Claiming His Wife. Diana Hamilton

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      MILLS & BOON

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS warm and airless in the room, but not unbearably so. Outside on the bleached rolling miles of the campos, the heat of this July afternoon would be almost intolerable.

      Cassie waited. Her body felt damp with perspiration beneath the grey and cream linen suit she had worn for the journey from London to the vast Las Colinas Verdes estates in Andalusia.

      The suit, understatedly elegant and deliberately so, had survived the flight and the taxi-ride out here well, she thought thankfully. No way had she wanted to present herself looking less than businesslike and in control.

      She lifted a hand to check that her rich chestnut hair was tamed, severely anchored into the nape of her neck. And her heartbeats were steady—that was another consolation. There was no reason for them to be otherwise, of course; she was no longer a nervous, besotted bride of just twenty-one. She was three years older and a whole lot wiser.

      Satisfied that her appearance was as good as it could get—given her average kind of looks—she glanced at her watch and wondered how much longer she would have to wait. The taxi that had brought her from Jerez airport had deposited her here at the farmhouse over half an hour ago. The atmosphere in the heavily furnished, sombre room was beginning to stifle her, the louvres closed to keep out the merciless white heat of the sun.

      ‘I will send someone to tell your husband that you are here,’ her mother-in-law had stated. Doña Elvira had spoken politely; she always had, Cassie remembered, even when offering up her barbed insults, insults unfailingly echoed by her two older sisters, Roman’s aunts—Tía Agueda and Tía Carmela.

      ‘Is my son expecting you?’ A faint pinching of patrician nostrils had denoted that that lady had known Roman was not, that he had long since lost whatever interest he might once have had in his unsuitable, estranged wife.

      No longer as frighteningly squashable as she once had been, Cassie had ignored the question and coolly stated, ‘I’ll wait. In the meantime, I’d like to see Roy. Perhaps you could send him to me.’

      And so she waited. Her disgraced twin brother, Roy, it transpired, was not available. He had been put to work erecting fences out on the estate, under the blistering sun, a part of the punishment that was only just beginning.

      ‘I’m under house arrest at Las Colinas Verdes, while Roman decides what to do with me,’ he’d complained during his distraught phone call of a couple of days ago. ‘I can’t face ten years in a Spanish jail, sis—I’d rather top myself!’ he’d added, his voice beginning to rise with panic. ‘You could persuade Roman not to bring charges. He won’t listen to me. You know what he’s like—he’s got a tongue like a whip and a mind like a maze; you never know what he’s thinking! It makes it impossible to get through to him!’

      ‘I’ll phone him this evening,’ Cassie had reluctantly promised. She’d felt sick with disappointment over what her brother had done, the way he was dragging her into the mess he had made. ‘I’ll call him from the flat; the boutique’s busy right now.’ In fact, it was buzzing with bargain-hunters on the first day of their summer sale. Her boss and best friend, Cindy Corfield, had already gestured frantically to her to end this call and come up front to help out. ‘Though Roman isn’t likely to listen to me, either,’ she’d warned Roy, her voice tight. ‘If I ask him not to bring charges against you, he’ll probably do just the opposite to spite me. You shouldn’t have been such a damn fool in the first place!’

      ‘I know, and I’m sorry—but for pity’s sake, sis, phoning him won’t help me! He’d just hang up on you—he’s rigid with pride, you know that! Come out here. He won’t be able to blank you then. He’ll listen to you—well, he’ll have to, won’t he? Damn it all, Cass, the guy’s still in love with you, even if you did walk out on him!’