Diego would be a dangerous adversary, Rachel thought with a shiver as she stared at his hard face. But she felt a little thrill of pleasure that he had defended her. It was true that they had shared friendship, as well as incredible sex while he had been at Hardwick, but for her it had been more than that. She had fallen in love with him. But when they had argued at Ascot he had bluntly told her that he had never planned on their affair leading to any kind of permanent relationship. It would be emotional suicide to marry a man who would never love her.
‘Getting married is a mad idea,’ she muttered. ‘It would never work.’ Her head was pounding worse than ever and every muscle in her body was aching with the effects of the flu virus. She wished Diego would go away and leave her alone, but he was looming over her, big and powerful and with a determined glint in his eyes that made her heart sink. He was difficult enough to fight at the best of times and right now she was in no fit state to do battle with him.
‘So what do you suggest?’ he demanded forcefully. ‘You are carrying the heir to the Ortega fortune. I want our child to be born legitimately, and I am determined to take an active role in its life. Can you really deny the baby his or her birthright?’
Could she? What right did she have to deprive the baby of its father? And how could she think straight when her head was about to explode? ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Rachel admitted weakly. She closed her eyes—as if by blotting Diego from view she could make him disappear. She had never expected him to reappear in her life, and she was even more stunned by his avowal that he wanted his child.
‘It’s not just a question of getting married,’ she muttered. ‘I’d have to move to the other side of the world to a strange country …’
‘Argentina is not a strange country,’ Diego assured her, his mouth curving into a sudden smile that made her heart turn over. ‘It is a beautiful, vibrant country and I promise you will fall in love with it, querida.’
He was startled to see a tear trickle from beneath Rachel’s lashes, and he felt a pang of guilt. She was clearly unwell, and he knew that in all fairness he should wait until she was feeling stronger before he demanded an answer to his proposal. But life wasn’t always fair, and he had no compunction about seizing his opportunity. He wanted his child, and that meant he would have to persuade Rachel to marry him.
He dropped down onto the bed and tugged her into his arms, faintly surprised that she put up no resistance. This quiet, biddable Rachel would not be around for long. Once she had recovered from the virus that had caused her to look like death he was certain her usual feistiness would return, but for now she simply rested her head against his chest while he stroked his hand through her mane of long blonde hair.
He had forgotten how silky it was, and how soft her skin felt beneath his fingertips when he brushed a tear from her face. He liked her new rounded shape, and as he tightened his arms around her so that her full breasts were pressed against him he felt the slow burn of desire ignite inside him. Dios! She was heavy with child and burning up with a fever, yet he was more turned on than he had been for months. His desire for her was an unexpected complication—but perhaps not, he mused as he shifted position in an effort to ease the throb of his arousal. He had no great yearning to marry, but there was a child to consider, and at least he knew that he and Rachel were sexually compatible.
‘Let me take care of you and the baby,’ he murmured, brushing his lips over her hair.
His words struck a chord deep inside Rachel, and the feel of his strong arms around her evoked a desperate longing for him to protect her. If she was honest, she was scared witless about the future and she was tired of putting on a brave face and assuring herself and everyone that she would cope as a single mother. She did not want to do this on her own, and she did not want to give up her baby, she acknowledged, feeling a knife skewer her heart at the thought.
If she had been feeling herself she might have put up more of an argument against marrying Diego, but she felt physically and emotionally drained. He had offered to take care of her and right now those words, uttered in his deep, sensuous voice, drove her doubts to the back of her mind.
‘When were you thinking of getting married?’ she croaked, her hand straying to her stomach.
He placed his hand next to hers and she saw the faintly startled look in his eyes when he found that her bump was solid. ‘I’ll make the necessary arrangements immediately,’ he said coolly. ‘We don’t have much time.’
CHAPTER NINE
THEY drove up to Diego’s London apartment that day. Rachel slept for most of the journey and spent the following week in bed, so weakened by the virus that she did not even have the energy to argue with Diego when he brought meals to her room on a tray and stood over her until she had eaten enough to satisfy him.
She was dismayed by how little resistance she put up when he bossed her around, and how much she enjoyed being fussed over—even though she knew his concern was for the baby rather than her. She had been fiercely independent for so long that it was frightening to realise that she was turning into one of those pathetic women who meekly gave way to their husband on everything—and they weren’t even married yet! But when Diego smiled at her she felt as though her insides were melting, and when he leaned over her bed to plump up her pillows she ached for him to lower his mouth to hers and kiss her until kissing was no longer enough for either of them and he traced his hands over her eager body.
But he never did. He was attentive and charming now that he had won the marriage argument, but nothing in his manner suggested that he found her sexually attractive.
It was hardly surprising, Rachel conceded three weeks later, on the morning of their wedding, when she donned the pale blue maternity dress and matching swing-coat which had cost a fortune from a top design house. The coat was cleverly cut to disguise the fact that she was heavily pregnant but she still felt like a ship in full sail, and there was nothing sexy about her big round football stomach, she decided ruefully.
Diego had arranged for Jemima Philips, the stylist who had helped Rachel choose an outfit for Ascot, to accompany her on a shopping trip for her trousseau. The irony of searching for a maternity bridal outfit six months after she had last been in London buying sexy underwear to seduce Diego was not lost on her. At least she had stuck to her guns and refused to buy a dress that was white, cream or overtly bridal, she mused. She was not a blushing bride, and Diego was far from a loving groom. They were marrying for purely practical reasons—although the doubts that Rachel had conveniently ignored while she had been ill were multiplying at a frantic rate now that she was better.
‘We can be good parents to the baby without being married,’ she had reasoned when he had informed her that they would be flying to Argentina immediately after their civil wedding. But the results of the DNA test which Diego had insisted on had proved beyond doubt that he was the baby’s father, and he was utterly determined that his child would be born legitimately.
‘So what do you suggest?’ he demanded when she admitted that she was having second thoughts about becoming his wife. ‘That I should set you up in an apartment in Buenos Aires—where you don’t know a soul—so that I can visit my child on alternate weekends? Or were you thinking of remaining in England and sending our son or daughter over to Argentina for the school holidays? If that’s the kind of life you want for our child then I’ll fight for custody and bring the baby up in Argentina on my own.’
‘You wouldn’t win custody,’ Rachel said faintly, shaken by the cold implacability in Diego’s eyes. He had been so nice to her when she was ill, and she had been pathetically eager to grasp any sign that he might care for her a little, but this was the real Diego, hard and powerful and used to having his own way.
His smile held no warmth as he said, ‘Losing isn’t in my vocabulary, querida. I can afford the best lawyers, and the fact that you had considered putting the baby up for adoption would be a strong argument against allowing the child to remain with you.’
‘But you know I only considered it because I felt the baby would have a better life with adoptive parents than I could give it,’ she cried. ‘I have only ever wanted what is best for the baby.’
‘Then stop fighting with me,’ Diego told her bluntly. ‘It’s not good for your blood pressure.’
The wedding took place at Westminster Register Office at eleven o’clock on a wet Friday morning, and was witnessed by Diego’s chauffeur and the housekeeper from his London apartment. Rachel had turned down his offer to invite her family, explaining that her parents could not be in the same room together without old hostilities resurfacing.
It was a stark reminder of the pitfalls of a marriage of convenience. What would happen if in two or three years’ time, she and Diego could not bear the sight of each other? She would never put her child through the misery of divorce and torn loyalties, she vowed fiercely. Somehow this marriage that had begun so inauspiciously had to work, and for the baby’s sake, she would try her hardest to settle in a new country with a man who did not love her.
As they stood in the waiting room before their marriage ceremony Diego suddenly disappeared and returned moments later to hand her an exquisite bouquet of yellow roses. ‘It is customary for a bride to have flowers on her wedding day,’ he said quietly when Rachel could not hide her surprise.
Theirs was not a conventional marriage and she had not even thought about flowers, but for some reason Diego’s unexpected gesture moved her deeply and she blinked hard to dispel the sudden rush of tears that filled her eyes.
‘Thank you. They’re beautiful,’ she murmured huskily, remembering how he had given her yellow roses when he had visited her caravan after she had been thrown from her horse, and the passion that had flared between them when he had kissed her. She wondered if he remembered too, but his closed expression told her nothing and she felt sick with nerves when they stood before the registrar and made their vows. Diego looked impossibly handsome in a charcoal-grey suit, his dark hair brushing his shoulders, and she felt a sharp stab of longing for him to take her in his arms and kiss her as she longed to be kissed instead of brushing his cool lips over hers in a perfunctory gesture.
Immediately after the ceremony Diego assisted her into the waiting limousine for the journey to the airport. The same doctor who had performed the paternity tests on the baby had signed a special consent to allow Rachel to fly, even in her advanced stage of pregnancy. In truth, her heart had sunk at receiving the permission, the last hope for legitimately refusing to go along with Diego’s plans removed.
‘You won’t be able to take your bouquet onto the plane,’ he told her when she refused to leave it at the register office.
Rachel felt a fierce reluctance to part with her one memento of her wedding day, and while Diego was looking out of the window she quickly untied the yellow ribbon that secured the roses and slipped it into her handbag.
As the car joined the queue of Christmas getaway traffic into Heathrow, he turned back to her and handed her a small velvet box. ‘Your wedding gift,’ he murmured, wondering why the wariness in her eyes made him want to pull her into his arms and hold her close.
She was still pale, he noted. There had been a moment during the wedding ceremony when he had feared she would refuse to go through with it, and tension had churned in his gut. But after a few agonising seconds she had made her vows and now, for the first time in days, he could relax.
He had achieved what he wanted; his child would be born in Argentina and would bear the Ortega name. And he had a wife whom he desired more than any other woman, Diego acknowledged with a self-derisive smile. If someone had told him six months ago that he would spend night after sleepless night fantasising about making love to a woman in the later stages of pregnancy, he would have laughed. But it was no laughing matter. He wanted to lie next to Rachel and run his hands over her swollen stomach where his child was growing; he longed to cradle her breasts, which were no longer small but enticingly full, and he ached to gently part her pale thighs and position his body between them.
But something deep inside him told him it would be wrong to suggest that she shared his bed. She was no longer his mistress but the mother of his child, and he had a responsibility towards her that he’d never had for any other woman. Added to that, she was still recovering her strength from the flu virus, as well as coping with the demands of pregnancy and, although she tried to hide it, she was patently nervous about moving to a country she had never even visited before. The last thing she needed was a husband demanding his marital rights, and he would just have to control his urges and give her time to adjust to her new life.
‘Open it,’ he murmured when Rachel remained staring at the box as though she feared it might explode.
With fumbling fingers she flipped open the lid and caught her breath at the sight of an oval sapphire surrounded by diamonds which sparkled with fiery brilliance against the velvet surround.
‘It’s incredible,’ she said faintly, because he was plainly waiting for her to say something. The ring was the most spectacular piece of jewellery she had ever seen and she couldn’t imagine what it must have cost. But money was no object to Diego and she did not kid herself that he had bought her a ring for sentimental reasons.
Her doubts were confirmed when he murmured, ‘I know you should have had an engagement ring before the wedding, but it’s a bespoke piece which I had made to match a necklace of the same design. We’ve been invited to numerous social functions in Buenos Aires over the Christmas period, and you’ll need some jewellery.’
He lifted her hand and slid the ring next to her wedding band. It felt heavy and, although it fitted perfectly, it looked too big and cumbersome on her slender finger. It certainly wasn’t something she would have worn when she had worked at the stables, but she was unlikely to be mucking out loose boxes any time soon, Rachel thought dismally.
She remembered how Diego had insisted on her wearing a designer outfit and an eye-catching diamond choker to Ascot. She had felt as though he had bought her—a feeling made worse when Guy Chetwin had accused her of being a gold-digger. Would Diego’s friends in Argentina share the same view? she thought worriedly.
‘How far is your ranch from Buenos Aires?’ she asked curiously.
‘The Estancia Elvira is about a hundred kilometres north of the city. It takes a little over an hour by road, but I usually commute by helicopter.’
‘Commute?’ Rachel frowned. ‘But you live at the … estancia, don’t you?’
‘No, I prefer to live in town,’ Diego said shortly. ‘I have a penthouse apartment in the Puerto Madero district of Buenos Aires. There are fantastic views over the port and the city from the forty-second floor, and the shops and nightlife are excellent.’
Rachel’s spirits dipped. She disliked heights, loathed shopping, and she didn’t relish hitting the nightclubs at her advanced stage of pregnancy. But presumably Diego enjoyed an active social life in Buenos Aires. Would he expect her to accompany him on nights out, she wondered, or did he intend to visit nightclubs without the encumbrance of a heavily pregnant wife?
‘But we will stay at the estancia sometimes, won’t we?’ she pressed. The only occasions during their stay in London that Diego hadn’t seemed like a stranger was when they had discussed his polo pony breeding programme, and she had been looking forward to living on his ranch, close to the horses.
He gave a faint shrug. ‘Perhaps I will take you after the baby is born, but for now it will be better to live in town, close to the amenities. The roads are good, but the estancia is still a long way from the hospital.’ And it still held too many memories, Diego thought heavily. When he was at the stables he concentrated solely on the horses, but at the hacienda where he and Eduardo had spent their childhoods he was bombarded with scenes from the past, and he would swear he had sometimes heard his brother’s voice echoing through the corridors. There were too many ghosts at the ranch house, and he did not need reminding of how he had failed Eduardo.
The flight to Argentina took fourteen hours, with a brief stopover at Sao Paolo airport in Brazil. As the plane began its descent over Buenos Aires, Rachel was shocked by the scale of the city and the hundreds of skyscrapers stretching for as far as she could see. It was a stark contrast to the small village in Gloucestershire where she had spent most of her life, and she felt a jolt of panic at the thought of trying to find her way around unfamiliar streets when she didn’t speak a word of Spanish.
The heat and humidity when they walked out of the airport building to the waiting car was another shock after the cold winter they had left behind in England.
‘The penthouse is fully air-conditioned,’ Diego explained when she waved her hand in front of her hot face and asked if it was always this warm. ‘The apartment block has a private pool, and there is a gymnasium if you want to get your figure back after the baby is born.’
Rachel stared down at her big stomach and wondered if it would ever go back to its pre-pregnancy flatness. Would Diego show an interest in her again if she worked out and regained her slender shape—or had his desire for her died completely? They had never discussed the physical aspect of their marriage, and as they’d spent their wedding night on the plane the question of sex hadn’t come up. Would it tonight? she wondered, her heart rate quickening. Would Diego expect her to share his bed now that she was his wife?
She had her answer when they stepped out of the lift, a dizzying forty-two storeys from ground level, and Diego ushered her into his penthouse home. Jet lag and nervous tension had combined to make Rachel feel limp with tiredness and her eyes were huge in her pale face as she followed him from room to room, wondering how the cream velvet carpets and silk sofas would fare once the baby grew into an inquisitive, sticky-fingered toddler.
‘You look exhausted,’ Diego commented tersely, assuring himself that it was natural for him to feel concerned for Rachel, as well as for the baby. He scooped her into his arms, ignoring her yelp of surprise, and strode down the hall. ‘I’ll show you to your room and you can rest for a few hours. Tonight we’ll eat at one of my usual restaurants and if you’re up to it I’ll give you a tour of the local area.’
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