by Lynne Graham
‘Considering the way your own sister dresses—’
‘But only in the privacy of her own home, in an effort to shock and annoy me,’ Joaquin interposed wryly. ‘I looked at you and I read the message in the clothes you wore.’
‘What message?’ Lucy was now taut, flushed and discomfited.
‘That you were sexually available, that you knew the score, that you wanted me to look and desire you,’ Joaquin supplied with a raw edge to his dark deep drawl. ‘I got the wrong message, es verdad?’
Lucy dropped her head, for there was a certain amount of truth in what he said. Cindy adored being the centre of male attention. Cindy always dressed on the edge of provocation. ‘They weren’t my clothes.’
‘Did you think I hadn’t worked that out yet?’ Joaquin spread one lean brown hand in an angry movement. ‘Just like you fondly imagined outside the church today that I might not be able to tell you and your twin apart?’
‘A lot of people say they can’t—’
‘Then they’re playing to the gallery. Cindy looks older. Same features, but different expression and cynical eyes.’
‘I wouldn’t have been too happy if you hadn’t been able to tell us apart,’ Lucy conceded.
‘I would have been happier had I found out my mistake before you left my country,’ Joaquin admitted, his beautiful mouth curling. ‘I only ever intended to spend the one night with you—’
‘Let’s not talk about that,’ Lucy cut in uncomfortably.
Joaquin dealt her a gleaming glance, his hard jawline squaring. ‘I have never brought a woman to Hacienda De Oro. It is my family home. Out of respect for my female relatives I observe certain standards there, but desire overcame my fine principles,’ he stated. ‘I had nothing with which to protect you. I believed you had recently been living with a man—’
‘I understand that.’ Lucy just wished he would drop the subject.
‘Do you? Precautions did cross my mind, but my hunger was stronger than my caution,” Joaquin confessed curtly. ‘So now we both pay the price.’
A wash of prickling tears hit the backs of her eyes. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Joaquin.’
‘Do you think I’m whingeing like some teenage boy faced with his obligations?’ Joaquin laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement, and that made her glance up in sharp disconcertion. ‘Now that I have spent all afternoon and most of the evening counting the costs, let me count the benefits.’
‘Benefits?’ Lucy queried in surprise.
‘I shall have you in my bed whenever I want. I shall have a child, and I like children. I will also get a keeper for my very troublesome sister.’ As he spoke Joaquin closed the distance between the door and the bed and reached for her hands to pull her to him with easy strength. ‘Yolanda’s too old for a substitute mother figure, but just ripe for a big sister with a sympathetic manner. She likes you. You certainly made a hit there!’
Still trying to adjust to that volatile change of mood which had so taken her by surprise, she felt her mouth run dry as Joaquin just lifted her against him like a doll. Her heart hammered, the most wanton sense of anticipation rising as she collided with his shimmering green eyes. But Joaquin did not kiss her. Instead, he flipped open the door again, and she belatedly appreciated that he was actually taking her out of his bedroom.
‘But maybe it’s not Yolanda whom I most want and need to be a hit with…’ Lucy confided in a sudden rush, the awkward sentence tripping off her tongue, ill-considered but honest in sentiment.
‘It is all that is on offer, querida. Unlike you, I do not tell lies. If you did not have my baby inside you, you would not be here now.’ Further down the well-lit corridor, Joaquin thrust open another door and carried her over to the bed.
‘But I couldn’t live with you feeling like that!’ Lucy confessed, so great was her recoil from that blunt statement.
‘I do not have one of those tolerant forgiving natures that everybody is supposed to have these days,’ Joaquin delivered in a driven undertone. ‘I have a very strong sense of what is wrong and what is right, and what you did to me was very wrong. Do not ask or expect me to pretend otherwise.’
Having shattered her with that speech, he laid her down on the bed with careful, even gentle hands. ‘Buenas noches, Lucy.’
Lucy stared at the ceiling until her vision clouded with the strength of her stare. Tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes and stung her taut face. Well, she had asked how he really felt about her and he had told her. He had told her, with the kind of sincerity that scorched, exactly how he felt. She had been judged and found wanting and he did not believe that he would ever manage to forgive her. She couldn’t possibly marry him. She couldn’t possibly!
She tossed and turned all night, but eventually she weighed every possibility in the balance and that was when she decided that she would marry him. First and foremost their baby deserved that she made that commitment and try to make their marriage work. She would have to be patient where Joaquin was concerned, but with time and opportunity on her side mightn’t he start seeing her in a different light? All right, so he didn’t love her, but nobody got absolutely everything they wanted, did they? She was willing to compromise.
On the way downstairs next morning, Lucy could not help noticing the absence of any form of seasonal decoration, yet in little more than a week it would be Christmas day. Probably Joaquin and his sister always spent the Christmas period in Guatemala, she reflected.
Joaquin lowered his newspaper when she entered the dining-room for breakfast. Still clad in her bridesmaid’s dress, because she had nothing else to wear, Lucy felt a little foolish.
‘The special license will be granted for the day after tomorrow. I expect my diplomatic status helped.’ Casting aside the newspaper, Joaquin rose to his full, formidable height, his well-cut charcoal-grey business suit accentuating his wide shoulders and lean muscular physique.
He took a lot for granted, and Lucy stiffened. ‘I haven’t said I’ll marry you yet.’
Cool green eyes set in a darkly handsome lean male visage arrowed into hers. ‘Will you?’ he said drily.
Her colour heightened. ‘Yes.’
‘I never doubted it for a moment, querida,’ Joaquin murmured silkily. ‘One of my staff is handling the arrangements. The application requires a copy of your birth certificate.’
Anger and embarrassment claimed her and she bit down on her tongue before she said something she might regret.
‘I suggest that you move in here today,’ Joaquin continued evenly. ‘Yolanda’s school breaks up for the holidays tomorrow and she’ll be home in the afternoon. I’d be obliged if you were in residence by then.’
Taking her seat at the beautifully set table, trying not to seem sensible of the attentions of the manservant pouring a cup of coffee for her, Lucy asked, ‘Won’t you be here?’
‘I’ll be in Paris by this afternoon.’
She worried at her lower lip. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be back in London late tomorrow night.’
As he headed for the door, Lucy scrambled up again. ‘You’re leaving now?’
‘Tell me, am I likely to get forty questions every time I leave you?’ Joaquin enquired drily.
Lucy reddened, but she nodded with unapologetic certainty.
His brilliant eyes shimmered over her face and then narrowed. He caught one hand in her hair and pulled her mouth under his in an onslaught that was so unexpected that a tiny cry of surprise escaped her. It was a devouringly hungry kiss that sent her reeling. The stabbing thrust of his tongue sent a wave of excitement hurtling through to her to the extent that his equally abrupt withdrawal felt like a punishment.
Dark colour scoring his proud cheekbones, Joaquin released her and expelled his breath. ‘I almost forgot. The ring…’
Still recovering from that explosive kiss, Lucy watched him lift a small jeweller’s box from a side-table and extend it to her. ‘Ring?’ she questioned, her heart startin
g to beat even faster, her reddened mouth to curving into a smile.
‘A betrothal ring.’ Joaquin frowned, his beautiful mouth harshly compressed as he made a positive production out of glancing at his watch like a male severely pressed for time. ‘My sister will expect it. Take her shopping with you for a wedding gown.’
‘A wedding gown?’ Lucy clutched the box in one hand and made a speaking gesture with her other at what was she actually wearing. ‘But I could wear this—’
An expression of distaste crossed his lean strong face. ‘No Del Castillo bride would wear a second-hand dress!’
He reached the door and then swung back to murmur reflectively, ‘Choose something white…a white dress. Full-length and traditional.’
He was thinking of Cindy’s bridal apparel, which had been pink and short, she registered dully. ‘Anything else?’ she asked, not really expecting a further response.
Joaquin contemplated the wall rather than her, hard jawline set in a stubborn thrust, apparently deep in thought on a subject which she had not expected him to take one iota of interest in. ‘A veil…and perhaps a tiara…I’ll have my mother’s jewellery flown over. You’ll need a bouquet…white roses,’ he stipulated without hesitation. ‘And don’t put your hair up.’
Lucy absorbed the surprising detail of his instructions with ever-widening eyes.
Joaquin sent her a slashing sidewise glance and his strong jawline set even harder. ‘I’m thinking of the look of things for my extended family and friends…on film, you understand. We’ll throw a big party and show the film at it when we return to Guatemala to see in the New Year.’
‘So we’ll be spending Christmas here?’ Lucy gathered. ‘May I order a tree?’
For the count of five seconds Joaquin looked as though he had not a clue what she was talking about.
‘A Christmas tree…’ she extended awkwardly.
‘Do as you wish,’ Joaquin said, with all the enthusiasm of Ebenezer Scrooge, his impatience palpable.
And then he was gone.
‘The look of things’? For the sake of appearances alone? Lucy was very pale. She opened the jewellery box and caught her breath at the glittering diamond ring formed in the shape of a flower. It was exquisite and very unusual. An engagement ring, or as he had called it, a betrothal ring. ‘My sister will expect it’. That stabbed her to the heart, and she couldn’t help but think how painfully ironic it was that Joaquin should condemn her for the deception she had practised on him but then make it crystal-clear that he expected her to put on another dishonest charade where their marriage was concerned.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘FOR a cheap dress that had to be bought off the peg, it looks really good,’ Yolanda conceded forty-eight hours later as she appraised the wedding gown which Lucy wore from all angles.
‘It was a very expensive buy!’ Lucy protested.
‘Lucy…you have a new scale of expense to learn now that you are about to become a Del Castillo. Anything that hasn’t been specially designed for you is cheap!’
But it was still a dream of a dress. Alone, Lucy would never have entered the couture salon to which Yolanda had taken her only the day before. By that late stage, fretting at her failure to find anything which would be worthy of the tiara which Joaquin had mentioned, Lucy had been getting really desperate. The gown had been a sample, in a tiny size. Without a murmur about the inconvenience, it had been shortened to fit her last night and delivered first thing that morning, a delicate confection of rich fine fabric, its bodice and long slender sleeves overlaid with a very fine tracery of seed pearls.
‘I think it is so cool that Joaquin just can’t wait to marry you,’ Yolanda confided with a grin, helping Lucy to anchor the magnificent diamond tiara to the lace veil. ‘Yet when he followed us to London, whenever I mentioned you he changed the subject! I suppose that means that when a guy is really, really crazy about someone he doesn’t want to talk about it like a woman does.’
‘No,’ Lucy agreed hurriedly, bowing her head.
She had not even seen Joaquin since he’d left for Paris. He had returned very late the previous night. With Yolanda in the house, determined that every tradition should be followed, Lucy had found her efforts to go down to breakfast blocked and had ended up eating off a tray instead, while being lectured on what bad luck it would be for her to see Joaquin before they met at the altar.
Following the ceremony, Yolanda was spending a few days with a schoolfriend. She and her brother had finally reached an agreement on her future. The teenager would board during the week but come home to the townhouse at weekends. After she had sat her exams in June, she would have the option of completing her education in Guatemala.
A limousine ferried Lucy and Yolanda to a little church on the outskirts of London. Lucy couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the equivalent of a whole camera crew in place, awaiting their arrival.
‘This will make the television news at home,’ Yolanda pointed out to her, surprised at Lucy’s surprise.
In fact the whole ceremony was taped, but Lucy, who would have been very nervous about that idea had she known about it in advance, took account of nothing and nobody but Joaquin from the minute she walked down the aisle. And from the instant she entered the church his attention was on her. Joaquin was sheathed in a superb pale grey suit which threw into prominence his devastating dark good-looks. As his bright eyes met hers Lucy was conscious only of an intense sense of happiness, and every other concern just fell away.
The ceremony complete, the ring on her finger, Lucy floated back into the limousine on Joaquin’s arm.
He gave her a slow smile. ‘You look superb, querida.’
‘Yolanda said it was a cheap dress.’
Joaquin laughed with rich amusement. ‘The term is relative when used by my sister!’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Lucy suddenly clamped a hand to her mouth in dismay. ‘May I borrow your phone?’
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded, extending the carphone with a frown etched between his straight ebony brows.
‘I was supposed to start work today and I totally forgot to ring and tell them that I wouldn’t be taking the job after all!’ While Joaquin looked on in apparent astonishment, Lucy called directory enquiries to get the number of the toy store and then rang to offer profuse apologies for not having informed them of her change of heart sooner.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Lucy asked self-consciously when she had replaced the phone, her conscience at peace again.
‘It is your wedding day. I’m amazed that you took the trouble to make that call.’
‘I don’t like letting people down.’
His lean strong features had hardened. ‘Isn’t it a shame that you couldn’t afford me the same consideration?’
‘If you’re talking about me having pretended to be Cindy,’ Lucy responded tautly, ‘that is an entirely different matter.’
‘Por Dios…you have a talent for understatement.’
Lucy breathed in deep. ‘But I might have told the truth sooner had you not made so many unpleasant remarks about my sister’s past and then gone on to suggest that her future husband ought to be warned about what she was like.’
‘So that’s your excuse. I was very angry about what the old man had had to suffer.’
‘Cindy never intended anybody to suffer! She may have written stupid letters asking for money, but she honestly believed he could afford to be generous. That’s not the same thing as being a con-artist.’
Joaquin shot her a darkling glance. ‘Nor is it acceptable behaviour. And you do my image of you no favours in trying to imply otherwise.’
‘I’m sorry. She’s my sister and I love her…flaws included,’ Lucy stated, tilting her chin. ‘People can change, Joaquin. Finding happiness with Roger changed Cindy and I didn’t want to see her lose him.’
‘Infierno!’ Joaquin slashed back at her with a sudden raging incredulity that wholly disconcerted her. It was much as though s
he had thrown a match on a bale of hay: the conflagration was instantaneous. ‘Yet you had little concern for what I might think of you!’
‘That’s not true,’ Lucy began shakily, paralysed to the spot by the blaze of dark fury brightening his extraordinary eyes.
‘You let me call you a whore!’ Joaquin condemned, off-balancing her even further with that outraged reminder. ‘You lied to me. Even the night we made love you were still lying. But the worst, the most unforgivable of acts, was to leave me believing that you were sleeping with another man and that you might not know whose baby you were carrying!’
Lucy sat there like a little stone statue, heart thumping in the region of her dry throat, motionless with sheer shock.
‘I might have gone away…I might never have come back. I might have abandoned you for ever. And did you count the cost? Did you care? No!’ Joaquin thundered in a splintering crescendo of accusation, his lean strong face rigid.
‘I…I would have contacted you.’
‘How? Do you think I would have taken your calls or accepted your letters or even believed anything you said or wrote?’ Joaquin demanded with raw contempt. ‘A woman who let me believe such filth about her for longer than a moment is not a woman I can be proud to have as a wife! I can only hope you have more loving concern for our child when it is born than you had for me!’
With that wrathful conclusion Joaquin sent the privacy panel separating them from his chauffeur buzzing back and rapped out something in Spanish. She soon knew what it was. The big limo came to an almost immediate halt and Joaquin thrust open the door and sprang out.
‘Joaquin!’ Lucy gasped. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I need some fresh air,’ he gritted in a driven undertone, and closed the door on her again.
Fresh as opposed to the air she was polluting with her presence, she translated in a daze as the limousine pulled back into the traffic again. Joaquin vanished into the busy crowds of Christmas shoppers. She looked at her watch. They had been married for forty-five minutes. She blinked and slowly filled her lungs with oxygen again.