Shock Marriage For The Powerful Spaniard / The Greek's Virgin Temptation. Cathy Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ thanks to all the travelling she’d done with her mother over the years. She’d lost touch with school friends. She only had her aunt and her cousin. Her heart constricted when she thought about them because she would miss them but, as she’d told Misa, it wasn’t going to be for ever and she would be able to do so much for Miguel.

      ‘Love isn’t the be all and end all,’ she had said with genuine honesty. ‘Mum had her heart broken because of love and then spent the rest of her life trying to relocate it and failing. Life would have been a lot easier if she’d just focused on…other things. Financial security. A steady job.’

      She had already set up a standing order and had told her aunt to start looking around for a better property, suitably adapted for Miguel. She’d explained the situation, the practicalities of it. She had fought down the lump in her throat that somehow her aunt would be disappointed she had told herself that this was what mattered. Not big dreams of fairy-tale romances but the solid advantages of financial security.

      She still believed all of that and it was frustrating to find herself doubting those long-held convictions.

      On the spur of the moment, she dialled her aunt’s number, gently pushing the door to the upstairs bedroom behind her.

      The minute Rafael had come clean about his intentions, she had slammed down the shutters and any temptation to confide further details of her private life had screeched to a halt.

      She’d always been so protective of her privacy and she had been appalled that she’d begun opening up to a complete stranger who had turned out to be a fraud.

      Her aunt answered on the first ring and, just like that, Sofia was transported back to Buenos Aires and the gruelling, repetitive life Misa led, doing her utmost to make everything more comfortable for Miguel.

      It was a life that was so different from the one she now found herself transported to that it was scarcely believable.

      In a low voice, smiling when she thought of all the possibilities that would open up to the only relative she knew and someone she loved, Sofia described the very house in which she was standing, describing the trip over and the car that had collected her. She peered through the window, down to a rambling garden that matched the house.

      Trees fringed the back and beyond those trees were rolling fields. Borders of flowers and shrubs were artfully entwined and under a drooping willow was a wooden bench, perfect for reading.

      Still smiling, she turned to find Rafael standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable, his dark eyes cool and speculative.

      She ended the call, flushing and annoyed with herself, because she had nothing to feel guilty about and yet she did.

      ‘Personal call?’ he asked, strolling into the room and joining her by the window through which he peered absently before turning around to look at her. ‘Call you felt you had to make with the door shut?’

      Sofia opened her mouth to tell him that she had been touching base with her aunt but stopped herself.

      She’d decided to share as little as possible, hadn’t she? She had no intention of telling him how she planned to use some of the money that had landed into her account. He had made it clear that this was purely a business transaction, that he would lead his life as he saw fit just so long as he kept the details of what he was up to to himself.

      Confidences were the business of friends. He wasn’t her friend, despite what she might originally have thought.

      Besides, what if he decided to have a say in where her money went? Could he do that? Did he care one way or the other? It was best not to risk anything.

      She couldn’t trust him and it was just as well to remember that.

      She shrugged, slipping the mobile phone into her over the shoulder bag.

      ‘If you have any ties you think I should know about,’ Rafael drawled, with just the tiniest edge in his voice, ‘then you should think about telling me now.’

      ‘Ties?’

      ‘I asked you once whether you were involved with anyone out there and you told me that you weren’t.’

      ‘Oh, I see what you mean, Rafael. Men.’ She lowered her eyes, torn between telling him the truth and protecting a life she felt he had no right to know about, just as there would be huge tracts of his life he felt she had no right to know about, whatever their marital status.

      ‘No men. At least…’ She thought of Miguel and hardened her jaw. ‘You don’t have to worry on that front, although if I recall you did say that we could lead separate lives…err…when it came to that kind of thing.’

      She began moving away and he caught her by her arm, halting her.

      ‘That’s what you intend on doing?’ he asked softly, stepping fractionally closer to her.

      Her heart was beating fast. Her pulses were racing and her whole nervous system was in free fall.

      A passing touch and she was going to pieces! She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his mouth and the feel of his hand on her arm was electric.

      ‘I… I don’t know what I intend on doing,’ Sofia said breathlessly, inching away as much as she could.

      ‘I won’t tolerate any affair being flaunted in my face,’ he said flatly.

      ‘Nor will I!’ Her green eyes flashed and suddenly there was an outpouring of emotion only weakly held in check by the stern lectures she had given herself ever since she had embarked on this road. ‘Whatever you might think of me, this was never what I envisaged for myself when it came to marriage! Yes, I know all about those million and one reasons for going through with it, and yes, I know it’s not going to last for ever and I’ll walk away with lots of money in my bank account. But it still hurts to know that I’m going to tie the knot with some guy who will play around with other women and do his own thing!’

      She looked at him fiercely. She felt herself gathering momentum. ‘Furthermore, this is your territory. You’re established here and you don’t care what the world thinks of you or the choices you make! But I… I don’t belong here, so just try and imagine what it’ll feel like if I ever walk into a room to be confronted by some woman you’re bedding behind my back!’

      ‘You have quite the imagination…’

      ‘Have I? You might not intend on flaunting anything but are you going to tell me that that world you occupy isn’t a really small one?’

      ‘It’s small,’ Rafael admitted in a roughened undertone. His grasp on her arm had slackened but he had also closed the tiny distance between them so that she could feel the heat radiating from his body.

      ‘Women can be vicious,’ Sofia muttered, looking down and thinking of the nasty digs that had plagued her teenage years and the bitchiness of jealous girls who had always guarded their stupid boyfriends against what they’d seen as a possible threat. As if she’d ever been interested in any of them. But still she knew what it felt like to be attacked through no fault of her own.

      She shuddered at the thought of having to deal with some woman Rafael might be seeing.

      ‘Are you speaking from experience?’ he murmured, dropping СКАЧАТЬ