His mouth curled, contempt flaring in his eyes.
‘I should have known something was up when you fixed my bike.’ He shook his head. ‘You only knew how to fix it because you’d broken it.’
And that expression on her face when she’d turned and looked back at him—it hadn’t been doubt but relief. Relief that he was still there. His skin prickled with shame. Still there, fool that he had been, not struggling or fighting, just watching and waiting for her to reel him in.
Cristina stared at him in confusion. Her mind was completely empty, spotless—bare like a blank piece of paper. But it wasn’t just his words that had robbed her of the power of thought. She just couldn’t match the cold-eyed stranger in front of her with the man who had made love to her with such passion and intensity.
With an effort, she tried to marshal her brain into some kind of order. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Luis stared at her coldly. She was a good actress. Really good. The shaking hands were a particularly nice touch. He might have been tempted to believe her had he not been stung so badly before.
Five years ago he had been young, naive and insecure. The reporter back then had been older than him, pretty and persuasive, and he’d been flattered—
Until the moment when he’d woken up and heard her talking to her colleague.
His stomach quivered, dread pooling low down as he remembered how it had felt—not just the shock of discovering who she was, but the creeping recollection of what he’d said to her. Even now it still had the power to wake him some nights, sweating and yet cold, breathing heavily in the darkness.
A storm was building in his chest, and he knew his feelings must be showing on his face, but he didn’t care. The proficiency of her performance only served to feed his anger.
‘I told you not to treat me like an idiot. You might have fooled me once with those eyes, that mouth, but I learn from my mistakes—and you are a mistake I’ve no intention of repeating.’
Cristina felt familiar panic twist her stomach.
Meeting Luis with his parents had been a shock. But that had been all about his lies. This—here, now—was about his contempt. Her throat tightened, misery, dark and impenetrable, crowding out the breath in her lungs as his words ricocheted inside her head.
A mistake.
Suddenly it wasn’t Luis’s voice she could hear but her father’s, and the words were those he had spoken to her eight years ago in a hotel foyer in London.
Her mouth felt bone-dry, and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up.
A week ago Luis had turned her body into a quivering mass of desire, his gaze, his touch, his kiss had made her feel as if she was the only woman in the world for him. Now, though, it was as if he could see inside her. See that she was a fake, a failure, with no place in the world—especially his world.
Watching the colour drain from her face, Luis felt something crack inside him.
She looked stunned—sick, even—and the fact that he was the one who had upset her made his heart beat painfully hard. He was never brutal—not even in business, and especially not to women.
But Cristina had lied to him. She’d let him believe that she wanted him, when all she’d really wanted had been to get the inside story on his family.
His mouth thinned. She didn’t deserve gentleness or mercy.
He took a step closer. ‘You lied to me. You knew who I was and you deliberately set out to seduce me. You followed me into that bar and then you made damn sure I noticed you. Hell, you even walked into me so that I’d spill my drink.’
That wasn’t what had happened, she thought, striving to stay calm as a swirl of anger and frustration rose up inside her.
‘Is that right, Lucho?’ she snapped. ‘You see, the way I remember it, you walked into me. Oh, and remind me again—which one of us was using a false name?’
Luis could barely contain his rage. It wasn’t a false name. It was his childhood nickname. Even now his mother still used it sometimes, and Bas had always called him Lucho.
At the thought of his brother, the last thin thread of his temper snapped.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know, you’re wasting your talents, Ms Shephard. You should really be on the other side of the camera. Or is that what this is all really about? You selling some kiss and tell story to the newspapers?’
Cristina stepped forward, her hands curling into fists, frustration arrowing through her blood. ‘For the last time—I didn’t know who you were—’
‘And I didn’t know who you were.’ His eyes met hers, dark grey with contempt and retribution. ‘But I do now. I know exactly who and what you are. You’re a cold-hearted, self-serving parasite.’
She could hardly breathe. ‘And you’re a phony. A fake. A fraud. Sneaking around, playing at being a biker, when really you’re a CEO—’