The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain

A faint sound from the bed made him tense, and slowly he turned around.

Rowan waited a moment before opening her eyes. It was something she’d got used to in the past couple of years. A moment before reality rushed in, a moment to take stock, do a body-check, feel the sensations, feel if there was pain present…feel if she was well. But this time, as the muted sounds of car horns and traffic came from just outside, albeit a long way down, she tensed. The previous moments rushed back. The last thing she cared about right now was physical pain or if she felt well.

Her eyes flew open and there he was. It hadn’t been a mirage. Her husband stood with his back to the window, hands deep in pockets of what she knew would be superbly crafted bespoke Italian cloth. Like his shirt and his jacket. The clothes moulded to his form, hugging every hard contour, emphasising every part of his tall, broad-shouldered and powerful body. Exactly how she remembered…but even more devastating in the flesh.

She knew on some level that it was the cushion of shock that allowed her to be so coolly objective. He was, if anything, even more handsome. Although in fairness handsome was too trite a word, too pretty. He was altogether too male for a word like handsome. And he was right here in front of her, living, breathing…not a figment of her imagination. The exquisite pain of seeing him again when she knew well what he must think of her was mercifully not allowed to penetrate too deeply.

‘So…’ he drawled with a sardonic edge, ‘you were obviously shocked to run into me. Surprising, really, considering this is my hotel.’

Rowan felt the numbness fade, the protective shock starting to shatter. His hotel? Since when had he owned a hotel in London? Even though he’d had to do a lot of business here, he’d never hidden his antipathy for the place. And how had she unwittingly chosen this hotel…out of a million others?

She’d quite literally come back and walked directly into the lion’s den—like an industrious ant following the scent of a familiar pheromone.

How had she got up here to this room?

And then she remembered. It was too joyful and painful to bear, slicing through the shock and opening a raw wound. Her baby, her son…she’d seen him, held him. It had been him. She hadn’t conjured him up. That knowledge was still too much for her to cope with fully; she knew that. Her brain would be close to going into meltdown if she focused on what had just happened too intensely.

‘Did I…did I frighten him?’ Her voice felt scratchy.

The cold flash of sheer disgust that crossed her husband’s face was like a slap. If she’d had any doubts about his reaction they were laughably quashed now.

‘No. If you had I wouldn’t be here right now.’

The protective tone in his voice was unmistakable. Rowan pushed herself up to sit on the side of the bed. Her head still felt light, as if stuffed with cotton wool. Warily she looked up at Isandro. It almost physically hurt to see him like this after all this time. She’d dreamed of this moment for so long…but of course she had to concede that never in her imaginings had she fooled herself into believing that Isandro would be pleased to see her. That had been confined to her fantasies.

‘Did you call him Zacarías?’ she asked with a husky catch. Her eye was drawn to a muscle clenching in his jaw. But his curt, tight voice brought her eyes back to his.

‘Zac. Yes.’

‘After your grandfather…’

A look of disdain flashed across his face. ‘Please let’s not pretend that you actually care.’

Rowan winced, her face paling. She’d known exactly what she might expect when she confronted Isandro, but she just hadn’t expected it so soon. She’d wanted to be in control, to have the chance to explain, be ready… Who was she kidding? In that moment she felt like she’d never be ready to explain.

‘Your lover was sent on his way.’

Rowan had been in the act of standing, and promptly sat back down again. Isandro watched her coolly, but he felt anything but cool inside. It was taking all his self-control not to walk over, haul her up and demand…what? He shook inwardly with the force of the emotions running through him. The strongest of which felt suspiciously and awfully like jealousy. But he told himself it was only his pride that he cared about, that this vortex threatening to consume him couldn’t possibly be linked into feelings. He’d learnt that lesson two years ago.

‘My what?’ She looked at Isandro incredulously. Now she really felt removed from reality.

‘Your lover,’ he spat out. ‘The man you had come to meet. No doubt you have a room booked here somewhere? Is this how you’ve spent the last couple of years? In a debauched world tour of hotel rooms with insignificant men? Is this what you meant when you said you weren’t ready to deal with marriage and motherhood?’

Insignificant men?

Rowan’s head throbbed, and she put a hand to her temple, struggling to make sense of what he said. And then it hit her as a benign, friendly face swam into her mind’s eye. She looked up at him again, her eyes wide. ‘You must be talking about David Fairclough. He’s my solicitor. I was due to meet him downstairs, just when…just when…’

Isandro snorted contemptuously. ‘A likely story. You really wanted to rub my nose in it, didn’t you?’

Rowan barely heard what he was saying. She finally found the strength to stand, her hands balled into fists at her sides. ‘It is true. I was meeting him…’ She faltered. She really hadn’t planned on it happening this way, but there was nothing she could do now. She hitched up her chin. ‘I was meeting him to discuss how best to contact you and talk about seeing my son.’

Isandro crossed his arms across his chest, making him look even more powerful, formidable. He blocked the light coming in from the window behind him and it made a shiver run down Rowan’s spine.

‘I can tell you right now that that is not going to happen.’ His whole stance screamed rejection of her claim.

Panic coursed through Rowan. She stepped forward jerkily. ‘But I have a right to see my child, no matter what’s happened. You can’t stop me.’ To her utter chagrin her throat tightened with tears. She fought to control herself. She couldn’t fall apart—not here, like this. She needed to be strong.

‘I can and I will.’ Isandro was icy and controlled. She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut in ruthlessly. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d forgotten till today that it was a boy you had, you left so fast.’

Rowan’s mouth closed, and the pain that lanced through her was raw and overwhelming. Her voice sounded thready to her ears. ‘I… Of course I knew he was a boy. I’ve thought of nothing else but him every day since—’

Isandro took two quick strides and gripped Rowan’s arm painfully. ‘Enough!’

She took a sharp breath to disguise the pain. This was far worse than she had anticipated. She couldn’t afford to forget that this man wielded a power that was on a par with the world’s most prominent politicians. Would telling him what had really happened make him see…make him understand? She’d hoped it would, with the cushion of distance between them. The lingering rawness made her feel as though a layer of skin had been stripped from her body. The truth would lay her bare completely, but right now, having met her son when she’d truly believed she’d never see him again, shock was making her reckless.

‘Isandro. Please, I can tell you what happened. Maybe then you’ll understand—’

He cut her off harshly. ‘Understand? Understand?’

His face was so close that she could see the fine lines spreading from the corners of his eyes, could see his skin, golden and taut over those high cheekbones. She held herself rigid, would not give in to her body’s demand to allow herself to really acknowledge what his proximity was doing to her. How could she when he was looking at her with such unbridled hatred, making her feel confused and inarticulate?

Scorn dripped from every syllable of his every word. ‘I know what happened. You left a note…remember? There is not one thing, not one word, not one lame story you could dream up to excuse what you did that day. You took away an innocent baby’s most important source of nourishment and love. Security. There is no one and nothing on the planet that could absolve you of that crime. You gave up your right to be a mother to him when you walked away, just hours after he was born.’

And you gave up the right to be my wife…

The words, unspoken, hung heavy in the air.

Rowan’s inarticulate explanation died on her lips. His stark, cruel words resounded in her head. For a short, blissfully deceptive moment she felt no reaction to them, was numbed, and then like poison-tipped arrows they joined with the ever-present debilitating guilt and sank deep, deep into her heart, robbing her of words, of any explanation she might give.

He was right. She couldn’t say a word. Not right now anyway. How could she expect him to understand that which she had barely come to terms with herself? That which she’d only just very painfully started to forgive herself for? She had walked away from her own newborn baby. Had she really thought that telling him her reasons might absolve her? She didn’t deserve that.

Her control was close to breaking, but she knew she couldn’t afford to crumble now. She had to face the consequences of her actions, not seek absolution. She dredged up some much needed strength and pulled away from his iron grip jerkily.

Isandro watched her dispassionately. She backed away farther, her hand going to rub her arm where he had gripped it. His anger was cooling to a contained icy rage. She turned away for a moment, offering him her back, and his eyes flicked down. In her smart suit and high-necked blouse he could see for the first time that she was slimmer than she had been. The short jacket and straight skirt didn’t hide much. Desire burned low and insistent in his belly, even though everything in him rebelled at his unwanted response. She’d always been slim, but there was an unmistakable fragility to the lines of her body now that hadn’t been there before.

He hated to think it, and quashed it almost immediately, but was there also a vulnerability? Her Titian hair had been long before, down her back, but now it was much shorter, exposing the line of her elegant neck. She still had that quintessential upper class deportment that couldn’t be faked. She’d been his access into a world notoriously hard to break into for outsiders: the upper echelons of the English banking system, an ancient and tightly guarded group of the super-wealthy elite.

With what had been an extremely uncharacteristic failing to read another person, she had been the first person ever he’d so badly misjudged. Monumentally. Catastrophically.

She turned around to face him again and her eyes were flashing, taking him by surprise. But then his resolve hardened. This was the real woman he had married. But unaccountably, even as he thought that, his eye was involuntarily drawn to the crest of her breasts, pushing against the fine silk of the blouse. He felt his body tighten even more in response to their fullness, felt sensual tension flooding his veins. His reaction was so unwarranted that it momentarily stunned him. And then she spoke, cutting through the haze in his brain. He told himself it had to be shock.

‘Whether you like it or not, I have rights. Any court in the world will recognise that. Whatever I did, I will be allowed to see my son. Eventually.’ Her voice was clipped, her breeding coming through with every well-enunciated syllable, taking Isandro’s mind off the unpalatable reactions in his body.

Rowan watched his reaction warily. He mustn’t know what it was costing her to stand here and speak to him like this. She felt as if she was back in elocution class. But it was the only way she was clinging onto that flimsy control.

Isandro’s face was a stony mask of non-reaction as he took her by surprise, starting to walk away. ‘You will remain in this room for now. If you attempt to leave there is a bodyguard outside this door who will bring you back inside.’ All he knew was that he had to put some distance between them, take stock of what had just happened.

Rowan watched incredulously as his long powerful strides took him towards the door. Belatedly she went after him, stumbling a little. ‘Wait—where are you going? We haven’t finished discussing this.’