Claiming His Wife

She couldn't plead with him, not even for her twin's sake. She had pleaded with Roman too often in the past—to no effect whatsoever—to want to go through that humiliating experience again, to put her pride on the line for him to trample on.

'No,' he said implacably. 'At least, not the one you outline. You surprise me, Cassandra,' he added, as if he questioned her sanity. 'When we married I found work for your brother in the Jerez accounts office because, according to him, he didn't want to cut the apron strings and go back to England without you and he didn't want to follow in your father's footsteps and study medicine. In fact he almost shed tears when I reminded him that that was what his father had wanted.'

'He was barely twenty-one and he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He'd not long lost his father, had had to face the fact that the family home had to be sold to pay Dad's debts—and, unlike you, he hadn't come into this world cushioned by money and holding the entrenched belief that he was superior to everyone else on the planet!'

He ignored her protective outburst as if the heated words had never been said, just as he had ignored every opinion, every need of hers, in the past. 'I gave Roy a job with a living wage, then paid the rent on an apartment because after a while he complained that he wanted to be independent of the family household in Jerez. He repaid me by going in to the office late and leaving early—when he bothered to at all—and finally betrayed me and my family by embezzling a not insubstantial amount of money.' He lilted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug, as if the was beginning to bore him. 'Having you rescue him from the consequences of his crime and repay the money he stole would not build his character, I think.'

Cassie winced. She hated to admit it, but in a way he was right. But she knew her brother far better than any man did and a spell in prison wouldn't help Roy achieve responsible adulthood.

She put her fingers to her temples. The pain was getting worse. She'd made this journey, come face to face with Roman again, had the humiliation of seeing her offer brushed aside as if it had been made by a fool, and accomplished precisely nothing. She felt as if she'd been chewed up and spat out, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. She pushed herself to her fee:

"If that's your final word, I'll leave, but I'd like to Roy before I go,' she said thickly. 'I'll wait here until he finishes work.' Surely he couldn't be heart­less, enough to deny her that? She had to see her twin, let him know she'd done her best. Advise him to take his punishment like a man and tell him to come back to England, to her. When he was free, and she'd do everything she could to help him to make a fresh start.

'And here was I, beginning to think you'd developed a backbone,' he said lightly. 'I think you give up too easily.'

Perspiration was slicking her skin and she folded her arms jerkily across her chest as she tried to con­tain the feeling that she was about to have hysterics. And I think you don't know what you're talking about,' she said, hanging on to what little poise she had left. 'You won't listen to what I have to say so what am I supposed to do? Sit in my chair like a good little girl until I grow roots?'

'I listened,' Roman remarked with an indolence that made her hackles rise.

She felt her face go red. 'Maybe. But you still refused to consider what I said!'

'I wasn't aware that it was mandatory.' One broad shoulder lifted in a very slight shrug.

He was impossible! Swallowing fury, she hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She was leav­ing! But easier said than done, because a graceful long-legged stride, one hand on her arm, stopped her.

She didn't want him touching her. The heat of his hand through the fine fabric of her sleeve brought back memories she had no desire to acknowledge. Her tongue, though, was welded to the roof of her mouth and, before she could unstick it, he said at a smooth tangent, 'You've gained weight: For most of our two years together you reminded me of a stick. Sometimes I used to worry about you.'

What a lie! Concern for her happiness and well-being had been so low on his list of priorities it had fallen off the bottom of the paper!

'Liar!' she accused scornfully. 'The only people who worried about my weight loss were your mother and aunts. And that, according to the precious Delfina, was because they thought I was anorexic and possibly infertile. She even told me that having your child was the only way they would ever accept me.' Seized by a wild, uncontrollable anger, she surged on, 'I should have told them that I lost weight be­cause I was desperately unhappy. That I couldn't conceive because you never came near me!'

The words blistered her mouth but she didn't re­gret them. It was time Roman faced the truth.

'I thought you didn't want me to?' The sensual line of his mouth tightened. 'You rejected me, or don't you remember?'

It was framed as a question but he'd wait until hell froze over before he got an answer. She'd die before she admitted how much she'd regretted pushing him away, turning from him, lacking the courage to tell him how she felt; how later she'd ached for his touch; how his indifference, his long absences had hurt her.

She thinned her mouth as, probably in retaliation for her stubborn silence, glittering charcoal eyes veiled by thick black lashes made a lazy inventory of the curves she privately thought had grown a little too lush just lately. Her body burned hotly where his eyes touched and she tried to squirm away, aware that her breath was thick in her throat. His unan­swered question and the explicitly intimate way he was looking at her was beginning to fill her with embarrassment and confusion.

What did he know about how she had felt? The sense of inadequacy, the beginnings of the shame that had grown right throughout their marriage be­cause he had obviously decided she was frigid, not worth the trouble of going to her room at night.

His fingers tightened on her arm, his other hand resting lightly on her waist, just above the feminine roundness of her hips; his voice was sultry and wicked as he asked, 'I wonder if a year apart has made any difference? Perhaps we should try to find out. Would you still reject me if I came to you in the night?'

'Don't!' It was wrenched from her. She went rigid. She had taught herself not to cry; she wasn't going Jo forget those harsh lessons and disgrace herself now.

Once—it seemed like a lifetime ago now—she had thought she loved him, had worshipped him, believed him to be the most perfect being ever to draw breath.

Now she knew better. He couldn't get to her on in every level if she didn't let him. She threw back her head and challenged him, 'If you think I'm going to oblige you, lie down on the floorboards while you satisfy your sexual curiosity, then you can think again.

She slapped his hands away, one after the other, and headed for the door, her lips clamped together to stop herself screaming with all the remembered pain, and he drawled behind her, 'I had something rather more civilised in mind, mi esposa. Share my bed for the next three months and satisfy my... sexual curiosity, and I won't bring charges against your brother.'

CHAPTER TWO

‘You need time to think about-it?' Roman asked as he brittle silence stretched until it was painful. The almost scornful strand of amusement in his finally snapped her out of her state of numbing shock.

'You can't be serious!' The thin, wavery bleat of her own voice secretly appalled her. She hadn't meant to sound so utterly withering. Cassie swallowed convulsively and tried again, tried to do better. ‘You must be desperate if you have to resort to blackmail to get a woman to share your bed!' This time the contempt she felt must have echoed tone because she saw his eyes narrow, his jawline harden. He was a passionate man; she knew that- passionate about his work, the land he loved, his family name, his women. Never about her, and they both knew it. Her taunt would have his inbred, fierce Spanish pride

‘Not blackmail—a condition,' he corrected "Non-negotiable. You are free to take my offer or leave it.'