by Lynne Graham
‘I want to show you something.’
‘It’s four o’clock in the morning!’
But he wasn’t listening to her. He thrust her robe at her and tossed her mules across to her. ‘Come on.’
‘Where?’
‘You’ll see.’ Impatiently he propelled her out of the bedroom and downstairs.
When he climbed into the Bugatti outside she hissed, ‘I’m not dressed!’
‘We’re not leaving the estate.’
He drove down the lane that ran from the stable block out to the fields. At the end of it he parked, leaving the headlights on, and walked over to the fence. Thoroughly exasperated by now, Bella leapt out and followed.
‘Keep your eyes peeled for something vaguely animate that reminds you of a very tatty, small, moving hearth rug.’
A shape ambled out of the darkness, attracted by the light.
‘I located him five days ago,’ Rico murmured. ‘He hasn’t been very well looked after but the vet says he’ll be fine once he’s groomed and fattened up.’
Bella was already striving to climb the fence, somewhat hampered by her flowing nightwear. Rico lifted her over. ‘Fiddlesticks,’ she whispered shakily, and then surged over the grass to the Shetland pony.
Ten minutes later she was wiping at her eyes, genuinely overcome not just by the reunion with the little pony she had never thought to see again but by the fact that Rico had gone to so much trouble to trace him and give him back to her.
Rico swung her back over the fence. She slid back into the car, still in a happy daze.
‘I planned to get a dog and a cat to go with him,’ he murmured very tautly. ‘And I was also planning to present the three of them to you before the party.’
‘Dog… cat… party?’ Bella mumbled in helpless repetition.
‘You told me that you loved children and wanted a large fluffy dog, a cat and a pony for them,’ Rico reminded her stiffly. ‘Well, I was ready to supply them.’
She went rigid, understanding finally sinking in. Rico was telling her that at least a week ago he had been ready to give her what he believed she wanted. And all of a sudden, instead of being touched and pleased by the gesture, she felt like screaming. She wanted him to love her, not drag her out to a field in the middle of the night and offer her a menagerie!
He dug something from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘This is a sample of the invitations I was having printed. It was going to be an engagement party…a surprise,’ he breathed in a harsh undertone. ‘I took a lot for granted, es verdad?’
Bella was reading the invitation, her heartbeat accelerating. Long before he’d known about the baby Rico had intended to ask her to marry him. She sniffed, her eyes stinging. The fear that he only wanted to marry her because of their child was for ever vanquished.
Rico released his breath in a hiss in the continuing silence, seeming not to appreciate that she was stunned by sheer shock. He drove back to the house and switched off the engine. ‘Until you told me you wanted to leave me I thought you loved me…’
‘I do,’ Bella said distractedly.
‘Then why the blazes are you sitting there in silence?’ he roared at her without warning.
‘Sh-shock,’ she proffered shakily.
He groaned something in Spanish and brushed her hair back from her cheekbone with a not quite steady hand. ‘I was terrified of losing you. When you said you wanted out I saw my whole world falling apart. There was nothing I would not have done to keep you. And I seemed to have no hold on you but the baby.’
‘And you were prepared to use that—’
‘Sí… I never thought that I could love anyone the way I love you.’
Bella threw her head back, her green eyes clinging to the blaze of his possessive golden gaze. ‘I fell in love with you in the container.’
Rico cursed as he collided with the gearstick in his attempt to drag her into his arms. Bella giggled and climbed out of the car, watching him make it round the bonnet to her in record time. He swept her up into his arms and kissed her passionately as he carried her back into the house.
Between kisses he talked all the way up the stairs. ‘When you collapsed outside the farmhouse I was like a man possessed. I knew I was in love…or that I thought I was in love. But I had no idea that you felt the same way. You are so different from every other woman I know. I was afraid to tell you how I felt in case you laughed…’
‘I wouldn’t have laughed,’ Bella whispered, all choked up from realising that he was vulnerable too.
‘I am eleven years older. I feared that you might become bored with me.’
‘No chance.’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you the first time I saw you. You didn’t even notice,’ he complained.
‘Rico, try being poor and smashing up a Bugatti. I was in shock, and then you started calling the police—’
‘And you fell asleep in the limo…as if I wasn’t there!’
‘Strikes me your ego needed a little challenge.’ She dropped her voice an octave and boomed in mocking mimicry, ‘“I have known women to take tremendous risks to make my acquaintance.” What do they do—abseil down the walls of the bank and kick their way in through the windows?’ She giggled.
Rico lowered her onto the bed. ‘You might as well have done. You came into my life and turned it upsidedown. You fascinate me.’
‘You fascinate me too.’ She reached up to him, found his mouth again and yanked him down to her.
They made love slowly, luxuriating in every sweet sensation.
‘Am I allowed to buy you things now?’ he asked afterwards. ‘Festoon you with jewellery?’
‘I want a Porsche,’ Bella said out of sheer badness. His black lashes dropped over his too expressive eyes, but his sudden tension said it all for him. ‘No problem. You pass an advanced driving test and I’ll buy you one.’
‘Just you wait,’ Bella told him.
Bella watched Rico swing their daughter up in his arms as he came through the hall. Jenny wrapped her little arms round his throat in a death grip and hugged him, making excitable ‘da-da’ sounds. He had clearly been affectionately attacked by their wolfhound before he’d even got in the door: there was a large, muddy paw-print on his jacket. Bella grinned as he looked up and their eyes connected over Jenny’s dark, curly head-smug green into slightly tense gold.
‘You passed…?’
‘I passed.’
‘Congratulations,’ It sounded rather forced. He couldn’t help it. The thought of her in a Porsche, empowered by an advanced driving test or otherwise, still brought him out in a cold sweat, she assumed.
Having put Jenny down for a nap, she suggested, ‘I’ll take you for a spin, shall I?’
‘You’ve already bought it?’ Rico breathed, looking shattered.
‘It’s in the garage.’
Hector was out for his evening stroll down the drive. He waved. Rico had bought his London house for their use and renovated it. The court case which had put their kidnappers into prison was thankfully long behind them now and Hector had decided to rent a cottage on the estate.
When he wasn’t playing honorary grandpa for Jenny’s benefit, he was fully occupied with thinking up economies for Rico to make at Winterwood. And Rico would listen with that little smile of his and marvel that he had never had such ideas himself. It was just one of the reasons why Bella loved him so much.
Rico peered into the garage with a fixed smile which quickly fell away. ‘That’s a Volvo estate!’
‘I never wanted a Porsche. I’m not that fond of speed,’ Bella said gently. ‘And this is much more practical for a working artist with a child.’
‘You never wanted a Porsche…but you made me jump through all the hoops pretending you did!’ Rico was now struggling to look angry, she gathered, instead of painfully relieved.
She reached for his silk tie and tugged him towards her with all the provocativeness of a very confident woman. ‘I like to keep you on your toes, M
r da Silva.’
‘Dios mio, you are not joking,’ he growled thickly, crushing her into his arms and kissing her breathless, passion blazing up between them just as it always did. ‘And fortunately for you I find it irresistible, because, having phoned Haversham to ascertain your success, at lunchtime I went out and bought you a Porsche.’
Bella’s jaw dropped.
‘Just think of the mileage Hector is going to get out of conspicuous consumerism like this!’ Rico suddenly said, laughing.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6871-5
PRISONER OF PASSION
First North American Publication 1997.
Copyright © 1996 by Lynne Graham.
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