‘Are you expecting a reaction from me, Rico? Heated denials—hysterics, possibly?’ She could see he was surprised she was so calm. ‘This all happened a long, time ago.’
‘Two years ago, to be precise.’
‘Well, it feels like a lifetime to me.’
Time flew, Zoë reflected. Two years since her ex-husband had tried to destroy her career. She had been so set on rebuilding her life she had hardly noticed how quickly the time had passed. She could still remember the burn of shame when she’d first read the headline. How could she have known then that the old adage would prove true? There was no such thing as bad publicity; this morning’s interview had only proved it yet again.
It was two years since her notoriety in the ‘Star Sells Sex’ scandal had put her name on everyone’s lips. Almost immediately her cookery programme had begun to break every ratings record. Her next step had been to form her own company, and that had led to even greater success.
These days the headline was hardly ever mentioned, and on the few occasions when it was people laughed with her, as if it had all been nothing more than a rather clever publicity stunt. She knew the truth behind the headline, and it couldn’t hurt her now. Only Rico could do that, if he believed the lies.
‘So you’ve nothing to say in your defence?’ he said. ‘No explanation to offer me at all?’
‘Am I supposed to ask for your forgiveness?’
‘The whole scandal blew over quite quickly.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I couldn’t place you at first.’
‘True.’ Zoë smiled sadly at him. ‘Did you hope I was hiding something, Rico—so that you and I could be quits?’
A muscle worked in his jaw; other than that there was nothing, until he said, ‘Do you blame me for being defensive?’
A short sound of incredulity leapt from Zoë’s throat.
‘If I had told you who I was from the first moment we met—’
‘I wouldn’t have thought any more or any less of you.’
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, and then, leaning in front of Zoë, Rico clicked the mouse and cleared the screen.
Straightening up, he gazed at her. ‘My full name is Alarico Cortes de Aragon. I have many business interests, but flamenco is my passion, and Castillo Cazulas, as I’m sure you have already worked out, belongs to me.’
‘When were you going to tell me, Rico? After we’d slept together?’
‘Don’t speak like that, Zoë. You must understand I have to protect my position.’
‘Your position? And I have nothing worth protecting—is that it? I was nothing more than an entertaining diversion while you toured your estates in Cazulas?’
‘Zoë.’ Rico reached out to her, and then drew back. ‘Try to understand what it’s like for me. I have to know who I’m dealing with.’
‘What are you trying to say, Rico?’ Zoë said softly. ‘A man as important, as rich and influential as you, has to be cautious about the type of woman he takes to bed?’
‘It’s a lot more than that, Zoë, and you know it.’
‘Do I?’ She smiled faintly. ‘I’m afraid I must have missed something.’
‘Can you imagine my shock when I read this headline?’
‘It must have been terrible for you.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic.’
‘How do you expect me to be? You tell me you have to protect yourself from me as if I’m some piece of dirt that might tarnish your lustre.’
‘Don’t say that. I asked for this information before I knew you, Zoë.’
‘And now you do know me,’ Zoë said bitterly, glancing at the screen. ‘You must be glad that you took that precaution.’
‘You don’t know me very well.’
‘I don’t know you at all.’
The coldness in her voice, the bitterness in her eyes cut right through him. He wasn’t sure about anything any more, Rico realised. He had spent most of his adult life protecting himself from the gutter press. It was ironic to think that it was their common bond. He focused on her face as she spoke again, and was shocked to see the pain in her eyes when she gazed unwaveringly at him.
‘I don’t have anything concrete like a headline to shake the foundations of my belief in you,’ she said. ‘All I have are candles, a romantic night in a beautiful luxury spa, and the horrible suspicion that maybe you arranged all that because you wondered if you had what it took to seduce a frigid woman.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘You seem shocked, Rico. Why is that? Because I’m getting too close to the truth?’
‘No!’ The word shot out of him on a gust of loathing that she could even think such a thing. ‘It isn’t true. I don’t know what’s happened to you in the past, but you’re not frigid. And I don’t need the sort of reassurance you seem to think I do!’
‘You lied to me.’ Her voice was low, and cruelly bitter. ‘You made assumptions about me, Rico. You invaded my privacy—that same privacy that’s so precious to you, El Señor Alarico Cortes de Aragon! You had me investigated.’ She ground out each word with incredulity, and then gazed up at the sky to give a short, half-sobbing laugh. ‘And while that was going on you tried to get me into bed. And then—’ She held up her hand, silencing his attempt to protest. ‘Then you sold me out to the tabloids for some type of sick revenge.’
‘Zoë, please—’
‘I haven’t finished yet!’ She shouted the words at him in a hoarse, agonised voice, leaning forward stiffly to confront him, her face white with fury. ‘To cap it all, you turn all self-righteous on me—pretending it matters to you that someone else hurt me, used me as a punch-bag—as if you care any more than he did!’
‘You’ve gone too far!’ He couldn’t hold back any longer. ‘How dare you compare me with that—that—’
‘What’s the matter, Rico? You think of him and you see yourself? Even you can’t bring yourself to admit what you are.’
‘And just what am I?’
‘A deceitful, lying user!’
‘User?’ He threw his hands up. ‘Who’s using who here, Zoë?’
‘That’s right—stay up in your ivory tower, where you’re safe from all the gold-diggers, why don’t you, Rico? Only I don’t want your money—I never did. I can manage quite well on my own!’
‘And that’s what you want, is it, Zoë—to be on your own?’
‘What do you think?’ she said bitterly.
‘Then I’d better leave.’
‘That would be good.’
‘You signed the lease on the castle. You can stay until it runs out. Do whatever the hell you want to do! I’ll see myself out.’
CHAPTER TEN
HE’D been thrown out of his own