Net of Lies (14 page)

There
’s no good answer for that, now is there?
If he expected her to thank him for booking this room for her, he was welcome to wait a bit longer. After all, it was his idea from the start, and she hadn’t asked him for anything.

‘
Why are you here?’ she asked, deciding to not let him distract her from the main problem. She glanced at him again, noticing the five o’clock shadow darkening his jaws.

He
unbuttoned his dark-blue jacket and loosened the grey-and-blue silk tie that went so beautifully with his olive complexion. He shrugged off the jacket, and the crisp shirt underneath betrayed nothing of the busy day he must have had on his way to Madrid.

He
ran his long fingers through his dark hair, and her eyes followed his movements as she remained standing, hoping he would quickly get bored with her conspicuous lack of interest in spending time with him and leave.

‘I came to see how you settled in, among other things.’ He
smiled at her.

Her
hopes of getting rid of him vanished like snow melting in the warm spring sun.

‘
How about you stop hovering over there and join me?’ Dark eyes inquisitive, he patted the sofa next to him, then waited for her response.

She couldn’t really keep standing like that, she acknowledged
with chagrin, not if she didn’t want him to think that she was afraid of him—which she wasn’t. If anything, her own unpredictable responses to him scared her. Reluctantly, she came closer, choosing the wing-back chair opposite of the sofa. It wasn’t very comfortable because the curved back practically forced her to lean back. She hated this position and felt exposed and vulnerable.

‘
I’m settled in, as you see.’ She eyed him challengingly, her shoulders stiff from trying to sit straight. ‘What are the other things?’

‘
Well, I figured I would take you to see my aunt tonight.’

She gasped in disbelief.

His lips curved into a smile, and he added silkily, ‘I see you didn’t expect it, Kate. But it makes sense, you have to admit. She very much wants to meet you.’

‘Does she… does she know…’
Why is it so difficult to form a question, let alone say it out loud?

Raoul shook
his head and smiled mirthlessly again. ‘About our unsuccessful love affair? You can rest assured that I didn’t mention it to her. First of all, it isn’t really relevant, and secondly, I’m not very eager to talk about things that didn’t leave me with good memories.’

She should be relieved, and
she would be… eventually. She couldn’t ignore the swift stab of disappointment, the bitter truth that he didn’t consider their relationship worth mentioning to his aunt impossible to ignore. She didn’t know what she’d expected.
That he would tell his aunt about you, maybe even admit that the breakup didn’t leave him completely unmoved? You’re a dreamer,
she thought bitterly. His complete detachment from whatever they had shared was yet another reason to never trust him again. So she nodded, hoping nothing in her serene face betrayed the fire raging inside her.

What did you expect?
That he would scream about it from the rooftops? This is Raoul, proud and victorious.
Even if he did care about her in the way she had naïvely hoped he would, he would still not like admitting defeat and being dumped the way he had been.
He’s probably the one who usually breaks off relationships,
she mused wretchedly.
Maybe not in person, either.
She didn’t think of him as a coward, however. She was somehow sure that he would take care of his business himself. She suspected that Raoul hadn’t planned the episode with his father’s lawyer who had visited her with a check.

‘I want us to go
see her just to prepare her a bit for your grand entrance tomorrow,’ he continued, his voice calm and measured. ‘She is very witty and intelligent, but she isn’t used to playing along in a scheme, and I would like to make it easier for her in any way possible.’

‘That makes two of us, regarding not being used to deception
.’ She sighed as she felt her confidence slipping away. When put like that, she could hardly refuse to go with him.

‘What about Josh?
What if he wants to talk to me? How will I explain not being here?’

‘
He won’t,’ Raoul responded confidently.

S
he could have laughed out loud at her own naïveté.
Of course Raoul took care of it. What am I thinking?
She should have learned by then that he left little, if anything, to pure chance.

‘Josh has been invited to join a round at the hotel’s exclusive gentlemen
’s club. I know he enjoys playing poker, and it will keep him busy for the rest of the evening. Oh, and you have sent him a note telling him that you plan on making it an early evening, so he shouldn’t think about getting together.’

O
nce again, Kate felt like a puppet with its strings in Raoul’s hands. ‘That is so bloody arrogant, Raoul,’ she managed to answer calmly. ‘You assume way too much, and one day you will be wrong and lose.’

‘
Been there, done that,’ was his equally serene response. Nothing in his relaxed demeanor changed even a notch. ‘But tonight is definitely not one of those moments, Kate. I organized that for one and one reason only, if we really have to discuss each step to make you feel better. Josh is taken care of, and he definitely won’t be tempted to meet you tonight. Maybe it was presumptuous of me to send him a note from you, but it saves us time. God knows, we don’t have too much of it.’

She gave up any further resistance. He was right
, after all. And as annoying as he was, deep down, she was relieved to know that Josh Lastman was taken care of. Being with him made her feel dirty.

..............

As she walked alongside Raoul, the soft carpet of the hallway swallowed the sound of their footsteps. She couldn’t help but glance at him from under her long lashes, still dazed by the idea of being in his company. She was curious about so many things, and she knew she would never fully understand. Why had he divorced Sonia? Where was she? Had his unsuccessful marriage carved those new lines around his mouth? She didn’t remember seeing them before. An invisible hand had swept over his handsome features, brushing off the light and pure
joie de vivre
that she remembered, and replaced it with somber darkness. He was still breathtakingly handsome; there was no doubt about that. But something was missing.

‘How far does your aunt live?’ she asked
as they reached his sporty car in the parking lot. She was to kill the silence that weighed on her like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

‘Not too far
.’ His laconic response didn’t do much to lift the mood, and she retreated into her silence, watching the streets that passed in the rapidly falling dusk. It wasn’t raining anymore. Only the wet puddles on the sidewalks reminded her of the fury that the heavens had unleashed only moments before. The wind blew through the clouds, revealing the pale half-crescent moon on the dark firmament. The wet paving stones reflected its soft light, cool and distant—just like the man at her side.

She recalled
how she had enjoyed their trips into the countryside. They would laugh and chat most of the time, which was different from this oppressive silence that dominated the interior of the small sporty coupe. They had left the busy downtown, following the road into one of the lovely established parts of town where time seemed to have stopped long ago. Sprawling, elegant villas from the turn of the century nestled in expansive gardens, most of them surrounded by walls, which seemed to be the norm for the older Spanish architecture.

‘I
t’s beautiful.’ Her eyes adjusted to the darkness enveloping the elaborate gates and sculptures adorning most of the stone walls they were passing. ‘How did your aunt come to live here?’

‘
Her lover was a very successful actor in his day.’ His response held a note of humor, and he cast her a glance, as if to check her response. ‘Not right away, though, as it usually happens. They had to struggle for the first few years they were together, living in art communes and sharing what little they possessed with other aspiring artists.’

‘I thought your family was rich
,’ she said accusingly. The idea of his aunt starving somewhere while they owned a castle didn’t sit quite right with her. ‘Why didn’t they help her?’

‘Aunt Rosa ran away with her lover when she was only seventeen
,’ he said, his voice devoid of emotion, then shrugged. ‘She was supposed to marry someone else, but eloped just a month before the wedding. My great grandfather never forgave her the shame and upheaval she caused and made damn sure nobody from our family helped her in any way. My father outsmarted him, though, and managed to lend her some money, risking being disowned himself. The boy she ran away with became famous and successful, and they lived comfortably, till he died at the age of forty-two. He had a brain tumor, and at that particular time, the prognosis wasn’t very good, even if it had been operable. His was, and they attempted to remove it, but he died from a brain hemorrhage two days later.’

‘
Oh, I’m sorry.’ She felt badly for this unknown couple that had risked it all and beat the odds, only to lose the one battle that couldn’t be won.

He nodded curtly, concentrating on the road.
‘It was very unfortunate, yes. Luis was the biggest love of her life, and I don’t think she ever got over losing him. But thanks to his success in the early movies and her own art, she’s continued living in their house for the past forty years, which I think helped her immensely to overcome her sadness.’

‘She was very gutsy
. I’ll give her that,’ she said, eager to shed some positive light on the overall-depressing story. ‘Not everyone would risk life in poverty and without family to be with the person they love.’

‘That she was.’
An odd note pinched his voice. His profile was carved out of stone as he looked ahead, before slowing down and pulling into a paved driveway that was almost hidden from view by a couple of old, rugged palms protecting it from curious eyes. ‘She understood from early on that there are things that matter more than family honor and reputation. Which makes her a lucky exception in our family, even to this day.’

The car came to a stop, saving
Kate from trying to find a proper response to his rather puzzling statement. He sounded bitter, envious, and regretful. She decided he must have been thinking of Sonia, and her heart constricted painfully at the mere thought of the other woman.

‘I mentioned to my aunt how superb your Spanish is
.’ He smiled at her as they walked up to the house, his eyes glinting like obsidians in the moonlight. ‘Couldn’t help bragging a bit.’

‘I
’ve gotten rusty.’ She was relieved to have changed the topic. She didn’t need this emotional involvement, not when they would part ways again in a matter of days—for good.

‘I think
you’re underestimating yourself,
querida
.’ He lifted the ornate doorknocker shaped into the head of a horse. The sound against the rich, dark wood of the door echoed through the night, then the door cracked open, and an elderly woman with dark eyes and a youthful smile appeared on the doorstep. Her resemblance to Raoul was unmistakable; the proud lines of her eyebrows and classic features were so much like her grandnephew’s.

‘Raoul,
I’m so glad to see you,’ she said in a voice that sounded much younger than her years. Her intelligent eyes surveyed Kate, who stood still, not quite sure what to say next. ‘Ms. Reeves, isn’t it?’ Her impeccable English was almost as free of any accent as Raoul’s. ‘Come in. I have been expecting the two of you, my dear.’

The door opened wider, offering
Kate a view of a hallway paneled with dark wood and terracotta tiles in hues of brown and orange. It was lit with sconces placed in regular intervals, providing the interior with theatrical dramatic ambience.

‘After you.’ Raoul’s hand gently pushed her forward
, and she stepped in, her heart beating unevenly in a premonition that the evening was only starting to get interesting. And she was afraid.

The way their visit progressed
wasn’t even close to the plans he’d had when he’d thought about introducing Kate to his aunt in the past. Raoul sat in his aunt’s drawing room, watching the two women engrossed in deep conversation. He could tell that his aunt liked Kate, just as he had expected. He sensed it in her smile and voice, and Kate’s initial shyness melted away as they chatted about the plans for the next day. She looked absolutely sweet in her prim, cream-colored blouse that clung to her slim, yet sensuous figure. Paired with the simple skirt, it was probably meant to look very proper and unapproachable. But it failed utterly, which amused him, because sometimes covering up was sexier than baring it all.

His aunt was telling Kate about the way she
had acquired some of her most prized pieces, proudly recalling her friendship with artists such as Picasso and Salvador Dali. She wasn’t bragging or acting snobby; she simply harbored a childish delight in her friends’ success and fame. Kate must have felt it, because she listened with an equally happy smile, nodding encouragingly as the older woman peppered their conversation with anecdotes from her years in the company of the men.