‘It’s the truth, dammit!’ Rafe barked forcefully, his eyes gleaming fiercely. ‘Look at the ring if you don’t believe me, Cairo.’ He snapped the box open and thrust it towards her, revealing a huge emerald surrounded by six only slightly smaller diamonds. ‘You once told me that emeralds were your favourite stone,’ he added gruffly.
Yes, she had. But she had never thought—never believed—Rafe had been in love with her eight years ago! Or that he had been going to ask her to marry him!
‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered emotionally.
‘I thought so,’ he agreed, before closing the lid of the box and throwing it down on the table. ‘At least now perhaps you can understand some of my more—bitter accusations, concerning your sudden marriage to Bond.’
Cairo understood only too well.
But what did she do next?
These explanations about the past were all very well, but they gave her no clues as to how Rafe felt about her now!
‘To answer your earlier question, Rafe—no, my marriage to Lionel wasn’t anything like I had hoped it would be,’ she told him woodenly.
Rafe eyed her guardedly, not wanting to read more into her statement than was intended. The problem was, he had no idea what Cairo intended! But she had deserved to know the truth about eight years ago. All of it, including the fact that Rafe had been in love with her and wanted to marry her.
Cairo shook her head. ‘How could it possibly be a happy marriage when I had married him while still in love with another man?’
Rafe felt his heart lift. ‘Cairo—’
‘No, let me finish, Rafe,’ she told him with quiet firmness. ‘I told you three weeks ago that I couldn’t tell you any of this without breaking a confidence, but I believe, after what you’ve just told me, that I at least owe you some explanation in return. I married Lionel because he asked me to, and because I was still absolutely devastated by what I had thought was your betrayal. It wasn’t a bad marriage. Lionel and I got on well enough to start with, neither of us making demands that the other couldn’t give.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m sure that lots of marriages have survived with less,’ she added ruefully.
Rafe wasn’t sure he wanted to hear all of this now that Cairo actually wanted to tell him. Just the thought of her being with Lionel Bond, of her marriage to him, had tied Rafe up in knots for months, years, afterwards, to the point that he had never been able to fully trust or love another woman.
Cairo continued, ‘We would probably have continued to survive if I hadn’t learned of Lionel’s gambling habit. More like an obsession, really,’ she corrected heavily. ‘I’d had no idea when I married him, but only months later I discovered that he gambled every dollar he could spare. A couple of years into our marriage he was so hooked that he began to gamble dollars he didn’t even have.’ She sighed. ‘It didn’t really matter, of course, because I had started to earn big money by that time, and by working almost exclusively for Lionel’s production company I also put more money back into his bank account, too.’
‘That’s the reason you’ve been working so hard all these years?’ Rafe realised furiously.
She nodded. ‘I blamed myself, you see, because although I liked Lionel I—I simply couldn’t love him.’ She avoided Rafe’s searching gaze, determined to finish this now that she had started. ‘When Lionel realized how deeply he had become addicted, we were still friends enough for him to feel he could come to me and confess all.’ She shook her head. ‘He promised me that he would stop.’
‘But he didn’t,’ Rafe said slowly.
‘No.’ She sighed. ‘He just became more secretive about it. Maybe I should have realized sooner, I don’t know. But it’s very hard to maintain a balanced relationship in a marriage when you have to constantly watch your partner in case he lapses back into a destructive habit. As it turned out, I didn’t watch Lionel nearly close enough. Part of my trusting him was having a joint bank account with him, and—about a year ago—I discovered that he had been secretly taking money out of that account, too, and using that to gamble—and lose—with.’
‘Leaving you broke, too?’ Rafe asked shrewdly.
She gave a sad smile. ‘Not quite. I wasn’t stupid enough to put all that I earned in our joint account, and I have worked very hard over the last few years, Rafe. I really tried to save our marriage, too, but after the incident with the joint bank account I realized that nothing I did or said was going to make Lionel stop. There was also the hope that by putting an end to our marriage I might shock him into stopping,’ she admitted.
‘And did it?’
‘It would appear not,’ Cairo said flatly. ‘When he came to the villa that day it was to ask me for money—’
‘That’s what you meant when you said it wasn’t actually you that Bond wanted back?’ Rafe interrupted.
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t give him any more money, did you?’ he burst out angrily.
All these years—all this time, he had thought Cairo was at least happy with the choice she had made! Now it seemed she had no more been happy than he had!
‘No, I didn’t,’ she confirmed heavily. ‘It was hard to say no to him, because—because I’ve always felt that it was because I didn’t love him, couldn’t love him, that his obsession with gambling intensified after our marriage—’
‘That’s ridiculous, Cairo,’ Rafe cut in harshly.
‘Is it?’ She frowned. ‘I became a workaholic in order to paper over the cracks in my marriage, so why shouldn’t it have increased Lionel’s obsession with gambling?’
‘Because we’re all ultimately responsible for our own actions,’ Rafe reasoned. ‘Hell, I lost the woman I loved, and that made me extremely unhappy, and very wary of ever falling in love again, but it certainly didn’t turn me into a workaholic or an obsessive gambler!’
‘No.’ She smiled wryly. ‘But you’re a much stronger man than Lionel.’
‘You think?’ Rafe bit out.
‘I know you are, Rafe,’ she said softly.
‘What else do you know about me, Cairo?’ he said emotionally. ‘For instance, do you know that I still love you? That in all these years I’ve never stopped loving you? Not even for a moment?’
‘You still love me …?’ Cairo stared at him in shock as the full force of what Rafe had just said hit her like a physical blow.
Rafe nodded. ‘I always have. From the very first moment I saw you.’
‘But you never said—you didn’t tell me!’
‘I was a fool,’ he rasped. ‘You were perfect, unbelievable, and for three months it all seemed too good to be true. We had an incredible physical chemistry between us, but I thought it was too much to hope that you might feel more for me than that, that perhaps you might come to love me in return. But then I decided to hell with it, I would tell you anyway, and then ask you to marry me; the worst thing that could happen was that you would turn me down.’
‘I would have said yes!’
He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Don’t tell me that, Cairo, it only makes it worse!’
‘But I loved you, too, Rafe,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I loved you so much!’
‘Loved, Cairo?’ he said painfully. ‘Past tense?’
Her own tears were blinding her, and her legs felt decidedly shaky. Trying to swallow past a huge lump in her throat, for a moment Cairo couldn’t speak.
‘Cairo, will you please at least answer me?’ Rafe ordered.
She drew in a trembling breath, knowing by the almost defensive expression on Rafe’s face that he actually feared what that answer might be. ‘I still love you, too, Rafe,’ she admitted, her gaze steady on his. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for a single moment of the last eight years!’ she choked even as she threw herself into his arms, her hands cupping each side of his face as she kissed him over and over again. ‘I love you, Rafe!’ She smiled shakily, her eyes glowing with the emotion. ‘I love you! I love you!’
Those same three little words that Rafe knew
he should have said to her long ago but hadn’t! The same three words that would now bind them together for a lifetime. Because he never intended letting anything, or anyone, come between the two of them ever again!
‘I still love you, too, Cairo,’ he groaned as his arms clamped about her like steel bands and he held her tightly against him. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you, either.’
‘Never, Rafe?’
‘Never,’ he repeated fiercely. ‘I used to see photographs of you in magazines, newspapers, usually with Bond, and each time I did it was like a twist in my gut, an agony I couldn’t bear.’
Cairo shook her head. ‘That was the life Lionel wanted us to lead, not me. I put up with it, felt it was the least I could do when I had so little else to give him, but really I hated all that artificiality. Parties. Premieres.’ She gave a shudder. ‘I didn’t enjoy it at all. The only consolation was that I never had to actually meet you at any of them,’ she admitted.
‘Deliberately so,’ Rafe told her huskily. ‘I stayed away on purpose, Cairo,’ he explained as she looked up at him with an obvious query in her eyes. ‘I just couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you and Bond together,’ he acknowledged heavily.
Cairo’s gaze became searching as she saw the truth of his words in his face. ‘Oh, Rafe, what fools we’ve been!’ she groaned achingly.
‘But no more,’ he vowed. ‘I love you, Cairo, and I know without a doubt that I always will,’ he promised. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed raggedly. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’
Rafe gave a shout of triumphant laughter as he gathered her even closer in his arms, and then his mouth claimed hers.
Cairo, the woman he had loved, did love, would always love …
‘We’re getting married as soon as we can get a licence,’ Rafe told her determinedly a long time later. They were lying in bed together, Rafe’s arms wrapped tightly around Cairo as her head rested on his bare shoulder, her fingers played teasingly with the dark hair on his chest, both of them flushed and satiated from making beautiful love together.
Cairo smiled dreamily. ‘You won’t hear any arguments against that idea from me,’ she murmured.
Mrs Rafe Montero.
Mrs Raphael Antonio Miguel Montero.
It sounded wonderful!
It would be wonderful.
She and Rafe had been through too much, had loved each other for so long in spite of everything, and Cairo had no doubts that they would continue to love each other for the rest of their lives. Which reminded her …
She raised her head to look down at him with clear brown eyes. ‘I love you very much, Rafe.’
‘Never, ever doubt that I love you,’ he responded forcefully, blue eyes glittering with the emotion. ‘Never, Cairo!’
She never would, for she knew now that the love she and Rafe felt for each other was a love for all time….
EPILOGUE
‘NOT giving you ideas, is it, Mrs Montero?’ Rafe teased huskily as Cairo handed four-month-old baby Simon back to Margo as they all left the church following the christening.
‘And if it is?’ Cairo gave him one of those enigmatic smiles that always made Rafe want to take her to bed.
As did her laugh. And her rare—nowadays—frown. And her thoughtful look. Hell, Rafe just enjoyed taking Cairo to bed, no matter what her expression!
The two of them had made their lifetime vows two and a half months ago, with only Rafe’s parents, his brother and his family, and Margo, Jeff and the children in attendance.
It had been ten lovely weeks of being together constantly whenever Cairo wasn’t at the theatre. Now Cairo’s very successful run was over, the two of them intended to return next week to Rafe’s house at the beach.
Rafe slid his arm possessively about Cairo’s waist. ‘I can’t imagine anything I would enjoy more than to see you growing big with our child,’ he admitted throatily.
Cairo leant into him to murmur, ‘Then stop imagining it, Rafe.’
His eyes widened as he looked down at her. ‘You mean— Cairo, are you—?’
She chuckled softly at his dumbstruck expression. ‘I do. And I am. Seven weeks, according to Margo’s doctor.’
Cairo had never felt so happy in her life as she had been this last three months with Rafe, ten weeks of it as his wife, and the knowledge that she now carried their child was almost overwhelming.
Even the shadow of Lionel had been removed from her life, the ‘important’ thing he had wanted to tell her over lunch that day turning out to be his decision to book himself into a clinic, a condition of his engagement to the movie director Sarah Wallis. Cairo knew Sarah slightly, had worked with her in the past, and knew her to be tough and single-minded; if Sarah had decided that Lionel wouldn’t gamble any more, then Cairo had no doubts that he wouldn’t.
As the two of them were to be married next month, it seemed that Sarah had got her way!
Cairo shot Rafe a teasing look now. ‘Of course, it means I may have to take a few months off work once we’ve finished filming Forgiveness together …’ For the first time in years, the two of them were to work together again, Cairo in the lead role, Rafe as director, something they were both looking forward to immensely.
‘Cairo, I don’t give a damn whether you ever work again,’ he told her happily.
‘But the public might forget me,’ she teased him.
‘You belong to me—and our baby—not the public,’ he stated arrogantly.
Cairo chuckled. ‘I love you very much, Rafe Montero.’
‘And I love you, Mrs Rafe Montero,’ he murmured huskily as he turned to take her in his arms. ‘Till my dying breath,’ he promised gruffly as his mouth claimed hers and the two of them forgot everyone, and everything, but each other….
Spanish Aristocrat,
Forced Bride
India Grey
About the Author
A self-confessed romance junkie, INDIA GREY was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® writers’ guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she also gained a degree in English Literature from Manchester University and, in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance, met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity, and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!
CHAPTER ONE
THE shadow of the helicopter fell over the lush velvet lawns of Stowell Castle, stirring up the hot August air and ruffling the canopies of the great trees in the parkland.
Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo glanced down. Below him the party was already well under way, and he could see waiters carrying trays of champagne circulating between the groups of outlandishly dressed guests scattered across the emerald grass. Dispassionately he noticed that people were looking up, emerging from the marquees placed at opposite ends of the lawn and shielding their eyes from the sinking sun to watch his arrival.
It was set to be the party of the year, because Tom Montague’s Annual Charity Costume Ball always was. This was the event that drew the glitterati and the aristos back from their Malibu beach houses and Tuscan palazzos to indulge in twenty-four hours of lavish hedonism in the idyllic setting of Stowell Castle’s gardens.
It was also the event that had drawn Tristan Romero back from the jaws of hell some two thousand miles away, for reasons that had nothing to do with indulgence or hedonism.
He was her
e for Tom.
Sighing wearily, he circled the helicopter round over the lawn so that the roofs of the marquees snapped and strained like galleons’ sails. Tom Montague was the seventh Earl of Cotebrook and one of the most genuinely good and generous people imaginable; a combination which Tristan felt was particularly dangerous—especially where women were concerned. Tom only ever looked for the good in people, even when it was invisible to the rest of humankind. Which was why they’d been friends for such a long time, Tristan thought acidly, and why he now felt duty bound to come and make sure that the girl that Tom had talked about incessantly over the past few weeks was worthy of him.
But, of course, he would be dishonest as well as emotionally bankrupt if he tried to pretend that that was his only reason for coming.
Ultimately he was here because the tabloid press and the paparazzi and the gossip columnists expected him to be. It was part of the deal he had made when he sold his soul to the devil. Grimly he swung the helicopter round, following the path of the river that looped around Stowell and marked its northern boundary. As he came lower his eyes raked the trees along the river bank, looking for the telltale glitter of sunlight on a long lens.
They would be there, of that he was sure. One of the hardened group of paparazzi elite, who were dedicated enough to go the extra distance for a picture and ruthless enough not to question the ethics of getting it. They would be there somewhere, watching and waiting.
He would be almost insulted if they weren’t. Many people in a similar position to him complained endlessly about press intrusion, but to Tristan that was missing the point. It was a game. A game of strategy and skill, in which the truth was an irrelevance and a lapse of concentration could cost you your reputation. Tristan didn’t like the paparazzi, but neither did he underestimate them for a second. It was simply a case of use or be used. Be the manipulator or the victim.
And Tristan Romero would never be a victim again.
Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) Page 15
