Page 39 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
And she had to agree with Dante—the outfit suited her.
An uneasy thought surfaced. Was she, subconsciously, dressing to please him because she wanted to somehow persuade him into a relationship he had declared he didn’t want? Did she want a week to stretch into a month? A year? Longer?
If that were the case, which she wasn’t even going to give houseroom in her head, then she had obviously lost her mind.
She didn’t hear him enter.
She’d been lost in her thoughts. Then she looked up and there he was and her heart skipped several beats.
He was so breathtakingly beautiful, so spectacular in every possible way, that she could only stare and blink for a few seconds, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He was magnificent naked but no less so when he was kitted out in his handmade leather shoes and the designer suit that would have cost the earth.
He’d dumped his jacket somewhere along the way and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his white shirt, which was cuffed to the elbows. His trousers, pale grey and hand-tailored, were a beautiful fit and somehow managed to make him look businesslike yet crazily sexy. Quite an achievement, she thought faintly.
Eventually, their eyes met and she blinked.
‘What’s wrong?’ How quickly she had become used to his eyes darkening when they rested on her, to the slow, unfurling smile that could make her toes curl and bring a surge of heated colour to her face.
Right now, as he remained standing by the kitchen door, his face was grave and that sent a chill of foreboding through her.
‘We need to talk.’ Dante didn’t take his eyes off her as he walked directly to the fridge to pour them both a generous glass of Rioja.
‘You think I might need a drink to cope with whatever you have to say?’
He’d moved to sit at the table and she followed suit, although adjacent to him with a chair between them. Close enough to lean into whatever conversation was about to take place but far enough for her to remove herself from the suffocating effect he had on her senses.
She tried to read what he was thinking but he was adept at concealing what he wanted hidden.
‘It’s about my brother.’
‘But...’ she half rose ‘...I was with him this morning and he was absolutely fine.’
Dante tilted his head to one side. ‘He told me.’
‘He told you...?’
‘Caitlin...you should have said. No, scratch that...of course, you couldn’t have broken the promise you made him but...’ Dante rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘I wish I had known.’
‘Alejandrotoldyou?’ Shocked, Caitlin leaned towards Dante, her urgent green eyes colliding with his weary dark ones. He looked drained. More than that...he lookedsaddened.
She reached out and covered his hand with hers and breathed a sigh of relief when he curled his fingers into hers. He slumped back in the chair for a few seconds, eyes closed, then he opened his eyes and looked at her.
‘We spent years growing more and more distant from one another. I had no idea how he felt about working for the company until you told me. I had no inkling that he was gay and the worst of it was that he felt so damned apprehensive about telling me. Yet he had every right to keep it to himself. When have I ever given Alejandro any indication that I was interested in his personal life? We were ships that crossed in the night, exchanging as little as possible of any significance.’
‘That’s sometimes how it goes,’ Caitlin told him gently. ‘But there is an opportunity now for things to change between you. He’s your brother and you’re so lucky to have a sibling.’ She thought of the cares and troubles she was having to manage single-handedly. ‘Alejandro is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and I know he would be so happy, so thrilled and excited, to have you in his life. I mean, properly in his life.’ She paused. ‘Has he...er...broken this news to anyone else?’
‘He’s going to tell our parents later today. He’s wary, he tells me, but it’s something he said he should have done a long time ago. I think coming here under those false pretences, his fall...brought home to him the need to come out and be honest.’
‘I’m really glad he has,’ Caitlin admitted. ‘You have no idea how hard I’ve tried to persuade him that living a lie wasn’t a good idea.’
‘You agreed to the charade,’ Dante mused softly, ‘because he was so desperate to do what he thought he needed to do, didn’t you? He talked you into pretending to be his fiancée and you agreed because that’s just the kind of person you are...’
Uncomfortable with this summary of events, Caitlin shuffled in the chair and wondered whether she should launch into the full account of the hare-brained scheme they had agreed upon.
She remained silent. What would be the point? The main thing was that all the hiding behind closed doors was over for Alejandro and a new chapter in his life was about to begin.
‘Yes, I’m a saint,’ she quipped. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just vanish upstairs for a minute so that I can polish my halo.’
Dante burst out laughing. His eyes darkened with appreciation.
