Felipe smiled cynically. ‘Oh, you are wanted, my love. The revenge and torture will have its moments of hedonism, I promise you. And don’t worry about Agustªn. I convinced him of your great artistic talent, but kept your others to myself. You have a number of talents, Gemma, bed being one of them, and rest assured I’ll put all of them to the test while you are here.’
‘You expect me to go to bed with you?’ she whispered in disbelief. Once his sexual honesty had excited her; now his presumptuousness struck hard and cold inside her.
‘I don’t expect it, I demand it, when and where I please.’ He took a step towards her and Gemma tensed as his hand smoothed down her cheek while she gazed up at him. Months ago that caress would have inflamed her senses instantly, but now it merely inflamed her anger. She jerked her head away from his touch.
‘Am I so abhorrent to you?’ He smiled, coldly. ‘Not for long, querida; lust like ours doesn’t dim with time. I’ll have you begging for it before I’ve finished with you.’
Maria stepped back on to the patio with Felipe’s brandy and Gemma stilled her fury till she had gone. Felipe sat down at the table across from her and swirled his brandy before swallowing it in a single draught.
Gemma forced a wan smile to her lips. ‘Needed that, did you? You’ll be a raging alcoholic before I’d consider begging you for the sex you think I so desperately need.’
A genuine smile slicked his face then. ‘This is the Gemma Soames I know nothing about—such biting hypocrisy. I like it. It makes a change from the simpering compliance I generally run up against in women.’ He shrugged his shoulders dismissively. ‘It makes no difference, just adds spice to an otherwise racing certainty.’
‘Well, I’d hedge your bets if I were you. I’m not the woman you seduced so easily six months ago——’
‘And it was easy, wasn’t it?’ he cut in cruelly.
Gemma steeled herself, and somehow found the strength to fight him his way—dirty. ‘Very,’ she parried. ‘It didn’t take much to get you into bed either, did it?’
His fists bunched on the wrought-iron arm of his chair and his eyes blazed angrily. ‘Don’t talk that way, like a whore!’
Gemma held his eyes, fighting the whiplash of the insult. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid of him any more, not afraid to hurt him either because this wasn’t the man she had loved so passionately and wouldn’t have dreamed of hurting for all the world six months ago. This man was a cruel, heartless stranger.
‘It’s all right for you to insult me, though, isn’t it?’ She sighed theatrically. ‘But of course this is South America, not St John’s Wood, and here women do as they’re told, so you tell me.’
‘Because they want to. They love their men enough to bow to their every wish.’
‘How very quaintly old-fashioned. The women’s movement would have a field day down here.’
‘They’d get nowhere.’
‘You’re probably right,’ sighed Gemma. ‘I’m not interested enough to argue with you.’
‘And your complacency was the reason you didn’t call me in New York?’ he accused bitingly.
There was a long pause before Gemma could answer. Surely that wasn’t what all this was about, a wretched phone call that was never made?
‘Did you really expect that I would?’ she answered bleakly. Had he honestly expected her to go running after him after what he had done to her?
‘I should have known. Your sort of women want it all one way—their own. You took what you wanted from me and cast me aside for the next acquisition. Many no doubt in the circles you mix in.’
There was no room for hurt when indignation rose in her throat. ‘Is that why you came to my exhibition, to pick up the sort of woman you expected would frequent such a place? I thought exhibitions were for the purpose of viewing art, not trawling for loose women. My mistake again, as everything seems to be my mistake where you are concerned.’
‘You haven’t eaten,’ he said, nodding to the food in front of her.
Very revealing, thought Gemma. Point out a few home truths and a change of subject is always worth a try.
She pushed the plate away. ‘After your brutality I have no appetite,’ she told him. ‘How’s Bianca, by the way?’ she asked sarcastically, adding her own slice of brutality, though it was hurting her more than him, she realised as soon as she said it.
His eyes pierced hers and a muscle at his jawline tightened threateningly. ‘She’s well and will be here next week, so you will see for yourself,’ he told her cruelly.
Can’t wait, Gemma murmured inwardly, and reached for the jug of orange juice Maria had left. She couldn’t eat—his cruelty drove hunger from herbut fluids were essential. The heat was making her feel very light-headed—or was it the thought that Bianca’s arriving next week was engineered by Felipe to add insult to the injury he was already inflicting on her?
‘Why did you bring me here?’ she asked after slaking her thirst.
‘Because I was bored with making love to you in my mind. I wanted you in the flesh. I couldn’t live another day without possessing you for real.’
Gemma gazed at him painfully. He made making love sound as if it only meant sex. Was that how he had seen their affair? He’d said a thousand times that he had loved her, and, gullible as she had been, she had believed him. Not now, though. He wanted to punish her, drive her to the edge of desire and then spurn her as he thought she had done to him and that was spiteful and cruel and was aeons away from the caring he had shown before.
‘To punish me, or for your own pleasure?’ she asked levelly.
‘Both. I hate myself as much as you for what happened in London.’ He smiled cynically at her. ‘Trouble is, I still desire you, and you know the best cure for an obsession, don’t you? Face it. Over and over again till you exorcise it from your life.’
‘You hate me that much,’ Gemma breathed sadly, ‘and all because I didn’t phone you?’ She drew in a ragged breath, still not able to fully understand. ‘Felipe, I didn’t call you because you walked out of my life as easily as you walked into it——’
‘I had reason to, but you didn’t give me a chance——’
‘Should I have done? The call came a week later! Why not sooner?’ She shook her head miserably. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering arguing with you. It makes no difference now.’ She stood up and looked across at him. ‘I did love you, Felipe, and I thank you for bringing me here. You’ve exorcised any ghosts I had spooking around after you left me. If you want help to get me out of your system, go summon a psychiatrist; no way are you going to do it by taking me to bed, how and when you please.’
He stood up and faced her, anger darkening his face. ‘I might not need to stoop so low,’ he grated, ‘because I’m seeing you in a new light. What happened to the soft, sweet Gemma I fell in love with?’
‘She got hurt, Felipe. So now we both know how it feels.’ She tilted her chin defiantly. ‘You can’t hurt me any more than you already have. I dare say with your expertise you could tempt me into your bed, but for what? Sex, no more, no less. It could never be anything else for me, Felipe, never!’
How easily the lies slid from her tongue. Sex: it had never been just that, and it wouldn’t be if ever he did manipulate her into his bed again. She had truly loved him and yet now she wanted to hurt him as he was hurting her, and suddenly she didn’t care that she was cheapening herself in his eyes.
‘You talk