‘Now,’ Ruy breathed with blistering assurance. ‘Enlighten me about your father’s financial dealings with your ex.’
‘How on earth do you even know that he has dealings?’ Suzy exclaimed, dropping her knife and fork with a clatter to emphasise her annoyance.
‘I refuse to believe that love had anything to do with your planned marriage to Brenton,’ Ruy intoned drily. ‘By nature, he’s a thug and a bully.’
‘You only met him for about ten seconds!’ Suzy snatched at her glass of water to occupy her restless hands, unnerved by Ruy’s steady stubborn persistence. ‘How could you even know that?’
A grim light shadowed Ruy’s gaze at that question. Being raised by a bully had made it very easy for him to recognise the warning signs. He had not had a pleasant childhood but, in many ways, his more sensitive twin brother, unable to handle their father’s lacerating tongue, had suffered much more in failing to meet the standards that Armando Valiente demanded.
‘Just tell me the truth, because you have to confide in someone.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Suzy sucked in a ragged breath and picked up her cutlery again with determination.
‘And you have to stop being scared for long enough to go to the police,’ Ruy contended.
Colour flooded the pallor that had spread across her small stiff face. ‘I want to go to the police...but I daren’t do it,’ she muttered shakily.
‘Tell me why not,’ Ruy prodded afresh.
And a tempestuous mixture of desperation and resentment assailed Suzy. Green eyes flashed with defensiveness and she lifted her chin as though daring him to judge her. ‘Dad borrowed from the bank to update the bar but we didn’t do enough business to keep up the loan. When Dad was threatened with repossession, Percy stepped in. The old loan was repaid and Percy extended a new one with lower payments.’
‘How did you become involved in that arrangement?’ Ruy enquired, resting back in his chair with his wine glass elegantly cradled in one lean brown hand, so stunningly handsome in that moment that she momentarily lost the thread of the dialogue. As she gazed almost blankly back at him, her mouth dry, her pelvis thrumming with the strangest pulse that made her thighs twitch and tense, he had to repeat the question.
‘I wasn’t involved until six months ago,’ Suzy admitted in a rueful rush. ‘Then Percy said he’d write the loan off if I married him and that if I didn’t marry him he would take the pub off Dad. After a couple of discussions, I agreed but I... I told him I wouldn’t have sex with him. I would be his wife in all other ways though and nobody else would know the truth of our relationship,’ she completed with scarlet cheeks.
‘Dios mio...and he agreed to that?’ Ruy marvelled.
Suzy nodded miserably. ‘But I’m not sure now that he planned to stick to the rules and that he didn’t start hating me for them.’
‘How much does your father know about Brenton’s blackmail?’
At that question, Suzy frowned. ‘He knows nothing about any of it! Dad would never have agreed to let me marry Percy for his benefit.’
‘And the loan outstanding amounts to fifty thousand pounds or so?’ Ruy queried, startling her with his accuracy and, when he met her troubled gaze, dealing her an eloquent smile. ‘That was why you plucked that particular sum out of the air, wasn’t it?’
‘A ridiculous amount,’ she mumbled in severe chagrin as she recalled that conversation in the bar when he had urged her to name her price for modelling for him. ‘I wasn’t serious, of course...you do know that, don’t you? I’m truly not a greedy person. It’s just, Percy was starting to scare me, and I’d pretty much do anything for my dad.’
‘That’s not a sin. It’s proof of loyalty and of your love for a parent. You were willing to make a sacrifice to protect your father.’
‘But I tumbled at the last fence and now I’ve just dug Dad into a deeper hole!’ Suzy argued with a guilt-ridden shake of her head. ‘Now, after being left at the altar, Percy will be out for blood.’
‘He’s already had as much blood as he’s getting and he’s not taking any more out of your particular hide,’ Ruy asserted with scorching conviction. ‘Surely you realise that Brenton will now want to approach you with some suggestion aimed at saving his own skin? If you choose to prosecute him for assault his reputation will be ruined. He may well offer to write off that loan in an effort to keep you quiet.’
Suzy’s eyes widened. ‘No way would he do that. Percy has the reputation for collecting on all his debts.’
‘You have to report him to the police,’ Ruy continued. ‘And I can offer you a way to do that that will protect you and your father’s business.’
‘I’m not a kid, Ruy. There’s no magic fix for this mess,’ Suzy told him heavily as she pushed her plate away. ‘And in many ways, it’s a mess of my own making. I was stupidly trusting. I should never have agreed to marry Percy in the first place. That wretched money seemed to give him the impression that he was buying me body and soul and that that deprived me of any right to respect or decency. What I agreed to was wrong, though, and perhaps I deserve what happened.’
‘Valgame Dios! Of course, you didn’t deserve it!’ Ruy argued in heated dissent.
‘And now you’re talking about making me an offer...presumably money,’ Suzy gathered with a little moue of distaste and a look of reproach in his direction that made him seal his wide, sensual mouth shut again. ‘Please...don’t. I’ll think over the idea of modelling for you, but I don’t know how it could be organised now because Dad and I will probably be leaving the village soon. But please, please, do not try to buy me like Percy did... I’ve learned my lesson and I’m off the market now.’
Unusual frustration currented through Ruy, but he was adept at steering paths round obstacles and varying his approach. Being flexible, innovative and highly intelligent had made him a living legend in the financial world and he recognised that Suzy would naturally be highly resistant to any offer of cash assistance after the experience she’d had at Brenton’s hands. The germ of an idea struck Ruy and at first he rejected it, deeming it not to be his place to interfere in a family matter or, indeed, in a family business. Even so, as he ran the concept swiftly through his brain he saw how he could extend his help without making Suzy feel that he had bribed, bought or blackmailed her. And how he too would benefit from the arrangement beyond her modelling for him. He would ask her to accompany him to his brother’s wedding.
Even so, his most pressing concern should be protecting Suzy from her ex, shouldn’t it? His thoughts froze on that startling point. Exactly when had he developed that strange notion? When had he last become this involved in problems that were not his to solve? He wanted to paint Suzy, which put her in an entirely different category, he assured himself. Having shaken off his unease over that uncharacteristic urge to protect, Ruy found that he could think with clarity again. To ensure Suzy’s security from further threats, or indeed dodgy proposals, he would need to view first-hand the loan agreement her father had signed. Once that problem was settled, he would consider his own needs and wishes, proving that he was not the selfish bastard his sister had implied, he reasoned with satisfaction, his momentary tension evaporating.