The Alcolar Family. Kate Walker

in on a business meeting on Friday?’

      ‘A business dinner,’ Joaquin corrected. ‘We’re taking them out to dinner in the evening—now what the hell was that look for?’

      ‘What look?’ Cassie tried to hedge, though she knew from his dark scowl that it hadn’t worked.

      He had always been able to see right through her when she tried to avoid telling him the truth. That was why she had had such a terrible time keeping the way she was feeling from him just lately. For once she had had cause to be thankful that he was a workaholic. When he was out of the house, she could let her mask slip, admit to the fears she was facing about the future.

      ‘What look?’ Joaquin echoed, lacing the words with dark mockery.

      He strode across the room towards her, catching hold of her shoulders and spinning her round so that she faced the mirror once more. When she tried to avoid looking at her own reflection, afraid of what she might see, he caught her chin firmly between hard finger and thumb and turned her face so that she couldn’t do anything else.

      ‘That look! The one that tells me I have committed some appalling sin, one for which I should beg forgiveness on my knees before you, clad in sackcloth and ashes.’

      ‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous!’

      ‘Am I?’ Joaquin questioned darkly. ‘Am I really? Look at yourself, Cassie—look!’ he commanded when she stubbornly struggled to avert her face, not wanting to meet her own eyes in the glass.

      Cassie knew what she saw—but what was it that Joaquin saw in her face? Was it really possible that he could have misinterpreted her expression? That where she saw eyes clouded by anxiety, and a face that struggled to hide the pain and fear she had lived with for days, he saw something else? Something that made him think she was angry and distant from him? That she was the one whose mood was likely to prove difficult and disruptive?

      Right now, feeling as vulnerable as she did, just the idea seemed like a welcome relief. Clearly the thought that their all-important anniversary was coming up meant little to him. Less than little—nothing at all! He’d even arranged a business meeting for the day. And wanted her to act as his employee!

      ‘Do you know what day it is on Friday?’

      His reaction was so swift, so revealing that it tore at her heart. His head went back, very slightly, his eyes narrowing. And then there was a total blanking out of his expression, all trace of anything wiped from his features so that they were as smooth and unrevealing as those of a marble statue, the dark eyes as opaque as the unseeing sockets in a carved head.

      ‘Of course I know what day it is. The day we met—a year ago.’

      ‘Then…’

      ‘Oh, I see—I’m supposed to go the whole sentimental road, am I? Flowers and chocolates?’

      He was taunting her now, provoking deliberately, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself from rising to the provocation. Besides, it was probably so much better than letting him see how devastated she really was deep inside.

      ‘Well, I’d expected something!’

      Was that cold, tight little voice really hers?

      ‘What I get is a business meeting! And, what’s more, a business meeting at which I’m supposed to be working!’

      ‘That meeting has been arranged for a long time.’

      ‘Oh, I’ll just bet it has!’

      And she should know exactly what came first in Joaquin’s mind. Business first and foremost every time. No matter what else might be involved.

      ‘And even if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t cancel it.’

      ‘No.’

      It was cold and flat and totally unmovable. Of course.

      ‘I couldn’t cancel it even if I wanted to.’

      ‘And you don’t want to.’

      ‘No.’

      Damn the woman, what had got into her lately? He never knew which Cassandra would be waiting for him when he got home. Never knew if the Cassandra who had so enchanted and enthralled him from the start would be there, or the difficult, moody, bad-tempered creature who seemed to have taken her place for the past few weeks. The first Cassandra would have understood that this meeting had been set up months ago and even if he wanted to get out of it, there was no way that he could.

      This Cassandra didn’t seem to understand very much at all. Let alone the fact that he had been working so hard lately in order to give himself some space, some time to try to get things sorted out in his mind.

      ‘Look, I know exactly what day it is on Friday—but it’s not as if we have something worth celebrating. If we’d been married it might have been different…’

      Her reaction showed how much she disliked his words. Her head went back, her face stiffening. Her eyes seemed darker, sharper, colder, and even the soft fullness of her mouth seemed to have thinned and tightened as if holding back something bitter and harsh that she really wanted to say.

      ‘Is that it?’ he demanded abruptly. ‘Is that what you want? Is it marriage you’re after?’

      If it was possible, she looked even more appalled. Horrified.

      ‘Marriage I’m… No!’

      She shook her head, sending her blonde hair flying as she emphasised the word.

      ‘No!’ she said again, tossing her brush down onto the rumpled surface of the bed to reinforce the statement. ‘No way! Never! If you’re thinking that I wanted you to go down on one knee and beg me to marry you, then think again.’

      So he’d been heading down the wrong road with thoughts like that, Joaquin admitted to himself. He didn’t know whether the feeling that rushed through him was one of relief or savage regret at the thought that he had obviously been so completely wrong. Yesterday he would have said that relief would be uppermost. Today he was not so sure.

      ‘I told you I don’t do commitment!’ he growled awkwardly.

      ‘And when did I ever ask you for any such thing?’

      ‘Then we both understand each other.’

      ‘Perfectly,’ Cassandra tossed at him, moving to the wardrobe and yanking open the door, staring fixedly inside as she decided what to wear for the day.

      ‘Bueno!’

      ‘Yes, bueno!’ she muttered into the wardrobe. ‘We’re both on the same track for once.’

      Now relief was very definitely the most forceful feeling he was experiencing. Total, overwhelming, undiluted relief that he hadn’t opened himself up to her.

      He couldn’t believe that he had come so close to saying something damned stupid. Something she really didn’t want. Something like. I don’t do commitment, but for you…

      For you what?

      If he’d started that sentence, then how the hell would he have finished it?

      He didn’t know. He couldn’t even have said to himself what he felt—except that right now what he had with this woman was something he wanted to hold onto.

      For ever? He didn’t know. He didn’t believe in a forever kind of love. He might have done once—as a child, he would have said that he wanted the sort of marriage that his parents had: perfect, loving faithful. Then, when he was fifteen, he’d found out that that marriage was just an illusion. His father had been unfaithful not once, but twice. And he had a son from each relationship.

      Even worse, he had learned that the relationship that had resulted in his own birth and that of his sister had never truly been founded on love, but on duty and expediency, the need to have an heir for the family business, and hard, cold,