LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘WHEN DID YOU see my sister?’ Raul asked, as soon as he had driven clear of the house.

      She made no attempt to play innocent. ‘Which time are you on about?’

      So his hunch had been correct. It had been Marta’s lack of curiosity about what Charley had been doing these past few years that had roused his suspicions. Even when their mother had left the room, Marta hadn’t asked any of the questions he’d expected. It was because she’d already known the answers.

      ‘It has been more than once?’

      She sighed. ‘I’ve seen her a handful of times since we split.’

      ‘Am I correct in thinking this is something my mother is unaware of?’

      ‘We thought it best not to tell her because we knew she’d feel obliged to tell you.’

      That his mother certainly would have done.

      ‘Who instigated it?’

      ‘I did but it wasn’t deliberate.’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘I went to see my father...’

      ‘Your father?’

      ‘He moved to Spain not long after we separated. He’s living in a town on the Costa Dorado.’

      ‘When you say he moved to Spain, how was he able to afford a property?’ The last Raul had heard about his useless father-in-law was that he’d declared himself bankrupt after his latest get-rich scheme had failed.

      ‘I bought a villa for him.’ She didn’t sound contrite about it. If anything, she sounded bullish.

      ‘You bought a villa for him out of my money?’

      ‘Technically it was my money. You gave it to me.’

      ‘I can’t believe you spent my money on buying that man a home.’ Her father deserved nothing of the kind.

      ‘I know you don’t like him but he’s my father.’

      Raul took a deep breath. They were going off on a tangent here and he wanted to bring them back to the original thread of their conversation. But first he needed to make something clear. ‘I do not dislike your father.’

      Charley snorted her disbelief.

      ‘What I have an issue with is the way he treated you and your mother when you were a child.’ His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. ‘He took advantage of your mother when she was seventeen years old and left her to raise you on her own giving little money and even less support.’

      It used to infuriate him to think of how Graham Hutchinson had behaved towards his young family. The man had been fourteen years older than Charley’s mother and, when he’d learned of the pregnancy, instead of doing the decent thing, had dumped her. He’d then flitted in and out of their lives as and when it had suited him, prioritising the two sons he had from a prior relationship. Charley and her mother had lived on the poverty line while Graham had taken exotic holidays and driven a sports car, thinking all his parental neglect could be made up for with expensive presents when he could afford them.

      In truth, it still made him furious but he’d learned over the years that any criticism of Charley’s father would be met with fierce indignation.

      ‘That’s all in the past,’ she said now. Even through the darkness of the night, he could sense her eyes blazing. ‘I know he’s no angel but he’s still my dad and I love him. He needed a home and wanted to live closer to me. I had the money so I bought the villa for him.’

      ‘So, he just happened to get in touch when he learned you’d left me and gave you his latest hard-luck story?’

      ‘We’ve always kept in touch.’

      There was that defensive tone again, but she made no comment about his guess that her father had gone to her cap in hand.

      When they’d married, Graham had acted as though all his luck had rolled in at once, fully expecting his new son-in-law to support him. Raul had given him short shrift. After that, he’d kept his distance. As soon as Raul was out of the picture he’d swooped straight back in.

      ‘So how does your father moving to Spain coincide with you visiting my sister?’ he demanded to know, pulling them back on track.

      ‘I went to visit my dad when he moved in and I dropped by to give Marta her books back,’ she said.

      ‘When did you borrow books from Marta?’ He didn’t think he’d ever seen Charley with a book in her hands.

      ‘Lots of times. She thought it would help me learn Spanish if I read books in the language.’

      ‘Why did you never tell me this?’

      ‘I thought you’d laugh at me.’

      ‘Why on earth would you think that?’

      ‘You laughed at me whenever I tried to speak it.’

      Had he? He’d always thought her attempts at speaking his language were cute. If he’d laughed it had been with pride that she was trying to master it. Had she really interpreted it as him making fun of her? ‘I wasn’t laughing at you.’

      She didn’t answer.

      What did it matter anyway? Those days were gone.

      ‘And after

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