Читать книгу The Gold Collection - Ким Лоренс, Maggie Cox - Страница 30

THEY married two weeks later, in the private chapel in the grounds of the castle. The wedding was a low-key affair, with only close family and friends from the groom’s side in attendance and no one at all from the bride’s.

Ramon had asked Lauren if she wished to invite anyone from England, but she had decided against it, thinking to herself that it was going to be hard enough to fool his family that she was a joyous bride without having to maintain the charade for her friends. She could tell a few close colleagues from PGH the truth, she’d acknowledged. But stubborn pride made her want to hide the fact that her fairytale wedding to a handsome Spanish duke was in reality a marriage of convenience for the sake of their son.

‘I don’t want Mum and Alan to interrupt their cruise,’ she had explained to Ramon when he had called her into his study to discuss the wedding arrangements.

‘Who is Alan?’ he’d queried.

‘My stepfather. Mum married him two years ago, and this trip is a belated honeymoon.’

‘What about your real father?’ Ramon had hesitated when Lauren visibly tensed. ‘Is he dead?’

Not that she was aware of, she’d thought bleakly. But she had not heard a word from her father since the day he had left, and she had no knowledge of his whereabouts. ‘My parents are divorced, and I know Dad will be unable to come to Spain,’ she’d told him, and had changed the subject before he could question her further.

And so, on a bright spring day, as the sun shone from a cloudless sky, Lauren arrived at the chapel alone and was escorted through the arched doorway by the chauffeur, Arturo.

Despite the warmth of the day she was icy cold, with tension cramping in the pit of her stomach as she began what seemed like an endless walk down the aisle under the curious gazes of the guests, her eyes fixed on the handsome, unsmiling man waiting at the altar. For a few seconds her nerve deserted her, and she was tempted to turn and flee. But then she caught sight of Matty, sitting on Cathy Morris’s lap at the front of the church, and she took a deep breath. She would rather die than be parted from her son, and if she wanted to avoid a custody battle with Ramon she must marry him. It was as simple as that.

The skirt of her ivory silk wedding gown rustled as she walked. She had planned to wear the lilac suit she had worn to her mother’s wedding two summers ago, but Ramon had insisted that the Velaquez bride must look the part, and had arranged for a top couturier to visit the castle and design her dress. The result was a deceptively simple sheath which emphasised her slender waist and the soft swell of her breasts, its neckline decorated with crystals that sparkled like teardrops in the sunlight which streamed through the chapel windows.

It was a dream dress, she had thought when she had stared at her reflection in the mirror back at the castle, while a maid had fussed around her, smoothing invisible creases from her skirt. But that was where the dream ended, and perhaps it was better this way. She wasn’t going into this marriage with the weight of expectation that most brides carried, and so, she reasoned, she could not be disappointed.

She was too old to believe in fairytales anyway, she reminded herself as she halted beside Ramon and forced herself to meet his gaze. Something flared in his sherry-brown eyes as he stared down at her, but it was gone before she could define it as his thick lashes swept down and masked his expression.

Moments later the priest’s voice rang out in the silent chapel.

‘You’re not going to faint, are you?’ Ramon asked beneath his breath as they emerged from the cool church into bright sunshine and posed on the steps for photographs. ‘You look very pale. Perhaps today is too much for you when you have only recently recovered your strength after the virus?’ he said, frowning with concern.

She resembled a fragile wraith, he thought grimly, gripped by guilt because he knew he should have allowed her longer to recover from her illness. His impatience to make Lauren his wife was because he wanted to secure Mateo’s future, he had told himself, but he knew that was not the whole truth. He wanted her with an urgency he had never felt for any other woman, and when she had walked down the aisle towards him in her bridal gown, her honey-blonde hair caught up in a loose knot so that stray tendrils framed her face, her clear grey eyes fixed steadily on him, his breath had hitched in his throat.

The pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat had been the only indication that she was nervous, and that betraying sign of her vulnerability had tugged on his emotions. He had blackmailed her into marriage by threatening to fight for custody of their son, and he’d half expected her to refuse to go through with the wedding at the last moment. But she had come to the chapel, to him, and when she had lifted her soft grey eyes to him and given him a tentative smile he had felt a curious ache around his heart.

‘I’m fine,’ Lauren assured him. Not for anything would she admit that the surge of emotions which had stormed through her when the priest had proclaimed them man and wife had made her feel light-headed. She glanced down at the bouquet of red roses she was holding and breathed in their exquisite fragrance.

‘Thank you for the flowers,’ she murmured shyly. ‘They were a lovely surprise.’ The butler had presented her with the bouquet as she had been about to leave the castle for the short journey to the chapel, informing her that they were from el Duque.

Ramon had sent her three dozen red roses the day after she had met him, with a note inviting her to dinner, she remembered. Her heart gave a little flip as she wondered if giving her roses on her wedding day held special significance for him.

‘It would have looked strange if my bride had not carried flowers,’ he said coolly.

Her smile did not falter. Theirs was a marriage of practicality, not a fairytale, she reminded herself, and steeled her heart to ignore the haunting regret that things could not have been different.

The church service was followed by lunch at the castle. The kitchen staff had surpassed themselves, and the meal was spectacular, its finale being a beautifully iced five-tier wedding cake, which Ramon and his new bride cut together.

Lauren guessed that there was a certain amount of gossip among the guests concerning the fact that the Duque de Velaquez was marrying the mother of his son almost a year after the child had been born, and also that his new wife was not a member of the Spanish nobility. But no one mentioned such matters—at least, not to her face—and Ramon’s relatives seemed happy to welcome her into the family.

Only one guest did not seem to share the delight of everyone else that the Duque had married. Throughout the lunch Lauren had been conscious of dark eyes subjecting her to a lengthy scrutiny, and on the few occasions when she had looked across the room her gaze had collided with the icy stare of a haughtily beautiful Spanish woman.

‘Pilar is stunning, isn’t she?’ Ramon’s sister Juanita murmured as she joined Lauren by the open French doors and followed her gaze out to the terrace, where Ramon was in deep conversation with the willowy, elegant woman whose mass of silky black curls fell halfway down her back.

‘You’ve probably heard of her, or seen pictures of her at any rate,’ Juanita continued. ‘Pilar Fernandez is one of the world’s top models. Only someone with her fantastic figure can wear a skirt that short,’ she commented, with a rueful glance at Pilar’s pure white suit, which contrasted so eye-catchingly with her exotic colouring.

‘I suppose she’ll concentrate on her modelling career now that—’ Juanita halted abruptly, and looked so uncomfortable that Lauren’s curiosity was aroused.

‘Now that what?’

‘Now that Ramon has married you,’ Juanita muttered, clearly regretting that the subject of Pilar Fernandez had come up. ‘It was kind of expected that they… Well, anyway,’ she hurried on when she saw Lauren’s face fall, ‘Pilar is adored by top designers around the world, so I don’t suppose she’ll visit the castle as much as she used to.’

Ramon’s sister’s words were not reassuring, Lauren thought dismally. When Ramon had taken her to lunch in London he had dismissed his relationship with Pilar as nothing more than friendship, but clearly it had been more than that if there had been an expectation that he would choose her to be his wife.

It would have made sense for him to marry her, she brooded. Pilar was an aristocratic Spanish woman, from Ramon’s elite social circle, elegant, sophisticated, and ideally suited to be a duquesa. Added to that, she was exquisitely beautiful. Doubts swamped Lauren with the force of a tsunami, drowning her common sense in a flood of insecurity. She could not compete with Pilar on any level, she thought dully as she tore her eyes from Ramon and his gorgeous ‘friend’ and looked down at the white gold wedding band that he had placed on her finger, next to the ostentatious ruby engagement ring that had been worn by previous generations of Velaquez brides.

Jealousy burned in her stomach when she saw the Spanish woman place her hand on Ramon’s shoulder and lean close to him to whisper something in his ear. Suddenly she was fourteen, wearing her new dress and handing around mince pies at her parents’ annual Christmas party. Her mum was rushing around, in her element as the busy hostess, but there was tension behind her smile when she came up to Lauren and asked if she had seen her father.

‘I’ll look for him,’ she had promised, unconcerned. Her mother always flapped. But she had lugged the plate of mince pies all around the house, looking for Donny, and had found him at last—in the conservatory, with a blonde woman with a big bust who was the secretary of the golf club. Jean had been leaning close to her father, whispering something in his ear. And her dad had been smiling—just as Ramon was smiling at Pilar now.

‘Hello, pet. What have you got there—mince pies?’ Donny had walked towards her, laughing, blocking the view of Jean frantically pulling up the strap of her dress.

The awkward moment had passed, because Lauren hadn’t understood why it was awkward, but a long time later, after her father had left his wife and daughter for an exotic dancer, she had recalled the incident and her mother had revealed that Jean had been one of Donny’s many mistresses.

Lost in her memories, she stepped onto the terrace and wandered in the opposite direction from Ramon and his companion. She gave a start when someone spoke to her, and her heart sank when she looked up and met Pilar’s haughty stare.

‘Mateo is a charming child. Ramon is clearly very proud of him,’ the Spanish woman commented in a distinctly cool tone.

‘We both are,’ Lauren replied politely, feeling uncomfortable beneath Pilar’s intent scrutiny.

‘Ramon married you to claim his son, of course.’

It was a statement rather than a question, and Lauren did not know what to say—it was the truth, after all, she thought dully.

Pilar’s black eyes were as cold and hard as polished jet. ‘How do you think you will cope with being a duquesa? I imagine that your life in England did not prepare you for joining the ranks of the Spanish nobility.’

Which, of course, was a pointed reminder that while Pilar had blue blood running through her aristocratic veins Lauren was a very ordinary English lawyer.

‘I’m sure I’ll manage,’ she told the stunning model tightly.

Pilar shrugged her thin shoulders dismissively. ‘Perhaps you will not be a duquesa for very long now that Ramon has his son,’ she suggested softly, and walked away, leaving Lauren staring after her, shivering suddenly as a cloud covered the sun with a grey shadow.

The castle’s huge master bedroom was dominated by a four-poster bed hung with velvet drapes. It was an enormous bed for one person—but perhaps Ramon did not sleep alone in it very often? Lauren thought bleakly. Perhaps Pilar Fernandez had shared the bed with him during the eighteen months that they had been apart?

Stop it, she told herself angrily. She was making something out of nothing, just because Pilar had made that spiteful comment about Ramon not wanting her for his wife for very long.

Ramon was still downstairs, bidding farewell to the last guests, but in a few minutes he would join her. After her run-in with Pilar she had forced herself to rejoin the wedding celebrations, and had chatted and smiled until her jaw ached. But she had been conscious of his speculative glances, and when, in answer to his query, she had assured him that she was enjoying the day, his expression had been sardonic.

With a heavy sigh she walked through the connecting door into an adjoining room that he had explained was traditionally the Duquesa’s bedroom. She did not know if Ramon and Pilar had once been lovers, and she did not want to know, she told herself fiercely. But she could not dismiss the sight of him standing close to the Spanish beauty. Their body language had spoken of an easy familiarity, and somehow the image of Ramon and Pilar had become muddled with the image of her father and Jean from the golf club, and she wondered if she was as blind now as she had been naïve at fourteen.

Her eyes felt scratchy, and when she caught sight of herself in the mirror she was suddenly desperate to get out of her wedding finery. The dress and the roses had all been part of an illusion, created by Ramon to fool everyone into believing that the Duque de Velaquez and his new bride were blissfully happy. But she knew the truth, and with trembling hands she tore off the dream dress and the fragile lacy bra she had worn beneath it. Searching through a drawer she dug out an oversized cotton tee shirt that had been among her things sent over from England.

She was standing in front of the dressing table, brushing her hair, when Ramon walked in.

‘Not quite what I had envisaged,’ he drawled, as his eyes skimmed the baggy tee shirt that had faded to an unbecoming shade of sludge in the wash. ‘Your choice of nightwear leaves much to be desired, querida. Although even that shapeless garment does not dampen my desire for you,’ he added self-derisively, when she spun round to face him and he noted the faint outline of her nipples beneath her thin shirt.

He had discarded his tie and unfastened the top buttons of his shirt, and Lauren glimpsed his bronzed skin beneath. Leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, his dark hair falling across his brow and his eyes gleaming with sensual heat, he was so sexy that she felt weak with longing—and she despised herself for it.

‘What did you envisage?’ she asked sharply. ‘That you would stroll in here and demand your marital rights?’

His eyes narrowed on her tense face. His instincts had been right, he brooded. Something had upset her during the wedding party, and now she was as prickly and on edge as she had been when he had first seen her again in London.

‘Not demand,’ he countered quietly. ‘I did not think I would need to. You are my wife, and I admit I had assumed we would spend our wedding night rediscovering the passion that has always burned between us.’

‘I’m only your wife because you’ve decided that you want Matty to be your heir,’ Lauren said stubbornly.

Ramon’s jaw hardened. ‘He is my son, and by definition also my heir. I would always have wanted him, but you did not give me the opportunity to be his father.’

‘You had made it clear that I could only ever be your mistress. In your eyes I wasn’t good enough for the grand Duque de Velaquez, and I believed you would feel the same way about my child.’

And that was the root of her resentment, Lauren acknowledged. She was only good enough for Ramon now because she had given him a son. Without Matty he would only have wanted her as his mistress. She was not a sophisticated Spanish aristocrat like Pilar Fernandez, but she was certainly not going to reveal her jealousy of the beautiful model to Ramon.

‘I do not think of Mateo in terms of your child or my child. He is part of you and part of me, and we have married so that we can both care for our son, who we created together,’ Ramon said, his accent suddenly very strong, and his words tugging on Lauren’s emotions. ‘I thought that for him we were going to do our best to build a relationship.’

‘By having sex?’ Lauren muttered scathingly.

He did not deny it. ‘Sex is a start. It is where everything began, after all. I saw you across a crowded nightclub and I wanted you more than I had ever wanted any woman.’ He paused, and then added softly, ‘I still do. And I think, Lauren, although you seem determined to deny it, that you want me too.’

She could not meet his gaze, and stared at the floor through blurred eyes. Maybe he was right. Sex was a start. It had bound them together for the six months of their affair, and if she had not fallen pregnant who could say how long they would have stayed together? Ramon’s desire for her had shown no sign of lessening. And it hadn’t just been a physical act. There had been closeness, companionship—and for her, of course, love.

Was it fair to hold it against Ramon because he hadn’t fallen in love with her? And was it fair to push him away and deny them what they both wanted because she was afraid that he would be a serial adulterer like her father? He had asked her to trust him, she remembered. He had no idea how hard that was for her, but if she wanted their marriage to stand a chance she was going to have to try.

‘I’m not a beautiful blue-blooded aristocrat,’ she mumbled, unable to forget Pilar.

‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world to me,’ Ramon said intently. ‘And your blood could be bright green for all I care. You are the mother of my son.’ He gave a rueful grimace. ‘And the reason I have taken enough cold showers in the past few weeks to last me a lifetime.’

Her hair streamed down her back like a river of gold. There was wariness in her eyes, but something else too, that made him ache with his need to possess her.

‘I have made a commitment to you, Lauren, and I want to put our differences aside and make our marriage work,’ he said steadily. ‘But you have to want that too—because it takes two to make a marriage.’ He trapped her gaze, and she swallowed at the latent warmth in his golden eyes. ‘Do you want to make our marriage a proper one?’

She could deny it and keep her pride, or she could accept a marriage that was not perfect, but which over time might grow and develop into a deeper relationship. It was her choice.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. A shiver of excitement ran down her spine at the hard glitter in his eyes.

‘Then come here.’

The first step was the hardest, the second a little easier. And then he moved too, and met her halfway across the room, breathing hard as he snatched her into his arms. ‘You looked so beautiful today, querida. But I have to admit that my main thought when I saw you in your wedding dress was how soon I could rip it off you.’

His sensual smile stole her breath. ‘It gives me even greater pleasure to remove this monstrosity,’ he growled, tugging the shirt over her head in one deft movement to reveal her firm breasts and slender waist, the tiny wisp of the lace thong hiding her femininity from him.

With a groan of need he swept her up and strode into the master bedroom, where he placed her on the bed and lowered his body onto the softness of hers, crushing her breasts against his chest as he claimed her mouth in a devastatingly sensual kiss. When he lifted his head, streaks of dull colour highlighted his magnificent cheekbones, and his hand was unsteady as he smoothed her hair back from her face.

‘This was always how we communicated best,’ he said roughly.

She did not reply, for really it was true. When they made love there was no need for words. They were perfect together. And that was why, in the heady days of their affair, she had fooled herself into believing that he was starting to care for her. She would not make the same mistake again, but she could not deny her need for him, and she tugged impatiently at his shirt buttons.

‘Then make love to me,’ she invited softly.

Their eyes locked and held for infinitesimal seconds, before he made a feral sound in his throat and captured her mouth again in a kiss that plundered her soul. She loved the way he kissed her, Lauren thought dazedly. Loved the hungry pressure of his lips on hers and the bold thrust of his tongue that erotically mimicked the act of making love to her. And then her mind ceased functioning as instinct took over, and she curled her arms around his neck and hugged him so tightly to her that she could feel the erratic thud of his heart beating in unison with her own.

She shivered with anticipation when he cupped her breasts in his palms. ‘Gorgeous—and all mine,’ he growled with intense satisfaction as he lifted his head to stare at the creamy mounds. He stroked his thumbs over her rose-pink nipples so that they swelled and pouted provocatively at him, and smiled at her soft whimpers of delight. ‘You will find me a very possessive husband, querida,’ he warned her, before he closed his mouth around one taut peak, and then its twin, and suckled her until she writhed beneath him and begged him never, ever to stop.

Ramon loved the way his cool English rose discarded all her inhibitions and became a wanton creature in his arms. Sex with Lauren had blown his mind from the start. No other woman had ever made him lose control the way he did with her, and he was already dangerously close to the edge. The long, leisurely seduction he had planned would have to wait until later, he thought self-derisively. Right now all he could think of was burying his swollen shaft deep inside her.

Lauren pressed back into the mattress and closed her eyes blissfully as Ramon trailed his mouth down from her breasts to her stomach, and then lower still. Her limbs felt boneless as the dull ache deep in her pelvis became an urgent throb of need, and she lifted her hips obligingly so that he could pull her knickers down. The molten heat between her thighs was evidence of her arousal, but Ramon seemed intent on giving her the maximum pleasure, and she gasped when he pushed her legs apart and dipped his dark head.

The feel of his tongue stroking up and down before probing gently made her tremble, and she tangled her fingers in his silky hair and sobbed his name when he closed his mouth around the sensitive nub of her clitoris. Everything was happening too fast; she was spinning out of control. But as the first spasms of her orgasm began to ripple he moved swiftly over her and entered her with one hard thrust that made her cry out.

‘Did I hurt you?’ he demanded tensely, his chest heaving as he fought for control.

‘No.’ She arched beneath him and wrapped her legs around his back, desperate for him to thrust again. ‘Don’t stop,’ she breathed.

He suddenly seemed to realise that she was close to the edge, and slid his hands beneath her bottom to angle her so he could drive deeper into her.

It was hard and fast, both of them driven by a mindless urgency as he pumped into her with thrust after powerful thrust. Lauren clung to his shoulders, her eyes closed and her lips parted as she snatched air into her lungs. It couldn’t last. The coiling sensation inside her was growing tighter and tighter. Her lashes flew open when he stopped moving, but before she could beg him to continue he altered their position and pushed her legs up so that they rested on his shoulders.

‘Trust me, querida, it will be even better for you like this,’ he promised.

And it was. He slammed into her and filled her to the hilt, each thrust so deep and intense that the pleasure was indescribable, impossible to withstand.

‘Ramon…’ The coiling in her pelvis tightened one more notch, held for a few agonising seconds, and then snapped with explosive force, so that she bucked beneath him and clawed at his arms, utterly overwhelmed by the tidal wave of ecstasy that swept through her.

Her orgasm was mind-blowing, but a tiny part of her consciousness sensed that he was nearing his own nirvana, and she lifted her hips to meet his final savage thrust, heard the groan that was wrenched from his throat as his big body shuddered with the force of his release.

It took a long time for Lauren to come back down, and she lay contentedly beneath Ramon, loving the feel of his warm, lax body pressing her into the mattress. At last he rolled off her, but immediately curved his arm around her and pulled her close.

‘Tears, querida?’ he asked roughly, brushing his fingers over her face and tracing the twin rivulets of moisture.

She could not tell him that in those moments of intense passion she had felt as though their souls as well as their bodies had merged as one.

‘I just wish things had been different,’ she whispered, imagining how it would be if he loved her. Perhaps he would murmur tender endearments in her ear, and she would be free to voice her love for him instead of hiding her feelings away.

Ramon frowned. ‘Is being married to me so unbearable?’ he demanded, feeling as though he had been kicked in the gut.

‘Of course not. I accept that it was the right thing to do for Matty’s sake.’

Why was her answer not as satisfactory as it should be? Their son was the only reason he had insisted on marriage, he reminded himself. He was pleased Lauren shared his belief that Mateo should grow up with both his parents, and the sizzling sexual chemistry between them was a bonus he intended to enjoy to the full.

‘As you say, our son’s needs are paramount. But tonight I intend to satisfy all your needs, as well as my own,’ he growled, before lowering his head and slanting his mouth over hers to initiate a deep, sensual kiss that stirred the embers of their mutual desire.

Lauren might only have married him to keep her son, but she was a highly sensual woman. Her enjoyment of sex was uninhibited, and Ramon was unable to restrain a shudder of pleasure when she wrapped her fingers around his already thickening shaft.

He curled his hand possessively around her breast and lifted his head to stare down at her, pleased to see that her eyes were glazed with desire.

‘Now you are my wife,’ he murmured, unable to hide his satisfaction as he slid his hand between her legs and found that she was ready for him. ‘And we have just proved that passion, together with a mutual desire to do the best for our son, are key elements to making our marriage work.’ His voice roughened as he positioned himself over her. ‘Especially passion—don’t you agree, querida?’

She didn’t, but she did not tell him. Instead she gave herself up to the exquisite pleasure only he could arouse in her. But later, when she lay listening to the rhythmic sound of his breathing, she wondered dully if she was destined to spend her life wanting more than he could give her.