‘Will you stop for one moment?’
It was the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice, and it was that as much as his sudden intervention that caused her finally to turn and face him, to change her misery into anger.
‘Why? So you can gloat about me leaving?’
Luis stared at her, his dark eyes narrowing in on her face, and she let her gaze rest on his beautiful curving mouth and the clean-cut lines of his jaw and cheekbones until she could bear it no more.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s fine.’ She held up her hand. ‘We both know you never wanted me here in the first place—’ she gestured towards the suitcase ‘—so you really don’t have to pretend that you’re sorry I’m leaving.’
‘You can’t leave.’
The expression on his face was difficult to place. It should be relief—triumph, even—and yet it didn’t look like either. Not that it mattered what he was feeling. It didn’t change the fact that she wanted to get as far away as possible from him.
Slowly, she shook her head. ‘There’s a lot of things I can’t do, Luis. Like algebra, and baking cakes, and apparently taking anything more than a “competent” photograph. But I can leave—and that’s what I’m doing to do.’
Gritting his teeth, Luis watched as she turned back to the bed and began throwing more clothes into her suitcase. Despite the force and energy with which she was moving he could sense the numbness of despair spreading through her.
It was a numbness he knew only too well, for he had felt it too.
His mind looped back to the moment when he’d heard her phone smash to the floor. He’d known instantly that she’d heard his remark about her portfolio.
She might not have said as much, but the hurt expression on her face coupled with her swift, desperate retreat conveyed the truth as effectively as any words could have done.
And of course he’d felt bad—he had upset her, and he didn’t like the way that made him feel. But he hadn’t trusted himself enough to follow her.
Then he’d spoken to his mother.
His shoulders stiffened, and he closed his eyes.
What was it about Cristina that got under his skin?
For five years now his life had been orderly and meticulously planned. After his brother’s death he had sworn never again to lose control. His days started with a workout and ended with sleep, and in between there was work. There were no spur-of-the-moment decisions, no acting on impulse.
Until Cristina.
And since then, for some reason, he’d ignored every rule he’d ever made, every instinct he had for self-preservation. From the moment he’d watched her walk past him in that square he’d been hooked.
At first he’d blamed his singular behaviour on his return. Even before he’d stepped onto the plane, he had known that coming back to Spain—to Segovia—was always going to be hard, unsettling, and sleeping with Cristina was surely demonstrative of that fact—one-night stands with sexy strangers were not his style and never had been.
Finding out she had deceived him—and, worse, that she had once been a paparazza—had been humiliating. But he had told himself that it was a testament to his unbalanced state of mind.
He’d arrived at the island confident that he knew the ‘real’ Cristina—deceitful, unscrupulous, manipulative—and determined to expose her for what she was.
Only just when he’d thought he had proof—finding her snooping around his brother’s bedroom—he’d had to revise his opinion of her. Not only had his mother given her permission to be there, but Cristina had been respectful and sensitive—not qualities he would have associated with the paparazzi.
His brain was still processing that thought as she slammed her suitcase shut.
Picking up the bag t
hat held all her cameras, she swung round towards him. ‘I’ll go and say goodbye to your parents.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said quietly.
Her eyes widened with shock, and then her mouth curved into a contemptuous smile. ‘Of course not. And you’re right. You should be the one to tell them. You’re so much better at twisting the facts than I am.’
Reaching down, he grabbed the suitcase from her hand and flung it on the bed.