A Spanish Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  Cat got the cream.

  Would the other woman have broken the news that his wife had walked in and discovered her? Of course she would, if only to have warned him.

  If Javier had been innocent and he’d arranged for Glenda to meet him at the apartment for some reason or other he would have completed his business with her, got rid of her and phoned her, Zoe, to let her know he was back at the apartment.

  Ditching that unlikely scenario, she impressed the other on her overtired mind. Javier guilty, guilty as hell. The luscious Glenda greeting her lover with the news that their ongoing affair had been uncovered. His child bride taking off at speed.

  If he’d had any respect for her at all, cared a toss for her well-being, he would have done everything he could to contact her. Not to beg her to go back to him—even he with his massive ego would see that that was impossible—but to make sure she was all right.

  In the darkness she dragged the magnificent diamond ring off her finger and hurled it with force into a corner. A bauble to keep her sweet. As Glenda had maliciously pointed out, he’d turn on the charm to keep her unsuspecting and doting.

  And he hadn’t attempted to touch her, much less make love to her until that night when she’d told him she’d had enough, that as far as she was concerned their paper marriage was over, she reminded herself furiously. He’d seen his callous plan to keep his father’s one-time partner’s fortune wedded to his own fly out of the window. So he’d gritted his teeth, done his duty.

  Her wide gold wedding band followed the diamond.

  Ethel watched Zoe’s descent of the main staircase with anxious eyes. She looked different. Older and harder. Her long blonde hair was piled in an elegant knot on top of her head, her slim body clad in deep turquoise silk that positively shrieked designer chic.

  As usual since she’d arrived here out of the blue, alone, her ring finger was bare. Something was wrong with that marriage, very wrong. The past three days she’d been as jumpy as a kitten on a bed of hot coals, leaping out of her skin every time the phone rang, never leaving the grounds, pacing, always pacing, her straining eyes turned in the direction of the long drive.

  This evening there was a marked difference. A difference that left Ethel feeling even more anxious.

  ‘Don’t wait up, Ethel,’ Zoe said as soon as her high-heeled mules hit the floor of the hall. ‘I’ll take the main door key so ask Joe not to bolt it when he locks up for the night.’

  Ethel was well aware that Javier’s name hadn’t crossed his wife’s lips since she’d arrived late on Monday evening. Nevertheless, in case her employer did phone and ask to speak to his wife, she felt it incumbent to ask, ‘Where are you going?’

  For long moments Ethel didn’t think she was going to get an answer. Zoe turned slowly on her heel, her suddenly and newly imperious eyes conveying the message that a child she was not, and would not be treated like one. Her titular status as mistress of the house had never been more strikingly in evidence.

  ‘To look in on Jenny and Guy’s housewarming party. The invitation was in the post waiting for my attention.’ A tiny pause when something of the old impetuous, heartbreakingly needy Zoe looked out from those clear golden eyes, then a frigidly cool, ‘Good night, Ethel.’

  The early evening sun warmed Zoe’s skin but didn’t reach the cold spot inside her as she stood on the drive, stowing the main door key in her purse and searching for her car keys.

  It was over. Three whole days of waiting for Javier to try to track her down if only to discuss the ending of their marriage, never mind one human being’s natural concern for another.

  He didn’t give a damn!

  Three endless days and nights of wanting to see him face to face one last time, for the release of telling him exactly what she thought of him, calling him all the bad names she could think of, getting the pain and the poison out of her system.

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  So she had taken a long, hard look at the pathetic creature she had become and taken the decision to put it all behind her. Get on with her life. Forget he’d ever been in it.

  As she drove to Jenny’s brand-new home, part of an exclusive development on the outskirts of the village, she mentally ticked off her plans for the future.

  Start divorce proceedings. Contact her trustees to ask for a release of sufficient funds to buy a small flat close to her place of voluntary work. Take up the Chair’s suggestion that she make herself responsible for parting the wealthy from some of their excess funds.

  And then—The ‘And then’ bit presented itself as a black hole, a yawning, featureless empty space. Zoe firmed her lush mouth and floored the accelerator.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m so glad you could come.’ Jenny tucked her arm through Zoe’s as she proudly showed her over her new home. ‘I sent the invitation on the off-chance. No one seemed to know where you and Javier were. Why isn’t he with you?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘That husband of yours would have added a touch of class!’

  ‘Working.’ Zoe wasn’t prepared to discuss the ending of her marriage, and she didn’t want to talk about him, or even think about him ever again. ‘I love those curtains,’ she changed the subject rapidly.

  ‘Great, aren’t they? Look.’ Easily diverted, Jenny picked up a remote and the heavy linen drapes swished back and forth. Zoe smiled her dutiful smile until her face ached and quashed the wish that she had never come. She had to learn to make a life of her own. And mixing with the old gang was a beginning.

  ‘Now you must see the kitchen. It’s got every gadget under the sun. Guy went bananas when he saw the size of the bill. Now all I have to do is learn to cook!’

  Five minutes later, a glass of white wine in her hands, Zoe joined the other guests outside on the patio where most of the menfolk were gathered around the barbecue, drinking beer from cans, the laughter level rising, multicoloured fairy lights twinkling on the trellis as evening shadows lengthened over the garden, the smell of cooking meat turning her stomach.

  Oliver Sherman was chatting up a redhead in a very small black dress. Zoe turned her back on him, joining a group of female acquaintances. Oliver was not one of the old gang she wanted to mix with!

  But seconds later a voice at her shoulder told her he had other ideas. ‘Welcome back to the fold. Looking for some fun without that grim husband of yours?’

  Zoe swallowed a sigh. Here we go again! she agitated, remembering the horrible scene at Guy and Jenny’s wedding reception and the shattering aftermath. She turned slightly, half facing him, and drawled coolly, ‘Oliver, don’t be such a bore.’

  And then her face flamed with immediate colour, her flesh burning on her bones because Javier had emerged onto the patio with Glenda firmly in tow.

  How dared he? How could he? If he wanted to humiliate her, demonstrate that his mistress took precedence in his life, he couldn’t have chosen a better method! She wanted to fall into a hole in the ground and never, ever, be seen again!

  Blood thundering in her ears, she felt the heightened colour wash out of her face, leaving her ashen and cold. So cold she was shaking.

  As usual he looked spectacular: tall, lean, urbane, dressed in beautifully cut pale grey chinos and a black shirt that somehow made the impressive breadth of his shoulders even more intimidating. And the impact of his darkly handsome face, all arrogant angles and brooding smoky eyes, stunned her into the drainingly painful recognition of all she had lost.

  She couldn’t lose what she had never had was her immediate self-protective counter-thought, and that smack-in-the-eye fact had her entertaining the wild idea of getting up close and intimate with the still-hovering Sherman just to pay her adulterous husband back.

  An idea just as swiftly jettisoned. She would hate herself for ever if she stooped that low.

  As his eyes found her amongst the guests Zoe knew she couldn’t feel any lower than she did right at this moment, whatever she did.

  Even with his mistress glued to his side she only had to see him
to be swept by a wave of longing that was frightening in its intensity. How low, how stupid could a girl get?

  As he strode towards where she was standing her stomach tied itself in painful knots, her heart started racing as people automatically made way for him, deferring to his dominant personality, female eyes widening with admiration, male glances a mixture of awe and envy.

  Helplessly, her own eyes were riveted on that devastatingly lean and handsome face. Was she the only person who came into contact with him able to hold her own? And, far more importantly, could she hold her own now, in this humiliating situation? Or would her battered and bleeding heart betray her?

  His features were hard and unyielding as he reached her but there was one of his charismatic smiles for their hostess as she hustled up with a tray of drinks. ‘You have a lovely home, Jenny. I hope you and Guy will be truly happy here. But now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to drag my wife away.’

  Taking Zoe’s untouched glass from her suddenly limp and unresisting fingers, he placed it on the tray. Smoke-grey eyes held hers with stark intent. ‘Shall we?’

  A rhetorical question, Zoe recognised, panic setting in because quite obviously he and Glenda were going to present a united front when he admitted they were still lovers, and spelled out that, now it was out in the open, there was no point in continuing to stay in this misbegotten marriage, not even for a further year.

  As his guiding hand cupped her elbow Zoe wanted to leap up, fasten her own hands around his throat and strangle him. For taking the initiative—she had wanted to be the one to confront him, demand a divorce with her new-found icy cool, sweep out leaving him looking and feeling small! For his effortless ability to steal her heart—and keep it—damn him!

  Tears weren’t far away as they reached the pavement outside the house. His car was parked on the other side of the smart new cul-de-sac. Was he intending to say his piece here then whisk his gloating mistress away, leaving her standing alone, humiliated and hurting?

  Zoe’s small chin came up, her spine stiffening, bracing herself for what was to come, and for the first time she let her eyes rest on Glenda for longer than the split second it had initially taken her to register the other woman’s presence beside Javier.

  It was almost dusk now but still easy to see that the other woman’s smooth confidence had deserted her. Her shoulders slumped and her mouth drooped. Was her conscience pricking? Was that what was making her look so miserable? Whatever, Zoe didn’t want her pity.

  Dragging her arm from Javier’s restraining hand, Zoe reminded herself of how very much she should violently hate him and lashed out through clenched teeth, ‘I don’t know what the two of you think you’re going to achieve by muscling in on my evening with friends.’

  ‘You will,’ he came back grimly, his hand capturing her wrist now in a vice-like grip. ‘Tell her, Glenda. Or I stop that cheque.’

  ‘I…I…’ Baby-blue eyes were fastened on the pavement. She pulled in a shaky huff of breath and muttered, ‘I lied.’

  ‘And—?’ Javier prompted with a bite.

  Glenda’s cheeks turned a dull red as she turned a look of loathing on Zoe. ‘Javier and I were finished well before he married you,’ she pushed out quickly, her voice low and sulky.

  Zoe’s heart jumped like a landed fish. She wanted to believe what she was hearing but didn’t dare to. The other woman was putting on a convincing performance. But then the portrayal of mistress in residence back at the apartment had been spot on, too. They’d had a good three days to decide how to play this.

  ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth now? Did he put you up to this because he wants to keep me sweet? You did suggest it?’ Zoe reminded tersely, not knowing what to think or believe any more. ‘A way to keep my future wealth wedded to his.’

  She felt Javier stiffen. She’d pricked that monumental pride of his. He’d hate to see his murky motives displayed. She should be experiencing triumph, vindication. So why did she want to cry?

  ‘Tell her what you were doing in our apartment,’ Javier demanded, contempt in his voice. Contempt for her or for Glenda, Zoe had no way of knowing.

  Glenda shot him a look full of fury. ‘That’s between you and me. It’s none of her business!’

  ‘When you lied to my wife you made it her business.’

  ‘You were going to give me money!’ Glenda spat, hectic spots of colour high on her cheeks. ‘I was broke and homeless, I had no one else to turn to. Then that overgrown schoolgirl who calls herself your wife walked in and threw a tantrum! I would make you a far better wife!’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Javier stated with contempt. ‘So, broke and homeless, thrown out by your married French lover, you grabbed the opportunity to lie your head off, break up my marriage, then hang around long enough to console me for my wife’s desertion,’ Javier completed. ‘I want to hear you admit it.’

  Silence. Javier released Zoe’s wrist and lifted his arm to lay it around her shoulders. Her legs felt hollow and she leant against him, grateful for the support. Had she misjudged him so badly?

  ‘Well?’ he pressed darkly, tacking on for good measure, ‘Do I have to remind you of that cheque?’

  Glenda gave him a look of sullen rage then spat out, ‘OK, I admit it! Satisfied?’ She stumped off towards his waiting car. ‘Take me to that damned hotel—I’ve had enough of this!’

  Five minutes later, Glenda and her suitcase deposited in the foyer of a country hotel, Javier turned a brief glance on Zoe as he returned to the driver’s seat. ‘Home now.’

  The classic lines of his profile were grim. Her stomach flipped. She might have been naive in misjudging him, in accepting everything Glenda had said as the truth, but there were too many things left unspoken, so much she didn’t know, the foremost amongst them being the way he saw their relationship.

  And he was saying nothing, just firing the ignition. She felt light-headed with stress and said in a breathy little voice she barely recognised as her own, ‘Take me back to Jenny’s to pick up my car.’

  Javier’s hands tightened on the wheel as the Jaguar smoothly exited the hotel car park. ‘We’ll collect it in the morning. Until then I’m not letting you out of my sight. It’s time the real truth came out,’ he added grimly.

  Having no idea what he meant by that, unless it had something to do with his relationship with the hateful Glenda, reminded her of something. ‘Why did it take you from Monday to Thursday to decide to haul that woman here to make her confession?’

  His long mouth tightened. They’d passed through the village and he was taking the lanes out to Wakeham at speed. ‘It took me approximately three hours, not three days,’ he gave back on an exasperated snap, slowing right down to take a particularly tight bend then powering on. ‘Leave it for now.’

  Good advice, Zoe had to admit, fiddling edgily with the strap of her seat belt. Clearly she was angering him, but never one to take orders easily she had to ask, ‘Was Glenda with you in Cannes?’

  ‘I met up with her there,’ was the rawly given admission as he turned into Wakeham’s long driveway, shocking Zoe back into silent misery, struggling to discover where the truth lay in all this mess.

  Keeping her silent, a hand pressed in the small of her back, he urged her past Joe who was doing the evening rounds and checking the windows were closed, ignoring the older man’s stunned expression, marching her to the master suite.

  ‘Right,’ he gritted as he closed the door behind them. ‘I’m sick of playing games with our marriage.’ Tension pulled his bronzed skin tight over his impressive features, his narrowed eyes almost black, glittering with what she had to translate as rage.

  ‘Sick of pretending I had to work away from home just to move out of temptation’s way. Sick of acting like a real nice considerate guy when all I wanted to do was rip your clothes off and make love to you. Sick of suffering agonies of guilt because I might have made you pregnant, beating myself up,’ he emphasised with a savage bite. ‘So I’m telling you here an
d now that I love you. I want to make this marriage work, I want to give you children. I want to tie you so closely to me you’ll never escape!’

  Zoe flopped down on the bed, her mouth dropping open. As a declaration of love it wouldn’t win any awards in the sensitivity and hearts-and-flowers stakes but it was all she needed—everything she needed.

  Tears of sheer happiness sprang to her eyes as he stalked to where she was sitting, thrusting his rigid face in front of hers, impatience with her poleaxed silence etched on every dominant feature. ‘Well?’

  She took his face between her hands and kissed him. At that precise moment it was the only answer she could give him. When his mouth returned the pressure of her lips with driven passion she knew her response to his question had been the right one. As he tumbled her back on the bed she felt the tremors that shook him as her arms closed around him, the heat of his virile body sending her flying on a giant wave of sensual excitement.

  ‘I’ve always loved you,’ Zoe managed at last to murmur against his erotically probing mouth. ‘Since I was little,’ she explained raggedly as he slowly lifted his head. ‘Then the feeling changed,’ she told his questing smoky eyes. ‘I loved you as a woman. I fell fathoms-deep in love with you. I told you, remember, and embarrassed us both.’

  Moving her hand from where it lay tucked against his thundering heartbeat, she lovingly traced the line of his hard, sensual mouth with the tips of her fingers. ‘You probably thought it was a teenage infatuation. It wasn’t,’ she confirmed softly. ‘It just grew and grew. Why else did you imagine I would ever agree to the sort of marriage you proposed? Kiss me again.’

  With a low groan Javier obeyed the best order he’d ever been given, fingers tangling in her bright hair, disposing of the pins that held it in driven haste, one hand rucking up the skirt of her dress to press her hips against the hard evidence of his arousal, and it was a long time before either of them had the breath to spare for speech.

  A long time before the break of the early summer dawn, long hours of mindblowing pleasure, of immeasurable ecstasy. And the words were drowsy when they came, Javier’s hand lovingly stroking her tumbled hair from her damp forehead as he murmured, ‘We need breakfast. Got to keep our strength up.’ Smoky eyes glinted an explicit message that needed no verbal translation and Zoe ran her hands over the impressive breadth of his satin-skinned power-packed shoulders, dizzy with love for him, silently vowing to make him happy for the rest of his life.