He twirled the glass in his hand and stared down at the dregs of the whisky and soda.
The fact was that had he never had his life changed, disrupted, steamrollered, call it what you would, by a slight-figured, fair-haired witch, he might well have returned to Elizabeth and married her because she was so eminently right for him, at least on paper.
Rafael had always been amused but disapproving of his younger brother’s playboy ways. Just as he had always been privately disdainful of the women James attached himself to. He had met a fair few of them and had considered them all, without exception, shallow, never mind how they looked. He, Rafael Vives, had not only kept his Spanish surname but, it had to be said, thought himself a man of more gravitas than his brother. James advertised, but he, Rafael, was the mover and shaker behind the scenes.
And then Amy had stormed into his well ordered life and turned it upside down.
She was so far removed from his ideal of the perfect woman for him that he had utterly failed to notice the way she had insinuated herself under his skin so that in the space of a few short days she had taken over his head.
He resisted the urge to pour himself another drink and instead helped himself to some bottled water. They lined one entire shelf of his fridge like little soldiers and, as he’d expected, the rest of the shelves were stuffed with lettuce, vegetables, fruit, yoghurts. A jar of olives peeked out from behind some salad dressing. It seemed to sum up his relationship with Elizabeth. How could she not have known that he hated olives?
He drank the water in one go and then went to get his car. He knew that he could spare himself the tedium of dealing with the London traffic by calling his driver, but the last thing he needed was a witness to his potential embarrassment because, face it, he thought to himself, why should Amy take him back when he had politely, yet again, sent her on her way? After she had debased herself by coming to him, offering herself on his terms? She might not have loved him, but she had been willing to explore what they had and he had turned her away because, fool that he was, he hadn’t been able to conceive of himself as a man who could possibly want to explore any kind of relationship with a woman who wasn’t as substantial as the ones he had made a habit of dating.
Never mind that she was warm and funny and quirky and could make him forget that the only thing he loved was his work. Never mind that she could make him play truant, entice him into making love in extraordinary places, turn him on even when she was irritating the hell out of him.
He thought of Elizabeth and deeply regretted the hurt he knew he would have caused her, but she had taken it well, just as he had expected her to. No shouting or screaming.
‘I don’t think this is going to work, after all,’ he said, and she looked at him calmly, her head tilted to one side, and nodded.#p#分页标题#e#
‘But we gave it one last shot, Rafael,’ she said sadly, smiling, which made him feel even more of a cad. ‘I think, all things considered, that it’s probably best if I leave…’ and he nodded, all very controlled. He even offered to help her pack her things was relieved when she quietly turned down the offer.
It had been so civilised. Right now, she was staying at a hotel until she could get her flight changed. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she decided to stay on a few more days because why ever not? There were still things to see in London before she left and, above all else, Elizabeth was sensible.
He took the drive to Amy’s house very slowly. He had had a full day to try and figure himself out. Now, it was dark and cold, which was a much better time to do what he had to do.
As usual, there was no hurrying the traffic. Like New York, London never seemed to do a great deal of sleeping, least of all at seven-thirty in the evening.
He finally pulled up outside her house and killed the engine. Closing a deal had always sent a rush of adrenaline through him. Moving and investing vast sums of money had likewise given him the same surge of excitement. Neither had ever made him feel as sickeningly vulnerable as he did now, staring up at her front door in the darkness.
He wondered whether the outcome of his visit to London would have been different had he approached her in a different way. Instead of enticing her to his house under false pretences, mistakenly thinking that she would see the element of surprise as flattering, maybe he should just have telephoned her, suggested meeting up on neutral ground, and then confessed to her that he had been a fool, that he wanted her so much that it was driving him crazy, that they could solve the problem of distance one way or another. Perhaps honesty would have been the best policy. Which led him to think about what he was going to say to her now.