Claimed for the De Carrillo Twins (Wedlocked! Book #84)

by Abby Green

  ‘What did he say?’

  Trinity forced herself out of the past. ‘He said that if I did anything of the sort he’d divorce me and never let me see Matty or Sancho again, and that he’d ruin any chances for my future employment, not to mention my chances of going to college.’

  Cruz said, ‘That must have been just after I’d returned to London. I’d asked to meet him—I’d been alerted by our accountants that he was haemorrhaging money. That’s when he told me those lies about you and blamed you for pretty much everything. I had no reason not to believe him when there were all those receipts and the evidence of your social lifestyle...’

  Trinity felt unaccountably bitter to hear Cruz confirming all this. She was also shocked at one person’s ability to be so cruel. Without thinking, she said, ‘He used me because he wanted to get back at you. He wanted to make you jealous because he—’ She stopped suddenly, eyes fixed guiltily on Cruz.

  What was wrong with her? It was as if she physically couldn’t keep the truth back.

  ‘Because he what?’ Cruz asked, eyes narrowed on her flaming face.

  She backed away, feeling sick. ‘Nothing.’

  Cruz was grim as he effortlessly reached for her, caught her by the hands and pulled her back, forcing her back down into the chair and keeping her hands in one of his.

  ‘Tell me, Trinity. I know there’s more to it than just the fact that Rio was going off the rails. He’d been going off the rails ever since he got his inheritance and, believe me, I know that’s my fault.’

  She looked up at him, momentarily distracted. Anger rushed through her because Cruz felt such irrational guilt over someone who didn’t deserve it. Especially when that guilt had blinkered him to Rio’s true nature and crimes.

  She pulled her hands back, resting them on her lap. ‘That wasn’t your fault, Cruz. I lived with him for a year and a half, so I should know. Rio was selfish and self-absorbed, and all that inheritance did was highlight his flaws.’

  Cruz looked at her carefully. ‘There’s still more.’

  She shook her head, desperately wishing he’d drop it. ‘No, there’s not.’

  He grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it over to sit down right in front of her, all but trapping her. Their knees were touching and she was very conscious of her bare legs under the dress. It didn’t help when his gaze dropped momentarily to her chest.

  He looked up again and arched a brow. She scowled at him. ‘You can’t force me to talk.’

  ‘You’ll talk, Trinity, and if you don’t want to talk then we’ll find other ways to occupy our time until you do.’

  He put a hand on her bare knee, sliding it up her thigh until she slapped her hand down on his. He gripped her thigh and she felt a betraying pulse throb between her legs.

  ‘Your choice. Either way, you’re talking.’

  She was between a rock and a hard place. If Cruz touched her she’d go up in flames and might not be able to hold back her emotions. But if she told him the truth about Rio, and he realised why she’d been so reluctant to tell him...

  But he deserved to know—however hard it was. However much she wished she didn’t have to.

  She blurted out, ‘I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want to hurt you.’

  * * *

  Cruz looked at her. Trinity couldn’t have said anything more shocking. No one had ever said such a thing to him because no one had ever cared about hurting him before. Certainly not a lover, because he was always very careful not to give them that power.

  But right now he could feel his insides contracting, as if to ward off a blow. Instinctively he wanted to move back, but he didn’t. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Her eyes were like two blue bruises.

  ‘Rio set me up way before he needed to use me to blame for his money problems.’ She felt her face grow hot as she admitted, ‘He offered me the job because he saw an opportunity to distract you, to make you jealous. He told me when we had the row that he’d hated you for as long as he could remember, but that he’d managed to make you believe he was grateful for the hand-outs he said you gave him.’

  Cruz forced himself to say, ‘Go on.’

  ‘His ultimate ambition was to take you over—to use the marriage and his sons as evidence that he was the more stable heir. That he could be trusted. He wanted to see you humiliated, punished for being the legitimate heir. He never got over his resentment of you, Cruz.’

  He realised dimly that he should be feeling hurt, exactly as Trinity had said. But it wasn’t hurt he was feeling. It was a sense of loss—the loss of something he’d never had. And that realisation was stark and painful.

  Trinity was looking at him and he couldn’t breathe. He took his hand off her thigh and moved back, standing up. A sense of inarticulate anger rushed up...that awful futility.

  Trinity stood too, and she was pale, and it made his anger snap even more. An irrational urge to lash out gripped him. A need to push her back to a safe distance, where it wouldn’t feel as if her eyes could see right down to the depths of his very soul.

  ‘You have to admit,’ he said now, ‘things worked out for you remarkably well, considering. You still managed to elevate yourself from humble maid to nanny to wife. You may have proved your physical innocence, but can I really trust that you weren’t the one who saw your opportunity that night when you spoke to Rio? Maybe you followed him into the garden?’

  ‘No!’

  She shook her head, and now there was fire in her eyes as well as something far more disturbing. Something that twisted Cruz’s guts.

  ‘No. I was hurt, and I was naive enough to let him see it...and he took advantage of that.’

  All Cruz could see was her. Beautiful. Injured. His fault. The desire to push her back faded as quickly as it had come on.

  Acting on instinct, he went over to her, chest tight. The desk was behind her—she couldn’t move. Cruz took her face in his hands, lifting it up. ‘Who are you, Trinity Adams? Is it really possible that you’re that wide-eyed naive girl who turned up in my office looking for a chance? Full of zeal and a kind of innocence I’ve never seen before?’

  Cruz’s character assessment of her chafed unbearably, and Trinity balled her hands into fists at her sides.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in a low voice throbbing with pain. ‘I was that stupidly naive girl who was so starved for a sense of belonging that at the first sign of it she toppled right over the edge.’

  She hated it that his proximity was making her melt even as hurt and anger twisted and roiled in her gut.

  She took his hands down off her face. ‘Just let me go, Cruz... There’s nothing more to discuss. There’s nothing between us.’

  She felt his body go rigid and saw his eyes burn.

  ‘You’re wrong. There isn’t nothing—there’s this.’

  His mouth was over hers before she could take another breath and Trinity went up in flames. Panic surged. She couldn’t let this happen.

  She tore her mouth away. ‘Stop, Cruz, this isn’t enough.’

  ‘It’s more than enough, querida, and it’s enough for now.’

  He started undoing the buttons of her shirt-dress, exposing her breasts in her lacy bra, dragging one cup down and thumbing her nipple. She wanted to tell him to stop again, but it was too late. She was tipping over the edge of not caring and into wanting this more. Anything to assuage the ache in her heart.

  He lifted her with awesome ease onto the side of his desk. She heard something fall to the floor and smash, but it was lost in the inferno consuming them. He was yanking open her dress completely now...buttons were popping and landing on the floor.

  He captured her mouth again as he pushed the dress off her shoulders and down her arms, pulling her bra down completely so her breasts were upthrust by the wire and exposed. The be
lt was still around her waist—the only thing keeping her dress attached to her body.

  He palmed her breast as he stroked his tongue along hers, thrusting, mimicking a more intimate form of penetration. Trinity groaned into his mouth, instinctively arching her back to push her breast into his palm more fully, gasping when he trapped a hard nipple between his fingers before squeezing tightly.

  She blindly felt for his T-shirt, pushing it up until they had to break apart so he could lift it off. He dropped it to the floor and Trinity reached for his jeans, snapping open the top button, aware of the bulge pressing against the zip. Heat flooded her—and urgency.

  She was hampered when Cruz bent down and tongued a nipple, his hand going between her legs, spreading her thighs and pushing aside her panties to explore along her cleft. He pulled her forward slightly, so that she was on the edge of the desk, feet just touching the ground.

  He slowly thrust one finger in and out, while torturing her breasts with his mouth and tongue. She was throbbing all over, slick and ready. The previous emotional whirlwind was blissfully forgotten in this moment of heated insanity.

  ‘Please, Cruz...’

  He looked up, his face stark with need. He undid his jeans and pushed them down and his erection sprang fee. Trinity took it in her hand, the moisture at the tip wetting her palm.

  Cruz settled himself between her legs, the head of his erection sliding against her sex, and it was too much. She was ready to beg when he tipped her back and notched himself into her heat. They both groaned, and he rested his forehead on hers for a moment.

  Then he said, ‘Wrap your legs around my waist.’

  She did, barely aware that her sandals had fallen off. Cruz pulled her panties to one side and with one earth-shattering movement thrust into her, deep enough to steal her breath and her soul for ever.

  He put an arm around her and hauled her even closer as he slowly thrust in and out, each glide of his body inside hers driving them higher and higher to the peak. She wrapped one arm around his neck, the other around his waist, struggling to stay rooted.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded roughly.

  She opened her eyes and tipped back her head. The look on his face made a spasm of pure lust rush through her. It was feral. Desperate. Hungry. Raw.

  Their movements became rougher...something else fell to the floor.

  Cruz pushed her back onto the table, lying her flat, and took her hands in one of his, holding them above her head as he kept up the relentless rhythm of their bodies. She dug her heels into his buttocks, biting her lip to stop from screaming as the coil of tension wound so tight she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer. But just at that moment he drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking fiercely, and the tension shattered to pieces and Trinity soared free of the bond that had been holding her so tight.

  Cruz’s body tensed over hers and she felt the hot burst of his release inside her.

  * * *

  Cruz took her to his room in his arms, because her legs were too wobbly to hold her up. She’d buried her face in his shoulder, eyes closed, weakly trying to block out the storm that had just passed but had left her reeling and trembling.

  Her head hurt after too many confessions and an overload of pleasure. And too many questions that she didn’t want to answer now. Or ever, maybe.

  His room was dark and austere. There was a four-poster bed with elaborate drapes. This was very evidently the old part of the castillo.

  He put her down on the side of his bed and she felt shell-shocked when he disappeared into what she presumed to be the bathroom. She heard the sound of running water and a few minutes later he appeared again and took her into the en-suite.

  The bath smelled amazing. Like Cruz. Musky and exotic. He helped her out of her dishevelled clothes and into the hot water. She sank down and looked at him warily. He wore nothing but his jeans, slung low on his hips. She wished she had the nerve to ask him to join her, but she also wanted time to herself, to try and take in everything without him scrambling her brain to pieces.

  As if reading her mind, he said, ‘I’ll be waiting outside,’ and walked out, leaving her alone with thoughts she suddenly didn’t want to think about.

  Coward. She wanted to sink down under the water and block everything out, but she couldn’t.

  She let out a long, shuddering breath. It really was as if a storm had taken place down in Cruz’s study, whipping everything up and then incinerating it in the fire that had blown up between them, white-hot and devastating. But a very fragile sense of peace stole over her as she lay there, even as she had to acknowledge that she wasn’t sure where she stood now. And wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.

  Aware that the water was cooling rapidly, and Cruz was waiting, she washed perfunctorily, stiffening as a jolt of sensation went through her when she touched the tenderness between her legs.

  When she finally emerged, in a voluminous towelling robe with the sleeves rolled up her arms, Cruz was standing at the window. He turned around and she could see that he’d changed into dark trousers and a long-sleeved top and his hair was damp. So he’d gone to another room to shower. Because he’d wanted to give her space, or because he couldn’t bear to spend more time with her?

  Trinity gritted her jaw against the sudden onset of paranoia.

  He came forward. ‘How are you?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m okay.’

  He was looking at her with a strange expression on his face, as if he’d never seen her before. In spite of the explosive intimacies they’d just shared Trinity felt as if a chasm yawned between them now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said impulsively, thinking of the look on his face when she’d revealed the depth of Rio’s hatred.

  A muscle ticked in Cruz’s jaw. ‘You’re sorry? For what? It’s me who should be apologising to you for all but forcing you into this marriage, and for what my brother put you through to get back at me.’

  His belief in her innocence didn’t make her feel peaceful now—it made her feel sick. If he really believed that she had just been a pawn in Rio’s game what future was there for them? Her heart lurched. None. Because he had to be regretting this marriage, which had been born out of an erroneous belief that he couldn’t trust her and that he needed to protect his nephews.

  It was the last question she wanted to ask, but she had to. ‘What happens now?’

  He smiled, but it was mirthless. ‘What happens now? What happens now is that you could be pregnant. We didn’t use protection.’ He cursed volubly. ‘I didn’t even think of it.’

  Trinity sank down onto the side of the bed nearest to her as her legs gave way. ‘Neither did I,’ she said faintly. She’d felt it...the hot rush of his release inside her...and she’d conveniently blocked it out.

  She stared at Cruz’s grim countenance as the significance of this sank in. The full, horrifying significance.

  If she was pregnant then he wouldn’t be able to disentangle himself from this marriage—and she didn’t need to be psychic to intuit that that was exactly what he wanted. He was angry.

  ‘There was two of us there,’ she pointed out, feeling sick. ‘It wasn’t just your oversight.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘As much as I appreciate your sentiment, I was the one who should have protected you.’

  You. Not us.

  Panic galvanised Trinity at the prospect of Cruz resenting her for ever for a moment of weakness.

  She calculated swiftly and stood up. ‘I’m sure I’m not pregnant. It’s a safe time for me. And even if it happened, by some miracle, it doesn’t mean anything. We don’t have to stay married—we could work something out.’

  ‘That,’ Cruz said coolly, fixing his amber gaze on her, ‘would never be an option in a million years. If you are pregnant then we stay married.’

  ‘But if I’m not
...?’

  ‘Then we will discuss what happens. But for now we wait. I have to go to Madrid again in two weeks. I’ll set up an appointment with my doctor and we’ll go together. That should be enough time for a pregnancy test to show up positive or negative...’

  Feeling numb, Trinity said, ‘We could just wait. I’ll know for sure in about three weeks.’

  Cruz shook his head. ‘No, we’ll find out as soon as possible.’

  Trinity really hated the deeply secret part of her that hoped that she might be pregnant, because that was the only way she knew she’d get to stay in Cruz’s life. But if she wasn’t... The sense of desolation that swept over her was so acute that she gabbled something incoherent and all but ran out of the room to return to hers.

  Cruz didn’t come after her, or try to stop her, which told her more eloquently than words ever could how he really felt about her.

  * * *

  Cruz stood in the same spot for a long time, looking at the door. He’d had to let Trinity go, even though it had taken nearly everything he possessed not to grab her back. But he couldn’t—not now. Not after the most monumental lapse in control he’d ever experienced.

  He started to pace back and forth. He’d fallen on her in his study like a caveman. Wild. Insatiable. Filled with such a maelstrom of emotions that the only way he’d known how to avoid analysing them was to sink inside her and let oblivion sweep them away. But he couldn’t avoid it now.

  He’d been angry with her for revealing the extent of Rio’s antipathy—but hadn’t he known all along, really? And she’d just been the reluctant messenger.

  He’d felt anger at himself for indulging in that delusion in a bid to forge some meagre connection with his only family. And he’d felt anger that Trinity had been so abused by Rio and him. He hadn’t deserved her purity and innocence after all he’d put her through, and yet she’d given it to him with a sensuality and abandon that still took his breath away.

  He stopped. Went cold. He’d actually had a tiny moment of awareness just before he’d come that there was no protection. But he’d been so far gone by then that to have pulled away from Trinity’s clasping heat would have killed him... Cruz knew that there was no other woman on this earth who would have had that effect on him.