Читать книгу Modern Romance October Books 1-4 - Мишель Смарт, Miranda Lee - Страница 20
Оглавление‘WHAT ARE YOU READING?’
Sophie, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a pillow and laptop on her lap, looked up and smiled to see Javier in the doorway. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t heard him get back from work.
‘I’m looking at veterinary nurse courses for after the baby’s born,’ she said, turning the laptop around to show him. ‘I’m trying to work out if it’s feasible.’
He strolled over to perch next to her. ‘To train as a vet nurse?’
She nodded. The days she spent with Frodo had reignited her love of animals and her old dream of working with them.
His brow furrowed. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘I thought you were supportive of me working. All that talk about nannies—’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he cut in. ‘I meant why would you want to be a vet nurse?’
‘Do you think it would be too much?’ she asked anxiously. ‘From what I’ve read, I’ll be able to do most of the studying from home—’
‘No,’ he interrupted again with rising exasperation. ‘Why train to be a vet nurse when you’ve always wanted to be a vet?’
‘It takes years to train to be a vet. Besides, I haven’t got the qualifications.’
‘Then get them.’
She blinked a number of times. The educational options that had been available at her ballet school had not included those that gave an entry into veterinary school. She would have to go back to basics. ‘Just like that?’
‘Why not?’
‘Javier, it will take me years to get the necessary qualifications if I can get them...’
‘Why would you not get them? You’re not stupid. If you can be a professional ballerina when your heart wasn’t in it then there is no reason whatsoever that you can’t achieve the qualifications needed to train as a vet.’
‘But then I’ll have to spend years studying at university. I have to think of our child and—’
‘Stop making excuses,’ he snapped. He pulled the laptop off her and deleted the link she’d been reading before closing the lid. ‘You’ve always wanted to be a vet, so stop making excuses and for once in your life start putting yourself first. If it takes ten years for you to do it then so what? It took Luis and me almost that long to start earning serious money from Casillas Ventures but we never entertained the idea of giving up and you shouldn’t either. This is your dream, carina, so grab it.’
She stared at him, her heart blooming at his logic and defence of her dreams.
‘Wouldn’t it bother you?’ she asked eventually.
‘Should it matter if it did?’ he countered.
‘You’re my husband. Of course your opinion and feelings matter.’
‘More than your own? Is that not what you did before? Put your dreams to one side because you thought more of your parents’ feelings than your own?’
‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ she murmured, embarrassed.
He raised a disbelieving brow.
‘Okay, maybe it was a little,’ she conceded. ‘They loved watching me dance. It meant so much to them, so what else could I have done? They gave me so much. They gave me a home and a family. They gave me love.’
‘Did you think if you went against their wishes they would withdraw that love?’ he asked with an astuteness that stunned her.
Javier displayed such indifference to her that it was a shock to realise he actually paid attention to everything she said. And everything she didn’t.
She sighed and pulled at her hair. ‘I don’t know. I remember worrying about that when I was little and fully comprehended what being adopted meant. They chose to bring me into their lives, so there was always that dread that they could then choose to give me back.’ She’d forgotten that long-ago irrational fear, an unintended consequence of her parents’ complete honesty about her beginnings. ‘I think...it was this pregnancy that showed me their love for me was truly unconditional.’
‘How?’
She shrugged ruefully. ‘I was afraid to tell them. They’re very spiritual. They believe greatly in marriage coming before children and I was afraid they would think less of me.’
‘Did you think they would reject you?’
‘Not on a rational level but it was there in the back of my mind, yes. I hadn’t even realised how scared I was to tell them until they practically squashed me with their hugs.’
‘Are they the reason you were a virgin when we conceived our baby?’
It was the first time this had been acknowledged out loud between them.
Sophie met his steady gaze and gave a tiny nod.
He extended a hand as if to reach for her belly, then changed his mind before he could touch it and got to his feet. He rolled his neck. ‘It is time you thought of your own needs rather than always thinking of others. Our child will be much happier for having a fulfilled mother than one who settled for second best. If you want to be a vet then be a vet. Better to try and fail than never have the guts to try in the—’ He cut himself off, now looking at the floor-length navy-blue dress hanging on the dressing-room door. ‘Have you been shopping?’
Disconcerted by the sudden change of subject, she took a moment to remember.
‘I popped out this afternoon. I meant to put it away but got distracted with all the vet nurse stuff.’
She moved the pillow off her lap and scrambled off the bed to get the dress.
Frodo, who had taken to following her like a shadow and been dozing by the bed, woke and jumped up in an attempt to grab hold of it but she whipped it out of his way and took it into the dressing room.
Javier followed her and rested his hand on the doorway.
She waited for him to make a comment on the puppy being in their bedroom, which he had effectively banned and she had effectively ignored if he wasn’t in, but instead he asked, ‘What’s the dress for?’
‘The party.’
‘What party?’
‘Dante Moncado’s party tomorrow night.’
He was silent for a beat before asking, ‘How do you know about that?’
‘The invitation was hand-delivered this morning. It was addressed to both of us, so I opened it. I’ve put it on your dressing table.’
He took hold of it and read it silently. Then he put it back down and rubbed his face. ‘We’ve been invited for business purposes. You won’t enjoy it, carina.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘You’re pregnant.’
‘Yes, pregnant. Not dead.’
‘It will be full of rich, posturing idiots. I’ll go on my own, conduct our business and come back.’
Her heart thumped, the warm fuzzy feelings generated by Javier’s brusque insistence that she should follow her dreams squashed back to nothing. ‘Do you know, you haven’t taken me anywhere since we married. Are you ashamed of me?’
‘What a ridiculous thing to say. And I have taken you out.’ He’d taken her to a business dinner where partners had been invited.
‘A business dinner doesn’t count. You haven’t taken me out—out socially.’
‘This is a party I’ve been invited to for the sole purpose of business, not for social reasons.’
‘But it’s an actual party. It says so on the invite. And my name’s on the invite too. I want to go.’
‘I didn’t realise you were a party person,’ he said stiffly.
‘You never asked and we haven’t been invited to any...’ She narrowed her eyes, suspicions rising. ‘Unless you didn’t tell me about them.’
He stared back.
It took such a long time for him to answer that her suspicions became a certainty.
He had turned invitations down without mentioning anything about them to her.
‘I never go to parties,’ he eventually said in the same stiff voice. ‘I don’t drink. Who wants to watch people get drunk and make fools of themselves?’
‘I do.’ She hated that her voice sounded so forlorn and made an effort to strengthen it. ‘If you won’t take me then I really will think you’re ashamed of me.’
Would he have these qualms about taking Freya with him? Sophie wondered.
He’d probably only said all that stuff about her becoming a vet so she would be occupied and out of his hair for the next ten years, she thought bitterly.
It hadn’t crossed her mind that he wouldn’t want to go to the party. She was well aware that her husband was not one of life’s great socialisers but had assumed he would be willing to attend a party being hosted only twenty minutes from their home. Since his return from Cape Town he’d taken to giving her prior warning of meetings and functions he had planned that would take place outside normal office hours. It was a gesture that had given her hope. Slowly their marriage had been starting to feel like a real one. His attitude now put her right back to square one.
He had nothing booked in for tomorrow night.
All she could think was that he didn’t want to show his second-choice wife to his peers.
So proud had he been of having Freya tied to him that he’d thrown a huge party to celebrate their engagement.
He hadn’t invited a single guest to their wedding. They hadn’t had a single guest to their home since they’d married.
‘I am not ashamed of you.’ He groped at his hair.
‘Then prove it and take me,’ she challenged. ‘We don’t have to stay for long. You can conduct your business and I can meet some new people and then we can come back.’
Even Frodo, sitting at her feet, looked at Javier expectantly.
Javier noticed. ‘What about the dog? We can’t take him to a party or give him free rein alone in the house, and you won’t put him in a crate.’
Sensing victory, Sophie smiled and opened the bedroom door. Marsela, the youngest of the household staff and a live-in one to boot, had been cleaning the spare bedrooms a short while earlier. She called for her.
A moment later, Marsela appeared.
Frodo spotted her and bounded over, his tail wagging happily.
‘Have you got any plans tomorrow night?’ Sophie asked.
‘No. I have a date with a box set.’
‘Any chance you could dog-sit Frodo while you watch it?’
Marsela’s eyes lit up. ‘I would love to.’
‘Thank you!’ Turning back to Javier, Sophie fixed him with a stare. ‘So, are we going?’
His face like thunder, he gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel and stormed from the room.
She let him go, her heart battering manically against her ribs.
She could take no joy in her victory, however widely she pasted her smile.
Forcing his hand into taking her made it a hollow one.
* * *
Javier stepped out of the door his driver held open for him, then extended a hand to Sophie.
She took hold of it with a smile of thanks and, careful of her dress, climbed out.
Then she straightened, carefully smoothed her hair, which she’d styled into loose curls, and said, ‘I think this is the part where we go in.’
He breathed deeply and gave a nod. ‘Prepare yourself. Everyone will be watching you.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said with a brittleness to her tone he’d never heard before.
He would learn soon enough if she was right.
She certainly looked the part.
When she’d appeared from the dressing room, it had taken everything he had to stop his mouth gaping open like a simpleton.
The light had shone behind her, making her glow like an angel.
Her floor-length dress, navy-blue mesh lace, low cut at the top to skim her ever-growing cleavage and puffing out at the hips, fitted her as well as if it had been made bespoke for her.
A more perfect vision of glowing beauty he had never seen.
The thought of lecherous eyes soaking in her beauty for their own delectation had made him feel like a thousand bugs were crawling over his skin.
He’d wanted to pull that dress off and make love to her so thoroughly that his scent would be marked in her, a warning to all others to not even look let alone touch.
It had been a fearsome thought that had him clenching his hands into fists and walking out of the bedroom before he could act on it.
They had not exchanged a solitary word on the drive over.
Resting a hand lightly to her back, he led her through the old, exclusive apartment building, where a concierge escorted them to the elevator that would take them to Dante’s new penthouse.
The huge, open-plan space the party was being hosted in was already filled with guests.
The buzz of chatter increased in volume and excitement as Javier guided Sophie through the throng, his eyes seeking Dante, already keen to get this over with and get the hell out.
They could stare and gossip about him as much as they liked but his wife was not a piece of meat to be studied and gaped at.
He’d turned down four parties on their behalf since they’d married. Never minding his loathing of large gatherings, he’d had no intention of putting Sophie in the firing line of the inquisitive eyes he was always subjected to at these things. Now all he could do was get through his business as quickly as he could and get her out of there.
Swiping them a glass of fruit juice each from a passing waiter, Javier was taking his first sip when Dante approached, the easy smile so reminiscent of Luis’s smile on his face.
‘I knew you’d come,’ he said smugly, before introducing himself to Sophie and putting his hands on her bare shoulders to kiss her cheeks in turn.
Javier clenched his jaw and forced himself to breathe, turning his mind away from the impulse to punch Dante in the face.
Get a grip of yourself. He’s only greeting her the way he greets everyone; the way all polite society people greet each other.
His fingers still itched to punch him though.
Dante called his date over. She was a statuesque model, famed as the elite designers’ clothes horse of choice.
Her eyes fixed on Javier with a gleam he recognised, part fear, part curiosity, part desire.
He only just managed to stop his face twisting with disgust.
The woman was beautiful, that could not be denied, but she did not hold a candle to Sophie. No one did. No one could.
Dante turned to the woman. ‘Lola, look after Sophie while I steal her husband away. We have business to discuss.’
If Sophie was bothered about being palmed off, she didn’t show it. She smiled at Javier and gave an almost imperceptible wink.
‘I’m afraid I have disappointing news,’ Dante said as he led him into his private office. ‘The sale’s off—temporarily.’
‘Oh?’
Dante opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. ‘An illegitimate heir has come out of the woodwork. Her lawyers say she has a claim to the inheritance and therefore a claim to the land.’
‘And does she?’
Dante’s eyes glittered menacingly. ‘I will make sure she doesn’t.’
Javier shrugged. He couldn’t care less about Dante’s problems. All he cared about was taking his wife home.
‘Drink?’
Javier raised his palm and shook his head.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot you don’t drink. That was always Luis’s forte. And speaking of Luis, I’m surprised you’re not in the Caribbean with him. Or are the rumours that you two have ended more than your business relationship true?’
Javier did not dignify that with a response.
His private business was no one else’s concern. Dante might be comfortable sharing personal confidences; that did not mean Javier had to follow suit.
‘When do you anticipate solving the problem with the illegitimate heir?’ he asked, putting the conversation back on the business footing it should have stayed on.
‘A few weeks. Maybe a month. I’ll call you when it’s done. I should warn you though, Luis has asked that I give him the opportunity to make another counter-offer.’
‘Whatever he offers, I will top it,’ Javier said flatly.
Dante raised his glass and grinned. ‘I do love a bidding war.’ He knocked back the Scotch, grimaced and poured himself another. ‘My money would be on you winning.’
Despite himself, Javier’s curiosity got the better of him. ‘Why?’
Luis might be the more easy-going of the Casillas brothers but when it came to business he was as razor sharp as Javier. It was what had made them such a good team.
‘When I saw him the other week he was all loved-up.’ His grimace that time had nothing to do with the drink. ‘His heart’s not with the business, it’s with his new wife...’
‘He’s not married yet,’ Javier interjected.
Dante’s surprise appeared genuine. ‘You don’t know? Luis and Chloe married yesterday. They released a statement about it this morning.’
* * *
Sophie stared around at the crowd of beautifully dressed people all so comfortable in their wealth and standing in society and felt as she’d done on her wedding day: like an imposter.
She had been so looking forward to this party, had been determined to ignore Javier’s grumpiness about it and embrace something new in this new life of hers, something they could share together.
Lola, the cat-eyed supermodel, had abandoned her after a few minutes of not-in-the-slightest-bit-subtle questioning that Sophie had stonewalled with non-committal answers all delivered with a smile so as not to hurt her feelings.
But, honestly, did Lola really expect her to share confidences about her husband with a complete stranger?
She wished she could have a glass of the free-flowing champagne but she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in her pregnancy and was not about to start now.
Sliding her phone out of her clutch bag, she messaged Marsela to check on Frodo, pretending not to see the inquisitive stares still being directed at her from all corners.
She missed her little shadow. He was such a playful comfort to her during the days when she felt Javier’s absence like a hole in her heart. She didn’t have a clue what breed he was, some kind of small poodle cross. The vet had suggested a DNA test on him but she’d decided not to. Whatever Frodo was, he was hers and she loved him. He responded to her love in a way she wished so badly that Javier would.
Javier hadn’t even bothered to comment on her appearance. She’d made such an effort for him, desperately wanting him to be proud to have her on his arm, but he’d looked her up and down and left the room.
A slap on the face would have been kinder.
‘You look lost.’
The man who’d approached her, who could only be described as a silver fox, smiled.
She smiled back at the friendly face that matched the unmistakable English voice. ‘Not lost. Just soaking up the atmosphere.’
‘Javier abandoned you, has he?’ he said, his words and tone implying he and Javier were acquaintances.
They wouldn’t be friends. Javier did not have friends.
‘He’s talking with Dante.’
‘Were you not invited to join them?’
She pulled a face. ‘It’s about business, something I know nothing about.’
‘Ah, yes, you’re a ballerina. I remember watching you perform in The Sleeping Beauty.’
‘Did you?’ she asked dubiously. She had been a part of the corps de ballet and utterly inconspicuous in her costume.
He suddenly looked sheepish. ‘My wife—she’s Spanish—dragged me along to it. I only know you were in it because she told me on the drive over here. Dante told everyone that Javier would be bringing his new wife. You’re the star attraction, you know.’
‘Am I?’
‘But of course. He’s been hiding you away for months. We all wanted to see you for ourselves and make sure that it wasn’t a vicious rumour that he’d snared another young English ballerina as his bride—’ He cut himself off and winced. ‘My apologies. That was callous of me.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ She adopted nonchalance. There was no point in making a fuss over what everyone was thinking. Javier’s engagement to Freya had been announced with huge fanfare. His marriage to Sophie had not even had an official press release. ‘I’m the second-choice young English ballerina bride.’
‘Maybe second choice but I would hazard a guess that you’re not second best.’ His eyes dipped to her belly. ‘Because I can see the other rumour is true too...unless this is where you tell me you’re not pregnant but had an extra helping of cheesecake.’
Sophie burst into laughter. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant and the great thing about it is I can have as much cheesecake as I like.’
‘You won’t find any at this party if Dante’s girlfriend organised the catering.’ He guffawed. ‘Let’s see if we can find some food that isn’t just fit for rabbits. We might find my wife somewhere too. I think she’s abandoned me.’
Glad of the friendly company, Sophie was about to follow him when she spotted Dante in a corner, chatting with a group of people.
If his meeting with Javier was done with...
She craned her neck, then craned some more.
Where was Javier?
* * *
Javier steamed down the dark streets, his hands rammed in his trouser pockets, dodging the evening revellers spilling onto the pavements from the bars and clubs.
His blood raced with rage. Pure, undiluted, unfiltered rage.
He had finished his meeting with Dante with his brain burning to learn Luis had married.
The faint hope he’d unknowingly held onto that his brother would come to his senses and end things with Chloe had been stamped out.
He had married her.
Prepared to grab Sophie and insist they leave immediately, he had been confronted with her talking to a handsome man he vaguely recognised.
Not just talking to him either, he thought grimly, remembering the laughter that had shone on her face.
She’d been enjoying the man’s company so much that she’d been oblivious to her husband standing only ten feet away watching them.
In that moment he’d had a choice.
Either he could go to them, lift the man flirting so shamelessly with his wife into the air and hurl him out of a window or he could leave.
He’d left without looking back.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, the third time it had rung.
He pulled it out and, not looking at it, turned it off.
Right then he did not want to see or speak to anyone.
He did not trust himself.
Right then the urge to inflict the pain coursing through his veins on someone else was too strong to risk, that much self-awareness he did have.
He walked for miles, detouring through pavements he hadn’t trod on since he was a teenager and his and Luis’s only means of transport had been their legs.
Thirteen years old they’d been when Madrid had suddenly become their home. To escape the grandparents who’d been little more than strangers to them, they had explored the new streets they lived on, a tight unit, protecting each other as they had always done.
In every corner lay a memory.
Eventually he could put it off no longer.
He slowed his pace as he walked the long driveway to his home and climbed the marble steps.
Before he could open the door, it swung open.
Standing there, her face white with fury, was Sophie.
