Honor-Bound Groom

by Yvonne Lindsay

  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 ever
y 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 his 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?

  Follow the truth of her heart. What was that truth anymore? All her life she’d believed in one thing, that she was Alex’s mate for life. She now accepted how naive that had been. The problem was that truth—her love for Alex—had not diminished. Yes, it had changed. It had grown from childish adoration and infatuation to something she knew was as intrinsic to her being as air was necessary for her to breathe.

  So what now, she wondered. Did she accept a marriage as hollow and barren as her parents’ marriage had become, or did she fight for what she wanted—what she was due as Alex’s wife?

  Loren kissed her fingertips and touched them to her father’s headstone.

  “I love you, Papa. I always will.”

  Never stop. His automatic response to her words echoed in her heart.

  Never stop. Never give up.

  And suddenly it was clear what she had to do. If she wanted her husband to be her husband, she had to fight for him. Had to fight for what was her right as his partner and as the potential mother of his children. Surely it would not be too much to expect of him that he remain faithful to her, especially not when they were already so obviously compatible. If she could only persuade him to give them a chance, she knew they could make their marriage work.

  She straightened up onto her feet and squared her shoulders before resolutely walking back to the car. She would lay her demands on the table to her husband tonight. One way or another, she would have her answer.

  And if that answer is no, a small voice in the back of her mind questioned, what then?

  Loren shook her head as if she could dislodge the thought before it took hold. She couldn’t afford to fail in this. Not when her heart’s truth was on the line.

  Back at the castillo, Loren was pleased to hear from the housekeeper that Alex would be dining with her and Abuelo that evening; in fact, both his brothers would also be there. Knowing that time with his brothers was bound to put Alex in a good mood put a spring in her step as she ascended the stairs to their suite.

  And she would make an extra effort with her appearance tonight. Somehow she knew she’d need all the additional armor she could gather around her. She looked at her wristwatch. Yes, she had plenty of time to prepare for the night’s success.

  In her room, she searched out the candles that had so romantically lit the atmosphere on her disastrous wedding night. She wanted to recreate that golden glow of hope when she and Alex retired to their rooms after dinner. Then she’d show her husband, with her words and with her body, what she expected of him and their marriage.

  Satisfied with the placement of the candles, Loren spent a good half hour choosing what to wear for the evening. She didn’t want to be too obviously seductive, after all she had a dinner to attend with the four del Castillo men before she would even have so much as an opportunity to have her husband alone. Eventually, she decided upon a simple strapless white gown that skimmed to her knees with flirtatious layers of organza. The bodice was slightly gathered, the scalloped top edge giving a soft and feminine line, while the boned built-in corset meant she could get away with the bare minimum of underwear.

  She smiled, remembering her lack of underwear on their honeymoon. It was ironic that even though she’d b
ought replacement garments on the first day after their arrival, once she and Alex had consummated their marriage she’d had very little need, or opportunity, to wear any.

  The fact that the physical side of their marriage had stopped upon their return meant that the memory left a bittersweet taste in her mouth. She pushed the niggle of doubt about her success for tonight to the very back of her mind.

  She decided to team the dress with an elegant pair of gold high-heeled pumps and chose a pair of ruby drop earrings that Abuelo had given her on their return from their honeymoon. Given the style and shape of the stones, she believed they were probably equally as old as the heirloom engagement ring she wore on her ring finger. They’d be the perfect complement to the gown. A light cobwebby gold shawl to cover her shoulders was the perfect finishing touch.

  Her spirits bolstered, she ran herself a deliciously deep bubble bath and set about her preparations.

  As she had been the first time she’d descended the stairs alone at the castillo, Loren was aware of the murmur of male voices from the salon off the main entrance hall. And uncannily, as she had that very first time, she felt the weight of generations of del Castillo brides settle upon her shoulders. She knew, historically, that most marriages in the del Castillo family in the past had been structured to gain both political and financial advantage. Even Alex’s parents’ marriage had brought with it the alliance between his mother’s family’s vineyards and winery that formed part of the del Castillo brand today. They had, by the time of their marriage, been very truly in love, but they had also been not unaware of the advantages of their union. A union that in all likelihood would not have taken place if the financial gains had not been there in the first place.

  That her marriage had been predestined was a fact of life in a family such as this. But a marriage based solely on duty and honor would not be enough to satisfy her. Tonight would establish whether she would finally be able to achieve the kind of marriage she wanted.