Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant. Sarah Morgan
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Jago Rodriguez is nothing but a painful part of my past. I know that Dad was responsible, but Jago should have believed in me, Libby. He didn’t trust me and I can’t be with a man who doesn’t trust me.’
‘Jago, can you concentrate?’
Jago shook himself and stared at Charlotte. ‘Did you say something?’
‘Yes.’ She put her hands on her hips, her expression frustrated. ‘I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes and you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing.’ Jago’s insides were raw.
After Katy had walked away from him the day before, he’d spent a sleepless night coming to terms with the fact that he’d been successfully manipulated by a master.
He’d always known that Sir Charles Westerling was utterly ruthless, but when that ruthlessness had been turned on him, he hadn’t spotted it.
He was also extremely disturbed by Katy’s quiet statement that she’d been the one left to deal with her father.
What exactly had she had to deal with?
Had her father been violent?
He was suddenly forced to face the uncomfortable truth that he’d misjudged her appallingly and at the moment he had absolutely no idea how to go about making amends.
He couldn’t believe that he’d been so quick to pass judgement on her. Hadn’t he seen with his own eyes how shy she was? For goodness’ sake, it had taken him weeks before he’d even attempted to take things further than a kiss. How could he have believed that she would have been so uninhibited as to dive into another man’s bed so quickly?
And she’d loved him. He gritted his teeth. She’d told him so again last night.
She’d loved him with an uncritical devotion that had given him a bigger high than the most lucrative deal he’d ever closed on the stock market.
And he’d managed to kill that love.
‘I don’t know who’s made you angry, but I feel sorry for him,’ Charlotte announced, giving up on communication and pushing a set of X-rays in his hands. ‘When you’ve finished plotting revenge, can you check those for me, please? The lady is waiting in cubicle 3.’
Plotting revenge?
He wasn’t plotting revenge, there would be time enough to deal with her father later. At the moment he was using every ounce of intelligence at his disposal to try and work out how to manoeuvre his way back into Katy’s good books.
And it was going to be tough.
Pulling himself together, he checked the X-ray, reassured the patient and then prowled through A and E, looking for Katy.
She was working in the paediatric area, seeing a child who had fallen awkwardly on a bouncy castle.
The mother was a bag of nerves and the child was cranky and irritable.
Unobserved, he stood in the doorway watching Katy, noticing the way her eyes softened as she spoke to the child and the way she reacted so sympathetically to the mother’s endless questions and worries.
Everything about Katy was gentle and giving. She opened windows to let wasps out and lifted spiders out of the bath instead of turning on the taps like most other people. How could he ever have thought she’d have betrayed him with another man?
He watched as she soothed the child and examined the arm, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she ran through the possibilities in her mind.
She was an incredibly thorough doctor.
And he’d treated her shockingly.
‘I think she might have fractured a bone, Mrs Hancock,’ she said finally. ‘She’s very tender just here and there’s some swelling. I’d like to send her for some X-rays so that I can have a proper look.’
The mother looked guilty. ‘It was such a busy party—I didn’t even see her fall. I just heard her screaming.’
‘How awful for you.’ Katy sympathised immediately, her manner completely non-judgmental. ‘Try not to blame yourself. These things happen with small children. You can’t be everywhere all the time.’
She reached for a form, scribbled on it and handed it to the mother, the lights catching her blonde hair and making it gleam. ‘If you follow the yellow line, that takes you straight to X-Ray. Come back here afterwards and I’ll look at the films.’
Jago felt something burn deep inside him.
He still wanted her.
He didn’t deserve her but he still wanted her, and all his instincts told him that part of her still wanted him, too. He didn’t believe for a moment that she was in love with her fiancé.
If she had been, he told himself that he’d have walked away without bothering her, but he’d seen something in her eyes when she’d looked at him.
He’d seen the same hunger that he felt when he was confronted by her every day.
No matter how badly he’d hurt her, physically at least, she still wanted him.
And he intended to use that to his advantage.
Katy finished filling out the notes and then glanced up, the colour fading from her cheeks as she saw Jago watching her.
Her stomach did a somersault.
‘Did you need me for something?’
His gaze never flickered from hers. ‘We have things to talk about.’
Just as Libby had predicted, he wasn’t prepared to leave things as they were.
She straightened. ‘We have absolutely nothing to talk about, Jago.’
‘I disagree.’
Her eyes slid self-consciously around her, checking that no one was within earshot. ‘It’s all history, Jago. In the past. Finished.’
‘We both know it’s far from finished,’ he said smoothly, and she tensed.
Surely he wasn’t suggesting …?
Just in case he was, she thought she’d better set him straight. ‘Jago, you thought I’d given my …’ She glanced furtively around again and lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. ‘Given my virginity to you and then slept with another man at the same time.’ She brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes with shaking fingers, totally unable to comprehend that he’d had such a low opinion of her. ‘You obviously didn’t know me at all.’
His wide shoulders stiffened defensively. ‘I thought I did but all the evidence pointed to the contrary. Surely you can see that.’
She shook her head. ‘Jago, I couldn’t ever be with a man who believed I was capable of that. I don’t know what sort of women you mix with normally but if that’s the sort of behaviour that you’ve come to expect then I feel sorry for you.’
Jago compressed his mouth. ‘It does happen.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘But not with me. I don’t do things like that,’ she said, hating the fact that there was a quiver in her voice. She wanted so badly to match his cool indifference. ‘You didn’t even have the decency to ask me about it.’
‘My only defence is that my pride was very hurt.’ He lifted his dark head and looked at her steadily. ‘After I left, why didn’t you try and contact me? To explain?’
She gaped at him. ‘Are you really trying to suggest that any of this is my fault? You left—and you didn’t even do me the courtesy of telling me you were going, let alone give me the reason for your sudden departure. I was so naïve that I actually believed that you’d come back. That there was