He caught her arm as she was passing. ‘Wait just a second—’
‘Look, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.’ She felt flayed all over, and way too vulnerable.
Cruz’s hand tightened on her arm. ‘I deserve an explanation. Dios, Trinity, I hurt you. And you were married to my brother—how the hell are you still a virgin?’
Her heart slammed against her ribs. This was it. The moment when Cruz would have to listen to her. Because of the irrefutable physical humiliation she’d just handed him on a plate.
She turned to face him and looked up. Her voice was husky with emotion. ‘I’ve been trying to explain to you all along that it wasn’t a real marriage, Cruz, but you didn’t want to hear it. It was a marriage of convenience.’
There was silence for a long moment. The lines of Cruz’s face were incredibly stark and grim. He said, ‘I’m listening now.’
Trinity’s legs felt wobbly and she sat down on the edge of the bed, seeing the stain of her innocence on the sheets in her peripheral vision.
Her cheeks burning, she gestured with her hand. ‘I should do something with the sheet—the stain—’
‘Can wait,’ Cruz said with steel in his tone. ‘Talk, Trinity, you owe me an explanation.’
Anger surged up, because if he’d been prepared to listen to her weeks ago they could have avoided this scene, but it dissipated under his stern look. In truth, how hard had she really tried to talk to him? Had she been happy just to let him think the worst so she could avoid him seeing how pathetic she really was? Contriving to make a home out of a fake marriage with children who weren’t even her own?
‘Okay,’ Cruz said, when the words still wouldn’t come. ‘Why don’t we start with this: why did you go to work for Rio? I hadn’t fired you.’
She looked up at him. ‘How could I have stayed working for you after what had happened? I was embarrassed.’ Realising that she’d reached peak humiliation, she said bitterly, ‘I had a crush on you, Cruz. I was the worst kind of cliché. A lowly maid lusting after her gorgeous and unattainable boss. When you rejected me that night—’
‘I told you,’ he interrupted. ‘I did not reject you. I hated myself for crossing a line and taking advantage of you.’
Trinity stood up, incensed. ‘You asked me if I regularly walked around the house in my nightclothes, as if I’d done it on purpose!’
A dull flush scored along Cruz’s cheekbones. ‘I didn’t handle the situation well. I was angry... But it was with myself. Not you—no matter how it sounded.’
Refusing to be mollified, Trinity said, ‘The following night you gave me that look as you greeted the beautiful brunette... You were sending me a message not to get any ideas. Not to forget that what had happened was a huge mistake.’
Cruz ran his hands through his hair impatiently, all his muscles taut. ‘I don’t even remember who that was. All I could see was you and that hurt look on your face.’
Trinity’s cheeks burned even hotter. She’d been so obvious.
She continued, ‘At one point during the evening I went outside. Rio was there, smoking a cigarette. He saw that I was upset and he asked me why...so I told him. He seemed nice. Kind. And then...then he told me that he was looking for a new nanny. He asked me if I’d be interested...and I said yes. I couldn’t imagine staying in your house knowing that every time you looked at me it would be with pity and regret.’
Cruz’s eyes burned. ‘And yet after six months you were his wife?’
Trinity sat down again on the bed. ‘Yes.’
Cruz was pacing back and forth now, sleek muscles moving sinuously under olive skin. Distracting.
He stopped. ‘So do you want to tell me how you went from nanny to convenient wife?’
She’d wanted this moment to come, hadn’t she? And yet she felt reluctant. Because she knew she’d be revealing something of Rio to Cruz that would tarnish him in his eyes, and even after everything she was loath to do that.
But she didn’t have a choice now.
She took a breath. ‘I’d gone out to the cinema one night. Rio had assured me he had no plans and that he’d be home all evening. When I got back the twins were awake in their room and hysterical. Their nappies were soaking and I don’t think they’d been fed. It took me a couple of hours to calm them down, feed them and put them down again. Frankly, it terrified me that they’d been in that state. I went downstairs and found Rio passed out over his desk, drunk. I managed to wake him up and get some coffee into him...but it was clear then that he was in no fit shape to be left alone with his sons—ever.’
Cruz looked shocked. ‘I know Rio liked to indulge, but I never would have thought he’d do it while looking after his sons.’
Trinity sucked in a breath. ‘I threatened to tell the police...even call you...but Rio begged me not to. He said it was a one-off. I told him I couldn’t stand by and let him neglect his children and he begged me to listen to him before I did anything. He told me what had happened t
o him as a child. He told me he wasn’t a perfect father but that he didn’t want his boys to be taken into care.’
Trinity looked at Cruz.