One Night In Collection

by Various Authors

  “Right,” he muttered. He endured her touch for one second, then dropped her hand. “Let’s go. The servants will pack for us. Tonight we’ll sleep in Madrid and by next week we’ll be married. You’ll make an honest man of me at last.” He gave her an ironic smile. “Shall we go tell Nelida the good news?”

  I just won’t love him, she told herself as she followed him out of the room. She’d only stay married to him for as long as it took to gain custody of Nicole. She didn’t know why he was so afraid to become a father, but everything would be fine. She couldn’t be pregnant, not after just one time.

  She could make the paparazzi believe they were in love without actually loving him. She could enjoy his company every day and make love to him every night without giving him her heart.

  But part of her worried that it was already too late.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MARCOS had lived in Madrid for years, but being with Tamsin made the experience entirely new. Five days with her felt more vibrant and alive than the five years he’d lived there before.

  Era verdad, in the past he’d spent most of his time there working. He’d kept in shape and worked off stress at a local fight club; he’d occasionally gone out for a tapeo with friends, or met a woman at a club and taken her home. Easy. No strings. He’d liked it that way. For most of his life, he’d kept himself tightly in control, focusing all of his energy on building his fortune and planning his revenge.

  But being with Tamsin changed everything.

  She made him lose control. She made him feel like a wild, impetuous boy again, following his pleasures and impulses without thinking of the cost.

  He didn’t like it.

  He couldn’t resist it.

  It was bad enough that she’d made him trust her. Bad enough that he’d slept in her arms and gloried in being the first man who’d ever made love to her. Since then, they’d made love so many times that he’d lost count. She made him feel. Believe. Dream of a life he’d long ago given up as a fantasy.

  But if she should be pregnant …

  It couldn’t happen. Every life he touched, he ruined. Everyone he’d ever loved had died.

  He couldn’t have another family. He couldn’t risk loving a wife. He couldn’t risk having a child.

  But he’d been wrong to take out his anger on Tamsin at the castle. It wasn’t her fault she had such an effect on him. It wasn’t her fault that even when his mind hadn’t been sure he could trust her, his body had.

  Since that one time in the shower, he and Tamsin had been careful to use protection. For the last five days, they’d focused on making a splash, attracting the attention of the paparazzi and making the whole world believe that they were wildly in love.

  They’d gone motorcycle racing through the traffic of the Gran Via, then boating in the Casa de Campo. They’d rocked out to a late-night concert at Suristán one night, and had box seats for classical Spanish theater at the Teatro Pavón the next. He’d taken her to a dance club on the Calle Orense where they’d drunk mojitos and danced all night. At a sultry flamenco bar on the Calle de Echegaray, he’d been so mesmerized by the red lanterns against Tamsin’s pale skin and the way Tamsin had unconsciously swayed with the music, he’d watched her instead of the dancers.

  As he’d anticipated, the paparazzi had followed them, intrigued by the affair between the well-known Spanish millionaire and the young British cosmetics heiress. They always had bodyguards, of course. Marcos wasn’t taking any chances that Aziz might descend upon them with greater numbers and attempt to take Tamsin by force.

  He’d never phoned Aziz or Sheldon. He hadn’t needed to. Each photo of Marcos and Tamsin broadcast around the world told his enemies all they needed to know, humiliating them both.

  But Marcos’s focus had been on Tamsin. He would enjoy her, get her custody of her sister, and then send her on her way. Their time together would be short. It had to be. He couldn’t risk loving her or, worse—having her fall in love with him.

  He couldn’t stay out of control like this for ever.

  But, so far, everything was going as he’d planned. Every day, pictures of them appeared in the papers with greater prominence and, since they’d announced their engagement two days ago, they’d started to appear in the British tabloids as well.

  His particular favorite was the photo that had appeared yesterday, of Marcos helping Tamsin get into a taxi at dawn on the Calle Orense. She’d had mussed hair and a wrinkled cocktail dress; he’d had a bruise on his neck.

  He smiled to himself, remembering. She’d been so beautiful he hadn’t been able to resist kissing her on the dance floor. The kiss had lasted until he couldn’t take it any longer and he’d taken her to an empty room in the club’s basement. Surrounded by crates of champagne and boxes of liquor bottles, he’d pulled up her short red skirt and taken her roughly against the concrete wall. He still remembered the way she’d gasped and trembled beneath him, sucking on his neck, coming almost at once.

  He really needed to take her out dancing more, he thought. Perhaps tonight.

  Somehow, over the last five days, he’d actually had moments where he’d forgotten entirely about his revenge and just felt … happy. It made him uneasy. This morning, going to his ten-story office building on the Paseo de la Castellana for the first time in a week, he’d actually caught himself whistling. He’d meant to stay at work for a half day, but within an hour he found himself distracted by thoughts of Tamsin. In bed. Against the wall. On the table. Everywhere.

  He eyed his large cherrywood desk with interest. If Tamsin had come into work with him today, he’d have had no problem with wanting to stay. But as it was …

  Closing his laptop, he told his two assistants to take the rest of the day off.

  “In love,” he heard his executive secretary whisper behind him.

  “Definitely,” his second assistant replied.

  He turned around with a scowl. “On second thought …” He waited until they looked apprehensive, then he finished, “Take the rest of the week off.”

  “Tomorrow as well?” his secretary gasped. “What about the KDL hedge fund? And the Tokyo investments are so volatile—”

  “You can’t be serious, señor. What about the merger? The New York office—”

  “It’ll all sort itself out,” he replied, and gave them a grin. “I’m going to Jávia.”

  Three whole days with Tamsin in a charming beach town on the Costa Blanca. He could hardly wait. He wondered if they’d even leave their rented villa long enough to walk the beach.

  If that anticipation wasn’t enough, the startled look his employees gave him was priceless. They acted as if they didn’t even recognize him. Well, maybe he had been behaving a little different lately, but who could blame him? He’d never had reason to focus solely on his own enjoyment, or had a lover who made it so irresistible.

  Whistling a few notes of a canción de flamenco, he crossed the wide, busy office floor of Ramirez Ibérica S.R.L. and pressed the button on the elevator. He wondered what Tamsin was packing into her suitcase right at that instant. Nothing, he hoped. Nothing always looked good on her.

  The elevator doors opened with a ding. Inside, he saw four hulking men in turbans and ankle-length jellaba robes. Between them an elderly man with skin the color of walnuts stared at him with bright, beady eyes.

  The office noise behind him faded as Marcos recognized Sheikh Mohamed ibn Battuta al-Maghrib. Aziz’s uncle was honored, powerful and wealthy beyond belief. He was also proficient at making people disappear.

  Marcos’s mood instantly sobered. He stepped into the elevator and felt the doors close behind him.

  “You have something that belongs to my family,” the Sheikh said pleasantly in Oxford-accented English.

  Scanning the bodyguards, trying to estimate weight class and his best strategy if they should attack, Marcos tightened his hands around the handle of his laptop bag, preparing to use it as a weapon if necessary. “She was being forced into the marriage
against her will.”

  “And what claim do you have on her? My nephew is screaming for your blood, as is my niece Hatima, who is angry about the kidnapping. They say vengeance is a matter of family honor.”

  “Aziz al-Maghrib has no right to speak of honor. He is a murderer and a thief.”

  The older man’s eyes widened. “You speak this insult to my face?”

  “It is the truth.”

  The heavy-lidded eyes looked at him evenly, with something approaching respect. “Bold words. Can you prove them?”

  Clenching his jaw, Marcos shook his head.

  Scanning his face, the Sheikh narrowed his eyes, then gave a swift nod. “Bixir. If your claim is true, you will have your justice. You have three days to prove your claim. My nephew will not attack you, nor try to take his bride by force. I will hold him back for three days, and then you will present your proof.”

  “And if I don’t?” Marcos asked sharply.

  The Sheikh gave an eloquent shrug, but his face was sharp. “Then you’ll have more than just my nephew to worry about.”

  Tamsin stared out of the wide expanse of windows. Marcos’s penthouse included the entire top floor of the elegant art-deco building. Wearing her robe, she walked out on the wraparound balcony, holding her coffee in the cool pink dawn. In the distance, she could see two tall glass towers on opposite sides of the wide street, stretching over the busy traffic toward each other in a triangular point. Marcos had told her they were called the Torres Kio, or the Gate of Europe.

  She and Marcos were like that, she thought suddenly. Reaching towards each other, but not able to touch. Too much separated them.

  His elegant penthouse, with its incredible views down the Paseo de la Castellana and the financial district of eastern Madrid, felt strangely empty. Marcos had left suddenly the night before, canceling their beach vacation, refusing to tell her where he was going or why. And, without him, this place that had been full of so much delight now just felt lonely.

  Lonely—that was a laugh. Marcos had left a six-man security detail led by Reyes in the flat beneath hers. They kept watch over the building to prevent Aziz, the paparazzi or any celebrity gawkers from getting too close, and frequently contacted her to ensure she was comfortable and safe. Tamsin felt as if she were a child left with minders, but Marcos had been intractable.

  She’d missed him in bed last night.

  She took a sip of the strong Spanish coffee. She’d made it herself that morning in Marcos’s immaculate white kitchen that looked like it had never been used. Three different bodyguards had offered to fetch her coffee from a shop, but really, enough was enough. She might have to endure a squadron of bodyguards, but she could make her own coffee.

  But should she even be drinking it?

  Could she be pregnant? At twenty-three, she felt totally unready to be a mother. Having a child with a man who didn’t love her wasn’t exactly her domestic fantasy; having a child with a man who didn’t even want one would be a disaster.

  But why was Marcos so afraid of becoming a father?

  She took another sip, staring out at the city. Her own father should never have had children. He’d been so focused on revenging petty slights that he’d hurt everyone stupid enough to love him. He hadn’t even been with her mother when she’d died. He’d been down the hall, screaming curses at the hospital administrator over some imagined insult from a doctor.

  And so her mother had died alone. Without Tamsin, who had believed her mother to be in remission and so had remained at boarding school for final exams. And she’d died without Nicole, who at two years old had been at home with Nanny, crying for the mother she hadn’t seen in days.

  When her father had finally called Tamsin to tell her of her mother’s death, he’d barely mentioned the lovely, glowing woman she’d been. He certainly hadn’t said a word about loving her. Instead, he’d spent ten minutes screaming about the doctor and the administrator and promising to sue them all. As if it was somehow their fault. As if it would bring their mother back.

  And Marcos was just the same. Another man bent on revenge who didn’t care who he hurt.

  A shiver went through her and she clutched at her thin silk robe in the early-morning cool.

  She was the one who should be frightened of pregnancy. Because Marcos Ramirez was the kind of man she’d always sworn to avoid. Dangerous, delicious, exciting—yes. But as a husband? As a father?

  She’d always wondered how her father had convinced three different women over his lifetime to love him. Now she thought she knew.

  She placed her hand on her belly. She couldn’t be pregnant. She prayed she wasn’t. Not with Marcos’s baby. It would already be too easy to love him. Terrifyingly easy.

  And she could not commit herself to a man who coldly placed revenge above everything, even his own family. She couldn’t let another innocent child be hurt like she and Nicole and even Sheldon had been.

  She went back into the flat and got dressed with care. Putting on her mascara in the bathroom, she blinked at herself in the mirror.

  It should have been a happy day: she was going to pick out her wedding dress. But, instead, she had a heavy heart and dark circles under her eyes.

  She turned right and left, frowning. The under-eye concealer hadn’t worked at all. A pity she didn’t have the Winter Anti-Aging Conceal Stick with her. It was her favorite product, but Winter cosmetics were becoming harder to find abroad. Poor brand management, she thought, shaking her head with a scowl. If she’d been a boy, maybe her father would have let her run the company instead of Sheldon.

  But, of course, if she’d been a boy, maybe she wouldn’t have cared about concealer.

  She’d just have to manage without it. It was her second time that month as a bride, and neither had been anything like her girlish dreams. All her life, she’d thought she would marry for love.

  I don’t need love, she told herself, pinching her cheeks savagely for color. She liked Marcos. She enjoyed their time together in bed. And, most importantly, marrying him would help her gain custody of Nicole.

  That was all that mattered. Not love. Love was for dreams, not reality.

  In fact, she thanked her lucky stars she wasn’t in love with Marcos. What a horrible disaster that would have been.

  “Find a dress tomorrow,” he’d told her before he left. “Pick your favorite and the designer will get it to you in time for our wedding. Even if their assistants work around the clock.” His eyes had glinted wickedly. “I’ll have fun taking the dress off you.”

  As long as she wasn’t pregnant, marrying him wouldn’t be so bad, she told herself as she got in the elevator. They would have their wedding night. And since they’d arrived in Madrid, every moment she’d spent with Marcos had felt like a holiday. Even when he made her furious, being with him somehow made her … happy.

  The September sun felt warm against her crisp Chanel suit and wide-brimmed black hat as she stepped outside. Photographers screamed her name, trying to get her to look towards their cameras as Reyes and another bodyguard escorted her to the waiting Rolls-Royce. She fell back in the seat as the chauffeur drove smoothly away on the Castellana.

  Another wedding, another limo, she thought, remembering Tarfaya. Things had changed, she thought, staring out at the busy Madrid street. She suddenly gasped.

  “Stop!” she screamed. “Please stop!”

  The chauffeur pulled over with a screech of brakes. Reyes, who was in the front seat, put his hand on his gun as he leapt out of the car. The two young women who’d been waving at her furiously from the sidewalk jumped back in fear before Tamsin could explain. A moment later, just as they were starting to attract attention from the paparazzi half a block away, the three girls were talking excitedly in the back seat as the Rolls-Royce pulled back into the traffic.

  “Finally!” Bianca said, bouncing up and down on her seat. “We’ve been here since yesterday. We read about you in London and had to come. We tried to call, but your old cellphone
didn’t work. We went to see you but, every time we tried to visit, one of your bouncers stopped us. This guy you’re marrying, is he the richest man in the world or what? I mean, a bodyguard is one thing, but do you really need a whole army?”

  “Is it true, Tamsin?” Daisy interrupted. “You’re marrying Marcos Ramirez?”

  “It’s true,” Tamsin said, smiling through the tears. Seeing Bianca and Daisy, her best friends since boarding school days, was overwhelming. “My wedding to Aziz was canceled.”

  The other girls cheered.

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” Bianca said, giving her a hug.

  But Daisy frowned. “Another quickie wedding? This isn’t some new scheme from your brother and that wretched wife of his, is it? Though it’s hard for me to imagine. Your Spaniard looks delicious in the photos.”

  “Yeah.” Bianca sighed. “I wish someone would force me to marry a man like that.”

  “He’s even more handsome in person,” Tamsin said. “No, Sheldon had nothing to do with it. It was all Marcos’s idea. Can you stay for the wedding? It’s in two days.”

  “I wish,” Bianca said wistfully. “But I have to be back in London by tonight, and Daisy leaves for New York in four hours.”

  “You both have to leave Madrid tonight?” Tamsin’s heart plummeted. “You can’t stay two more days?”

  “I wish I could,” Daisy said regretfully. “But my new job starts tomorrow. I’m going to be jet-lagged as it is.”

  “And Michaelmas term starts early for molecular biology,” said Bianca, looking glum. “The prep time alone is harder than I thought it would be.”

  Tamsin forced a cheerful smile. “Well, then, we’ll just have a nice chat this afternoon. Tell me about your new job, Daiz, and all about Oxford, Bianca. And you can help me pick out my wedding dress!”

  “Wedding dress!” Bianca squealed so loudly that Tamsin, laughing, covered her ears. Of the three friends, Bianca was by far the most romantic. As the youngest daughter of a wealthy Italian-American family, she’d been protected and cosseted her whole life, but her idealistic outlook and kind heart were reflected in her expressive black eyes.