A Virgin For Vasquez. Cathy Williams

and hard, that if he ever clapped eyes on her again it would be too soon... That if their paths were ever to cross again she should remember that he would never forget and he would never forgive...

      She shivered and licked her lips, resisting the urge to sneak a glance over her shoulder just to make sure that he wasn’t looming behind her like an avenging angel.

      ‘What exactly did you tell him, Ollie?’

      ‘The truth.’ He looked at his twin defensively. ‘I told him that the company hit the buffers and we’re struggling to make ends meet, what with all the money that ex of yours blew on stupid ventures that crashed and burned. He bankrupted the company and took us all down with him.’

      ‘Dad allowed him to make those investments, Oliver.’

      ‘Dad...’ His voice softened. ‘Dad wasn’t in the right place to stop him, sis. We both know that. Roger got away with everything because Dad was sick and getting sicker, even if we didn’t know it at the time, even if we were all thinking that Mum was the one we had to worry about.’

      Tears instantly sprang to Sophie’s eyes. Whatever had happened, she still found it hard to blame either of her parents for the course her life had eventually taken.

      Predictably, when her parents had found out about Javier, they had been horrified. They had point-blank refused to meet him at all. As far as they were concerned, he could have stepped straight out of a leper colony.

      Their appalled disapproval would have been bad enough but, in the wake of their discovery, far more than Sophie had ever expected had come to the surface, rising to the top like scum to smother the comfortable, predictable lifestyle she had always taken for granted.

      Financial troubles. The company had failed to move with the times. The procedures employed by the company were cumbersome and time-consuming but the financial investment required to bring everything up to date was too costly. The bank had been sympathetic over the years as things had deteriorated but their patience was wearing thin. They wanted their money returned to them.

      Her father, whom she had adored, had actually buried his head in his hands and cried.

      At the back of her mind, Sophie had stifled a spurt of anger at the unfairness of being the one lumbered with these confidences while her brother had continued to enjoy himself on the other side of the world in cheerful, ignorant bliss. But then Oliver had never been as serious as her, had never really been quite as responsible.

      She had always been her father’s ‘right-hand man’.

      Both her parents had told her that some foreigner blown in from foreign shores, without a penny to his name, wasn’t going to do. They were dealing with enough stress, enough financial problems, without her taking up with someone who will end up being a sponge, because you know what these foreigners can be like... The man probably figures he’s onto a good thing...

      Roger was eager to join the company and he had inherited a great deal of money when his dear parents had passed away. And hadn’t they been dating? Wasn’t he already like a member of the family?

      Sophie had been dumbstruck as her life had been sorted out for her.

      Yes, she had known Roger for ever. Yes, he was a perfectly okay guy and, sure, they had gone out for five minutes. But he wasn’t the one for her and she’d broken it off even before Javier had appeared on the scene!

      But her father had cried and she’d never seen her dad in tears before.

      She had been so confused, torn between the surging power of young love and a debt of duty towards her parents.

      Surely they wouldn’t expect her to quit university when she was only in her first year and loving it?

      But no. She’d been able to stay on, although they hoped that she would take over the company alongside Roger, who would be brought on board should they cement a union he had already intimated he was keen on.

      He was three years older than her and had experience of working for a company. He would sink money into the company, take his place on the board of directors...

      And she, Sophie had read between the lines, would have to fulfil her obligations and walk up the aisle with him.

      She hadn’t been able to credit what she had been hearing, but seeing her distraught parents, seeing their shame at having to let her down and destroy her illusions, had spoken so much more loudly and had said so much more than mere words could convey.

      Had Roger even known about any of these plans? Was that why he’d been refusing to call it quits between them even though they’d been seeing one another for only less than eight months before she had left for university? Had he already been looking to a future that involved her parents’ company?

      She had called him, arranged to see him, and had been aghast when he had told her that he knew all about her parents’ situation and was keen to do the right thing. He was in love with her, always had been...

      With no one in whom to confide, Sophie had returned to university in a state of utter confusion—and Javier had been there. She had mentioned nothing but she had allowed herself to be absorbed by him. With him, she could forget everything.

      Swept along on a heady tide of falling in love, the panic she had felt at what was happening on the home front had been dulled. Her parents had not mentioned the situation again and she had uneasily shoved it to the back of her mind.

      No news was good news. Wasn’t that what everyone said?

      She surfaced from the past to find a drink in front of her and she pushed it aside.

      ‘I’ve got another appointment to see the bank tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And we can change estate agents.’

      ‘For the fourth time?’ Oliver gave a bark of laughter and downed his drink in one gulp. ‘Face it, Soph. The way things are going, we’ll be in debt for the rest of our lives if we’re not careful. The company is losing money. The house will never sell. The bank will take it off our hands to repay our overdraft and we’ll both be left homeless. It’s not even as though we have alternative accommodation to return to. We don’t. You bailed university to get married and moved into the family pile with Roger. I may have stayed on to get my diploma, but by the time I got back here everything had changed and we were both in it together. Both here, both trying to make the company work...’ His voice had acquired the bitter, plaintive edge Sophie had come to recognise.

      She knew how this would go. He would drink away his sorrows and wake up the following morning in a blurry, sedated haze where all the problems were dulled just enough for him to get through the day.

      He was, she had been forced to accept, a weak man not made for facing the sort of situation they were now facing.

      And she hated that she couldn’t do more for him.

      He was drinking too much and she could see the train coming off the tracks if things didn’t change.

      Did she want that? Wasn’t there too much already on her conscience?

      She shut down that train of thought, shut down the deluge of unhappy memories and tried hard to focus on the few bright things in her life.

      She had her health.

      They might be struggling like mad trying not to drown but at least Mum was okay, nicely sorted in a cottage in Cornwall, far from the woes now afflicting herself and her brother.

      It might have been a rash expenditure given the dire financial circumstances, but when Gordon Griffin-Watt had tragically died, after a brief but intense period of absolute misery and suffering, it had seemed imperative to try to help Evelyn, their mother, who was herself frail and barely able to cope. Sophie had taken every spare penny she could from the scant profits of the company and sunk it all into a cottage in Cornwall, where Evelyn’s sister lived.

      It had been worth it. Her mother’s contentment was the brightest thing on the horizon, and if she was ignorant about the extent of the troubles afflicting her twins,