Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride

by India Grey

  ‘Yes.’ It was barely more than a whisper. ‘You never wanted to get married. You never wanted children. You said all along you’d never love me. So, yes, I understand why you can’t do it.’

  His eyes flew open and he pushed himself violently away from the wall, taking her by the shoulders and staring down into her face with an expression of intense suffering that tore into her, filling her with anguish but also a peculiar kind of hope.

  ‘No! I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone…anything.’ He spoke slowly, clearly, his voice raw with terrible emotion. ‘God, Lily—I love you so much it’s killing me, because I can’t give you the one thing that you want and because loving you means that I have to do what’s best for you, and that’s leave you alone.’

  She shook her head, vehemently in denial. ‘No—’

  ‘Yes.’ Still holding her by the shoulders, he shook her slightly, his eyes searing into hers. ‘Because I can’t risk it. What if I turn out to be like him?’

  ‘Your father?

  ‘Yes. Him and all the other Romero men before him.’ He let her go abruptly, stepping back and raising his clenched fists to his temples. ‘You were right when you said I was afraid, though it took me a long time to admit it to myself. But I’m absolutely bloody terrified, Lily. I’m scared witless that somewhere that behaviour has been branded into me, hardwired into my brain, and that whether I mean to or not I’ll just end up repeating the cycle.’

  Hope flickered, a tiny flame in the darkness. She smiled steadily into the deep blue anguish of his eyes. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ he said fiercely. ‘Look at you—you’re a natural. It’s who you are. You look after things—from injured birds to stray cats. It’s instinctive. Intuitive. Whereas I’m—’

  ‘Like that too.’

  ‘No!’ He took an angry step forward, thrusting his hands into his pockets, almost as if he was afraid he might hurt her. ‘My instinct is to run away from anything remotely emotional,’ he said in a voice that dripped with self-disgust. ‘I’m the man who tried to buy you off, remember? I’m the man who tried to pay to have nothing to do with my own child. I’m the man who left you on your own when you were pregnant, and wasn’t there when—’

  Lily didn’t move, didn’t flinch. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re not that man. That wasn’t instinct. That was desperation. Your instinct was to be the man who holds a little girl’s hand in church when she drops her flowers. Your instinct was to put your younger brother before yourself. That was why you dropped out of university, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly, his eyes fixed on hers. Lily didn’t miss a beat, continuing in the same gentle, hypnotic voice. ‘Your instinct was to look after a pregnant woman on the other side of the world, and provide for whole communities and bring hope to people whose lives have been torn apart. Your instinct was to risk your own life to rescue a child. Tristan, I watched you when you were asleep…’ for the first time her voice caught, and she moved towards him ‘…and you were holding the blanket as if you were still cradling her in your arms. Even then, even when you were half dead with exhaustion, your instinct was to protect her.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  The expression on his face was one of exquisite torment, and it took all Lily’s powers of self restraint not to throw herself into his arms and kiss away the hurt. But she couldn’t do that. Not yet. She stood a few inches away from him trembling with longing and hope.

  ‘I know so. I know that as well as being the man I want to be married to for the rest of my life, you’d also make the most fantastic, incredible father.’ She took a deep breath as her eyes blurred with hot, stinging tears. ‘But that doesn’t mean that we have to do this, Tristan. You were wrong when you said that this is the one thing I want. It’s not. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still want children, but only with you. Only if we’re doing it together, and if it’s not what you want then just having you will be enough for me because…’

  Here she faltered, and bowed her head as the tears ran down her face and splashed on the dusty floor. For a moment neither of them moved, and then she felt Tristan very gently take her chin between his fingers and lift her face to his. His blue eyes burned with passion and pain.

  ‘Because what?’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Because I love you so much.’

  He scowled down at her, trying to take it in. ‘So much that you’d give up your dream for me?’

  ‘You are my dream,’ she said simply. ‘It all begins and ends with you. And if some day, somehow, we had a family then that would be…amazing, but if we didn’t, then I’d still have more than I had any right to wish for.’ She paused, her eyelids flickering closed for a second, almost as if she were praying. ‘If I had you.’

  Tristan gave a moan of helpless longing. ‘You have me. Oh, Dios, Lily, you have me, for all of eternity…’

  As he bent his head to kiss her Lily saw a tear fall, leaving a clean trail through the grime on his cheek, and as his lips met hers she felt them tremble. He kissed her with slow and tender passion that felt almost like reverence, his hands cupping her face, his heart beating against hers. And then when both of them were gasping for breath and his fingers were wet with her tears he folded her into his body and wrapped his arms tightly around her, and just held her.

  After a long time Lily raised her head and looked up at him.

  ‘Is it wrong to be happy in the midst of all this devastation?’ she whispered.

  Tristan shook his head slowly. ‘No. It’s the only thing that’s right. The only thing that makes sense. The only thing that makes it possible to go on from this. And we will, I promise you we will.’

  Strength and certainty blazed in the depths of the blue eyes Lily loved so much. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against him.

  ‘Tristan, please…’ she said quietly, ‘hold me again. Don’t let go.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he whispered fiercely into her hair. ‘I’ll never let go.

  EPILOGUE

  LILY paused, a little blue birthday candle held between her fingers as she stood at the window of the big sunny kitchen.

  Outside the garden swooned in the syrupy heat of the summer afternoon and the sea sparkled in the distance. At the far side of the lawn a table stood, half in the shade of the huge cedar tree whose branches were hung with brightly striped bunting, and Emilia’s squeals of delighted laughter drifted across the drowsy air and in through the open door.

  Lily’s face broke into a smile of pure adoration as she watched her, delicious in the pink tutu and fairy wings Scarlet and Tom had given her, sitting on the bit of Scarlet’s knee that wasn’t taken up with the bulk of advanced pregnancy and giggling infectiously as Scarlet tickled her plump little arms with the feather-trimmed fairy wand.

  At the other end of the table Andrei sat in his highchair carefully scrutinising the wooden fire engine that Dimitri had given him. Lily’s heart clenched with helpless love. He was quieter, more timid and reserved than his easy-going sister, his small face was solemn, setting him slightly apart from the celebration going on around him.

  It was a double celebration: for the twins’ first birthday and also to toast their permanent acceptance into Lily and Tristan’s lives. The interim care order that had allowed them to bring them home to Cornwall had at last been approved as a formal adoption, in no small part thanks to the efforts of Miss Squires who had turned out to be a staunch ally. Her report had stated that Tristan’s own difficult past, and the strength and courage with which he had dealt with it, made him ideally placed to care for the twins.

  Tristan joked that she had supported them solely so that she had an excuse to keep coming down to Dolphin House and seeing Dimitri, who sat beside her now with his arm thrown protectively round the back of her chair, his careworn face serene. Next to him Nico leaned back in his chair and laughed at something Tom had said, and his laid-back, charismatic charm reminded Lily with sudden pi
ercing poignancy of the beautiful stranger who had jumped down from the helicopter and pulled her straight into his arms a lifetime ago.

  She gasped as those same strong arms slid around her from behind, and the same lips that had flamed ecstasy into her body and changed her life for ever brushed the nape of her neck. Their touch was gentle and loving now, but still powerful enough to make the earth tilt on its axis.

  ‘All right cariño mio?’ Tristan murmured against her skin, his warm breath sending shivers of delicate joy down her spine.

  ‘Mmm…’ she sighed, closing her eyes. ‘Although if you carry on like that I might just have to keep everyone waiting for the cake.’

  Tristan pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. ‘That would be a shame.’ His mouth was close to her ear and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘It is, after all, the most fantastic cake ever.’

  Together they looked at the fairy tale castle Lily had painstakingly constructed from sponge and chocolate buttercream, and she smiled as she placed the pink candle alongside the blue one in the top of the turret, next to the tiny sugar-icing dove. Then, kissing the side of her neck, Tristan let her go and went to the fridge to take out a bottle of champagne. Sucking chocolate buttercream from her fingers, Lily dreamily watched him open the bottle.

  ‘Shouldn’t you wait and open that outside?’

  Suddenly serious, Tristan shook his head as he poured pale golden fizz into two glasses. ‘Today is for Andrei and Emilia, but this is a private toast to us.’ He handed one to her. ‘To you—for loving me when I didn’t deserve to be loved and giving me more than I ever dared to hope for.’ He kissed her lingeringly on the mouth and glanced out of the window to the table beneath the tree. ‘Today feels a bit like the wedding we never had.’

  Lovingly, Lily’s fingers traced the outline of his lips, the indentation in his chin. ‘We never had the wedding,’ she murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth, ‘but we have the marriage, which is what matters.’

  She felt his lips curve into a rueful, sexy smile. ‘Come on. If we stay in here much longer I won’t be responsible for my actions, and if Miss Squires finds me making love to you on the kitchen floor she might just change her mind about my suitability as a parent.’

  He picked up the open bottle and took another one from the fridge while Lily lit the candles on the cake. Holding aloft her fragile cargo, Lily followed her husband out into the sunlit garden.

  The air was scented with summer and the sea. As they crossed the lawn Tom saw them coming and got to his feet, leading everyone in a joyful, if slightly tuneless, rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Perched precariously on Scarlet’s knee, Emilia bounced up and down in excitement, ecstatic at being the centre of attention. Imperiously ignoring the singing, she held up her arms squealing, ‘Dada!’ as her sloe-dark gaze fixed adoringly on Tristan.

  He handed the open bottle to Nico, putting the other one down on the table so he could scoop his daughter up into his arms where she crowed in delight and pointed at the cake. Across the table Andrei fastened huge, worried eyes on the candle and for a moment it looked as if he might cry. But then Tristan picked him up in his other arm, kissing his dark silky head and murmuring reassurance, and the little face relaxed into a cautious smile.

  Scarlet got to her feet with difficulty and came round to stand beside Lily as the singing reached its enthusiastic climax. Nico was circulating with the champagne, pausing beside Dimitri and squeezing his arm as he filled his glass. Holding the two babies in his arms, Tristan knelt down so they were at eye level with the cake. The candles cast a halo of soft golden light on their three faces, making stars dance in their eyes.

  Closing her eyes in comical bliss, Emilia pursed her plump rosebud mouth and blew extravagantly. Scarlet clapped her hands with delight, blinking back tears. ‘Don’t forget to make a wish!’ she cried.

  Across the table Tristan looked up, and his gaze met Lily’s. The candles guttered and died, but his eyes still shone with love.

  ‘I don’t need to,’ he said with quiet, ironic emphasis. ‘It’s already come true.’

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  First published in Great Britain 2009

  Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © India Grey 2009

  ISBN: 978-1-408-91281-2