Modern Romance April 2019 Books 5-8. Chantelle Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ family would have questions, and she’d feel better answering them when she knew exactly what those answers were! To have to defend her marriage, to explain her reasoning, to permit intrusions into what was a private matter—she didn’t want that. She wasn’t ready for it.

      ‘Then you will not wish them to join us.’

      ‘Join us?’ She stared at him with alarm. ‘What for?’

      He dropped his hand away from her face. ‘I’ve arranged a small wedding reception to take place next week. My friends and business associates, nothing big, but I thought you should meet them, and that they should meet you. I had wondered if you’d like your family to be there too. I must say, I’m relieved this is not the case.’

      Amelia’s heart began to race in her chest. Ignoring any suggestion of her father and brother coming face to face with the father of her child, a man they already hated, she focused on the rest of his statement. ‘A party?’

      ‘A cocktail party,’ he agreed, making it sound civilised when she knew what these things were like. God, she’d been to more than her fair share, first with her mother and then courtesy of her second life as a diSalvo. ‘Some music, food, champagne, fifty or so people. It will be over within a few hours but, vitally, it will cement our marriage.’

      ‘Cement our marriage?’ She scraped her chair back, standing with a sense of panic. ‘I thought the document we signed did that. You know, the ceremony in front of a judge, the fact our marriage has been registered with the Spanish court?’

      ‘I mean socially.’

      ‘Socially? You actually care about that?’

      He reached for the plates, carrying them through to the kitchen. She followed out of curiosity.

      ‘I care about your life here in Madrid,’ he surprised her by saying, stacking the dishwasher then turning to face her. ‘I don’t want you to be lonely and, the truth is, I work long hours. I thought you’d like to make some friends—there’ll be women at the party, friends of mine. You’ll like them.’

      She gasped in a hot, angry breath and pushed away any thought that his gesture was one of kindness. ‘You’re actually trying to make my friendships for me? You really do have the most insufferable God complex.’

      ‘And you have the ability to twist any gesture into some kind of insult,’ he volleyed back, crossing his arms over his chest. She refused to analyse his words, nor to see truth in them. ‘What did you think marriage to me would entail? Did you presume we would have no social life whatsoever?’

      ‘I...presumed you’d go about your business as always and I’d be free to do my own thing.’

      His eyes sparked with dark emotions. ‘You believed wrong. You are my wife. You could do me the courtesy of at least trying to act like it, so far as the world is concerned.’

      Her jaw dropped at this demand, so too did her heart speed up at his blatant claim of possession. You are my wife. How those words trickled down her spine like warmed honey, filling her with pleasure and pain all at once.

      ‘But this isn’t a real marriage,’ she said weakly, when other words and pleas were swarming through her mind.

      ‘You want to bet?’ he volleyed back, and now his hands were braced on either side of her body, his palms pressed into the bench, his frame a perfect jail for her. She stared up at him, helpless and lost, and there was a threat in his eyes that filled her with desire.

      ‘I...’

      ‘You what?’ he asked, dropping his head so his face hovered only an inch above hers.

      ‘I...’

      ‘Yes, querida?’ he demanded, lowering his face still, so his lips brushed hers and a jolt of electricity fired up her spine. ‘Tell me again how this marriage of ours is not a real one.’ And his lips did more than buzz against hers then, they pressed to her mouth and she whimpered, low in her throat. Her fingers, of their own volition, grasped the sides of his shirt and he deepened the kiss when her lips parted on another moan. His tongue slid into her mouth and then he lifted her as though she weighed nothing, sitting her on the benchtop so he could stand between her legs and plunder her mouth as if he was the only man on earth.

      And, God, wasn’t he? For her at least?

      But she’d fallen prey to this desire once before. It had flashed into her life and she’d been weak—too weak to realise that he could use this sensuality like a drug. She couldn’t submit to it again—it would be foolish.

      His fingers found the bottom of her shirt and he lifted it just enough for his fingertips to graze her bare flesh and every cell in her body cried out in relief and delight, and hope. Hope that he would strip her naked and make love to her once more.

      With a guttural, desperate cry, she pulled away from him, moving back on the bench and lifting her fingers to her lips, lips that were bruised and throbbing with desire.

      ‘How dare you?’ The words were strangled from deep within her, and they were saturated with self-recrimination because she had wanted him to kiss her. She hadn’t wanted him to stop kissing her!

      He narrowed his eyes, and they were as clouded by desire as her own. ‘How dare I what? Kiss you as you have been wanting me to all night? Kiss you as though you are my wife?’

      ‘I haven’t,’ she denied hotly, but it was a lie and they both knew that.

      He spoke without responding to her denial, but his voice was husky, filled with the passion that had flamed between them just now. ‘How dare I want you to have friends? To have a social life here in Madrid? People to catch up with when I am travelling for work? Other mothers to talk to about babies and nappies and bottles and I don’t know what else?’

      She was glad to return to their argument, rather than have to defend the way she’d melted in his arms. ‘That’s up to me!’ she snapped from teeth that were clamped together. ‘I’m perfectly capable of making my own friends.’

      ‘But you don’t want them to be my friends,’ he surmised, his expression shifting.

      ‘I didn’t say that.’ She bit down on her lip, trying to find words that would defuse this, that would explain her hesitation. ‘This has all happened so fast. I just need a moment to catch my breath before I start thinking about everything else.’

      ‘It is a party. My friends, some food, music, dancing. You will enjoy yourself.’

      It was the wrong thing to say. Panic filled her mouth with a taste of adrenalin. Everything was happening too fast. ‘I can’t do that.’ She thought of all the parties she’d been to—first with her mother, then as a diSalvo heiress, and a shiver scratched over her spine.

      ‘I’m sure it seems inconsequential to you, but it’s not to me. It’s too much, too fast.’ She shook her head. ‘No party. Please.’

      His eyes narrowed and she was reminded that one of the many facets of this man was the ruthless, hard-nosed tycoon. That he conquered whatever he turned his hand to in the corporate world. That he was determined and he was fierce and that he was used to getting his own way.

      ‘When СКАЧАТЬ