The Alcolar Family. Kate Walker

his younger sister Mercedes, who could get away with it.

      Normally she was more than happy to provoke him if she felt he needed it, determinedly rebelling against that autocratic assumption that he had only to speak to be obeyed. But not today. Not now. Not with that all-important anniversary coming up fast and Joaquin’s mood so uncertain.

      ‘You’re early! I wasn’t expecting you for an hour or more.’

      And she didn’t sound too pleased about it, Joaquin reflected inwardly, knowing that this was one of the reasons that had brought him home so unexpectedly. Cassandra had changed recently. Changed in ways he didn’t understand or like, and he’d hoped that by catching her unawares he might have a chance at finding out just what was going on in her mind.

      ‘The meeting reached the decision I wanted far sooner than I had anticipated. And I have plenty of work to do on the next project so I decided to take advantage of the fact and come home.’

      His concentration had been shot anyway. His mind hadn’t been on the matter in hand and so he’d brought the meeting to an abrupt halt and headed out to his car as soon as he could. He suspected he’d broken a couple of speed limits on his way back too.

      ‘Why does that surprise you? Do you have a guilty conscience about something?’

      ‘What? No. Of course not.’

      It sounded disturbingly edgy. Her voice rose and fell in an unnatural way, making her sound as if she had something to hide.

      ‘It’s just that you said you wouldn’t be back until seven.’

      ‘Because I didn’t expect to be. I also didn’t think that you’d complain.’

      ‘I’m not complaining.’

      She’d been like this for a couple of weeks now, growing sharper and more unpredictable with each day that passed. And nothing made her smile as she had once smiled so readily. Nothing pleased her.

      That was, nothing but their time in bed. That at least hadn’t lost its appeal. If anything, his appetite seemed to have grown stronger, more passionate—though there was less of the true lover in Cassandra. A lot less of the seductive, enticing lover, and much more of an urgent demand that shook him with its intensity.

      Something had gone out of their relationship and left it all the poorer for its absence.

      ‘I’m not complaining—it’s just unexpected.’

      She had reached the top of the stairs now, looking down at where he stood at the bottom, feet planted firmly on the terracotta tiles of the hall floor, dark head tilted back so that he could look up at her.

      Even from this perspective, a position that would have foreshortened and distorted a lesser man, he was imposing and forcefully stunning in a way that rocked her already precarious composure, notching her heartbeat up a pace, making her blood throb in her veins.

      Hair as black as a raven’s wing, worn slightly long at the neck, matched exactly the jet darkness of his eyes. His skin was deep olive satin, tanned even more by the burning sun in this part of Jerez. He was unusually tall for a Spaniard, his height revealing his Andalusian ancestry, and the broad chest, narrow waist and long, powerful legs of his strong, lean body were sensuously enhanced by the superb tailoring of his pale grey suit, the white shirt underneath worn with a silvery silk tie.

      The tie he had tugged loose at the throat, of course. Joaquin Alcolar might be accustomed to wearing the conventional uniform of the successful businessman when he had to, but as soon as he got home he would abandon the sophisticated veneer. He’d discard the tailored jacket, unfasten the tie and the top couple of buttons of his shirt, and transform himself from the powerful managing director into something much less formal and constrained, appearing so much more rakish, more potently virile.

      ‘When the meeting finished early I decided that I could get more done at home than I could in the office.’

      ‘You’ve come home to work, then?’

      It shouldn’t hurt. She knew what he was like. But it did sting smartly just the same.

      ‘I would have thought you’d be pleased.’

      ‘I am.’

      She sounded as if she had forced herself to say it, Joaquin reflected, the uneasy, irritated mood in which he had arrived home growing by the second. And what was she doing hovering up there at the top of the stairs when she should be coming down here, into his arms?

      That was what he wanted. But just lately what he wanted and what Cassandra wanted had been totally separate things. The warm spontaneity that had taken him so much by storm had vanished, leaving in its place a cool constraint that jarred unpleasantly.

      ‘If this is pleased, then I don’t think I’d like to see you disappointed. You look almost as if you have something to hide. What is it, querida? Do you have a lover hidden away upstairs? Someone you don’t want me to see?’

      He meant it to be light, joking, but his inner feelings added a darker edge that made it seem more like an attack than he had intended.

      ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’

      She was on the step just above him now, looking down into his eyes, and he saw the faintest flicker of something in their depths that made his hackles rise as her blue gaze clashed with his much darker one.

      ‘Why would I want a lover?’

      ‘Why indeed? Don’t I keep you busy enough?’

      This was her cue to move into his arms, to press the softness of her cheek against the dark-shadowed skin of his, and to wind her own arms around him as she snuggled close.

      To distract him from the uneasy, uncomfortable path his thoughts had been following for far too long now.

      ‘Cassandra?’

      There it was again, that sudden unexplained smokiness in the normally brilliant blue eyes, making him want to grab at her arms, shake them, shake her into saying what was wrong. If anything was wrong. Because he was sure there was something.

      ‘Of course you do.’

      Her smile was a disturbing on-off flash, withdrawn and meaningless, no real warmth in it at all.

      ‘More than busy.’

      And at last she bent and kissed him. But it was only the brush of her lips against his cheek. There and then gone—as elusive as her mood had been so often recently.

      And there was that damn smile again. A smile that was not a smile. A smile that said that her thoughts were somewhere else entirely. Not with him at all.

      He hated the way that made him feel.

      The next minute she had come down the final step, gently pushing past him as she moved into the hall, turning towards the kitchen.

      ‘I was going to make coffee. Do you want some? Or perhaps something cool. It was terribly hot when I was outside this afternoon.’

      ‘It’s no cooler now.’

      What the hell were they doing talking about the weather? He used inane conversations about the climate to while away time with people he didn’t know or like. People he couldn’t get on with. Business contacts, employees—his father!

      Not his mistress—the woman he lived with!

      ‘So not coffee, then?’

      ‘No!’

      It was not the offer of coffee or any other drink he was referring to. He couldn’t stand the way that she was walking away from him. Not looking at him. Not even addressing him face on, but tossing the remarks back over her shoulder as if she didn’t care whether he heard her or not.

      ‘No!’

      He moved after her, anger charging his strides, making them long, swift, furious. His hand came out, clamped over her upper