Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2019 Books 5-8 - Шантель Шоу, Chantelle Shaw - Страница 20

AMELIA FELT AS though she’d slept for three weeks and on a cloud. She awoke the next day completely relaxed, her body comfortable, her mind blank.

And then she looked around the room and it all came rushing back to her.

Holy heck, she was in Antonio’s house. Her house. Their house! Because they were married!

The brief, but legally binding, ceremony came to her, and all that had taken place afterwards. She pushed out of bed, reaching for her phone—it sat on the bedside table. It was almost mid-morning!

She’d never slept so long in her entire life!

She was still wearing her wedding dress—if it could be called that. She’d worn it on the flight from England, and it wasn’t even something she’d bought new for the event. She’d refused to observe any such kowtowing to tradition when their wedding was little more than a contractual agreement.

Yes, you do...and I’m going to enjoy proving that to you.

Awareness, hot and undeniable, pooled low in her abdomen. She galvanised her legs into action and made her way to the en-suite bathroom, where she freshened up. Her suitcase had been brought to this room at some point during her long rest. She cracked it open and pulled out a pair of shorts and a simple T-shirt, uncaring at how casual they were, refusing to feel the same insecurity when compared to Antonio’s usual choice of lover.

Did it matter that the women he routinely slept with would probably swan about, draped in the latest couture dresses, all elegant and unapproachable, like this house?

Not to Amelia.

She wasn’t going to let the ghosts of lovers past undermine her sense of self. With a nod to that commitment, she ventured out into the villa in search of Antonio.

Only the tour he’d given the day before, which had seemed to make perfect sense at the time, was a jumble in her mind. She found her way to the room he’d proposed using for the baby, and she saw it now with fresh, rested eyes and could admit it made perfect sense. In addition to being large, it was L-shaped, and she could imagine it with a small sofa and an armchair for nursing and, as he grew older, a little desk for his books and at which he could sit and do craft. It also lacked a terrace, and her concern for his safety made her glad for that.

The space beside the baby’s room wasn’t familiar to her. She pushed the door inwards and let out a gasp of surprise.

It was a library! A proper library. With thousands and thousands of books!

Antonio temporarily forgotten, she pushed deeper into the room, her breath unconsciously held as she scanned the spines. Many of the books were in Spanish; her heart dropped, but then it lifted once more.

So what? She had to learn the language—more than the bad words—at some point. Their son would be born in Spain, and his father was Spanish. In fact, their son or daughter would need to learn English, Spanish and Italian—all his heritages mixed together.

If they hired a nanny she would ensure it was someone bilingual, and perhaps she could include her own language tuition in the nanny’s job description.

Only it was the second day of her marriage, she still knew barely anything about her husband—except that he was apparently more reasonable than she’d expected him to be—and she was most definitely getting ahead of herself.

She stepped out of the library and continued her walk through the house, heading downstairs and checking his office—empty—before moving to the ground floor.

A noise alerted her—splashing—and she went towards it.

It wasn’t a particularly surprising discovery that he should be in the pool, but when she stepped onto the timber deck she stopped walking abruptly and could only stare.

Antonio was doing laps, and he wore only a skimpy pair of black briefs. As his legs kicked and his arms pulled him through the water, she stared at him, her eyes chasing his movements, her body hot all over.

He turned underwater and when he came up for breath, midway through another length, his eyes met hers and he stopped, standing in the pool water. The look he sent her was a more powerful aphrodisiac than even the image of him pulling through the water.

It was a look of absolute speculation, and something more. Something else altogether, like fierce masculine possession. Her fingers knotted in front of her, echoing the knots in her stomach. ‘I thought I was going to have to wake you,’ he said after a moment. ‘It is almost midday.’

She nodded, moving closer to the pool and dipping her toe in. The water was delightfully cool. ‘I know. I can’t believe it. I guess that’s pregnancy.’

He was watchful, his intelligent eyes moving analytically over her face. ‘The books I read all say exhaustion is a symptom.’

‘You’ve read pregnancy books?’

He frowned then shrugged, so water droplets ran over his shoulders and her eyes dropped to his smooth caramel flesh. ‘Of course.’

He swam across the pool, coming to the coping right beside Amelia’s feet. ‘Have there been any other symptoms?’ he asked, looking directly up at her.

She sat down, dropping her legs into the water and kicking them forward. The relief was heaven against her warm skin. ‘A bit of nausea.’ She shrugged. ‘A headache, from time to time. Nothing remarkable.’

‘How did you discover you were pregnant?’

‘I went to the doctor,’ she said simply.

‘But why? Were you ill?’

‘Oh, no. I just...the dates.’ She shook her head, remembering that surreal moment. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Did you think about keeping it from me?’

She looked away from him, swallowing. ‘Not for even a second,’ she said honestly.

She didn’t see the way his lips pulled downwards at the corner. ‘That surprises me.’

‘Why?’

‘You hardly know me, as you pointed out. And our family situation...’

She shook her head. ‘I think what’s surprising is that any woman would keep a baby from its father. A child isn’t solely a mother’s or a father’s. To deprive someone of being a parent, for whatever reason...it seems wrong.’

‘I agree,’ he said, steel in the words. ‘From the moment you told me I was a father my world changed. I cannot imagine how I would feel if you had elected to keep this to yourself.’

She swallowed past a lump in her throat as memories of her own childhood taunted her. ‘To raise our baby to think either that their father didn’t want them, or wondering at who and why... I wouldn’t do that.’

Perhaps the words were laced with her own pain because, beneath the water, one of his hands wrapped gently around her ankle and he stroked it, so that heat flared in her skin. ‘You weren’t close to your own father, growing up.’

They both knew the truth of that statement.

But Amelia sighed heavily, regarding him with eyes that were unknowingly wary. ‘No.’ She bit down on her lip and focused on the small patterns formed in the water’s reflection. ‘I didn’t even know who he was until my mother died.’

‘You mean you’d never met him?’ he enquired with obvious disbelief, moving to stand in front of her now, transferring his grip so he had a hand clamped around each of her ankles.

‘I mean I’d never met him, and I didn’t even know his name.’ Her eyes dropped to the water. ‘My mother never told me about him.’

‘But he knew of you?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ The word was bitten out with shock.

‘No. She never told him about me. And any time I asked her about my father she’d get angry, and then say she couldn’t remember, as though falling pregnant was something trivial and unimportant.’

Her face flashed with emotion. ‘When she died her lawyer gave me the answers I’d wanted all my life—and, because I was a minor, I was sent to live with my father—a man who was as blindsided by my existence as I was his.’

A muscle jerked in his square jaw and her gaze fell to it instinctively. ‘How could she have been so selfish?’

‘That was my mother,’ Amelia observed drily. ‘She was the absolute definition of selfish. I suppose she thought she’d never die—utterly juvenile, given her lifestyle. Or maybe she thought she’d tell me when I was older. More likely, she just didn’t think it through at all. She definitely knew who my father was, though, because in her will—and, believe me, I was shocked to discover she’d had the maturity to even draft one—my parentage was clearly noted. To this day, I have no idea why she chose to raise me on her own. God knows there were about a thousand things she’d have preferred to do with her life.’

The pain-filled invective lay around them, dark and spiky. Antonio’s fingers stroked the flesh at her ankles and he stood at her legs, looking up at her contemplatively. ‘And did your father take you in straight away?’

Her cheeks stained pink as the mortification of that summer wrapped around her anew. ‘You make me sound like a puppy,’ she said with a shake of her head, in an attempt to lighten the conversation.

He didn’t smile. ‘Did he?’

‘More or less,’ she answered, her eyes sparking with memories. ‘He had a DNA test to be sure. I can’t blame him,’ Amelia was quick to offer in defence. ‘Their relationship was brief, and he never heard from my mother again. His scepticism makes sense.’

‘Perhaps. But I imagine his caution hurt you, as a young woman?’

Her expression was wary. ‘I understood,’ she said sharply, unable to admit the deep pain she’d felt at his decision.

‘And once the results came back?’

Now her smile was brittle. ‘I was a diSalvo, beyond a shadow of doubt,’ she said. ‘He laid proud claim to me in much the same manner you are to our baby. That’s the way it works in dynasties like this, isn’t it? Children are heirs more than they are people.’

Antonio’s face was a mask of careful consideration. ‘I think children are both.’

Amelia shifted her gaze away from his. ‘Perhaps. In any event, I was no longer a child.’

‘You were twelve?’

Twelve—still so young, she realised now. ‘Nearly thirteen. And I’d been living with my mum so I’d seen a lot.’ Her smile was a rejection, a way of shutting the conversation down. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now.’

* * *

It was unusual for Antonio to have a conversation shift away from him, even more unusual to have it purposely pulled. He didn’t want to allow the change in direction. There was too much he wanted to know.

But it was the first day of their marriage—an interrogation could wait, surely? He had all the time in the world to find the answers he wanted.

So he smiled calmly and then scooped some water up and flicked it at her. Her surprise was obvious and he wondered how she’d react, watching her, waiting.

Then she laughed, and returned volley, reaching down and lashing him with a heavy spray of pool water before reaching down once more. This time he caught her wrist and pulled, so she fell into the pool with him. She went underwater, then bounced back to the surface, dashing her hair away from her eyes.

She blinked, clearing her eyes, and the air between them seemed to charge. Her breasts were clearly visible beneath the saturated cotton of her T-shirt, bobbing on the water and, out of nowhere, he remembered the way they’d felt in his palms, the way he’d taken her nipples into his mouth, and his body was tight and hard beneath the water.

‘Race you to the other side,’ she challenged and, before he could answer, she was off. He watched her stroke for several seconds before powering to catch up with her. Yes, an interrogation would wait—there were better ways to spend the first day of their marriage.

* * *

Dinner was a surprisingly easy affair. Antonio was a skilled conversationalist and he kept things light, enquiring about her time at university and her job at Hedgecliff Academy. It was no hardship for her to talk about her pupils and her work, the school she’d come to love.

What she didn’t say was the part it had played in her recovery—she’d lost her mother and she’d chosen to turn her back on her father and her brother. Oh, there was no scandal, no unpleasant estrangement, but she’d walked away from them and all they stood for, choosing to live the life she’d always fantasised about.

A quiet life, with simple pleasures and easy friendships.

She didn’t say how Hedgecliff had pulled her back together when she’d been searching for her real identity, separating herself from the girl who’d been the daughter of a supermodel and then a billion-pound heiress.

And whether he had questions or not, she didn’t know because he moved their talk along, sharing his own stories of his time at university—his degree at Cambridge, and then he’d done postgraduate study at Harvard, which explained why his English was so perfect. And all the while he’d been overseeing his family business.

She knew from previous conversations that these years would have involved a time when Giacomo and Carlo were actively trying to ruin Herrera Incorporated, but he glossed over that too, undoubtedly for her benefit.

It was a pleasant night, and if Amelia had been asked two weeks earlier if that was possible she would have sworn until she was blue in the face that there was nothing on earth that would induce her to spend a nice quiet evening with Antonio Herrera—and especially not to enjoy it.

But dinner drew to a close and the sun dipped low over Madrid, setting late in the evening owing to the time of year. They were just two people then, with night before them, and all she could think about was the way he’d looked at her earlier.

She’d said she didn’t want him, and he’d contradicted that.

Yes, you do, hermosa, and I’m going to enjoy proving that to you.

‘Well,’ she said, awkwardness in the small word, ‘I might go to bed.’

She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

He didn’t respond directly. ‘Have you told your family about this?’

She was very still, her heart heavy inside her. ‘Not yet.’

At that, she felt him stiffen. ‘You haven’t mentioned our marriage?’

‘Nope.’

‘Your pregnancy?’

She shook her head from side to side.

‘Dios mío! For what reason?’

She chewed on her lower lip, reaching for her water glass and sipping from it to bring some moistness back to her dry mouth. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said after a moment.

‘Complicated? To tell them you are pregnant?’ He stood, and her eyes dragged up his frame, drawn to his strength and breadth as though he were a magnet.

‘You’re not just some man to them, though. You’re the devil, remember?’ Her brows knit together. ‘The fact I’m in some kind of relationship with you would be enough to kill them,’ she muttered. ‘Let alone when they realise it was just a stupid one-night stand from which I ended up pregnant.’

His expression was inscrutable as he came to crouch beside her, his trousers stretched over his powerful haunches.

‘Come on,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘You hate them; obviously they feel the same about you. And the last thing I want is for me or my baby to become some kind of pawn in your feud. If they knew I was pregnant, they’d have absolutely refused to let me marry you.’

He arched his brows and reached a hand for her chin, holding her face still when she would have turned away from him. ‘And you’d have let them control your life in that way?’

‘No.’ Her eyes sparked with his. ‘Because I’m doing this for the baby, because I want him or her to have a family, remember?’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t want them trying to stop the wedding, and I didn’t want them making a huge deal out of this.’

He frowned. ‘It’s ironic that you are attempting to keep our marriage a secret,’ he said with a grimace.

‘Why is that ironic? Can’t you see that it makes sense?’

‘No,’ he said firmly, with a shake of his head.

‘I obviously plan on telling them some time. I just...don’t quite know when,’ she finished vaguely.

In truth, the idea of having that conversation sat heavily on her shoulders. Nothing about this pregnancy was straightforward. Not the circumstances, not the baby’s father, and certainly not the family history that shrouded their child, even before birth. And yet, in spite of that, one emotion had overridden all others: happiness. And, selfishly, she didn’t want anything to detract from that. Giacomo and Carlo would be furious—and she understood why. But she didn’t want to have that discussion yet. There was enough to adapt to—marriage to Antonio, getting to know him, settling into life in Madrid, dealing with her pregnancy.

Her family would have questions, and she’d feel better answering them when she knew exactly what those answers were! To have to defend her marriage, to explain her reasoning, to permit intrusions into what was a private matter—she didn’t want that. She wasn’t ready for it.

‘Then you will not wish them to join us.’

‘Join us?’ She stared at him with alarm. ‘What for?’

He dropped his hand away from her face. ‘I’ve arranged a small wedding reception to take place next week. My friends and business associates, nothing big, but I thought you should meet them, and that they should meet you. I had wondered if you’d like your family to be there too. I must say, I’m relieved this is not the case.’

Amelia’s heart began to race in her chest. Ignoring any suggestion of her father and brother coming face to face with the father of her child, a man they already hated, she focused on the rest of his statement. ‘A party?’

‘A cocktail party,’ he agreed, making it sound civilised when she knew what these things were like. God, she’d been to more than her fair share, first with her mother and then courtesy of her second life as a diSalvo. ‘Some music, food, champagne, fifty or so people. It will be over within a few hours but, vitally, it will cement our marriage.’

‘Cement our marriage?’ She scraped her chair back, standing with a sense of panic. ‘I thought the document we signed did that. You know, the ceremony in front of a judge, the fact our marriage has been registered with the Spanish court?’

‘I mean socially.’

‘Socially? You actually care about that?’

He reached for the plates, carrying them through to the kitchen. She followed out of curiosity.

‘I care about your life here in Madrid,’ he surprised her by saying, stacking the dishwasher then turning to face her. ‘I don’t want you to be lonely and, the truth is, I work long hours. I thought you’d like to make some friends—there’ll be women at the party, friends of mine. You’ll like them.’

She gasped in a hot, angry breath and pushed away any thought that his gesture was one of kindness. ‘You’re actually trying to make my friendships for me? You really do have the most insufferable God complex.’

‘And you have the ability to twist any gesture into some kind of insult,’ he volleyed back, crossing his arms over his chest. She refused to analyse his words, nor to see truth in them. ‘What did you think marriage to me would entail? Did you presume we would have no social life whatsoever?’

‘I...presumed you’d go about your business as always and I’d be free to do my own thing.’

His eyes sparked with dark emotions. ‘You believed wrong. You are my wife. You could do me the courtesy of at least trying to act like it, so far as the world is concerned.’

Her jaw dropped at this demand, so too did her heart speed up at his blatant claim of possession. You are my wife. How those words trickled down her spine like warmed honey, filling her with pleasure and pain all at once.

‘But this isn’t a real marriage,’ she said weakly, when other words and pleas were swarming through her mind.

‘You want to bet?’ he volleyed back, and now his hands were braced on either side of her body, his palms pressed into the bench, his frame a perfect jail for her. She stared up at him, helpless and lost, and there was a threat in his eyes that filled her with desire.

‘I...’

‘You what?’ he asked, dropping his head so his face hovered only an inch above hers.

‘I...’

‘Yes, querida?’ he demanded, lowering his face still, so his lips brushed hers and a jolt of electricity fired up her spine. ‘Tell me again how this marriage of ours is not a real one.’ And his lips did more than buzz against hers then, they pressed to her mouth and she whimpered, low in her throat. Her fingers, of their own volition, grasped the sides of his shirt and he deepened the kiss when her lips parted on another moan. His tongue slid into her mouth and then he lifted her as though she weighed nothing, sitting her on the benchtop so he could stand between her legs and plunder her mouth as if he was the only man on earth.

And, God, wasn’t he? For her at least?

But she’d fallen prey to this desire once before. It had flashed into her life and she’d been weak—too weak to realise that he could use this sensuality like a drug. She couldn’t submit to it again—it would be foolish.

His fingers found the bottom of her shirt and he lifted it just enough for his fingertips to graze her bare flesh and every cell in her body cried out in relief and delight, and hope. Hope that he would strip her naked and make love to her once more.

With a guttural, desperate cry, she pulled away from him, moving back on the bench and lifting her fingers to her lips, lips that were bruised and throbbing with desire.

‘How dare you?’ The words were strangled from deep within her, and they were saturated with self-recrimination because she had wanted him to kiss her. She hadn’t wanted him to stop kissing her!

He narrowed his eyes, and they were as clouded by desire as her own. ‘How dare I what? Kiss you as you have been wanting me to all night? Kiss you as though you are my wife?’

‘I haven’t,’ she denied hotly, but it was a lie and they both knew that.

He spoke without responding to her denial, but his voice was husky, filled with the passion that had flamed between them just now. ‘How dare I want you to have friends? To have a social life here in Madrid? People to catch up with when I am travelling for work? Other mothers to talk to about babies and nappies and bottles and I don’t know what else?’

She was glad to return to their argument, rather than have to defend the way she’d melted in his arms. ‘That’s up to me!’ she snapped from teeth that were clamped together. ‘I’m perfectly capable of making my own friends.’

‘But you don’t want them to be my friends,’ he surmised, his expression shifting.

‘I didn’t say that.’ She bit down on her lip, trying to find words that would defuse this, that would explain her hesitation. ‘This has all happened so fast. I just need a moment to catch my breath before I start thinking about everything else.’

‘It is a party. My friends, some food, music, dancing. You will enjoy yourself.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Panic filled her mouth with a taste of adrenalin. Everything was happening too fast. ‘I can’t do that.’ She thought of all the parties she’d been to—first with her mother, then as a diSalvo heiress, and a shiver scratched over her spine.

‘I’m sure it seems inconsequential to you, but it’s not to me. It’s too much, too fast.’ She shook her head. ‘No party. Please.’

His eyes narrowed and she was reminded that one of the many facets of this man was the ruthless, hard-nosed tycoon. That he conquered whatever he turned his hand to in the corporate world. That he was determined and he was fierce and that he was used to getting his own way.

‘When you agreed to marry me, you told me you wanted me to be reasonable. Is there anything unreasonable about what I’m proposing?’

‘Yes!’ she snapped, and then shook her head because there wasn’t.

‘What is it, Amelia? Do you think you can keep this marriage secret for ever?’

‘I...’ She shook her head. ‘This is not negotiable.’ The words trembled with the strength of her emotion.

He exhaled softly and his warm breath fanned her temple, so her body swayed forward infinitesimally of its own accord. ‘You’re saying you wish me to cancel it?’

‘Yes,’ she responded quickly, too quickly, as her throat constricted. Her breath was hard and fast. How could she explain to him what her life had been like? At least, with Penny, Amelia had been dragged to events with an eclectic, artsy crowd. With the diSalvos it had been designer chic the whole way. Designer drugs, designer cars, designer everything. Amelia had never belonged, hadn’t wanted to belong, and she’d fled that scene as soon as she could. The thought of being right back in the midst of it was impossible to countenance.

‘Fine,’ he said darkly, his disapproval obvious. ‘Consider it cancelled. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’