The Last Illusion. Diana Hamilton
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Название: The Last Illusion
Автор: Diana Hamilton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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‘Is that so? Maybe I should have asked Ignacia to teach you how to scrub floors.’
The sultry look was back in his eyes. It did things to her. And she couldn’t bear it!
She looked away quickly, watching the vapor from Puerto appear through the last few remaining wisps of mist that hung over the bay as she willed the too rapid beats of her heart to slow down to normal. Hitching the narrow leather strap of her bag higher on her shoulder, she said coolly, ‘Shouldn’t you be at work or something? Don’t let me detain you.’ She had never been able to detain him before; he had spent the majority of his time chained to his desk. Except when Olivia had been around, of course.
But she wasn’t going to remind him of that. She would never mention that woman’s name to him again. And Sebastian denied smoothly, ‘I have taken a holiday.’
As far as she knew today wasn’t a public holiday, with carnival or fiesta an excuse for everything to shut down. But he definitely wasn’t dressed for the office. She couldn’t see him sitting behind his huge desk wearing that sleeveless black body-hugging T-shirt and those casual white lightweight trousers.
‘How nice. Do enjoy your day, won’t you?’ Charley swept off along the Avenida del Puerto, braving the thunderous traffic, her brisk stride echoing, she hoped, the tart finality of her words. No way was she prepared to spend the day with him, or even a part of it. She had made up her mind that the best way to deal with the coming four weeks was to keep well out of his way, to think of him and of the past as little as possible.
‘I have taken far more than one day.’ His voice was as smooth as honeyed cream, and Charley flinched as his big hand shot out to drag her away from the rapidly approaching wheels of a great snarling truck. ‘Four weeks, to be exact.’
‘Hell!’ Charley closed her eyes as she leant weakly back against him, her body melding into his as if it belonged. If he was going to hound her for the whole of that time she would probably go mad!
His naked arm slid around her tiny waist, his fingers splayed warmly across her ribcage. She wondered distractedly if he could feel the frantic hammer beats of her heart and knew that he must have done, but had misinterpreted the cause of the fluster, when he said silkily, ‘Allow me to guide you. I would hate to think my presence had driven you to prefer suicide under wheels of a juggernaut.’
Sarcastic lump of hatefulness! Charley fumed as he expertly dodged the wild flow of traffic and finally deposited her neatly on the edge of the Plaza Sevilla.
‘Coffee?’ he asked, one brow lifting urbanely. ‘Or perhaps you need something stronger.’
‘Let’s stop fooling around,’ Charley snapped out, small hands flapping at him, brushing him away. Enough was enough. ‘I don’t need you to see me over the road. I don’t need you to buy coffee or tag along. In short—’ big amber eyes glared behind sheltering dark lenses, the line of her mouth very determined ‘—I don’t need you at all.’
‘Oh, but you do,’ he contradicted, his teeth white against the tanned olive tones of his skin. ‘You need my agreement to the divorce you’re so suddenly anxious to get.’ He smiled, but there was no humour in it. Just naked aggression.
Charley scowled right back at him. As she had decided moments earlier, enough was enough, and she conceded honestly, her hands slicing sideways impatiently, ‘I stand corrected. I do need you for that. But I can’t understand why you should insist I stay here. And neither,’ she tacked on tartly, ‘does Greg.’
If she had hoped that by bringing her next husband into the discussion she could get him to admit that his bargaining position was as ridiculous as it was pointless she was disappointed, because all he said was, ‘Good. At last you are willing to talk. Perhaps even to think things through. Come, let us walk.’
She had no clear idea of where they were going and only the haziest notion of why she was still at his side as they slipped from one narrow street to another. The only thing she knew for sure was that to do as he said in this respect was easier than picking a fight. He was quite capable of forcing her to go with him.
But even he wasn’t capable of forcing her to ‘think things through’—as he kept suggesting. He might be able to control her physical movements for the next month, but he couldn’t control what was going on inside her head. And why should she dredge up the past, with all its grief and pain? It was over, and thinking of what had happened, and why it had happened, would be pointless.
Only when they emerged into the brilliant sunlight did she stop grumbling away inside her head. They had come to the Campo del Sur, the broad walkway on the city’s southern limits, the blue waters of the Atlantic washing against white stones and, looming above them, the awesome Baroque block of the cathedral, its golden dome glittering in the white light reflected from the whitewashed buildings.
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