CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONTRARYTOHISEXPECTATIONS, Duarte didn’t feel better after telling Orla the truth and he didn’t feel lighter. After a fitful night, he flew to Lisbon first thing for a meeting with his lawyer about the acquisition of a vineyard in California, an exciting opportunity that would open up new markets and at any other time would have given him immense satisfaction. But there was no sense of triumph. The catharsis he’d hoped for didn’t materialise. Instead, all day his stomach churned with a strange sense of dread.
There was no point pretending he didn’t know the source of his apprehension. He’d had ample time to figure it out. Instead of returning to the Quinta immediately after the meeting had finished, as had been his original plan, he’d headed to the beach, where he’d spent the afternoon surfing the angry waves of the Atlantic beneath a bruised sky the colour of the Douro’s slate-based soil in an effort to unravel the chaos swirling around inside him.
He’d allowed their affair to spiral out of control, he knew now with unassailable certainty. From the moment he’d threatened Orla with scuppering the agreement she’d made with Isabelle Baudelaire, he’d arrogantly assumed that he was in charge, and that that was where he’d remain. But he’d been wrong. Somehow, without his even being aware of it, the power had been gradually slipping away from him until she held it all, and he hadn’t even considered that a possibility. Once again, he’d been so consumed with the present that he’d been blind to the danger of the future.
She’d sneaked through his defences and stolen control of his thoughts. She’d had him changing his plans on a whim and behaving in a way that he simply didn’t recognise and certainly couldn’t explain. Such as teaching her to swim or encouraging her to believe that life didn’t have to be perfect, that it was all right to fail. What business of his was any of that?
Things between them had become too intense. He’d wanted a distraction, sure, but he’d never expected to it to take over so completely. He’d never anticipated the attraction intensifying instead of dissipating. Somewhere along the line their affair had turned into something that was more than just sex, despite his efforts to convince himself otherwise. He’d told her the truth about his marriage because he felt he could trust her with it, which was stupidly rash and beyond dangerous. It was true that they’d been working well together for several years now and she’d signed an NDA, so she couldn’t do anything with the information, but that didn’t mean it was all right to be sharing with her something so intensely personal, something that no one else knew.
And when had wanting to live up to her expectations become so important? He had no idea about that either. All he knew was that the moment she’d told him to come back to bed last night was the moment he’d realised how petrified he’d been of her judgement. How badly he hadn’t wanted her to find him shameful and abhorrent. The relief that had flooded through him when it had become clear that she didn’t had nearly had him weeping with gratitude.
He’d sworn he would never again allow a woman to hold all the power, he reminded himself grimly as he angled the helicopter and the Quinta came into view far below, and he had no intention of breaking that vow. He would not allow emotion to cloud his judgement and he would not end up in a position where he could be held accountable for someone else’s well-being and destroy that someone along the way.
So he had to end things with Orla before he was in so deep that happened and he couldn’t get out. She represented too great a threat to the way he wanted to live his life, free from the responsibility and commitment that experience had proven he couldn’t handle. It wouldn’t be fair to her, either, to let things carry on. He’d caught the way she looked at him sometimes, with stars in her eyes and a dreamy smile on her face. He didn’t deserve stars and dreams. He’d never deserve her, so there was no pointing in wanting her any more.
All was set for the conference. There was no need for her to remain in Portugal. He’d told himself to back off once before and been too damn weak to follow it through, but this time it would be different. This time, the minute he landed, he’d track her down. He’d tell her it was over and send her home, whatever it took, and absolutely nothing was going to stop him.
***
Finally.
As the familiar rumble of the Land Rover cut through the still of the night, Orla jumped off the bed and ran to the window. Headlights lit up the road to the hotel but she could just about make out the shape of Duarte in the driving seat, and God, it was good to see him. He’d been gone such a long time. Because he’d been due back mid-afternoon and her texts had gone unanswered, she’d been going out of her mind with worry. She’d been on the point of calling the police when she’d received a reply from him asking where she was.
Waiting for him to return had been agonising. She’d done a lot of thinking while he’d been away and come to a number of conclusions that she ached to share with him. Given the lull in activity at the Quinta, the calm before the storm as it were, she’d had to do something to fill the time and it was inevitable that her thoughts would be filled with him, with herself, with them.
Especially after last night.
She understood him so much better now, she thought, her heart thundering as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He was racked with guilt that in her opinion was very much misplaced. No wonder he’d flipped out so badly when he’d found her asleep in his bed the day they’d met. She’d invaded his privacy and caught a glimpse into his carefully guarded soul. She’d dug up the truth he’d kept buried and he’d resented that.
Every time she recalled what he’d been through, she wanted to weep. No one deserved to suffer such torment and it broke her heart that he’d had to deal with it alone. Had she been able to help him last night? God, she hoped so, but who knew? He’d been quiet this morning before he’d left for Lisbon.
She’d been so wrong to place him on a pedestal, she’d realised over a cup of tea this afternoon. He’d never claimed to be perfect. That had been all on her. She’d taken the bits of him he’d allowed her to see and judged him accordingly. But she’d been foolish to do so. No one was perfect. And what on earth gave her any right to judge anyone anyway?
Her ex had been right all along. She hadn’t been particularly supportive or sympathetic when he’d needed it. The minute he’d told her he’d been axed as part of a strategy to reduce headcount, he’d plummeted in her estimation because she’d thought he clearly hadn’t been good enough to be retained. But that had been grossly unfair of her. The loss of his job hadn’t been his fault and she should have recognised the massive collapse of confidence he’d suffered because she experienced the same on the rare occasion she failed.
She did have expectations of people that were unjustly high, she’d thought, accepting the guilt washing over her that was nothing less than she deserved. She did judge. And because of it, she subconsciously pushed people away. Colleagues, potential friends, the occasional fiancé... She’d always told herself that she didn’t have time for relationships of any kind, but in reality she’d always been pretty unforgiving of other people’s foibles, and no one needed that kind of pressure. As a result, she was always on her own, which had never bothered her before, but now, she found, did. A lot. She hadn’t realised how lonely she’d become until she’d met Duarte and embarked on an affair during which she was with him pretty much all day every day.
Most things in life, she’d discovered in the course of her soul-searching, weren’t as black and white as she’d always assumed. They lay somewhere in the grey, the middle ground. And, while this was uncharted territory for her, it was territory that she was determined to explore because she was beginning to think that, contrary to the beliefs she’d held for so long, there was actually little good about perfectionism and having impossibly high expectations. Both made for isolation and loneliness. Both inevitably led to wholly unnecessary disappointment.
If she was being brutally honest, to discover that Duarte had feet of clay, that he was as flawed and fallible as she’d learned she was, was something of a relief. Now that she’d allowed ‘good enough’ into her way of thinking she’d been worrying about being able to match up to him. But now she felt that perhaps she could match up. At least she hoped so. Because she didn’t want this to end. She wanted him. For far more than an affair. She wanted him for ever, because she was head over heels in love with him.
From the moment she’d taken his call and signed him up shortly after his marriage three and a half years ago, she’d been fascinated by him. Every time his name had popped up on her phone her heart beat that little bit faster. For every request he’d made she put in that little bit more effort. The reality of the man far outclassed any dream she’d ever had. He was patient. Thoughtful. Not to mention hot as hell and able to make her come in under thirty seconds. And he’d shone a light on some of her deepest, darkest fears and reduced them to the faintest of shadows.
But how did he feel about her?
Their affair wasn’t just about sex. It never really had been. Right from the beginning he’d looked out for her. He’d taught her how to swim and shown her another, better, way to live her life. He’d given her belief in herself that didn’t come from the pursuit of perfection, and he’d told her the truth about his marriage. All that had to mean something, but what?
Did she dare to find out?
It would be a massive risk, she thought, her heart hammering even harder as she heard footsteps thud along the corridor outside her room. They hadn’t known each other long. They both had issues that needed working through. But perhaps it was a risk she ought to take, because they could be so good for one another. And now she knew there was no ghost to compete with, what was stopping them from carrying on and seeing where things went?
At the sharp rap on the door, Orla practically jumped a foot in the air. She spun round from the window and headed to open it, her feet barely touching the floor. Her heart was fit to burst with hope and anticipation, her smile wide and giddy as she flung back the door, but at the sight of the expression on Duarte’s handsome face, she froze.
His jaw was tight and his eyes were dark. He looked tense, on edge, and something about the way he was standing sent a bundle of nerves skittering through her. He seemed braced for something, something unpleasant.
A cold sweat broke out all over her skin and her pulse began to race. Had something happened? What? She couldn’t tell. His face was completely unreadable.
‘Come in,’ she said, instinct warning her to proceed with caution as she stood to one side to let him pass.
But he didn’t move an inch. ‘I won’t, thanks.’
What? Why not? ‘Bad meeting?’