‘I’m going to the villa. It’s not sold yet. I guess I’ll take it off the market, at least for now, until I decide what to do.’ She tried to laugh but failed miserably. ‘I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to make any long-term plans just yet.’
Surely, she didn’t think he still wanted her to leave? ‘Beth, there’s no need to make any plans, not now. The baby changes everything.’
‘No,’ she disagreed with a sad smile. ‘The baby doesn’t change anything. We’re over. You just made that very clear.’
Had she taken leave of her senses? ‘Of course it changes things. We’re going to be parents.’
Dios, he was going to be a father. They were going to have a child together, and suddenly he was thrown back to a time when they’d been cuddled up together in the middle of the night, imagining the names they would choose for their children. Why wait until they were older, they’d figured. They loved each other, were going to spend the rest of their lives together, so why not start trying now, while they were young and had the energy to deal with a football team of children? Money hadn’t been and never would be an issue…
‘Xavi, you don’t want me,’ she said, cutting through a memory he’d not allowed himself to remember in eight years.
‘I’ve neverstoppedwanting you.’ Not ever. He hadn’t ended them because there was something wrong with them, but because it had been the wrong time for them. They’d got carried away on a dream that had to wait to be realised.
‘But not enough to try and win me back until you got something out of it.’
There was a twisting in his guts. ‘It wasn’t like that, as I’ve explained numerous times.’
‘Oh, but it was.’ She shook her head, her stare becoming distant. ‘I used to think you were the most open and loving man in the world, but you’re not. It’s just a front. You can only give so much, and then you take it all back. You won’t make that final commitment—you’re always seeking a way out. You used the cock-ups you made with the business and our ages as your excuse before, and this time you grabbed hold of the first concrete reason to weaponise against me and drive me out.’
‘You wilfully and intentionally set out to destroy me,’ he said tightly, trying to rein in the re-ignition of his temper at the way she was twisting everything. ‘How the hell did you think I would react to that?’
‘I wasn’t thinking. That’s the point. I was impulsive and emotional and put wheels in motion when I wasn’t thinking properly that I now bitterly regret, but ultimately, even if I’d agreed to marriage with the purest of intentions, the end result would have been the same—you’d have snatched at the first opportunity to end it.’
He grabbed at his hair and gritted his teeth. ‘That’s bullshit. I understand you’re angry with me threatening war with you, but I was angry that you’d been playing me for a fool and had set out to destroy the one thing you knew mattered most to me. I didn’t know you were pregnant. If I had, I would never have taken it that far.’
‘For God’s sake, Xavi, even after everything I’ve just told you, you’ve just admitted the business matters most to you, and you wonder why I’m not prepared to stay? What happens if I lose this child, too?’
‘Don’t say that,’ he warned, the twisting in his guts spreading. ‘Don’t ever tempt fate like that.’
‘Do you think Iwantto say it?’ she cried. ‘Don’t you think I’m terrified that history will continue to repeat itself? But I’m the one who lived through it and so I have to mentally prepare myself to live it again, and if it does repeat—and God, I pray on my mother’s soul to keep our child safe and let it grow into a bouncing baby we will both love and cherish—then I will be on eggshells waiting for the next time opportunity presents itself to you to excise me from your life. Even if the fates keep our baby safe and it survives, I’ll still be living on eggshells because I’ll know you’re only with mebecauseof the baby.
‘It might be wishful thinking,’ she continued, barely pausing for breath, ‘but I think you do love me, you just won’t let yourself embrace it. You said your father’s death cemented Blanca’s serious nature, and I think it’s done the same to you—your mother falling apart the way she did forced you into survival mode, and the way you survived was by controlling everything, especially yourself. You’reterrifiedof losing control of your emotions, a reason why I think you so rarely speak about your father. You never allowed yourself to grieve for him—’
‘Donotuse my father as a weapon against me!’ he raged.
‘I’m not! But don’t you see—his death affected you terribly and it still does. When I came along, you’d spent years burying and controlling your emotions, putting your family and education and the business first, and I was a way for you to cut loose for a while and allow the fun side of yourself out, right until trouble hit. I was a threat to your control, and so I had to go, and I think the same thing’s happened now—I got too close again.’
‘No, Beth, you set out to stab me in the back and now you’re twisting everything to justify your despicable actions.’
‘I’m not twisting anything. You control your working and domestic environment with ruthless precision, but emotions? They’re messy and uncontrollable, and I’m not controllable, either. Maybe you’d find it easier to deal with your feelings for me if I was meek and mild and compliant, but I’m never going to be that. I’m impulsive and emotional, and life’s too short not to love with my whole heart, and it’s too short to waste on a marriage with a man whose instinct is to push me away. I’m not a masochist, Xavi, and I’ve spent too much of my life hating you to want to spend the rest of it living with that on my soul. I need to let go of the past and look to the future, and you need to do that, too, because our child needs a father who can put them first.’
‘How dare you insinuate that I won’t put my own child first?’ he said savagely. Of all the pseudo-nonsense Beth had just spouted, that burned the deepest. ‘The very fact I’m prepared to forgive your treachery and make our marriage work proves I’m putting it first.’
Her mouth dropped open. As if in slow motion, angry colour flooded her face. ‘Youforgiveme? Well, thank you very much. I hope your forgiveness keeps you warm at night.’ She stalked to the door, only looking back when she turned the handle. ‘You’re like a rebooted version of my grandfather. He pushed away everyone he loved, too.’
His heart pumping fury through him, Xavi let the treacherous, backstabbing viper go.
Not until Beth let herself and Diego into her grandfather’s villa did the grip on her heart let go, releasing with it a sickening swell of pain that doubled her over and brought her to her knees with a howl.
Xavi was in his home office when his housekeeper knocked on the door and poked her head in. ‘Your sister’s here.’
He didn’t look up from his computer. ‘Tell her I’m busy.’
‘She said you would say that, and said to remind you that she’s flying to Egypt in the morning.’
He swore under his breath. Once Carlota flew off, it would be at least a month until he saw her again, probably much longer. ‘Let her in. Take her to the living room and give her refreshments. I’ll join her shortly.’
Alone again, he carried on reading through the Rosbel Group’s share listing, and then without even thinking, clicked the open tab with the headline from two days ago that screamed,Beth Granger, granddaughter and heiress of the late business icon Raul Belmonte, breaks her silence!
