Page 8 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
‘Where’s the touchy-feely, loved-up, starry-eyed, can’t-stand-a-metre-apart-from-one-another couple?’ His voice oozed concerned curiosity and Caitlin gritted her teeth together and wished he would just disappear.
‘We’re not those people.’ She shifted back as a waiter bowed to remove her plate. There seemed to be an army of them, moving as one, making sure that everything went to plan. ‘We don’t believe in public displays of affection. Not everyone does.’ Refusing to be threatened, Caitlin peered past him to the empty seat on his left. ‘And speaking of which, where’s the guest who’s supposed to be sitting next to you? Luisa, I believe? That’s what Alejandro told me. He said that you two are practically engaged?’
Dante’s lips thinned and he turned so that he was looking directly at her. ‘Is that so?’ he said in a sibilant murmur that would have served as a warning shot to anyone else.
‘Yes...’ Caitlin tilted her head to one side, considering his rhetorical question as though it were deserving of an answer ‘...but, of course, he may have got it all wrong. He said something about you two being an item in the past and everyone assuming that it’s going to end in marriage even though you’re on a break?’ She couldn’t help herself. She’d never thought that she could take pleasure in watching someone squirm, but for the first time since their paths had crossed Dante wasn’t calling the shots and she liked it.
‘This conversation is going nowhere,’ he growled, under his breath.
‘Lots of people go on breaks,’ Caitlin murmured wickedly. ‘Sometimes, taking a step back from someone can make you realise how important they are in your life. We don’t know one another at all, so I hope you’ll forgive me for saying what’s on my mind.’ She didn’t give him time to do any such thing. The last thing she intended to do was stop saying what was on her mind. ‘Marriage and tying the knot can be scary. Are you scared, Dante? I would say that you should let go of all those apprehensions and show Luisa how much you really care about her.’ She wondered what this mystery woman was like. Beautiful, captivating... She would have to be if she’d managed to get to a guy like Dante Cabrera.
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. No one—no one—has ever dared address me in this way!’
‘In that case, please accept my apologies,’ Caitlin said without a hint of apology in her voice. ‘But you feel free to ask me whatever you want to so why shouldn’t I return the favour?’ Their eyes collided and she felt such a rush of weirdsensationrace through her body, like the surge of an electric charge, that she blinked in utter confusion and for a few seconds couldn’t say anything at all.
Then the moment was lost because there was a sudden lull in the din of people talking and all heads, as one, swung round to the arch where a leggy brunette was poised theatrically, her beautiful face a picture of exaggerated remorse. The glow of the lanterns and the backdrop of light from the house did her a lot of favours. She was aiming for drama and she was delivering it in bucketloads. Her lips twitched with amusement, inviting everyone at the honoured top table to get in on the joke with her. Caitlin could only admire the spectacle.
Then Luisa was stalking towards them, tossing her hair as a waiter scurried to hold out a chair, then it was all about Dante.
Caitlin thought she might be gaping. Up close, the woman was even more stunning than she had appeared at a distance. Perfect features in a perfectly oval face. Her hair was waist length, curling down a narrow back and, although she was olive toned—just a shade lighter than the guy sitting next to her—she had the most incredible bright blue eyes.
Caitlin politely turned away as more food continued to arrive, but she could hear breathless murmurs coming from the woman in question and not much from Dante.
Caitlin’s head was whirling. She suddenly felt self-conscious. A little ridiculous in her newly acquired fancy dress and her silly high heels, pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
She was back to feeling like that girl who had been ditched by the boy everyone in the village had assumed she’d end up with. Ditched for a five-foot-ten beauty from Latvia. All the insecurities Caitlin had felt then assaulted her now in a full-frontal attack, a reminder that this silly party wasn’t real, that there was no engagement, that love and marriage were not things on the cards for her, and no amount of optimism and silver linings could camouflage that fact. This charade was a pragmatic solution to a problem that had been tearing her apart.
She wasn’t a beauty queen like Luisa. She was the girl next door and she was ashamed of those taboo stirrings she had felt with Dante, that slow uncurling of something sexual that had blindsided her. Had she completely lost her mind? Had two glasses of champagne gone to her head?
She surfaced to find that the business of eating was beginning in earnest. The alcohol was flowing. The courses were coming thick and fast, each one a testament to what a talented chef could produce.
‘I never remembered Alejandro drinking quite so much,’ a deep, velvety voice to her left murmured.
Caitlin had glazed over at Alfredo’s long-winded monologue about a game of golf he had played three weeks previously. She snapped to attention in a hurry at the sound of Dante’s deep, dulcet tone.
She looked narrowly at Alejandro, who was flushed, before turning sideways to Dante.
‘He...he...’
Dante’s dark eyebrows winged upwards in a question.
‘He’s thoroughly enjoying his own engagement party?’ Dante queried helpfully before she could think of something to say. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think that he was a man trying to drown his sorrows.’
‘Thankfully—’ Caitlin stabbed a piece of succulent chicken breast ‘—you don’t know better.’ Her skin tingled. Something about his voice, his accent, barely there and stupidly sexy.
‘Mind you,’ Dante mused thoughtfully, ‘he’s stuck between our parents. They will be asking him all sorts of probing questions he probably doesn’t know how to answer.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Oh, the usual. Timelines...venues...food preferences for the wedding meal...’
Caitlin remained silent. Yes, she’d been plied with a couple of those questions herself but poor Alejandro would be squirming like a fish on a hook, trying to fend offprobing questions.
‘Poor Alejandro,’ Caitlin murmured softly, without thought. Too late, she realised that that was the last thing she should have said because those questioning eyebrows now conveyed less mild curiosity and more scorching interest.
‘That’s an odd response. Why do you say that?’
‘Because...’
