The Buenos Aires Marriage Deal (7 page)

In return Pascual’s smile was polite, but restrained. ‘It was very good. The duck in particular was excellent. Please give my compliments to the chef.’

‘Of course I will. Are you looking for Briana?’

‘Yes…as a matter of fact, I am.’

‘She had a bit of a headache, to tell you the truth, and went up to her room for a while. If there’s anything you need…perhaps
I
can help?’

Feeling the tight, coiled sensation become even more intense at the memory of Briana in the classic black jersey dress with a slightly plunging neckline she had been wearing that evening, Pascual smiled again—with just a hint of wry humour. ‘Thank you, but no. It is Miss Douglas I need to speak with. Goodnight, Tina.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Dominguez.’

At the knock on the door, Briana sprang guiltily up from the bed, thinking immediately that it must be Tina. She had not intended to leave the younger woman on her own to cope for long, but she had needed a few moments to lie down and try and get rid of the tension headache that had plagued her ever since she and Pascual had arrived back at the house from their trip to London.

She didn’t doubt it had manifested itself because of the stresses and strains of the day. The whole time Pascual had been with her and Adán she had veered between worrying about their future and being flooded with joy that at last her son and his father were together…
whatever the consequences.

Her heart knocked wildly against her ribs when she found the man she’d been thinking about on the other side of the door, still dressed in his immaculate tuxedo, looking as if he could give James Bond himself a run for his money and then some.

‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked, catching her breath as his dark brooding gaze dropped to her cleavage and for a disturbing moment lingered there.

‘Your colleague told me you had a headache. Can I come in?’

A wise woman would probably have told him no. But right then Briana did not feel equipped to be particularly wise
or
strong where Pascual was concerned. Not when he stood there looking like the living embodiment of her most heartfelt fantasy and greatest desire…

‘I’m not up to talking very much,’ she answered, lightly touching her forehead.

‘That is fine with me,’ he came back, the look on his strong-boned face inscrutable. ‘I do not particularly want to talk either.’ The panelled door shut firmly behind him.

‘Then why are you—?’

The rest of her question was cut off by the feeling of the most intensely melting pressure from Pascual’s commandingly erotic mouth on hers. Then his tongue thrust deep, and Briana groaned her pleasure hungrily and out loud. His hands were firmly at the side of her ribs. His touch seemed to have the shocking capacity to burn right through the jersey material of her dress and sear the skin underneath. She
ached
for them to be everywhere at once, such was the torrent of desire that engulfed her.

Her whole body was held hostage to the heartfelt sensation of sensual aliveness that Pascual’s bold passionate caresses elicited, and Briana realised she wanted even
more.
It was true she didn’t feel like talking—the day’s events had emotionally drained her to the marrow—but she felt even less like thinking, or offering up excuses for her recklessly wild behaviour now. In truth, thinking straight around this man had always been difficult.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she was running her fingers through the silky strands of his gleaming dark hair and arching her back, so that he could slide his hungry seeking hands into the low neckline of her dress to cup and stroke her breasts, to pinch her tight-puckered nipples inside her bra until she whimpered.

Bending his head, once again he suckled and then nipped the sensitive skin at the side of her neck with his teeth. Erotic heat sizzled through Briana’s insides like a flaming thunderbolt. Temporarily losing her balance as she sagged with pleasure against his taut hard frame, she was hardly surprised when he tipped her up into his arms and carried her across the carpeted room to the bed without so much as speaking a word. She heard him relinquish his shoes and leave them by the side of the bed. Then, before she could quite get her bearings, he caught handfuls of her soft jersey dress and tugged the whole garment up over her head. Discarding it, he shrugged off his immaculate tuxedo, then his tie, closely followed by his perfectly tailored Savile Row shirt.

As Briana gazed at his tanned broad chest, with its awesome display of toned musculature and the finest dark hair swirling round his flat male nipples, she almost wanted to cry at the epitome of staggering masculine beauty that was before her.

For a moment Pascual tipped up her chin and gazed deep into her eyes. She had no clue what he was thinking. Then, once more in the grip of urgent passionate heat, and just before he attended to the zip fastener on his trousers, he hauled Briana hard against that heavenly chest of his and claimed her lips in the longest, deepest, most devastating kiss she had ever known. As his addictively spellbinding taste poured over her, like the most drugging and sensual wine she could ever imagine tasting, Briana knew right then that she had no intention of calling a halt to what was about to happen.

She caught her breath as he slid his hands round her back and unhooked her bra. On his lips was the most lascivious heart-pounding smile Briana had ever seen, and he filled his hands with the full, soft weight of her aching breasts at last. Her relief and pleasure were indescribable.

‘Do you want me, Briana?’ His voice was low and resonant, with a husky catch in it. ‘Do you want me as much as I want
you?
It has been a long, long time…no?’

Moving his hands down to the sultry curve of her hips, Pascual removed the remainder of her clothing and then, placing his warm palm in the centre of her chest, pushed her gently back onto the plump silk pillows behind her.

Immediately she was on her back, and his mouth claimed her tight, engorged nipples in turn, suckling and laving them, his hot tongue stroking over her aching flesh like the only balm that could ever bring true ease. Sliding a hand down over her ribcage onto her flat stomach, he dipped even lower into the triangle of silky hair between her thighs. Urging them apart, he slid one finger into Briana’s moist heat, then two. Such was the intensity of pressure and pleasure this act bestowed that she wondered for one starry moment how she hadn’t shot right through the ceiling. Hungrily, as he moved inside her, she reached out to curve her hand round his hard velvet shaft. Memory flooded her, of the many nights just like this one when she had shared his bed and been driven half out of her mind with the joy and ecstasy his magnificent body passionately delivered to hers.

Pascual moved her hand and replaced his fingers with that most intimate part of himself, and as he thrust upwards and deep inside her Briana cried out, gripped his lean masculine hips with her thighs, wrapping the rest of her long slender legs possessively round his back.

‘Kiss me!’ he entreated, his dark gaze burning down into hers.

Eagerly complying, Briana hardly knew who devoured who as their lips met and melded into one. All she knew was that the sensations and feelings the contact wrought was
wonderful
and she didn’t want it to stop. Just as Pascual’s thrusts became more demanding and focused she felt herself start to unravel helplessly. It had been just as he had said…a long,
long
time…and her emotions were so heightened round him that she couldn’t hold back either her desire or her need. Stunned, she fluttered her eyelids closed as each pulsing wave of pleasure seemed to intensify even more than the last.

Just as she was returning to earth he held himself rigid above her. His disturbing glance was as serious as Briana had ever seen it.

‘Maybe now we make another baby…
sí?
’

B
RIANA’S
hands tightened in shock round his smooth hard biceps. ‘You can’t be serious?’ Right up until that moment she had barely given birth control a thought, she was ashamed to admit. The realisation made her aware of just
how
reckless she could be around this man—how swept away by forces she definitely wasn’t in control of. ‘No! You
can’t.
We
mustn’t!
’

But he was moving inside her again, and the sensation of his hard, strong body joined to hers was hurtling every thought that arose crashing against rocks.

‘I should have been there at my son’s birth! I should have been there for him for the last four years!’ Suddenly growing still, Pascual withdrew from her just before it was too late. He sat back on his heels, breathing hard.

Startled and hurt by what he had exclaimed, Briana lay there, her breath laboured, watching him as he suddenly moved further down the bed—as if he wanted to put as much distance as possible between them.

Dropping his head into his hands, he murmured some words in Spanish she didn’t comprehend.

‘Pascual? Pascual, are you all right?’

Pulling the silk counterpane up to her chest, she moved towards him to lay her hand on the strong broad bank of his shoulder. He flinched as though struck.

‘No…I am
not
all right! It was crazy of me to come here to you. Next time I will try and show a little more restraint!’

Grabbing up his silk boxers from the end of the bed, he quickly pulled them on and then did the same with his trousers. Sliding his bare feet into his shoes, he reached for the rest of his clothing and then turned solemn-faced to survey her. His expression told her that he was in a dark haunted place where she could not reach him and it made Briana shudder.

‘I feel nothing for you…
nothing!
’ he declared savagely. ‘Do you know that? Your body may still arouse me, but in every other respect you leave me cold. You kept me from my own son and that I can never forgive. Tomorrow I will make arrangements for our return to Buenos Aires, and from then on Adán will have the life he was meant to. As for you…you will just have to learn to make the best of what you find when you get there. It is really no concern of mine whether you will be happy or not when we marry. I will provide every material comfort you could want…but as for companionship and friendship?’ His lips thinned disparagingly, ‘Maybe that is something you will just have to learn to live without…just as I have had to live without it these past five years. I will see you in the morning.’

As he left, strangely
not
slamming the door as she’d expected, but closing it as if the temper that had arisen like an electrical storm on a sunny day had suddenly dissipated as abruptly as it had appeared, Briana sank back down on the bed, feeling stunned and cold. Drawing the rich purple counterpane round her now shivering shoulders, she heard Pascual’s heated words echo round and round inside her head once again, bringing home to her just how deeply and irrevocably she had hurt him by keeping Adán from him.

Up until now she had resisted the whole idea of returning to Buenos Aires and the three of them making a life together there. But even though he had warned her she would have to forgo companionship and friendship as far as he was concerned, Briana wondered if she didn’t
owe
it to him to give the unconventional arrangement he was demanding a try? There might be genuine fears about not fitting into his world, just as before, but it was her fears which had driven her from Pascual in the first place and brought about the situation with Adán.
What had she got to lose?
she thought unhappily. Unless she could clear her debt her business was probably going to fold anyway—and what prospects would she have staying in the UK as a single mother, trying to raise her son all on her own and relying far too much on her own mother for help?

If Adán had his father in his life and grew up feeling safe, secure and well-loved by
both
parents, what did it signify if Briana had to sacrifice her own longing for love and companionship on the way?
She had already spent too many years alone and she should be used to it by now.
But tonight—tonight when Pascual had held her once again and for a while responded with all the passionate intensity of the most ardent lover—had rekindled that need inside her to be loved and desired and cared for by this man—a man she would willingly go to the ends of the earth for because she still felt the same way about him.

Hardly even realising that tears were spilling down her cheeks, she sighed as though her heart would crack, and felt like dying as she recalled Pascual’s recent scathing words.
You leave me cold!
he had declared. That harsh announcement had made Briana feel as if she was being sliced in two.

Hardly able to bear thinking about it, she pushed aside the warm counterpane and got determinedly to her feet. Her heart might indeed be breaking, but she still had a job to do and she would do it to the very best of her ability—even if it were for the last time. As for Pascual—she had already made up her mind to tell him in the morning that she would agree to return to Buenos Aires with him. As long as his demands were reasonable and he took her views into consideration then she would not be putting any obstacles in his way.

He did not sleep well. But then he had hardly expected to after that unfortunate scene in Briana’s bedroom. Sexual frustration made for a most uncomfortable bedfellow, Pascual discovered anew. And after leaving his lover’s warm bed much earlier than he’d anticipated, because his anger and hurt had finally got the better of him, it was his legacy. But the truth was that for a few moments there, when the possibility had arisen for him to become a father for the second time, he had had a heartrending vision of a baby being put into his arms—something that Briana had cruelly denied him with Adán. He had longed for such a scene to become a reality.

Five years ago she had
willingly
agreed to become his bride. Now she might not be as willing, but Pascual vowed to harden his heart against that. This marriage of convenience he was determined to go ahead with might not be the romantic idyll he had foolishly once envisaged their partnership would be, but it would ensure that she would not be free to fall in love with someone else—share her body with someone else and desert him and their son.

It had been the most incredible experience to see Adán for the first time. One glance at the boy and Pascual had known straight away, with the most profound inner certainty, that he would gladly lay down his life to protect him and keep him safe. Fidel had been right about how having a child became the most important concern of a man’s life—driving away all other ambition that had previously seemed so significant.
That was why he would take Briana to Buenos Aires and marry her…even if the love between them was gone for ever.

Rubbing his chest to try and relieve some of the emotion that for a moment made it hard to breathe, he went to the window, drew back the sumptuous lined drapes and gazed out on yet another cold and frosty morning. Contemplating the scene without the pleasure he had experienced during his early-morning walk yesterday, he felt his longing to be back home in warmer climes was suddenly close to overwhelming.

On their way back to London the following morning, Briana glanced at her so far silent passenger and tightened her hands apprehensively on the steering wheel. Since bidding farewell to her clients as they got into the waiting Rolls-Royce that would take them home to their various destinations, Pascual had only spoken to her when he had absolutely
had
to. Such as when he had informed her that he was going back with her to ‘sort things out’, and then on to the hotel he was staying at for the duration of his stay in Park Lane.

Despondent that he was still mad at her, Briana wondered how they would sort
anything
out if he continued to be furious with her and maintain a sullen silence.

As they joined the stream of motorway traffic heading for London, a long-suffering sigh escaped her and Pascual’s head immediately snapped round.

‘What is wrong?’ he demanded.

Ruefully shrugging her shoulders, she stole a brief glance sideways at him. ‘Do you want a list?’

‘If you expect me to apologise for what happened last night, then—’

‘I don’t,’ she cut in, grimacing, ‘I hurt you by not telling you about Adán, and whether you believe me or not I’m truly sorry. I also want you to know that when we get home I’ll be telling him who you
really
are…that you’re his father and not…not my friend.’

‘Good. I see no reason in denying him the truth any longer.’

‘And as for going back to Buenos Aires…’ She sensed his brooding gaze suddenly cleave even more intensely to her profile—as she kept her eyes firmly on the road ahead. ‘I’ll agree to go back with you for a while at least, to give us time to come to some arrangement about the future. But I can’t stay away too long because I’ve had a court summons regarding my business debt and I’ll be in serious trouble if I’m not there to answer it.’

‘That is nothing to worry about.’

‘To
you
it might not be, but it certainly
is
something to worry about as far as I’m concerned!’

‘I mean that
I
will pay the debt on your behalf. Since I am to be your husband, then naturally I will take responsibility for it.’

‘Now, wait a minute I—’

‘Watch the road!’

In the blink of an eye Briana suddenly found that they were far too close to the rear bumper of the car in front of her. Guiltily, her stomach turning over in fright, she eased down on her speed. ‘Sorry.’

‘As I said…’ Pascual continued, without so much as a hint of warmth or conciliation in his accented voice. ‘I will pay this debt for you and then you can forget about your business.’

‘Do you think what I do is so unimportant I can just cast it aside as if it was nothing? Besides…I can hardly forget about it when I have an employee to think of. What will Tina do if she doesn’t work for me?’

‘This was the only job you’ve had on your books for some time, so I gather?’

‘What are you saying? How did you—?’ Her shoulders hunching in resignation, Briana sighed. ‘
Tina.
I should have guessed.’

‘She has already told me that she temps from time to time in between jobs. She seems a resourceful girl to me…she will be okay. And you will have other important occupations to think of when we go back to Argentina.’

‘All right…That aside…if you pay this debt for me—and I will only agree to let you do so because of Adán—then you know I will have to insist on paying you back, Pascual?’

‘Now you are being foolish.’

‘I won’t accept your help unless you agree to let me pay you back. I mean it!’

Sighing, as if she was taxing him to the very limits of his patience, the man beside her reluctantly nodded. ‘Okay, okay! Just concentrate on the road, will you? Or we will find ourselves in the hospital instead of at your house!’

‘My driving’s not
that
bad!’

To Briana’s complete disconcertion he chuckled, and her skin broke out into tingling gooseflesh at the sound. ‘Not as bad as
some
I know, I will agree.’

‘I suppose you’re referring to women in particular?’ Unable to prevent the sharp slash of jealousy that ripped through her at the thought of Pascual with another beautiful model like Claudia, or worse Claudia herself, her mood grew even more despondent.

‘Are you jealous,
carina?
’ he drawled softly.

‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’

‘So…today we will put your business affairs in order, and tomorrow I will organise our travel arrangements. I will also ring home and instruct Sofia to make ready a room near us for Adán.’

‘Sofia is still with you?’

The older Spanish woman who was Pascual’s housekeeper had always been so sweet to Briana, and she had never forgotten her kindness. Of all the people she had met when she’d stayed in Palermo, she was the one who had truly accepted her for herself and had never given her the slightest inkling that she disparaged where she came from. She’d been totally happy with Briana because Pascual—whom she revered—loved her.

‘Of course!’

For a moment Pascual sounded nonplussed, as if he could hardly fathom why anyone he employed would even
think
of leaving him to work for someone else. And of course he was right. As far as Briana had been able to observe he was a fair and generous employer, and Sofia clearly
idolised
him.

‘And
you,
of course,’ he continued, his magnetic voice lowering, ‘will not need a room of your own—because you will be sharing
my
quarters.’

The possessive intent with which he shared this last piece of information made her hair bristle, but she held onto her indignation…
just.

‘Perhaps in the light of what happened yesterday, it might be best if we kept our relationship purely platonic?’ she ventured.

‘I was mad at you yesterday…but my anger at you will not interfere with the physical side of our relationship in future, I promise you.’

‘Well, I—’

‘There is one thing I assure you our marriage will
not
be, Briana, and that is platonic!’

‘Even though I leave you cold?’ The small nugget of hurt inside her chest was like a sharp stone as she remembered the insult. She sensed his glance intensify again.

‘I did not say your body left me cold…far from it!’

‘But—’

‘Call me arrogant, if you will…but I
know
that my body does not leave
you
cold either. If nothing else we can at least take consolation in our mutual desire for each other and in being good parents.’

Biting her lip on a despondent retort, Briana concentrated all her attention on the road ahead for the rest of the trip. The only time she allowed her thoughts to wander was when she tried to imagine how Adán was going to receive the news that the man she had introduced to him yesterday as a friend was really his father…