Bitter Memories. Margaret Mayo
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was glad when it was all over, when they pushed back their chairs and stood up to leave, though not so happy when Alejandro insisted on settling their bill. It made her feel indebted to him, and she did not want that; she did not want to feel any obligation whatsoever.
‘I wish you hadn’t said anything about Peter,’ she said crossly to her sister as they made their way back down the mountain. Alejandro had sped off in front of them and was already well out of sight.
Charlene grimaced cheerfully. ‘It’s what he deserves. I hope it put him strictly in his place; the man’s dissolute. I wonder if Inocente knows he’s married. I felt like telling her, except that I didn’t want to cause a scene, and I’m certainly glad that it all ended between you two. Imagine if you’d married him and he carried on like this.’
Tanya had already thought of that. The person she felt sorry for was Juanita. ‘I guess that was never on the cards. I was just one of many.’
There must have been something in her voice that gave her away, because Charlene looked at her sharply. ‘Hey, You’re not still carrying a torch for him?’
‘Charlene! Keep your eyes on the road,’ screeched Tanya as they veered dangerously close towards the edge. The mountainside dropped sharply away and there were no barriers.
‘Whoops!’ exclaimed her sister, correcting the car. ‘But if you do feel something for Alejandro, then you’d better get rid of it straight away. That man is bad news without a doubt.’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ replied Tanya, ‘I know exactly what he’s like, and don’t worry, I have no intention of getting involved with him again. I learned my lesson a long time ago.’ She closed her eyes as Charlene negotiated another sharp bend. This wasn’t her idea of fun at all. She hadn’t enjoyed it coming up, but it was even more scary going down, especially when all they had to guide them was the moon and the stars. Charlene seemed to have no qualms, but as far as she was concerned it was distinctly perilous.
They lapsed into silence, and she could not get Alejandro out of her mind. She kept thinking of him with Inocente while his wife sat unsuspectingly at home. There was no doubt that he was having an affair with the girl; it was there in the way she looked at him, the way he spoke to her, the way they had walked out to his car with their arms around each other. Tanya felt quite sick at the thought.
When they got back home she feigned tiredness and went straight to her room. It had been bad enough discovering that she had meant nothing to Alejandro all those years ago, but to find out that he was still two-timing Juanita was devastating in the extreme. She had never thought in those early days that Alejandro was a womaniser. It was hard to believe that he had set out on this treacherous path of deceit at the early age of twenty-three. The saying that a leopard never changed its spots was certainly true where he was concerned. She wondered how many other girls there had been.
The next day Matilde came home and Alejandro turned up to collect the dress. This time Tanya had been half expecting him, knowing that he would want to make some sort of excuse for the night before.
She was outside when he came, sitting on a chair in the tiny square of back garden, soaking up the sun-shine, Matilde’s tan and white dog keeping her company, although he lay in the shade of the wall. She was out of sight of the front door, and although she had heard Alejandro’s car had thought herself relatively safe. Until she heard him call her name.
Ought she to pretend not to hear? Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily, pulses jerked, and she knew there was no way she could ignore him. Like him or hate him, it was all the same; the animal magnetism was there—getting stronger by the day!
Slowly she turned her head. ‘Señora Guerra’s in the house.’ Her tone was hard, belying her tumultuous feelings.
‘I’d like a word with you first.’ He pushed open the gate and strode the few feet to her side.
‘If it’s about last night I don’t want to hear.’ There was irritation in her tone, and her sloe-shaped blue eyes were cold and distant. ‘You’ll never change, will you, Alejandro?’ He loomed over her, tall and somehow threatening, putting her at a distinct disadvantage. She jumped to her feet and faced him.
He frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t come the innocent with me,’ she cried. ‘How many other women have there been?’
‘Other women?’
‘Yes, affairs on the side. It’s a good job you didn’t bring your wife along today or I might have been tempted to tell her.’ Fury added strength to her words, and she was speaking much more loudly than she intended. Matilde popped her head out of the door, frowned in their direction, and disappeared again.
Tanya was so uptight that she missed the shadow that crossed Alejandro’s face, saw only the tightening of his jaw, the suppression of his anger. ‘My words have struck home, have they?’
‘You don’t know what You’re talking about, Tanya.’ His normally generous lips were clamped thinly, his dark eyes as hard as polished jet.
‘Don’t I?’ She lifted her fine brows and eyed him coldly. ‘How can I not know when you flaunt your girlfriends under everyone’s nose?’
‘You’re talking about Inocente?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And Beatriz, I presume?’
Tanya frowned. ‘Beatriz? Who’s she?’
‘You seem to think that she’s my girlfriend too,’ he rasped coldly. ‘Can you tell me what gave you that idea?’
‘If You’re talking about the woman whose dress Matilde’s making, I didn’t think she was your girlfriend,’ snapped Tanya. ‘I thought she was your wife, but if she isn’t then You’re simply confirming my already rock-bottom opinion of you.’
He looked at her sharply, questioningly. ‘You’d heard I was married?’
‘Yes, I had.’ Tanya’s tone was bitter. ‘And I think what You’re doing to her is diabolical. You want stringing up.’
‘When did you hear? How did you hear?’ He seemed not to notice her harsh words.
‘Is it important?’ she snapped.
‘I’d like to know.’ His eyes were narrowed on hers, his expression unreadable.
Tanya lifted her shoulders in a careless gesture. ‘Someone Charlene met in the hotel told her. He came from Tenerife, knew you, apparently.’
‘Was this before or after you’d married Peter?’
Suddenly she could see the way his mind was working. ‘Heavens,’ she cried sharply, ‘I didn’t marry him on the rebound, if that’s what You’re thinking. I didn’t marry him because I’d heard you’d got married; it was a long time afterwards. And as Charlene said last night, we were extremely happy together. I would never have dreamt of seeing another man behind his back.’
She was so indignant that she was out of breath, her chest heaving as she looked at him belligerently and coldly, her fingers curled into her palms so tightly that her nails dug in and hurt, but she did nothing about it; in fact she welcomed the pain.
His eyes glittered with a cold light that Tanya had never seen before; his nostrils dilated. ‘After all we had going for us, Tanya, I would never have believed that you could think so harshly of me.’
‘All we had going for us?’ she echoed loudly. ‘We had nothing. It was a brief, glorious fling that was over the moment you left England.’ And she was lying again! But what the hell—she refused to succumb to the indignity of confessing that she had spent hours and hours crying, pining, longing, wondering.
‘You forgot me so instantly?’
His expression was so incredulous that she almost laughed. ‘Indeed I did. What did