Latin Lovers: Passionate Spaniards: The Spaniard's Marriage Demand / Kept by the Spanish Billionaire / The Spanish Doctor's Convenient Bride. Maggie Cox

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СКАЧАТЬ Northern Spain and experiencing the magic and allure of all that ancient land had to offer on the Santiago de Compostela trail had definitely helped. But, if she was entirely honest with herself, Isabella knew that Leandro Reyes would have been pretty much impossible to resist wherever she had met him. It was why she had fallen for him so hard and so fast …

      ‘Why don’t you sit and make yourself at home? What can I get you to drink?’ There was an element of disconcerting amusement in his steady, intense regard and Isabella felt her cheeks shade helplessly scarlet in embarrassment. With his hands on his hips, he drew her very interested attention to that enviably easy way he carried himself and in the next moment she bypassed her self-consciousness to just simply gaze back at all that reined-in muscle and honest-to-God masculine beauty, with unconstrained appreciation. Then, guiltily tearing her gaze away, she glanced quickly round at the high-backed armchair beside the fire with its matching footstool. Her brows knit slightly as Leandro reached ahead of her and swiftly retrieved the sheaf of paper that was lying on the seat so that she could sit down.

      ‘I have been working,’ he explained, his expression serious as he laid the papers down on a cherrywood sideboard instead.

      ‘I haven’t disturbed you?’ Isabella responded with concern.

      ‘Of course not.’ He shrugged those wide shoulders of his with dismissive ease. ‘I have been waiting impatiently for you to arrive.’

      ‘And you are in London because of your work?’

      ‘Not just because of my work,’ he replied, ‘although I have taken advantage of being here to meet with some people in my industry.’ There was another conversation going on besides the one that traded actual words back and forth, Leandro considered as heat tightened his groin. They could hardly take their eyes away from each other. His skin felt hot …as though it were burning, and all he could really think about, focus on, was the arrestingly beautiful body beneath that funereal black dress she wore and how soon he might divest her of it to make love to her.

      ‘But I do not want to discuss my work with you tonight, Isabella,’ he told her out loud, his tone almost grave. ‘As I already told you, that was not the main reason I came to the UK.’

      ‘It wasn’t?’ In the armchair, Isabella carefully folded her pale hands together in her lap, like a young girl about to solemnly take her first Holy Communion.

      ‘I wanted to see you again. I should have contacted you before but there has been so much going on in my life in the past few months …’ He shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture to denote both inevitability and futility. ‘I live a crazy life sometimes.’

      ‘I realise that you must be a very busy man. But if you want to know the truth, it’s a bit of a shock to have you make contact after this long.’ Why had he come to find her at the library? Isabella fretted not for the first time. Was he hoping for a repeat performance perhaps of what they had shared in Spain? Her heart sank. As much as she cared for Leandro, she did not want to be used like that.

      ‘But not an unpleasant shock, I hope?’

      Was that doubt she saw briefly reflected in his hypnotic grey eyes? How could seeing him again be remotely unpleasant when she had dreamed of such a wonderful occurrence too many times to recall? Especially when their night together had produced her son? Which brought Isabella quite terrifyingly to the thing she most needed to discuss …the thing that was making her feel as if she were about to face a firing squad.

      ‘No. Leandro …there’s something that I must—’

      ‘It was remiss of me not to give you my phone number,’ he asserted firmly, ‘but in my position it is not always easy to trust that people will have integrity and not abuse my trust. Do you understand?’

      Isabella did. One could say that they had very similar ‘issues’ regarding trust and protecting their own privacy. ‘Yes …’ her gaze locked with his for terrifyingly long seconds ‘ …I understand.’

      ‘Now …before we go any further, naturally I want to know if you have been seeing anybody else since we last met? If not, then you must also tell me how it is that a beautiful, desirable woman like you has managed to stay unattached for so long?’

      Her heart ached with gratitude that Leandro still thought her beautiful and desirable, but almost instantly Isabella returned to the most important part of his question, knowing she couldn’t put off the answer for ever and wondering if his complimentary opinion of her might change when he heard the truth.

      ‘No, I haven’t been seeing anybody else. And there is a very good reason.’

      Silence deepened the tension that was already holding Isabella’s heart in a vice.

      ‘And that reason is, Isabella?’ Leandro prompted when she seemed not to be going to answer him at all.

      ‘It’s …’ For goodness’ sake, Isabella, just say it! ‘It’s complicated.’

      ‘Then enlighten me, por favor?’

      ‘All right …it’s because I have a child to take care of.’

      There …she’d said it and everything in the room looked just the same—even though everything had changed. Undoubtedly shocked, Leandro swept her with a blunt accusatory stare.

      ‘You did not tell me when we met in Spain that you were a mother.’

      Withdrawing his hand from his jeans pocket, he reached out to lean it on the marble mantelpiece instead. He was more than a little stunned by Isabella’s admission. He had of course known that she had previously been engaged because she had told him that she had cancelled her wedding—but he had not suspected for one moment that she might have had a child from that union! He wondered who had taken care of her or him whilst she had gone to Spain to walk the Santiago de Compostela. Was it the child’s father? Five weeks was a long time for a child to be without its mother, in his considered opinion …

      Her dark eyes troubled, Isabella released a long slow breath before getting to her feet. ‘I wasn’t a mother then,’ she explained, folding her arms protectively across her chest. Absently she fingered the delicate gold crucifix that was attached to the slim chain she wore around her neck. She raised her chin a little at his frankly puzzled frown and pressed determinedly on. ‘I had my baby nine months ago, Leandro …a little boy. His name is Raphael.’

      ‘So you did meet someone else after we parted?’ Barely registering that she had given her son a Spanish name, Leandro could not quell the sudden disturbing rush of fury inside his chest. Since that night he had spent with Isabella in her hotel, he had not slept with another woman. For a man with such a passionate nature, abstinence had been pure torture at times, but when opportunities had come his way he had rejected them—pure and simple—still too aroused by the memory of Isabella to do anything else. And yet, she had returned home to not only be with another man, but to have his baby as well!

      ‘I …well, I—’

      ‘So you and the child’s father are no longer together?’ he demanded, his throat dry as dust as he saw to his disappointment that she was finding it almost impossible to meet his eyes, an action that suggested that she was not being entirely honest. ‘I distinctly recall you just telling me that you have not been seeing anybody else?’

      ‘Leandro …’ He saw her reach up and nervously smooth down her hair. He noticed her long ringless fingers СКАЧАТЬ