A Spanish Passion: A Spanish Marriage / A Spanish Engagement / Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse

He’d reel her in gently. Make sure she didn’t want to live without him.

Leaning back in his chair, he relaxed utterly. He felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He always got what he wanted in the end. He made it happen. His mouth curved in a dazzling smile.

As always Zoe drowned in the smile that had been absent for far too long, her body filling with primal need as the fluid grace with which he leaned back in his chair reinforced the myriad reasons she loved this man. And when he turned the shameless magic of his grin on her again and told her, ‘We fly out to Spain next week for a belated honeymoon,’ her wits scattered to the four corners of the room and she could only stare back at him, her cheeks reddening with pleasure, her mind in a muddle because she would never understand what was going on in his head from one minute to the next.

But trying to find out would be exciting!

CHAPTER SIX

THE Spanish sun blazed down and the aquamarine sea glittered back at it with improbable intensity. The leaves of the overhanging eucalyptus tree moved with silvery languour in the slight, soft breeze.

Zoe turned from staring down unseeingly at the tranquil view of the deserted sandy beach beyond the manicured gardens. Her lush mouth compressed into a tight line, she leant back against the ornate stone balustrade that surrounded the terrace that ran round three sides of the white-walled Moorish-style villa, her heart jumping beneath her breastbone as Javier emerged through an archway, a tray of cold drinks in his strong hands.

He’d changed from the clothes he’d travelled in. Just looking at him made her feel light-headed. Her wretched mouth began to wobble again as her eyes drank in his spectacular male body clad now in casual shorts that hung low on his lean hips, and a white T-shirt that did wonders for his sleek olive-toned skin and lovingly clung to his impressive torso.

The muscles guarding her sex quivered and her breath locked tight in her lungs. They were here together in this beautiful, romantic spot but they might as well be on different planets. Utterly disorientated because of his unfathomable attitude towards her since the night they’d made love, Zoe didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or to cry. It would be far too easy to do both at once.

Biting down on her soft lower lip to stop herself doing either, or more probably both, she forced herself to walk slowly down the length of the long terrace to the table in the shade of a vine where he was placing what appeared to be a frosted jug of juice and two tall glasses.

Everything had happened so quickly and that was part of the trouble, she thought edgily. When Javier decided on a course of action he didn’t hang about.

Initially, she’d thought his mention of a honeymoon meant that they were to embark on a real and lasting marriage, cancelling out her earlier fear that he would be sticking to his original time-span of their empty marriage, making sure the mistake of the night before was never repeated.

Provided, of course, that she wasn’t pregnant.

If she was then, being an honourable man, he would bite the bullet and resign himself to his fate. An impossible scenario. It made her feel physically ill just to think about it.

So the way he’d smiled at her and mentioned a belated honeymoon had made her deliriously happy, confident that after the magic of what had happened between them the night before he wanted her permanently in his life, was already halfway to falling in love with her. But that state of euphoria had lasted for a couple of hours only.

Because now she wasn’t so sure.

She wasn’t sure at all.

‘I wondered where you had got to.’ He looked at her and smiled that bone-weakening smile of his. A lock of his soft dark hair had fallen over his forehead. Her fingers itched to run through it, push it back into place.

She sat down instead, watched him take the chair opposite and shrugged lightly. ‘I wanted to get my bearings.’ Wanted to snatch a slice of time by herself would be nearer the truth, to try to figure out what was going on inside that clever head of his, what he truly wanted of her, of their marriage.

That other morning at breakfast, two minutes after telling her they would be heading for a belated honeymoon at his parents’ winter home in Spain, he’d shut himself in the technological wonder that was his Wakeham Lodge study, emerging a couple of hours later to drive himself back to London, only sparing her the time to impart in the clinical tone she dreaded, ‘I’ll be back to collect you in a couple of days. I’ll pick up our passports from the apartment and pack for us both.’ Not even a goodbye kiss. Hardly lover-like behaviour. Right then all her hopeful happiness had taken a sharp nosedive.

‘You’ve been here before, remember?’ he reminded as he set a glass of juice down in front of her.

There was a knowing light in those smoky, heavily fringed eyes. Was he laughing at her? Mocking?

Of course she remembered! How could she forget the way she’d humiliated herself? That passionate declaration of love—he hadn’t wanted her love then and it looked as if he didn’t want it now.

She offered a languid shrug. Two could be cool and uninterested. ‘So? It’s been, what, three years? A long time, anyway. Things change.’

But she hadn’t changed. She still loved him to absolute distraction. And he hadn’t, either. He still saw her as a tiresome responsibility, especially after the night he obviously preferred to forget and wholeheartedly wished had never happened.

Zoe’s fingers closed round the ice-cold surface of the glass. When he’d collected her from Wakeham Lodge early this morning he’d been back to being polite but distant. And flying over on the company jet she had spikily wondered if there were any other couple in the history of the world, embarking on their honeymoon who weren’t at least holding hands!

And every time she’d tried to talk about what was really important, such as how he saw their future, he’d smoothly changed the subject and stuck his nose back into the file of documents that had been waiting for him when they’d boarded. So she’d given up.

But now: ‘How long will we be here?’ Zoe connected with his stunning eyes, held his smoky gaze and tried to look as if her question weren’t all that important, just idle conversation. But it was something that had been really muddling her. From his attitude—back to the status quo—she was growing surer with each hour that passed that the no-divorce thing he’d insisted on applied only to the next year.

He stuck like a limpet to what he saw as his duty. Over the years she had learned that it was an intrinsic part of his strong, macho character. So why bother to bring her out here to Almeria, to this isolated spot a few kilometres from the tiny unspoiled village of La Isleta del Moro? From her perspective it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Not to make mad passionate love to her, really cement their marriage, that was for sure. He hadn’t so much as touched her in passing since that night.

And not to broaden her horizons, either, although in the back of the chauffeur-driven car that had met them at the airport he had, very politely, given her the tourist spiel: the rugged province of Almeria was the hottest and driest in Spain, the mild winter temperatures made it ideal for his parents when the winter closed in over the mountains. The spaghetti westerns had been filmed here—on and on until, frustrated and heart-wrenchingly miserable over the complete lack of anything remotely personal coming from his direction, she’d wanted to smack his face.

Now, looking into that same breathtakingly handsome face, she waited, more wired-up with each passing second. He had some explaining to do!

‘As long as it takes,’ Javier unthinkingly answered, watching the tiny pulse beat at the base of her long, elegant neck, following the tense line of her delicate collar-bones, and down to the warm honey skin revealed by the open-necked silk shirt she was wearing.

She was tense, wary, taut as a bowstring, the light in those magnificent golden eyes partly suspicion, partly defiance. The urge to take her in his arms and hold her tight was hard to resist.

Javier smothered a sigh. He had to be patient, tread very carefully. He knew the way her mind worked. One hint of pressure and she’d be off at the speed of light. Three days ago she’d been ready to run. She would have had her reasons. He doubted that one night of sex would have changed them. But she was his and he was determined to keep her. So play it cool and play it slow, take as much time as needed to bind her to him for all time—

‘As long as it takes to find out if you’ve got me pregnant!’ she flashed out as she scrambled to her feet. She had the answer to her question now and she didn’t like it one little bit! She slapped away the outstretched hand that would have stayed her, and her long legs took her flying for the sanctuary of the villa.

She had suspected as much, hadn’t she? So why did it hurt so much? Why should she feel traumatised and shocked when he came out with the truth?

The cool ambience of the villa’s interior, all white marble floors, watery green colour-washed walls, elegant classic furnishings, did nothing to soothe her tumultuous emotions.

Had he reverted to the part of a polite stranger to hide the fact that he was sick to his stomach thinking about what—honour-bound—he’d have to do if she proved to be carrying his child? Stick by her for the rest of his life, give up the bachelor freedom he relished and had still felt free to follow during the latter part of their paper marriage?

‘You’ll want to freshen up after the journey. I’ll show you to our room.’

Zoe all but leapt out of her skin. She hadn’t heard him follow her inside. Heart thumping wildly, she decided she hated him. Really and utterly!

‘Don’t bother.’ Her voice was nicely chilling she noted with empty satisfaction. ‘Teresa can show me where I’m to sleep.’

She perfectly remembered the round, smiley señora from her previous stay here. Full-time housekeeper when Javier’s parents or guests were in residence. She wished Teresa would appear right now, or her husband, Manuel, who seemed to have disappeared entirely since he’d delivered them here from the airport.

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!’