LITMIR.BIZ

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done anything wrong.’

      ‘I am sure my lawyers could come up with something, if I paid them enough,’ retorted Enrique unfeelingly, propelling her around the corner from the pensión to where his Mercedes was parked. ‘And you, I am equally sure, would not risk that.’

      Cassandra trembled. ‘You’re a bastard, Enrique!’

      ‘Better a bastard than a liar, Cassandra,’ he informed her coldly, flicking the switch that unlocked the car. ‘Please get in.’

      ‘And if I don’t?’

      Enrique regarded her with unblinking eyes. ‘Do not go there, Cassandra. You are only wasting your time and mine. We need to talk, and you will have to forgive my sensibilities when I say I prefer not to—how is it you say it?—wash my linen in public?’

      ‘Dirty linen,’ muttered Cassandra, before she could stop herself, and Enrique’s mouth curved into a thin smile.

      ‘Your words, not mine,’ he commented, swinging open the nearside door and waiting patiently for her to get into the car. And, when she’d done so with ill grace, unhappily conscious of her bare knees and sun-reddened thighs, he walked round the back of the vehicle and coiled his long length behind the steering wheel. Then, with a derisive glance in her direction, ‘Do not look so apprehensive, Cassandra. I do not bite.’

      ‘Don’t you?’

      Now she held his gaze with hot accusing eyes and then experienced a pang of anguish when he looked away. Was he remembering what she was remembering? she wondered, despising herself for the unwelcome emotions he could still arouse inside her. God, the only memories she should have were bitter ones.

      His starting the engine caught her unawares. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she cried, diverted from her thoughts, and he lifted his shoulders in a resigned gesture.

      ‘What does it look like I am doing?’ he enquired, glancing in the rearview mirror, checking for traffic. ‘You didn’t think we were going to sit here and talk?’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Humour me,’ he said tersely, and although Cassandra was fairly sure that nothing she said or did would change his mind, she bit down on her protests. Why should she object when he was leaving the pensión? She might even be able to persuade him not to come back.

      Or not.

      ‘I’m not going to Tuarega with you,’ she blurted suddenly, and Enrique gave a short mirthless laugh as he pulled out of the parking bay.

      ‘I have not invited you to do so,’ he observed drily, and she felt the flush of embarrassment deepen the colour in her cheeks. ‘I suggest we find a bar where it is unlikely that either of us will meet anyone we know.’

      ‘Don’t you mean anyone you know?’ she snorted, and he gave her a considering look.

      ‘Does it matter?’

      ‘Not to me,’ she assured him coldly. ‘I just want to get this over with.’

      Enrique shook his head. ‘We both know that is not going to happen,’ he replied flatly. ‘You should not have written to my father if you wished to keep your selfish little secret.’

      ‘I didn’t write to your father,’ Cassandra reminded him fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t do such a thing.’

      ‘No.’ He conceded the point. ‘I believe that now.’

      ‘Now?’ Cassandra was appalled. ‘Do you mean you had any doubts?’

      Enrique shrugged. ‘I had my reasons.’

      ‘What reasons?’ Cassandra stared at him, and then comprehension dawned. ‘My God, you did think I’d written the letter, didn’t you? You honestly thought I’d want anything from you! Or your father!’

      Enrique didn’t answer her and she was left with the shattering discovery that his opinion of her hadn’t changed one bit. He still thought she was a greedy little gold-digger, who had only latched onto his brother because she’d known what his background was.

      Pain, like a knife, sliced through her, and she reached unthinkingly for the handle of the door. In that moment she didn’t consider that they had left the small town of Punta del Lobo behind, that the car was in traffic and that they were moving at approximately sixty kilometres an hour. Her only need was to get as far away from him as possible as quickly as possible, and even the sudden draught of air that her action elicited only made her feel even more giddy and confused.

      She didn’t know what might have happened if Enrique hadn’t reacted as he had. At that moment she didn’t care. But, with a muffled oath, he did two things almost simultaneously: his hand shot out and grasped her arm, anchoring her to her seat, and he swung the big car off the winding coast road, bringing it to a shuddering stop on a sand-strewn verge above towering cliffs.

      ‘Estas loco? Are you mad?’ he demanded, and she realised it was a measure of the shock he’d had that he’d used his own language and not hers. Then, when she turned a white tear-stained face in his direction, his eyes grew dark and tortured. ‘Crazy woman,’ he muttered, his voice thick and unfamiliar, and, switching off the engine, he flung himself out of the car.

      He went to stand at the edge of the cliffs, the warm wind that blew up from the ocean flattening the loose-fitting trousers against his strong legs. He didn’t look back at her, he simply stood there, gazing out at the water, raking long fingers through his hair before bringing them to rest at the back of his neck.

      Perhaps he was giving her time to regain her composure, Cassandra pondered uneasily, as sanity reasserted itself. But she didn’t think so. Just for a moment there she had glimpsed the real Enrique de Montoya, the passionate man whose feelings couldn’t be so coldly contained beneath a mask of studied politeness, and she suspected he had been as shocked as she was.

      Nevertheless, however she felt about him, there was little doubt that he had saved her from serious injury or worse. He’d risked his own life by swerving so recklessly off the highway, taking the car within inches of certain disaster, just to prevent her from doing something which, as he’d said, would have been crazy.

      What had she been thinking? She trembled as the full extent of her own stupidity swept over her. What good would it have done to throw herself from the car? What would it have achieved? If she’d been killed—God, the very thought of it set her shaking again—who would have looked after David then? Whose claim on her son would have carried the most weight? She didn’t need to be a psychic to know that in those circumstances her own family would have been fighting a losing battle.

      So why hadn’t Enrique let her do it? Or was that what he was doing now? Reproving himself for allowing a God-given opportunity to slip through his fingers? No. However naïve it might make her, she didn’t think that either.

      She took a breath and then, pushing open her door, she got out of the car. She steadied herself for a moment, with her hand on the top of her door. Then, closing it again, she walked somewhat unsteadily across to where he was standing. The wind buffeted her, too, sending the tumbled mass of her hair about her face, but she only held it back, her eyes on Enrique’s taut profile.

      ‘I’m—sorry,’ she said after a moment, but although she knew he’d heard her, he didn’t look her way.

      ‘Go back to the car.’ The words were flat and expressionless. ‘I will join you in a moment.’

      Cassandra caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘You’re right,’ she said, forced to go on. ‘What I did was crazy! I could have killed us both.’

      Now Enrique did look at her, but she gained no reassurance from his blank expression. ‘Forget it,’ he told her. ‘I have.’

      Cassandra quivered. ‘As you forget everything that doesn’t agree with you?’ she asked tremulously. ‘And everyone?’

      Enrique’s features contorted. ‘I have forgotten

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