Jemima tensed and shrugged, fixing a bright smile to her full mouth that felt hopelessly false. ‘There’s not much to talk about. We were always short of money and my parents didn’t get on very well. It certainly wasn’t a marriage made in heaven.’
‘I seem to recall you telling me that your mother died in a car crash.’
‘Yes. It was a sad time,’ she said quickly, striving to steer him away from further discussion in that line because she did not want to be forced to tell him any more untruths. Somehow lies told in the past when they had seemed to have no relevance bothered her less than the prospect of having to tell more in the present.
After a stressful week, her nerves were still on a cliff edge of doubt, fear and uncertainty with regard to the future. Her father had phoned twice more, one call arriving when she was out and the second proving to be more or less a repeat of the first one she had received, in which he bemoaned his financial state, urged her to be generous and threatened to come and visit her in Spain. The last time Stephen Grey had insisted on being paid in untraceable cash, and although Jemima had sworn she would not pay blackmail money again, she knew to the last pound sterling how much money she had in her bank account, and also had a very good idea of how much of a breathing space it would buy her from her father’s persistent demands.
‘I’ve decided to meet up with Marco this weekend,’ Alejandro told her. ‘I don’t think he’s going to speak to me of his own free will, but I did want to give him the opportunity to make the first approach.’
‘Give him some more time,’ Jemima suggested.
‘I can’t, tesora mia,’ Alejandro countered, his lean, strong face shadowing. ‘I have to deal with him. This feud has gone on long enough, though I can see that it suited Marco to keep us all at a distance. By the way, Beatriz knows.’
‘I suspected that she might,’ Jemima confided.
‘She knew for a fact that Dario was gay and worked it out from there. But, being Beatriz, she said nothing to anyone for fear of causing offence,’ Alejandro remarked wryly. ‘I could wish she had been less scrupulous. Is it the prospect of my confronting Marco which is making you so jumpy?’
Jemima tensed, violet eyes veiling. ‘Jumpy?’
‘This past week I’ve often had the feeling that you’re worrying about something. I assure you that I have no plans to have a huge messy row with my brother. It’s a little late for that.’
Taken aback that he had noticed that she was living on her nerves, Jemima nodded and tried to look unconcerned.
‘For the sake of the family I’ll keep it under control, but I don’t think I could ever forgive him for what he allowed me to believe,’ he admitted squarely.
‘Let it go with Marco. It’s all in the past and over and done with,’ Jemima pointed out just before she climbed out of the car outside the castle.
Alejandro closed a possessive arm round her on the stairs. The tangy scent of his citrus-based aftershave flared her nostrils and sent a flood of helpless awareness travelling to the more sensitive parts of her body. Unfortunately that was as close as he came to instigating a more intimate connection. Later she lay in bed about a foot away from him and wondered why he was still keeping his distance. Of course she could have bridged the gap, but why risk rocking the boat when she was already so stressed and feeling far from daring? Even during the night hours she was always somehow waiting for another phone call to destroy her peace of mind.
On the surface, though, most things were now fine in their marriage and she was determined to accept that without looking for pitfalls and pressures that might not exist. After all, her one and only real problem was Stephen Grey and what he might do. She told herself that if she continued to stand up to her father, he would eventually give up and leave her alone.
So, Alejandro had never said that he loved her and he probably never would, she reflected ruefully. Well, that was life. You couldn’t have everything and what you did get was rarely perfect. He was making a real effort to make her happy and he was also proving to be a terrific father. It didn’t get much better than that, she bargained with herself, determined not to succumb to taking for granted what she did have in favour of craving the one thing she couldn’t have. She had always loved him, had learned to get by without him when their marriage failed, but now she was older and wiser and she knew that no other man could make her feel as good about herself or as happy as Alejandro did without even trying very hard.
In the week that followed it seemed to Jemima that Alejandro was angling at winning some ‘perfect husband’ award. Even though he disliked nightclubs, he took her out in Seville and they stayed over in the apartment there. They had a picnic down by the castle lake in the shelter of the trees with Alfie on what felt like the hottest day of the year and she paddled at the water’s edge with her son chuckling in her arms. In the cool of the evening they dined out on the terrace, a practice that Dona Hortencia had once dismissed as too common and undignified to even be considered.
At a family party held at Alejandro’s uncle’s home on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Marco and Dario put in an appearance as a couple and Doña Hortencia claimed that she was ill and left early, while everyone else pretended not to have noticed anything in the least bit unusual. Jemima was asked if she would do the flowers for a cousin’s wedding and Marco let it be known that he and his partner were heading back to New York that weekend. Doña Hortencia was popularly held to be prostrate with relief at the news that the closet door could be closed again. Marco, on the other hand, informed Jemima that his mother had taken the news without comment; she was certainly annoyed with him but was still giving him his allowance. He also confessed that he was surprised by his older brother’s continuing coolness towards him, an admission that made Dario Ortini, who was more sensitive, glance at Jemima in some embarrassment.
The next morning, Jemima was making some notes of her ideas for the flowers for the family wedding when Maria announced a visitor in an unusually anxious and apologetic tone.
Even while she was frowning in surprise at the sound of the housekeeper’s strained voice, Jemima was truly appalled to scramble upright and see her father walking into the huge salon as bold as brass. While not tall, he was a broadly built man. With his shaven head and diamond ear studs, not to mention a purple and pink striped sports shirt, Stephen Grey was quite a sight to his daughter’s dismayed eyes.
‘This place is in the back of beyond. I had to pay a taxi a fortune to get up here!’ he complained, sweeping the beautifully furnished room with assessing eyes that were striving to tot up the price of everything he could see. ‘I hope you’re planning to make coming out to Spain worth my while!’
Mastering her consternation at the older man’s appearance, Jemima sucked in a deep steadying breath. She was grateful that Alejandro was out on the estate and unlikely to return before evening. ‘What are you doing here? I asked you to leave me alone.’
His bloodshot blue eyes hardened. ‘You’ve got no business talking to me like that, Jem!’ he retorted furiously, his voice rising steeply. ‘I brought you into the world a
nd raised you and I expect you to treat me with proper respect.’
Jemima was very pale but she didn’t back off, even though he was too close and too loud for comfort. ‘After the way you treated me and my mother, I don’t owe you the time of day,’ she argued with an anger she couldn’t hide. ‘You washed your hands of me when I was only a teenager. My son and I have a good life here and I’m not about to let you ruin it for me.’
‘Aw…will your fancy-pants Spanish Count be too much of a snob to keep you, once he knows what stock you’re from?’ Stephen Grey sneered, strolling over to the fireplace to lift a miniature portrait off the wall beside it and give the delicate gold and pearl-studded frame an intent scrutiny.
Alarm ran through Jemima as she watched. ‘Please put that back. It’s very old…’
The older man sent her a knowing look. ‘It must be worth a packet on the antique market, then. If you can’t help me with some cash like the last time, you can at least close your eyes while I help myself to a few little items that I can sell’
‘No!’ Jemima shot back at him, crossing the pastel embroidered rug to stand in front of him. ‘You can’t have it. Give it back to me!’
The older man slid the portrait into his pocket and studied her with scorn. ‘Mind your own business, why don’t you? Either I take some stuff now or I come back some night with a few mates and we help ourselves to a good deal more.’
‘If there’s ever a burglary here, I will tell Alejandro about you.’
Stephen Grey loosed a derisive laugh. ‘You won’t! You’ll do anything to keep that husband of yours in ignorance. You’re the one who set a price on keeping the truth from him.’
‘Yes, and I was very wrong. I understand that now,’ Jemima conceded painfully. ‘Now give me that miniature back before I call the police—’
‘You wouldn’t dare call the police!’ he bit out with smug assurance.
In a complete panic because she was afraid that he might be right on that score and its potential for extreme embarrassment, Jemima tried to slide a hand into his pocket to retrieve the miniature portrait from him. He struck her shoulder with a big clenched fist to push her out of his way and she went flying off her feet and fell backwards across the coffee table. A startled yelp escaped her as she struck her head against a wooden chair leg and she lay in a heap, momentarily in a daze, one hand flying up to the bump at the back of her head.