brought her with him because he’d had an impulse to do so?
“How did you end up dancing with my father?”
Her lashes lifted and he was momentarily stunned by the sheen of moisture in her eyes. Had he made her cry? He didn’t like that notion, even if he told himself it didn’t matter. That he shouldn’t care.
She blinked and looked away again. “He looks like you. I introduced myself and asked where I could find you. He said he would take me to you, but we ended up here.”
He didn’t doubt it for a moment. His father could not resist a beautiful woman.
“But of course,” she continued with a half-choked laugh, “I realized that I could implement my diabolical plan to sleep my way to another hotel. I was just about to claim my victim when you intervened. I’m sure I could have gotten several hotels out of him, assuming he owns a single one.”
Alejandro blew out a breath. For once he was wrong about her. But just this once. “I should not have said that.”
She didn’t look at him. “You shouldn’t have, but you’d do it again in a heartbeat. You insist on believing the worst about me.”
It was true. Part of him always wanted to stomp on her spirit. He wanted to grind her beneath his heels, make her feel every moment of every day how wrong she’d been to steal from him. She’d forced him into a choice he should have never made, would never have made if she hadn’t left and ripped away whatever happiness he’d felt with her. He hated her.
And yet he was drawn to her. Could still feel sympathy for her. It was a paradox he didn’t understand. “We will not talk about this any longer,” he declared. He didn’t want to think too deeply about his feelings. He wanted to savor her body. No feelings, no past. Just heat and passion and the sweetness of release.
Her laugh was bitter. “No, of course not. God forbid that you might actually be forced to rethink your opinion of me. I wasn’t seducing your father, but naturally the same can’t be said of how far I will go with you, right? And you’ll allow nothing to contradict that opinion, so we won’t even discuss it.”
“What could you possibly say to change my mind?” he bit out. “There is nothing you can say, no proof you can offer, that changes what you did to me.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “No, I can’t prove my innocence,” she said softly, her voice heavy with emotion.
People began to clap politely. It took a moment before Alejandro realized the music had stopped. But he and Rebecca were still locked tightly together, their gazes tangled. Hers was sad, beseeching. Disappointed?
He stepped back as if she were a live wire, forced his hands to his sides. “You cannot prove it because you are guilty, Rebecca. Cease trying to make me doubt what I know to be true. It will not work. We can never go back to those days before you betrayed me.”
14
Rebecca sipped champagne and chatted with a woman who was the wife of a Spanish television star. But her attention wasn’t on the woman as much as it was on the man sitting across from her. Alejandro was so achingly handsome it hurt. And so remote it chilled her.
From the moment they’d left the dance floor and come to the head table, he’d been closed off and cold. Of course he would never believe she hadn’t been the one to betray him. She knew that, but being here now, in the place where she’d shared so much with him, her emotions were raw.
From the moment he’d left her in the suite, she’d been on edge. She felt like an exposed nerve, reacting to every stimulus, aching with pain, wanting to escape. She’d actually hoped to see approval in his eyes when he’d first seen her at the party. The dress she’d chosen from the few the salesgirl brought fit like it was custom designed for her. The shoes were exquisite. A quick visit from one of the salon’s stylists, and her hair and makeup were perfect. Looking at herself in the mirror, she’d have never believed that a half hour before she’d been more suited for an evening by the beach rather than a formal gathering at a posh hotel.
She’d swallowed her trepidation and gone downstairs, but Alejandro was nowhere to be found. Seeing Juan Ramirez was almost a