A Spanish Marriage (4 page)

‘Picking up on our earlier conversation, what do
you intend to do with your future?' How strangely thick his voice sounded!

Zoe's tummy lurched. She buried her nose in her glass. Despite all her good intentions she hadn't been able to take her eyes off him. Tension emanated from the tight, burning knot low in her pelvis. Her vow to slice him out of the place in her heart he'd occupied for so long was wretchedly feeble in the face of the magnetic power he wielded over every last one of her senses.

Tough talk, a show of indifference to whatever lecture he might be about to hand out, was the only defence she could think of. Counter-productive to allow him to know she'd been already thinking along the lines of working to help the homeless, but didn't know how to go about it.

Confessing that, admitting to inadequacy, would simply ensure he stayed around, driving her mad with wanting him, her sensible decision to stop loving him biting the dust with a vengeance. He would pull out all the stops to set her on the right road, make time for her, choosing the right charity, making sure the trustees agreed to her finding a small flat near her place of work, probably even visiting sometimes, checking up on her, doing what he would see as his duty—

‘Don't worry about me.' She essayed a tiny throw-away shrug and put her empty glass down on a handy side table. ‘I'm no longer your responsibility, remember. I might even marry Ollie,' she threw in idly. A bare-faced lie—she wouldn't dream of doing any such thing—but it would get Javier off her case. If
she were an about-to-be-married woman his self-inflicted duty to her could be crossed off his list of tiresome responsibilities. ‘He's asked me often enough.' She levelled a hopefully dismissive look at him. ‘I'll send you an invitation.'

Blind rage darkened Javier's eyes, set his shoulders tautening beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. So her relationship with that low-life scum was more serious than he'd hoped. How could he stand by and see her ruin her life by marrying a man who, to his certain knowledge, had never done a day's work in his rotten life, whose reputation locally was lower than a snake's belly! The weird idea jumped back into vision. It wasn't as crazy as he had at first thought.

‘You want to be married? Marry me.'

Some impulses were crazy. This was not. He could keep her safe from predatory males.

Silenced by shock, Zoe could only stare, her eyes widening by the second. How many times had her foolish heart driven her to dream up marriage-proposal scenarios? Millions!

At last she managed a strangled, ‘You can't be serious!'

‘Never more so.'

Something inside her crumpled. It was what she had dreamed of for years. Yet—‘You don't even like me,' she accused thickly.

Javier released his breath on an incredulous sigh. Not like her? The Spanish in him brought his proud head high. ‘I've cared about you since you were a bereaved eight-year-old transplanted into a cold, unloving environment. I cared enough to take you off
your grandmother's hands. I admired your spirit when you dug your heels in and decided to go your own way—even if you had turned yourself into a fright,' he admitted with one of those smiles guaranteed to take her breath away. ‘And it is precisely because I care about you that I'm suggesting we marry.'

Dared she translate ‘care' into ‘love'? Unconsciously Zoe shook her head. But could she stop herself? Her bones tightened. Fine tremors attacked every inch of her tense frame.

Flaring black brows drew together as the episode in Spain came back to taunt him. From her attitude towards him this afternoon, her worrying relationship with Sherman, he was as sure as dammit that she'd outgrown that schoolgirl crush. In any event, it was time to spell out precisely what he had in mind.

‘Needless to say, it would be a marriage on paper. I wouldn't expect you to share my bed. Simply my life and my home for the next two years when, with guidance, you'll be able to prioritise your values and decide what you really want to do with your life and how best to manage your future inheritance. Naturally, an annulment would follow,' he impressed gently, concerned for her.

He could see how her slender hands were shaking, even though they were tightly clasped together in an attempt to disguise it. And all the natural colour had ebbed from her face. His voice lowered with soft persuasion. ‘In the meantime as my wife you would be protected from the likes of Sherman, men who would marry you for your money, exploit your open, generous nature and make your life a misery. Try to re
member, your future inheritance is no secret. Word gets around and brings the low-life out of the woodwork.'

Zoe got to her feet with difficulty. She felt giddy and nauseous with the pain of hearing his proposal, featuring so often in her soppy daydreams, turn into such a nightmare. But she managed, albeit shakily, ‘As a proposal of marriage, that sucks!'

She wasn't going to cry. She never cried! But her wretched eyes had other ideas and flooded her face with scalding, humiliating rivers. Scrubbing furiously, she shot at him, ‘So by your reckoning no one could love me for me. Only for my money! That makes me—' her voice threatened to disintegrate ‘—feel—feel really good about myself!'

Her objective was the door. She managed six inches before she was cradled in his arms, the free-flow of her tears soaking his shirt.

For a few short moments Javier held her in self-loathing silence. He hadn't meant to hurt her. The muffled sobs that were shaking her supple frame mortified him. ‘Don't cry,' he murmured against the silky top of her head. He had to comfort her. Had to. Her hair smelled of summer flowers. ‘Of course you'll be loved for yourself, I promise you. You are beautiful, intelligent and spirited. How could you not be?' he impressed.

No more sobs. Her body had stilled within the circle of his arms. Poor scrap! He patted her shoulder blades, the avuncular intention somehow getting lost as his hands slid down to the narrow span of her waist and lingered there.

‘I was clumsy,' he confessed. How soft and warm her skin felt beneath the thin fabric. ‘But the thought of you throwing your life away on the likes of Sherman got me on the raw. You deserve better. Much better. I just want to protect you.'

Slowly, Zoe's head came up. She could hardly breathe for the welter of emotions that were making her heart beat as if she'd just run a marathon. When he'd said she was beautiful he had sounded sincere. He must mean it. And he'd been so quick to recognise how hurt she'd been, quick to offer the comfort of his arms. More than comfort. She felt her body stir, the core of her melt; her eyes swept up to mesh with his.

Eyes awash with tears. Glowing and golden, damp, naturally dark lashes tangled. Lush mouth vulnerably parted, very slightly quivering. Was she still hurt, unsure of her own worth? A solitary tear slid down to the corner of her soft lips. He vented an interior savage oath for his earlier crassness just as a wash of tenderness drenched through him. This girl needed kissing…

Z
OE
was having a hard time keeping her cool. She wanted to throw her arms in the air, punch holes in the sky, shout and leap all over the place. Sheer joy made her feel as if she were about to explode.

She'd got a silly grin on her face and didn't care who saw it. Her love-drenched, sparkly eyes swept the length of the lodge's wide terrace to where her brand-new husband was keeping a watchful eye on his father as he confidently coped with his walking cane and the broad flight of steps down to the south lawn where the buffet table was ready for the guests.

His six-feet-plus athletic frame was clothed in formal pale grey suiting, his dark hair gleaming in the early July sun. He was so spectacular. Her heart jumped beneath the fitted jacket of her cream silk suit as she lovingly assimilated every line of his impressive profile. Lingering on the perfect blade of his aristocratic nose, then the set of that sensual mouth, the high slashing cheekbones.

Now he was hers!

She blithely discounted the time limit, the hands-off rule he'd put on their marriage. Javier didn't know it yet, poor deluded darling, but she would do all in her power to make him rethink that preposterous scenario!

That kiss had had her changing her mind at the
speed of light about vehemently turning down his hurtful suggestion of a paper marriage. True, he had stepped back, gently put her away from him, but in those blissful, mind-blowing moments when that kiss had turned into something eager, primal and shattering she had felt that strong body harden in raw response and had known, just known, that she could turn their marriage into a proper one, make him happy, give him children.

During the three weeks since she'd accepted his less-than-flattering proposal—with an equally unflattering, ‘I might as well marry you, if it will get you off my case for a couple of years'—she'd been sorely tempted to instigate another of those wild and cataclysmic kisses. But with new maturity she knew she had to be patient, play the waiting game, because if he knew how she really felt about him he'd retract it and probably run a mile.

‘Come and join your guests,
nuera
. They are few but they expect you,
sí
?' Isabella Maria, wildly elegant in a flowing peacock-blue brocaded silk coat topped by a cartwheel hat, tucked her hand beneath Zoe's elbow. ‘I am too happy to know my son has at last taken my advice to marry to complain too much about that quiet civil ceremony or the wedding celebrations that could be mistaken for a wake.'

‘I know what you mean.' Zoe swallowed a giggle as she fell in step beside her mother-in-law, her eyes glowing beneath the shallow brim of a cream tulle hat decorated with tiny yellow rosebuds. Seated stiffly at the table, Grandmother Alice and her ancient companion/housekeeper looked like black crows and the
Ramsays, Ethel and Joe, in their Sunday best didn't look much more festive.

‘Javier wanted a really low-key wedding,' Zoe confessed cheerfully. ‘Just our immediate family and the Ramsays who would have been very hurt to be left out—he's always treated them like equals, not a bit like paid servants.'

‘And this is what you wanted?' Isabella Maria had no interest in the Ramsays' standing in her son's household. ‘You could have had the wedding of the year, a marquee packed with the great and the good, the cream of society, music and dancing, everyone admiring and envying you.'

Not giving Zoe the chance to explain that she would have married Javier in the back of a dustcart with two tramps hauled up off the street as witnesses if he had so directed, Isabella Maria slowed her steps and lowered her voice, ‘A word of advice,
nuera
, in future don't let Javier get all his own way. He is tough when he needs to be and can appear remote. But underneath he has the soft heart. And you, my dear, have emerged into quite a beauty. Use the gifts nature gave you wisely and you will twist him round your smallest finger.'

As Zoe had been thinking along similar lines since the revelation of that steamy, X-rated kiss the advice was unnecessary. But Isabella Maria had thrown in a remark about having given her son advice on the subject of marriage. She was about to ask what pearls of wisdom had been offered, but the words died in her throat as Javier strode to meet them. If he was impatient of their painfully slow progress he didn't show
it. The smoky eyes were slightly veiled and his voice was light as he told them, ‘The caterers are waiting.'

The smile he shafted in her direction was full of knee-buckling charm, his hard jawline faintly blue-shadowed. Zoe's heart began to race as she firmly quelled the almost imperative need to trace the lines of that devastatingly handsome face with the tips of her fingers.

Instead, she tucked her hand beneath his arm, her fingertips tightening all on their own, seeking his male warmth, the taut male flesh beneath the fine fabric of his jacket. Her body swayed close to his as they descended the terrace steps. Curvy hip against the narrow male equivalent, thigh brushing thigh, creating unbelievable tension. Wild rose colour mounting to her cheeks, Zoe was making no apologies. No one but she and Javier knew this was supposed to be a paper marriage, excluding intimacies. But wouldn't everyone think it highly peculiar if the newly wedded bride and groom avoided each other like the plague?

But his urbanity as he handed her to her place opposite her grandmother couldn't be faulted. Zoe laid her bouquet of pale yellow and cream roses on the pristine white table-top, her heart still crashing around like a wild bird in a cage. Hadn't Javier felt anything of the sexual excitement that had been making her breathless, weak at the knees? He had shown no sign of being similarly affected.

Her spirits took a momentary dip and to comfort herself she reached for the topaz ear droppers he had gifted her on her birthday and reminded herself that it was early days.

As Javier settled his mother opposite his already seated father Alice Rothwell inclined her severely sculpted white head. ‘Normally, I would consider a gel of nineteen far too young to marry. But in your case I congratulate you. Javier will make sure you toe the line; you couldn't be in better hands. Already there is a vast improvement since I last saw you.'

Which made Zoe feel like an infant again, but the reference to the day she'd been handed over to Javier, the rebellious make-over, the sight she must have presented to her starchy relative made her want to apologise for the headaches she must have inflicted on everyone around.

But Javier slipping into his seat beside her stilled her tongue. The caterers had been busy filling champagne glasses and he lifted his flute to her. His smile was everything that could be expected of a man toasting his new bride but his eyes were remote as the icy, empty tracts of the South Pole.

A shudder fell down the length of her spine. Had she bitten off more than she could hope to chew? Then, annoyed with the unknown wimpishness that had had her nearly backing off at the sight of the first hurdle, she tucked into the first course of caviare and blinis, her smile at its stunning brightest, instigating a light conversation, making sure the guests joined in.

She had never been short on determination. So maybe she had been negative in its use in the past. Now she would bring the power of it to bear on something truly positive, gaining Javier's respect and, the best prize of all, his love.

Halfway through the chicken in aspic served with
hot crusty rolls and a crisp green salad, a small shaggy whirlwind, complete with a white satin ribbon tied onto his collar in honour of the occasion, leapt onto Zoe's lap, to a dismayed, ‘One of the caterers must have let him out! I told them not to!' from Ethel.

‘Put the creature down, child. It's not seemly or hygienic,' said Grandmother Alice, with a disapproving glance at Ethel who was struggling to her feet. ‘Someone should make sure it's properly tied up.'

One look at the beam of pleasure on his bride's face as she held the squirming bundle of hair, receiving its ecstatic attentions, had Javier insisting, ‘Sit down, Ethel. Boysie's my wife's devoted slave, he deserves to share her day.' And to ram home his point he selected a juicy morsel of chicken from his plate and gave it to the rescued stray, received a look of undying doggy devotion and decided that the animal wasn't as ugly as he'd thought it was.

Wiping his fingers on a linen napkin, he took delivery of Zoe's dazzlingly wide smile and found himself returning it with interest. He had done the right thing in putting his ring on her finger. Shown some kindness and understanding, she was malleable as putty—he'd always known that and had tried to act on it when she'd been younger. In the two years ahead of them he would help to motivate her, give her all the guidance and encouragement she needed to carve out a worthwhile future for herself. And her position as his wife would keep the leeches away.

The rest of the wedding breakfast passed in a glorious daze as far as Zoe was concerned. Javier had stood up for her and her pet against Grandmother
Alice but what was even more fantastic was the way he'd called her
my wife
! Hearing those words from his lips made her go gooey inside like warm treacle.

Only when one of the caterers appeared holding a bouquet of scarlet roses and orange lilies as big as a dustbin, to announce that the car had arrived to ferry Mrs Rothwell and her companion home, did Zoe's starry-eyed conviction that having Javier take her side, call her
my wife
, anoint her with that fantastic, knee-buckling smile of his, meant she was halfway to her secret objective take a swift nosedive.

Accepting the enormous bouquet, Zoe placed it on the end of the table, her brow pleating. She had no idea who could have sent it and in her opinion it was completely OTT, borderline vulgar. With Javier attentively at her shoulder she extracted the small oblong envelope, curiosity driving her to read the enclosure.

Then she wished she hadn't. The paper fluttered from her fingers and her face went fiery red. Her heart squeezed painfully as Javier retrieved it and read:

Crunching the offensive message into a savagely moulded ball, Javier tossed it aside, dealt Zoe a black, unreadable look and smoothly strode off, urbanity it
self now to help Grandmother Alice collect her belongings, standing aside as the old lady unbent enough to drop the first kiss she had ever bestowed on Zoe's cheek, then walking the black-clad pair towards the front of the massive house where their car was waiting.

Watching him go, Zoe felt defeat wash over her in heavy black waves. Back to square one, or even further. Javier's opinion of her would be rock-bottom. Miserably she regretted having thrown at him that she might marry Ollie, not having meant a word of it because it had sprung from deep hurt and anger.

If she ever saw Oliver Sherman again she would throttle him! Spite had made him send that vile message. As Javier had pointed out, her future fortune was no secret, and she had always known that Sherman's proposals had stemmed from avarice. He'd seen her as a soft touch, but she wasn't. Just because she'd been free with her generous allowance, happy to pick up the tabs in exchange for fun nights out in smooth, cynically witty company because it had temporarily taken her mind off her unstoppable longing for Javier, didn't mean she was a complete fool.

Thwarted in his plans to get himself a wealthy wife, Sherman was spitefully trying to make mischief.

‘Are you all right, my dear?' Lionel Masters was beside her, leaning heavily on his cane, Isabella Maria clinging onto his other arm. ‘You are very pale.'

‘A bit of a headache.' Zoe pulled herself together. ‘Too much champagne, probably.' Her smile felt strained. How could she convince Javier that that note
from Sherman was just a cruel attempt to pay her back for consistently turning him down?

The utterly distasteful implications would put her light years away from earning his respect, never mind his love!

‘Javier should be taking you on an exotic honeymoon,' Lionel proclaimed. A sentiment echoed by Isabella Maria's ‘He should pamper his pretty young bride, I told him as much!' making Zoe feel like something silly and childish marrying a man old enough to be her father. Javier was only twelve years her senior, for goodness' sake, and she wasn't just out of the nursery and her smile was making her face ache!

‘We're both perfectly happy here,' she said by way of scotching any more parental interference, neglecting to explain that what use was a honeymoon when the bridegroom had no intention of getting up close and intimate? And even if she'd harboured hopes of making him change his mind in that direction he wouldn't touch her with the proverbial bargepole after what Oliver Sherman had written.

She fell in step beside her in-laws as they progressed slowly towards the house. The caterers were clearing the debris, dismantling the long trestle-table; her wedding day was over. From the corner of her eye she saw Ethel take the gaudy bouquet away—hopefully towards the compost heap!

‘Lionel and I will take a rest until supper and give you and Javier some time on your own,' Isabella Maria stated. ‘I was surprised and touched when Ethel showed us to the rooms we used when we lived
here—I would have thought you and Javier would have chosen them.'

‘I chose the blue suite when I came to live here,' Zoe offered obliquely, desperate to get off the subject of sleeping arrangements. ‘As far as I know, Javier's never used the master suite. When he came here—' never once since the Spanish disaster ‘—he used the room above his office for easy access. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go and find him.'

Easier said than done. A rapid search of the ground-floor rooms, the faithful Boysie at her heels, followed by Honey, the inquisitive ginger cat, revealed nothing but his absence.