The Notorious Gabriel DiazRuthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  Inside, the large flagstoned hall was dotted with yet more well-manicured plants and she followed him to the lift, which took them up two flights to his apartment, which occupied the upper floors of the building. Two complete floors!

  Jude looked around her for a while, forgetting the seriousness of the situation that had brought her to this place.

  The floors were pale blond wood and here, on the lower of the floors, was the sitting area, the kitchen and several other rooms which she could only glimpse. Up a curving iron staircase were the bedrooms and bathrooms, how many she had no idea. It was incredibly neat and clean and had the perfect appearance of a place that would not disgrace the cover of a house magazine.

  ‘Nice place,’ Jude said politely. She tentatively made her way to one of the sprawling cream leather sofas but was hesitant to sit on it.

  ‘It won’t bite,’ Cesar said drily. ‘It’s only a piece of furniture.’ The bracing night air had taken some of the edge from his initial shock. He wouldn’t go down that road of thinking just how his life was going to change. There were so many areas to contemplate that it seemed better to scrap the thought altogether. The main thing was that he was going to be a father and pondering the consequences wasn’t going to get him anywhere. ‘I’m getting myself a cup of coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘Thank you. No. I think I’ve probably had more than my fair ration today.’

  Her eyes strayed to the huge abstract paintings on the walls and the weird pieces of sculpture that had been artistically positioned on the mantelpiece of what was a very modern fireplace.

  She looked back at him as he sat on one of the low matching leather chairs facing her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ If she hadn’t realised how much this was going to upset his life, then being in his apartment was a lesson in finding out because it reflected him, the man. Here was a person with no use for clutter or lack of order, two things that followed in the wake of a child. ‘I’ve given this some thought,’ she said hesitantly, ‘and I’ve worked out that you won’t have your life disrupted. No, please, Cesar…’ This when he was about to interrupt. ‘I can take care of the baby on my own and, naturally, you can visit whenever you want to or whenever you have the time…’

  ‘Visit whenever I want…? When I have time…? We’re not talking about an art gallery here, Jude. We’re talking about a child—my child.’

  ‘Well, yes, I realise that…’

  Cesar sipped his coffee and continued to look at her while she, in turn, stared miserably at the intricately weaved Persian rug under her feet.

  ‘I’m not sure you do,’ Cesar countered. ‘No, my parental rights will go way beyond occasional visits when you give the go-ahead. For starters, there’s the question of money. You might like to think yourself not materialistic but no child of mine is ever going to endure any kind of hardship. Both your future and the future of my child will be secure. Of that you have my word.’

  He allowed several seconds of silence to elapse, giving her time to absorb what he was saying.

  ‘Hardship? Cesar, I have a job! I know I may not earn what you consider sufficient to live on, but your idea of an adequate amount of money is…well, completely different to most people’s…’ She looked round the apartment. The paintings on his walls probably cost as much as most people’s holidays abroad. More. ‘This isn’t real life!’

  ‘Agreed, but this is my life and it’s the life my child will enjoy.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ She unconsciously rested her hand on her stomach as the colour drained from her face. This was something she hadn’t considered. What if he decided that he wanted the child? Wanted to fight for sole custody of her baby? Would he do that? ‘You won’t take my baby away from me!’

  ‘Of course I am not going to take your baby away from you!’ Cesar was genuinely appalled at the suggestion. ‘What sort of man do you think I am? I realise the need for a child to have its mother, to have both its parents, which brings me to the point I’m trying to make.’

  Jude nodded, half listening to him, sagging with relief that she had jumped the gun for no reason.

  ‘…so you see, whilst I am prepared to put financial security on the table, a child needs more than just that. As you have said a dozen times, it’s not all about money…’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And having both parents around means more than me driving to Kent once a week for a three-hour visit. When I say that I intend to be there for my child, I mean it. I intend to be there on a permanent basis, as in living on the premises. With you. With our child. Together. A unit. Married.’

  It took Jude a few seconds to process that information, then she replayed it in her head just to make sure that she wasn’t imagining that word, married.

  ‘Are you telling me that you want to get married? To me?’ Jude laughed incredulously. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’

  Cesar stiffened. ‘No child of mine will be born out of wedlock.’

  ‘Born out of wedlock? Cesar, this is the twenty-first century! In case you hadn’t noticed, pregnancy and marriage no longer necessarily go together! Besides, isn’t it a bit hypocritical to say something like that when you were prepared to bend the rules for your brother?’

  ‘I was prepared to protect my brother at all costs from someone I thought might be using him for his money. Different thing. Anyway, we’re getting off topic here.’ He stood up and began pacing the room until he finally stopped directly in front of her, then he sat on the sofa next to her so that she had to propel herself back a couple of inches to stop herself from falling against him.

  ‘Surely you have to concede that a two-parent family is superior to a one-parent one.’

  ‘Yes, in an ideal world, but we’re not living in an ideal world, Cesar.’ In an ideal world, there was nothing Jude would have wanted more than to have been asked to be Cesar’s wife and for a couple of wild seconds she was ashamed to find herself buying into a beguiling fantasy picture in her head of a family of three, blissfully happy, doing normal family things. It didn’t last long.

  ‘Why would you ask me to marry you, Cesar?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He frowned. Okay, so all of this had come as a complete shock to him but he was now doing the honourable thing and, in his head, the only thing and, instead of fairly leaping at all the benefits being thrown on the table, she had firstly laughed at him and now seemed to be asking him for accountability on his offer.

  ‘Cesar—’ she sighed ‘—you can’t just marry someone because she happens to be pregnant with your child and then assume that it’ll all work out fine. We weren’t even going out together! Would you be sitting here with me at all if this hadn’t happened?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘But it is the point.’ She could see that, having made the ultimate sacrifice and proposed marriage, it hadn’t occurred to him that his offer might be rejected. ‘Did you ever think about getting married again? Starting a family? No, don’t answer that because I already know the answer and it’s no.’

  ‘Things have changed…I’ve never been in this position before…’

  ‘And there’s no need to put a ring on my finger because you are…’ Jude wondered whether she was being crazy. She loved him! She could think of nothing greater than going to bed with him at night and waking up to him in the morning, and if she were married to him, he might just come to love her after a while. Relationships were things that were built gradually over time, weren’t they? Each brick going down making it stronger and more durable.

  But what if it didn’t work out that way?

  The voice of realism stole into her head and swept aside all her romantic illusions. It wasn’t an ideal world after all and a man trapped in a marriage soon became a resentful man, even if he had built the trap himself and willingly jumped in. Cesar had grown accustomed to a life of freedom. How long would it take before he wanted that freedom back?

  ‘I know y
ou think you’re doing the right thing,’ she said gently, ‘but my answer has to be no.’

  ‘It isn’t just about the child,’ he told her roughly. ‘I…I still want you…’

  ‘But I may not want you…’

  ‘Shall we put that to the test?’ He curled his fingers into her hair and pulled her towards him, unleashing all the cravings she had been storing up ever since he had walked out of her house.

  Jude shuddered against him as his mouth crushed hers, hot and urgent and demanding.

  She was trembling as he swept her off the sofa and carried her to his bedroom. When he laid her on his bed, she began sitting up, gathering the strength to walk away, but her mouth dried as she watched him pull off his clothes, revealing bit by bit that wonderful body that had haunted her dreams.

  Yes, he wanted her. Still. The proof was there in front of her eyes and, while this had nothing to do with love, it was so powerful that she gave a little groan of despair. Her feet were dangling off the bed and she still had on the high-heeled pumps, which she now kicked off.

  He disposed of her dress in one swift, easy movement and then her tights, which were tossed on the ground to join the chaos of discarded clothes.

  When he nuzzled against her lacy bra, Jude whimpered and ran her fingers along his shoulders. She could trace every muscle and sinew. She arched her spine so that her rosebud nipples pushed against the constricting fabric and then closed her eyes as he pulled aside the bra, allowing her breasts to push free.

  Already, her breasts were becoming more tender with the pregnancy. Now, the feel of his tongue delicately licking the tautened bud was achingly pleasurable and she wanted it never to stop.

  She half opened her eyes, watching that dark arrogant head as he devoted all his attention to teasing her and it was a massive turn-on.

  As he continued to lick first one sensitive nipple before moving on to the next, he ran his hand along her body, over her still flat stomach and then down to her matching lacy briefs, where he tantalised her by allowing his fingers to rest there just for a moment before slipping his hand under the cloth so that he could play with her.

  Every inch of her body screamed with wanting him to take her but he was being wonderfully, maddeningly gentle as he continued to suckle on her while teasing her moistness with his fingers.

  In a gesture of thrilling intimacy, he slowly made his way downwards and kissed her stomach, fluttery little kisses that had her spellbound, then farther down, he carried on kissing her and finally parting that aching place so that he could drive her crazy with his tongue.

  Jude arched up to meet that exploring mouth and writhed against him as the sensations he was unlocking started coming quicker and quicker.

  By day she had replayed in her head the harshness of his parting words, using it as a tool for self-protection, but by night this was what she had dreamed of—the slide of his tongue in her, the feel of his hands roaming over her body, possessively claiming it as his own. She had the weird sensation that she was living a dream.

  She heard her own disembodied voice crying out his name as he thrust into her, taking her with sure, slow strokes that sent her wild.

  It was a while before those waves of pleasure finally peaked and subsided, leaving her spent.

  ‘We’re good together,’ Cesar murmured. On his side now, he pulled her into him. ‘You tell me that you don’t want to marry me, but at the bottom of every successful marriage is a foundation of passion, and you can’t deny that there’s passion between us.’

  ‘I’m not denying it, Cesar.’ She placed her hands squarely on his chest and created some distance between them. She was feverishly trying to work out how she had succumbed to him, but she didn’t have to look far for the answer. If she hadn’t loved him she would have had the strength to be indifferent to his advances. She certainly would have had the strength to have realised that climbing into bed with him was one sure way of undermining her resolve.

  They both had the baby to consider and sleeping with Cesar was sure to complicate matters.

  ‘But it doesn’t mean that I’m going to marry you for all the wrong reasons.’ She spun onto her side and was getting out of the bed when he pulled her back to face him.

  ‘We’re not doing this again!’ he grated. ‘Pretending that nothing happened just then. You’re just going to have to wake up to the fact that we enjoy making love.’

  ‘I haven’t said that we don’t! I’m just saying that it was a mistake.’

  ‘Really? That’s not what your body was saying when I was touching it.’

  ‘Cesar, it’s not enough and I think I should be going now. I’ve said what I wanted to say. There’s no reason why we have to meet again, at least not until it’s closer to the date and then we can discuss everything in more detail.’ She wriggled off the bed and began hunting down her clothes, feeling very exposed.

  When she looked over her shoulder, it was to find him propped up on one elbow, watching her.

  ‘You need someone to take care of you.’

  ‘I’m pregnant! I’m not ill!’

  ‘And living in the middle of nowhere isn’t very convenient for me.’

  ‘Guess what, Cesar. This isn’t about what’s convenient for you and what isn’t.’ Dress now on, she stood up and fished her shoes out from under his trousers.

  ‘You can’t get back on your own.’ He sprang out of bed and hastily began putting on his clothes.

  This had turned out to be one hell of a day. In fact, the past couple of months would go down on record as the most life-changing he had ever experienced. He was finding it more and more difficult to remember the tranquillity of his brief marriage to Marisol. That time almost seemed unreal. Sugary and unreal—nothing like the grittiness of what he had recently been put through.

  ‘Of course I can!’

  ‘I don’t intend to disappear until you think it’s time to summon me back on the scene!’

  ‘I’m not asking you to disappear!’ She turned around to find him standing right behind her. ‘But everything’s going to be just a matter of routine for the next few months!’

  ‘I will have to break this news to the public at large, including my family in Spain. My very orthodox family. What am I supposed to tell them? That I’m going to have a baby but the mother doesn’t want anything to do with me?’

  ‘Is that what this is all about? Appealing to convention?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with convention.’

  Cesar was baffled and enraged that, even after making love, even after confessing that she still wanted him as much as he wanted her, she continued to dig her heels in. She wanted a knight in shining armour? Was he not that knight in shining armour, promising her a ring on her finger and a lifetime of ease? She would never have to worry about money, would be able to devote herself solely and entirely to the raising of their child. How many men, confronted with an unplanned pregnancy, would have done as much? It all seemed to make sense to him but yet again he was discovering that nothing made sense where this woman was involved.

  Presented with a problem, he’d come up with a solution, and a pretty damned good one, but not good enough, apparently.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ He shoved on his shoes, minus the socks because she was already flying to the door when she should have been lying in his arms, still languorous from making love and looking forward to making love all over again.

  She gave him the name of her hotel, one which was unfamiliar to him but, judging from the sound of its location, not one in which the mother of his unborn child should be staying and he told her so.

  Jude flashed him a look that gave him her answer. From being a block of ice at the wedding, he had now become rampantly overprotective and solicitous and it would have been amusing if it hadn’t been so sad. He had probably thought that enticing her back between the sheets would have softened her up, that she would have reconsidered and decided that yes, she was willing to have a marriage of convenience because it was
what tradition demanded. As far as he was concerned, they would get married so that the dishonour of having an illegitimate child was avoided and have a sexual relationship until such time as he got tired of her, because lust only had a short lifespan before it faded away into boredom. And then she would stay at home, enjoying all the things that his money could buy her, while he had his discreet affairs. He would respect her as the mother of his child but he would never love her as a woman and as his wife. That was not one of the things he was willing to put on the table.

  ‘Okay, I’ll drive you there myself but it’s not suitable. I have connections at some of the best hotels in London. I could get you a room at any one of them.’

  ‘I don’t want a room at any one of them!’

  ‘Why the hell do you have to be so stubborn?’ She was at the door now and, more than anything else, he just wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to his king-sized bed, where he could keep an eye on her because it seemed that the minute she was out of his sight, he lost control of his life. Hadn’t that been the case for the past three weeks? Even seeing her earlier at the wedding had unsettled him, had distracted him from the business of his brother getting married. How the hell was he going to face the prospect of her, pregnant with his child, doing her own thing?

  ‘I’m stubborn? Honestly, Cesar, you should take a look in the mirror. You’re the most stubborn man in the world! You just won’t take no for an answer!’

  ‘I’m trying to be practical…and you have to be willing to compromise…’

  ‘I am compromising. I came and told you, didn’t I? I could very well have decided to keep you out of the loop. I could have sloped off and had the baby and you would have been none the wiser.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be your style, Jude. You’re far too honest for that. Besides, where would you have sloped off to? And don’t you think that Fernando and Imogen would have been a little curious when you started putting on weight? Anyway…I accept that you might want to go away and think about what I have asked…’