Bitter Memories. Margaret Mayo

about you.’

      Tanya shook her head, wanting to believe him, but unable to. If he had written Juanita would surely have told his father, especially if the families were close. ‘You’re lying,’ she whispered. ‘You’re trying to get out of it. Well, don’t bother; it’s over. I want nothing more to do with you. You’re nothing but a two-timing snake in the grass. Juanita is welcome to you.’ She picked up her jacket and headed for the door.

      ’Tanya, stop!’ Alejandro’s voice came after her. ‘Let me explain; do not walk out on me like this.’

      ‘What is there to explain?’ she tossed over her shoulder. ‘Everything is as clear as tap water. You’ve been using me; it’s as simple as that. You’ve wanted a girl to satisfy your basic male urges until you get back to your true love. I feel sorry for her, do you know that? I wonder if she knows what type of man it is she’s going to marry.’

      ‘Do you really think I would behave so badly?’ His dark eyes were cold, his whole body rigid.

      ‘Yes, I do,’ she yelled. ‘I not only think it, there’s proof in your father’s letter. Goodbye, Alejandro.’ She slammed the door and marched along the corridor, running down the steps and through the hotel grounds to the street. Not until she was long out of sight of the building did she slow down, but it was not until she reached the refuge of her bed-sitter that she let her tears fall.

      Never had she felt so humiliated. She really had thought that she meant something to him. Her sister had been right. If only she had listened, if only she hadn’t let herself get so deeply emotionally involved.

      For two days Tanya did not leave her flat. Her face was so swollen by crying that she was too embarrassed to go to work, and she didn’t even care whether she lost her job. Life was hell all of a sudden.

      To begin with she had thought that Alejandro would contact her, that he would come round and explain everything, declare his love, say his father was mistaken, but she heard nothing, and the two days turned into a week, a week of intense misery. When she could stand it no longer she swallowed her pride and marched round to the hotel. It couldn’t just end like this; she wouldn’t let it. Maybe he had been right and she wrong. Maybe he had written to Juanita. Maybe she ought to give him the benefit of the doubt.

      The news that he had gone back to Tenerife paralysed her, the shock of it almost greater than discovering that he had another girl. He had gone without a word, without trying to patch things up between them. It was over, all over, and when her sister announced that she had accepted a job as under-manager in a new, though relatively small hotel in Sheffield, Tanya readily accepted the invitation to go and live with her.

      Several months went by, during which time Tanya gradually came back to life, settled down in a new job as a junior secretary with a computer software company, and resolutely pushed Alejandro out of her mind.

      Until the day Charlene came home with the news that she had heard Alejandro was married. Tanya’s mouth fell open and she felt as though someone had kicked her legs from beneath her. She dropped on to the nearest chair. ‘To Juanita?’ she managed to whisper.

      Charlene nodded. ‘I’m so sorry, Tan. But I thought it best you knew. Now you’ll be able to get on with your life, accept some of those dates that you keep refusing.’

      ‘But how—how did you find out?’ Tanya’s blue eyes were wide and troubled, her face pale.

      ‘I got talking to one of the guests who hailed from Tenerife. I happened to mention Alejandro, and strangely enough he knew him—or at least he knew of him.’

      Tanya swallowed hard. ‘How long ago did he get married?’

      Charlene shrugged. ‘I don’t know; he didn’t say.’

      So that definitely was the end of it, thought Tanya, as she lay in bed that night. Not even to herself had she admitted that she always hoped he might come back, that he would trace her and declare his love for her. Now there was no chance, none at all. It was definitely the end.

      She still found it difficult to believe that he had been so warm and loving towards her when all the time there had been another girl in the background. She really had thought he was genuinely in love with her; she had never dreamt that it was all a game to him.

      After this further blow to her pride Tanya decided that she had stayed in long enough. She would go out on dates, enjoy male company, but she would never, ever, let herself become involved again. She would be like her sister, a dedicated career woman.

      All went well until two years later when she met Peter. He was warm and wonderful and kind, and she fell in love. It was nothing like her love for Alejandro; this was a much gentler relationship, with none of the passion and hunger that had so inflamed her body, sent her soaring with the stars and flying with the eagles. But nevertheless she was content, and twelve months later they were married. Three years after that Peter died from a long and serious illness. Tanya was devastated. At the age of twenty-four she had suffered two terrible losses.

      It took her time to pull herself together, but she managed it, and when she applied for promotion, and got the job of PA to the managing director of the software company, she put her heart and soul into her work, not minding that John Drake asked her to work long hours, that sometimes she dropped into bed so exhausted that she was sure she wouldn’t wake with the alarm the next morning. But always she did, and somehow she survived.

      When Charlene announced that she’d been offered a job running a large hotel in Tenerife Tanya could not believe the irony of it. Mention of Alejandro’s native country brought painful memories back, and wild horses wouldn’t drag her out there with her sister, although Charlene had done her best to persuade her.

      ‘I have my own house now. I’m settled here; I like it,’ Tanya insisted.

      ‘And I suppose you’re trying to tell me it has nothing to do with Alejandro Vazquez,’ taunted Charlene.

      ‘No, I’m not; it has everything to do with him. There’s no way I want to meet that man again.’

      ‘You’re still hung up over him?’ Charlene frowned. ‘I thought all that had died when you married Peter. You haven’t mentioned him for years.’

      ‘He was my first love,’ announced Tanya quietly. ‘I’ll never forget him.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      CHARLENE took a few days off work to show Tanya around, and there was far too much to see and enthuse over to worry herself about Alejandro, although she privately wished her sister hadn’t torn up his card. Even though she would never, ever get in touch with him she was curious to know where he lived.

      Señora Guerra was a dressmaker, with the reputation of being the finest one on the island, and with the start of Tenerife’s annual carnaval only two weeks away she was busy finishing off the many costumes she had been asked to make. There was a constant stream of visitors to the house, all eagerly trying on and picking up their costumes. One room had been set aside for this purpose, and it was like an Aladdin’s cave, filled with richly coloured fabrics, beads, sequins, feathers, each costume taking hours and hours of painstaking work to complete.

      Tanya liked dressmaking herself and took a keen interest in all that was going on, and very often Señora Guerra—or Matilde, as she asked to be called—invited Tanya to see the dresses actually being tried on.

      When a dark red, open-topped Mercedes pulled up outside one afternoon Tanya thought nothing of it, until she recognised the driver and his companion. Alejandro and his wife! It could not be! And yet it was. She could hardly believe her bad luck. Already she had told Matilde that she would like to see this particular dress tried on. There was no escape.

      Her heart began to race at double-quick time, but as she watched from her window she saw Alejandro drive away, leaving his wife to walk alone into the house. It was a bitter sort of relief.