by Lynne Graham
In fact Antonio seemed delighted that she had proved to be a complete novice in the sex stakes. But Sophie was unnerved and mortified by the speed with which he had deduced that reality. If she didn’t watch out he would soon be questioning the significance of why she had yielded her precious virginity to him. He would guess that she was a lot keener on him than appearances might suggest. And if that happened, she knew she would die a thousand deaths from shame and never look him in the face again.
‘Not at all, enamorada,’ Antonio confirmed with lazy cool, running a confident and appreciative hand along the quivering line of one slender thigh. ‘I suspect we’re going to have a huge amount of fun filling in the blanks in your education.’
Employing all the self-control she could muster, Sophie pulled back from him. ‘You’ve got me so wrong. I may have acted the innocent to amuse myself, but there is just no way I was a virgin and I can’t believe you should think that I was.’
‘Why are you trying to deny the obvious? Why should you be embarrassed about the fact that you didn’t sleep around? Why would you want to persuade me otherwise?’ Brilliant golden eyes full of incomprehension rested on her. ‘I think that you being a virgin on our wedding night is an amazing achievement. You should be proud.’
Her small hands coiled into fierce fists. He knew what he knew and her secret was a secret no more. Her clumsy attempt to blow dust over her tracks had failed. His awareness that he had been her first lover made her feel horribly exposed and vulnerable. Gripped by the growing suspicion that she had behaved very stupidly with him, she scrambled out of the bed.
Snatching up the towel on the floor, she dragged it round herself again as though it were her only cover in a life-threatening storm. ‘Look, stop going on about it!’
‘Come back to bed,’ Antonio murmured as gently as if he were dealing with a wild creature.
‘No, been there, done that,’ Sophie slung with jewel bright green eyes full of angry defiance, dull coins of pink burning over her cheekbones. ‘You were great and you did me a favour, but let’s leave it at that!’
‘A favour?’ At that contemptuous dismissal, Antonio went rigid and any desire to humour and soothe left him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU said I did you a favour. Explain what you mean by that,’ Antonio instructed with lethal cool.
Playing for time, Sophie dragged in a ragged breath. ‘Can’t you guess?’
Hard dark golden eyes rested on her with uncompromising force. ‘Answer my question, por favor.’
‘OK.’ Sophie lifted and dropped her slim shoulders, attempting to strike a casual note while she frantically plumbed her imagination for a suitable explanation. She was totally terrified that Antonio would guess why he had found it so easy to get her into bed. ‘I set you up,’ she claimed daringly.
Unimpressed, Antonio elevated an aristocratic black brow. ‘No me diga…you don’t say!’
His apparent calm only made her more desperate than ever to save face. ‘I’m nearly twenty-three years old and I thought it was way past time I stopped being a virgin,’ she spelt out, ‘so I picked you to do the deed.’
That brazen claim hit home and outrage powered through Antonio. ‘You did…what?’ he raked at her in raw disbelief.
The atmosphere could have been cut with a knife and Sophie was so nervous she was trembling. Forced to defend her story, she paled. ‘You’ve been around,’ she muttered in haste. ‘So I reckoned you’d make the experience reasonably pleasant…and you did. Can we drop the subject now?’
Antonio might have dismissed that fantastic claim had he not remembered her walking in to join him clad only in a towel and then virtually luring him down into the cushions. Scorching golden eyes lit on her like lightning bolts. ‘You selected me like some kind of stud to have sex with you?’
‘Look, least said, soonest mended,’ Sophie mumbled, hot-cheeked, while wishing that she had come up with a less inflammatory story.
In a towering rage, Antonio sprang out of bed and began to get dressed at speed.
The intense claustrophobic silence intimidated and frightened Sophie.
‘Antonio—?’
‘Silencio!’ His tone of derisive distaste sliced back at her, his lean, darkly handsome face grim. ‘I had begun to think of you as my wife. Qué risa…what a laugh! I won’t make that mistake again. I may have misjudged you the night after your sister’s wedding, but you think like a slut and behave like one. It will be a cold day in hell before I share a bed with you again!’
All the colour bled from Sophie’s heart-shaped face. ‘Don’t be like that. Stop being so angry with me—’
‘What else did you expect? Approval?’ Antonio dealt her a chilling appraisal. ‘Your standards are not mine. From now on, we stick to the deal we agreed.’
Her hands were shaking. She had really offended him. She spun away so that he could no longer see her shaken face. Her eyes were hot and scratchy with tears and she was stiff with shock. It was better this way, she told herself wretchedly. They should not have gone to bed together. She should have had more self-control. Almost three years back she had listened to Pablo talking enviously at his own wedding about his older brother’s phenomenal success with women. Naturally the act of sex would be a minor event to a guy like Antonio. Women were too easily available to him and who valued what was not in short supply? But what she could not bear was that Antonio should be so angry with her that he thought badly of her and condemned her for thinking like a slut.
She locked herself in the bathroom and studied herself with tear-filled eyes of pain and regret. If only the dream could have lasted a little longer, if only she had not settled on that stupid, shameless story of having slept with him purely to get rid of her virginity. Why had he believed that? Didn’t he know how irresistible she found him? But when and how had she forgotten that he had only married her in the first place so that she could take care of Lydia? She had promised to leave him free to live exactly as he pleased. That recollection suddenly became the source of deep distress.
After a very poor night’s sleep, Sophie got up soon after seven the next morning: Lydia would be awake and looking for her. She was really disconcerted to find Antonio in the nursery. He had Lydia in his arms and he was talking to her in soft Spanish.
Sophie hovered, determined to take the opportunity to clear the air between them. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find you in here.’
His keen dark-as-midnight eyes were level, his lean bronzed features unreadable. ‘I thought I ought to say goodbye to Lydia—’
‘Goodbye…you’re going somewhere?’ Sophie interrupted in dismay. ‘Thanks for not waking me!’
The instant she made that crack she regretted it, for even to her own ears it sounded juvenile.
‘I saw no reason to disturb you this early. I intended to phone later,’ Antonio imparted with unassailable assurance. ‘I have business to take care of. I had hoped to take a couple of days off and remain here, but it is not to be.’
Sophie had become very pale and tense. ‘When will you be back?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ he admitted calmly. ‘I’m flying to Japan and then on to New York. After that, I must attend to matters in Madrid.’
‘Antonio…’ Hurt and disappointment and frustration were roaring through Sophie’s slight frame. ‘Don’t you think we should talk?’
‘I think that all that needed to be said was said last night,’ Antonio countered with chillingly courteous finality.
Pride and intense insecurity silenced the apologetic tale of woe and explanation on Sophie’s lips. She had met with rejection and disillusionment too often in life to deliberately court them. Why had she assumed that he would even be interested in what she had to say? After all, she was not an important element in Antonio’s exclusive world. Why risk exposing herself to more of his contempt? If he was still angry with her, she reasoned unhappily, maybe it was better to let the dust settle for a couple of weeks before tackling him again.
‘Buenos días, Sophie.’ Doña Ernesta walked out onto the shaded upstairs loggia where Sophie was sewing while Lydia played on a rug at her feet. ‘You must be the most industrious bride ever to enter this family. You are always at work.’
‘But this isn’t work…it’s enjoyment.’ As she placed a stitch in the fabric stretched over her embroidery frame Sophie glanced up. ‘I’m not used to being lazy.’
‘May I see your embroidery?’
Sophie obliged.
The old lady sighed in admiration over the intricate stitches and the fluid pattern of leaves and birds. ‘You must know that this is work of an exceptional standard. You are extremely talented. Who taught you? Was it your mother?’
‘I never knew my mother. It was a neighbour I used to visit as a child.’ Sophie’s eyes clouded with sadness as she remembered the elderly woman who had given her a much needed creative outlet. The chance to escape the noisy chaos of her father’s home and visit, however briefly, a peaceful, organised household had been equally welcome. ‘She taught me to sew when I was four years old and I was still learning from her ten years later when she died.’
‘You must have been a rewarding pupil. Perhaps some day you will consider taking a textile conservation course.’ Doña Ernesta lifted Lydia up onto her lap, smiling down at her great granddaughter with unconcealed pleasure. ‘There are many very old pieces of needlework here which would benefit from your attention.’
‘Even if I did a course, I don’t think Antonio would want me touching family heirlooms,’ Sophie muttered awkwardly.
Her companion regarded her in surprise. ‘But you are a part of this family now.’
A maid arrived with a tray. ‘I asked for English tea,’ Doña Ernesta confided. ‘And scones.’
At the old lady’s request, Sophie poured the tea into fine china cups. Over the past week an increasing number of Antonio’s relations and neighbours had made formal visits to meet Sophie and Doña Ernesta had been very supportive. Indeed the older woman was clearly intent on getting to know her grandson’s wife. Sophie felt guilty that her own unhappiness was making it hard for her to respond with greater cheer to Doña Ernesta’s more forthcoming manner.
‘Have you heard from Antonio?’ Doña Ernesta enquired gently.
Feeling very vulnerable, Sophie reddened. ‘No…not for a couple of days.’
‘He must be exceptionally busy,’ Doña Ernesta immediately assured her in a soothing manner.
But with whom was Antonio busy? Sophie wondered wretchedly before she could suppress that unproductive thought. What was the point of tormenting herself? She had no control over what Antonio did. The sick sense of misery that she had been struggling to suppress threatened to rise up and overpower her. It was no comfort to know that her own hasty words had destroyed the fragile new relationship developing between her and Antonio. It was eight days since he had left the castillo. Although he had phoned several times the conversations had been brief and any attempt to stray into more intimate areas had been mercilessly snubbed.
‘Sophie…may I speak freely to you?’ Doña Ernesta asked then.
Sophie tensed. ‘Of course…’
‘You seem unhappy. I have no wish to pry,’ the old lady assured her anxiously, ‘but is there anything wrong?’
Sophie made a harried attempt to mount the cover-up that she knew Antonio would expect from her. ‘Of course, there’s nothing wrong.’
‘It is natural that you should miss Antonio and very sad that you should be parted so soon after your wedding.’
Tears stung the back of Sophie’s eyes in a dismaying surge. It had not occurred to her that she would miss Antonio quite so dreadfully. But admitting even to herself that she had fallen very deeply in love with Antonio almost three years earlier and that indeed she had never got over him had destroyed all her natural defences.
‘It is too dull here for you when he is away,’ Doña Ernesta opined. ‘Why don’t you stay at our house in Madrid for a few days? You could shop and mix with the other young people in the family there. I believe you met some of them at your sister’s wedding.’
Sophie was disconcerted by that suggestion but immediately aware of its appeal. Sitting around doing nothing was draining her confidence and depressing her. But if she went to Madrid without Antonio having first invited her there, it might look as if she were chasing after him. He might also be annoyed. The terms of their marriage deal did not allow her much room for independent manoeuvre, she reminded herself unhappily.
Whether she liked it or not, she had agreed that Antonio could do as he liked. All she had asked for in return was the right to care for Lydia and she had received that. In fact in material terms she really was doing very nicely indeed out of their marital agreement. She had Lydia and she was living in luxury. To top it all, in spite of her worst fears, even Antonio’s grandmother was being really kind to her. So, really, she castigated herself, from where did she get the nerve to imagine that she had grounds for complaint?
On the other hand, hadn’t the wedding night she had shared with Antonio blown that original agreement of theirs right out of the water? Everything felt so incredibly personal now. By making love to her, Antonio had turned their platonic relationship inside out. Everything had changed and that was his fault as much as hers. Obviously she felt differently about him now and the chasm that had opened up between them truly frightened her. Overnight Antonio had become chillingly polite and unapproachable. The misunderstanding between them had to be sorted out, she reflected worriedly.
She decided that it would be best if she arrived in Madrid while Antonio was still abroad on business. That way her presence might look coincidental and he would not even need to know that he was being chased. If he were to ask her what she was doing there she would be able to say quite truthfully that neither she nor Lydia had anything to wear. Before the wedding, she had been too scared to spend his money on anything other than absolute necessities. Now, however, she was aware that Antonio was accustomed to perfectly groomed women. So, she too would get groomed to within an inch of her life. The hair, the nails, the cosmetics, the waxing, the whatever—she would go for the entire package. There was, Sophie acknowledged shamefacedly, very little she wouldn’t do to get close to Antonio again. And if she failed, well, it wouldn’t be for want of trying. After all, what did she have to lose?
Striding through Barajas airport, Antonio checked his watch with rare impatience. He would be at his Madrid home within the hour. It was almost three weeks since he had left the castillo and he was eager to see Sophie.
Not only to see her, his more honest self acknowledged, and a slightly rueful smile curved his handsome mouth. He could not understand how he had managed to make such a mess of things with her. Everything he had done had been out of character. But then he could never remember getting quite so angry with a woman before. The brooding bitterness of spirit that had followed had been equally new to his experience and profoundly disturbing for a male who prided himself on his self-discipline. He was neither moody, nor bad-tempered, and he was not one to hold a grudge. In short, his was not a volatile temperament and yet how else could he explain the explosive nature of his own behaviour on their wedding day?
With his customary cool logic restored he knew that Sophie’s declaration that she had chosen him to be her stud was ridiculous. In a normal frame of mind he would have laughed that insult off. That had been Sophie putting him in his place. What had happened to his sense of humour that night and over the subsequent days when he had still seethed to such an extent that even speaking to her on the phone had been a challenge for him? Where had his even temper and his shrewd ability to read a situation gone? Dios mio, how could he have believed that nonsensical claim for longer than thirty seconds?
The knowledge that Sophie was in Madrid had increased his keenness to get home. It had been six days since he had even contrived to speak to her. He had been working very long hours and the time difference had forced him to pho
ne at awkward times. Then, when he had called, Sophie had always been out. He assumed his grandmother was trotting Sophie and Lydia out to meet every friend and distant relative they possessed.
His chauffeur was so intent on the colourful celebrity magazine he was reading that he did not notice his employer’s approach until the last possible moment, Antonio noted in some exasperation. Muttering embarrassed apologies, the older man rushed to open the passenger door and dropped the magazine. On the front cover it carried a picture of Sophie in the floral dress she had worn for their wedding. Antonio snatched it up in disbelief.
An article several pages long liberally spattered with photos of his wife greeted Antonio’s incredulous gaze. The dress he had hated was rated as the cutting edge of true bridal style. There was Sophie looking improbably demure and dignified seated in the salon of his house in Madrid. She had let cameras into one of his homes! He breathed in very deep. There was Sophie prancing along a catwalk arm in arm with his cousin, Reina, at some charity fashion show…Sophie arriving at the opening night of a musical wearing a glittering red evening dress that fitted like a mermaid skin…Sophie showing the most shocking length of leg in a striped pink miniskirt as she climbed out of a Ferrari. Whose Ferrari? Whose bloody Ferrari?
He phoned his city home and learned that Sophie was out. He asked where she was and a hip nightclub was entioned as a possibility. He directed his chauffeur there instead and called his grandmother to ask her why he hadn’t been informed that his wife was in town alone.
‘Does Sophie need permission?’ Doña Ernesta enquired.
‘No. However, I understood that you were here with her.’
‘Only for the first two days. Madrid exhausts me and Sophie makes friends so easily. She’s an original and she has a great sense of style.’
Antonio replaced the phone with a strong sense of dissatisfaction. He began to read the gushing text in the article in the hope of finding out whom the Ferrari belonged to as well as an explanation for his wife’s presence in it.