Married by Arrangement

by Lynne Graham

  ‘You sent Mrs Moore to see me at my hotel the next morning—’

  Sophie fixed startled eyes on him. ‘What the heck are you talking about?’

  ‘And the woman made an excellent job of engaging my sympathies.’

  ‘If Norah did come to see you, I knew nothing about it—’

  ‘It was too neat the way it happened,’ Antonio countered, unimpressed by her plea of innocence. ‘Of course you knew about it. Your good friend, Norah, told me that I couldn’t possibly separate you from Lydia because, having suffered childhood leukaemia, you were infertile. I swallowed the sad story and in common with most men I was reluctant to question you about that particular personal tragedy.’

  Listening to him, Sophie felt as though she had been kicked in the teeth and betrayed. When he referred to her fertility problems, she turned as pale as milk. The terrible heavy silence lay while she fought to recover from that wounding blow and still hold her head high. ‘I had no idea that Norah had sneaked off to see you to plead my case for me. She had no right to tell you my personal business,’ she whispered sickly. ‘And I’m sorry you were embarrassed like that, but I’d have drunk poison sooner than ask for your sympathy!’

  Antonio could not drag his penetrating dark eyes from her heart-shaped face. She looked traumatised. He knew instantly that Norah Moore’s visit to his hotel had not been a part of any scam and that what the older woman had told him in confidence about Sophie was true. Appalled at the manner in which he had confronted her on that sensitive issue, he was filled with immediate regret. His superb bone structure taut below his bronzed skin, he made an instinctive move towards her. ‘Sophie…if that’s true, I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what? Yes, it’s true about the leukaemia and the infertility, but none of that has anything to do with this conspiracy theory you’ve dreamt up about Lydia,’ Sophie spelt out, stepping back out of his reach and snatching up a wrap to dig her arms into the sleeves and cover her trembling body from view. ‘I don’t believe what you’re saying, but I don’t really care either. Lydia is still Lydia and still my niece and she doesn’t need a snobby uncle or a great grandmother’s money…She never did need any of you when she already had me. And whatever happens she’s still got me!’

  Having completed that stricken assurance of intent and independence, Sophie vanished into the bathroom and slammed shut and locked the door. He knocked and she ignored it. He tried to reason with her through the door and she told him to shut up and leave her alone. He threatened to get the master key and use it unless she came out of her own volition and she told him she’d scream the place down and make such a fuss the staff would still be talking about it in a hundred years’ time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SOPHIE sat on the cold mosaic tiled floor and hugged her knees and stared into space.

  It was all over. Her crazy romantic hopes, her living for today and not worrying about tomorrow, their marriage. All over. Suddenly Antonio was willing to believe that she was a lying cheat, a greedy, money-grabbing fraudster. She had had no idea just how fragile their understanding was. But now their relationship already seemed as imaginary and insubstantial as a child’s soap bubble and she felt terrifyingly as if she were waking up in a living nightmare. In the space of minutes Antonio had taken her love and her pride and even her faith in him and destroyed the whole lot. As if it meant nothing, and obviously what they had shared did mean nothing to Antonio.

  Sophie suppressed the sob clogging up her aching throat. How could she be so selfish that she was only thinking of her own predicament? What about Lydia? If Lydia was not a Rocha, she stood to lose so much: her new family, her home and her promising future. Nor could Antonio be expected to continue acting as a father-figure. About the only thing that Sophie knew about DNA tests was that they were reputed to be foolproof. Yet she still found it almost impossible to credit that the sister she had believed she knew so well could have been unfaithful to Pablo while they were still living together as a couple.

  At the same time Sophie was reluctantly recalling Norah Moore’s crack about Belinda being a dark horse. The older woman had also suggested that Belinda had only ever told her kid sister what she reckoned she would want to hear. Sophie’s heart sank as she ran those revealing comments back and forth inside her head. Obviously, Norah knew more than she had been prepared to admit about Belinda and Sophie would have to approach the older woman to see if she could cast some light on the situation.

  But right now Antonio’s anger was a painfully convincing body of proof and if he was right, Lydia was some other man’s child. Antonio would not throw around such damaging allegations without strong evidence. He had been upset too, she acknowledged, her throat convulsing. He had become fond of Lydia. But it had been a mistake to forget that Antonio had only married her to give his supposed niece a mother and a stable home.

  Sophie hugged her knees to her breasts. Norah had spilled her deepest secret to Antonio. Norah had told him she couldn’t have a baby. She wanted to chase after him and tell him that her condition wasn’t that cut and dried and final and that she just might have a tiny chance of conceiving. But what would be the point? Her face crumpled and she sucked in a quivering breath, fighting to keep control of her wildly see-sawing emotions.

  She even understood why Norah had intervened and told Antonio. The older woman had been trying to help Sophie keep the baby she loved. Norah had quite deliberately treated Antonio to a sob story in a desperate attempt to shame and embarrass him into going away and leaving Sophie and Lydia alone. Of course, it had not occurred to Norah that Antonio’s response to that sob story would be a marriage proposal. No wonder the older woman had been so dismayed at the prospect of Antonio marrying Sophie for Lydia’s sake. For Norah had known that Antonio’s most driving motivation could only have been pity.

  The tears overflowed from Sophie’s eyes in a hot, stinging flood, but not a sound escaped her, for she was determined not to let Antonio hear her cry. But what she had just been forced to accept was the most painful truth she had ever had to swallow. There it was, whether she liked it or not: Norah had pulled the right strings with Antonio. Antonio did loads for charity. Antonio was stuffed full of decent principles and conscience. And Antonio would have felt desperately sorry for Sophie when he realised that Lydia was likely to be the closest she ever got to a baby of her own. So, he had decided that he could not deprive her of Lydia and that was the only reason he had offered her marriage…the pity vote. She felt hollow with hurt and humiliation and the sheer agony of his rejection and the tears kept on falling for a long time.

  Two hours later, Sophie emerged from the bathroom. She was very surprised to find Antonio still waiting. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, blanking him for it hurt far too much to let herself look directly at his darkly handsome features.

  ‘When I got the news about Lydia, I lost my head…I’m sorry, querida,’ Antonio breathed tautly. ‘It was the shock but that is no excuse for the way I took my anger out on you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you won’t be doing that again,’ Sophie responded stonily from the dressing room where she was stuffing a change of underwear into a carrier bag.

  ‘I won’t be,’ Antonio conceded. ‘We will deal with this challenge together—’

  Sophie rolled her eyes at her carrier bag. ‘No, thanks. This isn’t a challenge…trust you to call it something like that. This is the end of something that never should have begun.’

  Antonio appeared in the doorway. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Packing a few things.’

  His big, powerful body went rigid. ‘Packing…to go where?’

  ‘Back home.’

  ‘This is your home.’

  ‘No, this is your home. I want to speak to Norah and find out if she does know more about Belinda than I did. I assume the DNA tests you mentioned are correct and if it’s at all possible I would like to know who Lydia’s father is.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Sophie comp
ressed her soft pink mouth into a line tighter than a jar with a child-proof lid. ‘No, this isn’t your business any more.’

  Antonio released his breath in a hiss. ‘Please let me express my—’

  ‘I’m really not interested in hearing you express anything. You married me ’cos you thought Lydia was your brother’s kid. She’s not his kid, so we can call it a day now—’

  ‘There is much more between us than that,’ Antonio argued. ‘You’re furious with me and you have every right to be—’

  ‘OK, so push off and give me peace to pack—’

  ‘It would be foolish to embark on a journey at this time of night. We’ll rise early and fly over to London tomorrow—’

  ‘I’m not flying any place with you. I already told you…Lydia and I aren’t your business any more—’

  ‘You’re my wife and I will not let our marriage break down over this,’ Antonio asserted fiercely.

  Sophie vented a thin little laugh. ‘Marriage? What marriage? We never had a marriage! We’ve had a good laugh and lots of sex, but that’s it!’

  Antonio reached for her. She twisted away with sufficient violence to persuade him of the need to back off. Green eyes feverishly bright, she shot him a warning glance. ‘Stay away from me!’

  ‘If I could take back what I said, I would,’ Antonio intoned in a roughened undertone. ‘But the very fact that you never told me that you were infertile made me suspect that Norah Moore had told me lies!’

  Sophie lost colour, for she had not thought of matters from that angle. Although she was reluctant to admit it, she could see how her silence on that thorny topic would have roused his suspicion that Norah had been shooting him a line. ‘I didn’t tell you because we didn’t have a proper marriage,’ she said in an effort to defend herself.

  ‘What do you call a proper marriage?’

  ‘One where the guy doesn’t says things like, “For now, let’s enjoy being married,” like it’s a casual affair!’

  Dark colour demarcated the slashing line of Antonio’s high cheekbones. ‘You have a point. But I would still argue that our marriage was as real as any other. All the elements that needed to be there were there—’

  ‘Yeah, were…past tense. We had a good time, but let’s quit while we’re still speaking!’ Sophie retorted with a brittle smile.

  Antonio breathed in deep. ‘I’m flying to England with you.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do as long as you leave Lydia and me alone,’ she muttered tightly.

  ‘Lydia won’t be accompanying us.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Sophie tossed him a disbelieving look.

  ‘Lydia is staying here at the castillo until we return.’

  ‘But I wasn’t planning on returning!’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘I want to take her with me—’

  ‘No. Lydia goes nowhere without my agreement and I will not give it,’ Antonio delivered without hesitation. ‘You’re not in the right frame of mind to make an important decision about her future.’

  Her hands clenched into hurting fists. ‘What do you care? Lydia’s nothing to you now—’

  Dark golden eyes sought and held her accusing gaze. ‘That’s not true. I’m angry that I didn’t know the truth. But I care as much about Lydia at this moment as I did when I woke up this morning.’

  ‘Well, whoopee for you…you can visit us every six months.’

  ‘Lydia is not travelling to England with us tomorrow,’ Antonio spelt out grimly, brilliant eyes welded to the tight set of her delicate profile. ‘Perhaps by then you might be ready to let me talk and say what I really want to say.’

  Her soft mouth quivered and she turned her back on him. ‘You’ve said enough for one day.’

  ‘Sophie…’ He touched her shoulder.

  She shrugged him off. The silence pounded and thudded. Then the door closed on his departure and she wanted to scream and scream to exorcise the agony inside her. She hadn’t wanted him to stay. But she could not bear him to leave her. But what was she supposed to say to a guy who had made a huge sacrifice for nothing? He hadn’t wanted to give up his freedom and marry. But he had truly believed that he had a duty of care towards Lydia. Yielding to temptation on their wedding night had led to a relationship he would never have sought on his own behalf. So he had made the best of things in the short term.

  That was the sort of guy Antonio was…always set on doing the right thing no matter how painful it might be. She loved him a lot, but she didn’t want his pity. She felt so ashamed of her sister’s behaviour as well. Belinda’s will had got them into a disastrous marriage and unfortunately Lydia would suffer the most from the fallout. Sophie could not accept that Antonio could still genuinely care about Lydia now that he knew she wasn’t his niece.

  The following afternoon, the jet landed in London. After a night spent tossing and turning in misery, Sophie had slept for most of the flight. Antonio watched her the entire time she slept. He covered her up with a rug. He pushed a pillow under her flushed cheek. Without even speaking to him she was putting up signs as big as placards to keep him in touch with her mood. She had left off her wedding ring and even the watch he had given her. She was wearing a T-shirt and shabby jeans that he recalled from his first visit to the caravan site. It bothered him that she should have held onto those garments in spite of her wardrobe of new clothes and the wealth that surrounded her. He could see that he was being not so much airbrushed out of her scheme of things as annihilated as though he had never existed.

  ‘You can stay in the car,’ Sophie told him uncomfortably outside Norah Moore’s little bungalow. ‘If there’s anything to find out, I promise that I’ll share it with you.’

  She had phoned Norah to tell her that she was visiting and she had also told the other woman about the results of the DNA test.

  ‘Did you know Lydia wasn’t Pablo’s?’ Sophie asked baldly as the older woman put on the kettle.

  Norah gave her a reluctant nod of assent.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sophie groaned.

  ‘Belinda begged me not to and after she had passed away I saw no reason to upset you—’

  ‘I can’t believe that my sister talked to you and not to me!’

  The older woman grimaced. ‘She was your big sister and she wanted you to look up to her. She didn’t exactly plan to tell me either.’

  ‘It’s OK…I’m grateful that she did talk to you because at least now I can find out the truth.’

  ‘Well, I called in one evening and found Belinda drinking. I gave her a right telling-off about drinking with a baby on the way and she just laughed. You know how silly she could be. She asked me if I’d be shocked if she told me that the baby wasn’t her husband’s kid. She was gasping to spill the beans to somebody.’

  ‘What did she tell you about Lydia’s father?’

  ‘That she’d been with a bunch of different men she picked up in bars and didn’t have a blind clue which one was responsible.’ As Sophie studied her in consternation Norah folded her lips. ‘She went off the rails for a while. It happens. Her marriage was breaking up. Pablo was out all the time and having other women on the side and she decided to have some fun of her own.’

  Sophie wrinkled her nose. ‘What a mess…what an awful mess. But if she knew right from the start that Lydia wasn’t Pablo’s why did she name Antonio as a guardian in her will?’

  ‘I bet she only had that will done after Pablo had been killed. I think she was ashamed and wanted to forget what she’d done. She wanted to pretend the baby was her husband’s. She certainly regretted telling me the truth and took against me because of it,’ the older woman reminded Sophie wryly.

  ‘I also know that you went to see Antonio at his hotel,’ Sophie admitted. ‘He told me about it.’

  Norah pulled a face. ‘That backfired on me,’ she confided ruefully. ‘I expected Antonio to let you keep Lydia here and maybe help you out with a bit of money. Instead he went and asked you to marry him.’

  ‘Now I understand w
hy you were so against our marriage.’

  ‘But I didn’t want to interfere. How was I to know what was for the best? Antonio meant well by Lydia and I didn’t want to be the one who spoilt that for the kiddie.’ Norah studied Sophie and raised a brow. ‘I was about to ask how marriage is treating you, but I can see Antonio’s right and tight with his cash. You’re still wearing the same jeans you had before you left. Well, at least he’ll not be getting into debt like that brother of his!’

  Sophie went very red in the face and hastened to dissuade Norah from the conviction that Antonio was seriously mean with money. Norah informed her with some satisfaction that her son had started dating a neighbour’s daughter and that the relationship was looking serious. Sophie walked slowly back out to the limousine.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,’ Antonio drawled in a trying-to-be-ultra-sensitive tone.

  ‘Belinda went with a load of different blokes and so we’re never going to be able to find out who Lydia’s father is,’ Sophie responded, determined not to reveal just how affronted she was by her late sister’s behaviour.

  ‘I’m her father now,’ Antonio murmured very quietly.

  ‘Believe me, if Lydia was grown up enough to know that you’re prone to taking pity on little children and cleaners, she’d pretty soon tell you not to bother yourself!’

  ‘What if I was to tell you that I didn’t take pity on the cleaner…that I actually wanted the cleaner for myself,’ Antonio murmured softly.

  Sophie blinked, reran that statement in her mind, examined it from all angles and shot him a furious glance of condemnation. ‘I’d know you were just feeling guilty about what you said yesterday and I wouldn’t believe you.’

  The flight back to Spain seemed endless to her. An evening meal was served on board, but she had little appetite for it. When the limousine was ferrying them through the wooded countryside, she finally succumbed to the lure of watching Antonio. After all, there would be few if any such opportunities in her future, she reminded herself. Their marriage was finished. What reason did they have to be married now? She would pack and return to England with a cheery wave. The cheery wave, the show of happy indifference, was an essential. At least if she walked out with her head high, she would leave with her pride intact. Antonio, on the other hand, was looking very bleak. But then he had amazing tact and a real sense of occasion, she reflected. It would hardly be polite or considerate of him to sit there wreathed in smiles at the prospect of divorcing her and regaining his freedom.