One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  ‘Friends.’ He paused to consider the word and then gave her a smile that made her breath catch in her throat. ‘And sleeping partners. Although I think it fair to say that neither of us gets much sleep. Would you agree, querida?’

  It was pointless to deny it when she was practically melting beneath him. ‘Yes.’ She swallowed at the lambent warmth in his gaze, and watched as he slowly lowered his head until with a low murmur she closed the gap between them and brushed her lips over his. For a moment he allowed her to control the kiss, but as the fire built he became all intense, dominant male, and claimed her mouth with a drugging sensuality that left her weak with longing.

  ‘Javier…’ Her lips grazed his throat as she whispered his name, but she made no move to stop him when he slid the strap of her nightdress over her shoulder, exposing one small, creamy breast to his hungry gaze. His lips trailed a leisurely path down to the valley between her breasts as he tugged the other strap down, and when her breast spilled into his hand he bent over her and stroked his tongue across her nipple before drawing it fully into his mouth.

  The sensation was so intense that she moaned and twisted her hips in a restless invitation, her mind shuttered to anything but the driving need for him to touch her in the intimate place between her legs. She made no demur when he pushed her nightgown over her hips, but when he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her matching lace knickers a tremor ran through her and she tensed.

  ‘You want me, Grace,’ Javier muttered, his accent so pronounced that she had to concentrate on his words. ‘Who needs love when we share a passion as deep and intense as this?’

  ‘I do.’ She closed her eyes on a wave of despair at the impotent frustration in his. ‘You’re skilled in the art of seduction, Javier—no doubt you’ve had a lot of practice,’ she said bleakly. ‘You press all the right buttons and I want you so much it hurts. But without love and trust what would we have, other than a few moments of empty pleasure?

  ‘Take my body if you want!’ she cried when the bunched muscles of his shoulders and the harshness of his expression warned that he was close to losing his self-control. ‘I couldn’t stop you if I tried, we both know that. But you would demolish what little self-respect I have left, after the things I’ve done recently.’

  ‘What things?’ Javier demanded savagely. ‘Grace, are you ashamed of marrying me?’ He reared back as if she had slapped him.

  ‘I’m not proud of lying,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Making false promises in the chapel that I knew I would never keep. But I love my father more than anyone in the world. He should never have stolen all that money from you, but I understand why he did it. He’d suffered enough losing my mother, and my pride was a small price to pay when it meant that he was free from the threat of a prison sentence.’

  ‘You have more principle than a whole convent of nuns,’ Javier growled sarcastically. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing that I’m going away for a while.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and thrust his arms into his robe before striding over to the en suite.

  ‘Away? Where?’

  ‘Madrid. I have a series of meetings at the bank’s head office and a number of social invitations that suddenly look like a lot more fun than staying here with you.’

  ‘Won’t your friends think it strange if you turn up alone?’ Grace snapped, stung by his bitter contempt. ‘I thought we were supposed to be fostering the illusion that we’re a couple of lovebirds.’

  ‘I’ll think of an excuse for your absence—tell them you’re ill or something,’ he told her indifferently. ‘Although I suppose there’s a danger that they’ll believe you’re pregnant. Little do they know it would be the Immaculate Conception,’ he muttered sardonically. ‘Anyway, I won’t be alone; Lucita’s coming with me. She’s persuaded her father that it’s time she hit Madrid’s social scene,’ he added when Grace’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘And you’ve been appointed her babysitter?’ She forced her voice to sound disinterested, but inside she was a seething mass of confused emotions. ‘How trying for you.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll survive—at least Lucita knows how to enjoy herself.’

  ‘I bet she does,’ Grace said grittily, remembering how the stunning Spanish girl had flirted outrageously with Javier at a dinner party they’d attended recently. ‘Isn’t she a little young for you?’

  ‘Why, querida, I could almost believe you’re jealous.’ Javier paused in the doorway of the bathroom and gave her a bland smile.

  ‘Well I’m not, so don’t flatter yourself,’ she told him waspishly. ‘I shall look forward to a bit of peace and quiet when you’ve gone, so don’t hurry back.’

  Two weeks later Grace dismally acknowledged that Javier seemed to be in no tearing rush to return to the castle. His excuse was an unexpectedly heavy workload—problems at the bank’s head office—and certainly he’d sounded tired on the few occasions he’d phoned her. But perhaps his exhaustion and reluctance to come home were for other reasons? Twice she had telephoned his Madrid apartment—on a flimsy excuse that she’d spent ages thinking up—only to have her call answered by a woman whose sensual, exotic accent caused jealousy to eat away at her like acid.

  It had not been Lucita—the sexy voice had definitely belonged to a sophisticated woman of the world rather than a teenager. So who had Javier been entertaining in his bachelor pad at almost ten p.m.—one of his ex-mistresses? She should have plucked up the courage to ask him, Grace told herself impatiently, rather than slamming the phone down and spending another sleepless night imagining him making love to some stunning beauty in his bedroom with the mirrored ceiling.

  She didn’t understand why she was so upset, she told Luca. Like her, Javier’s dog was also pining for his master, and he followed Grace around the castle like a faithful shadow. Now he padded over and laid his big head in her lap, looking up at her with his unblinking black eyes.

  ‘I don’t care what he gets up to, or who he’s with,’ she told the dog fiercely. But she had a feeling that Luca knew she was lying. The castillo was a quiet and sombre place without the Duque, and now that he was gone she realised just how much time they had spent together. ‘Is it so wrong to admit that I miss him?’ she whispered, burying her face in Luca’s silky coat. ‘But if I feel like this now, how much worse will I feel when our marriage ends?’ Luca licked her hand sympathetically and she patted him. ‘I’m not in love with him,’ she told the animal seriously. ‘I just can’t stop thinking about him, that’s all.’

  It was another three days before she heard the whir of Javier’s helicopter as it came in low over the mountains. Standing in the garden, Grace shielded her eyes with her hand to watch it land and then, on impulse, fled upstairs to change out of her shorts and tee shirt into one of the elegant day dresses that filled her wardrobe. Her fingers were shaking as she untied her hair so that it fell loose around her shoulders. She didn’t want to look as though she’d made an effort, she told herself sternly, but couldn’t resist applying a touch of lipgloss to her mouth and spraying her wrists liberally with perfume.

  Javier was home and suddenly even the ancient stone walls of the castle seemed to be smiling. As she hurried through the front door she saw him striding across the courtyard, and was unprepared for the effect the sight of him had on her. Her heart seemed to stop beating and then started again at twice its normal pace. Butterflies were dancing in her stomach and her hands were clammy as her greedy eyes absorbed the harsh beauty of his face.

  She’d missed him so much, she thought weakly, pausing in the shadowed porch while she sought to gain some kind of control over her emotions. He glanced up and saw her, and his mouth curved into a devastating smile that blew her good intentions to the four winds.

  ‘Javier!’ She raced down the steps, barely aware of the delivery van backing up the drive, but from the corner of her eye she caught a streak of black shooting out from the side entrance and she screamed, ‘Luca—no!’

  The sickening thud and Luca’s ag
onising howl sounded simultaneously. Grace swung her horrified gaze from the sight of the dog, lying unmoving beneath the wheels of the van, to Javier, and the expression on his face made her want to weep. How could she have ever thought him heartless? she wondered. He’d once told her that he didn’t believe in love, but now she had proof that he’d been lying. For a few seconds she’d glimpsed raw pain, fear and the abiding affection he felt for his faithful companion in his eyes, before he’d controlled his emotions and hurried over to Luca. For a man who had received so little love in his life, he had so much to give—but his childhood had made him wary and mistrustful and rather than risk being hurt yet again he’d lavished all his affection on his dog who loved him unconditionally in return.

  ‘Tell Torres to call the vet,’ he rasped when she stumbled over to where he was kneeling beside the dog. ‘And hurry; he’s losing a lot of blood.’

  For the next few hours Grace could do nothing other than pray for Javier’s beloved pet to be spared. She would do anything, give up everything she held dear, if it meant that Luca lived. She would do anything to see Javier smile again.

  The thought slotted into her brain like the missing piece of a jigsaw and suddenly everything made perfect sense. She loved him. That’s why every day he’d been away had seemed endlessly long and grey, despite the brilliance of the late summer sunshine. Without Javier she only felt half alive. Somehow, without her being aware of it, he had become her sun and moon and her reason for greeting each day with a smile on her face.

  It wasn’t just lust, she acknowledged shakily as she paced the rose garden. On their honeymoon he’d taunted her that he was the only man to turn her on, and she couldn’t deny it. Javier evoked feelings and wicked, wicked thoughts that she still found shocking, but he was the only man to bring her to the edge of ecstasy—the only man she had ever wanted with every fibre of her being.

  Seeing him today with Luca, she finally realised that her feelings for him went far beyond physical desire. She wanted to hold him and protect him from hurt. She wanted to love him with her body and her soul. It was thanks to Javier that her father wasn’t spending the next few years in prison, and although they had both gained from their marriage contract he had treated her with respect and consideration.

  It was no accident that his staff were devoted to him. Beneath his façade of haughty arrogance she had discovered him to be kind and charming, with a hot-blooded passion that made her ache for him.

  But on their wedding day Javier had told her not to look for things that didn’t exist—a warning that he could never love her. Back then she’d believed him to be as hard and impenetrable as the walls of the castle and just because she’d glimpsed a chink in his armour was no reason to hope he would ever come to view their marriage as anything more than a temporary business contract, she reminded herself bleakly.

  Right now, the only thing on his mind was Luca. He would be in no mood to deal with her emotions. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass Javier or herself by revealing her feelings for him and so, taking a deep breath, she walked back into the castle.

  Luca had suffered a fractured leg, multiple bruising and, as happened with so many injured animals, had slipped into a state of shock, Javier explained when Grace joined him in the huge, stone-floored kitchen. It had taken both Javier and Torres to carry the dog into the castle and the vet had been reluctant to move him again. Instead the medic had tended to Luca’s injuries and administered a strong sedative and now they could only wait and hope that he would survive.

  ‘The next twenty-four hours are crucial, but the vet is confident he’ll recover,’ he told her grimly, his expression shuttered.

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ Grace murmured fervently as she knelt beside Javier and gently stroked the unconscious animal. ‘I know how much you care for him,’ she said thickly, tears stinging her eyes when she recalled his devastation at the moment of the accident.

  She felt him tense and then he caught hold of her chin and tilted her face so that he could look into her eyes. ‘Sometimes I think you know too much about me, Grace. I feel those deep blue eyes looking into my soul and laying bare my secrets.’

  ‘I don’t want there to be secrets between us,’ she whispered, mesmerised by the intensity of his gaze. ‘You’re my husband—although you seem to have forgotten that fact these past few weeks.’ She recalled the seductive voice of the woman at his apartment and swallowed. Now was not the time to reveal her irrational jealousy.

  ‘You think I could forget you?’ His beautiful mouth curved into a half-smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I wish I could, querida, but the truth is I’ve spent every waking minute thinking about you and every night dreaming that you were lying next to me, your face so close to mine that if I turned my head my lips would brush against yours…Like this.’

  His mouth moved over hers slowly, sweetly, as if he wanted to savour the moment after all the days they’d spent apart. This was where she wanted to be, Grace thought simply as she wound her arms around his neck and held him close. She parted her lips and responded to his kiss with tender passion, wanting to comfort him after the trauma of witnessing Luca lying beneath the wheels of the truck.

  ‘You should try and sleep,’ she murmured when he finally lifted his head and she noted the lines of strain around his eyes.

  ‘Not tonight—I want to sit with Luca in case he stirs.’

  ‘Well at least take a few minutes to shower and have something to eat—I’ll sit with him, and I promise I’ll call you if there’s any change in his condition.’ They were still kneeling on the floor beside Luca’s basket, but now Javier stood and drew her to her feet and she felt his lips brush softly against her brow.

  ‘Grace, I don’t deserve your gentleness,’ he said huskily. ‘You’re the one who should get some sleep—you’re flying to England tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you mean you’re sending me away? But why?’ she faltered as her imagination leapt into overdrive. Was he sick of her and her principles and wanted her out of the way so that he could bring his mistress to the castle?

  ‘It’s only for a week.’ His brows lowered in a puzzled frown at her obvious distress. ‘I know how much you miss your father and I’d arranged for us both to visit him, but I can’t leave Luca like this.’

  ‘Of course not, but we could postpone the trip until he’s better.’ Relief flooded through Grace and she offered him a tentative smile.

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that it’s Angus’s birthday in a few days. When I spoke to your aunt, she told me how much he’s looking forward to seeing you.’ Javier smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘You can’t let him down, querida.’

  No, she couldn’t let him down, Grace acknowledged, but if she was honest her mind had been so full of Javier that she had forgotten all about her father’s birthday. ‘When do I leave?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Early tomorrow. You’d better go to bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.’

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, but as she reached the door the sound of his voice halted her.

  ‘Grace! You will come back?’ The expression in his eyes was unfathomable, but she noted the faint colour delineating his sharp cheekbones.

  ‘Of course I will,’ she promised softly. ‘We made a deal—remember?’

  But the question of how she would live without him when their marriage contract expired tormented her for the rest of the night, and when Torres drove her away from the castle the next morning she couldn’t hide her unhappiness.

  Autumn had obviously decided to pay an early visit to England’s south coast, Grace decided on the fifth day of leaden skies and torrential rain. She stared out of the window of Aunt Pam’s guesthouse at the flooded lawn, and thought wistfully of the exotic palms and grasses that thrived in the gardens of El Castillo de Leon.

  She couldn’t wait to go back, she admitted, although her impatience had little to do with Granada’s warm sunshine—she would happily live in the Arctic as long
as she was with Javier.

  ‘Checkmate!’ Angus Beresford announced happily, lifting his head to glance at her over the rims of his spectacles. ‘Something tells me your mind wasn’t fully on the game, sweetie.’

  ‘I’ve never been able to beat you at chess, Dad,’ Grace replied with a smile. ‘Mum was always a better opponent than me.’

  Angus was silent for a moment and then slowly returned her smile. ‘Yes, she could beat me hollow, bless her.’

  Grace caught her breath. It was practically the first time since Susan Beresford’s death that she’d been able to bring her name into the conversation. Before, she had always avoided any mention of her mother for fear of sending her father into a deep depression that would last for days. But now, with the help of a bereavement counsellor, Angus was finally coming to terms with the loss of the woman he had fallen in love with at first sight.

  There was still a way to go, she realised as she leant forwards and kissed Angus on the cheek. He would continue to take medication for clinical depression for many months yet. Susan’s death had plunged him into the depths of despair, and for a little while he had truly lost his mind. There were still great gaps in his memory, and she was sure he recalled few details of his last year as manager of the bank, or his desperate attempts to deal with his escalating financial problems.

  She certainly wasn’t going to remind him, Grace thought protectively. Thanks to Javier, Angus was free from prosecution, he was no longer in debt and he was safe and cared for with Aunt Pam. She was determined that he would never learn the price she had paid for his freedom—a year of her life given to a man she despised.

  But of course she didn’t despise Javier, she acknowledged painfully. It was impossible to think she had ever hated him when her love for him filled her heart to overflowing.