A Spanish Marriage (10 page)

‘I'll be two seconds,' he promised on a raw intake of air. ‘I won't put you through another pregnancy scare,' he imparted. Javier took a step away, against every instinct. Had to move before he lost the ability to think straight. ‘Have to protect you this time,' he told her gently as she reached out to slip her hands beneath the hem of his T-shirt, the words that were about to tumble from her tongue, telling him that she wanted his baby with all her heart and soul dying in
her throat as a raised female voice cut through the heavily charged atmosphere.

Shocked into stillness, it was Javier who broke the sudden silence with a vehement oath in a language Zoe took to be Spanish, tacking on, ‘My mother!'

The tap of high heels on the polished hardwood floorboards, the, ‘Javier! Teresa! Is no one here?' had Zoe realising she was naked and scrambling to cover herself with the bath towel, just as the door swung open to frame Isabella Maria wearing an aqua silk two-piece and a delighted grin.

‘So there you are! The place was like the
Marie Celeste
. We've come to surprise you!'

The hard flush that had stained Javier's jutting cheekbones receding, he said drily, ‘Perfect timing, as usual, Mama.' He draped an arm round Zoe's shoulders and Isabella Maria, not recognising sarcasm when she heard it, broadened her smile.

‘Good! Your father said we wouldn't be welcome. But I told him not to be so foolish. You're well past the honeymoon stage and likely to shoot intruders on sight! You do realise, don't you, that I haven't seen either of you for a whole year?'

‘Is that so?' Javier's tone was dryer than the desert. ‘If you'll excuse us, we were about to take a shower, weren't we, darling?'

At the increased pressure on her shoulder, Zoe swallowed a giggle, managed a nod, and managed not to explode with manic laughter when Javier instructed his parent, ‘Make breakfast, Mama. Zoe and I enjoy fending for ourselves, but as you're here you might as well do it.'

A series of decisive strides took him to Isabella Maria's side. A hand clamped beneath her elbow, he escorted her back through the door, firmly closing it in her surprised wake.

His hands spread, he turned to Zoe, his mouth wry as he murmured drolly, ‘What can I say?'

‘That you ought to fix padlocks on the doors?' Zoe's smile was wobbly because rivers of frustration were rushing through her veins, making her bones ache.

But a slashing grin of amusement curved Javier's sensational mouth. ‘There's a thought!' Veiled, dark-as-charcoal eyes lingered on her lush, kiss-swollen mouth. He gave himself a savage mental shake and headed to the bathroom door. ‘I'll take another cold shower while you dress.'

‘Javier—wait—' Towel trailing, Zoe trotted after him, determined not to linger one moment longer in this state of limbo. How did he see their future long-term? Would they still be together beyond the further year he had originally stipulated? Or not? Was he just using her for sex because he was a normal, virile male and she was more than willing and definitely available?

‘We would have had sex again,' she blurted thickly, hot colour washing over her face. But he had called a temporary halt because even in the coils of steamy passion he couldn't face the thought of being trapped by the fear of an unwanted pregnancy all over again. ‘We can't just pretend it didn't happen. We have to talk.'

He had gone very still. The muscles of his arm
beneath the hand that had stayed him were like rigid iron bars. As if he no longer wanted her to touch him, Zoe decided with anguish.

Noting with a sinking feeling that she'd said having sex and not making love, Javier studied her with dark, intense eyes. Her colour had receded, leaving her skin pale and translucent. She was so lovely, so loved, it made his heart ache. And so sexually responsive it blew his mind. What was she trying to imply? That sex changed nothing? That she still wanted to go? Of course they had to talk, that had always been on his agenda. But his parents' wretched surprise visit seemed to have robbed him of the time he needed.

Battening down his rage at the untimely interruption to his plans to get his wife well and truly addicted to him, he told her with forced lightness, ‘We'll talk later. Tonight. That's a promise. Right now I can't ensure Mama won't come steaming back in here in a panic.'

Shuddering inside with the strength of his frustration, he managed a soft placatory kiss on her startled mouth. ‘She's never had to make a meal in the whole of her pampered life. Even now she's probably trying to figure out how to make toast and will breeze back in here demanding to know why Teresa isn't doing the job she's been handsomely paid to do!'

Zoe's hand dropped from his arm as he swung away. Even now her every cell fizzed with the erotic memories of what had been happening before Isabella Maria had broken into what would appear to be sheer fantasy.

Her fantasy that sexual desire equated with love. It
didn't; it wasn't a given. Walking with a marked lack of enthusiasm into the dressing room to pick out something to wear, Zoe focussed on the way Javier had so lightly shrugged off what had happened.

He'd been going to make love to her—no, she amended, determined to call a spade a spade even if it did hurt horribly. He'd been going to have sex with her. The interruption had caused him a minor physical inconvenience. Nothing more. True, he'd promised they'd talk everything through tonight.

But Zoe wasn't at all sure she would like what he said.

‘L
EAVE
that to me, Mama.' Javier took the cafetière from Isabella Maria's long white hands. He'd showered and dressed at the speed of light to get down before Zoe emerged. He didn't need an audience when he told his parents to hop it. ‘You don't put it directly on the stove to boil.' Ruefully affectionate exasperation roughened his tone as he pointed out, ‘You're worse than a two-year-old around anything that smacks remotely of domesticity!' He tipped out the cold water and, at a guess, half a pound of soggy coffee grounds, while Isabella Maria raised her eyes to the ceiling and shrugged her elegant shoulders.

‘Why would I want to know my way around kitchens?' she asked without a shadow of defensiveness in her voice. ‘There are people about who are paid to see to that sort of thing for me. And, in any case, why is Teresa not here?'

‘I told her her services were not required beyond a daily delivery of fresh produce. Zoe and I wanted to be alone.' Javier told it as it was as the kettle boiled and he poured the hot water over the fresh coffee grounds. And if that wasn't a big enough hint then he'd lay it on with a trowel.

And Lionel Masters, hovering in the open arched doorway as he wandered in from the terrace, listening to the exchange with a barely hidden smile, put in,
‘Didn't I warn you a surprise visit wouldn't be welcome?'

‘My only son not welcome his mama!' Black eyes flashed scorn. A pampered, perfectly manicured hand was laid against Javier's lean bronzed cheek. ‘Do not say such foolish things, husband! What are two, three days? Besides—' dark eyes held a reproachful gleam ‘—I have a private message for Javier, remember?'

Not waiting for Lionel's confirmation, Isabella Maria announced primly, ‘I have had rabid phone calls from a former
enamorada
—Glenda Havers, she called herself. She appears to be quite desperate to see you. She tried Ethel and Joe at Wakeham, but they on your instructions apparently refused to tell her where you were. She tried your London apartment, then the staff at Head Office—but you'd told no one there where you would be, or how long you'd be away. So as a last resort she contacted me, your mama.'

Laying a dramatic hand across her silk-clad bosom, she imparted, ‘Naturally, I didn't say where you were, I was most discreet. I merely—and reluctantly, I might add—promised to pass on the message.' She shook her exquisitely coiffed head disapprovingly. ‘Why she should need to have contact with you so desperately and in the shortest possible time, I neither know, or wish to. The likes of that one should have been put behind you since your marriage.'

Outside the door, Zoe heard every word and her stomach curdled. She'd taken her time over choosing what to wear, wanting to look her best to help her face the rest of the day with courage. Get through the
long hours before tonight when Javier would finally tell her what he wanted of her and their marriage.

That he'd been going to make love to her didn't give her the answer. He was a normal virile male, wasn't he? Why shouldn't he take advantage of his willing wife? It didn't mean he was thinking of a lifetime of devotion, stuff like that. Like a lot of men, he could enjoy sex without his emotions being involved.

Her nerves had been on edge and now they were screaming. If she'd breezed straight into the kitchen instead of dawdling reluctantly towards the source of the voices she wouldn't have overheard. They said ignorance was bliss, didn't they?

Glenda. Glenda Havers. To her knowledge the luscious brunette had stayed the course with Javier for far longer than the few weeks it took him to grow bored with a new conquest.

And not only because she had obliged him by accompanying his self-inflicted ward on the grown-up holiday treats he'd promised her?

Was Glenda Havers still special to him? Had it been her laughter she'd heard when Javier had spoken to her from his hotel room in Cannes? Had she been his close travelling companion on those increasingly regular business trips he'd taken?

And why was she so desperate to make contact with him? Because their affair was long-standing, their relationship running deep, and they couldn't bear to be out of touch with each other for longer than a day or two?

So many questions and no answers. Zoe took a
deep breath, briefly closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively. Later, she would demand those answers. But would Javier tell her the truth?

Would he tell her what she was helplessly trying not to suspect—that in a year's time, when their marriage was over and his duty was done, he would probably decide it was time to settle down and marry his mistress of many years' standing?

And would she be able to bear it?

Straightening her slender shoulders, she pinned a smile on her face and walked into the kitchen where Javier was toasting rolls and Lionel was loading a tray with china, fruit and honey ready to carry out to the table on the terrace, the activities watched over by a languid Isabella Maria.

‘Zoe—how lovely you look! I wish I could wear sugar-pink but I can't, it makes me look positively sallow! And now I'm getting jealous—when I was your age I would not have been allowed to dress in anything as flirty as a sun-dress. How times change for the better!'

Zoe accepted her mother-in-law's assessment of her appearance with a questioning smile. Did a deliberately artlessly piled top knot and a strappy sun-dress that moulded the upper part of her body and flared from her hips to a short skirt constitute flirty? And did Javier think so? The brevity of the tight smile he lobbed in her general direction as he arranged toasted rolls on a linen napkin gave her the distinct impression the jury was out on that one.

‘Come.' Isabella Maria took Zoe's hand. ‘Let us wait outside and leave my menfolk to the chores they
say I am incapable of managing. I've heard it said,' she confided as they emerged onto the terrace and the sunlit mid-morning, ‘that the kitchen is the heart of the home, or the engine room—take your pick. Me, I prefer to know nothing about it.'

Settling her narrow skirt, she sat at the table in the shade of an angled parasol. ‘My son informs me that he dispensed with Teresa's excellent services because you and he wished to be alone. Does that mean there is something wrong? Tell me—' dark eyes took on a gimlet quality, at variance with her smiling mouth ‘—do you make my son happy? Do sit—' she gestured to the chair nearest hers ‘—and tell me.'

Zoe inhaled a deep breath of jasmine-scented warm air, not prepared to even hazard a guess as to the answer to that question. Taking her seat, she folded her hands demurely in her lap and asked one back, ‘On the day of my wedding you said you were glad Javier had taken your advice and married me; do you remember?'

She hadn't given the remark much thought at the time, but now she was beginning to wonder if there had been more to his proposal than the desire of an honourable man to keep her out of the vicinity of gold-diggers of the male persuasion until she was more mature and able to make the right decisions.

The older woman's tinkling laugh sliced through the drowsy silence of the morning like a cleaver. ‘Of course I remember. How could I forget that that son of mine actually took my advice for the first time in his stubborn life? I suppose he thought about what I'd
said—though he took his time about it—and realised that it made perfect sense.'

An icy fist closed around Zoe's heart and her voice sounded tinny to her own ears as she asked, ‘What did you say to him?'

‘The obvious—that he should marry you because you're a considerable heiress!'

Again the high-pitched tinkling laugh that set Zoe's teeth on edge and produced the beginnings of what promised to be a pounding headache.

Isabella Maria's voice lowered confidentially. ‘Since my son turned eighteen he's been targeted by the type of woman whose only asset is her looks. He's a handsome brute with much charisma and, above all, wealth. Natural prey for a woman on the hunt.'

She sketched a tiny shrug. ‘Like any mother, I'll admit to wanting to see him settled and happy and producing my grandchildren. But I dreaded the thought that he might fall into the clutches of some dreadful creature whose main interest in him was the size of his bank balance. Apart from the common sense of the tradition of wealth marrying wealth, with money of your own I knew that if he asked you to be his wife, and you accepted, it would be because you truly loved him for himself.'

‘I've always loved him!' Zoe found herself blurting, the admission wrung from her as if she had no control over her own tongue.

‘And he adores you,' the older woman announced complacently. ‘I saw that on the day of your wedding.'

Zoe lowered her eyes. She could feel her mouth
begin to tremble. Her mother-in-law knew nothing; she saw what she wanted to see. The only things Javier had felt for her on their wedding day had been a mild affection, a sort of habit thing that had started years ago when he'd taken pity on an orphaned kid, and a teeth-gritting exasperation because in his opinion the grown-up kid had been in danger of going off the rails.

And as for marrying her because she had money of her own, well—dream on! The funds held in trust for her might seem large to most people, but Javier would regard them as little more than pocket money.

And when Isabella Maria said archly, ‘Now all I have to do is wait for my first grandchild,' Zoe had a hard time stopping herself from bursting into tears because a child with her was something Javier was desperate not to have. She'd seen the grin of relief on his too-handsome face when she'd broken what he'd obviously regarded as the welcome news to him, hadn't she?

Thankfully the unwanted tête-à-tête was broken when the menfolk appeared with loaded trays. But hardly had the contents been set out on the table than Javier said grimly, ‘You'll have to excuse me, I have to make a phone call,' and strode back inside the villa.

To get in touch with Glenda, set her mind at rest? Tell her he was missing her, too. That he was only here in Spain with the wife who was nothing more than a self-inflicted burden because she'd gone off her trolley, threatening to walk out on him before he, in his so-superior wisdom, deemed she was fit to look after herself. And would he dare to confess that he'd
been unfaithful to his mistress and had sex with his wife?

Cutting off that manic train of thought before it led her into the murky realms of the completely ridiculous, she tuned into the argument that was going on between her in-laws.

‘But we've only just got here! Am I not allowed to spend time with my own son? I refuse to believe that Javier—'

‘Izzy,' Lionel cut in firmly with an apologetic look in Zoe's direction. ‘Don't be difficult. We have the day here and this evening we leave for Almeria. The hotel room is booked. I've already told you how Javier explained that, as he had no time to give Zoe the honeymoon she deserved straight after the wedding ceremony—'

With a pallid smile and a murmur of excuse, Zoe left the table, her breakfast untouched. Her stomach was churning and her legs felt like cotton wool and only carried her as far as the carved stone balustrade. She leant there, grateful for the support, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the wide expanse of manicured lawn, the romantically wild garden beyond and far below the cove where the blue sea creamed gently against the soft white sand.

She knew how fond Javier was of both his parents. Normally he would have welcomed them with open arms. But nothing about this so-called honeymoon in such a perfect venue was normal.

While Isabella Maria had been talking to her out here Javier must have put a romantic spin on his need to be alone with his wife. Why? Because the future
of their marriage was approaching crunch time and he wouldn't want anyone around when he told her he now agreed with her earlier statement that they should call it a day?

Or was he aiming to make this a real honeymoon? After they'd come so close to making love again this morning she could almost believe it. But Glenda's obvious involvement in his life, the length of time he was spending on the phone to her, rather knocked that belief on the head.

Giving a muffled groan, Zoe silently admitted that she didn't know whether she was on her head or her heels. The only constant was her addiction to him, the intense craving for his love, the one thing she needed to make her life complete, the one thing she didn't look like getting.

‘How many times have I told you not to stay out in the sun without a hat?'

At the sound of his voice her stomach twisted into sick knots. A hand on her burning shoulder turned her. Her eyes locked with his. He was more gorgeous than any man had a right to be; he would turn female heads wherever he went, break female hearts—

‘Get back under the shade. Have you eaten a proper breakfast?'

Once again he was treating her like a large, not-too-bright child. But the grim look was gone. Those smoky eyes were smiling. His conversation with Glenda must have been successful. In the reassurance department?

Frustratedly admitting that now wasn't the time to touch on the subject of his mistress past—and pres
ent?—Zoe listened to his gently apologetic words as he escorted her back to the table beneath the shade of the parasol. ‘As I've virtually shown my folks the door, we're going to have to make them feel really welcome for the rest of the day.' Leaving her to ponder that his uncharacteristic behaviour in telling his beloved parents to scarper must have stemmed from something really important.

Giving his unwanted wife her marching orders?

Or making wild passionate love to her, non-stop, no time for noticing anyone else existed?

Of the two possible scenarios she knew which one she was fervently praying for.

 

Ten minutes after returning to the villa, replete with a late lunch—the quayside lobster had lived up to its reputation—they were all relaxing on the terrace at Javier's insistence when the whup-whup of rotor blades broke through the sleepy silence.