Kept by the Spanish Billionaire(52)

‘Obviously I don’t…’ Rafael, caught fully on the back foot for the first time in his life, was literally stuck for words. He scowled and stood up so that he could prowl the room. He needed movement.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t date women who are clones of one another.’ Well, actually, he did.

‘I don’t believe you. I think…do you know what I think?’

‘I think we should put the past behind us and focus on the now. The now that brought me over here. Because you’ve been on my mind night and day since you left. Do you think I would have come over if you hadn’t been? Do you think I would have put myself through this if I hadn’t realised how much I still want you?’

Interrupted in mid-sentence, Amy could only stare at him. Yes, he wanted her and want was a very powerful thing, but what she heard wasn’t a man who was open to the possibility of a relationship. What she heard was a man who had found himself denied a possession he desired and had decided to do something about it. Rafael Vives, even in his role of so-called gardener, was a man who would always do something about getting what he wanted.

‘And what are you expecting now?’ Amy asked quietly. ‘Now that you’ve put yourself through all this?’

‘I don’t know what I expect…’He had known up until she had laid into him like a ton of bricks. Now he just knew what he wanted. ‘But what I want is for you to give this a chance…’

‘By which I guess you mean we should head up to the nearest bedroom, rip each other’s clothes off and make love. If you were so desperate for my wonderful company, why did it take you so long to work your way over to England?’

‘I needed to try…to get you out of my system…’ For Rafael, that was an almighty admission. Since he had never had any woman in his system, he had never had to try to get any woman out of it. Just confessing to the weakness made him feel exposed.

What Amy heard was the statement of a man who had tried all right…tried to do what he sensibly wanted to do, which would have been to forget her because she was, face it, inappropriate. As inappropriate for him as she had been for his brother. His half- brother, as he kept pointing out, as though it made the slightest bit of difference. She had listened to his brief life history just then, which he had offered to explain, she supposed, the marked difference in their appearances, the difference in their surnames, Rafael having kept the one he was born with. The only thing she had been capable of thinking was that he had lied to her.

‘But I couldn’t.’

‘Too bad,’ Amy said sarcastically. ‘Bit of a nuisance having to traipse over here to work this out of your system.’ He made her sound like an infectious disease that had to be cleared up as quickly as possible. ‘Did you set aside some time for the purpose? Say a couple of weeks? That should just about get your life back to normal and you can disappear back to New York to pick up where you left off before I came along. And where, incidentally, would that place be?’#p#分页标题#e#

‘Look, Amy…’

‘No, don’t!’ She stood up. There were bright patches of colour in her cheeks. The anger was building up inside her again, like a volcano working itself up to another eruption. ‘I told you everything about myself! And you sat there, listening, pretending to be interested, when in fact you were only interested in picking up clues so that you could protect your bank balance! Is that why you slept with me, Rafael? To try and drive James out of my head?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Rafael flushed darkly. Every accusation had just a shameful tinge of truth behind it. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he remembered having thought just that, but that had been before he had lost control of the situation had and the situation started to control him.

‘Don’t you dare tell me that I’m being ridiculous!’

‘You are the most frustrating woman on the face of the earth!’

‘Would that be because I’m not afraid to have a point of view? Especially when I’m at the receiving end of a raw deal? I can just imagine why you would have told me that I wasn’t your type! I bet the women you like never raise their voices because who would dare raise their voice to a tycoon like you? You must have had a good laugh at my expense with your brother,’ Amy finished wearily. ‘Did you call him every night with updates on how it was going?’

‘That is an insult.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Yes, it was. ‘You lied to me. I don’t even know who you are now. Who are you? The man who owns all this…’ She spread her arms to encompass the luxurious house, just one, she supposed, of many scattered across the globe. ‘Or the man with nothing?’