Page 40 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
There was somethingspecialabout her. The fact that she had stepped up to the plate and done something as dramatic as she had, for the sake of friendship, struck him as almost noble.
Would she have carried on with the pretence? And for how long? Yes, she had been hurt in the past, but would that hurt have propelled her into a permanent arrangement with Alejandro if events had not played out the way they had?
He also admired the fact that she could have told him. She could have broken that confidence, knowing that it would have put a completely different slant on things. She must have known, after that kiss they had shared at the pool, that his opinion of her would have been in the dirt when he’d walked away. But she hadn’t followed him. She had remained true to the promise she had made his brother.
Self-serving she was not, and he really liked that.
And now...
Dante had truly thought that her novelty value would have worn off by now. Here they were, playing truant from reality like a couple of heady teenagers, and he had assumed that the sheerdifferenceabout her, the very thing he figured had got to him in the first place, would have worn thin by now.
Yet he saw her and he wanted her. He touched her and he had to stop himself from shaking. He heard that infectious laugh and he smiled.
And now everything had changed and a forbidden thought crept into his head like a thief in the dark.
What if they carried on for longer than the week prescribed? He wasn’t looking for permanence and neither was she. He’d half feared that she might have begun to view what they had as more significant than he had told her it was destined to be, but there had been no hesitant forays into a future beyond the coming weekend. She had not hinted at wanting any more than what they had agreed upon. She had been as casual as him, living in the moment and enjoying it.
‘I like your sense of humour,’ Dante confessed, his thoughts still running unchecked. ‘Women have always been way too eager to do what they think I might like. You’re not like that...’
‘You live in a different world, Dante.’ But Caitlin was inordinately pleased by the compliment. ‘I guess people suck up to you because of who you are and you’ve become accustomed to that. I don’t live in that world and it’s not how I’ve been brought up.’ She smiled. ‘We’re all different.’
‘And I like that. More than I thought I would.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Things have changed with Alejandro’s revelation. My parents, for better or worse, will find out that the engagement they had such high hopes for was all a pretence. Well intentioned, but still a pretence. Alejandro is terrified that they will pass judgement and he will be found wanting. I like to think that that is not going to be the case. At any rate...’ he looked at her, his lean, handsome features decisive ‘...you will be able to face them for who you really are.’
‘I won’t be facing them, Dante,’ Caitlin said with alarm. ‘I’m leaving in a few days. There’s really no need for me to meet up with them again.’
Still accepting of her departure, Dante thought with appreciation. Not going beyond the brief. A first. He was accustomed to having his freedom threatened sooner or later by women who wanted more longevity than he was prepared to give.
He shrugged and smiled. ‘You can go at the end of the week,’ he concurred, ‘or you can stay on. Better still, I can arrange to temporarily transfer to London, sort things out in my brother’s absence...’
‘You want tocarry on?’
‘For a while,’ Dante said hurriedly.
He isn’t bored yet, Caitlin thought.But soon he will be.
He wanted everything on his terms, but what about hers? She was in danger of forgetting them, and she couldn’t afford to do that because every day something deep inside was being chipped away.
‘I don’t think so.’ She didn’t wait for temptation to start interfering with common sense. ‘Let’s have fun and then, at the end of the week, let’s do what we agreed to do. Let’s say goodbye.’
CHAPTER NINE
ITWASN’TDIFFICULTto find out where Caitlin lived. Far more difficult had been Dante’s decision to travel to London and search her out, because it just wasn’t in his nature to pursue anyone. Pursuit equated to weakness, but, after more than two weeks without her, Dante had managed to convince himself that the real weakness would be in staying put, in ignoring the perfectly reasonable desire to finish something that had not quite reached its natural conclusion. How could he live with himself if he remained where he was, pointlessly thinking about her and having nightly cold showers? Did that make any sense at all? If she turned him away, then so be it. He would shrug it off but at least he would have tried, and you couldn’t do more than that. The not trying would have been the less courageous option.
As promised, she had remained in Spain for the remainder of the week, daily visiting Alejandro, who, having awakened from his deep sleep bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, had been frustrated at not being able to get out of hospital as fast as he had hoped, thanks to the small detail of broken bones that needed to rest awhile.
Part of his urgency to leave had been sheer relief at having come out. He had told the world and the world had been a lot more forgiving than he had anticipated.
What his traditional and old-fashioned parents had made of the whole thing was a mystery to Dante. Outwardly, at least, they had been supportive and that had been the main thing.
And now that barriers had broken down between himself and his brother, they had begun the rocky but well-intentioned road of making amends for the silent relationship that had developed between them over the years.
Between building bridges with Alejandro, engaging with his parents and all those family members now on the receiving end of what would have been, at the very least, pretty startling revelations, and focusing on some major deals in the pipeline, he should have found Caitlin’s easy disappearance from his life barely left a ripple in its wake.
It had been a source of constant frustration that he couldn’t get her out of his head. He had been forced to conclude that it hadn’t been just about the sex. He had enjoyed her company and he didn’t much like that recognition, because it wasn’t something he had factored into their short-lived relationship.
