A Spanish Marriage

Frustratedly admitting that now wasn’t the time to touch on the subject of his mistress past—and present?—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.

Isabella Maria gave a prolonged screech when the craft landed on the lawn below the terrace. ‘Are we being invaded!’

‘Relax, Mama.’ Javier grinned, rising to his feet. ‘Look at the logo. It’s one of ours, not the mafia!’

One of the construction company’s fleet, Zoe recognised from the world-famous logo, curiosity momentarily ousting the inner tension that had been eating at her since this morning.

A dapper little guy with slicked-back black hair, wearing an immaculate pinstriped suit, emerged from his seat beside the pilot carrying a leather briefcase. Must-do work for Javier’s eyes only? Zoe pondered as he mounted the steps to the terrace, noting the man’s obsequious bow in Javier’s direction as he laid the case reverentially on the table.

‘Señor Garcia,’ Javier introduced, mentioning a renowned Madrid jeweller, taking the proffered key and unlocking the case himself, opening it to display a glittering array of rings on midnight-blue velvet.

‘Fabuloso!’ Isabella Maria squealed, her dark eyes winging from her son’s to the jewels and back again. ‘Por qué? Quién?’

Ignoring her, Javier turned the force of his bone-melting smile on Zoe. ‘You never did have an engagement ring. This morning I decided to arrange to correct that omission.’

Her breath went as her heart danced beneath her breasts, her eyes blurring until the display of costly rings became a kaleidoscope of colour and glittering lights. And when Javier came to stand behind her, laying a light hand on her naked shoulder, she quivered, the exquisite sensation of his skin against her skin leaving her feeling light-headed and as weak as a newborn kitten.

‘They are all your ring size—choose whichever you like best,’ he murmured as Señor Garcia moved discreetly away.

Lionel announced, ‘Time to go, Izzy. And don’t put that look on your face!’

In the flurry of goodbyes—reluctant on Isabella Maria’s part, with her pressing invitations to visit with them at their summer home—Zoe was being thoroughly cross with herself for thinking bad things about her gorgeous husband. He hadn’t been glued to the phone for ages murmuring sweet nothings into his ex-mistress’s ear—he’d been arranging transport for Garcia and his wildly expensive collection of gems.

Just for her!

He wouldn’t have made such an impulsive gesture if he wanted rid of her!

She didn’t deserve him she decided, going all misty-eyed, turning to gaze up at him when they were finally alone again. ‘You can be really romantic,’ she breathed, her heart swelling with love, wondering if he could read it in her eyes.

But he simply gave her that sizzling smile and a laconic, “‘Romantic” turns you on?’ wondering why he hadn’t taken that tack much earlier on instead of all that Mr Nice Guy stuff.

‘You turn me on,’ Zoe confessed honestly, as just looking at him, tall, dark, spectacularly lean and powerful, sent rivers of sexual anticipation scalding through her bloodstream.

‘So I have noticed,’ Javier slotted in with massive male satisfaction, graphically reminding her of the way she had wholeheartedly and very actively encouraged his earlier and never-to-be-forgotten sexual attentions.

Deciding to ignore that rather humiliating observation, she did what his hand gesture commanded and concentrated on the selection of rings.

Impossible to make a choice, they were all so beautiful. Unused to seeing his Zoe in a state of dither, Javier selected an enormous yellow diamond in a sleekly modern gold setting and slid it onto her finger to sit beside her plain gold wedding band.

‘It’s too big!’ Sunlight caught the facets of the costly stone as Javier held her hand out to assess the way it looked against her long, slender fingers.

‘Unmissable,’ he confirmed. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Love it,’ she admitted around the sudden lump in her throat. ‘But it’s got to be wickedly expensive.’

‘So?’ Javier gave the uninterested shrug of a man to whom money was no object. Then lifted her hand to his lips and slowly kissed the tips of her fingers, noting the rosy flush that spread across her delicate cheekbones, the rapid pulse beat at the base of her long, elegant throat, the peaking of her exquisite breasts beneath the fine fabric that covered them so lovingly; and congratulated himself on getting the hang of ‘romantic’.

Contemplating his next move—after he’d got rid of Garcia and the chopper—involving bed and the extraction of promises never again to even think about walking away from their marriage, he bit back a violent oath when his mobile interrupted his imagery of how he would undress her with much lingering at strategic areas.