‘I had the right to know your true identity before I slept with you,’ Suzy sliced back at him sharply.
‘It was casual sex, Suzy...not a life-changing choice!’ Ruy raked back at her cuttingly.
Her face flamed at the wounding reminder. What had meant a great deal to her had meant considerably less to him and that hurt, yes, it did, no matter how hard she resented that reality. Ruy had lied to her and that scared her and made her very wary, particularly after she had innocently chosen to trust Percy. She had already suffered the knowledge that she was not that perfect a judge of character and she knew she needed to be more careful.
‘Yes, it worked out so well for you when you ended up bedding a stalker!’ Suzy reminded him helplessly, needled by the statement that their encounter had been casual on his terms when it had been anything but casual for her when he had become her first lover.
A muscle pulled taut at the corner of Ruy’s unsmiling mouth. ‘You slept with me because you wanted me. It would have been wrong had I been married or concealing some other relevant fact that you needed to know, but I wasn’t.’
‘I wouldn’t have chosen to become intimate with a guy so far removed from my own world!’ Suzy retorted fiercely.
‘That’s inverse snobbery,’ Ruy countered, marvelling at the stubborn manner in which she held onto her ire, refusing to be soothed or to accept that he had done nothing wrong.
‘No, it’s not. You’re rich and I should’ve worked that out for myself because you don’t really hide it that well. You’re very arrogant. You think you can buy whatever you want and that your wishes and needs are more important than other people’s. You rearranged my life and my father’s purely to suit yourself.’
‘It suited you as well,’ Ruy incised coolly, all logic and calm, which only increased the frustrated rage she was suppressing.
‘Oh, shut up!’ Suzy finally launched at him in exasperation, ramming down the hurt feelings tugging at her that he was not the man she had naively assumed he was. Once again, she had made the wrong judgement call and that scared her. ‘I’ve heard enough of your smooth, specious arguments. You could probably talk your way out of murder but I’m not listening any more!’
And with that ultimate strike, Suzy rose from her seat, swiped up the magazines the stewardess had brought her and stalked to the end of that section of cabin to sit out of his view. Ruy brooded on his rage, even white teeth gritted. He was very wealthy, he had always been wealthy, and he supposed a certain level of arrogance and selfishness afflicted most men in his position. He was accustomed to getting his own way. He was used to paying more to get it too, it being his experience that those he dealt with expected him to pay more because he could afford it. How was that wrong?
What difference did his status in life make to her? Would she honestly have rejected him had she known that he was rich? And why was she the very first woman in his life to fight with him over the reality that he was as rich as Midas? The first woman to criticise him...aside of Cecile. And his sister adored him and only offered occasional nuggets of unwelcome truth in an effort to improve his character.
‘I have a business call to make,’ Ruy informed her as he came to a halt in the archway next to her seat. ‘But before I leave, allow me to have the final word.’
Suzy lifted her head, green eyes glittering like emeralds, soft pink mouth flattening with tension.
‘You had sex with me for the same reason I had sex with you, querida,’ he imparted softly.
‘Which was...?’ Suzy dared, enraged by the heat she could feel hotly flooding her cheeks.
‘Hombre! Reason had nothing to do with it. We were so hot for each other we couldn’t control ourselves. At least I’m honest about it,’ Ruy told her mockingly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS THE LIMOUSINE that collected Ruy and Suzy from the airport pulled away from the kerb, the silence within the vehicle was frigid. Suzy played with her phone and did everything she could to avoid looking in Ruy’s direction while he passed his time with business calls, switching with enviable ease between several different languages. Having no idea exactly where they were heading and still too angry with Ruy to ask, Suzy was exasperated with both him and herself by the time the limo turned off a rural road to move up a long straight driveway. The lane was bounded by tall dark cypress trees that cast spear-shaped shadows across the pale sunlit gravel.
A gargantuan building came into view at the top of the drive. The substantial house in the centre was extended on either side by wings. It was a mansion, composed of several storeys and countless windows.
‘Welcome to Palacio Valiente,’ Ruy murmured as the limousine drove below an archway and came to a halt in a cobbled interior courtyard, adorned with a marble fountain.
An arched veranda with polished floor tiles ringed the entire space. Elegant urns of colourful flowers tumbled from every corner. Suzy climbed slowly out of the car. A hand lightly cupping her elbow, Ruy moved forward to greet the small middle-aged man awaiting them. They moved indoors down a short corridor into a vast echoing marble entrance hall in which life-sized classical statues stood in niches.
‘Manuel is scolding me for bringing you into the house for the first time by the rear entrance,’ Ruy told her with amusement. ‘He manages the staff and the household—’
Suzy was still in shock at the size and style of Ruy’s home while telling herself that she should have guessed by his attitude that he would live in a literal palace. How he had accommodated his pedigreed expectations to that relatively small, if spacious, house in Norfolk she had no idea because by his standards he had been roughing it. Ruy had not only grown up with the proverbial silver spoon, he had grown up with an entire silver canteen. The entrance hall was cool, splendid and thoroughly intimidating, designed, she felt, to remind less high-flown mortals of their lowlier place in life.
A sweeping staircase that split in two higher up to curve in opposite directions sat before her. Suzy thought in sudden horror, Oh, my goodness, my clothes just aren’t going to cut it here! He had said a high-society wedding, but she had seriously underestimated the level of glitz and expense that would be expected. And once again that was all his fault for not being more honest. He had worn an elegant business suit to travel home, she had put on cropped trousers and a tee and that contrast said it all.
Ruy thrust open the door of a room off the landing and stood back. Her delicate profile tight, she moved ahead of him into a breathtakingly magnificent bedroom. A superb canopied and draped ornate bed sat at the far end of the room. ‘This looks like somewhere royalty would sleep,’ she whispered uneasily, feeling as if she should be standing behind a rope reading a guidebook on some official tour.
‘No, this is where we sleep,’ Ruy countered.
‘We?’ Suzy almost gasped.