The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife (7 page)

His clouded eyes went to the spot on the floor where he had lain. Where he had pulled her on top of him and…

‘
Infierno,
no!’

He had to stop this or he would never be able to hold out against her. Right now all he could think of was going back upstairs and into the bedroom where he had left Estrella. He wanted to grab hold of her, rip the white, enveloping sheet from her slender body and throw her on the bed. He wanted to bury himself in her soft and welcoming heat and…

And he must not.

She wanted marriage, and he was not prepared to offer
her that commitment, not even for the financial incentive she offered. He was not going to be bought, either by her or her father.

Marriage was supposed to be for ever. A lifetime commitment. If even his own mother couldn’t stay faithful to her marriage vows, then how could he expect that any woman might? Especially one who only wanted him for her own reasons—none of which was love.

Turning his eyes away from the provocative temptation of the slivers of peach satin, he dumped the tee shirt on top of them and set off upstairs again.

Estrella was just where he had left her, standing by the window, with the white sheet wrapped around her. He had hoped that she might find his robe or something else that she could at least pull on. Anything that would do a more effective job of concealing those feminine curves, the swell of her breasts against the fine fabric.

The sheet was wrapped so tightly around her that it outlined every female inch of her, and the tumble of her tousled black hair over her naked shoulders only added fuel to the fire of temptation that his thoughts downstairs had already set raging inside him.

But one look into her stony, set face, seeing the stormy rejection that flared in her eyes, was almost enough to douse the flames in a single moment. Almost—not quite. But she looked so unwelcoming and unapproachable that he had no difficulty in staying on the opposite side of the bed, depositing her clothes on the crumpled covers with a faint mocking bow.

‘Your clothes, señorita.’

‘Thank you.’

It was offered with obvious reluctance, almost forced from her lips.

‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to have some privacy while I get dressed.’

There was something in her voice, a disturbing quaver that made him pause in the act of turning away. Was it possible? Could it be tears that made her eyes glisten even more than usual?

‘Estrella…’ he began, but she shook her head fiercely so that the black hair flew in a wild halo round her head.

‘I don’t want to hear a word from you—not another word! Now get out and leave me alone!’

‘Fine.’

It was curt and clipped and absolutely cold.

‘I’ll wait for you downstairs.’

‘You do that.’

She waited pointedly, hands on her hips, until he had left the room and she heard his footsteps descending the stairs. Only then did she disentangle herself from the sheet and head for the
en suite
bathroom.

She had no idea how long she stayed under the cascade of hot, hot water. She only knew that, no matter how many times she scrubbed her skin, she still couldn’t find a way to feel clean.

What had she done?

Her thoughts winced away from the memory of last night and the way that she had—in Ramón’s own words—thrown herself at him.

‘Oh, how could I?’

She spoke the words aloud, shaking her head in despair at the thought of her own foolishness.

‘How could I?’

Last night, asking Ramón to marry her had seemed like a good idea. It had seemed the only way out, to free herself from her father’s constant anger, the nagging, the bullying
that had been her life ever since she had messed up so badly with Carlos.

Carlos.

There it was again, that sudden, unnerving realisation of how very differently she had behaved with Carlos from the way she was with Ramón.

Carlos had made it very plain from the start that he wanted her in his bed, but, never having slept with a man, and nervous for her reputation in the small, old-fashioned Spanish community, she had held back as long as she’d dared. She had never even known, never suspected that he was married. Until it was too late.

But with Ramón she hadn’t even thought, let alone had any time for second thoughts. One touch, one kiss from him and she had gone up in flames. She had been on fire all through the night, burning up with passion. So now it seemed fitting that everything lay in ashes around her.

Shutting off the shower reluctantly, she dressed in the tee shirt and jeans of yesterday, carefully blanking off her mind so that she didn’t have to think, as she put them on, of the way that Ramón had taken them off her last night. She wished she had had some cosmetics other than the mascara and a light lip gloss that were all she carried with her in her handbag. Her face looked colourless and wan without anything. She tried pinching her cheeks hard to bring a little colour into them, only to find that it faded away in the space of a couple of seconds.

Eventually she made her way downstairs, praying that Ramón might have got tired of waiting and left for his office.

In that she was disappointed. He was still in the kitchen, a pile of mail on the table at which he sat. He had made himself another mug of coffee, but was clearly not really
drinking it, just as he was clearly not properly reading the letter he held in his hand.

‘I’ll be on my way, then,’ Estrella said stiffly from the doorway.

It was the only thing she could think of to say. She had no experience of anything like this. Had never even stayed over at a man’s home before, so she had no idea what the normal procedure was.

And then, of course, this particular situation could hardly be defined as normal.

Ramón’s dark head snapped up and he focused cloudy grey eyes on her pale face.

‘Don’t go yet. You haven’t eaten a thing. Wouldn’t you like some breakfast?’

‘I think it would choke me,’ Estrella tossed out, hating the way that he was playing the role of the polite and considerate host when the situation demanded nothing of the sort.

‘I’m not that bad a cook.’ Ramón offered a smile, which she stubbornly refused to respond to even though it was a struggle. ‘And we never did get that meal last night.’

‘No, we didn’t.’

If only she’d accepted his offer of food, then she might not have acted quite so stupidly. She might have kept her head. Oh, how she wished she had!

‘But I still don’t want anything to eat. I just want to get home.’

‘Estrella—’

Ramón pushed back his chair and stood up, disturbingly tall and powerful in the confines of the kitchen.

‘The situation at home—is it really that bad?’

Estrella eyed him warily, wondering just where he was heading now.

‘You’ve seen my father,’ was all she said.

‘Then why don’t you leave? Get a job—’

He broke off abruptly when she couldn’t hold back the cynical laugh that showed her feelings.

‘You have to be joking! I repeat—you’ve seen my father. He’s a couple of generations older than any of my contemporaries’ parents—older than yours, I’ll bet! But mentally he’s older than that again. And I’m his only child—the Medrano heiress. My upbringing was positively mediaeval. I have no skills, no training.’

And after the truth about Carlos had come out, she had had a near complete breakdown. She hadn’t been able to think or act. Her father had moved in then and taken over her life and he’d been running it ever since.

‘No one would offer me a job.’

‘I would.’

‘What?’

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘I’ll give you a job—in the Alcolar Corporation. You could leave home—get a flat somewhere.’

‘You’d do that?’

He thought she was offering him a compliment. She could see that from the light in his eyes, the sudden, quick, devastating smile.

‘I would.’

‘You think I’m worth employing, but not worth marrying?’

‘That isn’t what I said, damn it!’

‘And I don’t recall ever saying that I wanted a job!’

To be employed by him would just be too much. She would have to see him, speak to him, and every time she did she would remember last night and the humiliation that had greeted her this morning.

‘I wouldn’t touch your job if it came gift-wrapped in pure gold. I don’t want anything from you!’

‘You did last night.’

The dangerous, dark undertone was back in his voice.

‘Last night was different.’

‘Yeah, last night you thought you were going to get what you wanted from me.’

Ramón had finally lost his grip on the temper he had been reining in. He’d tried to help her and she’d thrown it back in his face. ‘But I have this strong aversion to being used,’ he snarled viciously, and watched her head go back, her eyes opening wide.

‘You weren’t being used!’ Estrella protested.

‘No? Believe me, sweetheart, that’s what it felt like.’

‘Oh, so now it’s using you to offer you what you said you wanted most in all the world.’

For a moment he thought she’d meant herself in his bed and his head spun with shock to think that she knew. A moment later his thought processes cleared and he realised she meant the television company. The television company that, disturbingly, hadn’t been the first thing to come into his mind.

‘I told you, the price on that was way too high.’

‘You didn’t seem to think so last night.’

‘Last night was just sex! I never offered any promises.’

He’d hit home with that. He saw her blink hard, withdraw just for a moment. But when she came back at him she had clearly just been taking time to prepare her attack.

‘Then it’s just as well you didn’t, because last night I might have been fool enough to accept them. This morning I’m thinking straight again and I have to say I’m inclined to agree with you about that price. Like you, it’s not one I’m prepared to pay.’

‘Of course not, because, as your father was at great pains to point out to me, I don’t exactly have the respectable Catalan lineage that he was hoping for.’

‘No—that’s why you came tenth in the list of possible suitors.’

That stung. It was like the flick of a whip on his male pride and it drove him to push aside all consideration of fairness or restraint. The other Estrella was back—the hard, calculating woman he detested. And he needed that reminder. He’d come close to swallowing her hard-luck story.

‘So why did you throw yourself at me last night?’

Her chin came up, deep brown eyes flashing fiercely.

‘Isn’t it obvious? I was just hot for you.’

‘What? You wanted a bit of rough? Is that how you get your kicks, lady? Do you enjoy slumming it? Is that what your relationship with Carlos Perea was all about?’

‘Leave Car—leave him out of this!’

‘Oh, okay, I’ll do that. For now. But tell me, my lovely Doña Medrano—
querida
…’

Ramón laced the words with an acid that was aimed to sting every bit as much as her earlier comment.

‘Of those other nine suitors of yours—how many of them did you throw yourself at as you did with me last night? Did you try them all out—a test run, so to speak, to see if they came up to your demanding standards? Did you—?’

The crack of her hand hitting the side of his face silenced him more effectively than the actual slap and for a moment they froze and just stared at each other, Estrella wide-eyed with shock at her own actions, her breathing frantic and rawly uneven.

‘Well, I guess I asked for that,’ Ramón admitted, refusing even to rub at his stinging cheek.

‘You did!’

Both her arms came up in a wild, uncontrolled gesture, crossing in front of her face in a way that was both furious and yet at the same time strangely defensive.

‘I had nothing to do with those others—nothing! If you
must know, you are the only one of them that I ever spoke to properly, the only one I ever kissed—the only one I ever—ever…’

She choked to a halt, obviously unable to complete the sentence.

‘And is that supposed to make me feel honoured?’

Estrella shook her head furiously, her long hair flying around her face in a wild black cloud.

‘Not at all. If it does anything—it just goes to show, after you and Carlos, what an appalling, stupid, naïve judge of men I really am!’

‘I—’ Ramón began, but she cut him off before he had a chance to say anything more.

‘Not a word!’ she spat at him. ‘Not a single word! I’ve heard all I ever want to from you for the rest of my life. You’d have thought I’d learn my lesson after coming up against a user and manipulator the first time, but, no, obviously I’m so damn stupid, I really need my nose rubbing in things! Well, you’ve done that for me, Señor Dario—and I thank you for your instructions. This time I really think I’ve got it—I’ve learned my lesson once and for all. And I don’t think I’m ever likely to forget.’

And before Ramón could gather his scatted thoughts to answer her she had whirled on her heel, snatching up her bag, and fled, letting the door slam behind her.

‘J
UST
what is wrong with you these days, Ramón? You’re wandering round in a dream.’

‘Perhaps he’s in love. Is that right, Ramón? Is the great Señor “marriage is not for me” Dario actually smitten at last?’

‘Don’t tease, Mercedes.’

It was Cassie who spoke, earning herself a quick, grateful smile from her brother-in-law. ‘I just think Ramón has a lot on his mind.’

‘A lot of woman!’ Ramón’s sister laughed. ‘Is that it? It would have to be someone really special to knock my brother sideways like this!’

A lot of woman. He certainly knew someone who fitted that description, Ramón reflected. And it was true that she had hardly ever been out of his mind in the week since she had stormed out of his apartment and out of his life.

He had tried to stop her. He had gone after her almost at once, but those few seconds’ hesitation had been all she’d needed. Fate had been on her side, it seemed. She must have stepped into a lift as soon as she’d left the apartment, achieved the impossible by getting a taxi the minute she’d walked out onto the street, and by the time he’d got outside she had gone. She had vanished and it was as if she had never existed.

‘You’re not still brooding over that Medrano deal?’

It was his father who spoke. Juan Alcolar was leaning back in his chair, apparently relaxed, a glass of the finest
red wine from his son’s vineyard in his hands. But his eyes were sharp and assessing as they rested on his son’s face.

‘In a way—yes,’ Ramón admitted reluctantly, knowing that the problem was nothing at all to do with the deal, but everything to do with the Medrano daughter. Even just to hear her surname spoken aloud made his nerves tighten, his jaw tensing.

‘I told you to forget about that,’ his father told him. ‘Medrano’s a narrow-minded old goat. He always was too proud of his Catalan heritage for his own good. Too set in his ways too.’

‘Says the man who forgets that we have Andalusian blood in our veins as well as Catalan,’ commented Joaquin, wandering into the room and dropping an affectionate kiss on the top of Cassie’s blonde head. ‘You and Medrano are as bad as each other,
papá.
You can’t ignore Great-grandfather, no matter how you might want to.’

A couple of weeks ago, this conversation would have been unlikely, to say the least, Ramón reflected. But since Joaquin and Cassie had announced they were getting married—adding the extra good news that Juan’s second grandchild was on the way—a new warmth had developed between the older man and his first-born son. For the first time in years they seemed relaxed with each other.

Joaquin had mellowed too. Watching him now with his arm around his fiancée, no one would ever have believed that less than a month ago they had been on the point of splitting up completely. Had split up, in fact. Cassie had even ended up living with Ramón for a while.

But all that was behind them now. All they’d needed was to really talk to each other—and for Joaquin to forget his crazy idea that he wasn’t made for a lasting relationship.

A sudden memory of his own voice declaring, ‘I don’t
want marriage; I never have,’ made him restless, moving to refill his coffee-cup from a pot on the sideboard.

‘And you’re not much better,’ he told his older half-brother now. ‘When it comes to stubbornness and pride, it seems to me that the Alcolar men are just about equal.’

‘Pots and kettles,’ Cassie murmured laughingly, looking up from the list of wedding invitations she was compiling.

‘What?’

Ramón frowned his lack of comprehension.

‘In England we have a saying about the pot calling the kettle black—which means they’re both equally guilty. I think that applies to you as well as Joaquin.’

‘And you are every bit as much of an Alcolar as Joaquin,’ Mercedes put in. ‘When it comes to stubbornness and pride then you two are just as bad as each other.’

‘I—’ Ramón began protestingly, but then his voice failed him as he recalled the number of times that he had picked up a phone to call the Castillo Medrano and then put it down again.

He had even set out for Estrella’s home once, but had turned the car around after a couple of miles.

Deciding that discretion was the best policy here, he said nothing and drank his coffee instead.

‘Pots and kettles,’ Cassie murmured, her mouth quirking up at the corner.

The phrase stayed with him all the way home. It was in his head as he fell asleep. It was there when he woke up in the morning.

But it was the time in between that told him exactly why it was there.

His sleep, such as it was, had been filled with dreams. And the dreams had been filled with just one person.

Estrella Medrano.

The wild, heated, erotic images of her that had played
across his mind had plagued his night, making him toss and turn uneasily until he had finally woken, bathed in sweat and caught up in a strangling tangle of sheets. And even in the morning when he woke they were still there, tormenting him with memories, reproaching him for losing his temper so badly, making him restless and ill at ease so that he couldn’t concentrate on anything.

If he closed his eyes he saw her face. If he sat at his desk he was sure that he could scent her perfume on the air, feel the silken slide of her long black hair against his face. And once, when he answered the phone and heard a woman’s voice, he was sure that it was her on the other end of the line.

But it was only Mercedes, ringing up to tell him about a trip to England she was planning. For perhaps the first time ever he couldn’t bring himself to give his younger sister the indulgent attention he usually showed her and he could tell that she was annoyed and upset when she finally hung up the phone.

Just what the hell was wrong with him? Ramón asked himself, picking up a file and trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing with it.

Did he really have to ask that question? Didn’t he know already just what the answer would be? The two words that summed up everything that was preying on his mind, driving him to distraction.

Estrella Medrano.

The conversation they had had that night in his flat played over and over in his head until he felt that he was going insane.

‘You want me to marry you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you weren’t going to ask me when my father wanted you to. You walked out on the deal you wanted…’

‘And this…’

The memory of just what ‘this’ had meant made his body clench his blood heat, his pulse run wild.

He’d told himself to let her go. To forget her. Who was he trying to kid?

He couldn’t forget her. He wanted her.

He wanted her so badly that it hurt.

‘And is there nothing else that would give you the same satisfaction?’

‘Nothing else that matches it.’

Another snatch of conversation from the night he had spent with Estrella floated into his mind, making him shake his head in despair at himself. He had thought that the deal with her father was what mattered to him. He had wanted that deal, had planned, schemed, negotiated, worked his butt off to get that deal.

Only now did he see that it came in second place, if that. A long, long way second.

He’d wanted the deal. He’d wanted the television station—he still did. Wanted them so much.

But he wanted Estrella Medrano so much more.

‘Infierno!’

In a fury of restlessness he tossed down his pen and stood up, yanking his jacket from where it hung on the back of his chair. If he kept this up he would go completely insane!

He was just going to see her, he told himself. Just see her and talk to her and…

His mind wouldn’t go beyond that point.

He didn’t know what was beyond that point. The real question didn’t dawn on him until he was in his car, with the engine running.

He wasn’t really thinking of marrying Estrella Medrano after all—was he?

Estrella’s head was aching brutally. She had hardly slept all week, and tonight was positively the last straw. When her father had announced that they were expecting a guest for dinner, she had actually taken a few minutes to register quite what he meant.

But then she had seen the look in his eyes, the harsh set to his mouth, and she had known.

It was not just any casual visitor, not some friend of her father making a social call. He had found another possible suitor for her.

‘
Papá
—please don’t do this…’

It was some time since she had tried to fight. But after the humiliation and the embarrassment she had endured with Ramón Dario, she knew she had to try. She just couldn’t go through it all again.

Her arguments, her pleading fell on deaf ears. Alfredo was totally determined, and nothing she could do would sway or change his mind.

‘If you hadn’t dragged the Medrano name in the dust, playing around with a married man, ruining a fine woman’s life—not to mention those two poor children—then you wouldn’t be in this situation. But I warn you, my girl, I’m coming to the end of my patience.’

He came very close, glaring into her face, his hand coming up to emphasise the point so ferociously that Estrella shrank back fearfully.

‘You do something to sort your life out and fast or you’ll find yourself out on the streets where you belong.’

‘Papá…’

‘No. No arguments,’ Alfredo spat at her. ‘I’m telling you—either you make a decent marriage or you’re out of
here with just the clothes you have on your back. You’ll take nothing else with you—and you can sink or swim, it won’t matter to me.’

She could have no doubt at all that he meant it, Estrella reflected. For weeks now, Alfredo’s temper had been growing more and more uncertain, his moods darker and more dangerous. She’d been terribly afraid of what he might do next. Now she knew.

Suddenly Ramón’s offer of a job didn’t seem quite so unappealing. But if she took him up on that offer, she would have to crawl back to him, beg him to let her have the favour she had so foolishly tossed back in his face.

More than the offer, she told herself. Recalling the way she had slapped him, she knew that she’d killed her chances then and there, without a hope of rescue or reconciliation. The offer of a job wouldn’t be available any more. Ramón was far more likely to join with her father in slamming the door shut in her face and not caring a damn about what happened to her after that.

Deciding that for now discretion was the better part of valour, she went along with her father’s orders, on the surface at least. She prepared for the dinner ahead of her, dressing in the rich blue silk dress as he had instructed, fixing her make-up, even piling her hair up high on the top of her head with a couple of ornate combs. All the time her stomach was heaving nauseously, fear twisting in every nerve as she faced the prospect, not of the proposal her father thought he had bought and paid for, but of the inevitable confrontation with Alfredo afterwards.

The mood he was in, it was going to be appalling.

It was worse than she had anticipated. Esteban Ramirez, the suitor who had been selected for her this time, was a man who was old enough to be her father. He was also heavily overweight, with lank, greasy hair and an unpleasant
body odour problem. But that didn’t stop him from eyeing her up and down like a prize beast at an auction. He also took every opportunity to brush up close to her or to touch her, patting or pawing her with his hot, moist hands every time she was near to him.

‘You are a lovely young thing,’ he said, practically drooling as he took her in to dinner. ‘Lovely. I’m sure we’re going to get on so well together.’

The meal was an ordeal by food. Estrella was incapable of eating anything, merely pushing things round on her plate, finally lifting something to her mouth, but knowing that, as just the smell of the chicken was enough to make her gag, she would never be able to swallow it. Hastily she lowered her fork again and reached for the glass of wine.

But even that conspired against her. By some malign coincidence, the drink that her father had selected was the same rich, ruby wine that Ramón had served her the week before in his apartment. Just one sip of it brought back such a rush of memories that her throat closed up instantly and she had to force herself to swallow in order not to choke painfully.

‘Is something the matter?’ her father demanded sharply, noting her uncomfortable expression.

‘No,’ Estrella managed to gasp. ‘Nothing—I—I’m fine!’

But fine was the exact opposite of the way she was feeling. The taste of the wine had revived all the burning, erotic dreams that had haunted the little sleep she had had over the past week, throwing up images of Ramón’s long, lean body, the dark silk of his hair. She could feel again his touch, his kisses, taste his mouth on hers as she tried to moisten her parched lips.

She could hear his deep, husky voice in her thoughts.

‘You want me to marry you?’

‘Why me?’

And there too were her own foolish, unthinking words.

‘And this… And this… And this…’

‘What—who did you say?’

Her father’s voice. She had been so adrift on her memories that she hadn’t been aware of one of the servants coming to Alfredo and whispering in his ear.

‘Who?’

Alfredo shot her a coldly assessing glance, one that tugged every already taut muscle even tighter, twisted the nerves in her stomach until she gasped in pain.

‘Dario?’

For a second she thought that she had heard wrong. She had to have heard wrong. But then her father turned to her.

‘It seems that Ramón Dario has come to see you. Do you know why?’

Estrella opened her mouth but nothing would come out. Nothing but a weak, unintelligible croak that meant nothing at all.

It wasn’t possible. Ramón couldn’t be here. He just couldn’t. To her whirling mind it felt almost as if she had conjured him up in her thoughts, making him appear because of the power of her memories. She could only shake her head as Alfredo glared at her.

‘Well, I suppose we’d better see what he wants. Tell Señor Dario to come in.’

Even then, Estrella wasn’t convinced that it was true. Any moment now, she told herself, Rafael would come back and say it had all been a mistake. Or she would have heard the name completely wrong and he would bring in someone else entirely…