Her head was tilted down but her eyes tipped up, obscured only a little by the net veil, her gaze fastened to him like a pin. He was two arm’s lengths away now, his stare locked onto the rectangle of light through the open door. His jaw balled as he walked, one cheek pressed to the pine casket and she saw that not one tear had fallen; his eyes were dry. Determined.

She swallowed, knowing he was about to pass without seeing her. In another second he would be gone and he would never know that she had come here, risked herself, for him. She wanted to reach or call out, cough or swoon – something, anything to catch his attention. But he was blind to all this: these people, the singers, the hymns and prayers; lost in his grief.

So it was all the more shocking then, when suddenly his gaze shifted – instinct kicking in as though he sensed her – and his bladed brown-eyed gaze swivelled sidelong straight towards her. It was only for a second, but that was enough. She saw the startle in his face, and then the deeper shift in his soul, his attention fully fastening onto her and turning his head even as his feet propelled him onwards, out of sight.

Nene felt her breath come in short, ragged pants, her heart clattering erratically as he disappeared from view. She wanted to run after him, to follow him into the plaza and throw herself on his mercy. But that was impossible. She had been able to read him after all and that alone remained the same – but her old friend had become a stranger, changed by fortunes, destroyed by her family.

Tipping her head down again, she pushed against the flow of the crowd, slipping out through the side door. She knew she couldn’t stay here or wait to be seen: he would throw her to the dogs. For in that single moment when their eyes connected, she had seen inside his heart and understood there was no longer any room for love or friendship.

He was a man intent on revenge and they were all in uncharted waters now.

Chapter Nine

Charlotte pushed back in her chair and looked out at the Madrid skyline. She had been back at her desk in Steed’s Madrid offices for an hour now – having left the hotel as quickly as she’d entered it; she couldn’t bear to stay in the room, in that bed, without him – but she had achieved precisely nothing. Her mind kept incessantly, insistently, going over and over the afternoon’s events, recalling every last look, comment, gesture. She felt stunned, still. Had it even happened? How could he have just left like that, without giving her a chance to explain? It was almost as though he’d been expecting it, like he’d been looking for an excuse to leave, to get away from her.

As for Stephen . . . She dropped her head again. The thought of him made her feel sick, not from guilt but lack of it – for not at any point in her stolen hours with Nathan had she once thought about him or felt bad about what she was doing. In fact, it had all been so natural, instinctive and primal between them that it was he who had felt like the aberration, the intruder to the natural order of things. The awful truth was that it hadn’t been a lie when she’d said he was no one. Compared to Nathan, everyone was no one and he was everything.