‘Babies?’
She pulled away from him and he saw her frown, like someone who was preparing for a cloud to burst on top of their head. ‘But I’m going to be a doctor, Luis. I’ve worked hard to get here and I’m not going to give it up. I’ve got six long years of training ahead of me. Six years of me being based in the south of England, while you continue with your jet-setting life elsewhere? Is that going to work out? I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think it’s possible?’ He gave a low laugh. ‘Believe me, anything is possible if you want it enough. And I want you more than I have ever wanted anything. I respect your ambition and I am prepared to work around it, to support you in whatever you want to do. Because while I can see that there are practical difficulties to be overcome, they are completely irrelevant. There is only one thing which is important and that is my next question and I think you owe it to me to answer it truthfully.’ His voice quietened. ‘Do you still love me, Carly?’
Carly didn’t speak, at least not straight away. It was as if she recognised that her world was going to change irrevocably, no matter what she answered. She became aware of the loudness of her heartbeat and, incongruously, the fact that her leather boots were sinking into the muddy grass. She could see the bare trees which surrounded them and in the sky a dark flock of birds who were heading somewhere. She wondered where. To their own warmer future? She saw Luis’s expression: his eyes were narrowed and the lines etched along the sides of his unsmiling mouth were deeper than she remembered. The faint drizzle had settled on his black hair—so that it seemed to have covered the tangled tendrils like a fine mist of diamonds.
She thought about the tears she had shed since she’d left France. About the great, gaping hole where her heart used to be. She thought about how much she’d missed their sparring. His teasing. And a million things in between.
She thought about the practical difficulties which lay ahead if she told him what he really seemed to want to hear. Of how on earth they might be able to align two obviously incompatible lifestyles to any degree of satisfaction.
And then she remembered what he had just said.
Anything is possible. And with Luis, she honestly believed it was.
She nodded, her mouth working furiously as she tried to control the emotions which were building up inside her and threatening to spill out. I am not going to cry, she told herself fiercely. Because I have an anatomy lecture to get to.
‘Yes, I love you, Luis Martinez,’ she blurted out. ‘I tried very hard not to, but in the end I couldn’t help myself.’
‘Couldn’t you?’ he questioned softly.
‘No. You were like a fever to which there was no known antidote and once you’d got into my blood, I couldn’t seem to get rid of you. I still can’t.’
‘That bad, huh?’ Tenderly, he smiled. ‘That’s not the most romantic declaration I’ve ever heard, but it’s certainly the most original. Just like you, my clever, sweet Carly.’
And that was when the tears came and there was nothing she could do to stop them. They spilled down her cheeks and dripped onto the collar of her jacket, like giant drops of rain.
But Luis was there to dry them and Luis was there to kiss her and once they started kissing, they couldn’t seem to stop, and Carly’s heart seemed to burst out of her chest as he gathered her in his arms and held her.
She touched his shoulders, his hair and his face, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was there. But he was. Every vital, warm, living and breathing atom of him. He was there. With her. And if she was to believe what he was telling her, which against all the odds she did, he wasn’t ever going to leave her again.
She made it to her anatomy class, with seconds to spare.
EPILOGUE
‘ARE YOU AWAKE?’
Carly gave a slow and luxurious wriggle as her eyelashes fluttered open to meet the soft question in Luis’s black gaze. ‘I am now.’
Dark brows arched upwards. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘Wasn’t that your intention when you started playing with my breasts like that?’
He smiled. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
She sighed and closed her eyes. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re endlessly fascinating, Dr Martinez, and I love you very much. And I want you to know that these last six years have been the best of my life.’
Her eyes fluttered open and she bit her lip with expectation, never tiring of hearing him say these words. ‘Really?’
‘You know they have, querida.’
Yes, she knew. Just as they had been for her.
It hadn’t been easy to rearrange Luis’s life to accommodate her demanding role as a medical student, but then she’d discovered that the best things in life always had to be fought for. And Luis wanted her to achieve her dream as much as she did. He told her how proud he was of what she’d done and what she’d achieved, in spite of all the odds being stacked against her.
These days, he travelled as little as possible and had made his main base in England. From their sprawling Hampshire estate with its easy proximity to the sea, he now masterminded his latest business success—three ocean-going cruise ships as well as a flourishing yacht business. As for the rest of his global concerns, somewhere along the way he had become—as Carly told him with some pride—a consummate delegator. He employed the best people who gave of their best—and consequently the Martinez foundation had evolved, and was flourishing.
And even though he never really grew to love the English climate, he made sure he took them on plenty of sunny and luxurious vacations to compensate. Which was why Carly could often be found reading a haematology textbook on the beach, beside the clear aqua waters of the Caribbean.
She sighed, feeling Luis’s thumb tracing enticing little circles over her nipple. From the window a clear river of light flooded in, illuminating the large bed in which they lay. She loved their home. They had bought a house overlooking the water not far from the medical school, from where she had graduated last week with honours.
But before the graduation ceremony had come their wedding, a wedding which Carly had resolutely refused to consider while she’d been in the middle of her studies. It had driven Luis crazy. For someone who had shied away from matrimony all his adult life, it had become one of his fiercest ambitions to wed her. The trouble was that he’d fallen in love with a woman who seemed resistant to wearing his ring.
‘But you don’t believe that men can do fidelity, remember?’ she had flung at him, only half teasingly.
‘Wrong tense,’ he had growled back. ‘I didn’t—until I met you!’
The more he tried to persuade her to change her mind, the firmer she stood, but in a funny kind of way that had only made him love her more.
She had finally agreed to become his wife just before she graduated, telling him that she wanted to bear his name and to be Dr Martinez. And that simple declaration had thrilled him in a way which had left him shaken.
They had married in a small grey chapel overlooking one of Hampshire’s green valleys and Carly had worn white roses in her hair and a simple dress, which had whispered over the flaggedstoned floor as she had walked to the altar to greet him.
Bella had been there, her initial poorly disguised jealousy at Carly’s fate suddenly eclipsed by the presence of Luis’s jet-setting friends at the ceremony. The Sultan of Qurhah was in attendance, with his beautiful wife and their gorgeous new baby. Niccolo Da Conti and Alekto Sarantos were easily considered to be the best-looking men there and the fact that they both happened to be billionaires only added to their appeal as far as Bella was concerned.
‘Good luck with that,’ Luis commented drily to his bride as he watched her sister slink across the room towards Niccolo, in a dress so tight that he privately wondered how she was managing to walk.
Carly turned in the direction of his gaze. ‘But he’s single, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s single.’ Luis laughed. ‘But if you think I was a commit
ment-phobe, let me tell you that Niccolo Da Conti takes the concept into a whole new stratosphere!’
‘And you turned out to be the least commitment-phobic man on the planet!’
‘Only because I met the only woman who could change my mind.’
‘Oh, Luis.’
‘Oh, Carly,’ he murmured indulgently.
Her mother had been there, too; a mother amazed by Carly’s ‘lick’ in finding herself such a rich husband. And if Carly was disappointed not to have been commended for working her way through med school—she kept it to herself. She’d learnt that there were some things you could never change and therefore it was a waste of time even trying.
She’d learnt so much, along with the demands of medical science.
That her love for Luis grew stronger with every day that passed and that she wanted to have his baby before too long.
That a man whose heart had been wounded only needed the constant love of a woman to repair it. And that love was boundless and limitless.
She’d learnt that sometimes things happened which you wouldn’t have even dared to dream about. She was living that dream and so was Luis. He didn’t want a life in the fast lane any more. His days as ‘The Love Machine’ were over. He told her that he’d never really believed that one woman could be everything for one man.
But now he did.
‘Come here,’ he growled softly. ‘I have something I need you to hear.’
Carly smiled as she turned her face to his. ‘What is it?’
‘I love you,’ he said, his arms tightening around her waist. And then he said it again in Spanish just before he kissed her.
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from MORE PRECIOUS THAN A CROWN by Carol Marinelli.
PROLOGUE
‘HAS ANYONE SEEN TRINITY?’
Dianne’s voice carried through the still night. It had become a familiar cry this past year or so, and one that Sheikh Prince Zahid of Ishla had grown more than a little used to whenever he spent time at the Fosters’ residence.
Zahid had been a regular guest to the household since he had been sixteen but now, about to turn twenty-two, he had made the decision that this would be his last time he would stay here. The next time he was invited he would politely decline.
Zahid walked through the woods at the edge of the Foster property. He could hear the sounds of laughter carry across the lake on this clear summer night. Zahid was flying back to Ishla soon and he hoped that his driver would arrive early rather than promptly, for he really would rather not be here. The Fosters were throwing a party to celebrate their son Donald’s graduation and, given that they had added the fact that Zahid too was graduating, it would have been rude to decline.
Next time he would.
Zahid did not enjoy their company, he never really had. Gus Foster was a politician and it seemed to Zahid that he never switched off. His wife Dianne’s sole purpose in life seemed to be to stand by her man whatever Gus did. Since Zahid had known the family, there had been the humiliation of two very public affairs as well as the scandalous revelations of sleazier encounters and not once had Dianne’s plastic smile wavered.
After tonight he would not have to see it again, Zahid thought. Neither would he have to make polite small talk with the obnoxious Gus. He only did it because he was a friend of their son Donald.
Well, as much as Zahid had friends.
Zahid was a lone wolf and very independent. He preferred the company of a beautiful woman on a Saturday night rather than this type of thing, but obligation had brought him here.
When he had been sixteen and a boarder at a top school there had been a random locker inspection and a wad of cash and drugs had been found in Zahid’s locker. They had not been Zahid’s. It hadn’t been the mandatory suspension that had been the problem, though. It had been the deep shame that such a scandal would cause his family.
On hearing the news, Zahid’s father, King Fahid, had immediately boarded his jet to fly from Ishla to speak with the headmaster, not to cover things up, for that was not how things worked in Ishla. Instead, Zahid had explained to Donald, the king was on his way to England to apologise and take his disgraced son home. Once in Ishla, Zahid would have to publicly apologise to the people of Ishla.
‘Even if you didn’t do it?’ Donald had asked.
Zahid had nodded.
‘It is up to the people if they forgive me.’
Zahid had stepped into the headmaster’s office with his back straight and his head held high, ready to meet his fate, only to find out that there had been a misunderstanding.
Donald, the headmaster had informed the prince and king, on hearing about the locker inspection, had panicked and placed the money and drugs in Zahid’s. It was Donald who would now be suspended and the school offered its sincere apologies for the disruption the incident had caused the king.
As the king and young prince had stepped out of the headmaster’s office, there had stood Donald with his father, Gus.
‘Thank you,’ King Fahid had said to Donald, ‘for being man enough to admit the error of your ways.’
‘You miss the point,’ Gus had said to the king. ‘My son would never do drugs, he did this to help a friend.’
The Fosters had taken it on the chin.
Gus had even given a speech in Parliament, stating that even the most loving, functional families were not exempt from the perils of teenage years.
Functional?
Zahid had frowned at the choice of word then and was frowning now as he walked, recalling that time all those years ago.
The Fosters had appeared on the front pages on the Sunday newspapers. Dianne, smiling her plastic smile for the cameras, Gus with his arm around his suitably sheepish-looking son. The only one who had spoiled the picture-perfect image had been Trinity—she had been dressed in her Sunday best but, rather than smiling, she had scowled at the cameras.
Zahid actually smiled as he recalled the photo from yesteryear but he wasn’t smiling a few seconds later when a streak of blonde caught his eye.
There was Trinity.
She was hiding a bag of clothes beneath a tree and wiping lipstick off, and jumped when she heard Zahid call out and start walking towards her.
‘Trinity!’ Zahid said. ‘Your mother has been calling for you. Where have you been?’
She swung around to face him. ‘Please, Zahid, can I say that I’ve been with you?’
‘You know I don’t lie.’
‘Please,’ Trinity said, and then sighed. Zahid was so austere, so formal and so rigid that it was pointless even trying to get him on side. Yet, just as she went to walk off and face the music, he halted her.
‘If I am going to cover for you, first I need to know what you have been up to.’
Trinity slowly turned. Even when she had asked Zahid to cover for her, she’d never really expected him to agree, yet it sounded now like he might. ‘I was at my friend Suzanne’s,’ came her cautious reply.
‘Doing what?’
‘Just...’ Trinity shrugged.
‘Just what?’
‘Dancing.’
‘You have been to a party?’
‘No! We were just listening to music in her room and dancing.’ Trinity almost rolled her eyes as she attempted to explain to his nonplussed expression, because clearly that wasn’t the type of behaviour Zahid would understand. ‘We were trying on make-up, that sort of thing.’
‘Why are you hiding clothes?’ Zahid looked at what she was wearing—a long-sleeved top and a pair of jeans—and then he watched as Trinity screwed her blue eyes closed, no doubt to come up with a suitable lie.
Trinity was, Zahid knew, a skilled liar, only what he didn’t know was that she wasn’t trying to lie now. She simply didn’t know, in this, how she could tell the truth, when it was just a feeling she had.
How could she explain that Suzanne had suggested she borrow some clothes because Trinity hadn’t liked the way her aunt’s new husband had been looking at
her in the dress her mother had bought for her? Trinity didn’t understand enough herself, let alone know how to explain it to Zahid, just how awkward Clive made her feel.
She refused to call him Uncle.
He was the reason that she’d run off.
It was the reason that Trinity was always running off at family things and, given that Zahid was only ever there on family occasions, he saw this behaviour all too often.
‘Last time I was here, I caught you climbing out of your bedroom window,’ Zahid said, and watched as Trinity did her very best to keep her face straight. ‘It is not a laughing matter.’
No, it wasn’t a laughing matter, Trinity thought, but the memory of it made her smile. Zahid had refused to believe she had simply been hungry and, rather than facing all the guests, had simply been trying to sneak into the kitchen. He’d brought her out a plate of food and then watched as she’d climbed back up to her room, using a tree and the trellis. Given her practised movements, it had been a presumably well-worn path for Trinity.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Trinity said.
‘Perhaps not, but on family occasions you should be here.’ It was black and white to Zahid yet sometimes with Trinity it blurred to grey. She was so spirited and wilful and just so visibly unimpressed with her family that at times she made Zahid silently cheer, not that he would let her know that. ‘You don’t just disappear.’
‘I know, I know,’ Trinity started, but then a mischievous smile prettied her sulky face. ‘So, what’s your excuse, then?’
‘Excuse?’
‘What are you doing in the woods?’ And then, as realisation hit, she started to laugh. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid question.’ Zahid’s frown only deepened the more she tried to explain. ‘Well, I guess you needed to...’ Trinity stopped then. There was not a single vulgar thing about Zahid and, no, now that she came to think of it, Trinity could not imagine Zahid popping into the woods to answer the call of nature! ‘My mistake.’
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