Ultimately, he chose the study because at least there he could get a handle on his temper. Rebecca would still be around in a few hours when he’d had a chance to calm down again. Doubt niggled at him as he thought of her face when he’d confronted her. She didn’t look like a woman who’d been caught red-handed. She looked like she’d been blind-sided.
“She’s good at it,” he muttered as he headed inside. Yet his belly churned with doubt. If he ignored it, it would go away.
Señora Flores appeared in the door, looking angry as she hustled past him to pick up the tea tray from the table where Rebecca had left it. She didn’t speak to him as she slipped by again. Alejandro continued to his study and closed the door.
It was many hours before he looked up and realized he hadn’t heard a peep out of anyone. There was no movement outside his door, no sounds of voices in the house. Señora Flores had not called him to dinner.
He pushed back from the computer and rubbed his eyes. Then he pressed a button on the house intercom. Señora Flores answered and he asked her to bring him a plate from the kitchen. A few minutes later she appeared with the food he requested. Her face was set in a stony mask as she dropped the plate on the desk. She also dropped a glass of water with a thud, marching away without bothering to wipe up the splashes that landed on the mahogany.
He blinked after her, surprised. She was angry with him for yelling at Rebecca. Perhaps he should not have yelled, but the things he’d said had needed saying. There would be no doubt in the future where he stood, or what he would put up with. Once Rebecca knew he would not sell her Layton International no matter what she did, then she would stop trying to force his hand. They could go back to the way they were, though he wasn’t stupid enough to think she would welcome him in her bed tonight.
Alejandro turned his attention back to the headlines he’d been reading. It was all there on his computer screen and it made fresh anger churn inside him. The sensational story about Jackson Layton’s supposed suicide and Alejandro’s part in pushing the man over the brink featured in all the business publications he regularly browsed.
He’d had his public phone lines sent to an answering service hours ago. Reporters would be calling non-stop. Hell, there were probably a few camped outside his gates even now. Could Rebecca see them from the window upstairs? What must she think?
A wave of despair flooded him. Rebecca had accused him of hiding from the truth, but what did she know of it? She was wrong. She was the one who had lied, not him. He’d taken her company and forced her out, yes, but everything he’d done was legal. Everything.
It was business. Nothing more.
Liar.
Alejandro put his head in his hands. He stared at the wood grain of the desk, at the way a drop of moisture was beginning to stain a ring in the surface.
Odd how just that little drop could change the wood. The color bleaching out, the grain showing clearer, the visible blotch appearing on what had once been a perfect surface. All caused by one little drop of water. One tiny mistake.
Alejandro frowned as he studied it. What if he was wrong about Rebecca’s part in this mess? What if his desire to punish her over what had happened five years ago was clouding the truth about what had happened now?
The questions he hadn’t allowed himself to really consider earlier came back with a vengeance. Why would she wait weeks to feed this story to the press? What could possibly be in it for her now? They were married and she was pregnant with his child. She’d lain in bed with him every night, holding him, caressing him, crying out sweetly when he made her come. She’d craved him as he’d craved her. That had not been a lie.
And last night? She’d ached with him. Held him tight and swore to him their child would be well. What kind of cold-hearted person could do that and then turn around today and tell the press he’d basically pushed her father to commit suicide?
It made no sense.
Alejandro thought back over the last few weeks, thought of everything he knew about her. He forced himself to look at the facts without emotion. One thing was clear the more he looked at it—if Rebecca was a schemer, then she wasn’t very good at it. Someone with an agenda would have had a better plan. Did it make sense to get pregnant on purpose, but to leave Spain the instant she’d learned he owned the bank that had loaned her father the money for the Thai resorts? Wouldn’t a woman with a plan to get her company back pretend not to know what he’d done? And wouldn’t she plant misleading stories to the press far earlier?
Anyone could have brought this story out now to try and discredit him. Someone with a grudge over the Dubai contracts, in fact. It could be the disgraced former employee in Dubai, but what about Roger Cahill? He was just as likely.
Cahill had been the one to send Rebecca the documents about the bank, and he’d be just crafty enough to plant the story in the press when it would do him the most good. Causing trouble for Alejandro was nothing new for the man. The corporate spy in the Dubai office hadn’t been connected to Cahill in any overt way, but Alejandro would bet his last Euro that Cahill had been involved somehow. Alejandro had fired the spy and considered the incident over—but what if he sent his investigators digging a little bit deeper? What would they find
