A Spanish Passion: A Spanish Marriage / A Spanish Engagement / Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse

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Snapping around, Javier hared back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Convinced he now knew what her un-Zoe-like behaviour signified, he had the solution. He had to reassure her, remove all her fears and worries at a single stroke.

No question of the divorce she’d said she wanted, of course, that went without saying, but she had to know that if she was carrying his child she would have nothing to worry about. She would get the very best ongoing gynaecological attention that money could buy, and he, personally, would wrap her in cotton wool, cherish her, and the baby when he or she arrived would never know a moment’s neglect if she wanted to pursue her voluntary charity work because top-notch professional nannies would be employed around the clock.

Besides, he thought with a rush of warmth to the region of his heart, he would enjoy the experience of parenting and would take to it like a duck to water.

But whatever his wishes on that subject, Zoe came first and always would and she had to know that. He could not, would not, stand by, say nothing, while he watched her worry herself half to death!

As Zoe climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her body she knew she had to tell Javier and put his mind at rest.

Today. She could delay it no longer. Keeping the news to herself for five whole days was desperately unfair; she knew that, and didn’t much like herself for such uncharacteristic sneakiness.

Catching sight of her miserably guilty face in the mirror, she looked away quickly. Black bags under her eyes and a complexion the shade of putty she did not want to have to see.

These last days had been torment. Javier had been at his kindest, astonishingly patient and gently affectionate, never seeming to mind when she turned down his invitations to go swimming, sailing, eating at a quayside restaurant where, he told her, the speciality lobster dish was out of this world.

And her eyes actually swam with tears when she recalled his gentleness when he’d asked her if anything was troubling her. The unhidden concern in those smoky eyes had made her heart ache.

She’d almost blurted the truth out then but the arrival of Teresa with the daily fresh provisions, the only few minutes of contact Javier allowed the housekeeper with the so-called honeymooning couple, had stopped her.

There wasn’t going to be a baby.

She’d known that since their first night here. And kept it to herself because her feelings were so horrendously mixed up she didn’t know what they actually were.

On the one hand she had secretly longed to have Javier’s baby and finding out that she wasn’t going to had been a source of really surprisingly deep regret. Yet if she had been pregnant she knew that he would have insisted that they stay married for the sake of their child, and not because he was madly in love with her and wanted her in his life for ever.

Heck no, she knew how his mind worked. He would grit his teeth and do his duty and she wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought that she was an unwelcome albatross around his neck.

And once she told him he could forget the pregnancy scare he would breathe one huge sigh of relief and the status quo would be firmly back in place. And in less than a year, just as soon as she reached her majority and he deemed her fit to handle her huge inheritance, he would consider his duty done and be off out of their marriage at the speed of light, gratefully embracing his new-found bachelor freedom.

Little wonder she was muddled, riven by mixed feelings and terminally depressed.

The moment she was dressed she would find him and confess her sins of omission and have to watch the grin of relief light up his lean and handsome features and know that her mission to get him to fall in love with her had been a complete failure, all her fond hopes vanishing without a trace.

Hopes that had taken a steep nosedive when his behaviour had turned so distant after the night of love-making he had to have considered to be a reprehensible mistake because he had shown absolutely no desire for a repeat performance; hopes that had wriggled their deceiving way into her muddled head during the past few days when he had been so kind.

But ‘kind’ she could do without. It harked right back to his treatment of her during her childhood. A full-grown woman now, she needed more. Much more. And he was patently unwilling to give it.

As she walked out of the bathroom, feeling as if she were about to face a firing squad, the main door to the suite opened with a decisive swing and the love of her life stood there, determination written all over his hard bone structure.

Panic brought her heart jumping up into her throat. As always his sensational looks made her mouth run dry. Clutching at the edges of the slipping bath towel and before her courage deserted her she pushed out a bald, ‘I’m not pregnant.’

For a moment Javier looked poleaxed, his eyes darkening, and it wasn’t a flicker of disappointment she saw there, of course it wasn’t because in the next split second a warm smile was irradiating his unforgettable features.

A smile of wholehearted relief, she decided sickly. He would not now be called upon to do his duty. In a little under a year’s time he would sling his hook, smugly congratulating himself that as far as her wellbeing was concerned he had done everything that could be expected of him.

The depth of his disappointment shocked Javier for the few moments it took to remind himself he was being utterly selfish. He might want to see her hold his child in her arms, but worrying about the possibility had been making her ill. He had to think of how relieved she must be feeling and not dwell on his own disappointment.

He made himself smile and advanced a step towards the tense little darling, all wrapped up in a towel like a parcel waiting to be opened, her silvery gold hair tumbling in enchanting disarray around her naked shoulders. His voice sounded strangely roughened as he told her warmly, ‘Then from now on you can stop worrying. I know you have been.’

He knew nothing! Patronising hog!

‘I’ve known for a good five days, so don’t pretend you can read my mind!’ she flung at him in temper, thoroughly hating him for that grin of utter relief at being let off the hook that his pride and his honour would have had him impaled on for the rest of his life.

And hating herself even more for immediately bursting into a torrent of tears and giving way to out-of-control sobs when his strong arms enfolded her, one gentle hand pressing her head against the accommodating wide span of his shoulder.

‘Hush, sweetheart. I can’t bear to see you cry! It really cuts me up,’ Javier uttered on a driven undertone and Zoe felt she had been somehow swept back over a decade in time. Wrenching her head away from what she didn’t want to admit to being the comfort of his solid shoulder, she flailed her small fists against the immovable barrier of his chest.

‘I’m not an eight-year-old kid any more!’ she bit out in raw-edged fury. ‘So don’t treat me like one! Next thing you’ll be saying, “There there” and promising to buy me an ice cream if I wipe my eyes and blow my nose!’ Breasts heaving with emotion, tear-drenched eyes flashing fire in his direction, Zoe ranted at him. She knew she was being unfair. Few men would enjoy the spectacle of a woman turning on the waterworks, and he’d only been trying to make her stop blubbering. But that knowledge didn’t prevent her from renewing her assault on that broad chest and doing her damnedest to put space between them.

But Javier simply hauled her closer to the lean, hard strength of his body, amusement curling that wide, sensual mouth, his voice dark and drawly. ‘Should I also go the whole hog and offer to kiss you better?’

Zoe’s heart gave a violent lurch. Her wide eyes met the suddenly smouldering intensity of his and her mouth ran dry. A tiny quiver assailed her as she felt her skin tighten. His mouth promised passion. Her own lips softened, parting on a slight tremor as the hands that had been holding her captive became instruments of exquisite torture as they slid up to splay against the naked skin of her shoulder blades. Her head began to spin and she thought she heard herself moan as the aggression melted out of her fisted hands and her palms flattened over the soft fabric of his T-shirt and registered the rapid beat of his heart.

And then that perfect, intoxicatingly sexy male mouth descended to take hers and fireworks exploded inside the entirety of Zoe’s being. Her slim arms lifted to twine around his neck and the towel slipped to the floor and this time the driven groan came from him as his hands travelled down the line of her spine, settled with male possessiveness on her hips and curved her against his hard body.

Zoe’s fingers tangled in the luxuriance of his thick black hair as the mastery of his mouth sent her spinning to heaven, too dizzy and disorientated to take in what he was saying when his mouth parted from hers and he asked on a thickened undertone, ‘Is this what you want? You have to be sure. Tell me now—I’m not made of stone.’

Gazing up into the breathtaking feverish glitter of his darkened eyes, Zoe missed his mouth like crazy. She wanted it back. Now. Pressing even closer, if that were possible, she claimed what she craved, drowning in euphoria as she felt the deep shudder rake its way through his honed, lean frame as his lips ravished hers with blistering passion.

He did want her, was the exultant thought that made its way through her fogged brain. His body betrayed how much. He wasn’t indifferent! With an instinct as old as Eve her hips rotated against his in out-of-control need.

‘Zoe—’ Sheer will-power brought his mouth from the honeyed nectar of hers, aware that his voice sounded like the rasp of an iron file. The beautiful little minx was driving him wild, everything getting way out of hand—

The hard tips of her breasts scorched through his T-shirt. His sanity was on the verge of leaving him. He brought his hands up to cup her face, his fingers sliding under the thick silver-gold hair that fell softly around her flushed face, a perfect frame for those liquid topaz eyes fringed with ridiculously long lashes, delicate cheekbones and lush, ripe lips.

He pushed her name out again, then dragged back some of his slipping sanity. ‘Wait—’

‘Can’t!’ She trembled with the tension he was racking up, turned her head to one side and kissed the palm of his hand. The need he had aroused in her when she’d thought that making love to her again was the last thing he wanted was unbearable.

But he dropped a light kiss on her parted lips, another on the point of her neat chin, then ran unsteady hands down over her almost painfully sensitised breasts, slickly over the slight curve of her tummy before coming to rest on the soft, silky curls between her thighs, making all the breath rush out of her lungs.

‘I’ll be two seconds,’ he promised on a raw intake of air. ‘I won’t put you through another pregnancy scare,’ he imparted. Javier took a step away, against every instinct. Had to move before he lost the ability to think straight. ‘Have to protect you this time,’ he told her gently as she reached out to slip her hands beneath the hem of his T-shirt, the words that were about to tumble from her tongue, telling him that she wanted his baby with all her heart and soul dying in her throat as a raised female voice cut through the heavily charged atmosphere.

Shocked into stillness, it was Javier who broke the sudden silence with a vehement oath in a language Zoe took to be Spanish, tacking on, ‘My mother!’

The tap of high heels on the polished hardwood floorboards, the, ‘Javier! Teresa! Is no one here?’ had Zoe realising she was naked and scrambling to cover herself with the bath towel, just as the door swung open to frame Isabella Maria wearing an aqua silk two-piece and a delighted grin.

‘So there you are! The place was like the MarieCeleste. We’ve come to surprise you!’

The hard flush that had stained Javier’s jutting cheekbones receding, he said drily, ‘Perfect timing, as usual, Mama.’ He draped an arm round Zoe’s shoulders and Isabella Maria, not recognising sarcasm when she heard it, broadened her smile.

‘Good! Your father said we wouldn’t be welcome. But I told him not to be so foolish. You’re well past the honeymoon stage and likely to shoot intruders on sight! You do realise, don’t you, that I haven’t seen either of you for a whole year?’

‘Is that so?’ Javier’s tone was dryer than the desert. ‘If you’ll excuse us, we were about to take a shower, weren’t we, darling?’

At the increased pressure on her shoulder, Zoe swallowed a giggle, managed a nod, and managed not to explode with manic laughter when Javier instructed his parent, ‘Make breakfast, Mama. Zoe and I enjoy fending for ourselves, but as you’re here you might as well do it.’

A series of decisive strides took him to Isabella Maria’s side. A hand clamped beneath her elbow, he escorted her back through the door, firmly closing it in her surprised wake.

His hands spread, he turned to Zoe, his mouth wry as he murmured drolly, ‘What can I say?’

‘That you ought to fix padlocks on the doors?’ Zoe’s smile was wobbly because rivers of frustration were rushing through her veins, making her bones ache.