Buried deep inside him was a good man fighting to get out.
And here, in his private gym, he’d been fighting his demons with a punching bag, his bare torso glistening with perspiration, evidence of the exertion he’d used.
He would never use her or any other person as his punching bag. That was a certainty she felt right in her marrow.
She was not ready to wave the white flag.
She stepped over to him.
‘I thought you might be thirsty,’ she said softly, holding the glass out.
His throat moved.
The fleshy lips pulled into a tight line before he took the glass from her and, his eyes holding hers, drank the water in four huge swallows.
The knuckles holding the glass were red.
‘Shouldn’t you wear boxing gloves?’
His shoulders rose in a shrug, the light brown eyes still not moving from hers.
She longed to touch him. She longed to gather this great bear of a man into her arms and caress all the demons out of him. To make love to him with his eyes holding hers. To free him.
She settled on removing the glass from his hand, putting it on the ledge beside her and taking hold of his hand to gently rub the raw knuckles.
The tension coming from his unresponsive fingers made her want to cry.
She sighed. ‘I’m sorry for pushing things but, Javier, please, try not to see me as your enemy or as some fragile creature who needs protecting from you. I’m tougher than you think and you’re not going to scare me away. It’s not going to be easy but we can make our marriage work but only if you meet me halfway. I’ll stop pushing for more than you can give if you stop pushing me away at every turn. How does that sound?’
The hand she held flexed imperceptibly. Slowly, as if they were being wound by an old unused lever, his fingers closed around hers before his other hand buried into her hair and he brought his forehead down to rest against hers.
His features were taut as his eyes bore into hers. ‘I am afraid I will hurt you.’
The raw honesty in his voice punctured her heart.
Sophie swallowed back all the emotions racing up her throat and rested her palm against his cheek. ‘The only way you can hurt me is if you don’t give us the chance our child deserves.’
That was who she was fighting for. Their innocent child.
‘That is not the kind of hurt I am talking about.’
‘I know.’ She brushed her lips to his. ‘And I know you will never hurt me or our baby in the way you mean.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘Because I would feel it.’
‘Feelings cannot be trusted.’
‘Sometimes feelings are all we can trust.’
The fingers gripping her hair tightened as he breathed in deeply.
It would take no effort to hurt this woman, Javier thought. No effort at all.
How could she trust he wouldn’t abuse his disproportionate strength and power against her as his father had done, first to his brother, who he had revelled in abusing with the form of corporal punishment he’d malevolently deemed to be necessary and corrective, and then on that fateful night when he had used his strength as a weapon to take his mother’s life?
Where did Sophie’s trust come from? She must know it would take little effort for him to do serious damage to her.
It would be as easy as breaking a butterfly’s wings.
Could those eyes staring so trustingly into his read the train of his thoughts?
It felt as if every organ in his body clenched, the strength enough to send a wave of nausea racing through him.
Why had the fates brought this woman of all women into his life? What cruelty had set them on this path together?
How could she put her life and trust in nothing more than a feeling?
He could not begin to comprehend it, nor comprehend why his heart hammered with such strength or why he was bringing his mouth to hers to taste those rosebud lips and the sweetness of her kisses again.
Dios, this had to stop.
Breaking the kiss, he took her face in his hands.
‘I will try to meet you halfway,’ he said roughly, ‘but I promise nothing. I can’t make promises when I don’t know if I can keep them.’
‘I wouldn’t want to hear them if they were lies.’
‘That is one promise I can make. I will never lie to you.’
‘And I will never lie to you.’
His lips found hers again as if they had a will of their own.
Her lips returned the kiss as if she were taking the air she needed to breathe from them.
Everything about her was so soft. Her skin, her hair, her heart...
Soft, pliable and being entrusted into his large, brutal hands.
* * *
‘How long are you going to be away for?’ Sophie asked, making sure to keep her tone neutral.
She did not want Javier to know how much she dreaded the thought of him going away.
In the two weeks since they’d been married, it would be the first time they had slept apart.
He looked up from his phone. ‘Five nights if it all goes well.’
Her spirits sank even lower.
Five nights?
When he’d casually mentioned that he’d be going on a business trip to Cape Town for a few days, she’d thought he meant two or three.
His case was already packed and in the car.
She supposed she should be grateful that he’d stayed to eat breakfast with her before leaving.
Although he hadn’t said so in words, she was aware the exclusive apartment complex he intended to build in the South African city was the first development he would be undertaking without his brother.
The pressure he was under must be horrendous.
She’d deliberately held herself back from asking too many questions about it.
They had reached an understanding on their wedding night. She was not to push too hard. He was to stop pushing her away with so much force.
So far it was, tentatively, working.
She put no pressure on him and asked nothing of him.
He ate most evening meals with her. Sometimes he even put his phone down and talked to her.
He no longer slept with his back to her.
That was the best and worst aspect of it all. Now that the genie of sex had been let out of its bottle they made love every night.
She wished they could make love more. During the long, boring days when she whiled her time away swimming either in the outdoor pool when the weather was sunny or in the indoor pool when it was a bit too chilly for her, or exploring Madrid’s streets as she’d never had a chance to do before when she’d spent six days a week in a dance studio, she found her thoughts continually drifting to him.
She’d made a promise not to push him for more than he could give but as the days passed she found she wanted so much more. Sometimes the urge to call him, just to hear his voice, would overwhelm her.
And although their lovemaking was regular and frequent that magic ingredient she kept hoping for never came through. The connection she craved still wasn’t there.
Javier was still holding back.
He was always considerate; on that she could not fault him. He never took his release before she found hers.
When they were done, she would lie with her head pressed against his chest, her hand in his. On paper, he was ticking all the boxes, painting in all the numbers.
She wanted more. More passion, more spontaneity, wanted to feel that he desired her, that he wasn’t going through the expected motions with the woman he’d been forced into marrying because she carried his child. When their lovemaking was over, she longed to drape her limbs all over him, mesh herself to his skin and relish the scent of their sex that l
ingered in the air, but always held herself back from doing any of these things.
Javier reached for his coffee and surprised her by continuing the conversation. ‘I’ve been thinking...’
‘Oh?’
‘While I’m away, you should start organising the baby’s nursery.’
‘Really?’ she asked dubiously.
‘You said only last night that you’re bored.’
He’d listened to her?
It had been a passing comment made after yet another day of doing nothing useful. She might not miss dance but she missed being active and having a purpose in her life. She hadn’t expected Javier to take her comment seriously.
‘Don’t you want to have any input with the nursery?’ she asked.
‘No. I’ll get my PA to sort a credit card out for you today. Spend whatever you like on it—there will be no limit. It will be yours to keep.’ His eyes narrowed as he contemplated her. ‘I also think it’s time we sorted out an allowance for you.’
‘I don’t need one.’ If she needed money there was a petty-cash drawer in Javier’s home office filled with an ever-replenishing stack of euro notes that she helped herself to at his insistence, always leaving a note of how much she’d taken and what it was for. ‘It’s not as if I have any bills to pay.’
‘Everyone needs money to call their own. You shouldn’t have to feel that you need my permission to spend money.’
‘I don’t feel that,’ she protested.
His gaze was critical. ‘Carina, you’re my wife and carrying my child. Your clothes are tight on you.’
He’d noticed?
‘You will have an allowance,’ he said in the tone she’d learned not to bother arguing with. ‘While I’m away, I want you to go shopping and spoil yourself. If you have the time, arrange the nursery. Julio will have the names of decorators who can paint it out in whatever colour and style you want.’
‘I can do it however I want?’ she clarified.
His gaze was serious. ‘This is your home. You need to start treating it as such.’
Everything inside her swelled so big and so quickly it felt as if she could burst.
She had never dreamed Javier would say those words to her.
‘Which room shall we put the nursery in?’ she asked, trying not to beam her joy at this breakthrough with him.
‘There’s a pair of adjoining rooms on the east wing...’
‘The east wing? But that’ll be too far from us.’
‘The nanny will have the adjoining room.’
‘What nanny?’
‘The nanny you’re going to employ.’ He gave a smile that showed he thought he was being a good guy. A smile from Javier was such a rare occurrence that it momentarily startled her away from what he’d just said.
She remembered reading the clause in the old contract that had mentioned wraparound care for any child, presumably because he expected her to go back to work.
Sophie wouldn’t care if she never danced again. The thought of putting her pointe shoes on and performing made her feel all tight inside.
‘We’re not having a nanny,’ she told him flatly, her brief moment of joy gone.
‘Of course we are.’
‘We are not. I’m not letting someone else raise my child.’
‘A nanny would not raise it. A nanny would do the mundane chores.’
Now she was to use the tone that meant he could argue with her but she would not bend. ‘This is our child and I’m not palming it off on a stranger.’
His face darkened. ‘You are prepared to care for it 24/7?’
‘It’s called being a parent.’
‘What about work? How are you going to return to dance with a baby? Do you expect to pirouette with it strapped to your back?’
‘I’m not going back to the ballet.’
He stared at her as if she’d just announced an intention to fly a car to the moon. ‘Why on earth not?’
‘I don’t want to.’
Not want to? Javier had never heard such words from a ballerina’s mouth. His own mother had returned to the stage four months after giving birth to twins. To be a professional dancer meant a life of dedication and single-mindedness. His father had driven himself to alcoholic despair when the work had dried up, admittedly because of his drunken rages and violence against fellow dancers and choreographers. Javier didn’t know a single ballet dancer who had quit before the age of thirty-five, most usually only doing so reluctantly when their bodies failed them, all the injuries sustained through their careers finally taking their toll.
Sophie was twenty-four. She hadn’t even reached her peak.
‘But you’re a dancer.’
‘And now I’m going to be a mother.’
‘You can be both.’ He shook his head, trying to comprehend this woman he was beginning to suspect he would never understand. ‘Carina, you’re young. You’re in excellent health. There is no reason for you not to be able to continue to dance.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she repeated with an obstinacy he’d never seen before. ‘I’m done with dance. It’s not as if I was particularly good at it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I only got into ballet school because my parents paid the full fees.’
‘Did you not have to audition?’
‘Well...yes, but my parents still had to pay. I’m not saying I’m a bad dancer but I’m never going to be the best. I only got the job with your ballet company because Freya put a good word in for me.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘It isn’t rubbish...’
‘Compania de Ballet de Casillas does not employ second-rate dancers. I should know; it’s my company. You think anyone would dare go above my wishes for only the best to be employed?’
She gaped, a crease forming in her brow. Then she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and grimaced. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does. You’re a dancer. You’re an excellent dancer. It’s in your blood.’
‘It isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘I love the ballet but... I’d been thinking of quitting before I joined your company. I think I would have done if Freya hadn’t needed me here. She was having a hard time, really struggling with being so far from her mum—you know how ill she is—and I wanted to support her. Just be there when she needed a shoulder to cry on.’
‘You were already thinking of quitting?’
She nodded, a wistful look on her face. ‘I love the ballet, I really do, but dancing was never... My heart was never in it. It was not what I wanted to do in my life.’
‘What did you want to do?’
‘I wanted to be a vet.’
‘A vet?’
His wife, a professional ballerina, who’d dedicated her life to dance had never wanted to do it. She’d wanted to be a vet.
He could hardly wrap his brain around the notion.
He thought back to their wedding night and her comment that her parents would have lived in a shed if it had meant Sophie getting into ballet school. At the time he’d treated it like a throwaway comment but now it began to resonate... Had Sophie spent her life working for a dream that wasn’t her own?
What kind of a person did that?
The answer stared back at him. His wife. The only person in the world who he suspected was capable of such self-sacrifice.
Before he could question her further his phone buzzed. Catching the time on it, Javier blinked and hauled himself to his feet. ‘I have to go. We’ll finish this conversation when I get home.’
Downing the last of his coffee, he contemplated Sophie one last time.
It suddenly came to him that he wouldn’t see her for another five days.
‘Call me if you need anything.’
She nodded but the easy smile that was usually never far from he
r lips didn’t appear.
Was she angry at him for giving his opinion on her career?
He didn’t have time to worry about that now. He had a flight slot to fill.
Taking hold of his briefcase, he walked to the dining-room door.
‘Have a safe trip,’ she called to his retreating back. ‘Please call or message to let me know you’ve got there safely.’
He took one last look at her.
‘I will,’ he promised.
Now she did smile but nowhere near enough for it to reach her sad eyes.
As his driver steered them out of the electric gates, Javier put his head back and closed his eyes with a sigh.
Leaving his home had never felt like a wrench before.
* * *
Whoever had coined the term ‘retail therapy’ could not know how right they had been.
Sophie had prevented herself bursting into tears at Javier’s leaving by a thread.
He wouldn’t have wanted to see her cry. It would probably have repelled him.
She didn’t understand why his leaving left her feeling so heavy and wretched. They were hardly in the throes of a traditional honeymoon period. They hadn’t even had a honeymoon!
An hour after he’d left, his PA had turned up at the villa with a credit card for her.
By what magic or trickery Javier had made it happen so quickly she could not begin to guess but it had lifted the weight off her considerably and brought a genuine smile to her face.
He’d thought of her. He’d flexed his muscles for her and made the impossible happen. For her.
The minute Michael, his driver, had got back from the airport she’d coerced him into taking her shopping.
She had an unlimited credit card, a nursery to fill and prepare, and a new dressing room of clothes for herself to get. Javier’s observation that her clothes were getting tight had been correct. Only four months pregnant, she wasn’t yet large enough for maternity wear but clothing she could breathe in easily would be welcome.
So she’d hit the shopping district she remembered exploring once with Freya, when neither of them had had the funds to do more than window-shop: Salamanca.
From there she had shopped until her feet ached, stopping only for a light lunch in a pretty little café along the Calle de Serrano.
Billionaire's Baby of Redemption Page 10