Wed for the Spaniard's Redemption

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘I don’t care what you or your relatives think of me. I have never pretended to be anything other than a working class single mother—which is precisely why you chose me for your bride,’ Juliet reminded Rafael sharply, desperate to hide the hurt she felt.

  She was quite aware that he had married her because he needed a wife, but it was humiliating to realise that he’d picked the most disgusting woman he could find so that he could antagonise his grandfather.

  He exhaled heavily. ‘I’m sorry that I subjected you to my grandfather’s temper. Hector is angry with me, not you, but I should have considered your feelings when I involved you in my conflict with him.’

  She bit her lip. Rafael’s apology had sounded genuine but it did not change the situation. ‘I don’t want to stay here when it is patently obvious that Poppy and I are not welcome. It don’t suppose your grandfather will want me to attend his birthday party. You said that he would make you CEO if you were married by the time of his birthday, and presumably that will still happen. There is no reason for me to stick around and I’m sure you will be relieved when I go.’

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere for a while,’ Rafael said smoothly. ‘For a year, in fact.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  A frisson of unease ran the length of Juliet’s spine as she stared at his hard face. He was so beautiful that just looking at him made her insides melt. But she had already experienced his ruthlessness and she did not trust him.

  ‘Hector is refusing to make me CEO because he believes that our marriage is not genuine.’

  ‘Well, that’s that, then. Your plan has backfired.’

  ‘Not entirely. On Saturday my grandfather will name me as his successor, and in a year’s time he will stand down as head of the company as long as I am still married.’ While Juliet was digesting this information, he continued. ‘All we have to do is prove that our marriage is the real thing for a year.’

  ‘No way.’ She shook her head. ‘Our agreement was that we would separate after a couple of months and divorce as soon as legally possible.’

  ‘The contract you signed states that you will receive your money when I become CEO,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Then I’ll forfeit the money.’ She should have known it was too good to be true. ‘I should never have agreed to a fake marriage. I just want to take Poppy back to England and forget that I ever met you.’

  Rafael’s eyes narrowed. ‘Five million pounds for a year of your life doesn’t sound unreasonable. The deal will be the same, except that you will live here at the Casillas mansion rather than at Ferndown House.’

  ‘With one major difference. You said you wouldn’t visit your home in Hampstead very often, but you’re asking me to share your family’s home in Spain with you. Even though the mansion is huge, we won’t be able to avoid each other completely.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ he said, in that sardonic way of his which made Juliet feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of his determination to be CEO of his family’s business. ‘We’ll have to live together to show my grandfather that our marriage is real.’

  ‘But it isn’t...’ she whispered.

  An image flashed into her mind of her parents, who had celebrated their wedding anniversary a few weeks before they were killed. Her mum had baked a cake in the shape of a heart, and her dad had gone to his allotment before dawn and come back with a huge bunch of colourful, fragrant sweetpeas which he’d left on the kitchen table next to a card addressed to his darling wife.

  Her parents hadn’t needed money to make them happy. Their love for each other and for her had been more precious than gold, Juliet thought, blinking away her tears before Rafael saw them.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense that your grandfather is insisting on you staying married to me when he doesn’t approve of me and knows that I am not the kind of woman you’re attracted to,’ she muttered.

  Rafael’s expression was inscrutable, but Juliet was mortified as the truth dawned on her.

  ‘Hector thinks that you won’t be able to bear being married to me for a whole year, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He is mistaken. I will do whatever I have to,’ he said grimly.

  ‘You might be willing to lie back and think...not of England, in this case, but of the CEO-ship that you’ll gain from being married to the Bride of Frankenstein,’ Juliet snapped, ‘but I won’t do it. You can’t force me to stay.’

  ‘You’re being melodramatic.’ Rafael sounded amused. ‘I can’t force you to remain in our marriage, it’s true. But I suggest you think about what you stand to lose if you walk away now. You told me that your daughter’s father wants custody of her and will try to prove that you are unfit to have Poppy living with you. It’s hard to see how a judge would back your claim over your ex’s if you were homeless or placed in a hostel by social services.’

  Juliet swallowed hard, knowing that Rafael was right. ‘However,’ he continued, ‘you are my wife, and Poppy is my stepdaughter, and I will ensure that you have the support of my best legal team. I think it is likely that a family court will look favourably on the fact that Poppy is living in a comfortable home in a secure family unit and she will be allowed to remain with her mother.’

  She couldn’t argue with Rafael’s logical assessment of the situation, Juliet acknowledged despairingly. He had said he would do whatever it took to get what he wanted and she understood that, because she would walk over hot coals to keep Poppy.

  ‘If your grandfather suspects that you’ve tried to trick him how can we convince him that our marriage is not fake? No one will believe that you fell for someone like me.’ When his brows lifted, she said crossly, ‘You’ve dated some of the most beautiful women in the world and you are frequently photographed by the paparazzi with a supermodel or a famous actress draped around you. I’m under no illusions about the way I look. I’ve always been thin, and I was clearly in the wrong queue when breasts were given out...’

  He laughed, and it was so unexpected that Juliet stared at him, mesmerised by the way his lips curved upwards at the corners.

  ‘You’re funny,’ he said, and there was faint surprise in his voice, as if he had discovered something unexpected about her. He stretched out his hand and touched her hair. ‘I see now where your daughter gets her strawberry blonde hair from.’

  Suddenly it was hard to speak because her mouth had gone dry. ‘Poppy’s hair is much fairer than mine,’ she muttered.

  ‘Your hair is the colour of amber. It suits you when you leave it loose.’

  ‘After a shower I came to sit outside, so that my hair would dry in the sunshine. Usually I keep it tied up, because it gets in the way when I’m playing with Poppy...’

  Juliet knew she was waffling, to distract herself from suddenly finding that Rafael was much closer. How had he moved without her noticing?

  He was so much taller than her and she found herself staring at the ridges of his impressive pectoral muscles visible through his tight-fitting sports vest. The scent of him—spicy cologne, sweat, male—assailed her senses. She tilted her head so that she could see his face and her heart missed a beat when she discovered that he was looking at her intently. The gleam in his olive-green eyes startled her, and she told herself she must be imagining the very male interest in gaze.

  Rafael wasn’t interested in her as a woman. To him she was merely a tool to help him get what he wanted, she reminded herself.

  She backed away from him but found herself trapped between his partially clothed muscle-packed body and the wall of the balcony. He placed his hands flat on the top of the balustrade on either side of her and frowned when she shrank from him.

  ‘We are going to have trouble convincing my grandfather that our marriage was made in heaven if you flinch every time I come near you,’ he said impatiently. ‘You did the same thing during our wedding.’

  ‘Y
ou didn’t warn me before the ceremony that you would kiss me, and I wasn’t expecting it.’

  He gave her a sardonic look, but slowly the expression in his eyes changed to something else—something hot that caused Juliet’s heart-rate to quicken. ‘In that case I’m giving you fair warning that it will be necessary for us to kiss whenever any of my relatives are around and we are on show, so to speak.’

  Her tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips. ‘You don’t want to kiss me...’ She would never forget his appalled expression when he had seen her in the mustard-coloured dress she had worn for their wedding.

  ‘I’m coming round to the idea,’ he drawled. ‘And by the way, I don’t think you look like the Bride of Frankenstein.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ She tried to sound sarcastic but her voice was a thread of sound.

  Her breath hitched in her throat when Rafael bent his head towards her so that he blotted out the sun. He was so gorgeous, and it would be so easy to fall under his magnetic spell, but it would be dangerous.

  She turned her face away and felt his warm breath graze her cheek. ‘I don’t want you to kiss me.’

  He captured her chin between his long fingers and exerted gentle pressure so that she was forced to look at him. ‘How do you know until you’ve tried it? You might enjoy it.’

  That was what she was afraid of.

  She could not hide the tremor that ran through her when he dragged his thumb pad over her bottom lip.

  ‘You are not my prisoner, and I am not doing anything to prevent you from going back inside the house,’ Rafael murmured. ‘But if you don’t move in the next ten seconds I am going to kiss you.’

  It was true that she could easily step past him. But her feet seemed to be cemented to the floor. Her instinct for self-protection urged her to run, but a stronger instinct that was deeply rooted in her womanhood held her there against the balustrade as Rafael’s mouth came nearer.

  Her heart was beating at three times its normal rate and he placed his finger over the pulse that was going crazy at the base of her throat. And then he brushed his lips across hers and the world tilted on its axis.

  She had expected him to kiss her with the bold arrogance that was integral to him, but his mouth was gentle on hers, warm and seductive, disarming her defences so that her lips parted without her volition. Even then he kept it light, undemanding, tasting her with little sips that teased and tantalised so that she pressed her body closer to his and placed her hands flat on his chest.

  Juliet felt the powerful thud of his heart beneath her fingertips and with a little sigh of capitulation kissed him back. Her eyelashes swept down and her senses became attuned to the taste of him on her lips, the warmth of his breath filling her mouth and the evocative masculine scent that wrapped around her as she melted, soft and pliant, against his whipcord body.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘THAT WASN’T SO difficult, was it?’

  Rafael’s voice broke through the sensual haze that had wrapped around Juliet and she blinked at him, half blinded by the bright sunshine in her eyes as he lifted his head and she was no longer in his shadow. She wondered why he had stopped kissing her, but then reality hit and she remembered he had been demonstrating how they would have to act in public to convince his grandfather that their marriage was genuine.

  And she had just demonstrated to Rafael that she couldn’t resist him!

  Following his gaze, she glanced down and a fresh wave of embarrassment swept over her when she saw the outline of her pebble-hard nipples beneath the silk chemise. She looked back at him, expecting to see mockery in his eyes, but he seemed unusually tense, and it was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get away from her when he swung round and strode across the balcony.

  He paused as he reached the bi-fold glass doors. ‘The nurse said that your temperature has returned to normal and you are feeling much better?’ When Juliet nodded, he continued, ‘We are expected to attend a family lunch later, so that you can meet more of my relatives.’

  She thought of the sea of faces that had stared at her as if she had been beamed down from Mars when Rafael had brought her to the Casillas mansion. ‘You mean there are more?’

  ‘My grandfather is the oldest of seven siblings, and there are numerous uncles, aunts and cousins, many of whom work within the company and have an opinion on who they think should succeed Hector. Some of them support me—rather more of them don’t,’ he said sardonically.

  It sounded like a family at war. Juliet bit her lip. ‘I’d rather not be subjected to further humiliation and I don’t want to risk Poppy being upset again. Can’t you say that I am still unwell?’

  ‘My grandfather will expect us to be at the lunch and it will be an opportunity to show him that we are a couple who are in love.’

  Juliet wondered why his words evoked an ache in her heart. She had never been in love. Her crush on Bryan had ended abruptly when he’d brutally told her she had been a one-night stand. And Rafael had warned her not to fall in love with him. But now he was asking her to pretend that he was the man of her dreams.

  ‘I’m not that good an actress,’ she muttered.

  ‘I thought your performance a few moments ago was very convincing—unless it wasn’t an act and you actually enjoyed kissing me?’ he said silkily.

  While Juliet was searching her mind for a clever retort, he spoke again.

  ‘Sofia’s twins will have their lunch in the nursery with the nanny—Poppy might be happier staying with them.’

  * * *

  He had kissed Juliet to show her how they would have to act like happy newlyweds in front of his grandfather. That was the only reason, Rafael assured himself. Although perhaps there had been an element of curiosity too, he conceded.

  The realisation that he had been too hasty when he’d dismissed his wife as being plain and unattractive had stirred his interest. But he had been unprepared for his reaction to the feel of her soft lips beneath his. Quite simply he had been blown away by the sweet sensuality of Juliet’s response, and his gut had clenched when she had kissed him with an intriguing mix of innocence and desire.

  Dios, there had been a moment when his cool logic had almost been superseded by fiery passion, and he’d been on the verge of deepening the kiss and drawing her slender figure up close against his hard body. Fortunately he had remembered in time that it would be a mistake to become involved with her. Juliet was more vulnerable than he had thought when he’d suggested their marriage deal.

  Face it, Rafael told himself grimly, you didn’t think about her at all.

  She was simply a means by which he could achieve his goal of becoming CEO, and nothing in that respect had changed—except that out there on the balcony it had fleetingly crossed his mind that he would like to have sex with her. But that would further complicate an already complicated situation, he brooded as he slid his arms into his suit jacket.

  Rafael’s private apartment in the mansion consisted of an open-plan lounge-cum-dining room, a kitchen and his study. There was also a large master bedroom, with his-and-hers dressing rooms and en suite bathrooms. He had asked the staff to put a single bed in Juliet’s dressing room, so that Poppy could sleep near to her mother, and he had been sleeping on the sofa in his dressing room, leaving the bed for Juliet while she was ill.

  There would have to be a change to the sleeping arrangements, he decided. He was six foot three, and he couldn’t spend every night for the next year with his feet hanging off the end of a sofa.

  Pushing open the bedroom door, he stifled a sigh when he saw Juliet. It had suited him that she looked like a drab waif when he’d wanted to annoy his grandfather with his unsuitable bride. Now there had been a change of plan, but unfortunately Juliet’s dress sense had not improved.

  Her outfit of a denim skirt with a frayed hem and a flamingo-pink jumper that clashed with her reddish hair was only marginally less
unflattering than the abomination of a dress she had been wearing when he had introduced her to his family two days ago.

  ‘I should have mentioned that lunch will be a formal affair,’ he said.

  At least she had made a bit of effort with her hair, and it was piled on top of her head in a neat bun. The style showed off the elegant line of her throat, but inexplicably Rafael wished she had left her hair loose so that he could run his fingers through it.

  Her face was no longer unhealthily pale. Spending some time outside in the sunshine had put a pink flush on her cheeks. He would have to make sure that she wore sunscreen, he thought. Her English rose complexion would burn easily.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t own any designer clothes. There wasn’t any need for them at my cleaning job,’ she told him drily.

  He strode into her dressing room and opened the wardrobe door, grimacing when it was immediately obvious that she had spoken the truth. ‘You must own other footwear besides those things,’ he muttered, looking at her scuffed winter boots.

  Instead of replying she took a pair of tatty trainers out of the wardrobe and waved them in front of him. ‘You married me precisely because my clothes look like they came from a jumble sale. Frankly, your plan to try and convince your grandfather that you’ve married your fantasy woman is just not going to work.’

  ‘We both have a vested interest in making it work,’ he reminded her. ‘And we will have a better chance if you are a little less lippy.’

  Against his will his gaze was drawn to her mouth, and he remembered how her lips had parted beneath his, so soft and moist and willing. He’d sensed her disappointment when he’d ended the kiss. Beneath her belligerent attitude she was attracted to him. But it would not be fair to lead her on or let her believe that he could fulfil any romantic notions she might have about him.

  ‘I will arrange an appointment for you with a personal stylist who can advise you on what clothes will suit your figure instead of swamping you,’ he said abruptly. He glanced at his watch. ‘We had better go downstairs. Lunch is in ten minutes.’