But she took the glass from him with trembling hands and swallowed a few mouthfuls, which instantly calmed her down.
He had pulled up a chair and was sitting facing her. Amy felt faint. ‘You can’t be James’s brother. You look nothing like him.’
‘Half-brother.’ Rafael sighed. ‘We share a mother but my father was Spanish, hence my colouring.’
‘I don’t understand. Why were you pretending to be a gardener?’
‘Long story but…’He explained. If he had expected dawning comprehension followed by nodding acceptance he was sorely mistaken. The dawning comprehension was there, sure enough, but it was accompanied by a look of slowly spreading horror.
‘So…’ Amy had now finished the glass of brandy. Just like his identity, she assumed his request for a caterer had been as bogus as a three pound note. She had lain in bed night after night fantasising about this man, spinning dreams in which he ended up declaring his undying love after which they would spend the rest of their fairy-tale lives building up a thriving garden centre in the countryside. She felt a ball of resentment well up inside her that he had taken her for a ride, made a fool of her. She wondered whether he and James had laughed about her behind her back.
‘Let me get this straight. You were asked to spy on your brother—’
‘Keep an eye on…and half-brother.’
‘And in the process you met me and thought that you would pretend to be someone you weren’t…because…now why would you do that?’ Revelation struck her with the force of a sledgehammer.
‘I told you about James, didn’t I?’
‘Don’t start leap-frogging to any conclusions—’
‘I happened to mention James—in fact, if I recall correctly, poured my heart out and confessed that I had a crush on the boss, on your brother!’
Rafael’s teeth snapped together in frustration as he followed the train of her thoughts and watched them gather momentum.
‘Is that when you decided that it might be a good idea not to disclose your identity?’ She correctly interpreted his silence for validation of what she was saying.
She had thought that nothing could hurt as much as leaving him behind. She had been wrong. It hurt much, much more to realise that she had been used.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she said quietly. ‘You figured you could pump me for information if you pretended to be the lowly gardener. After all, the lowly caterer would be far more likely to confide in someone of equal standing.’#p#分页标题#e#
‘Of course I was interested when you told me how you felt about James. Do you think it would have been natural if I hadn’t been?’
‘Too interested to tell me that you were his brother—oh, sorry, his half-brother, not that that makes a bit of difference!’ Amy had thought that she could remember every word that had passed between them, but now she was trying to she found that she couldn’t, not quite. Snippets of conversation came and went in her head. ‘No wonder you knew so much about James. No wonder you felt free to tell me that I was out of his league.’
‘I told you that to try and make you see sense. James…is predictable in his choice of women.’
‘Oh…so you were protecting me!’
Rafael ran his fingers through his hair and scowled. This was the woman who had been wreaking havoc with his carefully ordered life, ruining his concentration, sending him into a mental tailspin. He had done the unthinkable and come to London in pursuit and what did he find? A shrieking harridan who wasn’t prepared to hear him out!
The shrieking harridan was now proceeding to give him the full, unexpurgated benefit of her mind.
‘Oh, I don’t think so! You thought I might have been after his money, didn’t you? You thought it might be a good idea to sound me out, find out what my game was…It’s all falling into place now.’
In the midst of her rant, which had sent the colour rushing to her face, Rafael still couldn’t control the way his eyes compulsively fastened on her, the way he wanted to shut her up by kissing her. He stood up abruptly so that he could pour himself another drink. Not brandy. Nothing that went to his brain like a match. Wine. A glass of red wine.
He poured himself his glass of wine and stood leaning against the counter. He didn’t expect her to storm over to him. Nor did he think that she would have the nerve to snatch the glass from him and tip the contents down the sink while telling him that, uh-uh, there was no way he was going to ignore what she had to say by getting drunk.
Then she stood in front of him, hands on hips, daring him to challenge her.