by Abby Green
He’d never been in this situation before. He’d never slept with a virgin before...
And then his mind went on that disbelieving loop again—how was it even possible? She’d been his brother’s wife!
Cruz sat down on the end of the bed and a grim expression settled over his features as he waited for Trinity to come out of the bathroom and explain what the hell was going on.
* * *
Trinity sat on the floor of the shower stall, knees pulled into her chest, arms wrapped around them and her head resting on the wall behind her, eyes closed as the hot water sluiced down over her skin. She couldn’t stop shivering, and all she could see was the shock on Cruz’s face.
Between her legs it still stung slightly, but the red-hot pain had gone. And yet along with that pain Trinity had felt something else—something on the edges of the pain, promising more—but the shock of realising that Cruz was witnessing her ultimate exposure had eclipsed any desire to keep going.
She opened her eyes and saw nothing but steam. In the heated rush of more pleasure and sensations than she’d ever known, maybe she’d hoped that Cruz wouldn’t realise...
But he had. And what she’d experienced before when he’d rejected her was nothing compared to the prospect of how he would look at her now.
* * *
When Trinity emerged a short time later, wrapped in a thick towelling robe, Cruz stood up from where he’d been sitting on the end of the bed. He looked as pale as she felt, and something quivered inside her.
His chest was bare, and it was if she hadn’t really seen it the first time he’d bared it. She’d been so consumed with desire. It was wide, with defined musculature and dark golden hair covering his pectorals, leading down in a line between an impressive six-pack to arrow under his trousers. A glorious example of a masculine male in his prime.
‘Trinity...?’
She looked at his face and saw an expression she’d never seen before—something between contrition and bewilderment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice husky.
Now something more familiar crossed his face—irritation. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you were still a virgin?’
She wanted to curl up in a corner, but she stood tall. ‘I didn’t think you’d notice.’
He frowned. ‘How could I not have noticed?’
He seemed to go even paler for a second, as if he was remembering what it had been like to breach that secret and intimate defence. And that only made Trinity remember it too—the pain and then that other tantalising promise of pleasure...hovering on the edges. How amazing it had felt up to that point. How lost she’d been, dizzy with need and lust. Forgetting everything. Forgetting that she needed to protect herself from this...
She went to move past him. ‘I don’t really want to talk about this now.’
He caught her arm as she was passing. ‘Wait just a second—’
‘Look, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.’ She felt flayed all over, and way too vulnerable.
Cruz’s hand tightened on her arm. ‘I deserve an explanation. Dios, Trinity, I hurt you. And you were married to my brother—how the hell are you still a virgin?’
Her heart slammed against her ribs. This was it. The moment when Cruz would have to listen to her. Because of the irrefutable physical humiliation she’d just handed him on a plate.
She turned to face him and looked up. Her voice was husky with emotion. ‘I’ve been trying to explain to you all along that it wasn’t a real marriage, Cruz, but you didn’t want to hear it. It was a marriage of convenience.’
There was silence for a long moment. The lines of Cruz’s face were incredibly stark and grim. He said, ‘I’m listening now.’
Trinity’s legs felt wobbly and she sat down on the edge of the bed, seeing the stain of her innocence on the sheets in her peripheral vision.
Her cheeks burning, she gestured with her hand. ‘I should do something with the sheet—the stain—’
‘Can wait,’ Cruz said with steel in his tone. ‘Talk, Trinity, you owe me an explanation.’
Anger surged up, because if he’d been prepared to listen to her weeks ago they could have avoided this scene, but it dissipated under his stern look. In truth, how hard had she really tried to talk to him? Had she been happy just to let him think the worst so she could avoid him seeing how pathetic she really was? Contriving to make a home out of a fake marriage with children who weren’t even her own?
‘Okay,’ Cruz said, when the words still wouldn’t come. ‘Why don’t we start with this: why did you go to work for Rio? I hadn’t fired you.’
She looked up at him. ‘How could I have stayed working for you after what had happened? I was embarrassed.’ Realising that she’d reached peak humiliation, she said bitterly, ‘I had a crush on you, Cruz. I was the worst kind of cliché. A lowly maid lusting after her gorgeous and unattainable boss. When you rejected me that night—’
‘I told you,’ he interrupted. ‘I did not reject you. I hated myself for crossing a line and taking advantage of you.’
Trinity stood up, incensed. ‘You asked me if I regularly walked around the house in my nightclothes, as if I’d done it on purpose!’
A dull flush scored along Cruz’s cheekbones. ‘I didn’t handle the situation well. I was angry... But it was with myself. Not you—no matter how it sounded.’
Refusing to be mollified, Trinity said, ‘The following night you gave me that look as you greeted the beautiful brunette... You were sending me a message not to get any ideas. Not to forget that what had happened was a huge mistake.’
Cruz ran his hands through his hair impatiently, all his muscles taut. ‘I don’t even remember who that was. All I could see was you and that hurt look on your face.’
Trinity’s cheeks burned even hotter. She’d been so obvious.
She continued, ‘At one point during the evening I went outside. Rio was there, smoking a cigarette. He saw that I was upset and he asked me why...so I told him. He seemed nice. Kind. And then...then he told me that he was looking for a new nanny. He asked me if I’d be interested...and I said yes. I couldn’t imagine staying in your house knowing that every time you looked at me it would be with pity and regret.’
Cruz’s eyes burned. ‘And yet after six months you were his wife?’
Trinity sat down again on the bed. ‘Yes.’
Cruz was pacing back and forth now, sleek muscles moving sinuously under olive skin. Distracting.
He stopped. ‘So do you want to tell me how you went from nanny to convenient wife?’
She’d wanted this moment to come, hadn’t she? And yet she felt reluctant. Because she knew she’d be revealing something of Rio to Cruz that would tarnish him in his eyes, and even after everything she was loath to do that.
But she didn’t have a choice now.
She took a breath. ‘I’d gone out to the cinema one night. Rio had assured me he had no plans and that he’d be home all evening. When I got back the twins were awake in their room and hysterical. Their nappies were soaking and I don’t think they’d been fed. It took me a couple of hours to calm them down, feed them and put them down again. Frankly, it terrified me that they’d been in that state. I went downstairs and found Rio passed out over his desk, drunk. I managed to wake him up and get some coffee into him...but it was clear then that he was in no fit shape to be left alone with his sons—ever.’
Cruz looked shocked. ‘I know Rio liked to indulge, but I never would have thought he’d do it while looking after his sons.’
Trinity sucked in a breath. ‘I threatened to tell the police...even call you...but Rio begged me not to. He said it was a one-off. I told him I couldn’t stand by and let him neglect his children and he begged me to listen to him before I did anything. He told me what had happened t
o him as a child. He told me he wasn’t a perfect father but that he didn’t want his boys to be taken into care.’
Trinity looked at Cruz.
‘He knew about my past...where I’d come from. I’d told him not long after I started working for him.’ Her mouth compressed at the memory of her naivety. ‘He seemed to have an ability to unearth people’s secrets. And he used that to make me feel guilty for even suggesting that I’d report him. That I would risk subjecting his sons to the same experience I’d had.’
Cruz interjected. ‘I would never have let that happen.’
‘You were on the other side of the world,’ Trinity pointed out. ‘And Rio didn’t want me to tell you what had happened. I knew you weren’t close, so how could I go behind his back?’
She stood up, feeling agitated. Pacing back and forth, aware of Cruz’s preternatural stillness.
‘But then suddenly he was offering me a solution—to marry him. It was crazy, ridiculous, but somehow he made it seem...logical.’
She stopped and faced Cruz.
‘He promised that it would be strictly in name only. He told me he’d hire a nanny to help. He said he wanted to appear more settled, to prove to people that he wasn’t just a useless playboy. He said that in return for taking care of the boys and going to some social functions with him I could name my price. Whatever I wanted...’
Something gleamed in Cruz’s eyes. ‘What was it, Trinity? What did you want?’
She hated it that even now Cruz seemed to be waiting for her to expose herself. She lifted her chin. ‘I told him I’d always wanted to go to college. To get a degree. And so he promised to fund my course once the boys were a little older and in a more settled routine.’
Cruz looked at her for a long moment and then shook his head. ‘I don’t get it. Even with the promise of fulfilling your college dream, why would you agree to a marriage like that unless you were going to get a lot more out of it? Evidently you didn’t sleep with Rio, but did you want to? Did you plan on seducing him? Making the marriage real?’
Disappointment vied with anger. ‘You will never believe me, will you? Even when you have to admit that I’m not a gold-digger, your cynicism just won’t let you...’
She went to walk out of the room, but Cruz caught her arm. She stopped and gritted her jaw against the reaction in her body.
Cruz pulled her around to face him, but before he could say anything, she inserted defensively, ‘Of course I wasn’t planning on seducing Rio. I had no interest in him like that, and he had no interest in me.’
She looked down for a moment, her damp hair slipping over one shoulder, but Cruz caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tipping it back up. Not letting her escape. There was something different in his eyes now—something that made her heart flip-flop.
He just said, ‘Why, Trinity?’
She felt as if he could see right down into the deepest part of her, where she had nothing left to hide.
She pulled her chin away from his hand and said, ‘I felt a sense of affinity with him...with the fact that in spite of our differences we had a lot in common.’ Her voice turned husky. ‘But the largest part of why I agreed was because I’d come to love Matty and Sancho. They needed me.’ Afraid that the next thing she’d see on Cruz’s face would be pity, Trinity said, ‘I’m well aware that my motivations had a lot to do with my own experiences, but I’m not afraid to admit that. They had no one else to look out for them, and I believed I was doing the right thing by them.’
She tried to pull her arm free of Cruz’s grip but it only tightened.
She glared at him, hating him for making her reveal so much. ‘Just let me go, Cruz. Now you know everything...and I know that after what just happened you won’t want a repeat performance...so can we just put it behind us? Please?’
He frowned. ‘Won’t want a repeat performance?’
He pulled her closer. Her breath hitched and her heart started pounding.
‘I hurt you, Trinity. If I’d known it was your first time I would have been much more gentle.’
She looked away, humiliation curdling her insides. ‘You really don’t have to pity me, Cruz. You came to your senses after kissing me that first time. I was unsuitable before and now I’m really unsuitable.’
* * *
Trinity had managed to pull her arm free and take a couple of steps towards the door when Cruz acted on blind instinct and grabbed her waist and hauled her back, trapping her against him with his arms around her body.
He was reeling from everything that had just transpired—the sheer fact of Trinity’s physical innocence was like a bomb whose aftershocks were still being felt. He didn’t like to admit it, but the knowledge that her marriage to Rio hadn’t been real... It eclipsed everything else at that moment, making a ragged and torn part of him feel whole again.
Trinity put her hands on his arms and tried to push, but he wouldn’t let her go. Not now. Not ever, whispered a voice. Base desires were overwhelming his need to analyse everything she’d just said. Later. When his brain had cleared.
She said in a frigid voice, ‘Let me go, Cruz.’
He turned her so she was facing him. Her face was flushed, eyes huge. He felt feral as he said, ‘Believe me when I say that the last thing I feel for you is pity, Trinity. Or that you’re unsuitable. And you’re wrong, you know...’
‘Wrong about what?’ She sounded shaky.
Looking down at her now, some of the cravening need Cruz was feeling dissipated as his chest tightened with an emotion he’d never expected, nor welcomed. But this woman evoked it effortlessly, especially after the shattering revelations of her innocence, and in more ways than one.
He shook his head, honesty compelling him to say, ‘I haven’t come to my senses since that night. You’ve bewitched me, Trinity.’
‘What do you mean?’
Cruz knew that he’d never before willingly stepped into a moment of emotional intimacy like this. No other woman had ever come close enough to precipitate it. After everything that had just happened he felt exposed and raw, in a way that should have been making him feel seriously claustrophobic, but what he was feeling was...a kind of liberation.
‘What I mean is that I haven’t looked at another woman since that night.’ His voice turned rough as he admitted, ‘I haven’t wanted another woman since I touched you.’
Her eyes widened. Her mouth closed and then opened again. Finally she said, ‘You’re not just saying this?’
Her vulnerability was laid bare, and Cruz wondered bleakly how he’d blocked it out before now.
Because he’d wanted to. Because it had been easier to believe the worst rather than let himself think for a second that she could possibly be as pure as he’d believed from the start. Because then he’d have had to acknowledge how she made him feel.
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not just saying this. You’re all I want, Trinity. I hated thinking of you and Rio together... I was jealous of my own brother.’
* * *
Trinity felt breathless at Cruz’s admission. She could see how hard it was for him to open up like this, even as it soothed a raw hurt inside her. And with that came the heavy knowledge that he was beating himself up now over feeling jealous of Rio—and that was exactly the result Rio had wanted to achieve. To mess with Cruz’s head.
Loath to shatter this fragile moment, Trinity pushed that knowledge down deep, like a coward, and said, ‘We were never together...not like that.’ Feeling absurdly shy, she said, ‘No other man has ever made me feel like you did. After...that night... I couldn’t stop thinking about you...about how it would have been...’
‘If we hadn’t stopped?’
She nodded jerkily.
He gathered her closer and a tremor ran through her body. The air shifted around them, tension tightening again. �
�We don’t have to stop now...’
Trinity couldn’t battle the desire rising inside her—not after what he’d just told her. She was already laid bare. Nowhere to hide any more. And she wanted this—wanted to fulfil this fantasy more than she wanted to take her next breath.
She looked up at him and fell into molten amber heat. ‘Then don’t stop, Cruz. Please.’
He waited for an infinitesimal moment and then lowered his head, touching his firm mouth to her softer one with a kind of reverence that made emotion bloom in her chest. To counteract it, because she wasn’t remotely ready to deal with what it meant, she reached up and twined her arms around his neck, pressing closer, telling him with her body what she wanted...
He deepened the kiss, stroking into her mouth with an explicitness that made her groan softly, excitement mounting again. His hands moved around to her front, unknotting her robe. He pushed it apart and spread his hands on her hips, tracing her curves, before she broke away from the kiss, breathing raggedly.
He pulled back and looked at her, before pushing her robe off completely. Without looking away, he opened his trousers and pushed them down, kicking them off. Now they were both naked. Trinity looked down and her eyes widened. That stiff column of flesh jerked under her look, and a sense of very feminine wonder and sensuality filled her at the thought that she could have an effect on him like this.
He took her hand and brought it to his hard flesh, wrapping her fingers around him. Slowly, gently, he guided her, moving her hand up and down... It was heady, the way her skin glided over steely strength...
* * *
Cruz felt beads of perspiration pop out on his forehead as Trinity’s untutored touch drove him to the edge of any reason he had left. It was a special kind of torture...and before she could reduce him to rubble he took her hand from him and led her to the bed.
He wanted to consume her until she was boneless and pliant and his.
When he laid her down on the bed and came down alongside her she reached out a tentative hand and touched his chest.