‘I always keep my word.’ He looked at her. ‘I don’t lie,’ Raúl said. ‘From the start I have only been myself.’ He watched the colour spread up her cheeks. ‘You get the truth, whether you like or not. I think we both know that much about me.’
Reluctantly she nodded.
‘It is only wives that I employ on a whim. I am successful because I choose my employees carefully and I don’t give out sympathy jobs. Your brother pointed out a few things that could be changed at the hotel. He would like the menu outside the restaurant to be displayed lower too. He said he would not like to find out about the menu and the prices from a woman he was perhaps dating with.’
Estelle gave a reluctant smile. It was the sort of thing Andrew would say.
‘He said that a lower table at Reception would be a nice touch, so that anyone in a wheelchair could check in there. That means I do not have to refurbish our reception areas. He has saved me more than his year’s wage already.’
‘Okay.’
‘I don’t want my hotels to be good, I want them to be the best—and by the best I mean the best for everyone: businessmen, people with families, the disabled. Your brother, as I told him, will soon be all three.’ He looked at her for a long moment, wondering if now she might tell him. ‘It is good to see Cecelia improving,’ Raúl said. ‘It must be a huge relief.’
‘It is,’ Estelle admitted. ‘I think we’re only now realising just how scary the last few months have been.’
‘Does seeing your niece make you consider ever having a baby?’
She gave a cynical laugh.
‘It’s just about put me off for life, seeing all that they have had to go through.’
‘But they’ve made it.’
She wasn’t going to tell him about the baby, Raúl realised. But, far from angering him, it actually made him smile as he sat opposite the strongest woman he knew.
‘Here…’ At the end of the meal he smeared cream cheese on a cracker, added a dollop of quince paste and handed it to her.
‘No, thanks. I’m full.’
‘But remember the night we met…’
‘I’d rather not.’
He saw tears prick her eyes and went to take her hand. He could not believe all that they had been through in recent weeks. As she pulled her hand away Raúl wasn’t so sure they’d survived it.
‘I’m sorry for hurting you. I overreacted—thought I was going to lose everything, thought I might not be able to give you the lifestyle—’
‘Like I need your yacht,’ Estelle spat. ‘Like I need to eat out at posh restaurants seven nights a week, or wear the clothes you chose.’
‘So if you don’t want all that,’ Raúl pointed out, ‘what do you want?’
‘Nothing,’ Estelle said. ‘I want nothing from you.’
He called for the bill and paid, and as they headed out of the restaurant he took her hand and held it tightly. He turned her to him and kissed her.
It tasted of nothing.
He kissed her harder.
She wanted to spit him out. Not because she loathed his mouth but because she wanted to sink into it for ever—wanted to believe his lies, wanted to think for a moment that she could hold him, that he’d want their baby as much as she did, that he’d want the real her if he knew who she was.
‘Where now?’ Raúl asked. ‘I know…’ He held her by the hips. ‘You could show me Dario’s…’
‘I didn’t meet Gordon at Dario’s,’ Estelle said. ‘I told you that.’
‘We could go anyway,’ Raúl said. ‘It’s our last night together, and it sounds like fun.’
He saw the conflict in her eyes, saw her take a breath to force another lie. He would not put her through it, so he kissed her instead.
‘Let’s get back to the hotel.’
‘Raúl…’ She just couldn’t go through with it—could not keep up the pretence a moment longer, could not bear to be made love to just to have her heart ripped apart again.
‘What?’ He took her by the hand again, led her to a taxi.
* * *
‘Come on, Estelle…’ He undressed speedily. ‘It’s been a hell of a day. I would like to come.’
‘You can be so romantic.’
‘But you keep insisting this is not about romance,’ Raúl pointed out.
Her face burnt.
‘I don’t understand what has suddenly changed. We have been having sex for a couple of months now…’ He was undoing her zipper, undressing her. He was down on one knee, removing her shoes. ‘Tomorrow we are finished. Tonight we celebrate.’
‘I don’t want you.’
‘So you did the other times?’ he checked.
At every exit he blocked her. At every turn he made her see it had never been paid sex for her—not for one single second, not for one shared kiss. She had been lying from the very start. For she had loved him from the start.
‘Estelle, after tonight you have the rest of the century off where we are concerned.’
He laid her on the bed and kissed her, felt her cold in his arms. His mouth was on her nipple and he swirled it with his tongue then blew on it, watching it stiffen and ripen. Then he took it deep in his mouth, his fingers intimately stroking her. He filled her mouth with his tongue and she just lay there.
This was what she had signed up for, Estelle reminded herself. She didn’t have to enjoy it. Except she was.
It was like a guilty secret—a filthy guilty secret. Because she wanted him so—wanted him deep inside her. She turned her cheek away but he turned it back and kissed her. She did not respond—or her mouth did its best not to.
He felt the shift in her…kissed her back to him.
He felt the motion of her tongue on his, felt her.
‘Tell me to stop and I will,’ Raúl said.
She just stared at him.
‘Tell me…’
She couldn’t
‘You can’t stop this any more than I can…’
He moved up onto his elbows and she tried not to look at him, looked at his shoulder, which moved back and forth over her.
‘Tell me…’ he said.
She held on.
‘Tell me how you feel…’
In a moment she would. In a moment she’d be sobbing and begging in his arms. She lifted her hips, and then lifted them again, just so she could hurry him along.
‘I’m going to come…’ she moaned.
‘Liar.’
He pushed deeper within her, hit that spot she would rather tonight he did not, for her face was burning, and her hands were roaming, and her hips were lifting with a life of their own as she let out a low, suppressed moan.
She felt a flood of warmth to her groin, felt the insistence of him inside her, the demand that she match his want.
‘You couldn’t pay for this…’ He was stroking her deep inside and seducing her with his words. ‘You could never fake this…’
He slipped into