by Kim Lawrence
‘It changes everything, Rafael. You came here to ask me to be your mistress, not your wife.’
His upper lip curled in an expression of contempt and he reviewed his behaviour. He took her chin in his fingers and with his free hand brushed the strands of dark hair from her face. The tenderness in the action brought a rush of tears to her eyes. ‘I spent a long time trying to work out why I came here, but last night I realised it is not complicated.’
‘It isn’t?’ Maggie whispered. The tender glow in his magnificent eyes was sending all sorts of messages that she didn’t dare believe.
‘The answer is just as simple as when you asked me earlier did I have to kiss you.’ A distracted expression appeared in his smoky eyes as his thumb moved along the curve of her soft lush lips. ‘I had to come to you.’
The throaty admission was good, but suddenly Maggie wanted more—she dared to think that there was more. ‘Why?’
‘I do not function without you in my life. It was a shock to learn you were pregnant, or I thought you were,’ he corrected, flashing her a bitter grin.
‘Look, you were allowed to be unhappy. No man wants to be saddled with a baby from a casual fling.’
‘Is that what we were?’
Her eyes fell, she swallowed…was it possible…? She could not let herself believe. She felt his hands on her shoulders and lifted her face to his. The incandescent glow in his eyes made her gasp.
‘It was never a simple fling for me, Maggie,’ he said quietly. ‘I told myself it was but that was just a front because I didn’t have the guts to admit the truth.’ He shook his head in disgust.
‘And what is that?’
‘The truth is I stopped refusing to admit the truth about us. And, for the record, once the initial shock wore off I was delighted about the baby, and not just because it bound you to me.’
Maggie shook her spinning head, unable to take in what he was saying. ‘What are you saying? You want me to be your mistress?’
‘Mistress?’ He took her face between his hands and gazed down into her eyes with an expression that brought tears of emotion to them. ‘No! I want you to be my wife.’
‘Marry…me…you…’
‘That,’ he said lovingly, ‘is the general idea.’ He fitted his warm lips to the quivering outline of her mouth and kissed her until she was breathless. ‘I love you,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘And I have been lost without you.’
‘This is real.’ She pressed a hand to her mouth, but was obliged to remove it when he kissed her again. ‘You love me?’
Finally allowing herself to believe that this really was happening, Maggie let out a euphoric whoop of joy and flung her arms around his neck.
‘And I love you, I adore you…’ she declared, punctuating each word with a kiss. Breathless she lifted a loving hand to his face. ‘You do know, don’t you, that I would do anything for you?’ she husked emotionally.
‘This is good to know, but I discovered that my needs are actually quite simple, mi querida.’
‘They are?’
He took the hand laid against his face, holding her eyes with his as he pressed her palm to his lips. The heat in his eyes made her insides tighten. ‘Yes. It turns out after a life of driven achievement, all I actually need is you.’
She blinked away the tears of happiness that filled her eyes. ‘Are you saying I’m simple?’
‘I’m saying that you are infuriating, stubborn, argumentative!’ Stilling her protest with a brush of his lips that made her tremble, he added huskily, ‘And I wouldn’t want you any other way. Without you I’m not even sure I exist, Maggie. If that makes sense.’
Maggie nodded. ‘It does to me, and if that is the case then I think I’d better stay for more than a week this time.’
‘A lifetime would not be long enough for me to show you all the ways I love you.’
She laughed up into his dark beautiful face and said solemnly, ‘Then as time is an issue maybe you should start now—showing me, that is…’
It was an invitation that Rafael found he had no problem accepting.
‘Out of curiosity,’ he added as he lifted her into his arms and looked with love into her eyes. ‘Dio!’ he groaned, distracted by the love glowing back at him. ‘You are beautiful.’ After a pause for a kiss that left her aching for more he added, ‘I know your feelings on shoes, but what is your attitude on jewellery? I like the idea of rubies on your skin.’
Maggie who liked the idea of Rafael on her skin nodded happily. ‘Anything you say.’
‘No arguments?’
‘Me?’ she said innocently then laughed huskily when he rolled his eyes. ‘I concede that it is just possible I might occasionally disagree with you. But if all our arguments end this way I have no complaints!’
‘I think I find that I believe in happy endings.’
‘Surely not,’ she teased as he strode from the room.
‘I must—I have found mine. Now we will begin the tour of the house. Starting, I think, in the master bedroom, which you might like to redecorate.’
Maggie linked her arms around his neck. ‘I wouldn’t change a thing.’
Why change perfection?
EPILOGUE
THE doting grandmothers had been reluctant to relinquish their burden, but Rafael remained firm as he took possession of the irritable baby.
And no wonder he was irritable, Rafael thought, able to identify with his son’s demeanour.
Left to him this would have been a small intimate celebration with guests whom you could tell to go home at the appropriate moment without causing outrage. This was definitely the last time he would open his home to his family.
Until the next time Maggie smiled and said, ‘Please, Rafael,’ he thought with a wry grin.
His focus shifted to the other side of the room where his wife, looking totally drop-dead gorgeous in a striking red dress and oblivious as always to the fact half the men in the room were lusting after her, was doing her perfect hostess thing.
When people asked, as they always did, if he knew how lucky he was, Rafael was able to honestly say—yes.
The conversation with Rafael’s elderly aunt was stretching Maggie’s novice Spanish to the limit. It was Angelina who rescued her.
‘Thanks for that.’
Angelina smiled. ‘You looked as if you were struggling. Oh, not again,’ she sighed, turning at the sound of a cry.
Maggie watched amused as Angelina ran gracefully across the room to pick up her sobbing toddler from the floor. Her twin half brothers had reached the terrible two stage.
Only a second behind her Susan Ward was on the spot, bending to lift the remaining twin into her arms, a handful of his brother’s hair still clutched triumphantly in his chubby fist.
They had had a noisy and very happy family party when Mum’s operation had been officially declared a total success.
Maggie watched as the two women—her mothers—their heads close together, laughed. The previous night Maggie had found herself taking snaps of her mum teaching Angelina the dance she had learnt at her salsa class!
Now how weird was that? she thought. Only it wasn’t. The first few times she’d met up with Angelina had been strained, but over time they had become quite close. Not in a mother-daughter way—they were too close in age for that—but they had become friends and Angelina had really helped her settle into her new life, not to mention persuading Rafael not to wrap her up in cotton wool during her pregnancy.
Maggie hadn’t asked about her natural father, and she knew the other woman was grateful she had left this painful subject alone.
Maggie feared that being outed as illegitimate might have made her some sort of social outcast, but she had been wrong. There had of course been gossip, but far from being an outcast she had been embraced by both Spanish clans, who seemed anxious to claim her as their own.
Angelina’s reaction to having her secret made public had surprised Maggie. It was a relief, she insisted, to finally have
everything out in the open, and though Maggie had no idea what had gone on behind closed doors Alfonso certainly appeared to have totally accepted the situation.
Maggie reached Rafael’s side just as he was tucking their son expertly against his shoulder. An emotional lump swelled in her throat as she watched him supporting their son’s small head tenderly with one big hand.
Though she teased Rafael about his protective attitude to their son, she totally understood it. Alessandro had been so tiny and fragile when he was born that she had been almost too scared to touch him, but he was catching up fast.
She lifted a hand and stroked his silky head. They called him their ‘wedding-night baby’ because he had been due nine months to the day following their wedding. Alessandro had, however, decided to do his own thing and arrive six weeks early.
Maggie had spent that first couple of weeks when he was being monitored in the special care baby unit in a state of constant anxiety. If it hadn’t been for Rafael, who had been incredible supporting her through that scary time, Maggie wasn’t sure she could have coped.
His dark lashes curled from his flushed cheek and Maggie smiled as their perfect beautiful baby boy looked directly at her.
‘He looks more like you every day.’
‘Is that a good thing?’ Rafael asked with a teasing smile.
‘Ask me the same question in eighteen years’ time when he is breaking hearts and if he’s like his papa, rules, too.’ She smiled, cheerful when considering this moment that was still safely distant.
‘Sixteen,’ Rafael corrected. ‘We Castenadas are early developers.’ The baby in his arms chose that moment to give a loud cry. ‘He needs a nap. I’ll take him to the nursery.’
‘I’ll do it if you like?’ she offered.
Rafael shook his head, meeting her eyes above the soft froth of baby curls. ‘I need a break from our guests.’ The scowling glance he threw around the room drew a laugh from Maggie. ‘Shouldn’t they be going?’
‘Play nice, Rafael. Remember we did them out of a wedding,’ she reminded him.
Rafael, it turned out was not a fan of long engagements. Theirs had lasted only as long as it took to push through the legalities before she had walked the hundred yards to the church from her parents’ house.
The only guests present had been her parents and brothers and she and Rafael had spent the next month in a villa owned by Rafael’s Greek billionaire friend Theo Leonidis.
‘I think we owe them today.’
‘Owe them!’ he ejaculated, shaking his head before adding, ‘How you ever persuaded me to say yes to this!’
Maggie feigned innocence and angled a wide-eyed look at his face. ‘You don’t remember?’
Rafael’s eyes darkened as they slid to her wide lush lips. ‘You can remind me later.’
Their eyes connected and a familiar bolt of lust slammed through her body. ‘A date,’ she agreed huskily, laying a hand on his arm and raising herself up on tiptoe to kiss her son’s forehead. ‘Yell if you need me.’
‘I always need you.’ His eyes travelled from the baby in his arms to the face of the woman he loved, loved with such an intensity that it still took his breath away just to see her smile. He suspected it always would.
Maggie tilted her head to one side, a wicked smile playing over her lips as she said huskily, ‘Our guests don’t seem to want to leave, but there’s nothing stopping us, is there? They probably won’t even notice,’ she predicted.
Rafael a gleam in his eyes, nodded. ‘I like your thinking, Magdalena,’ he said admiringly.
Maggie grinned and slanted a sultry look up at him through her dark lashes. ‘Is there anything else you like?’
‘It depends on what’s on offer.’
She lifted herself on tiptoe, this time to whisper a suggestion in his ear. Rafael raised his brows and grinned.
‘I could be persuaded,’ he admitted, sliding his free arm around her waist as he headed for the open door.
‘I think he’s asleep,’ Maggie whispered.
‘Of course he’s asleep—his timing is as good as his father’s.’
‘Says you!’ Maggie teased.
‘No,’ he contradicted smoothly. ‘Says you…often. Have I ever mentioned that you turned my world upside down?’
‘Only once or twice a day.’
‘You know,’ he mused, his glance sliding from the flushed face of his sleeping son to the glowing beauty of his wife’s upturned features, ‘I don’t know if I’m standing on my head or my heels, but I love the view from here.’
‘It’s not bad from where I’m standing either,’ Maggie returned, her loving gaze glued to the face of the tall Spaniard who had captured her heart. ‘Sometimes,’ she confessed, ‘I think this is a dream and I’ll wake up and all this will be gone.’
Rafael bent his head and kissed her tenderly. ‘When you wake up I will be there, mi querida. Now come, before our guests spot us and decide to follow us to our bedroom.’
Maggie gave a sigh of contentment. ‘God, but I love being irresistible!’
‘And I love you.’
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
(c) Kim Lawrence 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91899-9