He winced. ‘Do you have to be so precise? I suggest we spend a month together and take it from there.’
‘You said live-in relationships get messy and possessive,’ Bella reminded him doggedly.
‘That is a risk I’m prepared to take—’
‘Briefly,’ she inserted, thinking of the month he had designated. Not much of a risk at all.
‘—to have you in my bed again,’ he completed shortly.
‘And that is all you want?’
A spasm of raw impatience flashed across his set features. ‘The generation gap, es verdad? Have you ever heard of subtlety? Infierno…what the hell am I doing here?’
‘When you only came to insult me? I’m wondering too.’
He glowered at her in disbelief. ‘How have I insulted you?’
Bella was starting to shake with rage and reaction, much of which, she acknowledged, stemmed from bitter disappointment. ‘You offer me a month’s trial in your be
d as if you’re some sultan talking to a little harem slave and you don’t think that’s an insult?’ she spat with unashamed contempt.
Rico merely shrugged and looked levelly back at her. ‘What have you got to lose-Biff and the ring he put back in his pocket?’ he mocked.
‘Maybe…’
‘I won’t ever offer you a ring, gatita mia. If that is your goal, settle for your taine little solicitor and suburbia,’ he advised, his lip curling.
Inside herself she ached. Had she had the faintest suspicion that Rico cared for her, she might have settled for the month’s trial in the hope that it might develop into something more. That awareness shamed her. How many rules did you break before you began to hate yourself? Every rule she broke as far as Rico was concerned shaved away her self-respect, and without her pride she would be weak. She was an all-or-nothing person.
‘Since you’ve been so frank, I’ll match you.’ She walked away, working up the courage to do so, her beautiful face deeply troubled, tiny little shivers of high-wire tension rippling through her. ‘I grew up with instability, with my mother’s love affairs, her broken hearts, her depressions, her humiliations. I will not live like that. I saw how you treated Sophie tonight—’
‘Sophie and I were not lovers.’
Bella stared at him in shock.
‘Sophie acted as my hostess. We probably would have become intimate,’ he admitted, ‘but then you and I were kidnapped and everything changed.’
‘Everything changed’. Yes, everything had changed for Bella too. Within the space of less than thirty-six hours the entire course of her life had been altered. Bonds had been formed, emotions unleashed and her every desperate attempt to put the clock back had failed.
‘It was over before it ever began between Sophie and me. This evening she invited herself,’ Rico revealed grimly.
‘Even so, you didn’t give a damn about her!’ Bella accused, recalling his complete detachment from the other woman, knowing that there would be a day when she would earn a similar lack of interest. ‘I’m worth more than that.’
‘You should have kept that in mind, querida…before you offered yourself to me. That was your value, not mine.’
Bella flinched as though she had been struck. She was in love with a total, irredeemable swine. Cleo’s bad taste paled beside this demonstration of raw masculine arrogance. She refused to lower herself to the same level.
She thrust her head high. ‘I won’t do it. I need more.’
‘You want marriage.’ Rico dealt her a look of supreme derision, but at the back of that derision lurked a simmering pool of explosive rage. ‘I said I wanted you. I didn’t say I was down on my knees and certifiably insane!’
‘I didn’t say I wanted marriage!’ she gasped strickenly.
‘You don’t need to. You could spell it out in fireworks above my bank and it would be less obvious than what I see in your face!’ he bit out with sudden viciousness as he strode forward and closed hard hands round her forearms before she could retreat. ‘I was right all along. You had your price all right. But it’s not a price I would even contemplate, and you have to be bloody naive to imagine that I would be that desperate!’
‘I never mentioned marriage!’
‘In the next breath you were about to mention children, no doubt,’ he scorned. ‘Madre de Dios…’