page17 (1/1)

‘No, I do not’ She snapped the words out as emotions cascaded over her Whatever was the nancy hormones thatforced into close proxi it would be enough, that one day he would love her too?

She moved to theand focused her attention on the view of London beyond the apart of her mother and older stepbrother that’d made up the mainstay of the dysfunctional family she was part of The constant visits by the police looking for her brother and the ever-changing partners in her mother’s life were exactly what she’d hoped to escape when she’dshe’d been Now her child seemed doomed to be part of a family where broken pro she’d ever wanted and not at all what she would have chosen

‘Then I want you to rest as the doctor suggested—especially as ill be travelling to Madrid tomorrow’ Max’s words snapped her back into the er didn’t abate

She turned to look at hi in confusion ‘Madrid?’

‘Sí, Madrid Raul and Lydia are getting ood or bad in his words Did he still resent his brother?

She kept her thoughts to herself Safer to stay on the topic of discussion ‘On Christmas Eve?’

‘Sí, on Christmas Eve’ He crossed the room and joined her at theHis profile was stern as he looked absently out over London ‘And I have promised ill be there He is my family’

The pointed reo wasn’t lost on her Did he really consider Raul Valdez as family? She wasn’t entirely convinced a man who rebuffed emotions as if he had a bat in his hand could suddenly become sentimental over a brother

Max glared at the skyline of London and tried to push down the annoyance of what he’d learnt of his brother’s i nuptials He felt a failure in the shadow of the love Raul had admitted he had for Lydia, the wo for a short while As he stared unseeingly at London, beneath a winter-grey sky, he became acutely aware of Lisa’s questions as if she’d spoken the words aloud Was Raul his fa or deserve to be naht of like that was the mother he’d lost when he was fourteen and his little sister, now al her own life

‘It was obvious there was so between them from the very first moment I saw them, but I did not expect this’ He tried to divert the attention fro here between him and Lisa As his wife, wasn’t she his family too?

‘Didn’t you expect it, Max? Do you think allthemselves emotionally—for life?’

Her green eyes fired her anger at hi ti plans would salve it He had no intention of pretending that all was okay He knew she still wanted that happy-ever-after nonsense and that hisery, even, and he had no intention of arriving in Spain with a wife that was obviously angry at him He didn’t want Raul to think he had triu—co

‘I didn’t expect Raul to rush into e, not when they were so obviously poles apart the day I met him’

‘Some couples fall out and make up, Max,’ Lisa insisted, with a jaunty rise of her brow, just as she had done that night when a business dinner had beco a couple, being in love’

‘That’s not love, that’s just sex’ The words were out before he could stop theer in them clear

Lisa looked at hi a word, and the tension in the roo hi her so close So entwined in his life when he’d already proved and she’d admitted that he wasn’t the man she needed, the man who could love her unconditionally

‘Maybe it’s so you should attend on your own’ Her words were soft, almost wistful, but beneath that he could detect the steely hardness she used to deflect the world and anyone who threatened to hurt her He’d never found out why, content that she wanted to keep the secrets of the past as much as he did It suited his had suddenly changed—too much