"Dios," he muttered, not expecting her to be shy about it. "No one knew what we were doing. They didn't even know where we were."
"Oh, please." Her fingertips were digging so hard into her upper arms, she was going to leave bruises. "Everyone wants to know where you are and what you're doing at all times. I guarantee someone was watching and that your friend Kiergen will be adding this to his roster of stories. 'Remember that time Ramon pulled his fiancée behind the curtain for a blowie?'"
"Well, he'll be wrong, won't he?" Her crude talk didn't bother him so much as the fact she might be right. But he had had to become inured to gossip long ago. "Who cares what people say? We know the truth. That's all that matters."
"I care! And the truth isn't any more palatable." She let out a choked laugh. "I criticize you for not being able to share a night with a woman, but I can't even share a chair." She hung her head into her palm.
"We are not still fighting about your mother." His teeth came together and the rest came out between them. "I didn't have sex with her. Believe me this time because I'm not going to say it again." Inside his pocket, his hand closed into a fist.
She averted her face, but he watched her profile struggle with anger and a despair that made his chest feel tight.
"Whether you did or not doesn't matter. I'm sure you're both well over it by now. But I'm not like that, okay? I don't sleep around. I don't have sex in public. I'm not like her, Ramon."
Ah, hell.
"I know you're not like her," he said more gently.
Her head came up to send him a look of misery. "Judging by tonight's performance, are you?"
Which is when he realized this wasn't a case of self-consciousness or embarrassment, but shame. Deep shame. Her face was an agonized red, the corners of her mouth dragged with disgrace. She wore the cloak of someone who didn't know how to hide from herself.
"Don't." The word came out from deep in his chest, where a pressure settled, heavy as a piano. He couldn't bear that she regretted one of the most erotic and exciting experiences of his life. "Isidora-"
He started forward, but she retreated. Recoiled. She caught at the back of the chair that she bumped into, swaying before she gathered her excuse for a jacket around herself again.
A breath gusted out of him, leaving a hole in his chest.
"You know I'm not going to force you into anything. Don't you?" He was surprised his voice was so steady when he felt so flabbergasted.
"Except an engagement?"
"Sexually," he clarified. "You know enough about Trella's experience to believe me when I say I would never take advantage of a woman that way. That's why I was angry with you that morning at your mother's," he added with a return of ire. "You knew me. I was offended that you jumped so quickly to thinking I'd had sex with her."
"Oh, my fault! Silly me, making things up for no reason."
Dios. "All right, I know why you assumed I had-"
"No, you don't know!" Her jagged voice brimmed with acid.
He did. He had lived in Madrid on and off all his life. Gossip about her mother had always been rife.
"She had a rough childhood," he reminded her. "She told me that night how she'd been bounced between guardians, everyone fighting over her money and not giving a damn about her."
Francisca had married way too young and her first husband had abused her. The second had been too old, but had doubled her fortune when he died, turning her into the merriest of widows. By the time she had been pregnant with Isidora, not even thirty yet, she was entering her third marriage with Bernardo.
"If she was a man, no one would care how she conducts herself. People shouldn't judge her just because she's a woman. You shouldn't."
Her jaw dropped. "Don't you dare tell me how to feel about it! Did anyone ever ask you if your knees were as loose as your mother's? Were you ever refused service in a restaurant, in front of your friends, because your mother had slept with the owner's husband? How many times did you lie to your father about why a man was in the house, because you didn't want to hear another fight go on for days, and were afraid he would leave for good if he knew the truth?"
At the mention of her father, his chest grew too tight for his ribs, but he couldn't pile on her pain by telling her Francisca had confided to him that Bernardo wasn't her biological father.
"Isidora-"
"I don't tell you how to feel about your past, do I?" Her hands flung through the air in agitation. "And for your information, I don't judge her. I don't care how many men she sleeps with. I care that she's hurting so badly she can't stop herself. I care that I can't fix her. I care that men take advantage of her and people say things behind her back that only hurts her more."
"Well, I didn't take advantage of her," he growled. "We talked. Bueno? About my past. It was the anniversary of my father's death, Isidora. It pisses me off that you've never figured that out, which I know isn't fair, but you know everything about me. I didn't feel I should have to tell you. I didn't want to be alone that night and your mother was the perfect companion. She knew Mama from their boarding-school days. Papa had managed her trust from the time she had access to it. She talked about their wedding day. Told me stories I'd never heard, from when they were young and happy. From before." Before Trella's kidnapping, he meant. "Don't begrudge me that. I needed it."
She stared at him, motionless but for the throb of the artery in her throat.
"It's the truth," he said, trying to impress it through her brain, needing her to believe it.
"Then why...?" The profound hurt in her eyes twisted up his insides. "Why didn't you just tell me that?"
"Because I was angry." Tempted. Stung. He shook off the confusion that had driven him that morning. The sudden want as he'd realized she was a grown woman and the sight of the dead end they were doomed to hit. "Nothing was ever going to happen between us. You're the daughter of my father's friend. My sisters' friend. Was I supposed to lead you on? Date you and dump you? Marry you? I'm never going to marry anyone and you, in this position of having threats online and a damn army protecting you because of me, have to understand why I say that. So tell me, Isidora. What the hell was I supposed to do about that damn crush of yours except kill it so you could get on with your life?"
She sucked in a breath as though it was the last one she would ever take.
After a moment, she swallowed loud enough for him to hear. The glow that was brimming on her lashes threatened to spill onto her cheeks.
"So what was tonight? Pity? Throw a bone to the girl who used to love you?" Her brow flinched in acute humiliation.
"No." His ears hung up on used to while the rest of him tried to figure out what it had been. Sex didn't have hidden meanings for him, but even he knew it hadn't been the sort of quid pro quo he usually engaged in. The idea of her kissing his twin had set something alight in him. The sense of competition that had come over him had been the least friendly he'd ever felt toward Henri. It had been downright savage. Territorial.
That's what had driven him to kiss her, at least. A completely uncharacteristic possessiveness had gripped him as he'd held her, making him want to erase thoughts of any other man from her mind and replace them with himself.
Lust had taken over. She'd been so responsive-her breasts were perfection, her weight on him pure seduction, her abandonment to their lovemaking completely enthralling. He was a very experienced man, yet he would never forget something that amounted to adolescent petting behind the bleachers.
"You kissed me. I thought it meant you were willing to settle for an affair." It sounded lame even to his ears. He wasn't surprised she only shook her head.
"Maybe I would, if I thought you wanted me, and not just the woman you were stuck with because of this stupid engagement."
"I want you." How could she doubt it? "Look in a mirror. Of course I think you're beautiful. Of course I want to sleep with you."
"Because I'm here. Not because I'm me." She pointed to where her pendant hung against her bare breastbone. It swung forward as she leaned into her words. "In the entire time I've known you, you've never treated me as anything but a giant pain in your behind. Henri used to at least have a conversation with me, but not you."
She pointed at him to punctuate.
"I was that thing you had to endure coming into your house because I happened to be friends with your sisters. Then you did me this great favor of shattering my heart by appearing to sleep with my mother."
She straightened, shoulders back, chin up.