‘I blame you?’
His lips twisted in a cynical half-smile that left his dark eyes bleak as he challenged, ‘So you have never thought that if you hadn’t been forced to transplant yourself to another country, an alien environment, being isolated from everything you knew, your entire support system, you might not have lost the baby?’
‘I thought none of those things.’ But it was clear from his expression that he did. Why had she never suspected that Dante felt guilt for the loss of the baby? ‘The doctors told us that a high portion of pregnancies end early on—a lot of women don’t even know there ever was a baby.’
‘Stress plays a part in these things. And an affair would inevitably have burnt itself out and we could have parted friends.’
‘I think we have already established that isn’t going to happen. You do realise that that was spoken like a true commitment-phobe.’
Dante shrugged. He had no problems with the description, though it implied that he had been running or avoiding something, which he hadn’t.
Dante had never felt anything that inclined him to believe that he was marriage material. He would, he had always suspected, make a terrible husband. Well, on that at least he had been proved right—he had been, and he was.
‘You need to leave.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes swivelling from him towards the door, recognising the danger, the anger between them often found release in a physical way.
‘Yes, I do.’
It had all gone quiet downstairs but the main thing was making Dante vanish and failing that…there was no way she could smuggle Dante out without Maya seeing him. She paused mid thought, almost wanting to laugh that she had been considering the smuggling option!
About time you took responsibility for your own actions, she told herself sternly, knowing full well it wasn’t Maya’s judgement she was trying to dodge but her own. She tightened the belt on her robe, causing the neckline to gape and drawing his eyes like magnets to the smooth swell of her cleavage.
Beatrice swallowed. His eyelids had dropped to half mast; the gleam below made her throat dry.
‘That’s the exact same colour as the top you were wearing when we first met. You had something in your eye.’
‘Did I? I don’t remember,’ she lied.
‘You were making it worse, stabbing your eyes with that tissue. And swearing like a sailor. You bumped into me.’
‘You bumped into me,’ she contradicted, her breath coming fast as she remembered him taking the tissue from her fingers, ignoring her protests. ‘Let me,’ he’d said and she had—soon she had let him do a lot more.
She’d begged him to do a lot more!
‘You looked so—’ Young, fresh and a million miles away from the sleek creature on the catwalk, but even more sexy without the dramatic make-up, her pale hair no longer sleeked back but loose. It had spilled like silk down her back. He should have realised then that she was an innocent but he hadn’t, and when he had, it had been too late.
You think it would have made a difference?his inner voice mocked as he dragged himself back to the moment and watched as Beatrice shook her head.
The effort to escape the memories in her head hurt but it was worth it. She had moved on and, more importantly, she would never become her mother.
‘So, we have an understanding. From now on any communication will be through our legal teams,’ she said, making her voice cold.
‘You don’t have a team. You have a solicitor who spends more time watering his roses than looking after his clients’ interests.’
Left to that guy Beatrice would be walking away from their marriage just as poor financially as she’d walked into it, if he had not issued some instructions that made his own legal team look slightly sick. There were some lawyers who recognised a moral scruple when they saw one, but none of them worked for the Velazquez family.
‘Bea, shall I bring the coffee up?’
Dante watched as Beatrice responded to the voice that drifted up the stairs with an ‘over my dead body’ expression on her face, which she backed up with a dagger look.
Not analysing his motivation, he walked past her and pulled the door open.
‘We’ll be right down, Maya!’ He let the door close with a snap.
Feet apart, hands on her hips, she fixed him with a glare of seething dislike. ‘Well, thank you for that.’
‘Call it a parting gift.’
‘I’d call it a cheap shot.’