His Suitable Bride

by Cathy Williams/Abby Green/Kate Walker

  He stayed with his back to her for a moment. For some reason he couldn’t trust himself to face her, and he hated that. He spoke in a monotone. ‘Two months from now it will be two years exactly since you walked out of that hospital. You’ve returned now because we can both file for divorce and you can get your hands on the money agreed in the prenup. I see you’ve been careful not to go beyond the two-year desertion mark, which would have biased things against you. It must be killing you to come back and disrupt your plans, but once the divorce is through you’ll be off again.’ He turned around and fixed her with those laser eyes. ‘Yes?’

  Rowan struggled through waves of shock at his cool mention of divorce to understand what he’d said. She had no concept of time or legalities. She’d come here now because she was able. Because she was finally well enough …

  His arms were folded, every line in his face regal, hard, uncompromising. Her betrayal and his own shaming lack of judgment seared him again now he was faced with her wide-eyed act of shock. He laughed briefly, harshly. ‘Come now—even you, with all your guile, hardly expected us to play happy reunited families?’

  Rowan shook her head. His words, which committed to dust that childish and secret fantasy, had rendered her momentarily speechless.

  His voice assumed a bored tone which did even more damage to her heart. ‘You’ve done me a favour. If you hadn’t turned up now I wouldn’t have been able to seek a divorce without your consent, so you’ve saved me the tedious job of having to track you down.’ His expression changed in an instant, and he moved closer, looking at her assessingly. ‘Let me guess. You’ve run out of your inheritance?’

  Rowan blanched, going even paler. The sizeable inheritance from her mother was almost gone, but not for the reasons he’d so obviously guessed. But it was too late. He’d seen her reaction. A hard, triumphant glitter made his eyes icy.

  ‘As I thought.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, it disappoints me how predictable you women are. But then I don’t know why I’m surprised. I should have known this was on the cards.’ He continued. ‘So now you’re back, seeking to cash in on a prenup which will give you a nice nest egg … although at the rate you got through your mother’s money, I can’t see that mine will last much longer.’

  Rowan’s anger built with a white-hot flash. She felt colour bloom in her cheeks and welcomed it. ‘I have no desire for your money, Isandro. The only thing I desire is to see my son.’

  He looked bored. ‘I can see how he will be a good pawn for you, but please do not insult my intelligence. Turning up now shows just how deeply your mercenary streak runs. Being the mother of my son is an added insurance, to make sure you get as much as possible. No doubt this was all part of the grand plan.’

  The grand plan? If only he knew …

  ‘Tell me,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘have you already planned your public defence? Are you going to go with postnatal depression, which is what the papers hinted at as being the likely cause of your curious absence from my side?’

  Her mouth fell open. ‘Postnatal depression … you mean people don’t know?’ Rowan had feared that the press would have heard how she had deserted her child after she’d gone. She’d been prepared to deal with it, and it was more than surprising to her that Isandro hadn’t leaked the news for maximum benefit … Yet how could she forget that towering Spanish pride?

  Isandro’s eyes narrowed on hers. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you pretending you don’t know?’

  ‘But … I don’t …’ Rowan felt woolly in the head. For the first six months after her departure she hadn’t seen one newspaper. Or the news. And by the time she’d been exposed to it again she’d never seen any mention of Isandro. She’d fought the urge to go looking, because every time she felt it, the guilt would rise up and overwhelm her. Her husband was the type of man rarely mentioned in tabloids or the common press. His power and astronomical wealth were such that he was effectively removed from such banal speculation or scrutiny. Protected.

  However, the papers must have read something into the fact that Isandro Vicario Salazar’s wife had seemed to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth.

  He answered her unspoken thoughts. ‘Nobody is aware of the fact that you deserted this marriage. They lost interest when I returned to Spain with Zac, believing that you had simply taken refuge from prying eyes at our … my Seville home.’

  Rowan struggled to take it all in. ‘And your family.?’ She remembered his mother’s austere and pain-lined face. The coolness with which she had endured the wedding in London, patently hating every minute of it. Rowan also remembered the equally cold and suspicious face of Isandro’s older sister, Ana. Neither had offered any form of welcome.

  ‘Oh, they know exactly what happened. Somehow they weren’t surprised.’

  Rowan knew she had to sit or else she’d fall. She walked unsteadily to a chair in the corner and sat down. She felt incredibly weary all of a sudden, and the magnitude of the fight she faced was sinking in. She couldn’t let the stark reality that he fully expected them to divorce overwhelm her. He didn’t have to know how little she’d prepared for this, and now she welcomed the prompt which had led her to seek a meeting with her solicitor.

  ‘All I want is to be able to see my son. That’s why I was meeting Mr Fairclough yesterday. Even I know that as Zac’s mother I will be allowed see him.’

  Isandro fought down the anger that rose when she mentioned Zac’s name. He decided to go with his own plan and see how far he got. But he didn’t doubt that Zac was the golden ticket in Rowan’s plan.

  ‘I can have divorce papers drawn up today.’

  Rowan’s heart sank. She was going to be faced with Isandro’s full ammunition.

  ‘If you agree to divorce proceedings, and agree to the terms I’ll outline for granting you access to Zac, I’ll triple the amount stipulated in the prenuptial agreement and it will be transferred into your account immediately.’

  Rowan blanched. That sum of money would keep a small country running for some years. But she had no interest in money.

  She stood up from her seat and raised her chin. She had to be strong. She could crumble later. She had to focus on Zac, because to think of anything else right now was too much to bear. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Isandro’s face darkened with anger. He was caught in a bind and he had no doubt that she knew it.

  ‘I’ll agree to … to …’ To her utter chagrin her mouth and tongue stumbled on the words. She felt herself flushing. ‘To the divorce, by all means. It’s not as if this marriage was ever a love-match. I’m well aware of that. But I will not put my name to anything that signs away my rights to Zac. Those are bullying tactics, Isandro, and I won’t be bullied.’ She folded her arms to conceal their shaking.

  Isandro had to admit to feeling slightly flummoxed. He’d never been accused of being a bully before, and it didn’t sit well with him. Bullies acted without intelligence, on frightened instinct, and he had to concede now that he was frightened. Frightened of what she could do to his son. Frightened of a lot more than he cared to name at the moment.

  ‘He’s my son. I carried him for almost nine months. I gave birth to him. You can’t take that away from me. You can’t—’

  Isandro crushed the surprise he felt as she stood up to him so calmly. ‘And yet despite all that you were able to walk away without even a backward glance.’

  Rowan’s throat closed over again. She’d put her son first. If she had looked back then she’d never have left, and that would have meant …

  She stopped her painful thoughts with effort and controlled herself. ‘I don’t care about your money. I just want to know my son.’

  Who was she kidding? He had to stop himself from laughing out loud. This was a woman who had married him to get her hands on her inheritance and had got pregnant in a calculated bid to extract as much money as she could from him. And here was the evidence. Right in front of him. She was wily and canny. He’d give her that. She knew exactly
what she was doing by returning just before two years was up. It meant that any claim he made of desertion would be called into question, might be investigated. And even though he had the note she’d left as evidence, he knew that if she were conniving enough she could turn it around to work for her.

  The sheer evidence of her premeditation stunned him anew. This wasn’t the meek, shy wallflower he thought he’d married. She’d been a virgin on their wedding night! The ultimate in innocence and purity. She’d even maintained the façade right through her pregnancy—He halted his thoughts with effort and dug his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, tightening the material across his groin. His shirt, open at the neck, hinted at the dark olive skin underneath, with crisp whorls of hair just visible.

  For a second Isandro’s physical presence hit Rowan hard between the eyes, and out of nowhere came a vivid memory of herself underneath him, his naked body pushing down over hers, chest to chest. She remembered taking him into her on a single breath, he’d thrust so deeply that she’d truly believed in that moment that he’d touched her heart.

  She shook her head faintly, feeling acutely warm and breathless. The room—it must be the room. It was too hot, she told herself.

  Isandro was speaking again. ‘You leave me no option, then.’

  ‘No option …?’ she repeated stupidly fighting an urge to open her own shirt at the neck and let some air get to her skin. She was feeling constricted.

  It utterly galled Isandro that even though she’d behaved reprehensibly as Zac’s mother she could swan back onto the scene like this and have rights. Any court in the world would see the importance of a child being allowed to bond with its mother. His own lawyer had advocated that he should not be seen to stand in the way of reasonable access; it would only damage him down the line. As much as he wanted to turn around, walk away, forget she existed, he couldn’t.

  He didn’t know why she wasn’t taking the small fortune he was offering, but thought it could only be because she believed she’d get even more with this charade of belated concern. He had to be seen to give her a chance. But if he was going to do it then it would be on his terms, on his turf. He couldn’t trust that if he left her behind now she wouldn’t try and do something dramatic, using Zac in order to wage a public campaign for custody—and ultimately for the millions she no doubt craved.

  ‘If you mean what you say about being here purely to see and get to know Zac, then you will return to Seville with us within the hour.’

  His words cut through her body’s inexplicable response. She focused on the clear blue of his eyes and felt as if they were impaling her. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You will come and live in my house for a sufficient amount of time to prove your … good intentions towards Zac. You will be allowed a certain amount of supervised access—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. These are my terms, Rowan, and you’re not in a position to argue.’

  Rowan swallowed as she acknowledged her weak position. ‘I told you—my only concern is being with Zac as much as I possibly can.’

  ‘Well, then, you can’t possibly have a problem with this.’

  Living with him in his house … in such close proximity … her every move watched and monitored …

  Rowan looked up at him. ‘I … don’t—I just … couldn’t I stay somewhere nearby?’

  Isandro waved an impatient hand. ‘That is not practical. If you are serious about getting to know Zac it’s best to see him in his own environment. I won’t have you coming along, disrupting his routine, taking him out of his home. No way.’

  Rowan wrung her hands. ‘Of course I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t mean that, I just …’

  ‘This is it, Rowan. Take it or leave it. You’re hardly in a position to negotiate.’

  He watched the turmoil in her eyes. No wonder she was balking at his suggestion. It proved how false her intentions really were. To go from two years of hedonistic freedom to being holed up in his home in a small town outside Seville—she’d be climbing the walls within weeks, if not days. Not to mention spending time with a small toddler who had the smile of an angel but who would test the patience of a saint.

  ‘I’ll give you five minutes to think about it.’

  Rowan watched, still slightly dumbstruck, as he turned and left the room. The door shut softly behind him, the sound incongruous in a room heavy-laden with atmosphere and tension.

  Rowan paced up and down. She had to think fast. Isandro was not used to having to wait for anything or anyone. She knew what she should do was stay in London, meet her solicitor and see what her options were. But that would be next week now. In the meantime this tenuous connection would be broken. Isandro would be back in Spain with Zac. And with his obvious determination to divorce, who knew how hard he’d prove to be to contact once the matter was in his legal team’s hands? It could be months, even longer before she got to see Zac again. She had no doubt that Isandro would do whatever it took to make her look as bad as possible, and she had to concede that wouldn’t be hard at all. How … would it look if it emerged that she’d turned down an offer to go and live with her son?

  Perhaps that was what he was hoping? That she would shoot herself in the foot …

  She had to put aside her feelings for Isandro. Her one priority was Zac. When she’d seen him, touched him yesterday, she’d known him—incredibly. That primal recognition and joy struck her again.

  This was the moment she had to let go of the fantasy. The wish that somehow something of before could be salvaged. She’d irretrievably damaged everything. Fate and circumstance had led her down a difficult path. And she had to remind herself that no matter what she’d led herself to believe, to hope for in their marriage, she’d been living in a fantasy all along anyway.

  She firmed her mouth. Now was not the time to indulge in old memories. Once she’d unwittingly overheard that conversation with his sister well into her pregnancy she’d known exactly where she stood, how he felt. Their marriage obviously hadn’t become for him what it had become for her, no matter what she’d thought at the time. Or hoped … She’d berated herself for her fanciful notions—what had she known, after all? She’d been a virgin when they’d first slept together. And he … She flushed hotly. Well, he certainly hadn’t. She pressed cool hands against her cheeks to try and stem the heat.

  Zac was here. She’d seen him. There was no way she could walk away again. She didn’t have it in her. She didn’t want to be miles away, not knowing, missing even more of his life. She would prove herself to her husband if it was the last thing she did. And then he would have to acknowledge her role in their son’s life.

  ‘Well?’ Isandro stood at the door, dressed impeccably in jacket and tie again, every inch of him the banking giant whose influence induced fear and awe among adversaries and colleagues alike. Her eye caught that muscle twitching in his hard jaw. The fact that he wasn’t as controlled as he looked was no comfort.

  Rowan looked at him steadily and said, very clearly, ‘I’m coming with you.’

  After that things happened with scary swiftness. Isandro plucked a phone from his pocket and made a call, unleashing a stream of Spanish that Rowan only understood bits of. Her once fluent command of the language was rusty from lack of use.

  He finished the conversation and pocketed the phone. He had an implacable expression on his face, but she could sense the underlying anger and impatience. He did not want her coming with him. She was quite sure that he had most likely been advised by someone that to offer to bring her back to Spain was a good idea. And he had expected her to say no. To be so unwelcome made her feel a little queasy.

  ‘Where do we need to go to get your things?’

  Rowan shook her head. ‘Nowhere. I have everything with me.’

  Isandro’s body stilled. He flicked a derisive glance to the tiny case by her side. ‘Everything?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s all in there. And I have my passport in my handbag.’

  ‘You
haven’t been living here?’

  She shook her head, unbelievably stung by the evidence of his uninterest. He really had taken her note to heart. He hadn’t tried to find her. And while that had been her objective in leaving the provocative note … it still hurt.

  He took a step closer as he straightened his cuffs. ‘Care to tell me where you have been living? Or do you expect me to believe you’ve been living out of a suitcase that size for two years?’

  Rowan blinked and swallowed painfully. She had, actually. If he looked hard enough he might recognise that it was the case she’d had with her in the hospital, when she’d given birth to Zac … might even recognise that this, her one and only decent suit, was also two years old. But of course he wouldn’t. His questions were cutting far too close to the bone. Literally.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where I’ve been, Isandro. What matters is that I’m here now.’

  His eyes were intensely blue on hers for a long moment. And then he shrugged. ‘Come. It’s time to leave.’

  Rowan hitched her bag on her shoulder, and had caught the handle on her suitcase when he surprised her by coming back and leaning close, to take it out of her hand with a brusque movement. Their hands touched. She was so shocked at this contact that she snatched hers back, as if burnt. She could feel her eyes widening, her breath quicken, her heart race, and knew she looked shocked, but couldn’t hide her response.

  He stood to his full height and, helpless, Rowan could only gaze up into his eyes. That small physical contact was unleashing a maelstrom of sensations, images, memories, and, as if Isandro knew exactly what was going on inside her, he looked her up and down with studied insolence. His look, when it came to rest on her face again, was remote, utterly cold, and Rowan was in no doubt that he had just read her perfectly and did not welcome her reaction. Rejection flowed from every line of his tautly held body, and she had never felt so humiliated in her life.