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

Zoe’s heart was beating so rapidly she felt sick. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked the interminably slow waiting minutes. Javier was coming for her! Her head was spinning; her whole body felt out of control.

She shifted restlessly on the upright chair in the window enclosure, staring out over the dull November garden, over the top of the low neatly clipped privet hedge where she would see his car as it turned off the village main street and onto the driveway, her eyes stinging with the effort of not allowing herself the smallest blink in case she missed his arrival.

For the first time in her sixteen and a half years she actually believed in her own guardian angel, something or someone who did care about her, nudge her in the right direction. What else could explain her sudden decision to walk out of school, hitch a lift back here and state she was never going back?

She’d hated that school ever since she’d been sent there at the age of eleven. Surrounded by strangers who hadn’t known her from Adam and hadn’t wanted to—because by that time Zoe had learned that the only way to dull the pain of not being loved by a single living soul was to act as if she didn’t care.

The other sixty-odd pupils were meek little swots and Zoe soon discovered why. The guiding principle of The Blenchley Private Academy For Girls was strict discipline. Severe punishments were handed out for anyone who stepped out of line, no mitigating circumstances considered.

The threat of punishment meant nothing to Zoe. Whatever the grim-eyed tutors dealt out—for answering back, bad attitude, inattention, whatever—meant next to nothing because it was a pale shadow of the punishment she’d been dealt on the night she’d lost both her loving parents, her home, everything. The only survivor from her happy past had been Misty, her darling Shetland pony, safe in his stable. But Grandmother Alice had flatly refused to allow her to keep him. Misty had been sold.

So she’d loathed Grandmother Alice, too. Truth to tell, when the grandmother she’d seen only rarely had taken her in she’d been scared by the way the old lady had recoiled and pushed her away whenever she’d tried to climb on her knee for a cuddle. Zoe had never before encountered an emotional rebuff or been treated as if she were an inconsiderate nuisance. She hadn’t liked being scared so she’d turned that fear and bewilderment into anger, a stubborn refusal to do as she was told, ever.

When she’d woken that morning, just over a week ago, and decided she wouldn’t stay at school one moment longer, she’d had no idea how events would unfold. Twenty-four hours ago Grandmother Alice had announced, ‘Javier Masters has agreed to take you into his care for the remainder of your minority.’ Her thin mouth had pursed. ‘I have performed my duty thus far, but am unwilling to continue. My only hope is that Javier can instil some common sense into you and exact at least some good behaviour. He will collect you tomorrow afternoon. Make sure you are packed and ready.’

Since then she’d been in a state bordering on delirium. Her guardian angel had been working overtime! She’d always adored Javier.

In the beginning he had given her treats every time he’d visited. Trips to the zoo, ice creams and burgers, a day at the seaside where they’d built the biggest sandcastle known to mankind, a magical few hours watching a pantomime, lots of fun but, more importantly, his time and attention. All that had more or less stopped once she’d been packed away to boarding-school. He’d still visited a couple of times a year when she’d been back on holiday but Grandmother Alice had vetoed any outings, telling Javier that, because of consistently bad reports from school, treats of any kind were out of the question.

The visits she’d so much looked forward to had become torture. The three of them taking tea, served by the grumpy old housekeeper, Grandmother Alice’s strictures to ‘Sit up straight’, ‘Don’t fidget so’, ‘Answer the question.’

Javier’s gentle questions about school, the friends she’d made, nothing she’d wanted to answer because nobody must know how unhappy she was. It would have made her seem weak and she wasn’t, she was tough!

But his smile had always been kind even though she’d known she was behaving like a sulky brat. And when he’d left he’d always given her a big hug and that had always made her want to cry because he’d seemed the only person in the world able to like her, and she’d known it would be months before she would see him again.

Then, around a year ago, on his last visit, something amazing had happened. She’d fallen for him with a resounding crash. Not only because of his fantastic looks—that soft black hair, sexy, black-fringed smoky eyes, the hard slash of his high cheekbones, tough jawline and wide, beautiful male mouth—but because of that intrinsic kindness, coupled with the aura of supreme self-assurance that told her that he was a man who would fight to the death for anything or anyone he cared about.

Flooded with new and heady sensations, butterflies in her tummy, a melting, softening feeling that had sprung from her rapidly beating heart and flooded through every inch of her body, a strange, awe-struck breathlessness, she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, following every move he’d made, soaking in every word he’d said.

The wonder of falling in love had armoured her against Grandmother Alice’s coldness and her return to school at the start of the new year had been accepted blithely. She’d even got her head down and worked hard, toed the line. If she could go home with a good report then her grandmother would have no grounds to veto any outing he might suggest.

She’d felt as if she were floating on a rosy cloud, counting off the days until his next visit, hopefully during the Easter holidays, but if not then definitely some time during the summer. She’d known there wasn’t an earthly chance of him falling in love with her—the very idea was insane—but that hadn’t stopped her fantasising, or stopped her longing for his next visit.

But it hadn’t happened and she’d faced the fact that he had better things to do with his time than check up on her. Why should he? She was no longer a child whose welfare was of some concern to him; she was nearly adult and could look out for herself.

Guessing that she would probably never see him again, experience the luxury of feasting her eyes on him, see him smile for her, receive his goodbye hug had hurt so much she couldn’t bear it. So she’d smartly convinced herself that she didn’t care. And if she didn’t care and no one cared about her then she could go ahead and do her own thing, be whatever she wanted to be.

But Grandmother Alice’s news had changed all that, shattered the spiky carapace of indifference she’d built around her heart—a relatively easy exercise since she’d been forced to manage it somehow after the death of her parents.

How much longer would he be?

Restlessness drove her from her chair. From information tartly given she knew he’d flown in from Spain yesterday, had intended to spend the night at his London apartment, get through some business, then drive here to Berkshire. What was taking him so long? She couldn’t wait to see him again, be with him. The thought of being in his care for the next two years made her knees go weak.

She grabbed for the heavy velvet curtains to steady herself, her heart racing giddily just as her grandmother entered the room. A small bird-like figure, stiffly postured in her usual black, her face set in the customary lines of long-suffering displeasure, she said sharply, ‘If you won’t change out of those dreadful things you’ve taken to wearing then be good enough to cover yourself up with a decent coat. And put a scarf on your head. Javier Masters will take one look at you and wash his hands of you altogether.’

Bristling at the criticism, Zoe swept out of the room, across the black and white paved hall, banging the front door behind her.

When she’d walked out of school she’d vowed never to wear the despised uniform again, or the dreary skirts and cardigans Grandmother Alice ordered from a fuddy-duddy mail-order catalogue whose only customers, Zoe was sure, were housebound ninety-year-olds.

The monthly allowance paid by the trustees was fairly generous and she’d had little opportunity to spend it. It had mounted up. So, her defiance of stultifying authority had reached new heights one day last week when she’d taken the bus to town and spent the lot. Forbidden make-up, hair dye, lots and lots of cheap and cheerful clothes.

Trying on stuff in the communal changing room of the town’s trendiest store, she’d felt part of the young happy-go-lucky scene for the first time in her life. Really cool. It had been a great feeling.

Grandmother Alice belonged firmly in the Victorian era, she told herself as she settled herself on the front step to wait.

Javier was later than he’d expected. Apart from a couple of urgent business calls he’d found that making arrangements for the care of a teenage girl was more daunting than he’d expected it to be.

The picture-perfect Queen Anne house stood back from the village street. He indicated and turned the Jaguar into the drive and stamped on the brakes as a blur of violent colour exploded from the front step.

Zoe?

His startled gaze took in the wild transformation. Gone were the heavy grey tweed skirts and shapeless twinsets, replaced by black leather boots with six-inch heels, a frilled scarlet miniskirt with a weird asymmetric hem, a lacy gypsy top in vivid orange—and what in heaven’s name had she done to her hair?

It was bright red, looking as if it had been hacked off by a drunk wielding a pair of garden shears, gelled into tortuous spikes!

His movements slow, he unclasped his seat belt and turned off the ignition. Seeing the way she’d chosen to dress, Alice would have thrown a fit, and he didn’t blame her. Had this, coupled with her rebellious granddaughter walking out of school, been the straw that broke the unwilling camel’s back?

She was hopping from one booted foot to the other, her skinny arms clasped around her naked midriff. She had to be freezing. Venting a heavy sigh at what he appeared to be taking on, he swung out of the car and straightened his butter-soft charcoal leather jacket. He had accepted the responsibility of guiding Zoe Rothwell through the next two years and he never went back on his word.

As he approached over the immaculate length of the brick-paved drive a huge grin split Zoe’s inexpertly cosmetically enhanced features. She’s just a kid, a needy kid, he told himself, the warmth of his answering smile instinctive. All teenagers experimented, trying to find out who they were, and he had to be thankful she’d chosen wacky clothes and a violent hairstyle rather than drugs or alcohol! Knowing Alice, he guessed she would have subjected Zoe to tirades of horror and the sort of cold ridicule that would have shattered the girl’s confidence. Best keep his mouth shut right now and introduce the subject gently at a later date.

But his good intentions crumpled when he got close enough to see the butterfly tattoo on her left cheekbone. His black brows drawn into a frown, he touched the offending insect with the tip of a long finger.

‘Did you have to permanently disfigure yourself?’

She had, he noted abstractedly, an exquisitely pretty face beneath that heavy make-up, and her huge golden eyes danced with amusement. Suddenly, Javier’s lungs felt strangely constricted. He stepped back a pace.

‘It’s a transfer, silly! Don’t you know anything?’ she came back pertly as soon as she’d found her breath. Heat throbbed the spot he’d touched and spread through her entire body. Her skin might be covered with goose-bumps but she was glowing inside. Life with this gorgeous man was going to be just wonderful! He hadn’t made scathing comments about her cool new clothes or thrown a fit when her wild hairstyle had hit him in the eye. With him, away from the rigid discipline doled out by her grandmother and her teachers, she would be able to be herself and do exactly as she pleased for once. She’d always known Javier was the greatest, even when she was a small kid, he’d come through for her, and now he’d rescued her. She had never loved him more!

Half an hour into the journey to Gloucestershire Javier’s mouth was getting grimmer. Zoe’s parting from her grandmother had wrenched at his heart. The elderly lady couldn’t have made it plainer that she was glad to wash her hands of the poor kid. But the perfume she’d obviously drenched herself in was really getting to him. He’d open all the car windows to get rid of the overpowering smell but she’d freeze to death. She’d dropped the school gaberdine the ancient housekeeper had handed her and flounced out to the car, her silly skirt swinging, showing an inordinate amount of smooth thigh, tottering on those wicked spiky heels.

And he’d stopped listening to her prattles of gratitude. From what he could gather she believed she was in for the time of her life. And he’d stopped glancing at her. That lace top thing she was wearing ought to be X-rated. And she wasn’t wearing a damn thing underneath. A mixture of anger and concern impacted on his hard features. He could understand why Zoe had so wholeheartedly rebelled against the dreary school uniform and dowdy garments her grandmother had insisted she wear. But she’d gone too far the other way. She might think she looked cool and cutting edge, but in everyone else’s eyes she looked tarty.

Time to spell out a few ground rules, show her he had the upper hand and meant business.

‘There are a couple of things you ought to know before you get too hooked on the idea that your time with me is going to be a bed of roses. Firstly, I contacted your trustees to put them in the picture about the change of guardianship, only to hear that you’ve been pestering them to release large sums of money. It’s not going to happen, Zoe, so it has to stop. You need anything, you tell me, and if it’s reasonable I’ll approach the trustees. Understood?’

Reddening at the memory of the response to her request, Zoe shot Javier a fulminating sideways look. ‘I don’t want a single thing—that was the point. I made a sensible request and got treated like a silly child!’ she bristled.

Javier’s hands relaxed slightly on the steering wheel. She sounded about ten years old! ‘So run the sensible request by me,’ he invited lightly.

Zoe’s painted mouth twisted with suspicion. Was her darling Javier patronising her? Was she about to get more outright derisive rejection of her ideas? Probably. But knowing that Javier was the one person in the world who could criticise her without getting his head bitten off had her pronouncing with prickly defensiveness, ‘There’s a load of money in my name doing nothing. And there are loads of people sleeping in doorways or cardboard boxes, people with no one to care about them. The only difference between them and me is I’ve got a bed to sleep in and obscene amounts of money. I wanted to spread it around to do some good.’ She shot him a ‘so there!’ look and scrunched herself back against the leather seat, waiting for a lecture entitled Immature Profligacy.

‘There’s a third difference between you and the homeless, Zoe,’ Javier said, sympathy for the poor scrap softening his voice. ‘You do have people who care about you. Your grandmother for starters. She may not be much good at showing it, but if she didn’t care she wouldn’t have tried so hard to mould you to her idea of what a young lady should be. She’s simply a throwback to the beginning of the last century.’

Ignoring her snort of disbelief, he swung into the appropriate lane for the exit to Cirencester and said firmly, ‘And I care. If I didn’t I’d have told Alice to take a running jump when she suggested handing you over to me. And getting back to your commendable concern for the homeless, there are better ways of helping than throwing handfuls of cash at every street beggar. If you’re still of the same mind when you come into your inheritance we’ll discuss it further. Agreed?’

Zoe simply nodded. She couldn’t speak without giving herself away. Tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. Javier had said he cared about her. He was the only person in the world who could touch her so deeply she wanted to cry!