Читать книгу Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Passionate Bargains: The Perfect Cazorla Wife / The Russian's Ultimatum / Once a Moretti Wife - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 17
ОглавлениеRAUL PASSED THE living room on his way outside for his daily swim and paused.
Charley was sprawled on the sofa thumbing through a Spanish magazine, dressed in a thigh-length white T-shirt, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, not a scrap of make-up on her face. She was working her way mechanically through a bar of chocolate.
Deep in concentration, she didn’t notice his presence, allowing him to gaze at her unhindered.
His guts twisted.
Walking away before she noticed him, he stepped out into the swimming-pool area, placed his towel on a sun lounger, and dived in.
As he powered his way through the water he waited for the usual calm to envelop him and empty his mind.
Today, it didn’t happen. Length after length, his mind was filled with his wife. Not the heated discussion about their families that had taken place two days ago and which had settled into a strange kind of truce, nor their lovemaking, the potency of which still showed no sign of abating, but the vision of her sitting on that sofa eating the chocolate bar, just as she’d been eating those biscuits at her desk.
It was that sense of déjà vu again, that feeling of staring at the Ghost of Wife Past.
For the first time, he properly considered if there could be any truth in her words that she had spent their marriage unhappily striving to be the person she thought he wanted.
When they’d first met she’d had an innate sunniness. Smiles and laughter had come easily. They were what had drawn him to her, along with the earthy sexiness that came off her in waves.
While the smiles and laughter were no more evident now than they had been by the end of their marriage, the earthiness had returned.
He’d assumed the casual way she’d dressed when they’d first met had been due to her lack of money, had assumed that all women wanted personal shoppers, hairdressers, beauticians and dieticians on speed-dial. His mother and sister did; all his exes had. He’d never met any woman who didn’t.
But then, he’d never met a woman like Charley before. His inner circle was insular, he acknowledged, filled with like-minded people with the same wealth and outlook on life.
Charley had embraced it all, he reminded himself, right down to the rationing of chocolate.
All he’d wanted was for her to be happy and fit into his world and, with a little help, she’d fitted in perfectly. With his help she’d never had to feel that anyone was judging her. Or so he’d believed...
To see her eating a bar of chocolate...it was such a small thing, but enough to shift his perspective even more. Enough to make him question...
Gone was the haute couture. Gone, the immaculately coiffured hair. Gone, the rigid diet. Gone too, were the rock-hard abs she’d developed during their marriage, replaced with the luscious softness he recalled from their early days.
When he’d completed his daily two hundred lengths, he hauled himself out of the pool. For once there were no hunger pangs. Everything felt tight inside him, far too tight to eat.
He grabbed his towel and rubbed it over his hair and face. As he towelled the water from his back Charley came out into the morning sunshine and walked over to him, her phone in hand.
‘Have we got anything planned for tomorrow?’ she asked, keeping a respectable distance from him although he noted with some satisfaction that her eyes lingered on his chest for longer than was respectable. All at once, the disquiet within him evaporated. He closed the distance and reached for her hips.
‘You’ll get me wet,’ she scolded but with definite half-heartedness. After a week of erotic lovemaking, he knew her resistance was nothing but a measure to prove her own self-control against him.
‘That’s the idea,’ he murmured. Unable to resist, he pulled her in for a kiss, delighting in the sweet, chocolate taste of her mouth.
She sighed into him, slipping her tongue into his mouth and sliding her arms around his neck, before her hands balled into fists and she stepped away. A dark, wet stain now marked her top.
‘Tomorrow?’ she reminded him.
‘You will be with me.’
‘Doing what though? Anything important or am I going to be stuck in my office again?’
‘Doing whatever I require.’
‘Seve’s just messaged me.’ Her speech came in a rush. ‘Two of the staff at Poco Rio have caught a sickness bug.’
‘And that involves you how?’
‘They’re going to be short-staffed.’
‘No.’
‘I haven’t asked for anything yet,’ she protested.
‘Do I have to remind you that our deal is for you to stay by my side?’
‘No, but if they don’t have the staff, the centre won’t be able to open and the children...’
He did not want to hear a single word about children, not from her lips.
Every time she uttered the word he was reminded of her treachery.
‘I’m not prepared to debate the matter. We have already agreed that your day-to-day work at the centre is over.’
Her face darkened, her eyes ringing with obvious contempt. ‘But—’
‘Shh.’ He placed a finger to her lips. ‘It’s a beautiful day with no work or anything else to worry about. Let’s not waste it by arguing about things we have already agreed on.’
Gently he moved his finger off her mouth and traced it down her neck.
He could see her thinking, her eyes moving as she deliberated his words. When his fingers found the band holding her hair back and carefully tugged it out, to let her hair fall down across her shoulders, her breath hitched. When his lips reclaimed hers, there was no more protest. Only willingness. Followed by ecstasy.
* * *
After a day spent making love and a night spent doing the same all over again, Raul awoke on Monday morning to an empty bed and the distant sound of a helicopter flying close by.
He stretched and looked at his watch, surprised to see he’d overslept by a good hour. He could have sworn he’d set his alarm.
Wondering where Charley had got to, he showered and dressed quickly. He had a meeting with the MD of his air fleet at ten a.m. and if there was one thing Raul did not appreciate, it was tardiness, either from others or himself.
The scent of fresh coffee and newly baked bollos—sweet rolls—pervaded the air: morning aromas that never failed to lift his spirits. The household staff worked at their chores with their customary zeal. The dining table had been set...
Set for one.
On the placemat sat a folded letter.
Eyes wide with disbelief, he read it.
Gone to the centre. Back some time this evening.
Charley.
PS: Have borrowed the helicopter.
Of all the reactions provoked by the note, the one that came to the forefront the quickest was laughter.
He could scarcely credit her nerve.
That feeling of witnessing the Ghost of Wife Past consumed him again. The Charley he’d first met had been impulsive, living for the moment...
But surely she must know what the consequences would be?
The laughter died as quickly as it had come. By the time his café con leche and bollos were brought through to him, all amusement had gone.
Did she seriously think she could take off to the centre in direct contravention of his wishes?
Was she seriously serious, as she herself would have put it?
Did she think that now she was back in his bed she could do as she pleased and he would be as forgiving as he had always been?
It was time his wife learned a lesson. If she refused to learn it then he would cancel their agreement and to hell with the day care centre. It meant nothing to him anyway.
* * *
Raul parked the Lotus next to the minibus Charley had been driving the week before and stared at the institutional-looking building with the same distaste as when he’d first been there.
When he’d called his helicopter back to Barcelona, his pilot had been full of contrition.
It hadn’t taken Raul long to put the pieces together. Charley had got the pilot’s number from the household directory and said she wanted to go to Valencia. The pilot hadn’t thought twice about the instruction. He would think twice if Charley tried the same stunt again.
Raul assumed she’d turned his alarm clock off at some point during the night in the snatches of sleep he’d managed between bouts of lovemaking.
He had to press his thumb on a buzzer at the door and wait for someone to approve his admittance before he could enter. When he was finally granted entry, his initial reaction was that he’d walked into a clinic.
To his mind, day care centres were supposed to be bright and colourful places full of squealing children. The exterior might have an institutional feel to it, but he’d expected the interior to be more fitting, not grey and lifeless.
The man he recognised as Seve greeted him at the door of a large room that looked more as he’d imagined, filled with colourful drawings and bright furniture. He could smell food cooking and the aroma was not at all unpleasant.
Seve shook his hand enthusiastically, treating Raul as if Elvis himself had walked into the building. ‘It is an honour to meet you. We are all so grateful for what you have done for the children here. It is an amazing thing.’
As Seve droned on Raul took stock of what surrounded him. The harder he looked, the harder his heart pumped and the lighter his head felt.
Of the dozen or so children in the room at least half were in wheelchairs. All of them sat in a horseshoe around a woman dressed in a bright yellow all-in-one outfit, bright red curly wig and a round red nose. The woman was juggling soft balls, while standing on a plank of wood atop a football. Her balance looked precarious, her juggling atrocious—she dropped more balls than she caught—but it made no difference to the children, all of whom watched with rapt attention, some of them squealing their laughter loudly.
It took a few moments for his brain to comprehend that it was Charley in the ridiculous clown outfit.
A small hand tugged at his arm and he looked down to see a young boy gazing up at him.
‘This is Ramon,’ Seve said, with a benevolent smile. ‘I think he wants you to watch the show with him.’
‘I’m not here for the entertainment,’ Raul said, intending to add, ‘I’m here to take Charley home.’ But when he opened his mouth to say the words, he caught Ramon’s eye and was rewarded with a smile that could melt the entire Arctic Circle.
Somehow Raul allowed himself to be guided over to the floor by the child who, it was obvious, had Down’s syndrome. As he looked at the other faces one thing was abundantly clear—every single one of these children was severely disabled. One other thing was clear though too: every single one of these children was enthralled with the performance Charley was giving them.
Suddenly she spotted him and for a moment she faltered. When the balls fell out of her hand this time, there was nothing feigned about it.
A girl who looked to be no more than eight, who had the most beautiful curly white-blonde hair, toddled over to Raul, her head turned to one side, and stared with curiously vacant eyes, then prodded a finger into his cheek.
‘Leave the nice man alone, Karin,’ Seve said, scooping the little girl up into his arms. Karin thus proceeded to poke Seve in the face.
‘Sorry about that,’ Seve said, gently taking Karin’s hands to stop any more incessant prodding. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
‘It’s no problem.’ Other than a slightly tilted head, there was nothing Raul could see physically atypical about the little girl. But something clearly wasn’t quite right.
Charley had stopped juggling and was now making balloon animals in the same slapstick manner that had most of the children, those who could, laughing. When she spoke it was in precise Spanish without any of the inhibitions she’d displayed when speaking the language to Vittore.
She finished her act with a bow, then Seve and two other workers took on the task of wheeling and walking the children into an adjoining room that looked, from where Raul sat, like a dining room, while Charley gathered her props together in a battered old suitcase.
She didn’t say a single word to him. If he hadn’t caught her eye during her little show, he would have thought she hadn’t noticed him.
Done packing, she picked up the suitcase and carried it off. Raul followed her out of the room and into the entrance hall, where she turned off down a connecting corridor and opened the door into a large storeroom.
‘I’m sorry, okay?’ she muttered, stacking the suitcase upright next to a shelving unit crammed with waterproof paints, non-toxic glues and all manner of child-friendly crafts.
For once, he was at a loss for what to say.
Charley pulled her red nose off, followed by the wig, which was making her scalp itch.
A part of her had known Raul would turn up. Never mind her defiance, borrowing his helicopter would have tipped him over the edge.
A part of her had wanted him to follow her, to see the children for himself, to understand how important the project was on a humane level.
As vain as she knew it to be, another part of her wished he had come when she hadn’t been dressed as a clown in pyjamas.
She wished he would say something.
She unzipped the yellow onesie and stepped out of it with relief. With no air conditioning in the building, it had been like wearing a portable sauna.
‘What is this place?’ he finally asked, his voice heavy.
‘I thought you said you’d read my letter,’ she said, deliberately keeping her tone breezy. She opened the cloth sack in the corner and folded the onesie into it, stuffing the wig and nose in its pockets.
However this conversation went, she would not allow it to affect her. The children were very sensitive to undercurrents of mood.
‘I read what I thought was enough.’
‘What did you think it was?’
‘A crèche.’
‘Really?’
His jaw tightened. ‘You look pleased.’
‘I am.’ She crossed her arms and gave him a rueful smile. ‘Your reaction is more forgivable if you thought this was an ordinary day care centre for ordinary kids from ordinary families.’
His lips tightened, his throat moving.
Unbelievably, she felt a pang of sorrow for him and his cynical view of her.
‘Do you understand why I had to be here today? If I hadn’t, the centre wouldn’t have opened. It’s a lifeline for their families as well as for the kids.’
‘Who are these children?’
‘Children who, whether by birth or accident, will never lead a normal life but who have enough awareness to want a normal life.’
She wished she could read his eyes and know what was happening in his brain.
‘Stay for a few hours.’ Reaching out, she brushed her fingers on his hand before placing them down her side. ‘See what we do here and what your money is saving.’
After a beat he said, quietly, ‘We’ll leave when you’re ready.’
Her heart lighter than it had felt in a very long time, she walked by his side back to the day room.
Lunch was in full swing so she went through to the dining room to help. As was usual, it looked as if a food war had broken out. She glanced at Raul, whose attention had been taken by a board with smiling pictures of all the staff.
‘You’re a volunteer?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing but not in a way that made her skin go cold. This time there was no contempt in that look, only contemplation. ‘What do you want me to do?’
She stared at his Armani suit and grinned. ‘Help the kids eat.’
A tug on her shorts had her lowering herself automatically to take Karin into her arms, whereby the little girl immediately prodded her then covered her face in sloppy kisses.
‘Come on, let’s get you fed,’ she said, carrying Karin to her own special seat at the table and opening her lunchbox for her.
She looked to where Raul had brought over a chair to help Ramon eat his dinner, quietly sniggering at what she knew would happen next. Ramon, possibly the messiest eater of them all, was eating a centre-cooked hot meal of carbonara.
Oh, well, she thought cheerfully, Raul could afford the dry-cleaning bill.
* * *
Once back in Barcelona, the sun setting on the horizon, they stopped at a pizzeria for something to eat, wedging themselves on an outside table inches from the pavement.
One thing Charley had always appreciated about Raul was his lack of snobbery when it came to food. His tastes were refined towards everything else but he would happily wolf down anything put in front of him. When she’d suggested they eat here rather than somewhere fancy, he’d shrugged his shoulders and agreed.
Fancy food was something she’d had to get used to when they’d married, having been raised on a diet that consisted mostly of microwave meals or baked beans on toast. A chocolate bar or ice cream had been their usual form of dessert.
How simple everything had been back then. Her mum had been young and naïve but incredibly hardworking. She’d held down two jobs for as far back as Charley could remember but had always made sure she was home to have dinner with her only child. Half the time she was unaware her daughter had skived off school again and had spent the day watching music videos on the television.
Charley had never doubted her mum’s love for her.
It was her father’s love she’d always doubted, a thought she shoved firmly from her mind, feeling disloyal to even think it. Of course her dad loved her—he told her so every time he saw her.
She just wished she could have seen more of him but he had always been so busy, running his latest get-rich-quick scheme and being with her half-brothers. This had been completely understandable; her half-brothers had lived in the same town as him. A visit to his daughter every few months had been the most time he could spare. And he had visited her home on a whim once, when she’d been at school. He’d left a note for her saying he’d been there. If that didn’t prove he loved her and carried her in his thoughts, what did?
And if her days skiving off school, watching music videos, had been spent hovering on the sofa by the window that had overlooked their flat’s car park, and every time she’d seen a dark blue estate car pull into it her heart would accelerate with excitement that maybe he was paying her another unannounced visit...well, it was hardly his fault that he’d never made another unexpected trip, was it? Her dad hadn’t known she’d been sitting there in hope, waiting for him.
‘How did you get involved with the centre?’ Raul asked once their order had been taken.
‘I went there as a volunteer to entertain the children...’
‘Yes, but how? Did you see an advert?’
‘Kind of. I decided to do some voluntary work to pass the time while deciding what to do with my life. I’ve always liked children and keeping them entertained is about the only thing I’ve ever been good at.’
All those teenage years sitting alone in the flat in the hope her dad would eventually turn up instead of knuckling down at school had left her with nothing to show for over a decade of education. It was only after she’d left school and seen how severely limited her options were that she’d understood what she’d thrown away: her future. She’d never given the future any real thought; the present had been enough to cope with. Her mum had been so disappointed too, although she’d tried to cover it up with an understanding hug. That one hug had spurred Charley on more than any career advice she could have been given.
She might have no qualifications but she would make something of herself. She’d always loved kids, had danced along to enough music videos to have gained some decent rhythm, so being an entertainer at family resorts had seemed the logical thing to do.
But meeting Raul and his brilliant mind had only served to magnify her past mistakes and she’d been determined to rectify them, to make her mum’s sacrifices worthwhile, to make Raul proud and to make their future children proud. She’d clutched at business ideas that had looked good on paper but held no emotional appeal. She hadn’t thought it mattered. All that had mattered was proving herself a success.
All she’d proved was that she was a failure.
How could anyone respect her, let alone her husband and future children?
‘I went to the children’s hospital first to see if they needed or wanted any volunteers and through them I met one of the kids who went to the centre,’ she continued, forcing brightness into her voice. ‘I went along once to see if they had any need for me, fell in love with the place and ended up volunteering on a permanent basis.’
‘Could they not pay you?’
‘They could barely afford the staff they did have.’ A whimsical smile crossed her face. ‘Besides, I had the money to support myself.’
While he tried to digest all this and process the shifting sands of his opinion towards her, their pizzas were brought to their table.
‘Where does the centre get its money from?’
‘Are you telling me you bought the new building for us without looking through any of the financial reports I’d made?’
‘There hasn’t been the time.’ It didn’t strike him as the right time to confess he’d assumed her financial reports would be worth less than the paper they were written on. He’d fished them out of the shredding pile but was still to sit down and read them.
He had misjudged her terribly.
From the knowing look in her eyes, she knew it too.
‘The parents who can afford it pay a day rate,’ she said. ‘But most of the funds come from donations and grants. It’s enough to keep the place ticking over but not enough to build a healthy reserve.’
‘Do you do much in the way of fundraising?’
‘As much as we can. We’d hoped to devote more time to fundraising and awareness this year but obviously recent events put the brakes on that.’
Raul chewed in silence, thinking.
He’d spent less than five hours in the centre but that had been long enough for him to know he wanted to help.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’
‘I did.’
‘I mean before, when you first learned the building was being sold out from under your feet.’
She dropped her gaze from his and picked up a slice of spicy pizza. ‘I thought I could do it myself.’
The same way she’d always thought she could run her businesses on her own even though she didn’t have the tools. In the end it had become a battle of wills between them. The more he’d tried to help, the more she’d pushed him away.
‘Is that why you wanted to do it in your own name? For the glory?’
He knew the answer even as her eyes shot back up to him and her cheeks tightened in on themselves. ‘No! I wanted to help. Poco Rio has no assets, no back-up capital. I thought I had enough money left to pay for it all. All I could think was let’s get this done, but I had it in my head that once it was complete I would get some kind of charity established and hand it all over so Poco Rio would always be guaranteed a home.’
She put her pizza down without taking a bite and took a large sip of her lager.
She’d drunk lager on their first date. It was only after he’d brought her to Barcelona that her palate had taken an immediate preference to fine wine.
All along he’d made assumptions but if his assumption that Charley was a gold-digger had been wrong—and today had only confirmed what his senses had been trying to tell him for weeks—what else was he wrong about?
He thought of all the lengths he’d gone to throughout his childhood and adolescence in his increasingly desperate bids to impress his father, working so hard on his studies, often studying until the early hours, regularly turning down invitations that took him away from his books, determined to be the top-ranked student in his private school. He’d succeeded in that aim, leaving school with the highest grades possible and a personal recommendation from the headmaster. His father’s response had been an uninterested grunt and the words, ‘Let’s see how you get on at MIT when you’re competing against the best brains in the world.’
Had he somehow caused Charley to feel the same inadequacies his father had caused him?
Dios. No. He had loved her. He hadn’t wanted to change her, just make her adapt to his life with ease so she didn’t feel those inadequacies.
But that strange feeling of witnessing the Ghost of Wife Past whispered through him again, a hollow ache expanding through his chest.
‘With my contacts and media presence, we can raise awareness and funds,’ he said, before draining his own lager.
‘That would be amazing.’ The emotion in her eyes sparkled into joy, her cheeks widening into a smile. ‘The more funds we raise, the more staff we can employ and the more kids we can take in.’
As he peppered her with more questions about the project, her animation grew.
It was an animation he’d never seen when she’d been planning her own businesses.
She looked magnificent, her green eyes swirling, her hands gesticulating.
When he suggested doing a fundraising cruise on his brand-new liner, her pizza almost flew out of her hand in her excitement.
Eventually their plates were empty, desserts consumed along with coffee to finish.
Raul checked his watch and was surprised to find they’d been sitting there for three hours. If not for the sun having set, he would have said no longer than an hour. He called for the bill then threw Charley a lazy smile before covering her hand. ‘Let’s go home.’
Her eyes brightened before cooling. ‘Am I still expected to stick to our pact?’
‘Of course. We have an agreement, cariño.’ He leaned forward to place his cheek against hers, inhaling the scent of faded vanilla. ‘Nothing has changed.’
