That was his only saving grace, he thought grimly.
Sophie had been utterly willing.
There had been nothing one-sided about it.
In that moment, the madness had lived in both of them.
He’d spread her flat on his dining table, drinking in her hot, sweet kisses as he’d plunged into her that first time. He’d felt the resistance of her body and known in an instant what it had meant.
Her eyes had widened.
He would have pulled out there and then if she hadn’t then smiled at him, put her hands to his face and kissed him so deeply that he had lost all sense of himself.
But as soon as it was over the only thing he’d been able to taste was revulsion, at himself for his actions and at Sophie for throwing away her virginity in such a seedy way and on a man such as him.
But mostly at himself.
They hadn’t used any protection.
He hadn’t used any protection.
He’d needed her gone before he said or did something he regretted.
He felt no pride in remembering how he’d coldly walked to his front door and held it open for her.
She would never know it but he’d been saving her from herself.
And now she was pregnant. Sweet, sweet Sophie was pregnant with his child.
Damn it all to hell.
Javier had experienced only one day worse than this. The day his father had murdered his mother.
* * *
Sophie waited until the driver opened her door before stepping out in front of the imposing Tuscan-style villa that was Javier’s home.
The first time she had been there she had been filled with so many emotions she had hardly taken anything in other than its titanic size.
Now there was an array of sights and smells filling her senses. She’d noticed that increase in her perceptions during the first week of her pregnancy. It was like discovering secrets of the world, an unexpected symptom that warmed her.
She needed all the warmth she could get.
She’d lain in her hotel bed telling herself over and over that she was doing the right thing. Not telling Javier about the pregnancy had never been on the cards. He was the father. He deserved to know and deserved to be involved if that was what he wanted.
She was glad for their child’s sake that he did want to be and that he’d come to the decision of marriage so quickly. For once, it hadn’t been the anguish she always felt at the thought of disappointing her adoptive parents, good, loving, decent people who believed strongly in the sanctity of marriage, but for her child. Her child deserved nothing less.
Sophie often thought of her biological father. Had he ever known of her conception? Had he been party to the decision to abandon her? Or had he spent twenty-four years unaware he had a daughter out there, being raised by people who were strangers to him?
These were just some of the many questions that had haunted her life. She had long stopped seeking answers for them—they all led to dead ends—but had never stopped wondering. She would wonder about the man and woman who had given her life for ever.
Her child would not. Whatever happened between Sophie and Javier, her child would know who both its parents were.
Stepping onto the marble stairs that led to a wrap-around porch, Sophie followed the driver, who had insisted on taking her suitcase, to the front door.
Everything about Javier’s home looked so much richer and more palatial than her first and last visit. Private and secluded from the bustle of Madrid’s busy streets, it screamed opulence. This was the kind of house any self-regarding billionaire would be proud to call home.
Marble pillars flagged the wide oak door that opened before the driver could raise his hand to knock.
Javier stood there, casually dressed in an olive-green shirt unbuttoned at the neck and black jeans that showcased the muscularity of his thighs. Thick stubble covered his jawline. His hooded light brown eyes met hers for the briefest of moments before he nodded his thanks at the driver and dismissed him.
‘Refreshments are being made for us,’ he said as he led her through the grand reception room twice as high as a normal room and adorned with ancient Egyptian relics, including a bust of a sphinx almost as large as Javier himself.
The first time she had been there she had been too overawed at being invited in by the man she had mooned over for so long to pay much attention to anything, but now she was determined to keep an analytical head and pay attention to everything.
‘Is it okay to leave my suitcase in here?’ she asked.
He stopped and turned, a frown creasing his forehead, fleshy, sensuous lips pulling together. ‘Why have you brought your suitcase with you?’
‘I checked out of my hotel.’
Now his eyes narrowed. ‘I hope you are not expecting to move in today.’
‘I’ve checked out of the hotel because my reason for staying in it is done—you know about the baby. I’ll fly back to England when we’ve finished discussing everything and set a game plan out.’
Disconcerted, Javier ran his fingers through his hair. He could read nothing but honesty in Sophie’s wide gaze and he didn’t trust it an inch.
The dreamless sleep he had hoped for had proven fruitless. He doubted he’d had more than an hour of solid sleep.
Sophie was pregnant with his child. The puffiness of her eyes was proof she must have found sleep as elusive as he had, but where his stomach was knotted with thorny barbs she had a calm serenity about her.
She’d had a head start on getting her head around being a parent, he reminded himself grimly. She’d known for certain for six whole weeks and had kept it to herself when she should have told him immediately.
Dios, his head felt ready to combust. All these betrayals, it was like a sickness. Benjamin’s refusal to accept his own negligence and then stealing Freya from him had been only the start, culminating in the disaster that had been the night before, the night when he and his twin celebrated their mother’s memory with a world determined to remember her torrid death rather than her magnificent life, now tainted for ever. Luis, his own twin, had betrayed it and had betrayed him so greatly it felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. The business they had built from nothing would have to be split, the brotherhood that had driven his life rent apart with one gross act of disloyalty.
And he was going to be a father. He was going to marry a woman so far removed from his ideal of what a suitable wife for himself should be that she could be from Venus.
‘Let us discuss our game plan now,’ he said icily, leading her through to one of his four living rooms, his least favourite for relaxing. He would never allow himself to relax again around Sophie. It was too dangerous, especially for her.
Initially he’d planned for their meeting to take place in the dining room but when he’d stepped into it a powerful memory of making love to her on that table had sent a thrill of desire racing through him, so, with a click of his fingers, he’d ordered the documents to be moved.
He indicated the sofas arranged in a square around a coffee table. ‘Take a seat.’
She obeyed his command by sitting gracefully and crossing her legs.
He wished she hadn’t. Until that moment he had refused to pay any attention to her attire but now his eyes focussed on the athletic but decidedly feminine figure clad in fashionably ripped jeans and an oversized thin sweater that fell off the shoulder. She’d left her long blonde hair loose.
A member of his staff entered the room carrying the refreshments he’d ordered and he was glad of the diversion.
He waited until the drinks and pastries had been laid out before seating himself opposite Sophie and pouring himself a coffee. ‘Help yourself.’
Again, she obeyed. Soon she had a palmier on a plate on her lap and was sipping a glass of fresh orange juice.
He allowed
himself a slight breath of relief. So far she was displaying all the signs of obedience. Things would be much easier if she were to fall in with his plans without questioning them. He knew little about Sophie but the impression he’d formed before he’d stupidly made love to her had been of a shy woman who had little in the way of spine or gumption.
He’d climbed out of his bed that morning knowing he needed to learn something concrete about the woman he was going to marry, so he had woken the ballet company’s human resources manager, ordering her to email Sophie’s employment file to him. It had been a quick but illuminating read. Sophie had been educated at the same ballet school as Freya, worked for a provincial English ballet company upon her graduation, then followed Freya to Madrid. She’d had no starring roles in any ballet production of note and was described in the file as warm but shy.
It had been illuminating in that it had confirmed his prior thoughts about her.
She was probably so relieved he’d agreed to marry her that she would now agree to anything to keep him onside.
Perfect.
He downed his black coffee and poured another, then waited until she had bitten a delicate amount of pastry before saying, ‘Those documents on the table are for you to read through. They’re the prenuptial agreement you’ll need to sign before we can marry.’
Her eyes remained on his face as she chewed slowly. When she swallowed, a flicker of pink tongue popped to the side of her mouth to lick a stray crumb.
Javier inhaled deeply and forced his attention back to the documents she now leaned forward to pick up, only to be confronted by a glimpse of cleavage as her sweater dipped.
He clenched his hands into fists and commanded his loins to stay neutral.
Sophie was only a woman. There was nothing special about her, nothing that should make his loins twitch and his veins heat. He would not allow the memories of their one time together to trick his body.
She leaned back and casually flicked through the documents he’d woken his lawyer at six a.m. to produce, right after he’d called the human resources manager.
After a few minutes of silence she put the file back on the coffee table and stared at him. ‘This is the same contract you signed with Freya.’
‘With a few modifications.’ Namely the section on children being in the future at a time of his wife’s choosing. That was an issue now taken out of both their hands. ‘Everything about how our marriage is to proceed is laid out in black and white. There will be no ambiguity and no need for us to argue about any issues at any point in the future because they are all set out in this. You will see that you are also generously provided for.’ He would treat her fairly and well. She would be his wife and the mother of his child and he would respect her for both those roles.
Something undefinable sparked in her eyes. ‘Your provisions are generous but the rest of it... I’m not signing this.’
He fixed her with the stare that had been known to make an entire conference room of business people freeze. ‘If you want me to marry you, you will.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘No.’
No. A simple one-syllable word rarely uttered in his earshot and even more rarely directly at him.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. ‘Then let me explain it like this. If you won’t sign the contract I will not marry you and I will take custody of our child. If you want to be a mother to it then you will sign. Otherwise you can leave right now and stop wasting my time.’
CHAPTER THREE
SOPHIE STARED INTO the light brown eyes fixed on hers with such hooded cruelty and experienced an unexpected wave of compassion for him.
She didn’t want to feel anything for Javier, but right then, how could she not, even when she knew it was her compassion towards him that had got them to this point?
This was a man who had lived through the worst thing a child could live through: the murder of his mother at the hands of his father. Judged and feared by the world, was it any wonder he hit back at it by encasing his heart in steel? She had felt his pain from the first moment she had set eyes on him and fallen under his spell.
He folded his arms across his chest, his stare menacing. ‘Well?’
Her heart thundering painfully beneath her ribs, Sophie got to her feet.
Not giving herself time to reflect on what she was doing, she walked around the coffee table and stood before him. Javier was such a tall man and she so short that they were the same height with him seated.
She put her hand to his and locked her fingers around his wrist, feeling him jolt with surprise at her forwardness. His surprise was to her advantage, enabling her to pull his arm free from across his chest and place his hand on her belly.
She tried not to shiver as the heat of his hand permeated through the fabric of her sweater and sent shocks of sensation travelling through her bloodstream.
She had to ignore it.
She should wish she had ignored it two months ago but that would mean wishing her unborn child away and she would never do that.
He tried to pull his hand away but she refused to let go, holding it tightly to her abdomen, grateful for the first time for the physical strength all the ballet training she had endured through her life had given her.
‘I know you can’t feel it yet but, under your hand, our child is growing inside me,’ she said quietly. ‘It is over an inch long and has eyes and ears and a mouth. Its fingernails are beginning to grow and it can already bend its arms and legs. You can’t feel it but I can. My body’s changing because of this little kumquat, and our little kumquat is wholly dependent on me. As it grows, it will learn the sound of my voice. If you are by my side it will learn your voice too and when it’s born it will recognise both of us. It is innocent of everything and needs us both, so I beg you, please, do not use our child as a weapon to threaten me with. I won’t sign that contract because I disagree profoundly with the reasons behind it and I disagree with every one of the clauses you have in it. If we are going to marry then it should be a real marriage.’
Not the cold business arrangement he had made with Freya. That was a marriage Sophie could never tolerate for either herself or her child.
Javier wrenched his hand from her hold, his movement so sudden that Sophie stepped back in shock, straight into the coffee table. She would have toppled backwards onto it if his reflexes hadn’t kicked in and the hand he had just snatched from her hadn’t flown forward to grip onto her elbow and pull her to him.
She gazed into the eyes holding her with such loathing, greatly aware of the heavy thuds of her heart and the melting of her insides as his tangy scent crept into her senses.
His chest rose and fell at speed, his tanned throat moving, his lips pulling together, nostrils flaring.
For the wildest moment Sophie felt a compulsion to take the one step forward needed to become flush with him.
How could she still react to him like this? He had made love to her, then escorted her out of his home moments later as if she were the carrier of a disease. He had made no effort to contact her when he knew there was a danger he had impregnated her. He’d cared so little that he hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t on the stage at the theatre opening, had not cared to discover she had left his ballet company.
She should not react like this to him but she would not lie that a part of her wasn’t glad she still felt this desire for him. If she was going to get her way and forge a proper marriage with him then they needed a glue to keep them together other than their child.
Javier did not scare her. He probably should. He was a ruthless, coldly arrogant, wildly rich control freak. He’d threatened her with the removal of their child.
But he was human. She had experienced his human side, glimpsed the pain in his eyes and knew in her heart that his own heart wasn’t so far gone in the dark that his humanity could not be reached.
She would never love him, not now she knew the depths of his cruelty, but, whether they married or not, their unborn child meant they would always be in the other’s life.
Javier stared into pale blue eyes with a thousand emotions churning through him. Where had this woman with her calm, compassionate logic that could neuter his arguments come from?
And why the hell was his body straining towards her...?
Disgusted with himself, he released his hold on her elbow, got to his feet and strode away from her.
‘I do not want a real marriage,’ he told her as he paced. ‘What you are asking for is impossible. I like my solitude.’
‘We both need to make sacrifices. Speaking on a personal level, you are the last man I would wish to commit my life to but this is not about you or me, this is about our child, who deserves the best life can give. It deserves to be raised with a mother and father who are united. If you’re worried that I’m after your money then I am happy to sign an agreement that protects your wealth if we divorce.’
He pounced on her words. ‘You are already thinking that far ahead!’
He’d known she couldn’t be as self-sacrificing as she was making herself out to be, her words all a script designed to make him feel like a bastard for wanting to protect her from the dangers he posed.
Dios, how could she be so naïve? There was a reason he had reached the age of thirty-five without a single long-term relationship to his name. For a woman proving herself to be far more intuitive than he had credited, she should surely be able to see it.
‘If we both enter marriage with open minds we can make it work for our child, I truly believe that,’ she replied, following him with her eyes. ‘But I am not stupid. The odds are against us and we should work together to protect our child against every eventuality. I will be glad to sign a contract that states that should we divorce the only thing I get from you is a home of my own here in Madrid so we can share custody of our child. I don’t want a war with you, Javier, and I absolutely do not want our child to be a casualty of it either. I would have thought you of all people could appreciate that.’
Billionaire's Baby of Redemption Page 3
