Maybe there would never be another beautiful day. Just grey, sad days, like the days and weeks and months after that lorry had wiped out everything she’d cared about when she was a teenager.
She stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on her puffy face. All that crying had made her look like a frog. It was lucky there was no chance that Rafael would see her.
He hadn’t come back to the apartment after he’d stormed out the previous night, but he’d sent her a text telling her that he had gone to his penthouse in Valencia and would arrange for the Casillas private jet to take her and Poppy back to London.
More tears came into her eyes but she blinked them away. She had managed as a single parent when Poppy was born and she would manage just fine having this baby without Rafael’s involvement, she told herself firmly. Being financially secure would help.
She’d considered refusing the money he’d agreed to pay her, but although it might restore her pride, which had taken such a battering, she could not let her children grow up in poverty. Rafael had made it clear he did not want his baby, but he was prepared to provide financial support.
His rejection of his child had forced her to accept that the closeness she’d sensed between them had been an illusion. By rejecting their baby he had also rejected her, and it hurt even though she knew she should have expected it. At the start he had warned her not to fall in love with him, and it was her own fault that she’d given him her heart only for him to trample all over it.
Refusing to wallow in any more self-pity, she went to find Poppy in the nursery. Sofia was there, with Ana and Inez, and she looked shocked when she saw Juliet.
‘Has something happened? You look terrible.’
So Rafael hadn’t told his sister.
Juliet forced a bright smile. ‘I must be coming down with a cold—or maybe hay fever has made my eyes red.’
Sofia looked unconvinced, especially when Juliet went on to explain that she was taking her daughter back to England.
‘Poppy is due to start nursery in a month, and I think it will be better for her to begin her schooling in England.’
‘Is Rafael going with you?’
‘You’ll have to ask him.’ Juliet avoided her sister-in-law’s gaze and started taking Poppy’s clothes out of the drawers, ready to be packed.
‘I don’t know what’s happened between you and my brother,’ Sofia muttered while the children played. ‘But I do know that Rafael has never been as happy as he has for the past months. He needs you, Juliet.’
Juliet bit her lip, fighting back tears. ‘He doesn’t need anyone. Rafael is...’
‘A flesh and blood man—even though he lets people think he has ice in his veins. I know him,’ Sofia said intensely. ‘He bleeds when he is wounded, the same as the rest of us.’ She grimaced at Juliet. ‘I thought you were different from the other women. I thought you would fight for him—but you’re giving up on him.’
Now was not the time to tell Sofia about the baby, Juliet thought wearily as she stood in her dressing room and picked out a few clothes to take with her. Her flight to London was later that afternoon and Rafael had said in his text that he would have the bulk of her belongings sent to Ferndown House.
Not that she would be needing ball gowns or the sexy negligees that she’d bought to replace her horrible old pyjamas. She would only need maternity clothes in the months ahead.
Her hand strayed to her flat stomach. It was hard to believe that a new life was developing inside her. Despite everything, her heart clenched with love for this baby. Another little one who would need her to fulfil the roles of both parents.
The positive pregnancy test had made her sink to her knees on the bathroom floor, her shock mixed with trepidation about Rafael’s reaction to the news. She’d guessed he might be angry for a while, but he had been so much worse, so grimly adamant that he didn’t want this baby.
She frowned, thinking of that strange comment he’d made. ‘What if I am my father’s son?’ She did not understand what he’d meant, and she was too tired and defeated to try and work it out.
She looked at the clock and realised that Hector would be waiting for her in his study. She read to him every day, and they were on the final chapter of the latest book they had enjoyed. It would be the last time she would read to him and her eyes brimmed again.
Never would she have believed when Rafael had brought her to the Casillas mansion that she would become fond of the elderly man.
Hector was in his study, but he shook his head when she picked up the book from his desk. ‘Rafael came to see me last evening.’ His shoulders sagged and he suddenly looked old and frail. ‘I was shocked by what he told me.’
Juliet waited for Hector to mention her pregnancy, but what he said next sent a judder of shock through her.
‘He explained why he married you. That it was a fake marriage to meet my stipulation that he must be married before I would make him CEO. I suspected as much,’ Hector said heavily. ‘But I could not really believe that Rafael’s ambition would drive him to such an action.’
‘We did a terrible thing,’ Juliet whispered, shame rolling through her. ‘I agreed to the marriage deal because I needed the money. It wasn’t only Rafael. I am as much to blame for pretending that our marriage was real.’
His grandfather looked at her closely. ‘You defend him?’
‘I am his wife. It is my duty to defend my husband.’
Hector nodded. ‘And for you the marriage wasn’t fake, was it?’
‘No.’ To her horror Juliet heard her voice crack and she couldn’t hold back her tears. ‘Thank you,’ she choked when Hector handed her a box of tissues.
‘I do not think it was fake marriage for my grandson either. Last night Rafael looked more troubled than I have ever known him to be.’ Hector sighed. ‘I was wrong to insist that he choose a bride. I do believe that Rafael is the right person to succeed me, but any position of power can be a lonely place. I was lucky enough to have the support of my dear wife, until her death three years ago. Rafael had no one. I hoped that by forcing him to marry I could make him realise that there is more to life than his ruthless ambition.’
Hector patted Juliet’s hand.
‘Clearly something has happened to cause a rift between you. Is there no way to resolve the issue?’
She shook her head, remembering Rafael’s look of abject horror when she’d told him she was pregnant. ‘He doesn’t want me and he certainly doesn’t love me.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘He’s never said so.’
But she thought of the vase of roses he had placed by her bed yesterday morning. He must have picked them from the garden before he’d gone to work, while she had been asleep. And last week he had spent two hours helping her search for the gold locket containing photos of her parents that she’d lost. When he had eventually found it on the pool terrace he had painstakingly fixed the broken clasp on the chain. But did those kind gestures and dozens more like them mean that he cared about her?
‘Have you told Rafael how you feel about him?’ Hector asked gently.
Even if she did find the courage to admit her love to Rafael he wouldn’t want her now that she was pregnant, Juliet thought as she left Hector’s study. Perhaps he was so against having a child because he thought he would feel trapped. He had looked so furious, but as she thought back to when she had announced her pregnancy she remembered there had been another emotion in his eyes. There had been fear.
‘What if I am my father’s son?’
She frowned. His father had been a violent bully who had beaten Rafael when he was a little boy. Surely he couldn’t think...?
* * *
Rafael ran his hand over the thick stubble on his jaw. He guessed he should shave, maybe change out of the clothes that he’d worn for the past twenty-four hours. He tipped the last o
f the cognac out of the bottle into his glass and contemplated the effort of getting out of his chair, where he had been sprawled ever since he had walked into the penthouse, and decided that the only way to escape his personal hell was to drink himself into oblivion.
Hell had got even blacker when he’d looked at his watch a couple of hours ago and realised that Juliet would be on the Casillas jet heading for London. Heading away from him, and a good job too. She and her cute little daughter would be fine living at Ferndown House without him. And as for the baby. His baby. It...he—Juliet was sure she was expecting a boy, and maybe she had an instinctive mother’s knowledge—would be well provided for.
Rafael had his own money from the property portfolio he’d built up. His fortune didn’t match his family’s billions, but he didn’t much care right now. Besides he wasn’t a Casillas. And he sure as hell didn’t want to be a Mendoza. The truth was that he was a mess.
He moved his hand up from his jaw to his cheek and swore when his skin felt wet. He’d get over this, he assured himself. He’d get over her. Although it would help if he wasn’t being haunted by a vision of her standing by the window, silhouetted against the fading light.
The vision came closer to him and wrinkled her pretty nose. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘If I am, it’s no business of yours,’ he growled. ‘You should be on a plane.’
‘About that...’
She knelt in front of his chair and pushed her long hair over her shoulders. Her perfume stole around him and he gripped his glass so tightly in his fingers that he was surprised it didn’t shatter.
‘I’ve decided to stay.’
He glared at her, because it was that or kiss her, and kissing her led to all sorts of trouble—like making love in the shower the one and only time he’d forgotten to use protection.
‘Stay where?’
‘At the Casillas mansion—or here.’ She shrugged. ‘A tent on the beach? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you.’
Rafael felt his heart kick hard in his chest. Fear, he recognised. Fear that he wasn’t strong enough to send her away even though he knew he must.
‘The only problem with your plan, chiquita,’ he drawled, ‘is that I don’t want you. Surely you’ve realised that by now?’
‘I’ve realised a great many things,’ she told him seriously. ‘For one thing I’ve realised that you are a liar.’
He swore, but it didn’t stop her leaning forward until her face was inches from his and putting her hands flat on his chest.
‘You are making a fool of yourself,’ he said harshly. ‘Are you really going to beg on your knees for me to take you back?’
‘If I have to. But as I never left you can’t really take me back.’
There was a hint of laughter in her voice. Laughter. He’d accepted that he would never laugh again, and he would have told her that grim truth if she hadn’t pressed her lips to his mouth so that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything but keep his mouth tightly closed until she got the message.
But it got harder and harder to resist the sweet seduction of her lips. He dropped the glass and put his hands on her shoulders to push her away. How, then, did she end up sitting on his lap, her hand holding his jaw, his hands tangled in the silken fall of her hair?
Her mouth was his downfall and his delight, and with a savage groan he took charge of the kiss and drank from her as if he had been lost in a desert and she was life-giving water.
‘I love you.’
Dios. He stared into her eyes and watched a tear slide down her cheek. ‘I told you not to. Why didn’t you pay attention, you little idiot? I’m no good for you, and I’m certainly no good for that baby of yours.’
He tried to set her away from him but he was trapped by her hair wrapped around his fingers and by something invisible that wrapped itself around his heart.
‘The baby is yours too. Ours.’
He sat upright and cupped her chin in both his hands so that she couldn’t look away from him. ‘I’ve told you what my father was—what he did to me. Suppose I am like him? I have a temper like Ivan did. I’ve learned to control it, but what if I lose control? What if I lash out and hurt the baby? Or you?’
‘You won’t.’
‘I won’t take the risk.’
Juliet stood up and walked across the room.
Finally, Rafael thought bleakly. Finally she sees the monster.
‘Do you think I would risk my children’s safety and wellbeing?’ she said fiercely. ‘I have seen you with Poppy and your nieces—your patience and your caring. You are not the evil man your father was.’
‘How do you know?’ he said, struggling to speak past the lump in his throat. ‘How can you have such faith in me?’
She smiled and he rocked back on his heels, blinded by her beauty, humbled by her courage.
‘Because I know you. I know you are capable of love and I understand why you are afraid. You are a good man, Rafael. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, least of all me. I love you with all my heart. I need you, and so does our baby.’
He stared at her while his thoughts rearranged themselves and hope slipped stealthily into his heart. When he walked towards her he saw a shadow of vulnerability in her eyes that killed him.
‘Say something,’ she whispered. ‘Can you love me just a little?’
‘Querida—’ His voice broke and he reached for her, hauling her into his arms and holding her against his chest where his heart was doing its best to burst through his skin. ‘Te amo, mi corazón.’
He kissed her wet eyelashes, the tip of her nose, her lips that parted beneath his as she kissed him back with all that sweetness and light that was his wife, the love of his life.
‘I don’t know when it began,’ he said, resting his chin on the top of her head. ‘You got to me in a way no other woman had ever done. You defended me, and no one had ever done that before.’
‘It wasn’t love at first sight, then?’ she said ruefully.
‘I was a blind fool—but you showed me that you are beautiful, inside and out.’ He looked into her eyes and read her unspoken question. ‘It ripped my heart out when I sent you away but I thought it was for the best.’
His heart gave another kick when she held his hand against her stomach, where the new life they had created together linked them inextricably.
‘I will love our baby, and Poppy, but more than anything I will love you, mi Julieta, for the rest of our lives. For always and for ever.’
EPILOGUE
RAFAEL STOOD IN the hallway of Ferndown House and watched a troop of small girls wearing pink leotards run out of the room which Juliet had turned into a dance studio. Their parents were waiting in the lobby and there was general chaos while coats were found and ballet shoes were swapped for trainers.
‘Your last class for a while,’ he said to his wife when the house was quiet again.
‘Yes, it will be nice to have a few weeks off, and the babies should arrive any day now.’ She patted her swollen belly. ‘In a couple of years’ time I’ll have two more pupils.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe there will be another set of twin girls in the family besides Sofia’s girls. Can you imagine the mayhem when we all get together at Christmas?’
Rafael looked at his son, who had run in from the garden holding a football. Diego Casillas was three years old, and chasing him was his big sister Poppy, who had just turned seven.
‘Your grandfather will enjoy having the whole family to stay. You know how he dotes on all the children. And your mother will spoil them,’ Juliet said serenely.
She was tired now, at the end of her third pregnancy, but Rafael thought she had never looked more beautiful.
They had made the decision to live in England after Diego was born. When Rafael had become CEO
of the Casillas Group after Hector had retired he had insisted on sharing the role with his half-brother. Francisco now worked from the company’s offices in Valencia, and Rafael was based in London. He and Juliet wanted their own home, where they could bring up their growing family, and Ferndown House was filled with love and laughter.
Especially love, Rafael mused as he drew Juliet into his arms and she lifted her face for his kiss. He adored her, and told her so daily. The bright blue sapphire and diamond ring he had slipped onto her finger next to her wedding band was just one token of his deep and abiding love for this woman who had brought him out of the darkness into her golden light.
‘It feels like there’s a riot going on in there,’ he murmured when a tiny foot kicked his hand where his fingers were splayed possessively on Juliet’s bump.
‘Yes, I think your new daughters are ready to meet their daddy.’ She looped her arms around his neck. ‘You know what’s supposed to bring on labour...?’
‘Señora Casillas—are you suggesting that we...?’ He whispered the rest of the sentence in her ear and she giggled.
‘Yes, please, Señor Casillas, my love.’
Love and laughter. He couldn’t ask for more, Rafael thought.
And three days later, when he held two little bundles whom they’d named Lola and Clara in his arms, he knew he was the luckiest man in the world.
* * *
If you enjoyed Wed for the Spaniard’s Redemption you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Chantelle Shaw!
Hired for Romano’s Pleasure
Wed for His Secret Heir
The Virgin’s Sicilian Protector
Reunited by a Shock Pregnancy
Available now
Keep reading for an excerpt from Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh by Pippa Roscoe.
Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!
Wed for the Spaniard's Redemption Page 16
