The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride
Page 17
‘What plan?’ she asked breathlessly, her heart setting up a frantic tattoo at the wicked glint in his eyes.
‘To woo you properly—wine you and dine you and generally be so utterly charming that you wouldn’t be able to refuse me when I asked you to marry me and spend the rest of your life with me.’
‘Oh,’ Grace pouted in disappointment. ‘I rather like the idea of being wined and dined, but I’m not a fan of divorce, so we’ll just have to stick together.’
‘Always,’ Javier vowed fervently, and spent the next few minutes showing her in many varied and pleasurable ways just how close he was going to stick to her.
Grace finally untangled herself from him and sat up. ‘I don’t want you to give up your place as head of the bank,’ she said seriously. ‘It’s important to you.’
‘Nothing is as important as you,’ he replied fiercely. ‘I don’t want you to harbour any doubts about why I’m married to you.’ He tugged her back down on top of him. ‘Lorenzo is keen for us to work together and run the bank between us, but ultimately it’s your decision, querida. I am—how do you say?—putty in your hands.’ He inhaled sharply when she trailed her hand over his thigh and groaned when she encircled him with firm fingers.
‘You don’t feel like putty to me,’ she murmured innocently and then gasped with delight when he flipped her onto her back and demonstrated just who was the master of El Castillo de Leon.
EPILOGUE
ON THE first anniversary of their marriage, Javier picked roses for Grace from the gardens of the castillo, but the thorns cut his hands and she insisted that he spend the rest of the day in bed with her to recover.
On their second anniversary he picked roses again, and carefully removed the thorns before laying the bouquet on the bed where she was nursing their month-old son.
‘Rico’s cheeks are as soft as rose petals,’ she murmured when she handed Javier his son and buried her face in the blooms. ‘He’s so adorable, isn’t he? I hope we have lots more like him.’
‘Are you kidding? I couldn’t go through another birth like that,’ Javier muttered with a shudder as he recalled the agonising sixteen hours that he’d watched Grace suffer before Ricardo Herrera had finally made his entry into the world. He brushed his lips over Rico’s cheek and felt his heart clench with love that was mirrored in his eyes when he smiled at Grace. ‘We’ll love him with all our hearts, but I’m afraid he’s going to be an only child, querida.’ He placed the baby gently in his crib and moved towards the bed where his wife was waiting with open arms.
‘Nonsense. I want at least two more, and you know I always get my own way,’ Grace said cheerfully.
And eighteen months later she did just that when she gave birth to twin girls, Rosa and Susannah. The castillo rang with the sound of children’s laughter, and el Leon de Herrera never walked alone again.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0812-8
THE SPANISH DUKE’S VIRGIN BRIDE
First North American Publication 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by Chantelle Shaw.
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