‘So when do I start reimbursing you for this? Because I presume you expect me to earn it with some sort of payment in kind.’
Her question earned her a glare of angry reproof, one that made her shift uncomfortably on the brocade couch.
‘It comes with no conditions attached,’ he growled angrily. ‘I gave it to you because my parents would know something was amiss if I didn’t. They would expect my fiancée to be wearing a ring—I have provided one. Our story would not ring true otherwise.’
It was controlled, so emotionless that it stabbed at her vulnerable heart. It was impossible not to contrast his behaviour now with the ardent, impulsive proposal of marriage he had made just over two years before.
‘But our story isn’t true, is it, Luis? I don’t see why we can’t just tell them—’
The look on his face, the dark anger that blazed in his eyes, stopped her dead.
‘Tell them what, mi angel? Do you really want me to explain to my parents why we split up in the first place? Shall I tell them that you were found in bed with another man only a few weeks after we were married?’
‘I told you—!’
‘I know what you told me, but forgive me…’ Luis laced the words with an acid that turned them into the exact opposite of any genuine attempt at an apology ‘…I prefer to believe the evidence of my own eyes.’
‘The evidence you were supposed to believe! It was a setup!’
Luis’s dark frown dried her mouth, stilled her impetuous tongue.
‘Was Rob Michaels in your bed?’ he questioned harshly, every bit the counsel for the prosecution.
‘Yes.’
It was barely a whisper but there was nothing she could say except the truth. She had woken up to find Rob in her bed, but she had had no idea how he had got there. Her memory of the night before had been decidedly hazy as the result of a very bad cold and some medication she had taken. And before she had had a chance to demand to know what he’d been doing there, the whole world had blown up in her face.
She shuddered miserably as her mind replayed snatches from that terrible night. The sound of a key in the lock. The door swinging open. The light snapping on.
And there, framed in the doorway, with a face as black as a thundercloud, bronze eyes molten in fury—Luis. Her husband.
‘And why is lying to my parents so very hard? After all, you have lied to me about much more important things.’
‘I never…’
Her face was pale, he
r green eyes huge above colourless cheeks. He had the fight of his life with himself not to take her in his arms and tell her it was all right, that it didn’t matter.
He forced himself to continue.
‘Did you not swear to me that you loved me more than life itself? That you could never imagine yourself with anyone else, loving anyone else…’
His voice lowered, became a deadly, vindictive hiss.
‘Sleeping with anyone else.’
It was crueller than any slap in the face. All the more so because it had been delivered in such a quiet, controlled voice. But then she looked into his eyes and to her shock it was not anger or cruelty that she saw there, but the soul-deep pain of betrayal.
‘I’ve told you…’
‘I know what you’ve told me. But until you can come up with something better than, “It was a set-up,” I’m sorry, but I cannot believe you.’
The last thing he sounded was sorry, Isabelle reflected miserably. Instead his tone was icily cold, laced with a bitter control she couldn’t see her way past. Unable to bear the way that the same dark feeling showed in his gaze, she pressed her hands to her face for a moment, covering her own eyes with them.
‘I had a heavy cold,’ she said from behind her concealing fingers, putting all the conviction she could muster into the words, willing him to believe them. ‘Catalina gave me something for it and I went to bed early. The next thing I knew was when I woke up when you came into the room.’
‘A room that was locked from the inside. I had to go down to Reception and get the master key.’