'Meu deus!' She reached out and snatched the broadsheet out of his grasp. It was even worse up close. 'It looks as if … as if-' Disbelief caught in her throat, eating the rest of her words.
'As if I'm taking you from behind?' he supplied helpfully.
Humiliating heat stained her cheeks. 'Sim,' she muttered fiercely. 'With your jacket covering me that way it looks as if I'm wearing nothing from the waist down! It's … it's disgusting!'
He plucked the paper from her hand and studied the picture. 'Hmm, it certainly is … something.'
'How can you sit there and be so unconcerned about it?' The picture had been taken with a high-resolution camera but, with the low lighting in the car park, the suggestiveness in the picture could be misinterpreted a thousand ways. None of them complimentary.
'Relax. We weren't exactly having sex, were we?'
'That's not the point.' She grabbed the paper back and quickly perused the article accompanying the gratuitous picture, fearing the worst. Sure enough, her father's political campaign had been called into question, along with an even more unsavoury speculation on her private life.
If this is what they do in public we can only imagine what they do in private …
Her hands shook as she threw the offending paper down. 'I thought this was a reputable paper.'
'It is.'
'Then why would they print something so … offensive?'
'Perhaps because it's true. We were kissing in the car park. And you were pushing your delectable backside into my groin as if you couldn't wait till we got home to do me.'
She surged to her feet, knocking her chair aside. Her whole body was shaking with fury and she could barely grasp the chair to straighten it.
'We both know I was not!'
'Do we? I told you those shorts were a bad idea. Do you blame me for getting carried away?'
'Oh, you're despicable!'
'And you're delicious when you're angry,' he replied lazily, picked up the paper and carried on reading.
The urge to drive her fist through the paper into his face made her take another hasty step back.
She abhorred violence. Or at least she had before she'd met Theo Pantelides. Now she wasn't so sure what she was capable of …
'Aren't you going to eat, anjo?' he asked without taking his eyes off the page.
'No. I've lost my appetite,' she snapped.
She fled the terrace to the sound of his mocking laughter and raced up to her room, her face flaming and angry humiliation smashing through her chest.
He found her on the beach an hour later. She heard the crunch of his feet in the warm sand and studiously avoided looking up. She carried on sketching the stationary boat anchored about a mile away and ignored him when he settled himself on the flat rock next to her.
He didn't speak for a few minutes before he let out an irritated breath. 'The silent treatment doesn't work for me, Inez.'
She snapped her pad shut and turned to face him. His lips were pinched with displeasure but his eyes were focused, gauging her reaction … almost as if her reaction mattered.
'Having my sex life sleazily speculated about in the weekend newspaper doesn't work for me either.' She blinked to dilute the intense focus and continued. 'I agree that perhaps those shorts were not the best idea. But I saw the other diners in that restaurant. There were people far more famous than I am. But still the paparazzo followed us into the car park and took our picture.'
Inez thought he tensed but perhaps it was the movement of his body as he reached behind him and produced a plate laden with food. 'It's done. Let's move on.'
She yearned to remain on her high horse, but with her exertions last night, coupled with having eaten less than a whole meal in the last twenty-four hours, it wasn't surprising when her stomach growled loudly in anticipation.
He shook out a napkin and settled the plate in her lap. 'Eat up,' he instructed and picked up her sketchpad. 'You have an hour before the stylist arrives to address the issue of your wardrobe.'
She froze in the act of reaching for the food. 'I don't need a stylist. I can easily go back home and pack up some more clothes.'
'You'll not be returning to your father's house for the next three months. Besides, if your clothes are all in the style of heavy evening gowns or tiny shorts, then you'll agree the time has come to go a different route?'
She mentally scanned her wardrobe and swiftly concluded that he was probably right. 'There really is no need,' she tried anyway.
'It's too late to change the plan, Inez.'
And, just like that, the subject was closed. He tapped the plate and, as if on cue, her stomach growled again.
Giving up the argument, she devoured the thick sliced beef sandwich and polished off the apple in greedy bites. She was gulping down the bottled water when she saw him pause at her sketch of a boat.
'This is very good.'
'Thank you.'
He tilted the page. 'You like boats?'
'Very much. My mother used to take me sailing. It was my favourite thing to do with her.'
He closed the pad. 'Were you two close?'
'She was my best friend,' she responded in a voice that cracked with pain. 'Not a day goes by that I don't miss her.'
His fingers seemed to tighten on the rock before they relaxed again. 'Mothers have a way of affecting you that way. It makes their absence all the harder to bear.'
'Is yours … when did you lose yours?' she asked.
He turned and stared at her. A bleak look entered his eyes but dissolved in the next blink. 'My mother is very much alive.'
She gasped. 'But I thought you said … '
'Absence doesn't mean death. There are several ways for a parent to be absent from a child's life without the ultimate separation.'
'Are you talking about abandonment?'
Again he glanced at her, and this time she caught a clearer glimpse of his emotions. Pain. Devastating pain.
'Abandonment. Indifference. Selfishness. Self-absorption. There are many forms of delivering the same blow,' he elaborated in a rough voice.
'I know. But I was lucky. My mother was the best mother in the world.'
'Is that why you're trying to be the best daughter in the world for your father, despite what you know of him?'
His accusation was like sandpaper against her skin. 'I beg your pardon?'
He shook his head. 'Don't bother denying it. You know exactly what sort of person he is. And yet you've stood by him all these years. Why-because you want a pat on the head and to be told you're a good daughter?'
The truth of his words hit her square in the chest. Up until yesterday, everything she'd done, every plan of her father's she'd gone along with had been to win his approval, and in some way make up for the fact that she hadn't been born the right gender. She didn't want to curl up and hide from the truth. But the callous way he condemned her made her want to justify her actions.
'I'm not blind to my father's shortcomings.' She ignored his caustic snort. 'But neither am I going to make excuses for my actions. My loyalty to my family isn't something I'm ashamed of.'
'Even when that loyalty meant turning a blind eye to other people's suffering?' he demanded icily.
She frowned. 'Whose suffering?'
'The people he left behind in the favelas for a start. Do you know that less than two per cent of the funds raised at those so-called charity events you so painstakingly put together actually make it to the people who need it most?'
She felt her face redden. His condemning gaze raked over her features. 'Of course you do,' he murmured acidly.
'It happened in the past, I admit it, but I only agreed to organise the last event if everything over and above the cost of doing it went to the favelas.' At his disbelieving look, she added, 'I do a lot of work with charities. I know what I'm talking about.'
'And did you ensure that it was done?'
'Yes. The charity confirmed they'd received the funds yesterday.'
One eyebrow quirked in surprise before he jerked to his feet. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he turned to face her. 'That's progress at least.'
'Thank you. I don't live in a fairy tale. Trust me, I'm trying to do my part to help the favelas.'
'How?'
She debated a few seconds before she answered. 'I work at an inner city charity a few times a week.'
His gaze probed hers. 'That morning outside the coffee shop, that was where you were going?'
'Yes.'
'What does your father think?'
She bit her lip. 'He doesn't know.'
His mouth twisted. 'Because it will draw attention to his lies about his upbringing? Everyone knows he was born and raised in the favelas.'