Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: August 2017 Books 5 -8 - Шантель Шоу, Jennie Lucas - Страница 19

CHAPTER NINE

ELIN’S ESCAPE PLAN had seemed easy in theory. But in practice she struggled to strap Harry’s baby seat into the car when her hands were shaking. She consoled herself with the thought that she would not have to drive Cortez’s powerful sports car that roared like a savage beast and would no doubt have woken the entire household. Recently he had bought a family estate car for her to use, but she’d never driven on the right-hand side of the road and she had been glad when he’d sat beside her to give her confidence on her first outing to a nearby village. Now she was planning to drive some twenty kilometres to the airport in Jerez de la Frontera in the dark, and her stomach was knotted with nervous tension.

She waited until midnight before she took Harry in the baby carrier downstairs and collected the car keys from the utility room. The car’s engine purred quietly as she drove out of the garage. The main gates at the bottom of the driveway were activated by number plate recognition and should have swung open as the car approached them, but Elin’s heart sank when they remained shut.

‘Open, damn you,’ she muttered. She had spent hours of soul-searching before she’d made the decision to leave Cortez and take Harry back to England, and now that she had got this far with her plan she did not want any delay. She was not going to deny Cortez a role in Harry’s life, but it could not only be on his terms.

She switched off the engine and checked that Harry was still asleep before she got out of the car and walked up to the gates with little hope that she would be able to open them manually. To her surprise, when she leaned against one of the gates, it moved. She pushed both gates fully open and stood on the road outside the grounds of the house. Above her the moon was a silver disc in the black sky. She stared up at the stars that glittered as brilliantly as the diamonds on her engagement ring that she had left in Cortez’s study with a note explaining her reasons for leaving.

There was nothing to stop her getting into the car and driving away from La Casa Jazmín—except for her conscience. She tried to imagine how Cortez would feel when he discovered that she had taken his son. He would be devastated because he loved Harry. The truth struck her like a lightning bolt. From the moment Cortez had received proof that Harry was his, he had constantly shown that he adored his baby son. With brutal honesty, Elin acknowledged that she’d felt a little bit jealous of the attention Cortez paid to Harry and his love for his son that was so obvious.

Behind her she heard a faint click and she spun round to find that the gates had smoothly and silently closed and she was locked outside Casa Jazmín’s grounds, while the car with Harry inside was on the other side of the gates. Frantically, she tugged the gates but they would not budge. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud and the darkness seemed menacing as the horror of her situation sank in.

She could not understand how the electronic gates had started working again. But when the moon reappeared and cast a ghostly gleam along the driveway, the answer stood before her in the form of a six foot four, furiously angry man.

‘Cortez.’ Elin swallowed as she waited for him to speak. The moonlight slanted over his harsh features and his anger was evident in the rigid set of his jaw. But he said nothing as he lifted the baby seat out of the car and walked back towards the house with Harry.

She rattled the metal gates, fear cramping in her stomach. ‘Cortez, please let me in.’ He carried on walking as if she hadn’t spoken, as if she did not exist. ‘Please...’ A sob tore through her. ‘You can’t take my baby.’

‘You were going to take him away from me.’ Finally he halted and turned around. His voice was as dark and menacing as the night. ‘By chance I went into my study to look for some paperwork, and when I found your note I deactivated the electronic gates. But if I hadn’t been in time you would have driven off with Harry. Dios, I trusted you, Elin. Something I vowed never to do with any woman,’ he said bitterly. His temper exploded. ‘How dare you repay my trust by attempting to steal my son? How dare you try to separate me from him and deprive Harry of a father who loves him more than anything on this earth?’

‘I wasn’t going to go.’ Desperation made her voice unsteady. ‘I swear I’d changed my mind and I was going to turn the car around.’

He gave a grim laugh. ‘There’s no chance I’d believe a word you say. And there is even less chance that a court will award you custody of Harry after you were willing to risk his safety by taking him in the car when you are inexperienced at driving on roads in Spain.’

Cortez’s voice was icy with disdain. ‘My first opinion of you was correct and you are unfit to be his mother. The best place for Harry to be right now is in his nursery, safely asleep in his cot, and that is where I am going to take him.’

Elin beat her fists against the gates. She was crying so hard that she could barely speak. ‘You seem to love Harry, but for how long will you love him?’ she choked. ‘When the novelty of fatherhood wears off will you lose interest in your child, the same as my adoptive father grew bored of me?’

She watched Cortez walk into the house and collapsed onto her knees in despair. Every ragged breath she dragged into her lungs hurt. ‘If you take my son away from me you might as well cut my heart out,’ she cried after him. ‘He is all I have. Please.’

* * *

Violent rage coursed through Cortez. Elin should consider herself lucky that she was on the other side of the locked gates because if he could get his hands on her he’d be tempted to shake some sense into her.

But he would be tempted to do much more than shake her, he acknowledged with furious self-derision. Even though he had proof that she was an untrustworthy, deceitful bitch he still wanted her. She was a fever in his blood and a constant clamouring hunger in his gut. He thought about her all the time and there had been many nights in the past month when he’d resorted to using his hand to alleviate the throbbing ache of his arousal.

He resented the power she had over him. After Alandra he had assured himself that he would never allow a woman to affect him. But Elin had fooled him with her sweet smile, while all the time she had been plotting to steal his son. Ten years ago Alandra had told him that she did not want his baby and had ended her pregnancy. Sometimes when Cortez saw a child of roughly the same age as his child would have been he was still haunted by a deep sense of loss and regret. Now he had a son and he was fiercely determined that Elin would not deprive him of his right to be Harry’s father.

In the nursery he carefully transferred Harry from the baby carrier to the cot. ‘Te amo, mi hijo,’ he whispered as he leaned over the cot rail and kissed the baby’s velvety soft cheek. Cortez hadn’t known he could feel like this—so fiercely protective that he would kill anyone who tried to hurt his child. Harry needed his father, but he was not yet five months old and the inescapable truth was that he needed his mother too.

Cortez’s jaw clenched when he walked over to the window that overlooked the driveway and saw Elin was where he had left her, slumped on her knees behind the locked gates. How long would she remain there? The answer felt like a punch in his gut. She would never abandon her son. Over and over again he had seen evidence of Elin’s love for Harry. Her words echoed inside his head.

When the novelty of fatherhood wears off will you lose interest in your child, the same as my adoptive father grew bored of me?

Both he and Elin had suffered from Ralph Saunderson’s failures as a father, Cortez brooded. Elin had not known her real parents, and although Ralph had adopted her and given her a home he had not given her the attention and love she had desperately needed. It was not hard to understand why Elin had trust issues. And he had not helped in that respect, Cortez acknowledged. Dios, he had taken her innocence and then turned his back on her. Cursing beneath his breath, he abruptly swung away from the window and took the device that operated the driveway gates from his pocket.

* * *

At first Elin couldn’t understand what was happening when she suddenly fell forwards and landed on her face on the gravel driveway before she had a chance to put her hand out to save herself. The realisation that the gates had swung open sent relief flooding through her, and her legs trembled as she stumbled to her feet and ran towards the house. The front door was ajar and she tore across the hall and up the stairs to the nursery.

Her baby was fast asleep and blissfully unaware of the drama of the past half an hour. She clung to the side of the cot and forced herself to breathe deeply. Harry’s long black lashes curled against his cheeks and his rosebud mouth was pursed in an adorable expression that brought more tears to Elin’s eyes. If she had to crawl over broken glass to Cortez and plead with him not to seek custody of their son she would do whatever he demanded. She had better start by apologising, she thought ruefully.

His private suite was along the corridor. Her heart was thudding as she knocked on the door, and when there was no answer she cautiously stepped into the sitting room. Cortez wasn’t there, nor in the adjoining master bedroom. Elin turned to leave, thinking he might be downstairs in his study. She froze when he emerged from the en suite bathroom.

He did not seem surprised to find her in his room and flicked his cold gaze over her while Elin stared at him uncertainly, waiting for him to speak. His simmering silence ratcheted up her tension, but the shameful longing that the sight of Cortez always evoked in her licked fiery heat through her body and pooled, hot and molten, there, between her thighs, where only he had ever touched her.

He was naked apart from the towel wrapped around his hips, and droplets of water clung to his black chest hairs. She visualised the photo of him on Sancha’s phone and all her feelings of hurt and anger exploded.

‘How dare you say I am unfit to be Harry’s mother? I have never left him to go off and spend a night with a lover.’

He frowned. ‘Neither have I.’

‘You went to Madrid, supposedly on business, and stayed with Sancha at the apartment you bought for her. She showed me a photo of you, naked in bed at your love nest. Sancha is your mistress, isn’t she?’

Cortez did not deny it, and Elin felt sick. He walked past her into the sitting room and opened his briefcase that was on the table, returning to the bedroom moments later and handing her a piece of paper.

‘What is this?’ she muttered.

‘The hotel receipt for the night that I stayed in Madrid.’ He shrugged, and Elin could not help but notice the way his powerful shoulder muscles rippled beneath his bronzed satin skin. ‘Sancha and I were lovers for a brief time but I ended my affair with her three months before I went to Cuckmere Hall for Ralph’s funeral. My property portfolio includes an apartment block in Madrid and Teresa García asked me if I would rent a flat to her sister when Sancha was looking for a place to live.’

Elin noted that the date on the receipt tallied with the night when Cortez had stayed away. ‘You could still have visited Sancha at her apartment.’ And had sex with her, she thought, but did not voice her suspicion.

‘I happened to run into her at a restaurant where I was having lunch with a client, but that’s all,’ he said calmly. ‘I crammed two days of meetings into one day and worked until late so that I could come home, rather than have to spend another night away from you and Harry.’

It was scary how desperately she wanted to believe him. ‘Then why did Sancha say that the photo of you on her phone was taken three weeks ago?’

‘To cause trouble and make you jealous, I imagine. I broke up with her because she made it plain that she hoped I would marry her.’

‘I am not jealous,’ Elin denied, flushing hotly. Cortez sounded so matter-of-fact that she found she believed him. Sancha must have been bitter that he had dumped her, and Elin knew she had been too ready to believe the Spanish woman’s spite because she was unsure of her own relationship with Cortez.

‘You threatened to fight for custody of Harry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But I don’t want us to be embroiled in a court battle over our son. You were right to say that he needs both his parents, and so I... I want to go ahead with our wedding tomorrow.’ In fact they were due to marry later today, she realised when she glanced at the clock and saw it was almost one a.m.

Elin didn’t know how she’d expected Cortez to react. Not with a loud cheer, obviously, but she’d thought he would say something. He flicked his dark gaze over her once more and his implacable expression caused her heart to jolt against her ribs.

‘You’ll have to do better than that if you want to convince me that I should make you my wife,’ he finally drawled.

‘I don’t understand.’ She was fascinated by the glittering gold flecks in his eyes.

‘If I hadn’t caught you trying to sneak out of La Casa Jazmín, you would have stolen my son,’ he said harshly. Elin’s heart sank as she realised that he was still furious with her. ‘You need to give me a good reason why I should marry you.’

She stared at him and wished he would put some clothes on because the sight of his near naked body was making it difficult for her to think straight. ‘I don’t know how to convince you,’ she said helplessly.

He strolled over to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Elin’s eyes were drawn to the towel he wore that rode up his thighs and barely concealed the bulge of his arousal. Angry and aroused were a dangerous combination, and she swallowed when her eyes crashed with his and she saw the speculative gleam in his unforgiving gaze.

‘You can start by proving to me that you will be an obedient wife. Get undressed,’ he commanded softly.

She was outraged by his arrogance, but at the same time she could not control the searing heat that swept through her and made every nerve ending in her body quiver. The truth was that she had secretly yearned for him to make love to her ever since he had brought her to Spain. When they had been out in public together he had acted the role of a loving and attentive fiancé, but when they were alone he had not made any attempt to seduce her after she’d agreed to marry him. She had believed Sancha because Cortez was such a virile man and surely he must have wanted sex in the weeks that they had been at La Casa Jazmín.

She wanted sex too, but not like this, with resentment and mistrust simmering between them. She could tell him to go to hell and retain her pride but risk the very real likelihood of losing custody of her baby. It wasn’t a risk Elin was prepared to take.

Before she had attempted her ill-thought-out escape plan she’d changed into clothes that would be comfortable for travelling in with a small baby in tow. But her jeans were difficult to peel off when her hands were trembling. She felt the blush that stained her cheeks spread all the way down to her toes as she tugged her T-shirt over her head while Cortez watched her with an intent look in his eyes that made her stomach muscles contract.

If she had hoped for a reprieve she was disappointed. ‘Why have you stopped?’ he growled. ‘Your plain underwear does not send me wild with desire. If I decide to marry you I will expect you to wear lingerie that excites me, not bores me.’

Once again she controlled the urge to tell him to go to hell. Only now did she realise how much damage she had done by betraying Cortez’s trust. But she was not going to allow him to humiliate her, Elin decided as she reached behind her and unclipped her bra. She lifted her chin and held his gaze as she slid the straps down her arms, allowing the bra to fall to the floor.

She felt a little spurt of feminine triumph when dull colour flared on his magnificent cheekbones, and she was glad that her body had regained its pre-pregnancy shape with the help of regular sessions in the gym. Her stomach was flat, and although she’d always wished that her breasts were bigger, they were firm, and she saw Cortez’s eyes focus on the hard points of her nipples that jutted provocatively forwards.

But he did not move; he just sat there waiting for her to finish unveiling her body to him. Elin wished she was wearing a sexy thong instead of her distinctly unglamorous underwear. No doubt he was used to seeing his mistresses in silk and lace. Temper made her movements jerky as she tugged her knickers down her legs and stepped out of them. She pushed her long hair over her shoulder and stared right back at him.

‘I was a pretty child,’ she told him. ‘When a news crew filmed a piece about abandoned children at the bomb-damaged orphanage in Sarajevo, they turned the cameras on me because I was blonde and cute. I was lucky to be adopted by the Saundersons but there were many other children they could have chosen. Even at four years old I understood that I had been given a chance in life because of the way I looked.’

Cortez said nothing and his hard-boned features gave no clue to his thoughts. Elin felt a nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach when he lifted his hand and crooked his finger, beckoning her to him. She wanted to refuse him but she reminded herself that she wanted to keep her son. ‘You only wanted my body,’ she said flatly. ‘And after you’d had me you walked away and did not give me another thought. You made me feel worthless.’

She caught her breath when he placed his hand on her stomach. His touch burned her and she knew he must have felt her muscles contract as awareness of his smouldering sensuality ripped through her.

‘I wish I had seen you when your belly was swollen with our child,’ he finally said and his voice was deeper than she had ever heard it, as if he felt as raw as she did. But that was impossible, Elin told herself. Cortez had demonstrated how unimportant she was to him when he’d failed to contact her for a year.

‘You should have been around when Harry was born and I nearly died. I was terrified he would not have either of his parents,’ she said thickly.

To her surprise he nodded. ‘You’re right; I should have been there for both of you.’

Something in his voice made Elin believe that his remorse was genuine and the tight bands around her heart loosened a little.

He lifted his other hand and shaped the curve of her hips and the indent of her waist before he moved his hands higher and splayed his fingers over her ribcage, tantalisingly close to the undersides of her breasts. She knew he could feel her erratic heartbeat and at that moment she hated him for the ease with which he could make her mindless with desire.

‘Is there a purpose to this exercise?’ she said grittily. ‘Are you planning to throw me down on the bed and demonstrate your power over me by forcing me to have sex with you?’

He looked amused. ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

‘Of course not.’ She silently cursed when she heard the huskiness in her voice. He was tying her in knots and he damned well knew it. Her stomach muscles clenched when he trailed his hand down her body and slid his fingers through the blonde curls at the junction between her thighs.

‘Why did you try to run away with Harry?’

‘I was worried you might grow bored of fatherhood and abandon him.’ Like you abandoned me. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. I’ve told you how much I wished I had a father when I was growing up, and I will always love and protect my son.’

Cortez slipped his hand between her legs, and Elin caught her breath when he eased his finger inside her and discovered her molten heat. He gave a little tug of his hand to propel her forwards so that she was standing between his open legs.

‘Our marriage cannot succeed without honesty. Tell me the truth, Elin.’

The truth! She gave a pained laugh and suddenly she was tired of fighting him, of fighting herself. ‘The truth is that I’m scared of how you make me feel,’ she muttered.

‘How do I make you feel?’ he demanded relentlessly. He eased a second finger inside her and moved his hand in a devastating dance that left her incapable of concentrating on anything but the blissful sensations he was creating.

She stared at his face, at his dark eyes flecked with gold and his beautiful mouth that could look stern or sensual depending on his mood. The smile that tugged the corners of his lips stole her heart and she had to remind herself that this was the man who had threatened to take her baby from her if she failed to persuade him to marry her.

‘I told myself that the reason I slept with you at my birthday party was because I wasn’t in control of my behaviour after my drink had been spiked with a date-rape drug. But the truth,’ she whispered, ‘is that I danced with many men that night and I didn’t invite any of them into my bedroom. Only you. I saw you and you blew me away. But the next morning, when I woke and you had gone, I felt ashamed. When Virginia told me that her friend Tom had been charged with tampering with women’s drinks, I pretended to myself that what had happened hadn’t been my fault.’

She trembled as Cortez continued his erotic exploration of her body with his clever fingers. The way he was watching her intently while he pleasured her was shockingly intimate, and she closed her eyes as she moved against his hand.

‘It was the same for me,’ he growled. ‘I took one look at you and I wanted you more than I’d wanted any other woman.’

Elin’s eyelashes flew open and she gave him a startled look. ‘In that case, why did you leave without waking me the next morning?’

‘I was angry with myself. I’d read the tabloid stories about you and I couldn’t understand why I had succumbed to your obvious charms. You were even more beautiful than the photos I’d seen of you, and you drove me out of my mind that night. But in the morning I was furious that you had made me lose control.’

Elin had seen evidence of how Cortez kept a tight control on his emotions and she could imagine he had felt horrified by what he would have regarded as his weakness.

‘Is that why you have kept your distance from me?’ She wanted nothing more than to surrender to the mastery of his wickedly inventive fingers, but she fought against the tide of pleasure that she could feel building low in her pelvis.

He gave a husky laugh as he swirled his fingers inside her and she trembled. ‘I’m not keeping my distance from you now, querida.’

‘Because you’re trying to teach me a lesson,’ she choked. ‘You don’t want me.’

Cortez moved so fast that Elin couldn’t have said how she came to be lying flat on her back on the bed with him on top of her. He had whipped off the towel from around his hips and she could feel the rock-hard length of his arousal between her legs. ‘Does this feel like I don’t want you?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘You needed time to adjust. I will always be Harry’s father and I’m not going to abandon you or him, ever.’

Of course everything Cortez did was for his son, Elin reminded herself. But she was finding it impossible to think clearly when she was trapped beneath him. And she’d been wrong in one respect, because the evidence that he desired her was unmistakable.

‘I thought...’ she began.

‘Don’t think, just feel,’ he muttered as he bent his head to her breast and flicked his tongue across her nipple. He drew the swollen peak into his mouth and sucked hard until she writhed beneath him and he moved across to her other breast to mete out the same devastating punishment.

Elin ran her fingers through his hair, as she had longed to do often over the past few weeks. It felt like warm silk against her skin and when she explored the sculpted shape of his face the rough stubble on his jaw scraped her palm. Cortez lifted his head and stared down at her, the flecks in his dark eyes gleaming pure gold before he claimed her mouth in a kiss that plundered her soul.

* * *

Could he believe Elin? Cortez asked himself. Or was her admission that she’d tried to leave him because of the way he made her feel a lie to persuade him not to seek custody of their son? She had told him she would do anything to keep her baby, and perhaps this was all a lie—the soft gasps she gave when he twisted his fingers inside her, and the way she arched her slender body beneath him when he tasted her cherry-red nipples. But he found that he didn’t care. All he cared about was that Elin was beneath him, and he pressed himself into the sweet contours of her body so that her breasts were crushed against his chest and her smooth thighs offered a tempting haven for his painfully hard erection.

But he forced himself to wait and ignore his primal instinct to drive his shaft deep inside her. He could not forget that if he hadn’t happened to go into his study earlier, she might be carrying Harry onto a plane bound for England now. She’d said she had changed her mind and had been about to return to the house, but he did not know if he believed her and he was even less sure that he could trust her.

He’d played on Elin’s fear that he might seek legal custody of Harry and told her she would have to convince him to marry her. But in truth he would never try to separate mother and child, and he needed to persuade her that marriage was not only in their son’s best interest, but it would be good for her too.

She was not interested in his money. Dios, she had turned down thirty-five million pounds without hesitation. No, his trump card was Elin’s obvious desire for him, Cortez brooded. Sexual chemistry had simmered between them since he had brought her to La Casa Jazmín, and he could see a double advantage to seducing her with sex. He would use every skill he possessed as a lover to bind her to him so that she would never want to leave and take their son, and at the same time he would sate himself on her exquisite body until the damnable hold she had over him was broken.

He stretched out next to her on the bed and propped himself up on one elbow while he skimmed his other hand over her delectable curves and felt a tremor run through her when he cupped her breast. Her body betrayed her beautifully. Her nipples were flushed and damp from where he had sucked them, and the musky feminine fragrance of her desire stirred his senses when he nudged her thighs apart with his shoulders and placed his mouth over the delicate nub of her clitoris.

She gave a startled cry. ‘You can’t...’

‘Oh, but I can,’ he assured her softly and bent his head to continue his task of exploring her with his tongue. He loved that she was shocked by the intimate caress and at the same time he was appalled by the fierce possessiveness he felt. She had told him she’d been a virgin when they had slept together at her birthday party, and he believed her despite the stories about her supposed torrid love-life reported in the tabloids. Her innocent delight in what he was doing to her was coupled with surprised gasps that could only be genuine.

‘Cortez.’ She breathed his name like a prayer, a plea, and her guttural voice told him what her body was already signalling to him as she bucked and writhed and sobbed beneath his merciless onslaught. He considered making her come with his mouth, but his own need was too great. He was shocked to realise that his control was slipping and his plan to enslave Elin with sex could go spectacularly wrong.

Somehow he held back long enough to slide a protective sheath over his erection, and then he thrust his way inside her and heard above the thunderous pounding of his heart the harsh groan he made when he sank into her velvet heat and discovered heaven. Somewhere along the path to nirvana the seducer had become the seduced and the slave master was now the slave. And the most astonishing thing was Cortez did not care that the point of making love to Elin was to trap her in his sensual web. He simply wanted to worship her and glory in the knowledge that she was his.

He set a rhythm and drove into her with steady strokes that quickly took them both to the edge. She filled up his senses with the fragrance of her skin when he pressed his lips to her throat, and the sweet taste of her lips when he kissed her mouth. He captured her cry as she suddenly arched beneath him and her body trembled like a slender bow under intolerable tension, seconds before she climaxed around him. And when he thrust deep into her for a final time and felt the unstoppable force of his own release thunder through him, she filled up his heart utterly and exclusively. His.