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‘You doubt it?’ She barely hid an edge of bitterness in her voice. ‘I specifically requested our own accommodation.’
‘Yet I have provided accommodation, have I not?’ he offered reasonably.
Far more luxurious than the most expensive hotel. ‘That isn’t the point.’
‘What is the point?’
‘You could have asked for my approval.’
One eyebrow lifted in silent mockery. ‘And your answer would have been?’
‘Not in this lifetime!’
He spread his hands wide. ‘Precisely.’
She wanted to throw something at him. Anything to disrupt his chilling air of calm. ‘Doesn’t it matter that I don’t want to be here?’
‘In Madrid? This house? Or with me?’
‘All of that … and more!’ The words tumbled out with vehement ire.
‘Querida.’ His faintly accented drawl curled round her heart and tugged a little. ‘Perhaps you should have given thought to informing me of Nicki’s existence from the beginning, instead of hoping fate and distance would continue to keep me in ignorance.’
‘Don’t … call me that.’
‘Darling? Lover?’ He offered a faint smile. ‘But you are both, yes?’
‘Not any more. And never again,’ Shannay added with angry intent, and attempted to tamp down the vivid images that immediately flooded her mind.
In his bed, theirs, she corrected. Naked, beneath him, her thighs wrapped around his waist, urging him on, pleading, begging for the release only he could give … the heat and the passion. Loving him with her heart and her soul. His … only his.
‘Careful, amada. I could view that as a challenge.’
‘In a pig’s eye,’ she managed fiercely, hating his silky indolence. Not to mention the instinctive feeling he was deliberately toying with her.
He regarded her carefully. ‘Had I known you were pregnant, I’d have taken the next flight to Perth and dragged you back here.’
As he had done now, she perceived. ‘It wouldn’t have changed my decision to file for divorce.’
His pause was deliberately significant. ‘Yet you failed to do so until very recently.’
‘It was my choice to avoid all contact with you,’ Shannay offered coolly. ‘Even via legal channels.’ She waited a beat, and aimed the figurative dart. ‘Reciprocal, obviously.’
‘Yet circumstances have changed.’
Suspicion clouded her eyes. ‘What are you implying?’
‘There will be no divorce.’
‘The hell there won’t!’
He shrugged in an expressive negligent gesture. ‘Why bother with legalities?’
‘It might suit you to conveniently have a wife in another country, but I don’t want a husband!’
‘Not even the faithful John waiting patiently in the background?’
‘He’s my boss and a friend. Nothing more.’
‘No?’ Marcello arched silkily, and watched her temper flare into vibrant life.
‘Damn you, no.’
His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Almost four years, Shannay, and you haven’t welcomed another man into your bed?’
She wanted to pick something up and throw it at him.
‘Don’t,’ Marcello warned softly. ‘I might seek retribution.’
‘Bite me.’
‘What an interesting concept.’ His lazy drawl held amusement … and something else.
‘Go to hell.’ She hated the faint shakiness in her voice.
She wanted to leave … the room, this house, him.
Yet leaving would amount to an admission of sorts, and she refused to give Marcello the satisfaction.
Besides, there was Nicki. And for her daughter, she’d lay down her life. Without askance, or question.
‘Not a very comfortable place to be, wouldn’t you agree?’
Shannay closed her eyes, then opened them again as she flashed him a look of gold-flecked enmity. ‘Let’s balance the scales, shall we?’ Her voice held a darkness she didn’t know she possessed. ‘Or is the list of willing women anxious to share your bed too extensive to recall?’
‘You have a vivid imagination, mi mujer.’
My wife. She didn’t need or want the reminder. ‘With just cause.’
‘Something, if you remember,’ he drawled, ‘I refuted at the time.’
Her gaze remained steady. ‘You were very credible, Marcello, in light of the facts.’
One eyebrow rose in a gesture of distaste. ‘The fabrication of a disturbed woman?’
‘We’ve been there, done that,’ Shannay said in a dismissive tone. ‘It’s old ground.’
‘Consign it to the too hard basket, and not seek a resolution?’
‘There’s nothing to resolve.’
‘Yet it had a drastic effect on our lives and eroded what we once shared.’
Destroyed it, she wanted to fling at him … and knew she lied. The sensual pull was as strong now as it had ever been. Almost as if her soul reached out to his in a pagan call as old as time.
She could feel it, sense it deep inside, stirring to life in damning recognition.
Why? she demanded silently. And why now?
Tension. Stress. Jet lag.
A lethal combination which attacked her vulnerability, she justified without conviction.
‘I’m over it.’ It took tremendous effort to say the words, but she achieved them … barely.
She’d had enough, and her nerves were stretched to breaking point. With a careful movement she rose to her feet and held the dark, gleaming gaze of the inimical man seated opposite.
‘I’m going to bed.’
She turned, and had taken only a few steps when she heard the quiet silky timbre of his voice.
‘For the record … we’re not done.’
Her stomach jolted at the thinly veiled threat, and it was only through sheer strength of will she didn’t falter.
Seconds later she reached the wide arched doorway, and she sensed the faint mockery as he bade,
‘Sleep well.’
CHAPTER SIX
SHANNAY CAME AWAKE slowly, stretched a little, reached for her watch to check the time and gave a gasp of dismay.
Nicki.
She flung back the covers, caught up her robe and hurried through the en suite to the adjoining bedroom, felt her heart leap to her throat at the sight of Nicki’s bed neatly made and no sign of her daughter.
Where …?
It was then she caught sight of the note propped against the pillow, and she hurriedly snatched it up, read the brief script in bold black ink, “Nicki downstairs in Maria’s care,” and felt the panic begin to subside.
All it took was ten minutes to shower, pull on dress jeans and a casual top over bra and briefs, slide her feet into heeled sandals, then she made her way down to the informal dining room to greet a glowing Nicki being fussed over by the benevolent Maria.
‘Marcello said not to wake you,’ the housekeeper relayed as she poured steaming aromatic coffee into a cup, offered a wide choice of food for breakfast and shook her head slightly when Shannay chose fresh fruit and yoghurt.
‘It’s mid-morning,’ Shannay reminded with a wry smile. ‘My body clock needs time to adjust.’
‘Marcello said we can go to a park after lunch,’ Nicki informed as Shannay took a seat at the table.
‘That’s nice.’ What else could she say? Any hope Marcello might absent himself in his city office each day seemed doomed. Which meant any form of freedom wasn’t going to happen.
Goodbye to checking out theme parks as carefree tourists. No spur-of-the-moment shopping excursions.
This was Madrid. Here she was affiliated to the Martinez family, where extreme wealth necessitated due care with a bodyguard in attendance beyond the safety of home.
She hadn’t liked it then. Any more than she did now. Except there was Nicki, with little or no conception of her true identity … yet. A vulnerable child who hadn’t been groomed almost from birth to always be aware of possible danger, to unquestionably obey the people in charge of her welfare, or having been taught simple but vital diversionary survival tactics.
It was a heavy load for such a young child, and not something instantly learned.
Although she was loath to admit Marcello had been right in bringing them into his home, it made perfect sense to utilise their three-week sojourn as a learning curve.
It was no use wishing fate hadn’t had a hand in bringing Nicki’s existence to Sandro and Luisa’s attention.
Life was filled with coincidence, occasionally against all the odds … and she had to deal with it.
Shannay finished her breakfast, drained the rest of her coffee and extended a hand towards her daughter.
‘Shall we go explore?’
The house first, then the grounds … with Carlo in attendance at a reasonable distance when they ventured outdoors.
High walls, electronic gates, sophisticated security monitoring the grounds.
Together she and Nicki trod the neat paths as they viewed the immaculate lawns, the gardens with their beautiful flowerbeds providing brilliant colour, carefully tended shrubbery precision-clipped to landscaped perfection.
‘It’s pretty,’ Nicki announced, then pointed in excitement. ‘There’s a swimming pool. Are we allowed to swim in it?’
‘Only when I’m with you,’ she cautioned firmly.
‘Or Marcello?’
Shannay inclined an agreement, and felt a degree of maternal alarm at the thought of Nicki being left unsupervised when she wasn’t around. Then she calmed down a little. For the next two years, Nicki’s sojourns here would be restricted to a few … except how could she ever learn to let go?
She’d be a nervous wreck from the time her daughter boarded the jet until she returned to Australian soil.
‘It’s a very big house,’ Nicki declared, visibly awed by the luxurious interior as they moved through the various rooms.
Shannay provided a running explanation as they completed the first level and trod the stairs to the upper level.
‘I like our wing best,’ Nicki clutched a tighter hold of Shannay’s hand, ‘‘specially my room.’
Who wouldn’t?
Marcello joined them for lunch, and from his casual attire he’d obviously conducted the morning’s work in his home office.
Black jeans, a white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and the long sleeves rolled back at the cuffs, he resembled a dark angel, rugged with his hair less smoothly groomed than usual … almost as if he’d thrust fingers through its thickness in exasperation. And if so, why?
In the early days of their marriage she would have walked up to him, cupped his broad facial features between both hands and leaned in to savour the touch of his mouth. Feel his arms close round her slim body as he deepened the kiss, and exult in his arousal.
