Martinez's Pregnant Wife

by Rachael Thomas

  ‘She would, but can we forget this now? All of it and move forward? We are having a baby together, Max, and I don’t want to do it alone, but I will if I have to.’

  He pulled her into his arms, sympathy rushing over him for the open vulnerability in her face. ‘You won’t be doing it alone, not while I have breath in my body.’

  He meant every word. He would be there for her and for his baby. Lisa hadn’t asked him now for love, hadn’t said that was what she needed as he’d made his promise, one similar to that his mother had extracted from him. He’d promised his mother he’d look after Angelina and he had; for the last twenty years he’d been there for her, ensuring she had all she physically needed. He could do that for his child, couldn’t he?

  * * *

  Lisa closed her eyes and sank into Max’s embrace. He’d shared his secrets with her, opened up to her. Now, at last they could move forward, become a family and bring up their child together. It was all she’d ever wanted and with the exception of Max’s love she had it all.

  She looked up into his face and the sadness in his eyes made him look so different—real. He’d lost that hard edge that gave him the command of total control. Was this the real man?

  ‘It’s cold out here.’ She snuggled tighter against him, anything to stop herself saying something stupid, like I love you. She could never let those words past her lips again.

  ‘Now you’ve noticed.’ He laughed, looking and sounding more relaxed than he’d ever done. Was it because he’d unburdened his past, confided in her in a way she’d only ever dreamt possible? ‘Shall we go back?’

  ‘No, let’s walk a while. The cold is invigorating.’

  He kissed her so gently she was sure it tasted of love and as her body began to hum with desire she wished she’d asked him to take her back to his apartment, to his bed. The kiss intensified as the stirrings of passion began to boil higher and she kissed him back, deeply and passionately.

  Inside her mind she was shouting to him. I love you, Max, with all my heart.

  She continued the kiss, wanting to stop the words from tumbling from her mouth, and as the fury of passion threatened to spill over, like a dam about to be breached, she wanted to show him with the kiss how much she loved him.

  He pulled away from her slightly, the cold night air tingling on her lips, still warm and bruised from the ferocity of his kiss. ‘It’s a damn shame I can’t lure you into my bed instead of walking in this weather.’

  Pleasure and heat rushed around her as his desire filled eyes that held hers, calling her into his bed in a way she was powerless to resist. ‘On second thoughts—’

  His brow raised in amusement. ‘Yes?’

  ‘That sounds a much better idea—and warmer.’

  He took her hand and led her back along the embankment footpath, retracing their steps. ‘I can guarantee it will be warmer—a lot warmer.’

  * * *

  Lisa woke late the next morning to find the bed cold and empty beside her, but memories from last night warmed her as the fire at the cottage had done. She’d poured all her love into last night’s lovemaking, had tried so hard to show him what she wanted him to know without a word passing her lips. Were those three words really necessary?

  If she could silence them, show her love with every caress and kiss, every gesture and thought, did it mean that Max was doing the same? Was her Christmas cottage a way of showing he loved her? What about the brilliant diamonds? Were they a token of his love and not the sordid conclusion she’d jumped to? Did he love her and not even know it yet?

  Hope surged through her as she dressed and went in search of Max. He loved her and as soon as he’d wrestled the demons of his past into submission he would tell her as well as show her.

  ‘How are you this morning?’ he asked when she looked into his study, to find him busy with paperwork as usual. The concern in his voice touched her and pushed the hope a little higher as she walked in and stood by the window, looking out at London nestling beneath a toneless grey sky, where the promise of snow still lingered.

  ‘Good, thank you. I seem to be escaping the sickness now.’ It was the first time she’d thought about it, noticing that it was only when things weren’t good between them that she felt ill.

  ‘That’s good to hear, because I’m looking forward to seeing you in that black dress at Angelina’s party tonight.’ He smiled wickedly at her, stood up and walked over to join her. Standing behind her, his arms winding round her, he pulled her against him, kissing her neck. ‘And to taking it off again when we get home.’

  ‘Maximiliano Martinez, you are unbelievably bad.’ She wriggled round in his embrace and wound her arms around his neck, loving the intimacy of the moment.

  He kissed her lightly on the lips, pushing her hair from her face until it fell behind her shoulders. ‘Would you prefer I don’t say things like that?’

  She shook her head and he kissed her again, but this time the shrill ring of her mobile phone cut dead the rise of passion. ‘That, I think, is your phone.’

  ‘I will be back to finish this in a moment.’ She slipped from his embrace with a smile on her lips.

  ‘Promises, promises,’ he called after her as she rushed to retrieve her phone from her bag.

  The word mother flashed on the screen and with a sinking heart she answered the call.

  ‘So you are back with Max.’ Her mother’s harsh voice shattered all the soft, gentle emotions the exchange with Max had just created. The warm sensation his words had stirred in her froze.

  ‘Yes, Mother, I am.’ Lisa bristled with indignation. Why couldn’t her mother ever be happy for her? Why did every achievement she made, every choice she followed, have to be questioned and torn apart?

  ‘I saw it all in the papers. He’s now a very wealthy man, heir to an impressively large fortune—no wonder you went back to him.’

  ‘Mother,’ Lisa snapped, and wished now her mother had had the nerve to say this to her face, to stand in front of her and accuse her daughter of being as shallow and mercenary as she herself was. ‘I’m not like you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ Lisa walked to the windows that looked out over the dark, fast-moving waters of the Thames, not wanting Max to hear their exchange. After last night’s discussion as they’d walked, the last thing he needed to hear was her cold anger toward her mother.

  ‘Pregnant, then?’

  Lisa couldn’t answer and rested her forehead against the cool of the glass as the nausea she’d just thought she was avoiding came back at her with a vengeance. Her mother’s vengeance.

  ‘So, you are pregnant.’ Her mother’s jubilant righteousness echoed out of the phone.

  ‘I haven’t even answered you.’ Lisa defended herself just as she’d always had to do when her mother was in one of these moods. The kind that usually ended up destroying everything she’d wanted or worked for. Well, it wasn’t going to happen this time. This time she wouldn’t try and keep anything a secret from her mother; this time she would tell her everything and hope that satisfied her.

  ‘Your silence says it all, darling.’ The endearment was said in a sickly tone, reminding Lisa of the wicked witches in the children’s films she’d always loved to watch when she was younger. She’d never thought her own mother would take on that role though.

  ‘Yes, I’m pregnant. Max and I are back together. I’ve got what you have never had, Mother, or should I say what you’ve never respected yourself enough to hang around for.’

  ‘So you still think a man like Max can love you, give you all those foolish dreams of happy ever afters, like those silly films you used to watch?’ Lisa blinked in shock. Her mother had noticed that she had always been consumed by them as a child, before home life had got so tough, so miserable she’d been forced to roam the streets with a gang of well-known troublemakers.

  ‘I love Max and that’s enough for me. I’m not the same as you.’ Behind her she heard a noise and turned, phone held to her ear, and loo
ked at Max. She saw his armour reinforcing itself, saw him retreating from the place she’d finally made him reach, the place where her love could reach him. How long had he been standing there and how much had he heard?

  She watched Max walk away, heard her mother’s voice. ‘Then I shall leave you to make the most of your love nest, because it won’t last.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mother.’ Lisa ended the call and dropped the phone onto the smoked glass of the coffee table, the clattering noise an ominous sound. She wanted to go after him, wanted to find out what he’d heard, because a one-sided conversation would have sounded pretty damning. It would have made her seem as calculating as, only last night, she’d confessed her mother was.

  She was walking after him even before she realised she was doing it and stood once more on the threshold of his domain.

  ‘Save it, Lisa.’ He glared at her and she knew he’d heard it all. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘No, Max, I won’t.’

  He drew in a deep, angry breath. ‘Stop trying to force me to love you.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said softly, knowing the last part of the conversation he’d overheard would have sounded exactly like that.

  He stood taller, his glitteringly angry eyes fixing her to the spot. ‘There will be no happy ever after here, Lisa, so stop looking for something that doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Damn you, Max,’ Lisa hurled at him as the pain of his words spiked her anger. ‘I already know there isn’t such a thing, at least not with you. All I want is what is best for my child. And maybe that is not you.’

  He moved from behind his desk and came so close she could smell his aftershave, but this time she fought hard not to let it unbalance her, to set off the sparks of desire. ‘Then I suggest you leave.’

  ‘Oh, I intend to.’ She turned to walk away, anything to prevent the sting of tears from falling, but Max caught her arm.

  ‘But not until our deal is over, Lisa. Not until midnight on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘I’m leaving now. Right now.’ She defiantly glared up at him.

  ‘Angelina is expecting us at her twenty-first birthday party this evening and we will be there, Lisa—together.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  MAX STOOD AND watched Angelina and her friends as they laughed, toasting his sister with champagne. Tall and slender, with sleek dark hair just like her mother, Angelina looked exquisite in the cream silk dress Lydia had personally selected for him to give her as part of her gift. The other part, a central London apartment in one of the best areas, would give him peace of mind that she always had a place to go, a place to call home.

  It was hard to believe his little sister was so grown up now and didn’t need him any more. Now his child needed him and despite Lisa’s act of loving him, the words she’d said as they’d enjoyed the most amazing sex, he wasn’t at all sure his wife needed him. Her angry defiance just hours ago proved that.

  ‘Angelina looks happy,’ Lisa said as she came to join him, the black dress fitting her to perfection. The very same dress, before trouble had blown up between them once more, he’d envisaged taking from her sexy body before making her his again.

  Lisa had sought him out after she’d seen him watching her talking to her mother, but he’d been too angry, too disappointed to say anything. Lisa’s motives, her need for love and happiness, went far deeper, right to the very core of all the vulnerabilities he’d hidden well from everyone.

  ‘And that makes me happy,’ he said curtly, aware of Lisa looking up at him. He didn’t look at her, but kept his focus on his sister, although he wanted to know if Lisa’s beautiful face was tinged with sadness or if the anger she’d thrown at him still made her eyes spark.

  ‘About earlier,’ Lisa said and he swung round to face her, those expressive green eyes widening in shock.

  ‘The conversation with your mother, where you told her you’d found a way to be better than she was?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’ She gasped and her acting skills surpassed any he knew as tears welled into her eyes.

  ‘What I heard was exactly that, Lisa.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Max. You only heard what I said, not what she’d said to me.’

  ‘It was enough.’

  ‘Enough for what?’ Lisa said the words slowly, intently looking up at him now, her silver earrings swaying gently against her neck, touching skin he’d kissed. Damn it. Why did she always do this to him? Always distract him from what was really going on?

  ‘I will support you and our child but we cannot remain together—or even married.’

  Lisa gasped. ‘You want to go ahead with the divorce?’

  ‘It is for the best, but I will expect to be involved in my child’s life, to see him or her often. In the meantime, we have tonight to get through and, in two days’ time, a New Year’s Eve party.’

  ‘We?’ She glared at him. ‘You expect me to accept that you want a divorce yet continue to act the part of loving wife?’

  ‘I will of course make it financially worth your while by way of a substantial settlement, but I have no wish to give the press or society’s gossips any further ammunition to create headline news with. Therefore, I expect you to act, as you so nicely put it, the loving wife for the remainder of this evening and on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘You are...’ She struggled to find the right words and he added them for her.

  ‘Cold-hearted? Despicable? Mercenary?’ The smile he bestowed on her was on the surface real, but in reality it was formed in his hardened heart.

  ‘Oh, yes, all of those and I can add some too.’ She at him, anger making her lips press into a firm line.

  ‘Not right now, you won’t,’ he said softly as he leant toward her, touching her gently on the shoulder. ‘You have a role to play and what wife would say such things to the man she loves?’

  ‘I don’t see why we have to keep up such a façade.’ A smile became firmly fixed on her face. How stupid had he been to almost fall for her talk of love, to almost open up a heart he’d thought had died long ago? He’d been on the brink of letting her into his heart, of allowing emotions back into his life. But not any more. It was over. All she wanted was to prove to herself she could be better than her mother and he’d foolishly believed her when she’d told him her mother always tried to bring her down.

  He stepped back from Lisa, calling a waiter over to them, hardly daring to look at how sexy she was in that dress, how the neckline skimmed her breasts, the crossover straps drawing his eyes there even when he tried to avoid looking.

  ‘I am not about to announce to Raul that things have gone wrong in my marriage once again. He knows too much of what is going on between us and I’m not in the habit of admitting failure.’ He took a glass of champagne and a tall, elegant glass of elderflower cocktail and handed it to Lisa.

  She took the drink, sipped it as she looked out across the room decorated in gold for the party. ‘So it’s all about what other people think? To hell with what I think.’

  She moved away from him to briefly speak to someone and he watched her. He wouldn’t have been able to drag his attention away from her if he’d wanted to. The black dress emphasised every curve, sending a spike of lust through him. He clenched his hands into tight fists. Now was not the time to become sidetracked by her—by sex.

  As she returned to his side he looked down at her, liking the way she’d put her hair up, twisting it into a tousled kind of knot that made her look as if she’d not long left his bed. Damn. Why did everything come back to sex with this woman?

  ‘Of course it is. I have no wish for Angelina to think there is discord between us on her birthday.’ Even to him the words sounded stilted. Rehearsed.

  She turned to glare at him. ‘Discord?’ The word echoed loudly around them. Too loudly.

  ‘Everyone will know if you are not able to lower your voice.’

  ‘I don’t damn well care.’ Before he could add anything to that she flounced off and although he wanted to
go after her, he didn’t. It would create more of a scene if someone saw them arguing.

  He swigged back his champagne, put down the glass and went in search of a proper drink. At the bar he ordered a whisky and sent it chasing after the champagne, then turned, leaning against the bar, and surveyed the room, the guests.

  ‘I see impending motherhood is wreaking its usual havoc.’ Raul’s voice jolted him and he turned to see his brother, cutting a handsome figure in his black tuxedo.

  There was a smile on his face, but he looked different. Much less tense and not so on edge. More relaxed. Marriage obviously suited him and that fact only made Max even angrier. Why could his younger brother make a success of it and he couldn’t?

  ‘I think it’s more to do with the stress of the season,’ Max offered by way of an explanation. ‘We’ve hardly been in one place for long.’

  ‘So how was Christmas in the English country cottage?’ Humour bubbled in each word, only adding to Max’s disgruntled mood. What the hell did Raul have to be so happy about? As soon as the thought made its presence felt, he pushed it back. He didn’t wish unhappiness on anyone, least of all his brother, who’d also suffered in his childhood due to their so-called father. ‘Was it as romantic as you wanted it to be?’

  It was on the tip of Max’s tongue to tell him it was excellent, but something stopped him. Maybe it was some kind of brothers’ code he wasn’t yet aware of, but he didn’t want to elaborate on the truth.

  ‘It all went very well at first.’

  ‘But?’ Raul asked, a grave look sliding over his face.

  ‘We want different things. Things I can’t give her.’

  Raul nodded. ‘You have to find the solution to that yourself, Max. Only you can and only when you are ready.’

  Max knew they were talking of the same thing. Hadn’t he witnessed it between him and Lydia that day in the restaurant when he’d arrived to meet him? Raul had found his way through the mire of his past and had found love. Just seeing him and Lydia together proved that.