Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Passionate Bargains. Michelle Smart

away, which had no doubt explained Marta’s low inhibitions.

      Raul had really taken care of her that night, she remembered. In the morning he’d handed her a glass of water and a couple of painkillers without a word of reproach, then climbed back into bed and held her, making sure not to squeeze her too tightly.

      The tender memories sent a jolt through her.

      Sometimes it was easy to only remember the bad stuff but there had been good times too, especially at the beginning.

      Watching him now, chatting with his mother, she noticed the physical distance he kept between them. There was respect there but little affection.

      After a few minutes of small talk, the wide dining-room door opened and Eduardo Cazorla, Raul’s father, was wheeled through.

      He looked exactly the same as when she’d last seen him, the left side of his face sagged and his hands arranged for him on his lap. Only his eyes, the same blue as his son and daughter’s, showed any sign of life, letting you know that behind his infirmity lay a mind as sharp as the day the stroke had robbed him of his body.

      When he caught sight of Charley, his eyes flickered to Raul, who did nothing but stare at his father with an expression that sent a shiver running up her spine. Goosebumps broke on her skin to see the same expression mirrored in his father’s eyes.

      Lucetta broke the ice, strolling to her husband and speaking to him in Spanish, her words too fast for Charley to understand anything but the gist of it, which seemed to be something along the lines of, ‘Raul and Charley are back together.’ As she explained the situation the butler entered the room to announce that dinner was ready.

      Charley was placed opposite Raul and next to Marta, Lucetta next to her son. Eduardo sat in his usual place at the head of the table, his nurse, a young, dark-haired woman, by his side feeding him.

      Seven courses were served in total. That was nothing; if Lucetta hosted a ‘proper’ dinner party, a minimum of a dozen courses would be served. They started with gazpacho, which was followed by calamares en su tinta, squid in their own ink, which was far tastier than it sounded. As they ate, Raul, as he always did at these family meals, gave them a rundown on what was happening with the family business, the staff he had hired or fired, the hotel he’d closed for decontamination after an outbreak of the norovirus, the profit from the air fleet that was almost double the projected estimate...

      And as he spoke, his words washing over her, Charley noticed how it all seemed to be aimed at his infirm father. And, for the first time, she noticed the challenge in the tone of his voice.

      Because this was surely how he had always spoken to him. She’d just never noticed before how barbed his tone was or how pointed his stance.

      For the first time it occurred to her that the Cazorlas, for all their outward respectability, were as dysfunctional as her own family.

      There was Lucetta, the pillar of society.

      Eduardo, the infirm head of the house.

      Marta, the daughter with a mischievous streak that only came to the forefront when away from the stifling presence of her mother.

      And Raul. The man who had to be the best at everything.

      It was like observing a cleverly crafted game of manners in which everyone wore masks that hid anything resembling real emotion.

      After a two-year absence from this table, it was as if Charley had sat down with a brand-new pair of eyes.

      During her marriage she’d always felt intimidated in this house, terrified one of them would point a finger at her and expose her for being an imposter that no amount of expensive clothing or cosmetics could hide. Her fear had left her blind to what surrounded her.

      The past two years had been a chance for her to find herself again and, no matter what happened in the future, she was determined never to lose herself again.

       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