The Spanish Billionaire's Pregnant Wife

Nervous as a cat, Molly watched Leandro restively pace the floor in the elegant main reception room of his apartment. The lights of the city illuminated the darkness beyond the floor-deep windows. He might not have said one word out of place, but even he could not hide his tension. She found it hard to look away from him. It seemed juvenile to her to still be thinking of how gorgeous he was, but she couldn’t help it. His chiselled masculine features and his spectacular heavily lashed dark eyes grabbed her attention with embarrassing ease. Encountering her anxious gaze, he strode forward.

‘Once you’ve had the pregnancy confirmed, we’ll get married as soon as it can be arranged.’

Molly blinked in astonishment. ‘You can’t be serious. You hardly know me-’

‘You’re carrying my baby and it’s expected. That’s all I need to know for the moment. If the baby is a boy, he will be my heir and the next Duke of Sandoval-’

Her bright eyes widened in amazement. ‘There’s a title in your family?’

Leandro nodded.

‘So who’s the current duke?’

‘I am, but I only use the title at home.’

Molly had suddenly become as stiff as if she had had a poker strapped to her spine. ‘You’re a duke…and you’re asking me to marry you?’

‘I’m not giving you a choice on this. You cannot bring up any child of mine alone,’ Leandro breathed tautly. ‘I want my child to grow up in my home with his family and to speak my language. We can only achieve that end by becoming man and wife.’

‘But you’re still getting over your last wife,’ Molly mumbled. But as soon as she had spoken and noticed his face shadow she wished she had kept that thought to herself.

‘I’m not an emotional man, querida. Nor do I make tasteless comparisons. I find you extremely attractive and see no reason why we shouldn’t have a successful marriage.’

Unnerved by his dispassionate outlook, Molly shook her head slowly. ‘I want to be loved by the man I marry.’

Leandro released his breath in a slow hiss of frustration. ‘I can’t give you love,’ he responded without hesitation.

He was a duke, a real Spanish duke, and Molly was horrified by that revelation, for she could not imagine how someone as ordinary as she believed herself to be could possibly become the wife of a man of such wealth and high status. ‘I respect your sense of commitment towards the baby,’ she told him tensely.

‘And to you, querida,’ Leandro added, reaching down to close her hands into his and urge her up out of her seat.

Her mouth ran dry as he drew her close. ‘Only a couple of weeks ago the only thing you thought I was good enough for was being your mistress. If I couldn’t even make it into the girlfriend category, how can you sincerely say that you want to marry me?’

Leandro was already picturing her in his gilded four-poster bed at the castillo, a seductive image that acted as an opportune sweetener to his reluctance to remarry. He stared down at her with hot dark golden eyes that made her feel overheated and dizzy. ‘My libido isn’t fussy about labels. I want you, regardless of who you are.’

Molly trembled in contact with his muscular, powerfully aroused body. He desired her and she could feel the unashamed evidence of his desire. But was a hunger that left her boneless sufficient to base a marriage on?

‘It would be diplomatic to forget that I once invited you to be my mistress. If you’re having my baby, that is no longer feasible,’ Leandro completed.

‘You’re determined that the baby should have your name?’

‘Do you want your child to be illegitimate?’

Molly lost colour and dropped her expressive eyes. ‘No, I don’t, but I don’t want to make a hasty marriage that I live to regret either.’

Leandro surveyed her with considerable coolness, for he had expected-not unnaturally in his own opinion-a much more enthusiastic response to his proposal. Few women in her position would have hesitated. What was her problem? What was holding her back? The blond guy with the oil stains on his hands?

‘There will be no possibility of a divorce,’ Leandro added.

Molly was impressed rather than put off by that statement, for she didn’t want to trust her future to a man likely to give up on his marital vows at the first hurdle. She didn’t want empty promises from him either. But though he couldn’t offer her love he could give her other things. Marriage to Leandro would bring financial security and every material advantage her child could ever want. Even more crucially, it would also give her child a father, indeed a normal two parent family. Possibly, she reflected uncertainly, she should be thinking about what such a marriage would do for their child, rather than what it would do for her on a more personal basis.