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‘There she blows!’ Mike laughed, tapping the window to the left as they lost height and powered down over green plains, far lusher than Gemma had expected.
‘Quite a spread, isn’t it?’
Gemma nodded, mute with awe. Southfork paled into insignificance. This was how real oil barons lived. The Villa Verde was the centre piece of the massive hacienda. And was that a church, the white-washed building closest to the impressive villa? Bright blue caught her eye as they swung down low over the estate, bright blue of a pool shaded by palms and dark green cypresses.
There were cottages dotted around and Gemma wondered if they all belonged to the man whose portrait she had come to paint. It was more like a village than one man’s home. So maybe he had a large family, sons and daughters with their own families. Suddenly she didn’t want to be here, wished she had heeded her mother’s advice.
Registering her sudden look of concern Mike misinterpreted it. ‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed, unbuckling his seatbelt after they had landed smoothly on the airstrip far away from the hacienda, ‘you’re not expected to walk to the villa.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ Gemma smiled as Mike slid open the door and a furnace of heat assailed her. ‘It’s hotter than Caracas.’
‘Hell isn’t hotter than Caracas,’ Mike joked.
They walked to the hangar and Mike hauled her case into the back seat of an open-topped Chevrolet. ‘Hop in, and we’ll be there in no time.’
They were. Mike drew to a halt in front of the palatial stone steps at the front of the Villa Verde and Gemma slid out of her seat and stared up at the sprawling two-storey house. It was gleaming white, rough-plastered in some age-old traditional way, its roof capped with antique tiles of shiny green. The shutters at the windows were ornate and painted green to match the roof. The old villa looked cool and just a little imposing—or was it her ragged nerves that gave the impression of the world closing in around her?
A short, dark, middle-aged woman, clothed in the customary black of a widow, came out of the huge studded double doors of the house and stood waiting for Gemma.
‘Senorita Soames, I am happy to greet you. I am Maria.’ She smiled and put a hand out to Gemma, which she took. ‘You are tired, si? I show you your room and then you eat and rest.’ She turned to Mike as he strode into the huge reception hall with Gemma’s suitcase, his trainers squeaking on the highly polished terracotta floor tiles. ‘Christina, she wait in the kitchen for you. She miss you.’ Maria grinned and winked at Gemma.
Mike dropped Gemma’s suitcase at the foot of the great stone stairway with its wrought-iron banister of twisted vines coiling up to the upper floor. He turned and grinned at the two women. ‘Misses me, eh? And so she should.’ With that he disappeared down a long corridor, a definite spring in his step.
Maria laughed. ‘Love, eh? Is good, si? Christina is my daughter. She love the Americano. Come, I take you up. Pepe will bring the case.’
Gemma, clutching her precious satchel, followed Maria upstairs, gazing in awe at the huge paintings that hung from the rough-plastered walls. A lot of them were portraits, which Gemma promised herself she’d study more closely later. For the moment all she wanted to do was get unpacked and cool off, though the house was cool enough; pretty dark too, she noted. The windows were all narrow and some of them shuttered to keep out the heat of the sun. She wondered where she would be expected to work and hoped that wherever it was there was more light than was being allowed to filter in the vaulted hallway and the stairs.
It was a huge villa, much bigger inside than it appeared outside. It was almost medieval in its décor, the stark white walls hung with what looked like iron objects of torture but were probably antique farming implements. All it needed was a couple of strategically placed suits of armour and she would feel she was in a castle of the Middle Ages. Heavens! There they were, round the next corner. Gemma skirted them warily, suppressing a grin.
Her room was coolly furnished, the bed an ornate affair with carved nymphs twirling vines around their heads on the mahogany headboard. It was draped with a creamy lace bedspread and there were matching lace drapes at the two narrow windows. There were huge rugs on the stone floor, pale orange with Aztec designs in blues and cream. The furniture, deeply carved wardrobes and chests of drawers, were heavy and ponderous but not unpleasant to live with. The room was scented with roses, which was nice, though the vases were filled with exotic waxy orchids in vibrant blues which gave off no smell. A Caribbean fan throbbed dully above the bed.
‘It’s lovely,’ Gemma breathed, slipping her satchel from her shoulder. It wasn’t her taste in décor but she nevertheless acknowledged it to be a beautiful room. Her mother would have adored it.
‘The bathroom, too.’ Maria smiled proudly, opening a heavy wooden door across the room.
Gemma peered in to see a wealth of marble and gold dolphin taps and sparkling mirrors.
‘It’s perfect,’ she smiled, as a small, leathered Pepe delivered her suitcase to the room she would occupy till the portrait was finished.
‘I unpack for you,’ Maria said, stepping to the case as Pepe went out of the room.
‘No, Maria. Thank you, but I can manage.’ Gemma wanted to be alone, to get her emotions together. She was here, in her father’s house, and it all felt very strange.
‘I leave you, then. I bring food to the terrace when you are ready.’
Gemma stood by the window when she was alone and gazed down over the gardens at the back of the villa. Lush tropical gardens full of colour and brightness. Flagstoned paths trailed through beds of roses; no doubt where the perfume came from, Gemma mused, breathing deeply. The swimming-pool lay beyond a screen of cypresses. Gemma could see the gleam of blue through the dark green and longed to cool her travel-weary body. She turned to her suitcase—first things first…
She stood frozen in time, half turned away from the window. A figure stood in the doorway of the bedroom. A figure she knew so well, but the apparition was some cruel trick of the dim light, surely, accentuated by this sombre old villa. It moved, came towards her, and Gemma’s hand shot to her mouth to stem the half-scream that rose in her throat.
‘It’s not possible!’ she breathed at last as the apparition stopped in front of her.
‘Anything is possible in my world,’ Felipe breathed heavily, ‘especially if you are fired by revenge and have the resources to avenge a betrayal.’
Stunned, Gemma stared up at him, too devastated to think straight. How, why…?
‘You look shocked, my darling. Have I changed so very much since last we loved?’
Her heart strained at her ribcage till she thought it would burst through the fragility of her bones. Oh, God, he had changed. He was thinner and gaunter than before. There was no love in his eyes, no love in his harsh voice though he talked of love.
‘I don’t understand,’ she grated at last, her eyes warily searching his for some answer. There was such menace in the dark depths of them that she shook her head to try and dispel the terror of it. Why? Why was he here?
‘I don’t suppose for a minute you do,’ he said slowly, bringing his hand up to tilt her chin. He laughed softly at the fear in her eyes. ‘I’ve brought you here for one purpose, sweet one: to torment you the way you tormented me. No woman does that to me, no woman twists my emotions till they are left wrung dry like a discarded rag…’
‘Felipe,’ Gemma cried, her eyes misted and wide. She couldn’t think, didn’t understand what was happening. He was the last person she expected to see here at her father’s home.
‘Did…did you arrange all this?’ was her first coherent question. He had to have done; coincidence didn’t stretch to these limits. The commission had been arranged through her agent, direct from the wealthy Venezuelan himself, so she had supposed.
‘Naturally. It was the only way I could get you here. You wouldn’t have come otherwise, would you? Or maybe you would. You came to me easily enough once before,’ he breathed cruelly.
The pain of those words cut deep into Gemma. What was powering this cruelty?
Running her tongue over her dry lips, she forced words to her mouth. ‘I still don’t understand. You talk of revenge, betrayal. What did I do to deserve such treatment?’
Somehow it seemed doubly painful to Gemma. She had thought she had been asked here to paint a portrait of the man she now knew to be her father. It was obvious now she wasn’t. It had been a trick, a ruse to get her here…but…but Mike had known her purpose, and surely he wasn’t in on this cruel deception?
‘You obviously do not know our ways. Women here do not treat South American men the way you treated me. Women know their place, and you will know your place in time, querida.’ His hand snaked up behind her neck and pulled her towards him in a swift movement that gave Gemma no chance to protest.
His mouth crushed hers and it was as if a stranger was the perpetrator. This wasn’t the man she had loved so desperately. There was no tenderness, no passion, merely harsh pain that grazed her lips brutally. She tore herself away from him, her lips burning, her mind buzzing dully. She had loved this man once, truly loved him, and now he struck fear and confusion inside her.
‘Don’t you ever touch me like that again,’ she cried, desperately controlling the tremor in her voice. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you——’
His eyes narrowed warningly. ‘Well, you will, Gemma. I will show you, in words and deeds. I will drive you to the limits of your desire and then I will discard you as you discarded me. Torment—you will know the true meaning of the word by the time I have finished with you.’ He smiled cynically. ‘You will learn, and it won’t be a pleasant lesson, I assure you.’ With that he turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving Gemma mortally afraid for her sanity and her life.
CHAPTER TWO
GEMMA couldn’t move with shock, though her mind suddenly put a spurt on as if it had a sudden tail-wind behind it. She had never seen this side of Felipe before and she didn’t like it. He terrified her. He had loved her once but Bianca had come between them, so why was he suddenly making such wicked threats to hurt her?
Slowly the life came back to her numbed body and she moved, hesitantly, though. He had shaken her and the shock waves thrummed through her nerves, stretching them crazily till her whole body seemed to ache with fear. She crossed to her suitcase and stared at it blankly, her eyes wide. For once in her life she was terribly unsure of herself, even unsure what to do. Should she unpack? There was no commission, no portrait to be painted. She was here on a fool’s errand, manipulated by her former lover who seemed hell-bent on some sort of revenge.
Clenching her fists tightly, she braced herself. She had to find out what was going on and there was no time like the present. She didn’t bother to change but flew out of the room in the clothes she had travelled from Caracas in, thin white cotton jeans, crumpled in the heat of the day, and a loose, wispy black top that flapped around her midriff as she ran.
She didn’t know where to find him but find him she must. Damn this place, it was like a maze. She ran down the stone stairs and out into bright sunlight, blinking her eyes against the fierce sun.
Not a human soul to be seen. Gemma bit her lip and walked to the end of the villa, calmer now but still uncertain. Maria had said something about a terrace which must be at the back of the house.
She rounded the villa and saw wrought-iron tables and chairs, shady umbrellas—and Felipe.
Determinedly she walked towards him, mouthing questions in her mind, trying to find answers before she spoke them.
He was standing looking over a low stone wall that enclosed the terrace, hands plunged deep into the pockets of white linen trousers. There was a slight breeze which ruffled his short-sleeved shirt, otherwise he might have been as stiff as one of the stone statues that decorated the patio.
‘Felipe, we must talk,’ she murmured behind him.
‘Must we?’ he drawled, not turning to face her. ‘From what I remember we didn’t do much of that before. We spent our time in bed, locked in each other’s arms.’
There was a step behind them and Gemma whirled, startled by the sudden intrusion into the bitter-sweet memories Felipe had evoked. Locked in each other’s arms. She had wanted to die there, wrapped around his body, his around hers. Drifting in and out of sleep and passion. Days and days of love and laughter and more love. Had she dreamed it all? Now, standing here on this tropical terrace, a million miles away from home, her lover’s implacable shoulders turned away from her, she imagined she had. She shivered with trepidation and watched Maria place a silver tray of food and drink down on one of the tables.
‘Felipe, you eat with Se?orita Soames?’
‘No, thank you, Maria. I’ll eat later. Bring me a brandy, though.’
Gemma’s mouth dropped open at the familiar exchange between the two. She waited till Maria laid out cutlery, salad and cold meats for her and when she stepped back into the villa Gemma spoke.
‘She called you Felipe…’
‘Why shouldn’t she? She’s known me most of my life.’ He turned to her then, coolly motioning her to sit and eat. ‘Starvation isn’t one of the punishments I have in mind for you——’
‘Will you stop this absurdity,’ Gemma burst out, ‘and will you tell me what all this is about? I came here to paint a portrait but so far I’ve received nothing but abuse.’ Her outburst did nothing to ease the scowl on his face. ‘You live here, don’t you?’ she breathed when he said nothing.
‘Some of the time, yes.’
Shocked, Gemma slumped into the nearest chair. The familiarity between him and Maria had spurred the question but actually hearing it verified didn’t make it any easier to accept, in fact it made it worse. She recalled he had an apartment in New York and another home in South America but because of his Colombian ancestry she had presumed his home was there, not here in Venezuela.
‘This…this isn’t the home of Agustªn Delgado de Navas?’ she husked. What cruelty! She’d had such expectations and now this rapier-like thrust to add more sorrow to what she had already suffered.
The smile he gave her did nothing to warm his harsh features and chilled Gemma to the marrow.
‘He lives here, of course. And you do have his portrait to paint, which no doubt answers your next question. It was my idea, in fact. I convinced Agustªn his portrait was necessary. It took some doing, I assure you. He has little time for such eccentricities, as he put it. The idea of a female portrait painter didn’t appeal to him much either.’
‘Great, that’s all I need,’ Gemma huffed, bitterness pushing aside her confusion. ‘You threatening revenge and torture and a chauvinist who doesn’t want his portrait painted. It’s nice to know you’re wanted!’
Felipe smiled cynically. ‘Oh, you are wanted, my love. The revenge and torture will have its moments of hedonism, I promise you. And don’t worry about Agustªn. I convinced him of your great artistic talent, but kept your others to myself. You have a number of talents, Gemma, bed being one of them, and rest assured I’ll put all of them to the test while you are here.’
‘You expect me to go to bed with you?’ she whispered in disbelief. Once his sexual honesty had excited her; now his presumptuousness struck hard and cold inside her.
‘I don’t expect it, I demand it, when and where I please.’ He took a step towards her and Gemma tensed as his hand smoothed down her cheek while she gazed up at him. Months ago that caress would have inflamed her senses instantly, but now it merely inflamed her anger. She jerked her head away from his touch.
‘Am I so abhorrent to you?’ He smiled, coldly. ‘Not for long, querida; lust like ours doesn’t dim with time. I’ll have you begging for it before I’ve finished with you.’
Maria stepped back on to the patio with Felipe’s brandy and Gemma stilled her fury till she had gone. Felipe sat down at the table across from her and swirled his brandy before swallowing it in a single draught.
Gemma forced a wan smile to her lips. ‘Needed that, did you? You’ll be a raging alcoholic before I’d consider begging you for the sex you think I so desperately need.’
A genuine smile slicked his face then. ‘This is the Gemma Soames I know nothing about—such biting hypocrisy. I like it. It makes a change from the simpering compliance I generally run up against in women.’ He shrugged his shoulders dismissively. ‘It makes no difference, just adds spice to an otherwise racing certainty.’
‘Well, I’d hedge your bets if I were you. I’m not the woman you seduced so easily six months ago——’
‘And it was easy, wasn’t it?’ he cut in cruelly.
Gemma steeled herself, and somehow found the strength to fight him his way—dirty. ‘Very,’ she parried. ‘It didn’t take much to get you into bed either, did it?’
His fists bunched on the wrought-iron arm of his chair and his eyes blazed angrily. ‘Don’t talk that way, like a whore!’
Gemma held his eyes, fighting the whiplash of the insult. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid of him any more, not afraid to hurt him either because this wasn’t the man she had loved so passionately and wouldn’t have dreamed of hurting for all the world six months ago. This man was a cruel, heartless stranger.
‘It’s all right for you to insult me, though, isn’t it?’ She sighed theatrically. ‘But of course this is South America, not St John’s Wood, and here women do as they’re told, so you tell me.’
‘Because they want to. They love their men enough to bow to their every wish.’
‘How very quaintly old-fashioned. The women’s movement would have a field day down here.’
‘They’d get nowhere.’
‘You’re probably right,’ sighed Gemma. ‘I’m not interested enough to argue with you.’
‘And your complacency was the reason you didn’t call me in New York?’ he accused bitingly.
There was a long pause before Gemma could answer. Surely that wasn’t what all this was about, a wretched phone call that was never made?
‘Did you really expect that I would?’ she answered bleakly. Had he honestly expected her to go running after him after what he had done to her?
‘I should have known. Your sort of women want it all one way—their own. You took what you wanted from me and cast me aside for the next acquisition. Many no doubt in the circles you mix in.’
There was no room for hurt when indignation rose in her throat. ‘Is that why you came to my exhibition, to pick up the sort of woman you expected would frequent such a place? I thought exhibitions were for the purpose of viewing art, not trawling for loose women. My mistake again, as everything seems to be my mistake where you are concerned.’
‘You haven’t eaten,’ he said, nodding to the food in front of her.
Very revealing, thought Gemma. Point out a few home truths and a change of subject is always worth a try.
She pushed the plate away. ‘After your brutality I have no appetite,’ she told him. ‘How’s Bianca, by the way?’ she asked sarcastically, adding her own slice of brutality, though it was hurting her more than him, she realised as soon as she said it.
His eyes pierced hers and a muscle at his jawline tightened threateningly. ‘She’s well and will be here next week, so you will see for yourself,’ he told her cruelly.
Can’t wait, Gemma murmured inwardly, and reached for the jug of orange juice Maria had left. She couldn’t eat—his cruelty drove hunger from herbut fluids were essential. The heat was making her feel very light-headed—or was it the thought that Bianca’s arriving next week was engineered by Felipe to add insult to the injury he was already inflicting on her?
‘Why did you bring me here?’ she asked after slaking her thirst.
‘Because I was bored with making love to you in my mind. I wanted you in the flesh. I couldn’t live another day without possessing you for real.’
Gemma gazed at him painfully. He made making love sound as if it only meant sex. Was that how he had seen their affair? He’d said a thousand times that he had loved her, and, gullible as she had been, she had believed him. Not now, though. He wanted to punish her, drive her to the edge of desire and then spurn her as he thought she had done to him and that was spiteful and cruel and was aeons away from the caring he had shown before.
‘To punish me, or for your own pleasure?’ she asked levelly.
‘Both. I hate myself as much as you for what happened in London.’ He smiled cynically at her. ‘Trouble is, I still desire you, and you know the best cure for an obsession, don’t you? Face it. Over and over again till you exorcise it from your life.’
‘You hate me that much,’ Gemma breathed sadly, ‘and all because I didn’t phone you?’ She drew in a ragged breath, still not able to fully understand. ‘Felipe, I didn’t call you because you walked out of my life as easily as you walked into it——’
‘I had reason to, but you didn’t give me a chance——’
‘Should I have done? The call came a week later! Why not sooner?’ She shook her head miserably. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering arguing with you. It makes no difference now.’ She stood up and looked across at him. ‘I did love you, Felipe, and I thank you for bringing me here. You’ve exorcised any ghosts I had spooking around after you left me. If you want help to get me out of your system, go summon a psychiatrist; no way are you going to do it by taking me to bed, how and when you please.’
He stood up and faced her, anger darkening his face. ‘I might not need to stoop so low,’ he grated, ‘because I’m seeing you in a new light. What happened to the soft, sweet Gemma I fell in love with?’
‘She got hurt, Felipe. So now we both know how it feels.’ She tilted her chin defiantly. ‘You can’t hurt me any more than you already have. I dare say with your expertise you could tempt me into your bed, but for what? Sex, no more, no less. It could never be anything else for me, Felipe, never!’
How easily the lies slid from her tongue. Sex: it had never been just that, and it wouldn’t be if ever he did manipulate her into his bed again. She had truly loved him and yet now she wanted to hurt him as he was hurting her, and suddenly she didn’t care that she was cheapening herself in his eyes.
‘You talk like a bitch!’ he breathed.
‘If you say so, so be it,’ she conceded frostily, and turned away from him.
He didn’t follow her, and Gemma went straight back into the house the way she had come out, round the side of the villa to the front. There were tears of fury and pain in her eyes but she willed them away, at least till she got to her room. The house was blessedly cool, and, sweeping her hair from the heat of her face, she started to climb the stairs.
‘Señorita, you don’t like the food I prepare for you?’
Gemma swung round and looked down at the hurt expression in Maria’s eyes as she stood in the hallway. For a few seconds she was dazed by the statement and then she understood.
‘No, Maria, it wasn’t that. I’m just too hot and tired to eat at the moment. I’m sorry you went to the trouble.’
She wished she’d eaten, not for her own sake but Maria’s. It was mid-afternoon and probably the custom here, as in most hot countries, to take siesta. Maria had gone out of her way to prepare food for her when she should have been resting.
‘It’s no trouble. You eat with Felipe later, si?’
‘No!’ Her retort came too quickly and Maria frowned. Gemma smiled and softened her voice. ‘I want to rest and…and…’ And what? She needed space and time to think, that was what. Somehow she had to get out of this hateful predicament.
‘Si, I understand,’ grinned Maria. ‘Later I bring you food.’ She ambled away into the shadowy depths of a corridor. Relieved, Gemma ran up the rest of the stairs to her room.