.’

‘I had no reason to believe you’d even care.’

‘Now you’re being childish.’

‘I’m being honest! Our last meeting was hardly a loving encounter—you hurt me, Raul. You hurt me so much.’

‘I was honest about my feelings.’ His savage rejoinder showed no hint of self-reproach or apology and her shivering intensified, as if someone had dropped her in the Arctic wearing nothing more than her underwear.

‘You don’t have feelings and I can’t do this, Raul. I don’t know you any more. You’re not the man I was with.’ Her head was spinning alarmingly and her stomach rolled and lurched. ‘Go away. Just go away. It’s over, Raul.’

He swore softly and fluently and turned away from her, as if he didn’t trust himself to look at her and not explode. ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to know me. This is who I am, Faith. The real me. You saw only what you wanted to see. What suited you.’

‘That isn’t true. I know you can be ruthless in business, but you’re not cruel, I know you’re not.’ The threat of tears was back with a vengeance and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. ‘Up until our wedding day you were—’

‘What?’ He turned, his dark eyes glinting hard. ‘I was what? A complete fool? A trusting idiot?’

‘I don’t think it’s foolish to trust the person you—’ She just stopped herself saying the word ‘love’ because she knew now that he’d never loved her. ‘Marry,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s not foolish to trust the person you marry.’

‘Oh really?’ His tone was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Perhaps that depends on the reason for the marriage. In our case it was based on deceit. Hardly a firm foundation for trust.’

‘I did not deceive you! And I don’t even understand why you would think that. Is this because of your money? Is this some sort of billionaire thing? What, Raul? You have so much money and you’re such a fabulous catch that women are going to go to any lengths to trap you? Is that what this is about?’

Raul ran a hand over his face. ‘We will leave this subject aside for now.’ His voice shook with emotion. ‘You’re not up to discussing it and frankly I’m not sure I am either.’ It was a measure of his focus and determination that he was capable of moving on from a subject that was burning both of them up inside. ‘You could have been killed.’

‘And that would have solved your problem, Raul.’

‘Dios mío, that comment is totally unjustified.’ His tone was savage and loaded with contempt. ‘Never at any point in this whole miserable mess have I wished you dead.’

Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry as a desert. Seeking any excuse to look away from him, Faith reached for the lemonade again but her hand was shaking so much that half of it slopped over her dress.

Raul stood still, exasperation flickering across his handsome face as he watched her efforts. Then he gave a soft curse and took the glass from her hand, his mouth compressed into a thin line as he held the glass to her lips. ‘Drink.’ His sharp command made her flinch but although there was no sympathy in his tone, he held the glass carefully, allowing her to take small sips before placing the glass back on the table.

But his attentiveness, albeit reluctantly given, simply made things worse.

He was so close to her and she breathed in his clean, male scent and felt her insides stir. It was as if her body recognised him and despite the heat, her shivering intensified.

Why couldn’t he be less of a man?

Maybe then her brain and body would have worked in harmony instead of battling like opposing forces.

‘Stop shivering.’ Raul delivered the order in a driven tone but when his demand had no effect he reached for his phone. ‘I will get the doctor back up here.’

‘No.’ Her teeth chattering, Faith shrank away from him, exhausted and wishing that he was easier to understand. He’d made it obvious that he bitterly regretted their wedding and yet he’d sought her out and brought her back to Argentina. ‘Why did you bring me back here, Raul? Why?’

‘You’re my wife. You belong by my side and in my bed.’

That simple statement encompassed everything it meant to be married to an Argentine male and she closed her eyes briefly. So it was all about possession. There was no love there at all.

‘I didn’t want this to happen to us—’

‘Yes, you did.’ His words and his tone were brutal, leaving her no escape. ‘You made this decision. You rolled the dice and you gambled. At least have the courage to face what you did to our relationship.’

The sick throbbing in her head intensified. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘And that from a woman? Talking is what women are supposed to do best, isn’t it, Faith? You think that every problem can be solved if it’s talked through.’

Not every problem.

‘I have nothing more to say to you, Raul. You’re angry and bitter and I just don’t know you any more.’

Something flickered across his dark, handsome face—dangerous shadows, a suggestion of something ugly lurking deep, deep inside.

‘I can’t be married to a man who doesn’t love me,’ Faith whispered. ‘I want a divorce. Give me whatever you need me to sign and I’ll sign it.’

Her flat statement drew no response from him and in the end she looked back at him, only to find that he’d walked towards the pool and was standing with his back to her.

Faith stared at him helplessly. Even from the back he was spectacular. His shoulders were wide and powerful, his legs strong and well-muscled. He carried himself with confidence, the astonishing success he’d made of his life evident in every aspect of his demeanour and behaviour.

Once, she’d believed he was hers.

She’d truly believed that they shared something special and the knowledge that for him their relationship had been empty hurt more than any of the wounds she’d incurred in the accident.

He turned suddenly, feeling her gaze on him with that instinctive awareness that had always bound them together. ‘You went to all those elaborate lengths to get me to the altar and now you want a divorce?’ His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. ‘You’re giving up extraordinarily easily. Take some advice—if something is worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting to the death.’

It was a remark so typical of him that in the old days—the days before marriage—she would have smiled and teased him unmercifully. She would have told him to chill out and not be so driven. ‘I never saw our relationship as a war, Raul.’

‘You started the war. You manipulated me into marrying you,’ he said coldly. ‘So it seems absurd for you to abandon your goal so easily.’ His supreme self-confidence and the chill in his tone simply added to her pain.

‘I didn’t have a goal, Raul!’ Feeling at an even greater disadvantage lying down, Faith sat up. ‘I’m not one of your companies!! I don’t have a mission statement or a five-year plan! I did not manipulate you!’

‘No? So who’s fault is it that we are in this position? Marriage was not part of my plan. I was clear about that from the beginning.’ He stepped forward, his voice throbbing with emotion. ‘No marriage. No babies. You entered into our relationship with your eyes wide open.’

His words were so uncompromisingly harsh that for a moment she had trouble breathing.

They were so different. How could she ever have thought that their feelings for one another would be enough to bridge the gulf between them?

‘It wasn’t like that. We were just having fun, Raul. I wasn’t even thinking about marriage.’ Faith sank back against the sun-lounger. ‘I thought we shared something special.’

‘We did. But it wasn’t enough for you, was it? Like a typical woman, you wanted more and more.’ His tone was an angry growl, his words so heavily loaded with accusation that she shrank. ‘You thought that you knew what I wanted better than I did. Well, you were wrong cariño. I knew exactly what I wanted and it wasn’t this.’

Every word he spoke was designed to destroy any last tender shoots of hope that might have survived the initial blast of his anger.

‘You’re still talking as if I had some sort of master plan. I didn’t create this situation, Raul. I didn’t lie to you.’

‘You truly expect me to believe that it was an accident? Contraception is not a hit-and-miss affair.’ He spelled it out with brutal lucidity and Faith felt her heart suddenly bump erratically.

He stood there like a mythical god—lean, arrogant and impossibly handsome, seeing everything from one point of view only.

His own.

‘One day you’ll learn that you can’t control everything in life, Raul. Accidents do happen,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I am living proof of that, but it doesn’t matter any more, does it?’

He drew breath, ready to challenge that remark as he automatically challenged everything and she lifted a hand in a defensive gesture.

‘No!’ She cut him off before he spoke. ‘Just don’t say what’s on your mind, Raul, because frankly I don’t think I can sit through another session of your thoughts on the subject.’

‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’

‘Oh yes I do. It would have been something along the lines of “if you hadn’t got pregnant we wouldn’t be married now” or “it’s lucky for both of us that you lost the baby.”’ She’d been trying so hard not to think about the baby, but now there was no escaping it and her eyes filled with the tears that she’d been choking on for the past couple of weeks. ‘Well, do you know what? I don’t feel lucky. I know it wasn’t what you wanted and to be honest, I was surprised myself—but I don’t feel lucky, Raul. I minded that I lost the baby.’

He was so tense that every muscle in his powerful frame throbbed with it. ‘I know.’

‘You do not know! How could you know? I protected you from it. You were in New York on business. I was devastated but I kept it to myself because you were tied up with that meeting, takeover—’

‘It was a merger.’

‘I don’t care what it was! I just knew it was important to you and I didn’t want to cause you extra stress. But I shot myself in the foot, because you decided that the reason I didn’t tell you about my miscarriage was because I was afraid you might call off the wedding.’

‘It was a natural assumption.’

‘Only for a man like you, Raul. Any other person would have thanked me for being so thoughtful and selfless.’ She turned her head, her voice a whisper. ‘Go away. Just go away. Why are we even talking about this, anyway?’