His hands let go of the lounger, finding a new home cupping her breasts as she took his length inside her body. She leaned against the strength of his arms as she started a rhythm guaranteed to bring them both to completion. Beneath her she could feel Alex’s body tremble with the sheer force of his indomitable will. She knew he would not allow himself the freedom of his climax unless he knew she too was near.
But this time she wanted to drive him over the edge. This time she wanted to show him that love was not all about control or always about giving. Sometimes it was about taking what you needed, when it was offered. And she was offering herself. Everything. Her heart, her body, her soul.
She knew the second she’d overcome his resistance. Felt the moment his body began to let go. Intense joy flooded her mind. Hard on the heels of that sense of elation, her own orgasm shuddered through her.
Loren collapsed against Alex’s body, both of them slicked with sweat, and lay against his chest, listening to the rapid thud of his heartbeat.
“I love you, Alexander del Castillo,” she whispered.
In answer he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer—but the words she wished to hear, more than any other from his mouth, remained unsaid.
* * *
They’d been back from Dubrovnik for nearly a week. Already their time together seemed as if it was a distant memory. Alex had disappeared back into his work as if nothing else existed. Apparently bookings at the resort were on the increase. The publicity surrounding their marriage had seemed to have done the trick as far as lifting the profile of Isla Sagrado in the media. Once again the island nation was becoming a popular holiday destination for the moneyed and famous.
Loren was pleased for Alex that things were improving so steadily although she sometimes wished the demands of his work were less so they could recapture some of the wonder of their honeymoon again. It was rare that Alex arrived home before she went to bed anymore, and he hadn’t been to her room or in her bed since their first night back.
She’d believed they’d built a foundation for their future together in those exquisite days and nights at the cottage, yet now she was no longer so certain. This morning a courier had delivered her a copy of their prenuptial agreement for her records. It served as a sobering reminder of the parameters under which she and Alex had married.
Had he encouraged their intimacy, their discovery of one another, purely to make the child he was so determined to produce? Before the wedding, he’d gone with her to the doctor where she’d had a physical check and the doctor had discussed her cycle. Alex had known when she should have been most fertile. That that time had coincided so soon after their wedding was fortuitous, he’d said, as they’d driven back from the clinic.
Was that why he’d been so patient with her? So passionate? Had making a baby been the sole object of their lovemaking?
Her period had been due a few days ago but as yet hadn’t made its appearance. She placed a hand on her stomach, wondering if Alex would have his wish after all. As much as she desired to bear his child, she wanted more from their marriage before she felt ready to bring a child into it. Especially now she knew just what it would be like to share a life with him.
Unless, of course, their honeymoon had been a farce—nothing but a means to an end for Alex.
“Señora?”
Loren turned from the flowers she’d been arranging for the dining table tonight and greeted the maid who’d brought a cordless phone on a silver tray.
“A call for me?” she said, picking up the handset.
“Sí, it is Señor del Castillo.”
Loren felt an instant rush of elation and hit the hold button, saying “hello” before the maid had even left the room.
“Loren, I left some papers in my office at home and I can’t spare Giselle to come to the castillo to collect them. Would you be able to bring them to the resort?”
Hard on the heels of disappointment that he didn’t so much as ask how she was feeling, she found herself agreeing to do so.
“Sure, I can do that. I’m expected at the orphanage at lunchtime for a concert with the children. I can stop in to your office on my way through.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. You’ll find them in the blue folder on my desk.”
Without waiting for her to say goodbye, Alex disconnected the call. He’d treated her as no more than one of his staff. Loren felt a bubble of anger rise in her throat. Anger mixed with another emotion she didn’t want to examine too closely for fear it would bring her to tears.
She swallowed hard against the obstruction in her throat and squared her shoulders. She would tell him what she thought of his manner when she saw him. If he thought he could treat her like that and get away with it, well, he had another think coming.
Half an hour later Loren drove her new Alfa Romeo Spider—a belated wedding gift surprise from Alex when they’d arrived home—toward the resort’s main offices and pulled into the visitor parking lot outside. She looked around for Alex’s Lamborghini but it was nowhere to be seen. Strange, but then perhaps he’d used a driver today.
She collected the blue folder he’d requested from the passenger seat and walked with clipped, sure steps toward the office door. Inside, with a wave to the receptionist, Loren made her way directly to Alex’s office.
Even as hurt and angry as she was, her heart lifted at the prospect of seeing him like this in the middle of the day. Perhaps she’d even be able to persuade him to come with her to the lunchtime concert.
Her hopes were dashed, however, as she was greeted by Giselle at Alex’s office door.
“Oh, thanks. You finally brought them, did you?” Giselle said, unfolding her elegant long legs from behind her desk and coming to relieve Loren of the folder.
“I’d like to give this directly to Alex myself, if you don’t mind,” Loren stated, holding firmly on to the cardboard packet.
“Oh, he’s not here.”
“He’s not? Where—”
“Didn’t he tell you? Of course, obviously not. He had a meeting in Puerto Seguro with some potential investors for the resort expansion. I’ll take these with me as I’m headed that way now.”
Loren let go of the documents. As she did so she was assailed with a sense of dizziness. Giselle was quick to react, putting a hand under Loren’s elbow and guiding her to sit on a large sofa against one wall.
“Are you okay?” Giselle asked. “You’ve gone awfully pale.”
“It’s nothing. I skipped breakfast this morning and I shouldn’t have.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is? After all, Alex is a very—” Giselle paused for a moment, her face suddenly reflective “—virile man. And you’ve just had a couple of weeks at the cottage in Dubrovnik, yes? It’s so beautiful there. So deliciously private and romantic, don’t you think?”
Giselle spoke so knowingly—indeed, with such familiarity—that nausea pitched through Loren’s body. Oblivious to Loren’s discomfort, the other woman continued.
“Alex will be pleased if you’ve fallen pregnant so soon.” She patted Loren’s hand. “That would mean he’d be able to go back to normal so much sooner than he’d planned.”
What exactly was Giselle referring to? It wasn’t as if subtlety was the woman’s strong point. She had to be referring to Alex and her resuming their relationship.
“Back to normal?” Loren asked, hoping against hope that her suspicions were ridiculous.
“I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.” Giselle smiled in return but there was little humor in the cold glitter of her eyes. Instead, the proprietary nature of the curve of her lips said it all.
“Oh, dear, look at the time. I’d better get these to Alex before he comes bellowing on the phone, demanding to know where I am. I’ll let you see yourself out. You look as though you could do with a few minutes to yourself.”
Within seconds Loren was left alone with nothing but the slightly cloying scent of Giselle’s perfume in the air around her.
She shook her head slowly. No. What Giselle had said couldn’t be true. Go back to his old life and ways? Alex wasn’t that kind of man, surely. Not the Alex she thought she knew, anyway. Before their marriage his playboy lifestyle had been well represented in the media, but months before he’d come to New Zealand he’d all but dropped out of circulation. She’d noted it at the time, long before she’d had any reason to believe his new and uncharacteristic circumspection might have anything to do with her.
Loren leaned against the big square cushion of the couch. Had it all been part of his carefully orchestrated plan to prove to everyone that he could break the curse? Even Abuelo would have had a hard time believing that Alex would have gone directly from playboy bachelorhood to married. But what would happen now? Once their PR campaign of a marriage had served its purpose and they’d fulfilled the terms of the prenuptial agreement, would Alex revert back to his old social life, leaving her to sit at home with the children?
Children? Oh, Lord. What if she was pregnant? There was no way she’d raise a child here with him if he was going to have affairs behind her back—or even in front of her, if it came to that.
One thing was certain, Loren thought. If she was pregnant, Alex would be the last person she’d be telling until she knew exactly what kind of father he planned to be.
Ten
Loren had a pounding headache by the time she left the orphanage after the children’s concert. As had become her habit, she had spent an extra couple of hours in the babies’ nursery. Two had already been fostered, with a view to full adoption once all the paperwork had been processed, but a newborn had been admitted, sadly undernourished and displaying all the signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.
It broke her heart to think that a child could be abused so poorly, even before birth, and she spent extra time with the wee mite.
She drove back to the castillo slowly, her mind on the children she’d just been with and the prospect of a child of her own. That it would satisfy Alex was a given, but what of the child? Would Alex even be able to spend any time with the baby? He already worked excessively long hours. So much so that since their return they’d barely seen one another, let alone shared a bed.
Was that to be the tenor of their marriage? Passionate couplings to bring forth an heir and nothing in between?
It wasn’t what she’d expected of marriage. As difficult as her parents’ relationship had been, they had truly loved each other at the beginning. And even when it started to fall apart and the arguments began, they’d been together until her mother—in a fit of pique at her husband—had taken things a step too far with a mutual friend and had betrayed her marriage vows.
Naomi had admitted to Loren, when she’d been about twenty, that she’d regretted forcing Loren’s father’s hand to divorce her that way, but she hadn’t seen any other way out. He’d insisted he still loved her, a fact Loren truly believed, but for Naomi that love had sputtered and died like a guttered candle in the face of the arguments that had become habitual between them.
Loren felt a sharp ache in her chest at the memories, still vivid, of frozen silences between her parents. Silences that would be periodically broken by vicious arguments late into the night when she was supposed to be sleeping.
She’d been about ten years old the first time she became aware of how contentious her parents’ marriage had become. Back then she’d hidden under her bedcovers until things had grown silent. By the time she was in her teens she’d sit at the top of the stairs and listen as they threw accusations back and forth.
She could still hear every venomous word of the final exchange that had led to the divorce—of her mother’s admission of infidelity, of her father’s sobs later after her mother had withdrawn to bed.
Loren swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat and blinked back burning tears. She didn’t want that for her child or children. In all conscience she could not bring a child into an unhappy and unstable relationship right from the very start.
But she’d agreed to give Alex the heir he’d stipulated in the prenup. She was honor bound to do so. It was a difficult predicament she found herself in—especially when she wanted so much more.
Only a week ago she’d almost begun to believe her husband might even be beginning to share her feelings for him. That he might be starting to fall a little in love with her, too. But the cold distance he’d maintained since their return had dashed her hopes.
Suddenly the prospect of returning to the castillo held no appeal. She pulled over to the shoulder of the road, then executed a U-turn and headed back in the direction of Puerto Seguro. She needed to be around other people, people who didn’t have an agenda as far as she was concerned.
* * *
Alex looked up from his seat at the head of the boardroom table in Rey’s offices, where he’d arranged to meet with potential investors today. As Giselle approached, he was relieved to see the folder he’d requested from Loren in his PA’s hand. A burst of gratitude toward his wife filled him, accompanied by a deep sense of regret that he hadn’t been able to spend more time with her lately. He missed her and their nights together with a physical ache, but the negotiations he was in the process of finalizing were vitally important and required all of his attention. Besides, he’d decided it would be selfish to wake her when he arrived home every night after midnight. Alex silently resolved to make it up to Loren once the deal was signed.
Giselle sidled up next to him, one breast brushing not so subtly against his shoulder as she leaned across and put the folder in front of him. There was a time when her actions might have been welcome. That time was well past. He drew away from her touch and noted the tiny crease on her forehead as her brows pulled together in a silent query.
“That will be all, thank you, Giselle.”
“All?” She smiled, giving him the sloe-eyed look he’d once found so attractive. “Well, if you’re quite sure…”
“Absolutely certain. I am a married man. I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.”
A married man who’d been neglecting his duties to his wife shamefully. His conscience pricked again.
“Loren looked a little peaked today,” Giselle remarked nonchalantly as she finally moved away from his side.
A sudden swell of concern surged through him. “Peaked?” he asked. “What makes you say that?”
“She had a bit of a turn when she brought the papers in from the castillo. Perhaps you’ve been keeping her up a little too late at night. After all, as we both know, a man of your appetites—”
“That’s quite enough,” Alex interrupted before she could finish her sentence.
“I was only saying. Anyway, she told me she hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning but I couldn’t help but wonder if a little del Castillo isn’t already making his presence felt. You did want her pregnant, didn’t you?”
Pregnant? It was most definitely what he wanted.
The possibility that Giselle spoke the truth bloomed in his mind, overtaking rational thought. Loren, pregnant with his child? All legalities and legends aside, he hadn’t given enough credence to how he’d feel when such an event became a reality. The prospect that his son or daughter could even now be growing in Loren’s womb caused an unexpected tightness to coil around his heart. A tightness intermingled with an overwhelming urge to discard his responsibilities to his business and race to Loren’s side. To cherish her and share the wonder that they could already be on the way to being parents.
Alex gathered his thoughts together. Despite what his heart wanted, he had duties to fulfill, no matter how inconvenient to him. He looked up and found Giselle watching him carefully, as if waiting for him to confirm or deny her suspicions.
“That would be a matter between my wife and myself. You can head back to the office now, Giselle,” he said with finality and looked pointedly at the door.
Giselle made her way out of the boardroom, but her words had left their mark upon him. Try as he might, Alex couldn’t ignore h
is resentment toward the matters of business that had kept him from home so late each night, and that were now an unwelcome barrier between him and the answers he so desperately wanted from his wife.
* * *
Loren couldn’t say what had drawn her to the graveyard afterward. She’d gone to the city with the determination to lose herself in some shopping, perhaps a meal out, and then to return to the castillo much later. But somehow she’d found herself driving toward the old church on the coast, with its eclectic mix of centuries-old headstones blended with those of more modern times in the burial grounds.
Locking her car in the car park, she pushed through the old wooden gate and picked her way through the headstones until she reached the Dubois family plot. It wasn’t difficult to find her father’s grave. The stone was the newest and brightest marble amongst the others. Loren knelt down in the grass surrounding the grave and cleared a few of the weeds that had pushed through around the base of his headstone.
“Oh, Papa, did you ever imagine what would come from the pact you and Raphael made all those years ago?” she said, a sudden gust of wind snatching her words and casting them away.
She still missed him so much. By the time her mother had imparted the news that Francois had died of complications after a bout of pneumonia, he’d already been buried. Loren had never had a chance to say goodbye.
The last time she’d spoken to him, though, on one of his frequent phone calls, he’d made her reiterate the one promise he’d asked of her when she’d left Isla Sagrado. Even now she could hear the deep baritone of his voice as he’d spoken across the long-distance telephone lines.
“Loren, mi hija, you must always follow the truth of your heart. Always. Promise me.”
“Yes, Papa, I promise.” Loren now spoke the words out loud. “But it’s not so easy when the man of my heart does not feel the same way toward me.”
She closed her eyes and bent her head, willing some of her father’s wisdom and love to help her with her decision. Did she accept that she had to fulfill the conditions of the prenup, or did she tell Alex she refused to give him the child he had asked for?
The Tycoon's Charm: The Tycoon's Paternity AgendaHonor-Bound Groom Page 27