by Lynne Graham
‘Dios mio, querida…I can’t wait,’ Leandro confessed in a throaty growl of impatience.
Her excitement was at an unbearable height when he pulled her to him and began to push into her wet, silky depths. The pleasure was so intense for her that she cried out. He stole the sound with his mouth. And then he was moving, driving his thick, virile shaft into her, satisfying the hollow ache that had tormented her with the energising force and rhythm of his masculine need. She rocked up to receive him and he pushed a hand below her bottom to hold her there while he ground into her with ravenous hunger.
‘Nothing has ever felt this good,’ Leandro groaned with earthy satisfaction, scorching golden eyes welded to her as he took and gave pleasure, a faint sheen of sweat dampening his lean, bronzed face.
The waves of excitement came closer and closer together until her awareness exploded into a world of searing light and ecstatic sensation. Her whole body clenched in the melting throes of her climax and he shuddered over her and thrust deeper still so that the rapturous tremors quivering through her went on and on and left her drowning in hot, sweet pleasure.
‘Hmm.’ Leandro growled, rolling back on the pillows and lifting her over him. ‘In bed you’re absolute perfection,’ he confided in a tone thick with male satisfaction.
Her arms easing round him while she revelled in the kisses he was stringing across her brow, Molly wondered how she really felt about that particular compliment. She supposed sex was the true single source of her attraction and, whether she liked it or not, a very important component in the future success of their marriage. She supposed it was unrealistic and greedy for her to want more than that from a guy who she felt was rather out of her league when it came to looks and success.
‘I’d like to stay here for hours, but it won’t be long until we land. A helicopter will fly us to the castle, where I know my family will be waiting to meet you,’ Leandro advanced without any audible enthusiasm.
Molly’s head shot up, tousled black curls almost standing on end. ‘What castle?’ she gasped.
‘My home.’
‘You live in a…castle?’ Molly prompted in a panic. ‘And I’m going to meet your family immediately?’
Leandro watched in astonishment as his bride leapt free of him and off the bed. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Look at me!’ she launched at him in dismay as she caught her reflection in a mirrored wardrobe. ‘I’m a mess and what am I going to wear?’
‘Your cases are here-’
‘But I don’t know what to wear in a castle.’ Molly studied him with fierce resentment, because she hated the feeling that she was out of her depth and the casually proffered news that he lived in a castle had driven that fact home hard enough to hurt.
Still stark naked, she threw herself at one of the cases and tried to haul it off the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ Leandro sprang up to snatch the suitcase off her and lift it on to the bed. ‘Don’t try to lift anything that heavy.’
On her knees on the carpet, she was fumbling for her keys in the little Dorothy bag she had carried to the church. Leandro draped his shirt over her shoulders, where it hung like a tent round her tiny frame.
‘What am I going to wear?’ she gasped strickenly, rooting with desperate hands through a pile of casual garments in bright colours. ‘I don’t have anything fancy.’
‘I sent you shopping,’ Leandro reminded her, as if he could not credit the idea that a woman might not take the fullest possible advantage of such an opportunity.
‘But I didn’t buy much because I’m pregnant,’ she told him in frustration. ‘In a few weeks nothing normalsized will fit me and I’ll have to buy maternity stuff, so I decided not to waste money.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you wear,’ Leandro said in an attempt to calm her down.
Molly selected a cerise and black polka dot summer dress. ‘Would this do?’
‘Whatever you wear will be fine. You’re my wife and you don’t have anyone to impress within our home.’
Molly was touched by that assurance, but he had been born to life in a castle and she was apprehensive about meeting his family and did not want to make a bad first impression. ‘It’s not that simple.’
Leandro closed firm hands over her restless ones to force her to look up at him. ‘It is.’
When she redid her make-up, she thought that her flattened, somewhat messy curls and swollen mouth were dead giveaways to the fact that she might just have got out of bed with her husband. Her dress was very casual and in no way impressive. Before they boarded the helicopter she studied Leandro in the act of turning his handsome face up in welcome to the heat of the Spanish sunshine. Well-cut black silk hair in faultless order, he looked infuriatingly immaculate in appearance.
And even though she had told herself that she was prepared for a castle, she was certainly not in any way prepared for the vast building that filled her view as the helicopter swooped in low to land. Leandro’s castle was the genuine article, complete with turrets, towers and medieval walls. It sat on a hill surrounded by extensive landscaped gardens and overlooked a fertile valley covered with woods and olive groves.
‘No wonder you think the sun rises and sets on you,’ Molly breathed, no longer marvelling at the level of his self-assurance. ‘Who on earth are all those people waiting at the entrance?’
‘Our staff. Our marriage is a major event for the household and everyone will want to welcome you to your new home and wish you well.’
Molly was convinced that she could only be a disappointment. Conscious of the barrage of curious eyes nailed to her, she curled herself in by Leandro’s side. ‘They’re all staring,’ she hissed behind teeth arranged into a fixed smile.
‘Probably because they think I robbed the cradle for you,’ Leandro breathed wryly.
But that was the least of the hurdles Molly was about to face. A few steps in through the very grand entrance hall hung with giant paintings and life-size pieces of marble sculpture, she was greeted by Leandro’s mother, a tall, older woman with silvering dark hair and cold eyes. Wearing a formal suit, she was accompanied by two younger women, dressed rather like her clones. Introductions were performed and the atmosphere grew no warmer. Doña Maria and her daughters, Estefania and Julieta, simply stared woodenly at Molly while she struggled to voice friendly words of greeting and behave as though she hadn’t noticed that anything was lacking in her welcome. Goodness, she certainly hoped they were not all going to be sharing the same roof.
Leandro was astonished when he strode into the crowded salon where a formal reception appeared to be in full swing. He saw faces he hadn’t seen in ten or twenty years. His mother had assembled every relation they possessed right down to distant cousins to provide an intimidating line up for his bride.
‘Is this the party you mentioned?’ Molly whispered, feeling horrendously underdressed when she compared the other women’s elegant formal wear and glittering jewellery to her own casual appearance.
‘No, this is only the extended family circle. I’m sorry. I had no idea this was planned.’
Viewing the packed room, Molly swallowed hard, but tilted her chin. She had to ask, she simply had to. ‘Does your mother live with you?’
‘No, she bases herself in Seville these days and makes occasional visits.’ Leandro rested an arm at her spine and guided her round to perform introductions. Many of the guests spoke English, but few had a strong enough grasp of the language for a relaxing conversation. Molly realised that if she intended to fit in, she needed to acquire a working knowledge of Spanish as quickly as possible.
‘I have to learn Spanish fast,’ she informed Leandro in a lull between the excruciatingly polite conversations. ‘Obviously you’re not always going to be around to act as my interpreter. Do you know anyone who would be willing to teach me?’
‘I’ll organise it. Learning even a little Spanish would make it easier for you to settle in.’ Leandro looked down at her and smiled in appreci
ation. As his lean, darkly handsome face shed all cool and reserve she was spellbound by the change in him and her luminous green eyes locked to him.
His sister Julieta came up and said something to him. ‘A phone call,’ he told Molly. ‘I’ll try not to be long, querida.’
‘Dios mio!’ the pretty brunette murmured, treating Molly’s absorbed face to an assessing appraisal and then laughing. ‘The way you look at Leandro! You’re actually in love with my brother.’
Hot colour drenched Molly’s cheeks and she was about to argue with that statement when it occurred to her that, as Leandro’s bride, it might be wiser for her to keep quiet on that score. Was there some particular way she looked at him? Embarrassment claimed her.
Away from her intimidating mother, Julieta was a different girl. She lifted two glasses from a passing tray and offered one to Molly with a friendly smile.
‘I can’t drink,’ Molly responded with an apologetic grimace.
‘Sorry…I forgot you were preggers,’ the attractive brunette confided in perfect colloquial English. ‘We’re all still in shock about that. It took you five minutes to achieve what Aloise couldn’t manage in five years!’
That one illuminating sentence satisfied Molly’s curiosity on several scores. Her husband’s first marriage had lasted five years and his wife, Aloise, had failed to conceive. Did that history explain why Leandro had been so convinced that Molly wouldn’t fall pregnant? She rather thought it did.
‘Come and meet Fernando,’ Julieta urged, tugging at her elbow. ‘He’s younger and more fun.’
Fernando Santos was the estate manager and a handsome athletic young man in his late twenties. Julieta got very giggly and juvenile with him and the couple exchanged jokes, until Doña Maria sternly beckoned her daughter back to her side from the other side of the room.
‘Are you the person I should ask if there is a vacant shed I could use to house a pottery kiln?’ Molly enquired hopefully, glancing in Leandro’s direction and wondering why her husband was staring fixedly at her just at that moment.
‘Yes, Your Excellency. There may well be a suitable building in the old farmyard,’ Fernando replied. ‘We had to build new sheds for the agricultural machinery and several are now vacant.’
‘Call me Molly,’ Molly suggested. A sunny smile of satisfaction wreathed her animated features at the knowledge that there was no longer a day job preventing her from fulfilling her artistic ambitions and doing what she really wanted to do with her time.
Brown eyes resting admiringly on her vivacious face, Fernando gave her an apologetic look. ‘That would cause offence to your new family. You’re the duke’s wife and the traditional formalities are carefully upheld on the estate.’
‘It’s going to take some getting used to,’ Molly sighed.
‘But I can speak for the whole staff when I tell you that we are all pleased that His Excellency has remarried,’ the young Spaniard told her warmly.
Leandro joined them at that point and Fernando became conspicuously less chatty. Leandro seemed very cool and distant. Following a conversation about the olive groves, carried out in English apparently for her benefit, Leandro walked her out onto the spacious landing. Molly glanced up at him and then stiffened, forewarned by the black ice chill of his dark gaze and the forbidding tension of his lean, powerful face that something was wrong.
‘Keep your distance from Fernando Santos,’ Leandro breathed with cutting cool. ‘Although he is an exemplary employee, he has a sleazy reputation with women and it will do you no good to be seen to enjoy his company to such an extent.’
Thoroughly taken aback by that unexpected rebuke, Molly said, ‘What on earth are you trying to suggest?’
‘That you don’t flirt with him and do maintain a formal distance with him when you meet.’
Furious resentment snaked through Molly’s tense figure. ‘I wasn’t flirting. For goodness’ sake, we were only talking for a few minutes,’ she protested in a vehement undertone. ‘I didn’t have you picked as the jealous type, but thanks for the warning!’
Equally taken aback by that wrathful retaliation, Leandro froze. Aggrieved gold flashed into his intent gaze. ‘I have never been jealous in my life,’ he asserted with freezing dignity. ‘But your behaviour was attracting attention-’
‘On my wedding day? When I’m carrying your child? Is it everyone round here who’s crazy or just you?’ Molly raised a disbelieving brow and stalked away from him in high dudgeon.
A shudder of steely self-restraint raked through Leandro’s big, powerful frame. She was a tiny figure in a bright dress that clung to her firm, rounded curves at breast and hip and skimmed slender thighs that led down into flawless legs. His teeth gritted. He resisted the urge to drag her back and make her listen to him. She liked male company and men liked her. He knew how close she was to Jez Andrews. Her best friend was a man, not a woman, and he was not comfortable with that fact. Another man might easily misinterpret her easy smiles and friendliness as an invitation. She also seemed blissfully unaware of how very sexy she was even in that polka-dot dress, which looked as though it would be more at home on a beach…
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE following morning, Molly knocked on the communicating door in her bedroom and waited, shifting off one foot onto the other. When there was no answer she opened it and she saw yet another terrifyingly imposing bedroom containing huge ornate furniture that looked as if it had been designed a good few centuries ago. It seemed all the more intimidating when set against its backdrop of gilded paneled walls. She breathed in deep. Maybe she should have been prepared for Leandro’s absence, she told herself ruefully.
After all, she had slept alone. Alone on her wedding night. While it was true that they had consummated their marriage on board his jet, she had not expected to be left by herself. But then she had not expected separate bedroom suites either, had she? Last night she had drifted off to sleep while she waited for him in solitary splendour. A maid had awoken her with breakfast in bed. It was only while she was getting dressed and chose to investigate further that the truth finally sank in on her: the dressing-room closets contained only her clothes and a door in her vast bedroom connected with his.
A knock sounded on her bedroom door and Julieta walked in. ‘Oh, good, you’re up. Leandro has asked me to take you shopping for a dress for the party tonight-’
‘Where is he?’ Molly asked.
His sister looked surprised by the question. ‘At the bank, of course.’
Married one day, back to work the next, Molly reflected. Her soft mouth tightened because she refused to give way to the feeling that he had abandoned her. After all, she wasn’t a child and she might be in a strange environment, but she would soon get used to it. She would manage fine without him. By the looks of it, she didn’t have much choice.
Julieta chattered all the way downstairs about where they were going to go shopping, while Molly scanned her lavish surroundings with all the apprehension of an ordinary person suddenly waking up to find themselves lost in a royal palace. But the instant her insecurity was ready to rise, she crushed it flat and refused to acknowledge those feelings. Leandro’s castle was where she was going to bring her baby up and the last thing her child needed was a mother who lacked self-esteem. As they reached the foot of the stairs a middle-aged manservant addressed both women in Spanish.
‘Basilio says that my mother would like a word with you before we go out,’ Julieta translated, showing Molly into an elegant sitting room where Doña Maria awaited her.
‘Molly…’ The tall older woman greeted her with an acerbic smile. ‘Leandro asked me to have a word with you about the household arrangements. He doesn’t think you’ll be up to taking charge immediately, so I agreed to continue the job until you feel able.’
Faced with that vote of no confidence from her bridegroom while at the same time wondering exactly what came under the heading of household arrangements, Molly felt cornered and cut off at the knees. ‘Right,’ she sa
id uncertainly.
‘Dealing with the staff and the catering for a house as large as this one is a complex task,’ Doña Maria pointed out. ‘Aloise had the benefit of growing up in a similar home and knew exactly what was required. Basilio is also an excellent major-domo. He has to be. Leandro expects the castillo to run like clockwork.’
With a bright smile that refused to betray an ounce of nervous tension, Molly lifted her chin. ‘I’m sure I’ll rise to the challenge. My experience in catering will help.’
‘I’m impressed by your confidence.’
Fed up with the woman’s subtle put-downs, Molly lifted her head high to say, ‘I can understand that your son’s sudden marriage has come as a shock to you and I have no wish to fall out with you. But this is my home now and I intend to adjust to the way of life here because I want our child to be happy-’
‘But you will never be the wife whom Leandro needs! Aloise was the love of his life and irreplaceable. You will never belong here as she did. You can only be an embarrassment to my son. A waitress!’ the dowager duchesa exclaimed with a contemptuous sound of disgust. ‘I know that you threw yourself at Leandro from the first moment you saw him-’
‘Where on earth did you get that idea from?’ Molly cut in, anger betraying her determination to stay firmly in control whatever the provocation.
‘Krystal Forfar is one of my oldest friends. She witnessed your first meeting with Leandro and saw you for what you are-a scheming, gold-digging little tramp!’
Cut to the bone by the older woman’s abuse, Molly was rigid. ‘I gather you’re the anonymous party behind the financial offer that was made to me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Doña Maria proclaimed, her stare unflinching.
But Molly was convinced she had found the culprit and saw no point in further dispute. Having decided to reject her son’s bride sight unseen, Doña Maria was all the more bitter for being forced to accept her as a daughter-in-law.