Surrender to Her Spanish Husband (8 page)

A flutter of pain tightened her chest.
Dark times
…Not the kind of thing Jenny wanted to recall when she was feeling so poorly.

In stark contrast, the vibrant and charismatic Rodrigo had taken on the mantle of carer so gallantly and effortlessly that she was already half bewitched by him all over again.
Dangerous.
Her temperature had soared even higher when he’d swept her up into his arms to take her to the bathroom and back to bed when she came out. There was no disputing the man’s strength, or the beguiling warmth of his body at close quarters, or the fine and expensive way he smelled. But the situation couldn’t continue for much longer, Jenny vowed. Somehow she had to get better quickly to resume her stewardship of Lily’s guesthouse. It was kind of Rodrigo to say he would tell people they were closed until she was recovered, but it was her friend’s precious income she was denying if she allowed that.

‘How are you feeling?’

The man himself stood in the doorway, carrying a tray with a cup of tea on it. The sight of him had the same effect as a shot of dizzying adrenaline in the arm. He was wearing a fitted coal-black T-shirt and faded light blue denims that hugged his muscular thighs like a glove. The deceptively ordinary clothing must
love
being so close to his smooth bronzed skin, Jenny thought wildly, because the things they did for that mouthwateringly fit body surely shouldn’t be allowed in a defenceless woman’s bedroom.

Flustered, she sat up a bit straighter against her pillows. ‘I thought about lying to you and telling you that I felt much better, but if I got up and fell flat on my face I realised you’d pretty soon get the picture that perhaps I should have made a will…just in case.’

‘At least you’ve got your sense of humour back. That’s got to be a good sign. And you’re not going to die…not on
my
watch.’

Moving towards the bed, Rodrigo deposited her cup of tea on the nightstand.

‘Room service as well?’ Jenny quipped, wishing it wasn’t so hard to breathe whenever he came near. ‘Did you master that when you were starting out in the hotel business too?’

Chapter Five

‘I
F YOU
want to learn how a business works from the ground up then you have to familiarise yourself with everything.’

‘I agree. When I first started doing interior design I found there were so many dimensions to it that I hadn’t realised. It made the work even more interesting, though.’

‘And how’s business these days?’ Rodrigo asked.

‘It’s been a bit up and down, which is why I could come here and help Lily out. But I’ve got a couple of good commissions coming up.’

Her plump lower lip was receiving some unfair treatment from her teeth as she chewed on it, he observed.

‘Anyway…from what you say about the way you approach things it’s obvious that you’ve become a success because you’re so…thorough.’

The corners of his mouth edged into a sardonic smile. ‘I am, as you say thorough. That applies to whatever I might be engaged in, if you recall.’

Jenny lapsed into a self-conscious and pinkcheeked silence. Had the same stimulating scenario gone through
her
mind as had just flashed through his?
Rodrigo certainly hoped so.

‘Thanks for the tea. You’ve made it exactly the way I like it.’

‘Muchas gracias, señorita.’ He made a mock bow. ‘I aim to please. Here.’ Carefully he passed her the cup and saucer, noting immediately that her hands shook a little as she accepted it. ‘And after you drink it you are to stay put for the rest of the day. I’ll see to everything else that needs to be done.’

‘I’ll have to pay you for your help, Rodrigo.’

‘What?’

‘It’s only right. If you’re working for me I’ll have to pay you…especially as I’m delaying your return to your own job.’

‘That’s crazy talk. You need do no such thing.’ A spasm of anger shot through him that she would think for even a second that he expected to be paid for helping take care of her when she was ill. ‘Now that the rain’s stopped I’m going into the garden to check on the greenhouse. I’ll remove the tarpaulin we put up the other night and look over any damage that the storm might have caused. For lunch I’ll make us a simple soup—my cooking skills do actually exceed my tea-making ones, though I confess I didn’t demonstrate them when we were together. You were clearly a bit rundown for this fever to have occurred and no doubt your immune system needs building up again with good food.’

‘Right now I couldn’t contemplate eating anything—not when my sense of taste is probably nonexistent.’ Taking the tiniest sip of the hot tea he’d made, Jenny passed him back the delicate blue and white cup with its matching saucer almost immediately. ‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I feel so stupidly weak that I—’ Touching her hand to her head, she grimaced.

‘Does something hurt?’ Rodrigo demanded, examining her flushed pretty face with renewed concern.

‘My head feels like a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo is going on inside it,’ she answered. ‘I really need to shut my eyes again. Do you mind?’

‘Of course not…It’s clear that you are nowhere near recovered.’ After returning her cup and saucer to the nightstand, when next Rodrigo looked she’d slid back down into the bed and buried herself beneath the plump feather duvet like a small animal going into hibernation.

‘Rest, then,
querida
,’ he said with a smile, and although he would have been quite happy to stand and gaze at her for a while longer, he wrestled the desire to the ground and headed back downstairs.

During the following three days it honestly went through Jenny’s mind more than once that if she slipped away into the afterlife one fever-racked night it might be a blessing. Never before had her constitution been under such miserable threat. But she held onto the vehement assurance that Rodrigo had given her—‘You’re not going to die…not on
my
watch.’

Had she ever slept this much in the whole of her twenty-seven years? Her dad had told her once that even as an infant she had only slept six hours out of every twenty-four.
Not much rest to be had then for her long-suffering parents.

But during those memorable three days while she was ill Jenny heard Rodrigo moving reassuringly round the house, doing this and that, and at one point forced opened her heavy lids to see a smart-suited stranger urging her to ‘just relax’ whilst he placed a cold thermometer under her arm to take her temperature. Whatever the doctor concluded it had caused Rodrigo to move into her bedroom permanently, it seemed—because whenever Jenny did manage to open her eyes he was there in the rattan chair next to her bed, either scribbling away on a notepad with his pen or tapping away at the keys on his laptop. A couple of times she registered him speaking on the phone too…once in mellifluous Spanish.

But, as much as his continued presence reassured her, Jenny had mixed emotions about it. Her tired brain could hardly credit why he would stay with her for so long and not simply leave…It was nothing like his old behaviour, when work had always come first.

On the fourth day of her illness she woke up feeling less likely to die and longing for a bath. Her teeth were also in dire need of the brushing of a lifetime, because frankly her mouth tasted as though some small creature had crept inside and died in it. It was after eight in the morning, and the rattan chair beside her was empty of her handsome dark-haired guard. With a little jolt of unease in her stomach at the fresh realisation of just how much she had been relying on Rodrigo she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

Wrong move, Jenny…
The room spun alarmingly, as though she’d just stepped off a manically twirling carousel

‘What are you doing?’

‘I need a bath. If I don’t have one soon you’ll have to report me to the health and safety department.’

Moving away from the doorway, his face unsmiling, Rodrigo walked right up to her. Recently showered and shaved, and wearing a fresh white T-shirt and black corded jeans, the man smelled
gorgeous.
It made Jenny all the more flustered and aware of her own less than scented condition after lying ill in bed for three days.

‘Are you up to having a bath,
querida
? Perhaps I could bring a basin of warm water and you could have a bed-bath instead?’

‘With you playing nurse?’ Her eyebrows flew up to her scalp. ‘I don’t think so!’

‘This is hardly the time for false modesty, Jenny Wren. Besides…’ a teasing spark of heat ignited in his soulful dark eyes ‘…I’ve seen you naked, remember? And not just when I helped you change into a fresh nightgown.’

She’d been praying she’d dreamt that.
Learning that wasn’t the case, she felt her heart skip an embarrassed beat. ‘It’s hardly gentlemanly of you to remind me about that.’

He chuckled—a husky, compelling sound that made her legs feel weaker than water. ‘Sometimes I am a gentleman and others
not.
I don’t have to leave it to your imagination to wonder about the times I am not…do I?’

Clutching the front of her nightgown a little desperately, Jenny tipped up her chin. ‘I have to have a bath. In fact I insist. Just leave me alone for a while, would you? I’m quite capable of sorting it out for myself.’

But he’d already stalked into the bathroom and turned on the taps. Stepping back into the bedroom, he dropped his hands to his hips, grinning with a distinct air of amused defiance at her disbelieving look. ‘Which bubble bath shall I pour in? You have several.’

‘I—I…’ Flustered, she bit heavily down on her lip again. It might appear ridiculous to Rodrigo to quibble about such an innocuous thing, but somehow pouring in her bath fragrance seemed like the ultimate in intimate acts when she was already feeling disconcertingly fragile. ‘I’ll do that.’

Moving into the already steam-filled bathroom on legs that felt like cotton-wool, Jenny shouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find Rodrigo right behind her, but she was.

‘This is no time to be petulant,’ he told her, sternvoiced. He stepped in front of her, his black eyes roving her face as if he would know the secrets of her very soul. ‘Which fragrance shall I use? If you won’t tell me then I will put in the rose…especially since you reminded me of one from the moment I saw you in the reception area of the Savoy Hotel.’

Stoically resisting a huge urge to cry, Jenny scanned the array of prettily shaped bottles on the shelf above the bath and sniffed. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

Rodrigo took hold of her elbows and impelled her towards him, so that she had no choice but to make him the sole focus of her attention. ‘You didn’t always throw my compliments back in my face, Jenny…No,’ he added lazily, ‘sometimes they could make you blush, and other times make you extremely affectionate as I recall.’

Now, as heat cascaded through her like a rampaging river, Jenny’s legs really
did
feel as if they might not hold her up for very much longer. There was a heaviness and a heat between her thighs she couldn’t deny.

‘That was when I trusted and loved you,’ she burst out irritably, pulling free of Rodrigo’s loose hold on her—suddenly terrified of the need that made her want to surrender to his arms and give him everything. ‘And I don’t any more. Now I’m much more careful about who I give my affection to.’

‘Is that your way of telling me you’ve found someone else?’

‘Are you joking?’ she answered scathingly. ‘After the way my brother behaved as well, I don’t think I’ll ever trust another man again.’

‘Not now, perhaps…But when enough time has passed you might learn that not all men are so despicable.’ Tenderly Rodrigo smoothed back her hair, standing his ground as Jenny’s body stiffened with tension

‘If I ever make the mistake of trusting a man again, then I deserve everything I get!’

‘Yet you
did
trust me again.’ His tone was gentle but firm. ‘You trusted me to take care of you while you were ill.’

‘I didn’t have much choice, did I?’

‘Do you want to vent your anger at me Jenny? Is that it?’

‘All I want is my bath,’ she said weakly. Frighteningly, she sensed that the full flood of grief and pain over what had happened between them hovered dangerously close now that she’d opened the lid on it again. It must be because she was sick she reasoned. Usually she managed to contain her hurt and rage much better.

‘Then that’s exactly what you shall have.’ Reaching up to the shelf for the crystal bottle labelled ‘English Rose,’ Rodrigo gave her an unperturbed smile. After liberally applying it to the splashing hot water, he returned the bottle to the shelf. ‘I’ll leave you to get into the tub by yourself, but if you need me I’ll be just outside the door,’ he told her.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured. And as soon as the closed door was a barrier between them she dropped down onto the loo seat and allowed herself to listen to the sound of her heart breaking again…

That was when I trusted and loved you
, she’d said. He could drive himself mad with regret and pain because she’d never say she loved and trusted him again. And it wasn’t easy for Rodrigo to leave Jenny to cry. He’d sensed the hurt she normally held in strict check had just catapulted to the surface and spilled over. Every heaving sob was like a knife slicing through his heart, and it disturbed him to discover that he could be so affected by this woman’s tears.

Why had it not been that way before?
The more she had cried, the more he had been furious with what he saw as typically female behaviour employed to manipulate his emotions. He sat in the rattan chair and dropped his head in his hands. Listening to Jenny’s distress was nothing less than pure torture.

A few moments later, the sound of her crying ceased. Resisting the strongest urge to knock on the door and ask if she felt better, he heard the relieved groan she released as she settled herself back into the hot water. About five minutes later, lost in his own thoughts, Rodrigo jolted when he heard her call out his name. He was at the door in a second.