Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride Read online

  His fingers circled her navel, making the taut skin of her midriff quiver as shock waves of screaming anticipation zigzagged downwards, and then in a gesture that was more intimate than anything that had happened before he gently laid his flattened hand against her stomach.

  For a few heartbeats they were both very still. Lily wondered distantly if he could feel her stomach contract and tighten with clenching desire beneath his palm. Warmth radiated into her from his touch, and she was aware that beneath the storm of need and arousal she also felt strangely still, as if the clamour that had raged inside her for so long was finally hushed.

  She felt cherished.

  And then the moment was gone, and another crashing wave of need hit her as he slid one finger beneath the silken top of her pants, slipping them down over her hips. She could feel her pelvis tilting upwards in brazen invitation, her head tipping backwards so that he was supporting it in his cupped hand, as the fingers of his other hand splayed downwards, towards the swollen heart of her desire. She felt herself opening for him as his clever, unhurried fingers stroked and caressed, moving inexorably closer, until she could bear the waiting no longer, twisting and writhing her hips in a wordless plea for release.

  With a whisper-light touch of a fingertip he brushed the tight bud of her longing, holding her tightly as a shuddering gasp tore through her in response.

  ‘Please, Tristan…’ she begged. ‘I can’t wait any more…’

  Her hands were on his shoulders, gripping him tightly as if to anchor herself. She felt as if she were breaking up, slipping away, as if she needed him to hold her and keep her together. Almost imperceptibly he shook his head.

  ‘We can’t.’

  His voice was hard, jagged, and as he spoke his grip on her tightened as if he had anticipated the rip tide of shock and disappointment that tore through her at his words.

  Her head whipped up and she gave a sharp, indrawn hiss. ‘Why? Why not?’

  ‘Contraception. I have nothing.’

  The tension left her in a rush. ‘But th-that’s OK, it’s fine,’ she stammered, inarticulate with relief, leaning in towards him again and murmuring into his neck as she trailed a line of kisses along the line of his jaw. ‘I’m on the pill…and I’m clean…It’s quite safe.’

  He gave a harsh laugh. ‘But you don’t know about me.’

  His words stopped her in her tracks and she pulled away to look into his face. In the half-light his deep-set eyes were shadowed, making it impossible to read the expression in them. Her gaze travelled slowly over his face. The moonlight turned his skin to marble, and accentuated the sculpted perfection of his cheekbones, the deep cleft in his chin.

  She shook her head, momentarily struck dumb by his beauty, trying to find the words.

  ‘No,’ she said eventually, reaching out and stroking her hand down his face in a mixture of tenderness and reverence. ‘But I trust you. I’ll do what you say. If we have to stop this here…’

  Her hand was on his chest now. Lily was aware of the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath her palm.

  ‘No.’ He barely moved his lips as he said the word. ‘There’s no need to stop. It’s safe.’

  Exhilaration leapt inside her, instantly detonating tiny explosions of desire along the winding pathways of her central nervous system. A low gasp of relief and longing was torn from her lips in the moment before Tristan took possession of them, and then her head was filled with nothing but the musky scent of his skin, the champagne taste of his mouth. His hands gripped her pelvis, pulling her onto him, while her fingers tore at his muscular shoulders.

  He entered her with a powerful thrust that made her want to scream out with joy. She was taut and trembling with ecstasy, so stupefied with desire that she was unable to think, only to feel. Bliss flooded every cell of her body, making her pliant and helpless, but Tristan’s arms were tight around her. Gently he laid her down in the cool sheets, kissing her breast, her throat, finally coming back to her parted, panting lips as the rhythm of their bodies gathered pace and her legs twined helplessly around his hips.

  Lily’s final, triumphant cry of release shattered the still blue evening at exactly the same time as the finale of fireworks exploded beyond the lake. They lay together, their breathing fast and laboured as the sweat dried on their bodies and pink and gold stars cartwheeled through the blue infinity above.

  It had rained in the night.

  Getting up from the crumpled bed Lily had gone to the window and looked out onto a cool world of silver and green. The rain had fallen in sheets, turning the glassy surface of the lake misty.

  As she looked out of the window of the Jeep as it rattled over the arid African plane just a little over twenty-four hours later it was almost impossible to believe that she hadn’t dreamed it. Hadn’t dreamed that cool lushness; hadn’t dreamed turning away, crossing the floor back to the bed where Tristan lay, his arm thrown across the place where she’d been lying.

  Hadn’t dreamt the expression of torment on his face.

  And as she’d watched him he’d cried out, a harsh, bitter shout of anger, or of pain, and without thinking Lily had slipped back beneath the sheets beside him, cradling his beautiful head against her, stroking him, murmuring soothing, meaningless, instinctive sounds into his hair until the room had reassembled itself in the grey light of dawn and she had felt the tension leave his body.

  Then she had got quietly out of bed and put on her silk dress and slipped silently out the door and down the stairs. He hadn’t reminded her about the Heathrow terminal, as he’d so jokingly promised. He hadn’t woken up to say goodbye.

  The Jeep stopped at the camp. The heat was already almost beyond endurance, the air thick with the dust thrown up by their convoy of vehicles. Getting stiffly out, Lily wondered whether she was strong enough to face what lay ahead.

  She bent her head, closing her eyes for a second and running her tongue over dry lips.

  But she had found the strength to walk away from the tower yesterday morning.

  If she could do that, she could do anything.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  London, six weeks later.

  ‘CONGRATULATIONS, Miss Alexander.’

  Lily looked uncomprehendingly into the smiling face of the doctor. She had come here expecting an explanation for why she had felt so awful since picking up a stomach bug on her trip to Africa just over a month ago, but Dr Lee looked as if he was about to tell her she’d won the lottery, not contracted some nasty tropical disease.

  She frowned. ‘You have the test results back?’

  ‘I have indeed. I can now confirm that you don’t have malaria, yellow fever, hepatitis…’ he let each sheet of flimsy yellow lab paper drift down onto the desk between them as he went through the sheaf of test results ‘…typhoid, rabies or diptheria.’

  Lily’s heart sank.

  It wasn’t that she wanted a nasty tropical disease, but at least if she knew what was causing the constant, bone-deep fatigue, the metallic tang in her mouth that made everything taste like iron filings, then maybe she could do something about it. Take something to make it go away, so she could start sleeping at night instead of lying awake, hot and breathless, fighting the drag of nausea in the back of her throat and trying not to think of that other night. Of Tristan Romero.

  She shook her head, trying to concentrate. That was another thing that was almost impossible these days, but with huge effort she dragged her mind back from its now-familiar refuge in a twilit tower, a moon-bleached bed…

  She had to put that behind her. Forget.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. If all the tests have come back negative, then what—?’

  ‘Ah, not quite all the tests show a negative result. There was one that has come back with a resounding positive.’ Dr Lee folded his hands together on the desk and beamed at her. ‘You’re pregnant, Miss Alexander. Congratulations.’

  The walls seemed to rush towards her, blocking out the bright September sunshine out
side, compacting the air in Dr Lee’s very elegant consulting room so that it was too thick to breathe. Lily felt the blood fall away from her head, leaving a roaring, echoing emptiness, which was filled a few seconds later by the distant sound of Dr Lee’s voice. She was aware of his hand on the back of her head.

  ‘That’s it…just keep your head down like that, there’s a good girl. This sort of reaction isn’t uncommon…Your hormones…Nothing to worry about. Just give it a moment and you’ll soon feel right as rain…’

  Rain.

  The memory of the lake at Stowell in the misty pre-dawn light rose up from the darkness inside her head; the rain falling in shining, silvery sheets on a landscape of pearly greyness. She remembered the musical sound of it, a timeless, soothing lullaby as she had held Tristan, stroking the tension from his sleeping body, while all the time, unknown, unseen, this…secret miracle had been unfurling within her own flesh.

  ‘There. Better now?’

  She sat up, inhaling deeply, and nodded. ‘Yes. Sorry. The shock…’

  Dr Lee’s face was compassionate, concerned. ‘It wasn’t planned?’

  ‘N-no,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t understand. I’m on the pill.’

  ‘Ah. Well, the contraceptive pill is pretty good, but nothing gives a one-hundred-per-cent guarantee, I’m afraid. The sickness bug you picked up in Africa could have impaired the pill’s effectiveness, if that was quite soon after…’ He cleared his throat and left the sentence tactfully unfinished.

  Mutely Lily nodded.

  ‘In that case it would tell me that it’s still very early days,’ he said gently. ‘There are many options open to you, you know.’

  Lily got clumsily to her feet and held onto the back of the chair for support as the meaning of his words penetrated her numb brain.

  Options.

  ‘Think about it,’ Dr Lee said with professional neutrality. ‘Talk it over with your partner, and let me know what you decide.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t have a partner. He’s not…He wouldn’t…’ She stopped, her mouth open as she tried to articulate the degree of Tristan Romero’s absence from her life without making herself sound like a cheap tart. I barely know him…I don’t have his number and he made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t want to hear from me again…It was meant to be sex without strings. A one-night stand.

  Oh, God, maybe she was a cheap tart. She remembered the hunger with which she’d pushed him back on the moonlit bed and taken him in her mouth; remembered the despair that had sliced through her like forked lightning when he’d said they shouldn’t go any further, that he had no contraception, and the desperation with which she had assured him it was safe.

  ‘This is nothing to do with him.’ Her knuckles were white as she gripped the back of the chair. ‘It’s not his fault, or his responsibility.’

  Dr Lee’s eyebrows rose. ‘Miss Alexander—’

  ‘It’s mine. My fault, my responsibility. My baby.’ The words sounded strange and unfamiliar, but as she spoke them the same peculiar, illogical sense of peace that she had felt that night in the tower, in Tristan’s arms, came back to her, shivering through her whole body like a delicate meteor shower. She lifted her chin, meeting the concerned gaze of the doctor with a determined smile. ‘It’s my baby. And I’m keeping it.’

  ‘A call for you, Señor Romero.’

  Tristan looked up irritably from the computer screen. ‘Bianca, I told you I did not wish to be disturbed.’

  ‘Lo siento, señor, but it is Señor Montague. I thought you would wish to speak to him.’

  Tristan gave an abrupt nod as he reached for the phone. ‘Sí. Gracias.’ He swung his chair round so that he was looking out over the Placa St Jaume and the sunlit grand façade of the City Hall opposite. The Banco Romero de Castelan was one of the oldest and most well established in Spain, and its main offices were in a grand and prestigious building in the heart of Barcelona. It was beautiful, but oppressive. The sun had moved across the square, so that the high-ceilinged rooms with their echoing marble floors were in deep shadow from lunchtime onwards, although that wasn’t the only reason Tristan felt permanently chilled when he was here.

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘At last. You’re impossible to get hold of,’ Tom grumbled good-naturedly. ‘Were you in the middle of ravishing some innocent from the accounts department or something? Your secretary seemed remarkably reluctant to let me speak to you.’

  ‘You pay too much attention to the gossip columns,’ said Tristan acidly. ‘I’m working. Believe it or not, banks don’t run themselves. Bianca was under strictest instructions not to let any calls or any visitors through, so I don’t know how you persuaded her.’

  ‘It’s called charm, old chap. It’s what those of us who can’t get women into bed merely by glancing at them have to rely on. Which one is Bianca? The dark haired one with the cleavage you could get lost in?’

  Tristan grinned reluctantly. ‘No. Redhead, looks like Sophia Loren, although since you’re soon to be a married man I hardly think it’s relevant.’ His smile became a little stiffer as he said, ‘How is your lovely bride-to-be?’

  ‘Oh, you know; beautiful, sexy…and suddenly totally preoccupied with flower arrangements and bridesmaid dresses. I tell you, it’s a whole new world. In my darker moments I have actually found myself thinking that your commitment to anonymous, emotionless one night stands might not be so insane after all.’

  ‘At last you’ve seen the light,’ Tristan said dryly. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Oh, it is. Far too late. I’m at the mercy of forces way beyond my control—namely Scarlet and my mother. My mother’s decided that we have to have an engagement party and as best man I’m afraid you have to be there. That’s why I was phoning—can you manage the last Saturday in September? Scarlet thinks that a small dinner at Stowell will be the least alarming way for her family to meet mine.’

  Tristan glanced at his BlackBerry. Parties in Madrid and Lisbon, a business dinner in Milan and an invitation to spend the weekend at the island retreat of some friends were already filled in.

  ‘What if I said no?’

  ‘Then we’ll make it October.’ Tom sounded completely unconcerned. Leaning back in his chair, pushing a hand through his hair, Tristan stifled a sigh, recognising that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one easily, but not willing to examine the reason why he wanted to.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said curtly. ‘But one of the projects is at a difficult stage at the moment. You know what it’s like. I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘No. Of course not. You never can.’ Across the miles Tristan heard the quiet resignation in Tom’s voice. ‘You are the undisputed world champion of not promising anything and not committing yourself. But pencil it in and try to be there if nothing more important comes up.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you,’ Tristan said coldly. Cutting the call, he stood up, staring for a moment at the phone in his hand as Tom’s words echoed reproachfully through his head.

  Every one of them was true, of course.

  He swore, slamming his fist down on the polished wood of the desk from which generations of Romeros had run their banking empire, exploiting their name, consolidating their power and their fortune, regardless of who they destroyed in the process. And he was as cold and ruthless as the rest of them. He never allowed himself to forget that or to believe any different, whatever he did by way of atonement. His blue-tinged blood ran thick with the sin and corruption of his fore-fathers. Of his father. The only way in which he differed from them was that he was honest about it.

  Honest.

  Honest enough to admit that he was beyond redemption. Honest enough to know that he was best alone.

  He gave a short, harsh exhalation of laughter. OK, so while he was being so unswervingly truthful he might as well admit to himself the real reason that he was so reluctant to go to Tom’s party. Back to Stowell. Because, he thought in se
lf-disgust, she would be there.

  Lily Alexander.

  The girl with the skin that smelled like almonds, and felt like velvet.

  The girl who had caught him at a low ebb, and got past his defences in a way that had never happened before.

  And wouldn’t happen again, he thought, steeling himself. What did it matter if she was there or not? He would treat her in exactly the same way he treated every other woman he had slept with and discarded. With distant courtesy. And then he would walk away.

  Lily’s throat was tight and her fingers nervously pleated the rose-coloured silk of her dress. ‘A small dinner party to celebrate your engagement,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what you said on the phone. Scarlet, just look at all this…’

  She looked anxiously around Stowell’s grand hall, where a steady stream of people in evening dress were drifting in through the vast doorway and indulging in an orgy of air-kissing. ‘It’s like a scene from Georgette Heyer.’

  Scarlet laughed and tucked her arm through Lily’s, drawing her close. ‘I know, I know. Ridiculous, isn’t it? We were supposed to be keeping it really small, but in the end I just couldn’t bear to leave anyone out, so we’ve ended up inviting virtually everyone we know.’

  Lily felt her heart perform an agonising twist-and-plummet motion inside her chest.

  ‘Everyone?’ She slicked her tongue over lips that were suddenly dry and stinging. ‘Tom’s friends too?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s worse than me. He’s invited just about everyone he ever went to school with, and his entire family.’ Scarlet dropped her voice. ‘My poor parents are completely out of their depth. You will look after them, won’t you, Lily?’

  Lily nodded, for a moment unable to speak due to the huge lump of cement that seemed to have lodged in her chest. ‘Of course,’ she managed at last. ‘It’ll be lovely to see them.’

  That much was true. When Lily was growing up Scarlet’s parents had provided her with everything from home-cooked meals to help with schoolwork and advice about boyfriends, and numerous other things that her own mother had been utterly ill equipped to give her. As Scarlet gave her arm a squeeze Lily found herself wondering what Mr and Mrs Thomas would make of her current predicament.