Housekeeper In The Headlines (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Chantelle Shaw

  Betsy’s steps faltered. Carlos did not love her, nor she him, she reminded herself. Who needed love, anyway? They were marrying for sensible, practical reasons, so that they could both be full-time parents to their son.

  Through the doorway she could see the pretty chapel was filled with flowers. In the front pew there was an enormous cerise pink hat which must belong to her mother. She saw Sarah and Mike and other close friends who had flown over from England. On the other side of the nave she recognised some of Carlos’s friends, whom she’d met at dinner parties, and she noticed his father in a wheelchair and his sister Graciela, with a man who must be her husband, holding their little boy Miguel. But to Betsy’s relief there were certainly not three hundred guests, and not a celebrity in sight.

  Finally she turned her gaze to Carlos. He was standing by the altar, his back ramrod-straight, and every few seconds he glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t possibly be feeling nervous, she told herself. His supreme self-confidence was what had helped to make him a world-class tennis champion. He looked devastatingly handsome in a pale grey three-piece suit...the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

  Betsy could not explain the pang her heart gave, nor the tears that pricked her eyes.

  At one side of the church a group of musicians were gathered next to the organ. The organist began to play, and the violinists and a cellist picked up their bows. The exquisite notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D soared to the rafters as Betsy walked with her father down the aisle.

  Carlos had turned his head towards the back of the church when the music had started. His eyes locked on Betsy and he did not look away from her as she made her way towards him. She couldn’t fathom the expression that crossed his face, but when she reached his side he said in a hoarse undertone, ‘You take my breath away, mi belleza.’

  The ceremony was simple, but unexpectedly moving. It would be easy to be swept up in the romance of the occasion, thought Betsy, but she knew better than to believe in fairy tales.

  Carlos took her hand in his and slid a gold band onto her finger. The priest pronounced them man and wife and her new husband bent his dark head and kissed her while a collective sigh came from the congregation.

  It was all a show, Betsy reminded herself. Carlos had been made to look a fool and, worse, callous when the media had discovered he had a secret child. This wedding was to restore his image—but therein was a puzzle.

  ‘Where are the paparazzi you said were bound to be outside the church?’ she asked as she and Carlos posed on the steps for the one photographer who was there, taking pictures. ‘I thought you wanted a big wedding in the glare of the world’s press?’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ he said softly. ‘You were worried that our wedding would be a circus, so I changed the venue and only invited close family and friends to this private chapel, which is owned by a friend of mine. We will have lunch in Sergio’s castle, and this evening we will be joined by a couple of hundred other guests for a bigger reception. The paparazzi are banned from entering the estate. We’ll choose a few pictures from the photographer and issue them to the press.’

  Betsy glanced over at her parents, who were chatting amiably and apparently best friends. ‘I can’t believe they haven’t killed each other,’ she murmured. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I reminded them that they had both let you down in the past and warned them that if they upset you today I’d have them forcibly evicted from the wedding.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  She stared at him, and her heart flipped when he gave one of his sexy smiles that turned her insides to mush. Sweet heaven! How was she going to survive this? she wondered with a flash of despair. She was touched that he had altered the wedding arrangements to make her happy, and he’d worked a miracle with her parents after she’d admitted that she wished they would attend the wedding.

  By the time they returned to Fortaleza Aguila, much later that night, Betsy felt confused. A week ago Carlos had said he could not trust her. But, thanks to him, their wedding day had been a beautiful and memorable event. He had acted the role of loving husband so convincingly that it was difficult to believe he was the same man who had vowed to hunt her to the ends of the earth if she disappeared with Sebastian. The fact that he could even think she would do such a thing reminded her of why she must not fall head over heels in love with him.

  ‘I believe that in England it is traditional for the groom to carry his bride over the threshold,’ Carlos said when they alighted from the car and walked towards the house. ‘Apparently the ritual goes back to Roman times and was meant to protect the bride from demons that might be in her new home.’

  ‘Luckily we’re in Spain.’

  Betsy gathered her long skirt in her hands and ran up the steps to the front door. Obscure demons were the least of her concerns. She was far more worried that if Carlos held her in his arms she would be unable to resist pressing her face into his neck and breathing in his evocative male scent.

  The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open and sped across the hall as if the devil himself was chasing after her. ‘I’m tired and I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’

  Upstairs, she stepped quietly into the nursery to check on Sebastian. Ginette had brought him home earlier in the evening, so that he could go to sleep at his usual time. He looked adorable, lying in the cot with his arms above his head, and as usual he had kicked the covers off. Betsy tucked the blanket around him and kissed his cheek.

  It had meant a lot to her when she’d watched her parents make a fuss of her baby, especially as it had been the first time her father had met Sebastian. She was stunned that Carlos had gone to such a lot of effort to arrange for her parents to attend the wedding. But family was important, and now, through their marriage, Sebastian was Carlos’s legitimate son and heir.

  In her bedroom, she kicked off her shoes and pulled the pins from her chignon before raking her fingers through her hair. It had been a long and emotionally draining day. She frowned as she noticed that the sheets had been stripped from the bed. She would have to remake it, but she had no idea where the bedding was kept and was reluctant to disturb the staff so late at night.

  Walking into the en suite bathroom, she discovered that all her toiletries were missing, and back in the bedroom she opened a wardrobe and found it empty.

  Betsy was tired, her nerves were frayed, and her temper simmered as she marched down the corridor to Carlos’s room. She had never been inside the master bedroom before, and after she’d given a peremptory knock on the door before opening it, her eyes were immediately drawn to the huge four-poster bed in the centre of the room. A gold canopy was draped above the bed, and the gold and black decor gave the room the appearance of a sultan’s tent.

  Carlos was stretched out on the bed with his arms folded behind his head. He had removed his tie and his shirt was undone to the waist, revealing his impressive abs and that glorious chest, darkly tanned and liberally sprinkled with black body hair. He did not seem surprised to see her, and lifted one dark brow when she walked closer to the bed and glared at him.

  ‘Where are my clothes? Why have all my things been taken out of my room?’

  ‘I asked one of the maids to transfer your belongings here, to the master suite.’ Carlos propped himself up on an elbow and waved his hand towards a door. ‘Through there is your own bathroom and dressing room. Now that you are my wife you will share my bedroom with me.’

  His wolfish smile caused Betsy’s womb to contract, and she realised that the biggest threat she faced was not her too-hot-to-handle husband but her irresistible attraction to him when he patted the mattress and murmured, ‘Come to bed, querida.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘YOU SAID THAT our marriage would be a partnership and we would make decisions together.’

  Betsy grabbed hold of the nearest bedpost for support as a terrible weakness invaded her body. In her traitorous
imagination she pictured herself and Carlos lying on the bed, their naked limbs entwined.

  ‘I have no intention of sleeping in your bedroom with you,’ she told him—and herself—firmly. ‘In the morning you can ask the staff to return my clothes to my room and remake my bed. But for tonight I’ll use this as a cover.’

  She snatched up the black velvet throw that was draped across the bottom of Carlos’s bed. Her temper fizzed when he said nothing, just lay sprawled on the gold satin bedspread like a demigod—too handsome to be a mere mortal.

  ‘We will discuss issues as they arise. But I did previously mention that we would share a bedroom after we married,’ he reminded her.

  ‘I didn’t realise that you meant on our actual wedding night,’ she muttered. ‘You also “mentioned” that we would have a sexual relationship at some point. Are you going to demand that I have sex with you tonight?’

  ‘Of course not.’ An expression of horror crossed his face. ‘Dios, you can’t really believe I would try to force myself on you?’ He sounded as though he was struggling to control some violent emotion.

  Betsy sighed. ‘No, I don’t believe that.’ Her shock was fading, and she knew with complete certainty that she was safe with Carlos. ‘But why is it so important for us to share a room?’

  ‘Can you imagine how the paparazzi would react if they found out that we slept apart?’ he demanded. ‘The tabloids would speculate that our marriage is already over or that our wedding was a stunt.’

  She frowned. ‘How would the tabloids find out details about our personal lives?’

  ‘I believe that my household staff are trustworthy,’ Carlos told her, ‘but it only takes a careless remark to spark a rumour. The maids will know if we are sleeping in separate rooms. I won’t risk details of our private lives being aired by the gutter press.’

  Betsy was about to say that it was a fanciful idea. But then she remembered that when she was a child an au pair had leaked information to the media about her parents’ explosive arguments. Every gory detail of her father’s infidelity and her mother’s out-of-control spending had been documented and sold to a newspaper. The au pair had only been discovered when she’d left her notebook open in the kitchen and Betsy’s mother had seen it.

  ‘I wouldn’t care what the press printed about us,’ she insisted. But it wasn’t true. She hated the thought of her personal life being made public again.

  ‘I don’t think you would enjoy being constantly harassed by the paparazzi about the state of our marriage. And it’s not just the newspapers. My father lives in the house, and he would soon find out if our relationship was not the happy marriage that we have led him and other members of our families to believe. He adores Sebastian, and if he has reason to think there is a rift between us he’ll worry that you might leave and take his grandson away.’

  ‘I’ve told you I will never do that.’ Betsy hesitated, then said, ‘I’ve gained the impression that your relationship with Roderigo is strained. Why is that?’

  Carlos stiffened. ‘It is a private matter between my father and me.’

  ‘It might help to talk,’ she murmured. ‘I am part of your family now, and—’

  ‘Leave it,’ he ordered curtly. ‘There are things that you don’t understand.’

  Betsy felt a pang of hurt that he was shutting her out. She moved her gaze from the huge bed and glanced at a high-backed armchair. She did not relish trying to sleep on that.

  ‘I didn’t expect that we would share a bedroom immediately we were married.’

  He stood up and curved his fingers over Betsy’s hand, where it was clinging to the bedpost. ‘I won’t expect anything from you that you are not willing to give. But I know you want me, querida.’ His voice deepened and his eyes gleamed like molten gold as he lifted his other hand and smoothed her hair back from her flushed face. ‘And I want you, my beautiful wife. Two years ago, neither of us could ignore the attraction we felt for each other. That chemistry is still there, hotter and more potent than ever.’

  She shook her head, but the faintly sardonic expression in his eyes said that he did not believe her denial. His gaze lowered to the hard peaks of her nipples, outlined beneath the silk bodice of her wedding dress.

  ‘Your body betrays you, mi belleza.’

  He stepped closer, and his warm breath grazed her cheek. His mouth was mere centimetres away from hers, but he did not kiss her as she longed for him to do. He captured her free hand in his and lifted it up so that he could press his lips to the gold band sitting next to the exquisite diamond on her finger.

  Sensation shot through her as he turned her palm over and kissed her wrist, where her pulse was beating erratically. He feathered kisses along her arm to the crook of her elbow and nipped the delicate skin there very gently with his teeth, sending sparks of fire through her veins. When he lifted his head she released her breath on a soft sigh that turned to a gasp as he licked his way along her collarbone and trailed his lips up her throat and over the sensitive underside of her jaw.

  Surely he would kiss her mouth now? He was so close, so tempting. She wanted to spear her fingers into the dark silk of his hair and tug his head closer until his lips were on hers. The ache inside her was sharpest between her legs, and she was conscious of the damp heat of her feminine arousal.

  Carlos released her hand and she hovered it over his naked chest. She wanted to touch his warm skin. He smelled of spicy cologne and raw male, and her womanly body responded instinctively to his potency.

  ‘Touch me.’

  His voice was thick with desire. Betsy swayed towards him and skimmed her fingers over his chest, feeling the abrasion of his body hair beneath her fingertips. He was the most beautiful man in the world. He could have any woman he wanted, but he wanted her. She recognised the hunger in the feral glitter in his eyes and heard it in the raggedness of his breath.

  ‘Come to bed and let me make love to you,’ he said roughly. ‘We are married now.’

  So they might as well have sex?

  Was that what Carlos thought?

  Cold reality replaced the sensual heat that had fogged Betsy’s brain and she snatched her hand away from him. ‘But you don’t trust me.’

  He had made that clear before he’d gone to South Africa, when he’d accused her of lying about not receiving the bracelet that he insisted he had sent her.

  Betsy had tried to contact Aunt Alice’s son, to ask him if a package had arrived at the house in London after she’d moved out. But, frustratingly, Lee’s wife had told her that he was away on a fishing trip in a remote part of Scotland where he couldn’t use his phone.

  Carlos raked a hand through his hair. ‘Querida...’

  ‘Don’t!’ she choked. ‘I’m not your darling.’

  He had the power to destroy her, and the realisation terrified her. If she gave herself to him he would know how much he affected her. She did not trust herself to be able to hide her feelings. She wasn’t in love with him, but what she felt was deeper than lust and that made her vulnerable.

  ‘I’m not going to have sex with you.’

  His gaze narrowed on her face and she sensed his frustration. But after a few seconds he moved away from her and she released her breath slowly.

  ‘I need to get changed,’ she told him. ‘I can’t sleep in my wedding dress.’ She hoped he wouldn’t hear the wobble in her voice.

  Why not just accept the wedding night Carlos is offering? whispered a voice in her head. Sex without strings would set the tone for their marriage and satisfy her physical craving for him.

  But an instinct for self-preservation held her back. He made her feel as defenceless now as she’d felt two years ago. She’d cried into her pillow every night for weeks after he’d returned to Spain. But then she’d found out she was pregnant, and she’d ditched her romantic dreams for the reality of being a single mother.

 
Carlos crossed the room and opened the door that he’d indicated a few minutes ago. Betsy stepped into a walk-in wardrobe, beyond which was another door to her own bathroom. The new clothes she’d bought since she’d arrived in Spain were on hangers or folded on shelves. She searched the room and eventually found the few possessions she’d brought from England. After taking off her wedding dress she went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

  Five minutes later she returned to the bedroom, and her heart lurched when she saw Carlos already in bed, leaning against the pillows. His chest was bare and the sheet was draped across his hips. The thought that he might be completely naked tested her resolve. How would she get to sleep, knowing that all that testosterone was a few feet away from her?

  ‘Madre de Dios!’ He sat up straighter when he saw her. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’

  ‘My pyjamas. I bought them last winter, to keep out the cold.’ Made of thick flannelette, in a violent purple check pattern, they were hideous, but they had been very practical when she’d had to get up to Sebastian in the middle of the night. She would probably boil, wearing them now in the heat of a Spanish summer, but it was worth the risk, she decided. From Carlos’s expression it seemed the unflattering pyjamas had cooled his desire, and Betsy told herself she was relieved.

  ‘Your choice of nightwear is not quite what I’d imagined my bride would wear on our wedding night,’ he said drily.

  Taking a deep breath, Betsy pulled back the sheet on the other side of the bed and slid beneath it. She couldn’t get it out of her mind that he might be stark naked. There was a long bolster pillow behind her head, and she placed it down the centre of the bed before she switched off her bedside lamp.

  Carlos muttered something in Spanish and turned off his own lamp.