The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

climbed back into the car and stared along the track in the direction of the Fernandez home. She could go back to the castle and pretend that she did not know where Ramon really went on Fridays. Her mother had silently accepted her father’s affairs for most of their marriage, and for the first time Lauren truly appreciated how much Frances must have loved her husband to have tolerated a situation that was both humiliating and heartbreaking.

      The worst thing was that she was actually tempted to do as her mother had done, she realised, wiping away her tears with shaking fingers. She loved Ramon so much that the thought of losing him lacerated her heart. But she could not live a lie. She had to know the truth.

      So, heart pounding, she swung the car towards Casa Madalena.

CHAPTER TEN

      THE sight of Ramon’s Jeep parked in the courtyard of Pilar’s home made Lauren grip the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles whitened, and her legs felt weak as she walked up the front steps of the house.

      ‘Sí, Señor Velaquez is here,’ a uniformed butler confirmed when he came to the front door. ‘He is in the pool house.’

      It was obvious that the pool house was the new-looking glass-roofed building to one side of the main house. Lauren hurried across the courtyard, her heart racing with a mixture of anger and trepidation at the prospect of finding Ramon and Pilar together. No doubt the model would be wearing a skimpy bikini that showed off her stunning figure—or maybe she would be wearing nothing at all?

      Swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat, Lauren pushed open the pool house door—and came to an abrupt halt as three startled faces stared at her.

      Ramon and another man dressed in medical overalls were lifting a much older man, who could only be Cortez Fernandez, into a wheelchair.

      Lauren glanced wildly around the poolside.

      ‘Oh! I thought…Pilar…’ She trailed to a halt as she met Ramon’s narrowed gaze.

      ‘Pilar is abroad on a modelling assignment. What did you think, Lauren?’ he queried in a hard tone—and in that moment she knew that she had made a dreadful mistake.

      ‘I thought…’ She swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry for my intrusion,’ she mumbled to the elderly man, who was now sitting in the wheelchair. He shook his grey head and gave her a faint smile.

      ‘It is I who should apologise, for stealing so much of Ramon’s time,’ he said in Spanish. ‘I should have known that a new bride would want to be with her husband.’

      The nurse wheeled Cortez away, and Lauren bit her lip as she watched Ramon stride towards her. His wet swim-shorts moulded his muscular thighs, and droplets of water clung to the whorls of dark hairs that covered his chest. The sight of his near naked body made Lauren feel weak for a very different reason.

      He hadn’t been cheating on her with Pilar. Relief overwhelmed her. But when he halted in front of her she sensed his anger and met his gaze warily.

      ‘What did you expect to find when you rushed in here, Lauren?’ he asked quietly, his voice suddenly sounding curiously bleak.

      ‘Pilar said… Well, no, implied…’ she corrected herself honestly. ‘That you spent every Friday afternoon with her. I had put it out of my mind until today, when I went to the vineyard to give you your phone and discovered that you had lied about inspecting the estate, and in actual fact you came here every week.’

      Ramon exhaled heavily. ‘I do come every week. Cortez suffered a stroke six months ago, which left him unable to walk. His doctor suggested that he should swim regularly, to help strengthen the muscles in his legs, but the stroke left him feeling so depressed that he seemed to be giving up on life. Pilar asked for my help. I have always been good friends with Cortez, and I persuaded him to swim with me every week. But he is a proud man, who hates his disability, and when he asked me not to discuss his therapy with anyone I felt that I should respect his wish.’

      Shame washed over Lauren and she dropped her gaze.

      Ramon stared at her downbent head and did not know whether he wanted to kiss her or shake her. At this moment the latter seemed more tempting.

      He inhaled sharply. ‘How could you think that I was in any way involved with Pilar?’ he demanded savagely. ‘I have never given you any reason to doubt my commitment to our marriage.’

      He hadn’t, Lauren admitted, guilt gnawing at her insides. It had been her and her wretched insecurity that had driven her to think the worst of him. ‘Pilar deliberately put doubts in my mind,’ she muttered. ‘I think she hoped to make trouble between us.’

      ‘She seems to have succeeded,’ Ramon said tersely. He swung away from her and snatched up a towel. ‘I can’t help feeling that you are always going to punish me for your father’s sins.’

      Lauren gave him a startled look. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘You don’t trust me. And I’m not sure our marriage can survive without trust. Go back to the castle,’ he ordered her roughly. ‘I am too angry to talk to you right now. I usually play a game of chess with Cortez—and, in case you’re wondering, the only female around will be his housekeeper, who is about ninety-three,’ he finished sardonically.

      Ramon did not return for dinner. A member of the castle staff informed Lauren that he had phoned to say he would be dining with Cortez Fernandez. Clearly he was still angry with her, and she could not blame him, she thought miserably as eleven p.m. came and went and he still had not come home. But his explosive tempers did not usually last for long, and, hopeful that they would soon make up after this latest row, she took a bath and afterwards anointed her skin with fragrant oil, before donning the daring black negligee she had bought to please him.

      She owed him an apology, she acknowledged as she sat alone on the huge four-poster bed and studied the portrait of Matty that Ramon had commissioned for her. It now hung on the wall, so that it was the first thing she saw when she woke every morning. Even if he did not love her the way she loved him, he had proved over and over that he cared about her and respected her—and she had repaid him with doubt and mistrust that threatened to undermine their marriage.

      Racked with guilt, she paced around the bedroom and finally pulled on her robe, intending to wait for him downstairs so that she could greet him when he came home—if he ever did, she thought painfully.

      She was shocked to see a light spilling from beneath the door of his study, and after giving a hesitant knock she entered the room. He was sprawled on the sofa, his jacket and tie discarded in a heap on the floor, a glass of whisky in his hand—not the first glass he had drunk, she guessed, glancing at the half-empty bottle on the coffee table.

      ‘I…I didn’t realise you were back,’ she said shakily, when he turned his head and stared at her through bloodshot eyes.

      ‘Where else would I be, my darling wife?’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Don’t answer that. I’m sure your fertile imagination can come up with a dozen scenarios, featuring me sleeping with one of the many mistresses that you seem to think I have stashed away.’

      ‘I am truly sorry that I doubted you,’ Lauren said in a low tone. ‘I had no reason to mistrust you. It was just… when you weren’t at the vineyards, as I had expected, I thought about all the times my father must have lied to my mother—all his affairs that I knew nothing about when I was a child, but which broke her heart. For a few stupid minutes I thought that you were like him, but I know that you’re not,’ she choked, swallowing the tears that suddenly clogged her throat.

      Ramon drained his glass and stood up, moving away from her to stand by the window that looked over the dark castle grounds and the shadowy mountains beyond.

      ‘I should never have forced you to marry me,’ he said abruptly. ‘I can see now that it was a mistake.’

      Fear greater than anything