Surrender to Her Spanish Husband (15 page)

That particular stirring memory had disrupted many a good night’s sleep. And the next day Rodrigo was inevitably grouchy and ill-tempered due to lack of rest.

The Barcelona apartment was situated in an impressive eighteenth century building in an area that had formerly been the preserve of the traditional fishing industry. Now it was an ultra-modern destination, packed with boutiques, chic restaurants and bars. Rodrigo himself had had a large say in the innovative interiors that occupied the building, and a couple of prestigious awards had come his way because of it.
But right now all that seemed irrelevant somehow.
The only thing that really concerned him was Jenny.

She wasn’t out on the terrace where he’d left her. Cursing his inability to leave work when he’d said he would in order to be with her, he quickened his stride, thinking maybe she’d got fed up with waiting and phoned for a cab to go back to her hotel.

As he flung open all the doors in the apartment his anxiety grew. But when at last he peered into the stylish contemporary living room it was to discover Jenny, dozing lightly on one of the sumptuous white couches.

‘You’re back,’ she said huskily, opening her eyes.

The strangest sensation seized Rodrigo…It was a heartfelt impulse to know what it might be like to come home to Jenny
every
day when he finished work…to have her say ‘You’re back’ and not be able to hide her pleasure or joy. For a second his throat was too dry to speak.

‘Did you see the sunset?’ she added softly, when he remained mute. She briefly glanced out through the opened French windows that led onto another pretty balcony. ‘It’s so beautiful. I can even see the spires of Gaudi’s cathedral. I’d forgotten just how incredible it is.’

The dazzling amber and gold rays that flooded onto the room’s burnished wood floor were
nothing
compared to the incandescent loveliness of the girl in front of him, Rodrigo thought hungrily.

Before he could stop himself he promised to take her to see the work that had been done on the cathedral since she’d last been there, before adding, ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘A lot less painful since I took one of the painkillers your doctor left.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t take any more. You’re pregnant, remember?’

‘I did check with the doctor when you briefly left the room to answer the phone.’ Jenny frowned. ‘But of course I would be sensible about things like that.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. And it’s good to see that you have some colour back in your cheeks too,’ he observed, unbuttoning his jacket as he moved towards her.

‘Did you have another long meeting?’ Drawing her legs up to the side, Jenny curved her mouth into a sympathetic smile as he sat down beside her.

‘There are
always
long meetings and equally long unsocial hours when you run a business. I’m sure you remember that, since it was one of the reasons I knew it wasn’t fair to you to carry on with our marriage.’ He shrugged, impatiently tugging his royal blue silk tie free from his shirt collar. ‘But just the same I’m sorry I didn’t get back as early as I promised.’

‘There’s no need to apologise…I do understand.’

‘You do?’

Rodrigo couldn’t quite believe she meant that. He’d always been acutely aware of just how much time he spent away from home when he was working, and had been uneasy about it when he’d been married to Jenny.

‘Yes, I do. You must be hungry,’ she commented lightly, her summer-blue gaze dipping for a moment when he glanced steadily back at her.

‘I am, but I’ve got into the habit of eating out most evenings when I’m here. You must also be hungry,
querida.
Shall we go out to dinner? Are you up to it?’

‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got to start putting my weight on my ankle again if I want it to get better.’

‘I wasn’t particularly meaning your injured ankle. I was referring to the fact that you’re with child.’

Their eyes met and locked. Jenny gave Rodrigo a slow smile. ‘It’s not some illness, you know. I’m not going to suddenly retire from the world just because I’m pregnant!’

Chapter Eleven

‘I
CAN
still hardly believe it.’

In one fluid, easy motion, Rodrigo got to his feet. A little anxious, Jenny watched him move to the centre of the room and then turn to face her. The last spectacular amber gold rays of the sunset turned to fiery orange before dying away completely. In its wake the room became dim and silent. Uncurling her legs, she gingerly put both feet to the floor, trying not to wince as she experimentally put some of her weight onto her bandaged ankle.

But the pain of her injury was nothing compared to the sense of desolation that was rapidly growing inside her at the idea of Rodrigo rejecting her pregnancy or thinking she was trying to manipulate him back into marriage.

‘I want this baby,’ Jenny said dully, folding her arms protectively across her stomach. ‘I want to keep it and I will. No matter what you decide to do.’

Her throat was suddenly so tight and painful that tears were a scant breath away. But any weeping she did she resolved to do in private. It was already humiliating enough to have the father of her expected child look at her as though he’d just heard the worst news he’d ever received, without humiliating herself further by breaking her heart in front of him.

‘To raise a child…’ levelling his gaze, Rodrigo wiped his hand over his cheekbone ‘…it’s best that the parents are in a stable relationship…no?’

‘Ideally, I think, yes. But I know we don’t live in a perfect world. People make mistakes, and sometimes it’s just not possible to have a stable relationship. In that case one might decide to raise a child on one’s own. I’m willing to do that, Rodrigo. If you really can’t contemplate us being together any more, don’t worry that I’m going to demand you support me.’

‘Is this how you were with your feckless brother?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean he demands money to feed his addictions and you simply give it to him without a fight…without standing up for yourself?’

Jenny’s stomach plummeted to the ground, as though she were travelling in an out-of-control elevator. ‘I didn’t just
give
him the money! You have no idea how he could be. He was manipulative and cruel, and he had ways of getting what he wanted no matter how much I resisted his demands or said what I thought.’ Shuddering at the memories that mercilessly flooded back, Jenny felt her eyes burn as she stared at Rodrigo. ‘He used to taunt me that I wasn’t a “real woman” because my marriage had failed. The fault obviously must lie with me. When insults illustrating how useless I was both as your wife and a businesswoman didn’t work he used fits of pure rage to intimidate me. When that kind of thing happens more times than you care to remember your confidence in your ability to do anything can very quickly desert you, and for a while my business got into trouble because I felt so overwhelmed. I’m not proud of that. But I
am
proud of the fact that one day I woke up and took steps to end the misery—despite the horrible threats that came my way. I fought to keep the house in court, then gave Tim a more than generous price for his share of it when I won so that he could move on somewhere else. You may not know this about me, Rodrigo, but I
am
strong. Strong enough to face whatever challenges might lie ahead and not be defeated…even challenges like raising a child on my own.’

‘Your worthless brother shouted at you repeatedly?’

‘Yes.’

‘
Cabrón!
You are well rid of him. If I had known you were returning to such a situation I would have stepped in and dealt with it once and for all.’

‘I know,’ Jenny sighed. ‘That’s why I never told you the truth about how Tim could be.’

‘In any case…understand that you will
not
be raising our child on your own.’

Immediately Jenny sensed the steely resolve in his voice.

‘Do you really think I would stand aside and let you do that? I may not have planned on starting a family, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t face up to my responsibilities. I most definitely
will.
’

A single hard-to-contain tear slid down Jenny’s cheek. ‘Is that the only way you view this, Rodrigo? As a kind of duty you have to fulfil?’

‘My head is spinning at what you’ve just told me about the situation with your brother—the fact that I unknowingly let you return to such abuse. It makes me furious. But I’m sorry…I don’t mean to sound so cold.’ The tension in his shoulders visibly relaxing, he sat down beside her and cupped her chilled hands between his palms. ‘We will reach the best solution for both the child and us—of that I am certain. Will you just allow me a little time to think things through?’

‘Take as long as you want.’ Too distressed to want to notice how emphatically his touch warmed her, Jenny sniffed, tugging back her hands. ‘I’ll give you my home phone number in England before I leave. When you’ve had enough time to think things over you can ring me.’

It was almost
unbearable
to be so close to the man she loved and yet feel a distance wider than the most yawning chasm. Intent on escaping to deal with her tormenting emotions in private, Jenny surged to her feet. The pain that jackknifed through her ankle almost made her cry out, but she stoically ignored it.

Before she had the chance to move away, Rodrigo stood up beside her. Firmly turning her round to face him, he settled his hands either side of her waist. ‘You are not running back to England. We’ll work things out together, Jenny. Don’t turn away from me…please. I don’t think I could bear it.’

The desolation she saw etched in the sublime angles and planes of his beautiful face almost made Jenny catch her breath. Somewhere inside her hope leapt like a rekindled flame in a burned-low candle. ‘Oh, Rodrigo…’ Touching her hand to his hollowed cheek, she suddenly couldn’t prevent the steady flow of scalding tears that seeped from her eyes.

Murmuring something low, Rodrigo lifted her high in his arms against his chest and stalked with her into his bedroom. In the dim half-light of the balmy evening he urgently covered Jenny with his body on the king-sized bed as though the world might end if he didn’t. Then he claimed her lips again and again with hot, open-mouthed kisses as passion-driven hands tore at her clothes—removing hers, then his own, before holding her arms high above her head and linking their fingers.

As their gazes locked in the subdued evening light, with the sensual, drugging scent of late-in-the-season exotic blooms drifting up to them from the lovely gardens below, he drove himself hard into her body, his soulful dark eyes burning like the sparks of fiery embers into the walls of her heart and capturing it.

His highly charged possession registered right down to the very corners of Jenny’s soul. Meeting her lover’s kisses with equal mindless hunger, she felt Rodrigo’s fingers press deep into her buttocks to make their bodies fit even more closely. Her senses were already drowning in the musky heat of his slick, hard-muscled male form when they were seized by her violent climax. She barely knew where the feral cry that left her lips came from, but the sea of powerful sensual release was so profoundly intense and shocking that it rocked through her like an earthquake.

Glancing up, she looked, stunned, into Rodrigo’s scorching gaze. As he rose above her she recognised blazing intent as he bucked, renting the sultry air with a primeval shout of his own. And as the echoes of that heart-jolting shout died away to mere shadows he laid his dark head between Jenny’s breasts, the ragged deep breaths that left his lips gradually slowing.

Letting her lids flutter closed, Jenny played softly with his hair. The dark strands were incredibly soft and silky in her hand and cried out to be touched.
If only he loved me
, she thought fervently. If only he loved our baby and me with no holds barred, as if we were the most important things in the whole world to him. Then how perfect these stunning moments would be.

But he had asked her to give him time, she recalled. And she would…she
would.

Stirring, Rodrigo lifted his head to contemplate her with a wicked lascivious grin, before pressing his lips to her still flat, smooth-skinned stomach, deliberately letting them linger so that his heat felt like a brand. Then he glanced back at her again, and the expression in his long-lashed sable eyes made Jenny’s insides cartwheel.

‘It is incredible that you carry the fruit of our loving deep inside you,’ he murmured, and his rich voice had a definite catch in it. ‘And now you have intoxicated me like a drug, and I am indeed…addicted.’

Moving upwards again, he bent his head to suckle her rose-tipped breasts in turn, and Jenny realised that the fire which had blazed between them had embers that were all too ready to be stoked again. As he smiled into her eyes, Rodrigo’s gaze was again hungry and hot.

‘I’m not trying to trap you, Rodrigo…with the baby, I mean’ she said softly.

‘Angel, you trapped me the first moment I saw you. I have never had such a violent reaction to the mere sight of a beautiful woman before. And when I found Lily’s place, on that cold and rainy night, I could hardly believe that the storm had steered me back into your presence again. But let’s not talk right now…I’m too impatient for words when all I really want to do is enjoy you. Come, sit astride me, so that I can savour every beautiful inch of you.’

His big hands were careful to help her avoid hurting her ankle as they swapped positions. Then it was Jenny’s turn to feast her eyes on the taut, bronzedskinned body beneath her, with a gentle riot of curling black hair dusting his nipples, disappearing in a slim, sensual column down to his narrow-hipped pelvis. Adjusting her thighs over his, she hungrily accepted him inside her. His penetration was deep and smooth, and she moaned low and tossed her head back with the sheer wild pleasure of it. Then she started to rock a little…

‘I’d like us to take a shower together before we go out to dinner,’ Rodrigo told her huskily.

‘What about my bandaged ankle?’