Someone—anyone—to act as a buffer between her and Javier, the husband who didn’t want her, who almost certainly regarded what had happened between them as a deeply regrettable one-night stand and shuddered every time he thought about it.
But his firm hand beneath her elbow was guiding her to the foot of the sweeping marble staircase with its delicate iron-work bannisters and he was telling her, ‘On my instructions Teresa’s gone back to her home in the village. Manuel, too. Honeymooning couples need to be alone, wouldn’t you say?’
Zoe tripped over her own feet as the breath whooshed out of her lungs at that cynical statement. This honeymooning couple needed to be alone so that the hired staff wouldn’t be tempted to gossip about how unloverlike they actually were!
Misery and shame overwhelmed her. If she hadn’t enthusiastically encouraged him to bed her they wouldn’t be in this weird situation! And she wouldn’t have to be pretending that she could take it in her stride when in reality she felt as if her heart were shattering.
Suddenly, the elegant staircase looked like a sheer cliff face. Zoe’s buckled knees began to shake. Shooting her an amused look from heavily veiled smoky eyes, Javier swept her up into his arms before she could fully collect herself and carried her up the stairs with no effort at all, tutting mildly when she squirmed and huffed, ‘Put me down!’ as they approached the open arched doorway of the magnificent master bedroom.
‘It’s tradition. The groom carries his bride over the threshold.’
Desperately trying not to let her body’s instinctive response to his reveal itself as he slowly slid her down his impressive length and settled her prone upon the bed, she immediately came back with a raspingly breathless, ‘There’s no one around to applaud your performance, so you needn’t have risked a hernia!’
She was wallowing in the fallout of her own shame. That night had been so special to her, just a horrendous mistake as far as he was concerned. And as if to emphasise that embarrassing fact he stepped smartly back from the bed as if he didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
Scrambling into a sitting position—no way was she just going to lie where he’d put her, like an invitation he would never dream of accepting, ever again—she pouted. ‘In case you’d forgotten, we’ve been married for almost a year, so I’m hardly a “bride”. So all that carrying over the threshold is just a sick joke. You never carried me over anything before.’
A sick, hurtful joke, a mockery of everything she’d hoped this marriage would be. Tears stung at the backs of her eyes. She willed them not to fall and swallowed convulsively, her head downbent, her fingers knotted together, her poor heart getting another mangling when Javier mused softly, ‘I remember what must have been the last time I carried you. You were ten years old and had spent an entire Sunday racing around the zoo, trying to see everything at once. You were too tired to make it back to the car. You fell instantly asleep in my arms. It was as if someone had switched you off. I remember thinking what a cute scrap you were, in spite of those long, gawky legs and dirty little face!’
He backed off doorwards, clipped practicality to the fore, as if he was wondering where that soppy memory had come from. ‘Have a shower and a nap. Teresa unpacked for you so you’ll find your gear in the dressing room. We’ll have a late supper.’ Leaving her to remember how the seeds for an adult love had been sown in the child she had been in the days when he had been like a big brother, caring and kind, the nicest, most wonderful person she knew.
Slotting the arched wood into the doorframe with exaggerated care, Javier gritted his teeth and pulled a long hiss of breath into his lungs. It had been a close-run thing. He only had to look at her to want her, his body threatening to take control and blow his cerebral plans to smithereens.
When he’d made love to her from the starting point of the possessive anger he’d not known he was remotely capable of he’d experienced the most mind-blowing event of his life. She’d been spectacular, a fast and eager learner. He knew he would only have to go back into that room and take her in his arms, kiss her, to instigate the repeat performance his whole body was aching for.
Even now the temptation to stride straight back into the bedroom was eating into his brain like acid, slyly telling him that she was his wife, that they’d already made love, that she’d proved beyond all possible doubt that she was highly sexed and passionate, and that denying himself another slice of that heaven was a ridiculous sacrifice.
But something else had happened that night, hadn’t it? He stalked towards the stairs, through the house, out to the swimming pool, dragging his T-shirt over his head as he went.
Love had happened. It might have slammed into his brain like a sledgehammer at the time but with sober hindsight he recognised that it had been growing for over a year.
Shedding his shorts, he dived into the cool green waters, his lean, powerful muscles taut with frustration. Throughout the long years he had known Zoe she had engendered every emotion known to man. Delight, exasperation, compassion, caring, anger, possessive jealousy. And now love, the mother and father of all emotions. Love, deep, passionate and unblinkered. He knew her faults—that she could be head-strong and stubborn—and he knew her strong points, her liveliness and generosity of spirit. The way she walked, the way she smiled—he adored everything about her. For the first time in his life he was totally and irredeemably hooked.
His jawline grim, he powered through the water, burning all that edgy energy, scornful now of his pofaced, blinkered behaviour when he’d so nobly decided to propose an unconsummated marriage to keep her out of the clutches of the likes of Sherman. Not allowing himself to acknowledge that he’d wanted her for himself because he’d been in love with her.
Prat!
Now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Wanting to take that beautiful face between his hands and kiss that lush mouth until she quivered with wanton anticipation, peel the clothes from her lovely body and pleasure her until they were both damn near expiring from sexual overload.
But knowing that he mustn’t. Couldn’t. Shouldn’t. He had never had any trouble getting any woman he wanted—in fact he’d perfected the knack of fighting them off, and that, instead of stoking his ego, had begun to bore him.
Zoe was different. He was diving deeper and deeper in love with her with every passing second. He had to teach her to love him back, to want to spend the rest of her life with him, have his children—
He groaned, increased the pace of his furious strokes, churning the erstwhile placid water. His selfishness appalled him. What he wanted shouldn’t be the main issue here, not while his poor darling was worrying herself silly over the possibility of pregnancy.
She had a whole lot of living to do before she settled down to the responsibility of motherhood and he knew she was troubled and edgily anxious. Hadn’t he witnessed her reaction, the way she’d snapped and brought up the troubled subject when in answer to her question he’d replied, ‘As long as it takes.’ Meaning, of course, that the length of their stay here was dependent on the time it took for him to make her love him just half as much as he adored her.
Trouble was, he conceded heavily, no one could make Zoe do anything she didn’t want to do.
The rock and the hard place expanded to massive proportions.
Edgy, Zoe couldn’t settle. And as for taking a nap as Javier had so coolly suggested, it was completely out of the question.
Opting for the huge sunken bath in the spacious en suite as likely to be potentially more relaxing than the power shower, she’d lain in the perfumed hot water staring at the creamy marble walls, the glass shelves bearing expensive essences and lotions, the shiny green leaves of the potted plants, for around five minutes until her fraught emotions had driven her right out again.
What was Javier doing?
That he was here, somewhere around, but she couldn’t see or hear him, spooked her. He was a workaholic, she knew that. And she’d seen the bulging briefcase and the laptop, part of the copious
luggage he deemed necessary for their stay.
So he was probably in one or other of the air-conditioned sitting rooms, totally absorbed in some structural engineering project, while she was beating herself up over the unresolved situation they found themselves in. Man-like, he would be able to put it out of his mind, not wasting mental energy on a problem that couldn’t be solved until they knew whether or not she was pregnant.
Despising herself for being unable to do likewise, she entered the dressing room to find something to wear. Vast fitted hanging cupboards, two chests of drawers, an antique pier-glass.
Teresa had unpacked for her, so he’d told her. He’d also said ‘our room’, she remembered. The fine line of her arched brows drew together as her heart began a foolish gallop. Was he really expecting them to share a room, a bed?
Get real, she told herself forcefully before she could get too excited by that prospect and what it might mean. Teresa’s unpacking all their gear in the shared room would have been proposed to nip gossip in the bud, as had his decision to tell her and Manuel that their services would not be needed. The true state of their marriage had been kept from his parents, so he would want to guard against the likelihood of Teresa confiding in his mother that her son and daughter-in-law didn’t sleep together.
She dismissed that miserable thought. A rapid inspection revealed that the hanging cupboard on one side of the room contained just about every lightweight garment she owned, and a row of his stuff in the other—ranging from smart-casual right down to knockabout washed-out jeans and cut-offs.
Very His and Hers.
So, OK. He’d use the dressing room. But he would have no desire to share her bed. He’d use one of the others. You bet he would! Hadn’t he demonstrated that he had no wish to get any closer to her than inhabiting the same slab of the planet necessitated?
Snatching a turquoise silk wrap from the depths of the space allotted to her, she thrust her arms into it and savagely tied the sash around her waist. Javier was hateful! She didn’t know why she loved the brute! Didn’t he realise that she had feelings?
The brute who was filling her head to the exclusion of anything else appeared in the dressing-room doorway. Zoe felt his presence, so immediate and compelling, like a blow to her solar plexus and spun round to face him, the fine silk of her wrap clinging to her still-damp body.
Her face flushed feverishly. He was utterly, unfairly gorgeous, wearing just those low-slung shorts, his skin slicked with water, his dark hair clinging to his skull. And just for a moment she saw tension grip that sensational bone structure, his eyes narrowing as if to block out the unwelcome sight of her. And then it was gone, the beginnings of a politely impersonal, meaningless smile starting to deal with the savage line of his mouth.
And before he could come out with an equally meaningless pseudo pleasantry Zoe got a grip, not willing to let him guess how this game of manners was winding her up to the point of explosion. ‘You’ve been swimming,’ she cooed. ‘What a great idea!’ She bounced to the Hers chest of drawers, breathed a short but heartfelt sigh of gratitude as her hand fell on her favourite bikini.
Clutching it to her heaving breasts, she sped from the room at a speed that ensured she was able to keep an empty smile on her face before it could inevitably crumple into stifled sobs as soon as she hit the privacy of the outer corridor.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS USUAL Javier woke early, snapping awake as if he’d been plugged into a power circuit. His mind homing straight in on Zoe asleep in the master suite on the other side of the villa.
During the five days they’d been here he’d got exactly nowhere with his too-confident plan to softly persuade her to start believing that they could have a good life together, the best. He’d actually gone backwards, in his puzzled estimation. Of the Zoe he knew and had grown to love—the talkative, perky, sometimes stroppy, always vital, generous, intriguing minx he had known for most of her life—there had been no sign.
His ego-driven decision to make her change her mind about walking away from their marriage—showing her what a real nice guy he was, considerate and caring of her, undemanding and smothering his natural inclination to call all the shots, demonstrating that making love to her wasn’t the first and only thing on his agenda and hopefully rekindling something of her earlier, self-confessed love for him—wasn’t working. So he would have to jettison that approach and go for a more open strategy.
No matter how hard he’d tried to make her time here in Spain with him a truly enjoyable experience he’d come up against a solid brick wall. Every outing or new experience he’d suggested had been met with downswept eyes and a mute shake of her beautiful spun-gold head.
Once he’d made his mind up on a plan of action he always carried it through. This time it had back-fired on him big time. She spent most of her waking time in the little summerhouse deep in the garden, her pretty nose buried in a book, and all his attempts to discover what was troubling her—for something obviously was—had been met with a stubborn, ‘Nothing’. He wasn’t used to being thwarted. His dark brows thundered together as he contemplated this new experience.
Under the cold shower, one of the many he’d been forced to take while he’d been pussyfooting around the woman who only had to walk into the room to have his craving body leap to attention, he decided grimly that this unbearable stand-off had to end.
In the past Zoe had always been able to talk to him, about anything and everything, and he remembered with yet another shock that he disliked chattering women but that with Zoe it had always been different. He’d relished every word she’d ever said to him. If it was the last thing he did in this life he would get her confiding in him again, opening up about what was wrong with her.
It came to him as he pulled on a pair of denim cut-offs that she might actually be ill. The thought terrified him into snatching up a sleeveless T-shirt and dragging it over his head at speed.
No one could deny that there were dark shadows around those lovely eyes, a worrying pallor lying over her tense features and her normal healthy appetite had shrunk out of existence.
Javier had never felt distraught in the whole of his life and he was trying to deal with that unwelcome emotion when the thought that the reason for her withdrawal and unwell appearance could be down to worry struck him with the force of a runaway ten-ton truck.
Her fear of possible pregnancy!
His intention to make coffee and take a cup to her room forgotten, he froze on his feet at the foot of the staircase he’d descended at foolhardy speed.
All his fault.
She’d been all set to cut loose—she’d stated that all too clearly—leave him behind while she made her own life, found her own friends, and now she would be afraid that an unwelcome pregnancy would shatter all her plans for single-woman freedom.
Snapping around, Javier hared back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Convinced he now knew what her un-Zoe-like behaviour signified, he had the solution. He had to reassure her, remove all her fears and worries at a single stroke.
No question of the divorce she’d said she wanted, of course, that went without saying, but she had to know that if she was carrying his child she would have nothing to worry about. She would get the very best ongoing gynaecological attention that money could buy, and he, personally, would wrap her in cotton wool, cherish her, and the baby when he or she arrived would never know a moment’s neglect if she wanted to pursue her voluntary charity work because top-notch professional nannies would be employed around the clock.
Besides, he thought with a rush of warmth to the region of his heart, he would enjoy the experience of parenting and would take to it like a duck to water.
But whatever his wishes on that subject, Zoe came first and always would and she had to know that. He could not, would not, stand by, say nothing, while he watched her worry herself half to death!
As Zoe climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her body she knew she had to tell Javier and put
his mind at rest.
Today. She could delay it no longer. Keeping the news to herself for five whole days was desperately unfair; she knew that, and didn’t much like herself for such uncharacteristic sneakiness.
Catching sight of her miserably guilty face in the mirror, she looked away quickly. Black bags under her eyes and a complexion the shade of putty she did not want to have to see.
These last days had been torment. Javier had been at his kindest, astonishingly patient and gently affectionate, never seeming to mind when she turned down his invitations to go swimming, sailing, eating at a quayside restaurant where, he told her, the speciality lobster dish was out of this world.
And her eyes actually swam with tears when she recalled his gentleness when he’d asked her if anything was troubling her. The unhidden concern in those smoky eyes had made her heart ache.
She’d almost blurted the truth out then but the arrival of Teresa with the daily fresh provisions, the only few minutes of contact Javier allowed the housekeeper with the so-called honeymooning couple, had stopped her.
There wasn’t going to be a baby.
She’d known that since their first night here. And kept it to herself because her feelings were so horrendously mixed up she didn’t know what they actually were.
On the one hand she had secretly longed to have Javier’s baby and finding out that she wasn’t going to had been a source of really surprisingly deep regret. Yet if she had been pregnant she knew that he would have insisted that they stay married for the sake of their child, and not because he was madly in love with her and wanted her in his life for ever.
Heck no, she knew how his mind worked. He would grit his teeth and do his duty and she wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought that she was an unwelcome albatross around his neck.
And once she told him he could forget the pregnancy scare he would breathe one huge sigh of relief and the status quo would be firmly back in place. And in less than a year, just as soon as she reached her majority and he deemed her fit to handle her huge inheritance, he would consider his duty done and be off out of their marriage at the speed of light, gratefully embracing his new-found bachelor freedom.
A Spanish Marriage Page 10