A Spanish Marriage

Her voice driven, she impressed, ‘Javier, we really do have to have that talk.’

‘Of course.’ Icy cool. He pressed his finger to the doorbell, his naturally powerful, dominant personality leading him to point out with impersonal factuality, ‘But not here, not now.’

His gut clenched as he recalled the plans he’d made for this night. He wasn’t ready to lay his heart on the line for her in case it got trampled on, but he sure as hell had aimed to romance her, seduce her, make endless love to her until she became as addicted to him as he was to her and would forget her former intention to walk out of their marriage. Plans that would have to wait for another week before they could be put into the action he craved.

Dire frustration made his voice curter than was polite when the door swung slowly open to reveal Miss Pilkington—if the housekeeper/companion had a Christian name he had never heard it—who said with horror, ‘You can’t come in at this time of night. She’ll know it’s not a normal visit.’

‘This isn’t the time for that kind of game,’ he countered immediately. ‘If Alice is fretting as much as you say she is, she’ll forget to be annoyed with you when she knows how quickly Zoe responded to your message.’

Urging her over the threshold, impatience etched on every line of his darkly handsome features, he clipped out, ‘I’ll be at the London apartment, Zoe. Call me if you need anything at all.’

The hand that lifted to caress the side of her lovely face, touch her soft, warm, silky skin, was quickly stuffed back in the pocket of his well-cut chinos. Touching her at all in the state he was in would be a bad mistake. His plans were shelved, end of story. Accept it. Why pile on more torment?

With a brusque nod in no particular direction he swung on his heel before he found himself making an utter prat of himself and punching holes in the wall, leaving Zoe to watch his departure with bleak eyes, wondering if she would ever understand him.

‘Now are you sure you’re all right, Grandmother?’ Zoe had armed the old lady out into the sunlit garden and now settled the light woollen rug around her knees. Even under the circumstances of the new rapprochement the use of Granny, or, worse still, Gran would have brought a forbidding frown to those stern features.

‘Perfectly.’ Momentarily, those features softened as a gnarled old hand reached out to pat Zoe’s, and then, typically, she spoiled the moment by opining, ‘You’ve turned out to have a cool head on your shoulders. Your upbringing—which you know I’ve been feeling slightly uncomfortable about—didn’t do any damage, quite the contrary.’

Zoe bit back the response that any improvement had been brought about by Javier’s taking over the responsibility for her when she’d been sixteen years old and as bolshie as they came.

Let the old lady keep her illusions if they helped her! And the cool head she’d mentioned was a reference to the way her granddaughter had taken over, vetting and hiring a new housekeeper, an energetic widow in her fifties who wanted something to occupy her and was more than happy to live in, enabling her to sell the marital home and invest the proceeds for her retirement.

That had left the ageing and grudgingly grateful Miss Pilkington to concentrate on the companion side of her duties, and against her grandmother’s wishes she’d called in her GP, who had given the old lady a lecture about not consulting him earlier and prescribed essential medication, which already seemed to be working well.

All achieved in five hectic days. Her duty done, Zoe felt free to leave, free to go to Javier earlier than either of them had expected.

Excitement bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t wait!

They would have that delayed discussion about the future of their relationship. The suspense of not knowing had been giving her sleepless nights, tying her brain in knots.

Slim fingers automatically touched the yellow diamond ring that had become a talisman of hope. She flashed a smile as her grandmother’s companion came out to sit with her charge.

‘I’ll make tracks now,’ she stated, trying not to look too insultingly over the moon at the prospect. She dropped a light kiss on her grandmother’s papery cheek. ‘I’ll keep in touch. Take care and don’t chicken out of your appointment next week for that thorough hospital check-up.’

She felt so light-hearted she practically skipped over the smoothly manicured lawn to the house where her already-packed suitcase was waiting in the hall.

Javier had proposed an empty marriage out of a wearisome sense of duty and had shown his complete lack of interest in it by his increasingly regular absences. But something had changed on the night they’d spent making frantic and utterly wonderful love to each other. Something really basic.

He didn’t love her, not yet anyway; she knew that and had to be sensible and accept it. But even though it probably went against the grain with him, he did desire her. He wasn’t able to hide that. Couple that with his long-standing though sometimes sorely tried affection for her, add in her devoted love for him, and they could make a good, lasting marriage. He might even, gi

ven time, change his mind and want her to have his child.

Her car was waiting for her on the driveway. Javier had had it delivered to her the day after he’d deposited her here. The note on the dashboard had stated, ‘I thought you might like to snatch half an hour of freedom now and then—drive carefully!’

His thoughtfulness had warmed her heart to a rosy glow and that evening when she’d phoned the apartment to thank him no one had been home. He hadn’t been picking up his mobile, either, so she’d left a message, and in the hustle to get everything arranged here she hadn’t tried to contact him again.

Stowing her suitcase on the back seat, she smiled wryly. Trust him to land her back with the granny-going-shopping job instead of the mightily disapproved-of Lotus sports! No matter, she was on her way back to him! She’d make the journey in a milk float, if she had to.

Her smile for the janitor was still wreathing her face as Zoe used the security card that activated the lift to the London apartment. It was late afternoon and knowing Javier he wouldn’t be sitting home reading a good book. He’d be dishing out orders at Head Office, getting his head down to some hard graft.

Dismissing the very real temptation to call him at his office to let him know she was here and waiting, she decided to surprise him. A long hot bath, lots of care with her make-up before she slipped into something slinky and revealing to remind him that he did find her sexually desirable.

Her cheeks reddening at the thought of setting out to seduce her own husband, she let herself into the spacious apartment and stumbled into a massive cream leather suitcase, the resulting thump bringing forth a trilling, ‘Javier, darling, is that you?’

Every last vestige of colour leached from Zoe’s face as a nauseating knot cramped in her stomach. She would know that drawly voice anywhere and her worst nightmare was confirmed when Glenda Havers emerged into the vast sitting room clad in a short black silk robe that clung to her voluptuous curves.

Zoe’s heart seemed to be beating at the base of her throat. She couldn’t speak for the clenching pain of jealousy and the far deeper one of betrayal. It was Glenda who broke the short stinging silence.