Page 52 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

He was furious, burning up inside with rage.

I wanted to go to him, put my hands on him again, but he was back to pacing, and I didn’t want to do anything that might make it worse, so I stayed where I was. ‘And you did get his attention,’ I said levelly. ‘You did keep your brother safe.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Val growled with a certain amount of savagery. ‘I didn’t keep him safe, not in the end. I failed him. And Con said I made Domingo worse, that things might not have got as bad as they were if I’d only done what I was told and followed his rules.’

He spat out a harsh curse in Spanish.

‘How could I do that, though? Was I supposed to lie down and take it like my mother did?’ He stopped, staring out to sea. ‘Domingo killed her, I think. In the end, at least. She went for a walk in the mountains and just...never came back. They found a body eventually, at the bottom of a cliff, but I don’t believe she fell. I will never believe she fell.’

My heart squeezed, a cold horror winding through me at the thought of two small boys losing the one person who could have protected them or shielded them...

It didn’t bear thinking about.

I took a step towards him, wanting to put my arms around him, but stopped. Would he welcome that? I wasn’t sure.

He wasn’t looking at me but out over the sea, the strangest expression on his face. ‘She did whatever he said. She lived her life in fear. And she told me I had to do what he said too, because that was what would keep Con and me safe.’

A muscle flicked in his jaw. ‘But it didn’t keep her safe, did it?’ He turned his head all of a sudden, his gaze colliding with mine, the burning heat in it tearing the breath from my lungs. ‘Only I did that. Only I saved him. And you want to know why I think he’s every inch Domingo now? Because he told Domingo about our secret beach. About our secret meetings. He put you in danger and he wasn’t even sorry about it.’

I heard the note of pain beneath the anger. He’d always been very up-front about his failure with Constantine, and I could see why he believed it. Yet some of it didn’t ring true.

He could see me, and I was fine; nothing had happened to me. Plus, all of this had happened fifteen years ago, and Val wasn’t a grudge-keeper. He wouldn’t be this angry simply because his brother had told on him back when they were teenagers.

No, this went deeper, cut closer to his soul. Something had hurt him, and hurt him terribly. What was it?

This time I went to him without hesitation, coming to stand in front of him. ‘Val, tell me. Why are you so angry? Is it just about that?’

‘I protected him. That’s why I took all the punishments Domingo dealt out. It was so he didn’t have to. And I know I failed him. I knew it the moment he went to Domingo about you and me, because he’d never have betrayed me like that if Domingo hadn’t got to him. But...’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I was prepared for him to blame me for not saving him. I wasn’t prepared for him telling me I made it worse. That it was all about winning for me. About point scoring. About not giving Domingo the satisfaction of besting me.’

His voice was full of anger, but underneath that anger I heard the doubt.

He wasn’t angry because he knew his brother was wrong. He was angry because he was afraid his brother might be right, wasn’t he?

‘I can’t speak for Constantine,’ I said. ‘He never spoke a word about you or Domingo, or his childhood. But...why are you so intent on getting the company? What are you going to do with it? You don’t need to protect Constantine any more and Domingo’s dead. What are you trying to prove?’

Val’s eyes flashed. ‘So, you agree with him, do you? You think this is just about point-scoring too?’

‘No, I don’t think that. And stop putting words into my mouth.’ I kept my cool and stepped closer to him, hoping my presence would help, because now his defence mechanisms were kicking in and they were looking for a target. ‘I’m not the enemy, remember? I’m only trying to get to the truth. Who are you angry at—Domingo or Constantine? Or is it more that you’re afraid that Constantine was right about you?’

Val lifted his hands and he grabbed me by the upper arms, not hard, but firmly enough to make me gasp. As if the pressure of his hold could make me see. His mouth twisted in a smile so bitter, it hurt to look at. ‘Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was all just me wanting to prove to myfather’—he spat the word like it was poison—‘that I was everything he thought I was. That I was strong, that I could take everything he threw at me. That I was worthy.’ A sneer twisted his mouth. ‘Perhaps it was never about protecting Constantine at all, but only about me wanting a psychopath to care.’

I could hear the desperation. That same desperation was in his eyes too.

He was afraid that it was true. That it wasalltrue. He’d wanted someone to notice him; he’d wanted someone to care. He’d wanted someone to love him and the only person in his life he could have got that from was his father.

His psychopathic father.

You could give it to him. You could give him everything he needs.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I felt something break open inside me, the shell of an egg cracking, a pane of hard diamond shattering, allowing what was inside to come flooding out. An aching, burning, blazing, wondrous thing. Powerful and raw, the white-hot heart of a star...

Everything I’d been keeping inside me for so long. Everything that had been there all this time. Everything I’d known the moment he’d walked into that ballroom in Madrid.

I loved him. I’d always loved him. I’d loved him then and I loved him now and I’d love him for ever. And he needed it. He needed me.

I reached up, took his face between his hands and pulled his mouth down on mine.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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