Raul's Revenge

by Jacqueline Baird

  'I was frightened. One woman had already virtually stood me up at the altar. Not that it bothered me much. But the fact that you were so much younger than me did... My father married a woman years younger than himself and it didn't work. My mother ran off with a man her own age. It was cowardly of me, I know, and I'm not trying to make excuses, but we are all shaped in some way by our past.'

  Ava had been right, Penny thought wonderingly, staring at him, her heart thumping faster in her breast. Perhaps he was telling her the truth...

  'And, being brutally honest, once you moved in with me I was as happy as a bull in clover.'

  'I seem to remember you acted like one,' Penny said reminiscently, with the beginnings of a smile tilting her full lips.

  He gave her a wry grin in return. 'I know. I can't seem to help myself around you. That was part of my problem.'

  'Sex?' she said, puzzled; that was the only part of their relationship where there was no problem, she thought.

  'Sex, love and all that goes with it. In my case, total possessiveness and insane jealousy. The night in Dubai when I fought with you about the Arab it was pure jealousy. I didn't like the way I acted. I surprised myself. I shipped you back to Spain and then found you had left the bracelet I had given you.'

  His confession of jealousy was music to Penny's ears, but she was still wary of this oddly humble Raul. One delicate brow arched sardonically. 'Hardly surprising, the speed you rushed me out of the hotel.'

  'Have you ever worn it? Have you still got it?' Raul queried, his eyes avoiding hers.

  'I don't wear it.' She could not admit that after they'd parted she had not been able to bear to look at it. 'It's in a safe-deposit box at the bank. I thought I would keep it for James's college fund,' she explained, but wondered why he was going on about it.

  Then his gaze flicked back to hers. 'Did you ever read the inscription on the back of the clasp?'

  'Inscription? What inscription?'

  'Dios, what a fool I have been.' And, sweeping her into his arms, he hugged her tightly, burying his face in her soft, scented hair.

  'Raul,' she murmured against his chest, and placed a hand on his arm, pushing him back slightly. She glanced up, puzzled. And he smiled—a smile of pure joy.

  'Don't you see, Penny, our troubles started when I joined you again here at the hacienda? I was furious because you had left the bracelet in the hotel in Dubai. Remember I asked you if you had missed anything else besides me and you said no?'

  She remembered the conversation, but had never linked it with the bracelet. 'Yes, but—'

  Raul cut in. 'Engraved on the clasp is "Raul loves Penny"—a simple message but it's true. When you never missed it or mentioned it I got it into my head that you didn't care very much. Senor Costas told me you had ordered his daughter from the house—for no good reason, according to Dulcie—and I was angry. In my own defence I must point out I had no idea Dulcie was such a bitch.'

  'I...' She stopped, choked with emotion as the enormity of Raul's revelation sank into her head and heart. He had to be telling the truth, because she still had the bracelet and could prove it. Her blue eyes misty with tears, she wondered sadly how it had all gone sol wrong, and knew that she must share some of the blame. ‘I did try to tell you,' Penny said softly. 'But at the time you had sent me back to Spain so suddenly that I was feeling pretty resentful myself. I was rude, I admit. But when you sent me on my own again to London that really hurt. I was beginning to feel like some unwanted] baggage.'

  Raul cuddled her closer. 'Never unwanted, Penny. But I should have believed you and trusted you. It was sheer bloody-mindedness on my part. I was afraid of the depths of my feelings for you, and of losing you. The day after you left for England Ava lashed into me and I learnt the truth.

  ‘I tackled Dulcie about it and she was full of apologies and insisted it was the trauma of her broken marriage that had made her behave so badly. I didn't believe her, but neither did I care enough about the woman to be bothered. But you I cared quite desperately about. And when I called you that night and you were out all night my fear of losing you turned to pure fury. But it did not stop me dashing to London to find you.'

  ‘I was lying on the sofa and you woke me up; you were so cold.' Penny shivered at the memory.

  Raul, feeling her shiver, lifted her onto his lap. 'Better,' he murmured; his dark eyes, shadowed with remorse, fused with Penny's. 'I will never forgive myself as long as I live for what I did that day. It must have taken a lot of nerve to propose to me. I wanted to say yes and carry you off to the church. But my stubborn pride and a grim determination not to be manipulated by any woman stopped me—plus the bracelet burning a hole in my pocket yet again. Can you ever forgive me and try to love me?'

  He was a stubborn, proud, rather conservative macho male, but he was also the only man she would ever love... And she finally believed him. A surge of euphoric relief shuddered through her.

  'I forgive you.' She smiled into his serious eyes. But she wasn't quite ready to declare that she loved him; there were a few unanswered questions, and she didn't want anything to stand in the way of their future hap­piness. 'And I might do more,' she drawled softly, and linked her arms around his neck, 'if you can explain how you ended up in a magazine with Dulcie on your arm.'

  'Is that jealousy I hear?' Raul teased, but, looking into her eyes, he saw the lingering doubt and continued in a more serious vein. 'It was a charity evening in aid of cancer research at a Madrid theatre. The elderly widower Dulcie is engaged to was the guest speaker. He left her with me while he went on stage to deliver his speech—'

  'Dulcie is engaged to someone else?' Penny interjected.

  'Yes, and you should not be too hard on her, Penny; it is a terrible thing for a woman not to be able to have children. I think that is why Dulcie is the way she is.'

  'You're right,' Penny said softly, thinking of the joy her own son gave her. 'But it still does not explain the photograph,' she tacked on.

  'It was a celebrity affair, Penny; they took hundreds of photographs. It surprised me that they bothered to include Dulcie and me, when there were so many film stars and the like around. But I promise you I delivered Dulcie back to her fiancé, pledged a donation and left. Alone.'

  Cuddled on Raul's lap, the solid comfort of his arms around her, she looked deep into his compelling eyes and knew that he was telling the truth.

  'I have been alone from the moment you left me,' Raul admitted, his deep voice husky with emotion as his gaze roamed over her face only inches from his own. 'When I thought you were married to someone else I almost lost my mind. Ask Ava if you don't believe me. I made her life hell.

  'I drank too much, until Ava stole my car keys and hid all the liquor in the house. We had a stand-up row, and when I caught myself lifting my hand to her the full horror of what I had become hit me.'

  'Oh, Raul.' She was shaken by the bleakness in his] tone, and inexplicably she wanted to reassure him. 'You might look and act like a medieval pirate on the Spanish Main sometimes—' her lips twitched in the briefest of smiles '—but you would never hit a woman. I know that much for sure.'

  ‘Thank you, I think,' he said wryly, and brushed his lips across hers in the lightest of caresses before con­tinuing. ‘I threw myself into my work in the faint hope; that I might be able to catch a couple of hours' sleep at night without suffering the torment of the damned, thinking of you and how we were together. There has been no other woman in my life since you left me, Penny. If I can't have you, I don't want anyone.'

  His strong hand moved caressingly up and down her back. Penny stayed silent, realising that they had both suffered over the past couple of years.

  ‘I will die a bitter, celibate old man without you.'

  'You, celibate?' she cried, her eyes widening in shock. Raul had always been a powerfully sensual man, with an overwhelming masculine virility he had never at­tempted to hide—that much she remembered clearly from their affair. 'Bitter, maybe—celibate, never,'
she opined bluntly.

  ? 'You don't understand,' he growled with an edge of frustration. 'Nothing matters—work, the ranch; without you my life is meaningless. You are my life force, Penny,' he told her huskily, his mouth grazing hers again.

  Her lips parted to respond, but the raw intensity in his eyes made her catch her breath. Then he kissed her brow, her eyes, the curve of her cheek.

  'Surely you must know, must sense how I feel?' he whispered urgently against her ear, his hot breath causing her pulse to leap into overdrive. 'When I'm with you, intimately joined to you...' he groaned, his hard thighs moving restlessly beneath her bottom, making her aware of his aroused state. 'When I move in you, feel you clench around me, I know how paradise feels. I know the meaning of life. I feel as though we are one with the universe—an exquisite perfect whole that no one can destroy.'

  And, slowly twisting, he laid her down on the bed, his long body half covering hers, and he kissed her hard on the mouth—a long, slow kiss full of unspoken promise that made her tremble in his arms...

  'I love you desperately, obsessively, in every way there is,' Raul declared huskily. 'You have to believe me.'

  Penny, her vision blurring with tears of joy, threaded her fingers through his black hair and held his beloved face firmly in her small hands. 'I do believe you, and I do love you, Raul. There has never been anyone else for me. Only you.'

  He stared at her, the pupils of his dark eyes dilating with passion. 'You—'

  She pressed her mouth to his, swallowing his words, putting her heart and soul into the kiss. Raul's arms en­circled her, his weight crushing her, but she didn't care.

  She was where she wanted to be, locked in her lover's arms and at last free to declare her love with no fear of rejection.

  Raul raised his head and took a deep, shuddering breath as he stared down at her. 'Lord, tell me I'm not dreaming.'

  Penny playfully tugged his ear and he yelped. 'You're not dreaming.' She grinned.

  But Raul did not return her smile. 'And will you marry me, Penny, be my wife, my love?' he asked bluntly. 'No more doubt, no more running away. I couldn't stand to lose you a second time.'

  'You aren't asking me to marry you simply to get James? Dulcie hinted as much,' Penny voiced her last secret fear.

  'Damn Dulcie! I love James, and I want to be a good father to him and—God willing—watch him grow into a fine man. But you I love more than life; without you everything else will lose its lustre. Marry me. Please...' The wealth of feeling in his impassioned plea convinced Penny.

  'Yes, Raul.'

  The soft avowal was all it took. In minutes they were both naked, Penny's hands clenched on his shoulders, her head threshing from side to side, her eyes closed in ecstasy as Raul kissed every inch of her body with a burning intensity, worshipping her feminine form, parting her thighs, his caresses unbelievably intimate.

  'You're so sexy, so hot,' he growled against her stomach. Then, rearing up, he lifted her to accept his pulsing manhood. 'You do want me,' he shouted hoarsely. 'You do.'

  She felt the pleasure, the excitement pounding through her body, and did not begrudge him his thoroughly mas­culine growl of triumph.

  * * *

  A long time later Penny stirred in his arms. She leaned up and smiled down at his sleeping face. She flicked his bottom lip with her finger. 'Raul.. .'

  'What?' he queried, half-asleep.

  ‘I think you'd better leave now.'

  'What?' he queried, half-asleep.

  ‘I think you'd better leave now.'

  'What?' he shouted. His eyes flying wide open, he hauled her down on top of him. 'You're crazy, woman.' He nuzzled her neck.

  'But what about tradition?' Penny teased.

  'To hell with tradition,' Raul said pithily. 'From now on I am going to be one of these New Men I hear so much about. Equal partners—sharing the load, sharing the bed.'

  Penny burst out laughing, levered herself away from him and rolled on her back, still laughing. 'Sharing the bed is about the only part you would get right,' she chortled.

  'So it's a start,' Raul drawled, and, looping an arm around her, cradled her tight to his side. 'The rest you can teach me.' And he kissed the top of her head and yawned.

  Grinning, Penny cuddled up against him. Raul a New Man? Never. He was far too arrogantly male.

  And then she paused for thought. But he was a thinking and caring man—she remembered him des­cribing his work and his hopes for the new low-cost de­salination plants. And he was sensitive to both her and their son's needs. He had admitted that he'd been afraid to upset her when they'd first met again. Maybe he was not such a hopeless case after all, she mused happily as she fell asleep.

  She was convinced the next day when she stepped out of the bridal car at the entrance to the church of San Marcos in the tiny village on the boundary of Raul's estate.

  The ivory wild silk dress, with its high ruffled neck and fitted bodice, accentuated her tiny waist, and the skirt, a multitude of fine pleats, floated around her legs as she walked; the effect was Victorian and demure, yet stunning. She nervously clutched Carlos's arm as they entered the church, and then a scream of delight escaped her.

  Waiting in the porch was James, dressed in a cute blue velvet suit, but beside him stood Amy, her face glowing almost as much as her ginger hair, and dressed in a gown complementary to Penny's.

  'I don't believe it!' Penny cried.

  'Would I miss your wedding?' Amy grinned. 'Anyway, your husband-to-be insisted, and he's a hard man to deny. Nick even agreed to be best man—though he'd sworn never to set foot in Spain after the fishing debacle.'

  The two girls laughed and hugged until Amy drew back and said, 'Time to go, friend. Be happy.'

  Penny stepped into the church, her gaze flying straight to the proud head and broad back of Raul, standing at the altar. Her almost New Man, she thought, his con­sideration flooding her already full heart as she slowly began to the walk down the aisle on Carlos's arm.

  Raul turned; his dark eyes, full of love, caught and held hers. Then, as though he could not help himself, he walked towards her, relieved Carlos of his duties and possessively pulled her slender arm through his and walked her the rest of the way to the altar himself.

  Amy laughed, the congregation laughed, and even the priest had trouble hiding his chuckle as he read the mar­riage service.

  But Penny and Raul didn't care. They were in a world of their own as they vowed their undying love and sealed it with a kiss...