A Spanish Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  Instinctively, desperately, Zoe kissed him back, fiery desire flooding through every inch of her body as she strained against him, tiny tremors racing through her veins as she clung, fingers lacing into the soft silkiness of his hair, lifting her hips provocatively against the all-male hardness of his. A low moan broke from her throat and then, without warning, he dropped his hands and stepped away from her.

  ‘I’ll see you safely inside,’ he virtually grated at her, avoiding the shocked widening of her fantastic golden eyes, just about loathing himself for having started something he couldn’t finish.

  Lifting the suitcase he’d abandoned on the pavement in one hand, Javier placed the other firmly on the small of her back, urging her into the driveway. His body felt as if it were on fire, burning for her, aching for her. One more second and he knew he’d have lost all hope of control, stripped her beautiful body naked on the pavement and made passionate love to her in full view of his driver and any passer-by. No other woman had ever brought him to the teetering brink of losing all control, but, oh, the things his Zoe did to him…!

  Glancing up at his tense profile, Zoe felt cold and abandoned, shivering as the sensation of nausea claimed her stomach. Why had he kissed her like that then pushed her away as if he disgusted himself?

  Or was her immediate and over-the-top eagerness in the response department what had disgusted him? Did he prefer his women to be more laid-back and coolly sophisticated where his sexual advances were concerned?

  His women! The image of Glenda Havers’ sultry face pinged into her mind. Was she, Zoe, just another female for him to slake his lust on? Was that all she meant to him? Was she already beginning to bore him?

  He’d certainly pulled out all the stops when it had come to grasping the excuse to get her out of his hair when they’d received the news of Grandmother Alice’s frail and fading condition. Hitching a ride in the helicopter, transferring to the company jet in Madrid, the car waiting at the airport to ferry them here—

  Oh, put a sock in it!

  Zoe gave herself a furious mental kick for her dreadful habit of putting the worst possible interpretation on everything he did. In getting her back to England before she could catch her breath he’d only been doing what he automatically did best—clicking his fingers and making things happen.

  And he’d had that fabulous selection of rings flown in for her, hadn’t he? How could she possibly forget that? Sometimes she really despised herself!

  Another savage mental kick had her deciding she was behaving like a mixed-up brat. Apart from her lost parents, no one had ever loved her, so she’d assumed no one ever would.

  Oliver had said he loved her, but she was clued-up enough to know that the only thing he loved was the thought of her future inheritance.

  And as for Javier—well, even employing positive thinking she just didn’t know! Not beyond a shadow of a doubt. Did he want their marriage to last beyond the two years he’d stipulated, or didn’t he?

  Her voice driven, she impressed, ‘Javier, we really do have to have that talk.’

  ‘Of course.’ Icy cool. He pressed his finger to the doorbell, his naturally powerful, dominant personality leading him to point out with impersonal factuality, ‘But not here, not now.’

  His gut clenched as he recalled the plans he’d made for this night. He wasn’t ready to lay his heart on the line for her in case it got trampled on, but he sure as hell had aimed to romance her, seduce her, make endless love to her until she became as addicted to him as he was to her and would forget her former intention to walk out of their marriage. Plans that would have to wait for another week before they could be put into the action he craved.

  Dire frustration made his voice curter than was polite when the door swung slowly open to reveal Miss Pilkington—if the housekeeper/companion had a Christian name he had never heard it—who said with horror, ‘You can’t come in at this time of night. She’ll know it’s not a normal visit.’

  ‘This isn’t the time for that kind of game,’ he countered immediately. ‘If Alice is fretting as much as you say she is, she’ll forget to be annoyed with you when she knows how quickly Zoe responded to your message.’

  Urging her over the threshold, impatience etched on every line of his darkly handsome features, he clipped out, ‘I’ll be at the London apartment, Zoe. Call me if you need anything at all.’

  The hand that lifted to caress the side of her lovely face, touch her soft, warm, silky skin, was quickly stuffed back in the pocket of his well-cut chinos. Touching her at all in the state he was in would be a bad mistake. His plans were shelved, end of story. Accept it. Why pile on more torment?

  With a brusque nod in no particular direction he swung on his heel before he found himself making an utter prat of himself and punching holes in the wall, leaving Zoe to watch his departure with bleak eyes, wondering if she would ever understand him.

  ‘Now are you sure you’re all right, Grandmother?’ Zoe had armed the old lady out into the sunlit garden and now settled the light woollen rug around her knees. Even under the circumstances of the new rapprochement the use of Granny, or, worse still, Gran would have brought a forbidding frown to those stern features.

  ‘Perfectly.’ Momentarily, those features softened as a gnarled old hand reached out to pat Zoe’s, and then, typically, she spoiled the moment by opining, ‘You’ve turned out to have a cool head on your shoulders. Your upbringing—which you know I’ve been feeling slightly uncomfortable about—didn’t do any damage, quite the contrary.’

  Zoe bit back the response that any improvement had been brought about by Javier’s taking over the responsibility for her when she’d been sixteen years old and as bolshie as they came.

  Let the old lady keep her illusions if they helped her! And the cool head she’d mentioned was a reference to the way her granddaughter had taken over, vetting and hiring a new housekeeper, an energetic widow in her fifties who wanted something to occupy her and was more than happy to live in, enabling her to sell the marital home and invest the proceeds for her retirement.

  That had left the ageing and grudgingly grateful Miss Pilkington to concentrate on the companion side of her duties, and against her grandmother’s wishes she’d called in her GP, who had given the old lady a lecture about not consulting him earlier and prescribed essential medication, which already seemed to be working well.

  All achieved in five hectic days. Her duty done, Zoe felt free to leave, free to go to Javier earlier than either of them had expected.

  Excitement bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t wait!

  They would have that delayed discussion about the future of their relationship. The suspense of not knowing had been giving her sleepless nights, tying her brain in knots.

  Slim fingers automatically touched the yellow diamond ring that had become a talisman of hope. She flashed a smile as her grandmother’s companion came out to sit with her charge.

  ‘I’ll make tracks now,’ she stated, trying not to look too insultingly over the moon at the prospect. She dropped a light kiss on her grandmother’s papery cheek. ‘I’ll keep in touch. Take care and don’t chicken out of your appointment next week for that thorough hospital check-up.’

  She felt so light-hearted she practically skipped over the smoothly manicured lawn to the house where her already-packed suitcase was waiting in the hall.

  Javier had proposed an empty marriage out of a wearisome sense of duty and had shown his complete lack of interest in it by his increasingly regular absences. But something had changed on the night they’d spent making frantic and utterly wonderful love to each other. Something really basic.

  He didn’t love her, not yet anyway; she knew that and had to be sensible and accept it. But even though it probably went against the grain with him, he did desire her. He wasn’t able to hide that. Couple that with his long-standing though sometimes sorely tried affection for her, add in her devoted love for him, and they could make a good, lasting marriage. He might even, gi
ven time, change his mind and want her to have his child.

  Her car was waiting for her on the driveway. Javier had had it delivered to her the day after he’d deposited her here. The note on the dashboard had stated, ‘I thought you might like to snatch half an hour of freedom now and then—drive carefully!’

  His thoughtfulness had warmed her heart to a rosy glow and that evening when she’d phoned the apartment to thank him no one had been home. He hadn’t been picking up his mobile, either, so she’d left a message, and in the hustle to get everything arranged here she hadn’t tried to contact him again.

  Stowing her suitcase on the back seat, she smiled wryly. Trust him to land her back with the granny-going-shopping job instead of the mightily disapproved-of Lotus sports! No matter, she was on her way back to him! She’d make the journey in a milk float, if she had to.

  Her smile for the janitor was still wreathing her face as Zoe used the security card that activated the lift to the London apartment. It was late afternoon and knowing Javier he wouldn’t be sitting home reading a good book. He’d be dishing out orders at Head Office, getting his head down to some hard graft.

  Dismissing the very real temptation to call him at his office to let him know she was here and waiting, she decided to surprise him. A long hot bath, lots of care with her make-up before she slipped into something slinky and revealing to remind him that he did find her sexually desirable.

  Her cheeks reddening at the thought of setting out to seduce her own husband, she let herself into the spacious apartment and stumbled into a massive cream leather suitcase, the resulting thump bringing forth a trilling, ‘Javier, darling, is that you?’

  Every last vestige of colour leached from Zoe’s face as a nauseating knot cramped in her stomach. She would know that drawly voice anywhere and her worst nightmare was confirmed when Glenda Havers emerged into the vast sitting room clad in a short black silk robe that clung to her voluptuous curves.

  Zoe’s heart seemed to be beating at the base of her throat. She couldn’t speak for the clenching pain of jealousy and the far deeper one of betrayal. It was Glenda who broke the short stinging silence.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ She raised her baby-blue eyes to the ceiling and sketched a tiny shrug. ‘We didn’t expect you for another couple of days.’

  Ignoring that painfully obvious statement, Zoe swallowed convulsively and found the scratchy remnants of her voice. She knew what was going on but she had to ask, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ The cherry-red lips curved in a small pitying smile as the other woman wandered further into the room on clouds of musky perfume. ‘What do you think?’ Pushing a languid hand through her tousled mane of rich brown hair, Glenda sank onto a sofa, tucking her legs beneath her, utterly relaxed, quite at home, Zoe thought on a stab of bitterness.

  ‘Listen, kid, wise up.’ Narrowed blue eyes flicked away from Zoe to minutely scrutinise her fingernails, as if she was searching for flaws in the cherry-red varnish. ‘You’re due to come into a pretty hefty chunk of the folding stuff—why else did you think Javier married you? The last time I teased him about cradle-snatching—when we were in Cannes, I think it was—he admitted it. Not that his marriage came between us, of course. We’ve been lovers for years, as you knew. But you weren’t supposed to know it was still definitely ongoing; we have been very discreet. But now it’s out in the open, you’ll have to decide what to do about it.’

  The inspection of her nails completed, she raised narrowed, heavily lashed eyes to Zoe’s white face. ‘Face the fact that Javier would have turned on the charm to keep you unsuspecting and doting—a wealthy wife is better than a poor one, and all that,’ she derided. ‘But my advice, for what it’s worth, is cut loose before the sexy bastard breaks your girly little heart.’

  ‘What time is he expected?’ Zoe pushed out between clenched teeth, bitter anger taking over. What she’d first believed was an insane nightmare, something she’d crazily hoped could be explained away, was now cold, hard fact. If he walked in now she would kill him!

  Just for a moment the luscious brunette seemed disconcerted but Zoe decided she had to have been imagining it when Glenda managed a tiny shrug and drawled, ‘No idea. Some time tonight. Something needing his urgent attention cropped up in Milan. We decided it wasn’t worth my going with him, as usual, so I’m to wait here. So do try to be adult about the situation and either learn to accept it, or, far better from your point of view, cut free.’

  Accept it! Never in this life!

  Pain throbbed in her temples and sizzling rage tied her insides in crippling knots.

  Accepting the sordid situation wasn’t an option. And neither was staying to confront him. She’d only end up giving herself away, allowing him to see how thoroughly he’d broken her heart. She wouldn’t give the louse the satisfaction!

  Which left the other. Zoe turned on her heel and walked out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HOW she’d ever got back to Wakeham Lodge without ending up as an RTA statistic, Zoe would never know. She remembered absolutely nothing of the drive out of London, her tortured mind being completely occupied with the pain and humiliation of what Glenda had made her face.

  But she made it in one piece in time to walk into the large homely kitchen just as Ethel was heating the milk for the early bedtime cocoa.

  ‘Are you all right?’ It was Joe who noticed her silent appearance first, rising from the long scrubbed pine table, a look of concern on his weathered face.

  So she must look as awful as she felt, Zoe reflected heavily. Sketching what she hoped would pass for a reassuring smile, she offered, ‘I’m fine.’

  If you could call feeling dead inside and brutally mangled at one and the same time fine, that was.

  Ethel swung round from the vast Aga cooker, taking the pan off the heat. ‘We didn’t expect you—you should have phoned to let us know you were coming. Another half an hour and Joe would have bolted the doors for the night! Is Javier here with you?’

  ‘No.’ Zoe pulled out a chair from the table and sat down before her wobbly legs gave way beneath her. Javier would be back in London by now, sure to be. With his mistress. Sick as a parrot because he’d been found out? Or would he merely shrug those magnificent shoulders of his and write off his losses?

  Isabella Maria had openly rejoiced that her son had taken her advice for the first time in his life. Wealth should marry wealth. How she’d scorned that concept back at the villa, ruled it out of play, believing she knew him better than his mother did! She now knew it to be hatefully true.

  Two mugs of cocoa appeared on the table. ‘Let me get you something—a little light supper. How about scrambled eggs and bacon? At least a nice cup of tea and a slice of hot buttered toast?’ Ethel laid a light hand on her shoulder. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

  There was a natural curiosity there as well as concern, Zoe recognised. She tried out a smile. Her mouth felt unnaturally stiff. ‘Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.’

  Not a lie, not exactly. She’d eaten breakfast this morning. It seemed a million light years away. How could a day start with such bright hope and end a few hours later in black misery and complete disillusionment?

  ‘I’ve been spending a few days with Grandmother Alice while—Javier’s—’ her tongue almost refused to form his name ‘—while he’s been away on business.’

  This time without his precious mistress. Oh, how she hated him!

  At the sound of her voice Boysie stirred in his basket at the side of the Aga. One eye opened, his tail gave just one half-hearted thump of recognition before he went right back to sleep again.

  Nothing like the usual ecstatic welcome. Her eyes flooded with weak tears, she blinked them back furiously as a lump the size of a house brick lodged in her throat. She felt rejected, a waste of space.

  As if tuned in to her feelings, or maybe because he’d noticed her brimming eyes, Joe explained kindly, ‘The little fella’s bushed. I practically walked the legs off him this
evening.’

  ‘And spent most of the afternoon throwing his ball for him. Honestly, he’s like an overgrown kid with that little dog,’ Ethel put in fondly.

  Zoe had to be glad that Boysie wasn’t pining for her. That was the sensible and adult way of looking at the situation. But right now she felt as she had done when she’d first gone to live with her grandmother. As if she was of no importance to anyone, as if the loss she’d suffered was too great to be borne.

  ‘I think I’ll turn in now, it’s been a long day.’ A truly dreadful day. A stab at a yawn to indicate tiredness before she said her goodnights. She knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  Seeking her old room, she collected a glass of Javier’s whisky on the way in the hope that it would knock her out, stop her thinking.

  It didn’t. Tormented emotions kept her staring into the darkness. She’d had a few easily dismissed suspicions in the past, but why hadn’t she guessed that the mistress who had lasted far longer than most in his bachelor life was still firmly in it?

  She must have been laughably naive to believe for one moment that a man so highly sexed and sophisticated would have been content to remain celibate during the first barren year of their marriage.

  Instead of her silly schoolgirlish fantasies of teaching him to fall head over heels in love with her, she should have faced the uncomfortable fact that Javier would want a real woman—a woman with Glenda’s obvious sexual experience, sultry mouth and voluptuous body—not a green and gangly girl, which she was sure was the way he continued to see her.

  In the small hours it came to her that even the last, incredibly slender hope that—overlooking the plain fact that Glenda had been installed in the London apartment—for some warped reason of her own the other woman had been lying through her teeth, was dead in the water.

  He’d been expected back from Milan this evening. Hours ago. Glenda had, as he’d instructed, been eagerly waiting for him.