LITMIR.BIZ

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made that quite clear.’

      He couldn’t have made it plainer if he’d tried. The axe might not be falling to sever their relationship right now, but she couldn’t delude herself that it wouldn’t fall, hard and fast, in the end when Joaquin decided that he had tired of her in bed too. He’d just about said as much, and, in pain and too scared to show it, she had reacted in instinctive panic. She had played a role, been colder, harder, more demanding than she would ever be capable of being in reality.

      When Joaquin came home and found her gone, he would remember only that role. He would recall how she had been angry—at the fact that he wasn’t celebrating their anniversary, he would believe. He would think that that was what had driven her to pack up and leave. It would never cross his mind to think that maybe, after all, she had been lying when she had said that she didn’t want more than he could give.

      Cassie shook her head despondently.

      She hadn’t been lying.

      She didn’t want from him anything more than he could give—and give willingly and happily. If he couldn’t give her his heart, his love, then she wasn’t going to stay around, making it plain that she wanted, needed more, and making him uncomfortable because he didn’t feel the way she longed for him to do.

      No, she would go now, quietly and quickly, while he was out. She would take only the basic minimum of things she needed, and she would be gone before he came back. If she could just think of somewhere to go.

      The sound of the telephone on the table beside the bed had her whirling and running to snatch it up, unexpected hope making her heart thud in fearful anticipation.

      ‘Joaquin?’

      Had he changed his mind? Rung back to say he was sorry—that he’d said all the wrong things—that what he wanted was to spend the day with her—and say…

      But the voice at the other end of the line, although accented and deep, was not Joaquin’s.

      ‘Wrong brother, sweetheart,’ Ramón drawled lightly. ‘But I was looking for Joaquin, actually. Do I take it from your tone that he’s not there with you?’

      ‘No—no, he’s not.’

      And never likely to be again.

      The truth hit home with a shock that turned Cassie’s knees weak and had her sinking down onto the bed before they gave way completely.

      ‘He’s not here, Ramón. He went into work.’

      She had thought that she had controlled her voice well enough. That she had erased the betraying tremor, the faint shadow of tears. But not well enough. Something had given her away, and Ramón had caught it.

      ‘What’s wrong, Cassie?’ he demanded, his voice sharpening noticeably.

      Cassie smoothed her hand over the crumpled pillow where Joaquin’s dark head had rested just a short time before. The fine cotton was cool now, no heat from his body remaining, but the sheets still bore the lingering traces of the scent of his skin, and she inhaled hungrily, desperate to hold onto this one last physical memory of the man she loved.

      ‘Cassie?’ Ramón said again, more forcefully this time. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘It’s—it’s over, Ramón…’

      She forced herself to say it though it tore at her heart, ripping it to shreds to hear the words aloud.

      ‘We’ve broken up. No longer together—I—I’m leaving him.’

      ‘What?’

      Ramón swore violently in explosive Spanish.

      ‘But I thought you guys were perfect together! Why the—? Oh—don’t tell me—Joaquin and his damn one-year rule again? Is that it?’

      ‘Something like that,’ Cassie said sadly. It was close enough to the truth and she really didn’t feel up to explaining the whole facts.

      ‘The man’s mad!’ Joaquin’s brother muttered. ‘Crazy! But, Cassie—don’t let him do this to you! You have to fight him…’

      ‘No!’ Cassie put in hastily, terrified that Ramón might make her want to weaken, that he might persuade her to stay. ‘It’s not Joaquin’s decision—it’s mine. I’m the one who’s leaving.’

      The silence at the other end of the phone line almost destroyed her. Ramón at a loss for words was as rare an event as Joaquin being in the same condition, and it was very nearly as devastating.

      ‘You?’

      ‘Joaquin was right, Ramón,’ Cassie put in hastily. ‘This relationship was only a one-year thing. We came to the end of the line—nowhere else to go.’

      Nowhere that Joaquin was prepared to go anyway, she told herself miserably, refusing even to look at the hope of what might have been.

      ‘It’s over, finished. I’m moving out today. I just need to find somewhere to stay until—’

      Ramón didn’t allow her to finish her sentence.

      ‘I’ll be round at once,’ he said decisively, his tone making it clear there was no room for argument. ‘I’ll help you pack and then you can move in here with me.’

      CHAPTER FIVE

      COULD any week have lasted as long as this one? Cassie asked herself on a deep, despondent sigh as she poured herself a glass of cool, sparkling water, listening to the ice crackle as the liquid landed on top of it. Each day since she had left Joaquin and moved in to Ramón’s apartment had felt as if it had lasted a lifetime.

      A long, lonely, dreary, dragging lifetime. One that didn’t seem to get any better, no matter how many times she tried to convince herself that it would.

      And she had tried.

      Every single night, as the darkness fell and she lay awake in the big comfortable bed she had told herself that tomorrow was another day. That tomorrow would be better. That it had to be better. How could it be any worse?

      But each morning had dawned with the same dreary sense of dread, the same fearful anticipation of the long, weary hours that had to be got through until she could seek sanctuary in the darkness and the stillness once again. And each night she had lain awake again, staring blankly in front of her for yet more long, lonely hours, wishing with all her heart that she were back with Joaquin. That she had never left him.

      When she slept, for the few hours she managed to sleep at all, she dreamed she was back there with him, back in the big house on the hill above the vineyard. Back in the room she and Joaquin had shared, in the bed where they had slept together. She would dream that he was with her, that she was curled tight against the hard power of his body, held comfortingly in the strength of his arms. And her dreams were so real, so vivid, so intense that she would wake believing it was real, with every nerve awake to the closeness of the man she loved, her whole body on fire with a hunger and a need of him that came from some deep, primitive part of her soul.

      She would sigh, stretch, reach out for him…

      And of course he wasn’t there.

      With the terrible, jolting sense of awareness of the truth would come a devastating sense of loss and shock. She would lie there, aching and empty, hungry and yearning so desperately for him that she would curl up on herself with a moan of pain. The tears would slide from her eyes, impossible to hold back, and seep into the pillow so that every morning the wet patches were silent testimony to the misery of the night.

      The sound of a car pulling up outside gave her despondent spirits a tiny, feeble lift.

      Ramón was home. That at least meant that she would have someone else to talk to, someone to distract her. Someone to help her stay put right here and withstand the temptation to turn round and head back to the house she had shared with Joaquin.

      At least once every day, and frequently more

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