Marry Jorge—a dream, yet not a dream. Without love would it be a nightmare?
Or could it work?
Could she make it work?
She had no idea.
And from what she could see, watching him go back to pacing around the library, he didn’t seem overly delighted by her calm acceptance of the strange proposal. In fact, he seemed more perturbed than he had earlier, pacing, muttering under his breath, frowning ferociously as, every now and then, his gaze darted towards her.
‘Sit!’ she finally ordered, and though he started at the command, he eventually sat—directly in front of her once again.
‘What’s the problem?’ she asked him, speaking calmly, ignoring the turmoil in her body and the questions battering her brain. ‘You want us to marry to please your father, I’ve said yes. What’s bothering you now?’
He looked at her in silence for a long moment, then he smiled and her intestines tightened some more, while her heart began to beat out a rhythm she didn’t want to analyse.
Though maybe it was a tango.
‘May I kiss you?’ he said, so formally she wondered if she’d heard the words aright.
Did she nod?
Say yes without realising it?
Was that why he was standing now, his hands holding hers, drawing her up out of the chair, his head bending and his lips brushing hers, feather-soft at first then demanding, seducing, conquering.?
She fell into the kiss with a hunger she couldn’t believe existed, a hunger she’d managed to keep hidden since they’d met again, a hunger that could no longer be denied.
It was only because, in some dim recess of her brain, she remembered Ella and Carlos, not to mention Antoinette, being in the house that she didn’t begin to rip clothes off—hers, his. Who cared?
This kiss spiralled deep into her body, pushing heat and frustrated desire before it, trailing need and want and passion in its wake. Her blood thundered in her ears, deafening all common sense—all warnings to step back, be sensible, take this one step at a time.
Had that first kiss in the street primed her for this? She had no idea, she only knew that kissing Jorge here and now was like coming home. His body anchored hers, solid, firm, hard where she was soft. His hands roamed her limbs, her back, her waist, her breasts, fingers edging between their bodies to move against her nipples.
Words whimpered from her lips, pleas for more, words of love only just caught back by her teeth—some remnant of common sense must remain! But no other limit held them back as they explored each other’s bodies, touching, pressing, gliding, Jorge’s lips now on her throat, now at her temple, her teeth biting into the hollow of his shoulder as he teased her to madness with his tongue against her ear.
Yet even as the kiss—the word hardly seemed appropriate for the conflagration in the library—reached a panting, breathless, close-to-exhaustion peak, Caroline felt part of herself detach and stand there, watching.
He’s doing this to prove something, that other self whispered, knowing that she was helpless, so when he finally let go of her and stood back a little, his fingers trailing over her flushed face and undoubtedly swollen lips, and said, ‘Well?’ quite quietly, she allowed herself to nod, knowing the question he hadn’t asked, knowing her response to his kiss had already given him his answer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CARLOS took over their lives. Barely able to believe that Caroline had agreed to a marriage in every sense, Jorge continued to keep out of her way, half fearing too much exposure to him might change her mind. Half hoping she might change her mind for marriage would certainly break through his defences—physically at least.
Emotionally, could he retain his detachment? Keep at least his heart and all it held hidden from her?
Avoiding Caroline was easy. Ella, though, was a different matter, and he made sure he spent time with her every day—special time when he showed her old toys he’d played with as a child. One day, he took her up into the attic and removed the covers off a dolls’ house that had been his mother’s.
‘Can I play with it, Hor-hay?’ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she took in all the details of tiny, perfect furniture—upholstered chairs, beds made up with impossibly small silk sheets and coverlets, tiny dolls that fitted in the rooms, even a baby in the nursery.
‘You can,’ he told her. ‘I will carry it downstairs into the room where my old toys are and Antoinette will clean it up for you.’
‘Oh, Hor-hay!’ Ella cried out her delight, and flung her arms around his neck, her little body pressed against him, her lips soft against his scarred cheek.
‘But she might break things,’ Caroline protested when she saw the incredible miniature house.
‘I do not think so,’ Jorge argued, ‘but if she does, would it matter so very much? Could we not get them fixed? Is it not something to be used, rather than hidden away in an attic?’
Caroline looked at him and shrugged, but before she could turn away he caught her hand, and while Ella knelt in front of the little house, watching Antoinette lift out each piece and put it on a table, he touched the face of the woman he was to marry soon.
‘You are pale. Is this all too much for you? You only have to say and we can do it more simply.’
Her smile was as pale as she was, a shadowy replica of her usual bright grin.
‘Now? When Carlos has ordered up not only food but clothes and guests, and wedding presents arrive on the hour every hour? I think not, Jorge.’
‘But it is getting you down.’ He was facing her, studying the faint lines drawn beside her lips, the shadows beneath her clear blue eyes. ‘I did not wish for that.’
She touched his cheek with cool fingers.
‘I’ll survive,’ she said, ‘and now I have to go. I have an appointment with a seamstress, would you believe? I didn’t know such people still existed, let alone made house calls.’
Jorge watched her walk away, his body aching with desire for her, the skin on his cheek burning where she’d touched it, his mind a chaos of memory and foreboding. Yes, he wanted this marriage for many reasons, not least of them physical, but what of Caroline? She was too honest to deny the attraction between them, but surely he’d killed the love she’d had for him?
Love wasn’t the issue, he reminded himself, so why did it keep creeping into his mind?
Because he loved her and if she knew or guessed it, would it be a burden to her?
Love.
Back when he’d broken off their relationship, using words so cruel she had to hate him, he’d looked ahead to years of operations, to the possibility of never walking again, to years of being a deadweight on her. His pride had refused to let her see the broken man he’d become, and that same pride was now the cause of his foreboding.
He’d seen her flinch—once long ago—seen horror in her eyes as she’d looked on a man so badly deformed it was a wonder he’d survived, and it was the memory of that flinch that had confirmed he was doing the right thing when he’d pressed the Send button on the email program.
Would she flinch again?
Some wedding night to look forward to, with his mind following these lines!
‘See, Hor-hay! The baby has a little cot all of his own.’
Ella’s voice brought him out of the deep pit of despair his thoughts had dug for him, and her little hands, as she handed him the tiny cot, made the breath catch in his throat.
He had to forget his own feelings and forebodings. They were doing this for their precious child—for Ella—and as he turned the cot in his hands and helped her fit the baby into it, he knew he had to hide the doubts and pain he felt and go forward into this marriage with, if not confidence, at least a semblance of it.
Caroline stood in her allotted bedroom, the pure white silk of Jorge’s mother’s wedding dress falling almost to the floor. The original Ella must have been shorter and plumper than Caroline, but not by much, so the seamstress had little to do.
Where the dress had come fro
m, Caroline had no idea. She only knew Carlos had handed her the big box, once white but yellowing with age, and though he hadn’t said anything, she knew, when she saw the dress, exactly what he wanted of her.
Part of her wanted to protest, to tell him it was too much. She was already doing this—getting married—for him, but to wear the dress? Pretend it was a real wedding for a real marriage? Surely that was too much to ask of her?
Ella had clinched the deal, coming in as Caroline opened the box with a photo in her hands.
‘Here’s a picture, Mummy, of Ablito and my grandma who’s a star—my first grandma—getting married, and Ablito says you’ll wear this pretty dress and he’ll get a pretty dress for me, like the one the little girl in the picture is wearing.’
Caroline had looked at the picture and realised that for Ella, to be dressed in layered frills like a doll on the top of a wedding cake would be a dream come true.
So, now she stood, pins going in around her waist, thinking not of marrying Jorge but of what would come after it.
Had he been keeping away from her deliberately, knowing that her desire would build and build? Knowing that the kiss had fired her senses to the point where the next kiss would inevitably lead to bed?
Oh, they still promenaded in the evenings, but with Carlos and with Ella, whose bedtime had slowly but surely grown later and later. The night before last they’d even danced in the paved square beyond the gods playing in heaven, danced to the music of a busker with a guitar. And as she’d strutted through the steps of the tango, feeling the heat of the dance, the to and fro of the dangerous flirtation it represented, she had wanted nothing more than to be held in Jorge’s arms for ever.
It’s a pretence, she reminded herself, pulling away as the music ended and other couples moved into the deep shadows of the trees.
‘Is it danced at weddings?’ she asked, hoping he would take the flutter in her voice for pre-wedding nerves, not wound-tight wanting—lust, almost. Although she hadn’t ever thought to feel something as earthy as the word lust suggested.
‘Of course,’ he said, leading her back to where Ella and Carlos waited by the fountain. ‘It is like foreplay.’
His eyes held hers as he said the word, the glint in them telling her he, too, was tightly wound. Caroline shivered in the warm night air. It was okay for a man to feel lust, but for a woman? Weren’t women supposedly beyond such basic emotions? And was it an emotion or simply a biological imperative?
‘You are cold. We will return to the house.’
Jorge slipped his jacket around her shoulders and the smell of him—man-smell, definitely earthy—nearly proved her undoing. She clutched the lapels, pulling them close, hoping he wouldn’t see the trembling of her body as she imagined not the jacket but the man himself, wrapping around her, enveloping her this way.
Somehow she got back to the house. Somehow she sat on Ella’s big four-poster bed while Jorge read her nightly story. Somehow she held her child up at the window while she said goodnight to the moon and stars, but when it came to going down to dinner, to sitting with Carlos and Antoinette and Jorge and pretending life was normal, Caroline backed out.
She found Antoinette in the kitchen.
‘I know I have to eat something,’ Caroline told her, ‘but my stomach isn’t up to dinner. May I take some biscuits and cheese up to my room?’
Antoinette turned around and, to Caroline’s surprise, gave her a big hug.
‘Everyone is pretending a wedding is just another business activity while for you it is emotional storm, no?’ she said, and it took Caroline all her willpower to hold back her tears. She was not going to her wedding with red eyes.
‘I’ll be okay,’ she assured Antoinette, who moved away, fussing in the pantry, pulling out tins and bottles, assembling a tray of tasty treats for Caroline to take up to her room.
‘And wine,’ Antoinette said firmly. ‘A mellow red to help you sleep. See, a small bottle, you must drink it all. Tomorrow there are caterers for the party so I will help you dress and take care of Ella too.’
Then, to Caroline’s surprise, the housekeeper cupped her hands around Caroline’s face and looked into her eyes.
‘There are worse things than marrying when unsure about love,’ she said. ‘At least you are getting a chance to show him how you feel.’
The words rang in Caroline’s head as she carried the tray up to her room.
Was her love for Jorge so obvious that Antoinette had picked up on it? And could she, Caroline, afford to show Jorge how she felt? Might he not reject her love again?
Could she take that kind of risk when he’d rejected her once before?
And had it been her father’s earlier rejection that had made her take Jorge’s rejection so hard? Made her so afraid of being rejected again?
She had no answers to any of her questions so she turned her thoughts back to Antoinette and realised something she had missed, so caught up had she been in her own thoughts and feelings. Antoinette loved Carlos, and probably had for some time. Antoinette knew the pain of unrequited love, of love that couldn’t be shown, or celebrated.
And Carlos?
Ws he still pining for his Ella?
Antoinette was an attractive woman—did he not see that?
‘You are not coming to dinner?’
Jorge was in front of her, having emerged from his bedroom—a sanctum she had yet to see but was reasonably sure would be her bedroom tomorrow night.
‘I’m a little tired and not hungry, although Antoinette has fixed more in snacks than I’d eat in a full meal.’
‘I am sorry to have put you through all of this production,’ he said quietly, taking the tray from her hands and turning to lead her to her room. ‘But—’
‘But it pleases Carlos,’ Caroline finished for him as Jorge set the tray down on the small table by the window. She touched his arm. ‘It’s no big deal,’ she added, but he’d moved into the light and she saw the strain on his face too.
‘No big deal?’ he queried, his voice rough with emotion. ‘No big deal when my body aches for you every minute of every day? When I can’t sleep for thinking of you in bed only metres from my room? When I replay our kisses in the library over and over in my head, wondering how I had the strength to not lock the door and finish what we’d started? Are you so immune to me now—did I hurt you so badly—that you can step out of my arms after a tango and carry on a normal conversation while my imagination is stripping off your clothes and slathering your naked body with kisses?’
Caroline stared at him, unable to believe the closed-off man she’d been coming to know over the last few weeks was talking like this. It wasn’t love, that much was obvious, but if he wanted her as much as she wanted him, then might not love find a way back into their relationship?
She stepped towards him and put her arms around him, kissing him gently on the lips.
‘One more night,’ she whispered, then she pulled away, using her hands on his shoulders to turn him and guide him towards the door. Then, with her heart full of hope, she ate some of Antoinette’s carefully prepared snacks and drank the wine.
She could make this work.
She would make this work!
At times it seemed the minutes flew, while others dragged out to hours. She’d vetoed the cathedral, settling for the local church, next to the school Jorge had attended, the school Ella would probably attend.
Clad in a frilly white dress with a crown of roses in her hair, Ella danced through the morning in such a welter of excitement Caroline had to forget her own reservations and laugh at her daughter’s antics.
But when Antoinette pinned a mantilla of fine old Spanish lace into Caroline’s hair, all she’d wanted to do was cry. Here she was, the very vision of a bride, but a bride should go in joyous love down the aisle to the man who loved her, while she, for all the love she felt for Jorge, was going with fear and trepidation in her heart.
Red eyes! she reminded herself.
Enjoy El
la’s delight.
Remember it is only a couple of hours out of your life—nothing more.
But as she repeated age-old, solemn vows she knew it was a whole lot more. To love and to cherish—oh, how she longed to do just that to Jorge so her promise, though wavery, was heartfelt.
But his?
Oh, she had no doubt about the cherish part for he would look after her in every way, but love?
Once again the question of whether it had ever existed on his part slipped into her head, and the rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. He’d said not, told her he’d never loved her, and for all she could make up excuses why he’d do that, she couldn’t know for sure.
Maybe tonight.
He was shifting her mantilla, pushing it back so it framed her face, his fingers trembling, as were the lips that touched hers, but behind them the guests had erupted into loud applause and cheering and probably some lewd remarks, although Caroline’s grasp of Spanish seemed to have disappeared, so lost was she in her emotions.
Her beauty had overwhelmed him so he’d had to hold back tears as she’d approached the altar, but now the lost look in her eyes cut into his heart.
She’s doing this for me—for Papá.
I’ve forced her into it, into a marriage without love.
Would telling her I love her still—that the hateful, hurtful words were lies—help or make things worse?
Make things worse, undoubtedly, if the words I used as swords to cut through the bond between us worked and she no longer loves me. Then she’ll have the burden of a maimed, diminished husband and a love she can’t return. And surely the latter would be the heaviest of loads.
The added complication of talking love was if she said it was returned.
To have her say she loved him. Would that hurt most of all—because would he ever know if it was truly love or pity?
Best let things lie.
With the papers signed he led her back down the aisle, the triumph of the music diminishing him more with every step he took.
Melting the Argentine Doctor's Heart / Small Town Marriage Miracle Page 12
