The Last Illusion. Diana Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ both wanted to have some day, because he was steady and sensible and he respected her, and allowed her to respect herself, and would never, ever try to overwhelm her. He wouldn’t know how to begin. So she said baldly, ‘None of your business. The only thing that need concern us is the ending of our marriage.’ She finished the wine in her glass, congratulating herself on putting him in his place. And, just to let him know that he needn’t think he’d got the upper hand just because she’d agreed to stay, she pronounced airily, ‘I might decide to leave in the morning. I could always file for a legal separation.’

      ‘Which would take twelve months, leaving you no better off than you are now—without my formal agreement to a divorce,’ he pointed out drily. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. You’re no more in love with your accountant than I am.’ He refilled her glass, right to the brim, and she knotted her brows at him.

      ‘Clairvoyant, are you? How can you possibly know what I feel—?’

      ‘I know far more than you give me credit for, mi esposa.’ His voice had the cutting edge of steel. ‘You may wonder what you are doing here, why I should allow you within miles of my home. Let me tell you...’ Lean fingers beat softly against white damask. ‘You once accused me of a deed so shameful that I vowed to have revenge, to make you, too, taste the kind of pain that turns the soul to iron. That is why I had you watched, had your every movement reported back to me.’

      Silenced, Charley stared into the glowing darkness of his eyes, her mouth going dry. Revenge was a hateful word, walking down the years, biding its time, waiting for the right, the most devastating opportunity. Was that why she was here now, neatly trapped in this elegant, sumptuous web?

      And she had walked right into it. But she wasn’t afraid. Why should she be? He could do nothing to her except make her wait for another year before she could be completely rid of him.

      Her eyes never wavering, she gave a tiny shrug and twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers. ‘Bully-boy tactics don’t suit you, Sebastian.’ Then she took the fight right back to him. ‘I accused you of two shameful deeds, or had you forgotten? Which one of the two made you throw your money away on the expense of having me watched? Killing your own brother, or carrying on your affair with Olivia after we were married?’

      He ignored her taunts, merely watched her. His half-hooded eyes boring into hers as if he could reach right into her soul, his fingers stilled now, lamplight playing on those darkly beautiful features, making a shifting, unreadable mask of them, a mask she suddenly ached to tear away with frenzied fingers.

      She was beginning to shake inside. He alone could make her do that. But she wasn’t going to let him have that effect on her. She wouldn’t tolerate it. She lifted her glass to her lips and swallowed, and reminded him coldly, ‘If you recall, you didn’t refute either accusation. Because you couldn’t?’ If, at the time, he had even attempted to, she would have been only too happy to listen, pathetically eager to believe whatever he said, even then, even after Olivia had told her the truth. She had been bewitched by him.

      But he had said nothing, not a single word to defend himself against either accusation.

      ‘Did I need to?’ Inflexible Gaditano pride spiked every syllable, and his eyes were coldly expressionless as he leaned back into the shadows. ‘I think the fact that you came here in person, instead of putting your request through a solicitor, speaks for itself.’ His velvet voice dropped, softening hypnotically, sending shivers down her spine. ‘Had you really believed me capable of the shameful deed of murder, you would not have come near me—let alone agreed to stay with me. That tells me you didn’t believe, even then.’ White teeth gleamed suddenly against the shadowy darkness of his face. ‘Therefore, what really sent you scurrying away, back to England, where you mistakenly thought you could forget me, was the belief that I went to Olivia’s bed. You were too much of a child then to cope with that kind of jealousy, to think it through.’

      He stood up, pushing back his chair, looking pagan in the drifting, shadowy lamplight. ‘You are a child no longer; the appeal is still there, but enhanced by excitement. You have become an opponent worthy of my steel. Is that not so?’

      He came nearer and she stood up quickly, willing the shakiness out of her legs, managing a commendably wobble-free voice as she pushed her chin in the air and argued, ‘We have nothing to fight about, not any more,’ absolutely unprepared for his softly spoken,

      ‘Surely you see the battle that emerges? But don’t be afraid—it will reach a successful conclusion.’ A lean hand cupped her elbow as he escorted her inside. ‘May I suggest that you give some thought to what I have said? It would ensure that victory comes more quickly. I grow impatient, querida. I have waited too long. However...’ His shrug was almost too graceful to be borne. ‘Some women, like some wines, take longer than others to mature. It is a process that can’t be hurried, yet the results are worth waiting for.’

      CHAPTER THREE

      IN THE past, Charley had never tired of looking out over the deep water harbour with its crane-spiked waterfront teeming with tugs, ferries, merchant ships and cruise liners, but this morning she really wasn’t seeing anything.

      Like a coward, she had crept out of the house very early and had wandered her way through the web of narrow streets until thirst had driven her into a bar for coffee, and after that she’d found herself at the harbour without even consciously aiming her feet in that direction.

      And now the sun was burning the mist from the water and the inside of her head felt as if it were full of unravelled knitting, because she’d spent a wakeful, restless night doing her best to avoid thinking over what Sebastian had said.

      In his typical lordly fashion he had instructed her to think over what he had said concerning her reasons for leaving him in the first place, her own supposed lack of belief in the most damning of the two accusations she’d hurled at him.

      Well, she wasn’t going to! The time for soul-searching was long gone. Her marriage to Sebastian was over in all but name, and a contented future with Greg lay just around the corner. And that was the way she wanted it. Yes, most certainly, that was the way she wanted it!

      Aware that she was squinting against the rapidly increasing glare of the sun, she fished her dark glasses out of her bag and slid them on to her nose. And from right behind her Sebastian said, ‘What a surprise,’ his tone very dry.

      Charley froze. And, without turning, she asked crossly, ‘What are you doing here?’

      Did he have his spies out, even here? Or had he followed her himself, a silent, watchful shadow, dogging her footsteps? Like Nemesis. But the dryness increased until his voice was utterly withering as he reminded her, ‘I had business at the harbour. I visit frequently. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten.’

      ‘Totally,’ she lied contentiously, and turned to face him, feeling, quite insanely, much more relaxed. She had never so much as bent the truth in the past, never argued, had always been anxious to please, slavishly devoted. Giving as good as she got was fun, she decided, her sparkling amber eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

      Of course she remembered his frequent visits to the offices at the commercial docks, the times she had walked this way on the off-chance of seeing him, wondering if he would be in this area or in the Machado office block on the outskirts of the city. He had rarely spoken about his work, probably seeing her as too flea-brained to be interested in the export empire that had been started by his grandfather.

      But whenever Olivia had come out to Cadiz he’d СКАЧАТЬ