Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Passionate Bargains: The Perfect Cazorla Wife / The Russian's Ultimatum / Once a Moretti Wife

‘Kind of. I decided to do some voluntary work to pass the time while deciding what to do with my life. I’ve always liked children and keeping them entertained is about the only thing I’ve ever been good at.’

All those teenage years sitting alone in the flat in the hope her dad would eventually turn up instead of knuckling down at school had left her with nothing to show for over a decade of education. It was only after she’d left school and seen how severely limited her options were that she’d understood what she’d thrown away: her future. She’d never given the future any real thought; the present had been enough to cope with. Her mum had been so disappointed too, although she’d tried to cover it up with an understanding hug. That one hug had spurred Charley on more than any career advice she could have been given.

She might have no qualifications but she would make something of herself. She’d always loved kids, had danced along to enough music videos to have gained some decent rhythm, so being an entertainer at family resorts had seemed the logical thing to do.

But meeting Raul and his brilliant mind had only served to magnify her past mistakes and she’d been determined to rectify them, to make her mum’s sacrifices worthwhile, to make Raul proud and to make their future children proud. She’d clutched at business ideas that had looked good on paper but held no emotional appeal. She hadn’t thought it mattered. All that had mattered was proving herself a success.

All she’d proved was that she was a failure.

How could anyone respect her, let alone her husband and future children?

‘I went to the children’s hospital first to see if they needed or wanted any volunteers and through them I met one of the kids who went to the centre,’ she continued, forcing brightness into her voice. ‘I went along once to see if they had any need for me, fell in love with the place and ended up volunteering on a permanent basis.’

‘Could they not pay you?’

‘They could barely afford the staff they did have.’ A whimsical smile crossed her face. ‘Besides, I had the money to support myself.’

While he tried to digest all this and process the shifting sands of his opinion towards her, their pizzas were brought to their table.

‘Where does the centre get its money from?’

‘Are you telling me you bought the new building for us without looking through any of the financial reports I’d made?’

‘There hasn’t been the time.’ It didn’t strike him as the right time to confess he’d assumed her financial reports would be worth less than the paper they were written on. He’d fished them out of the shredding pile but was still to sit down and read them.

He had misjudged her terribly.

From the knowing look in her eyes, she knew it too.

‘The parents who can afford it pay a day rate,’ she said. ‘But most of the funds come from donations and grants. It’s enough to keep the place ticking over but not enough to build a healthy reserve.’

‘Do you do much in the way of fundraising?’

‘As much as we can. We’d hoped to devote more time to fundraising and awareness this year but obviously recent events put the brakes on that.’

Raul chewed in silence, thinking.

He’d spent less than five hours in the centre but that had been long enough for him to know he wanted to help.

‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

‘I did.’

‘I mean before, when you first learned the building was being sold out from under your feet.’

She dropped her gaze from his and picked up a slice of spicy pizza. ‘I thought I could do it myself.’

The same way she’d always thought she could run her businesses on her own even though she didn’t have the tools. In the end it had become a battle of wills between them. The more he’d tried to help, the more she’d pushed him away.

‘Is that why you wanted to do it in your own name? For the glory?’

He knew the answer even as her eyes shot back up to him and her cheeks tightened in on themselves. ‘No! I wanted to help. Poco Rio has no assets, no back-up capital. I thought I had enough money left to pay for it all. All I could think was let’s get this done, but I had it in my head that once it was complete I would get some kind of charity established and hand it all over so Poco Rio would always be guaranteed a home.’

She put her pizza down without taking a bite and took a large sip of her lager.

She’d drunk lager on their first date. It was only after he’d brought her to Barcelona that her palate had taken an immediate preference to fine wine.

All along he’d made assumptions but if his assumption that Charley was a gold-digger had been wrong—and today had only confirmed what his senses had been trying to tell him for weeks—what else was he wrong about?

He thought of all the lengths he’d gone to throughout his childhood and adolescence in his increasingly desperate bids to impress his father, working so hard on his studies, often studying until the early hours, regularly turning down invitations that took him away from his books, determined to be the top-ranked student in his private school. He’d succeeded in that aim, leaving school with the highest grades possible and a personal recommendation from the headmaster. His father’s response had been an uninterested grunt and the words, ‘Let’s see how you get on at MIT when you’re competing against the best brains in the world.’

Had he somehow caused Charley to feel the same inadequacies his father had caused him?

Dios. No. He had loved her. He hadn’t wanted to change her, just make her adapt to his life with ease so she didn’t feel those inadequacies.

But that strange feeling of witnessing the Ghost of Wife Past whispered through him again, a hollow ache expanding through his chest.

‘With my contacts and media presence, we can raise awareness and funds,’ he said, before draining his own lager.

‘That would be amazing.’ The emotion in her eyes sparkled into joy, her cheeks widening into a smile. ‘The more funds we raise, the more staff we can employ and the more kids we can take in.’

As he peppered her with more questions about the project, her animation grew.

It was an animation he’d never seen when she’d been planning her own businesses.

She looked magnificent, her green eyes swirling, her hands gesticulating.

When he suggested doing a fundraising cruise on his brand-new liner, her pizza almost flew out of her hand in her excitement.

Eventually their plates were empty, desserts consumed along with coffee to finish.

Raul checked his watch and was surprised to find they’d been sitting there for three hours. If not for the sun having set, he would have said no longer than an hour. He called for the bill then threw Charley a lazy smile before covering her hand. ‘Let’s go home.’

Her eyes brightened before cooling. ‘Am I still expected to stick to our pact?’

‘Of course. We have an agreement, cariño.’ He leaned forward to place his cheek against hers, inhaling the scent of faded vanilla. ‘Nothing has changed.’