Chapter Ten #2
The story would break very soon, that they had been married in his family’s chapel.
Even though they had not released the information to the press yet, they had made no attempt to hide it either.
And while his staff in the castillo knew of his hatred of gossip, last night’s guests would not necessarily be as discreet.
And when Cerys’s identity was revealed, the whole world would know his shame—that, like his father, he had thrown all caution and control away simply to satisfy his own lust.
‘I am sorry, Your Excellency,’ the man said again. ‘I know this news is a surprise.’
‘A surprise?’ He barked out a bitter laugh as he picked up the book from the carpet, the fury so cold inside him that his heart felt frozen.
‘I need you to find out when the story will break.’ At least then he could prepare, do some kind of damage limitation, although at this point he had no idea what that even looked like.
He could refuse to go ahead with the civil ceremony, but the blessing had already been performed.
It would only be a matter of time before the press discovered that too.
Even though the congregation had been asked not to post anything on social media, he had not thought it necessary to swear them to secrecy indefinitely.
‘I must speak to my wife,’ he said.
The word tasted sour on his tongue, but instead of the fury he wanted to feel, heat surged up his torso as he imagined the sight of her—her naked curves, soft and supple and dappled by sunlight—when he had torn himself away from her less than twenty minutes ago.
His wife…
The woman he had been so desperate to marry that he had not even delayed until their marriage could be conducted legally. Because of an obsession he still could not control.
He forced himself to take a breath.
Cerys Jones had captivated him, much as her mother had once captivated his father. That much was obvious. And it seemed that a part of him still yearned to feed that obsession. But he was in the driving seat now.
When the gossip sites and the scandal sheets got hold of this story, the main purpose of this marriage would be destroyed.
But he would not let Cerys, or the foolhardy emotions she had begun to stir in him, get the better of him again.
And from now on he would control the narrative. Ruthlessly and without compromise.
He allowed the cold, controlled fury to build as he walked back through the orchard and the poison seeped into his soul.
The incriminating journal felt like a brick in his pocket.
But the sun which had felt so warm less than an hour ago could do nothing to thaw the block of ice building around his heart—or repair the gaping hole in his gut.
* * *
Cerys scrubbed the steam off the bathroom mirror, then pressed her fingers to her jaw, aware of the rough patch where Santiago’s stubble had abraded her skin.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror—and let the sensual memories of their early-morning lovemaking crowd out the shadowy images from her nightmare.
She’d woken again in a daze of heat and longing ten minutes ago, to find Santiago gone and the sun high in the sky.
Somehow, not having him there beside her had spooked her.
But the residual hum of arousal, and the long hot shower, had helped quell the anxiety from the nightmares—which had been so vivid and so disturbing when Santiago had woken her earlier.
Before he had helped to drive away her fear on a wave of heat.
A loud rap on the bathroom door made her jump.
‘Cerys, get dressed and come downstairs.’ The sharp command in Santiago’s voice sent a chill through her.
Why did he sound like the man she had met that first morning in the castillo nearly two months ago now? And nothing like the man who had made wild, passionate love to her last night, and slow, sensuous love to her less than an hour ago.
She rushed to open the door, the prickle of unease frightening her.
‘Santiago, wait!’ she said, surprised to see him heading back down the stairs.
She clutched the towel to her breasts, far too aware of her nakedness when his hot gaze raked over her skin.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.
When his gaze met hers, the tight muscle twitching in his jaw contradicted the heat burning in his eyes. ‘Get dressed.’
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked again, his harsh judgemental expression making her shiver despite the sunshine pouring through the bedroom’s open window. And reminding her of the man from her dreams who always seemed to look through her as if she wasn’t there.
‘Do as I ask…’ The command was unmistakable, as if she were one of his employees again and not the woman he had wanted to become his wife. ‘And you can drop the innocent act now. I know who you are.’
Drop the innocent act?
She stood frozen, shocked by the searing tone and the bite of contempt as he disappeared.
She rushed to dress herself, trying to calm the panic in her gut, the sudden feeling of being nothing. Of being nobody.
Who was this man? And what had happened to the man who’d vowed to cherish her the night before? The man who had gone to so much trouble to make her feel safe and protected.
She walked down the stairs ten minutes later, the creased wedding dress making her feel hopelessly self-conscious.
Santiago sat in the far corner of the room, the casual combo of jeans and a T-shirt and his forbidding expression reminding her of the morning she had bumped into him fresh from the fields.
The burnt-out candles which had looked so magical last night, and the cloying fragrance of the flowers, which were starting to droop in their vases, seemed to mock her too, drying up all the hope and excitement of the previous evening.
‘Wh-what…? What did you mean, you know who I am?’ she asked.
‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked, lifting a red leather book from the coffee table beside his chair.
A wave of sadness and confusion washed over her, swiftly followed by a shocking flash of recognition. Her stomach twisted, the cramping pain like a knife to her gut.
‘That’s… That’s my mother’s journal,’ she gasped.
She gulped in air, her lungs so tight she could hardly breathe.
Her mother’s face—bold, beautiful, wreathed in smiles and laughter—swirled in front of her eyes, but then it dissolved, the image becoming shadowed and so sad…
Dark earth piled on a freshly dug grave, her father’s unforgiving expression, the cruel words he’d spoken to her on that terrible day so long ago.
‘Don’t cry for her. She’s dead now, and she deserves to be—for what she did to me.’
‘She’s… She’s gone…’ She pressed trembling fingers to her lips to contain the brutal sob, the sudden tidal wave of grief… Her brain was battered by a parade of vivid memories from her nightmares, which now made a sickening sense—as the jagged shards slotted into place. And became real.
Her mother sitting on a hotel balcony scribbling, her face fading into nothingness. Her father, young and angry, then older, always uncaring and indifferent, his eyes flat and cold and remote.
Tears scalded her eyes, her breathing so painful she couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs.
But when her gaze rose to meet Santiago’s, and she saw the suspicion in his eyes, she recognised him too.
Not as the man she’d first met in the castillo , the man she had weaved so many dreams about in the last few weeks, but as the man she’d watched so furtively from the shadows of the Placa Reial—detached, indifferent, and with another woman.
His was the same face of the man who had carried her back to an apartment in Barcelona as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Theirs had never been a chance encounter. She had come to Spain to discover more about the mother she’d lost as a little girl… And the family of the man who had compelled Angharad Jones to make that fateful decision…
The scandal which had disturbed her so much when Ana had recounted the barest of details came back to her now in its entirety, in a grim parade of newspaper headlines and gossip column editorials.
‘So now you remember who you are, Cerys Jones,’ he said, the brittle cynicism bewildering. Why was he looking at her like that, as if he despised her?
He stood, holding the book, and walked towards her. His movements were stiff with outrage and lacked his usual grace.
Hooking a knuckle under her chin, he lifted her face, the angry heat in his eyes scalding her skin.
‘Ironic, is it not? That we share the same destructive passion as our parents,’ he said, the matter-of-fact, almost careless tone only adding to her panic and confusion.
‘Amusing too, that I believed you were unique, when you simply stirred in me the same weakness my father succumbed to. Tell me, when did you recover your memory? Before or after I proposed to you? Or was it ever really lost at all?’
Pain lanced through her. But his ruthless contempt was not as awful as the terrible loneliness which engulfed her. And the yearning for his touch, his approval, which she still couldn’t seem to quell, despite his cruel accusations.
Her mind and body had played a hideous trick on her, eliminating her memory just long enough for her to fall headfirst into the delusion that he cared for her. But worse than that…
She drew back and locked her knees, determined not to collapse, not yet, even as the brutal memories still bombarded her. And her battered brain wrestled with the full impact of how her reality had become so twisted, like a cruel joke, now the truth was staring her in the face.
‘Do you have nothing to say?’ he asked, the tone cutting.
She shook her head, unable to find the words. She hadn’t made up the amnesia. Why would she? To what purpose? But she didn’t have the strength to defend herself.