Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

expect you’re going to tell me whether I ask you or not.’

      ‘I found something out today.’ Sofia heard the wobble in her voice and anchored herself firmly back in the reality of what she was dealing with—a guy who, in the end, cared so little for her that he hadn’t seen fit to tell her about what had probably been the biggest thing in his life to date.

      Had it been a happy marriage? Sad? Disappointing? Something in between all three? How long had it lasted? Had it been love at first sight? What had she looked like? What had happened in the end?

      She had asked David none of those questions, had not wanted to know any details at all except the ones that came from Rafael. Was she overreacting? She didn’t think she was, although some might. As far as she was concerned, this revelation felt like the summing up of everything she’d feared—that this wonderful, complex, infuriating, adorable and strangely vulnerable man felt no real attachment to her. Yes, he wanted her, but that was never going to be enough. And, yes, he liked her well enough but that didn’t touch the surface of what she wanted him to feel. She’d been greedy and this was the price she was now having to pay.

      The truth was that, if he had had the connection with her that she had with him, he would have confided in her, slotted in that piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was such an important part of the whole picture. That was how relationships worked, wasn’t it? Had she found out sooner about this, maybe it would have been different. She might have been able to ease it into the conversation and excuse his reticence on the grounds that they were still finding a way forward with one another, still learning to have a relationship within the confines of their convenient marriage. But to find out when she thought that what they had was something special was truly painful.

      ‘David mentioned that you’ve been married once before.’ She didn’t bother beating about the bush.

      The silence settled between them, suffocating and dense, becoming more and more uncomfortable with each passing second. The shutters had snapped down and his expression, his stunning dark eyes that had warmed when they rested on her, were as remote now as the cold, grey waters of a wintry sea.

      ‘He thought I would have known,’ she laboured on. ‘Of course, that was the first I was hearing of any such thing. I didn’t ask for details. I... I couldn’t. I thought those details would be better coming from you.’

      Rafael’s gaze narrowed, his lean, darkly handsome face betraying immediate and instinctive rejection of what he viewed as a blunt battering ram aimed against his privacy. Things had been going so well between them that this felt like an attack out of the blue and, as with all attacks, his initial reaction was to repel. Taut with frustrated tension, he was at a loss as to the direction he should take, but the mere thought of having to explain himself to her or to anyone was like a drawbridge being slammed down.

      Some things had the power to change the course of a person’s life and his brief and disastrous marriage had been one of those things. He’d been a fool, had been sucked in by a gold-digger and had managed to get out of it in one piece. End of story. Being called upon to revisit that intensely disillusioning and personal slice of his past evoked a primitive, negative response and a searing resentment that the matter had been raised at all. Gut reaction bypassed common sense.

      ‘What do you want me to say, Sofia? It was something that happened. That was then and this is now and I don’t see the relevance of digging into the past.’

      ‘You don’t see the relevance of digging into the past?’ Sofia exploded, storming towards him, every nerve in her body reacting with rage at his casual dismissal of something she considered perfectly reasonable. She had had a couple of hours to think the thing through and there was now a seething mass of hurt and pain roiling inside her. Casual dismissal of what she was feeling just wasn’t going to cut it.

      ‘We’re sleeping together, Rafael! I think a certain amount of meaningful conversation is to be expected!’

      Rafael clenched his fists, fighting down the urge to reach out, pull her towards him and sort things out the most effective way he knew how. Face to face, naked body pressed against naked body, his mouth on hers, silencing all those intrusive questions he was not inclined to answer.

      For a few seconds, something rushed through him, a hesitation that was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was unsettling, disconcerting. Why, he wondered, was he so anchored in a desire for privacy? She was making a simple enough request that required a simple enough answer. Where was the harm in relenting? He remembered Gemma and the unravelling of juvenile dreams—remembered what it felt like to know that someone was using you. He’d made sure to protect himself from ever going down that road again. He’d made himself invulnerable. As far as he was concerned, confession was never good for the soul.

      Never. Age-old defences and behaviour patterns killed all uncomfortable hesitation stone-dead.

      ‘There’s nothing to tell, Sofia. It happened and I just don’t see the value in dredging it up. Things didn’t work out between us. I was young, too young to see the pitfalls. Unfortunately.’

      ‘That’s it?’

      ‘What do you mean?’ He frowned, incredulous that another onslaught might be in the making.

      One sentence! The briefest of explanations! Plus it had been like drawing blood from a stone.

      It didn’t matter whether he found it hard to discuss feelings or whether he’d put the past to bed and wasn’t interested in resurrecting it. The fact was that she was owed more than this. Furthermore, if she accepted this and overlooked it, she would set a precedent that could never be broken—a precedent of always having to keep quiet about anything troublesome he might not be interested in hearing.

      Even if he yielded sufficiently to want longer together, even if he admitted that there was more to their relationship than convenience and sex, was this the sort relationship she was after? For herself? Long-term?

      ‘Nothing. I don’t mean anything.’ She swerved away and clattered around for a few seconds, getting her thoughts together. Calm was settling over her.

      She wasn’t going to rant and rave. She heated the food in silence and was dimly aware of him sitting at the table, watching her, dark eyes alert, speculative. But notably he wasn’t going near any more thorny issues. It seemed that awkward silence was a lot more comfortable than questions he didn’t want to answer.

      ‘You’re not eating.’ He stated the obvious when there was a plate of food in front of him. ‘Are you sulking?’ He pushed the plate away from him and sat back, hands linked on his chest, watching her in a way that could still set her pulses racing even though she couldn’t have been angrier or more miserable than she was just at the moment.

      Sofia thought it typical of Rafael to reduce her very valid concerns to a simple case of sulking.

      ‘Sofia.’ He raked his hands through his hair and vaulted upright, prowling towards her so that she backed away until she was pressed up against the counter, at which point she resolutely folded her arms, forming a barrier between them, and stared at him. His eyes were a hot spot so she looked a bit lower, only to realise that his mouth was also a hot spot. She gazed past his shoulder and tried to remain neutral and stony-faced.

      ‘You haven’t eaten,’ was all Rafael could find to say.

      ‘I’ve lost my appetite. Rafael, I think I need to take time out on...on us. On this.’

      ‘What?’

      His expression would have been comical if she had been in the mood for laughing.

      ‘I’m going to go upstairs.’ Stunned silence. ‘To pack.’

      ‘Sofia, is all this about me not wanting to wallow in long explanations about a relationship I had a lifetime ago? Jesus, this is ridiculous!’

      ‘I don’t want to listen to this. You don’t have to talk about your past, Rafael, but likewise I don’t have to put up with your silence on the subject.’

      ‘You’re