‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’
‘This is ridiculous.’ His eyes were narrowed and opaque, like uncut emeralds. ‘It’s pointless to make things more complicated than they are. You chose to be with me.’
‘No, I chose to have sex with you,’ she said shakily. ‘And, yes, it was amazing. But it doesn’t matter how good it was. Sex is not why you get married. And neither is pregnancy. Marriage is about love and loyalty, and I am not going to stand up in front of witnesses and make vows that I don’t believe. Because you shouldn’t say them if you don’t believe them. And we don’t. I don’t—I can’t—’
Her voice snapped and she lowered her face, not wanting him to see the pain she was feeling, or the tears that were so close to falling.
There was a short, stunned silence, and then he took a step towards her. ‘Kitty, I’m—’
She held up her hand to stop him. ‘Please don’t. Please. Can you just go now? Just go!’
There was another short silence, and for a moment she thought he was going to ignore her wishes, but then seconds later she heard the door shut with a click.
Looking up, she felt a sharp stab of relief and regret as she realised that the room was empty.
She was alone.
* * *
Breathing out unsteadily, César stared down at his laptop and then abruptly slammed it shut. What was the point? He’d been looking at that document for an hour now, and he hadn’t read one word of it.
He gritted his teeth. Had it really just been an hour since he’d left Kitty’s villa—or, to be more accurate, since she’d dismissed him? It felt like a lifetime.
After closing the door he’d walked back to the house and taken refuge in his study. There, surrounded by the familiar armour of his working life, he’d assumed that he would be able to block out those last few moments when her voice had started to shake and she’d looked close to tears.
He’d been wrong.
His stomach clenched. It had been a long time since he’d made a woman cry. In fact he knew the date exactly.
Remembering his mother’s tears when he’d been forced to confess his stupidity, he felt a hot rush of shame—just as he had that day nearly ten years ago. And now he had made Kitty cry.
He swore softly. He’d handled it so badly. He’d been relentless and insensitive. Pushing his agenda as ruthlessly as he would do in business. But what did being ruthless in business matter if he was a coward in private?
He stood up abruptly, needing to move, wanting to distance himself physically from the truth. But of course there was no escaping what was inside his head.
Celia had played him. Aged twenty-four, he had been emotionally open, happy-go-lucky and painfully gullible. She had lied—not just behind his back but to his face, repeatedly—and he’d believed every word that had come out of her beautiful lying mouth. Because it had been the same beautiful mouth that had kissed him and told him she loved him.
He’d fallen for her, and in so doing he had embarrassed himself, and his parents. And he’d vowed never to let any woman have that power over him again.
Only it crushed him to live like that. To have to live like that. And it was a necessity. He could tell himself that it was just common sense or cool, hard logic for a man in his position to keep things flexible. That women were just pieces on the chessboard of his life. But the truth that only he knew and could acknowledge was that it was fear that kept them at arm’s length. Fear of the weakness within him—that flaw in his nature that left him vulnerable to exploitation if he allowed himself to care, to feel.
Only he did feel something for Kitty. Desire, obviously, but also something protective that—incredibly—had nothing to do with the pregnancy.
He’d felt it out on that road when she’d looked at him, her grey eyes shining with anxiety and anger, and then again in the villa this morning, when she’d looked so stunned, so torn—
It had scared him, feeling like that, feeling anything, and he’d been angry and frustrated with himself. So it had been easy to latch on to that frustration and turn it towards her. Not for being pregnant, but for being a soft-mouthed, smoky-eyed reminder of the mistake he’d made all those years ago and was trying so hard not to make again.
Kitty had brought chaos and passion and emotion into his world, and marriage was the logical way to restore order, and not just for himself. He knew how much his parents longed to see him married, and if he could marry and give them a grandchild he might finally atone for the pain and distress he’d caused them.
Only Kitty had other ideas. Hearing her talk had made him feel like an outsider—playing a bit part rather than being the central protagonist he so clearly was—but the harder he’d pushed the more she’d resisted.
There was a knock on the door and his heart twitched with anticipation. But almost immediately his pulse slowed as a middle-aged woman with calm brown eyes appeared in the doorway: his housekeeper, Rosa.
‘Would you like some coffee, Señor Zayas?’
His chest tightened. Coffee. A conference call, and then some emails. In other words, business as usual. Except that it wasn’t: everything had changed, forever.