‘Hello? Are you still there? Or have you dozed off in mid-thought?’
‘Of course I haven’t dozed off!‘ Cristina snapped. ‘See? You’ve only been on the phone for two seconds and already you’re making me shout!’
‘There’s nothing wrong with emotional responses.’
‘That’s not what you’ve said in the past,’ Cristina reminded him sourly.
That, Rafael had to concede to himself, had a ring of truth about it.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Can I count you in or not?’
‘Why have you asked me? Do you feel sorry for me? Did Maria put you up to it?’
‘No one has put me up to anything, in answer to your first question. And in answer to your second … Is there any reason why I should feel sorry for you? I mean, life moves on, doesn’t it?’ He tried to visualise Cindy’s face in his head, but instead a very clear image of Cristina’s rose to the forefront.
So he did feel sorry for her. His non-answer was as good as a positive response and, while Cristina didn’t want to go to any party he might be having—didn’t want to be in his presence at all, not when she was obviously still so vulnerable to his overpowering personality, even when she was just receiving it via radio waves at the end of a telephone—well, to refuse would be to admit that she just couldn’t face him. He would feel even sorrier for her then!
As if tuning in to her innermost thoughts and reading her mind, Rafael drawled, ‘You’re not scared of seeing me, are you?’
Cristina forced herself to relax by breathing slowly and deeply—another piece of received wisdom from one of the many magazines she had devoured as a youth when she should have been out there gaining valuable experience with boys, as all her friends had been doing.
‘Don’t be silly. Why should I be scared of seeing you?’
‘I’ll let you know more details closer to the day.’
‘I thought you said that it was going to be next weekend?’ Cristina found herself distracted by his vagueness. ‘Haven’t you arranged it as yet?’
‘Oh, I won’t have a hand in that. Patricia’s going to take care of the whole thing.’
Typical, she thought. Not for a single second would it have occurred to him that last-minute affairs stood a greater than average chance of being flops. How many people were available at such short notice? But of course, this was Rafael Rocchi, the man for whom people jumped through hoops.
‘I take it from your silence that you don’t approve of my lack of involvement?’
‘You can take it from my silence that I’m not surprised at your lack of involvement. I’ll have to look in my diary and see what I’m doing next weekend,’ she said, buying herself time, because she honestly wasn’t sure whether she could face him or not.
‘Good. I’ll see you then. And Cristina …?’
‘What.’
‘Feel free to bring a date.’
Those were the words, spoken with lazy amusement, that galvanised her into a positive decision. Cristina knew that she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, but she really needed to start getting her life back together. She had done the right thing in standing up for herself, for holding on to her dreams of a happy marriage with the right guy who could love her back—but what was the point of doing the right thing if she then proceeded to spend the rest of her days moping around and thinking about Rafael?
She had turned down all of Anthea’s well-intentioned invitations to go out, had buried herself in indoor pursuits, had assured her mother and her sisters that she was doing just fine, when in fact she had spent the past few weeks hiding out in her apartment as if scared to venture outside in case she collapsed. Why should she collapse? From the sounds of it, Rafael was as chirpy as a cricket and getting on with his life, and she wasn’t going to let him join the queue of people silently feeling sorry for her.
Anthea, of course, was overjoyed.
‘It’ll do you the world of good to get out,’ she said firmly. ‘And you can show him that you’ve moved on. Maybe you could ask Martin to go along with you? Sort of borrow him for the evening?’
Tempting though the thought was, Cristina baulked at the thought of such an obvious piece of deception. She liked Martin a lot as a friend, but she wasn’t going to use him as a pretend trophy-boyfriend just to prove a point.
But she did allow herself to get swept into shopping for an outfit, something new and colourful to reflect her new and colourful life. Privately, Cristina thought that the description made her sound as though she had taken up pole-dancing in a nightclub. But she was happy to let Anthea steer her in and out of shops until, by the end of the week, she had accumulated one dress, way too short, one pair of shoes, way too high, and various assorted bits of costume jewellery which would have sent her father into an early grave had he clapped eyes on them.