Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

Superior bastard…she hated him! She shut her wounded eyes tight. She wanted to scream at him but knew he would read loads and loads of clever things out of being screamed at. Quiet as a mouse, she let him settle her back into bed. He handled her as if she were a pane of glass with a hairline crack running through it. She remembered his wild, explosive desire out on the terrace only hours earlier and she almost wept: he had just covered her up as though she were his great-great-great-grandmother. For the first time he slept away from her and she felt that rejection like a knife in her breast. He wasn’t just spelling out the reality that she had no emotional hold on him, he was putting her at a physical distance as well.

The next morning they flew back to Switzerland. An hour into the flight, she abandoned her proud attempt to pretend that she watching the film she had selected. Roel was working. She hovered within a couple of feet of him and he ignored her.

‘OK…I’ve got the message,’ she proclaimed shakily. ‘You just wish I’d vanish like the evil fairy!’

Lean, dark face grim and impatient, Roel lodged unimpressed dark golden eyes on her.

Hilary planted her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m an attention-seeking child,’ she told him hotly. ‘If I’m getting on your nerves to that extent, go ahead and divorce me!’

Roel rose upright, graceful as a prowling jungle predator, and towered over her in the most intimidating fashion. Dense black lashes lowered over his hard, glittering gaze. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to make that demand. Sorry to disappoint you, but you don’t qualify for the get-out-of-gaol-free card yet, cara.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘No separation, no divorce. You’re staying in Switzerland where I can watch over you.’

Hilary thought it was interesting that, no matter how greedy and wicked he was determined to believe she was, he could think of no greater punishment than keeping her in Switzerland with him. The ache in her heart subsided a little and a tiny charge of hope flared. Perhaps she had been guilty of expecting too much too soon from him.

‘How do you really feel about the baby?’ she plucked up the courage to finally ask.

‘I was planning on one eventually,’ Roel conceded grudgingly with the same amount of emotion as he might have expended when voicing a desire to acquire a

new set of cuff-links. ‘Now it’s coming sooner rather than later. I’ll adjust…I have no choice but to do so.’

Her delicate features tightened and her nails bit sharp crescents into her palms. She returned to her seat. She would give him time. He was very stubborn, very cynical in his suspicions. He needed more time. He needed her understanding. She loved him so much. He would come round, wouldn’t he?

But to what extent would Roel ever come round to accepting Hilary Ross, hairdresser, as his wife? And how long would her tenure last? He seemed to think it was his bounden duty to keep an eye on her while she was carrying his baby but he could well be planning on divorcing her straight after the birth. For all she knew he had already worked out the legal ins and outs of such timing.

He had never accepted her as his wife. Could she blame him for that? He had never asked her to be his wife and live with him and he had certainly not invited her to conceive his baby! It was important that she faced facts and the facts were painful, she conceded miserably. Roel felt trapped. Roel preferred his freedom.

If she sunk her pride all over again and was truly humble until things settled down, what was the most she could hope to receive from the guy she adored? That he would bed her again when he felt like sex? Throw her the odd piece of very expensive jewellery when she performed really well between the sheets? And would he always be rubbing her nose in her mistakes? Making her feel small and cheap and like nothing? Was she really prepared to let that happen?

CHAPTER TEN

THE following morning, Roel took Hilary to see a consultant gynaecologist.

Roel disconcerted Hilary by asking loads of complex questions. The gynaecologist was delighted to answer him with a great deal of scientific detail. Hilary felt like a womb on legs. She was hurt that Roel felt able to reveal his first show of interest in their baby to a third party but not to her. Then she wondered dismally if he had simply been putting on an act for the sake of appearances.

In the three endless days that followed, Hilary became more and more unhappy. Roel was heading in to the Sabatino Bank practically before the sun came up and returning late in the evening. He did not eat a single meal with her, nor was he making the smallest effort to ease the tension between them. But he phoned her twice a day to ask how she was. That seemed to be about as intimate as he was prepared to get for the communicating door between their bedrooms remained rigidly closed. His frigid politeness chilled her.

On the fourth morning she got up at the crack of dawn. After a sleepy shower and a hurried effort to make herself presentable without either looking suspiciously overdressed or unsuitably sexy, she hurried downstairs to the dining room to join Roel for breakfast.

Lean, strong face taut, Roel studied her with frowning force. ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’

‘I wanted to see you. It was either breakfast…or a forbidden interruption to your working day.’ A determined smile on her soft tense mouth as she attempted to make that weak joke, she looked at him hopefully.

Stunning dark golden eyes rested on her kimono-style dressing gown and his wide, sensual mouth took on an almost infinitesimal curl. Made of the finest silk, the garment covered her from throat to toe with a modesty that he considered highly deceptive. Her tiny waist was defined not just by the wide sash but also by the glorious contrast of the burgeoning swell of her lush breasts above and the ripe sweet curve of her hips below. He set down his coffee cup with a jarring rattle. Hilary helped herself to toast from the buffet table, her heart pounding like a drum. She was tormentingly aware of his intent scrutiny and of the sizzling tension in the atmosphere.

‘I…’ The tip of her tongue snaked out in a nervous flicker to moisten her lips as she turned back to face him and mustered the courage to rise above her pride and not count the cost. ‘I’ll miss you—’

‘Dannazione! I don’t want to hear it!’ Tossing aside his morning paper, Roel sprang upright. Scorching angry derision fired his scrutiny and she gazed back at him wide-eyed, her lips parted in complete disconcertion.

‘I’m not falling for it. Not even if you clamber on the table and dance like Salome! Been there, done that, don’t require the postcard as a reminder when we’ll be inundated with christening mugs in a few months’ time!’ Roel launched at her with withering bite. ‘When I want you, I’ll let you know.’

Tears of angry humiliation prickled at the back of her eyes. She listened to the limo drive off. Right, well that was that, then. He could get stuffed, she thought in an agony of swelling emotion. He needn’t think he could get away with treating her like some slut who would do anything to get him back into bed! She should never have accompanied him back from Sardinia. That had been a crucial miscalculation. He had made his contempt clear and she had been too much of a drip to accept that their marriage, such as it had been, was over.

But before she left Switzerland pride demanded that she clear her own name and made Roel see just how wrong he had been about her. Pacing up and down her bedroom, she decided that there was really only one way of achieving that end. She would have a proper legal agreement drawn up that would prove once and for all that she had no mercenary intentions. Furthermore she knew just the guy to approach. Paul Correro would be overjoyed to see her sign away all right to the Sabatino billions and she would leave Switzerland with her dignity intact.

When she arrived at the lawyer’s smart offices later that morning, she was ushered straight in to his presence. She was surprised that Paul was able to see her immediately and initially taken aback when he greeted her with an anxious look and actually thanked her very much for coming.