* * *
It was unusual for Antonio to have a conversation shift away from him, even more unusual to have it purposely pulled. He didn’t want to allow the change in direction. There was too much he wanted to know.
But it was the first day of their marriage—an interrogation could wait, surely? He had all the time in the world to find the answers he wanted.
So he smiled calmly and then scooped some water up and flicked it at her. Her surprise was obvious and he wondered how she’d react, watching her, waiting.
Then she laughed, and returned volley, reaching down and lashing him with a heavy spray of pool water before reaching down once more. This time he caught her wrist and pulled, so she fell into the pool with him. She went underwater, then bounced back to the surface, dashing her hair away from her eyes.
She blinked, clearing her eyes, and the air between them seemed to charge. Her breasts were clearly visible beneath the saturated cotton of her T-shirt, bobbing on the water and, out of nowhere, he remembered the way they’d felt in his palms, the way he’d taken her nipples into his mouth, and his body was tight and hard beneath the water.
‘Race you to the other side,’ she challenged and, before he could answer, she was off. He watched her stroke for several seconds before powering to catch up with her. Yes, an interrogation would wait—there were better ways to spend the first day of their marriage.
* * *
Dinner was a surprisingly easy affair. Antonio was a skilled conversationalist and he kept things light, enquiring about her time at university and her job at Hedgecliff Academy. It was no hardship for her to talk about her pupils and her work, the school she’d come to love.
What she didn’t say was the part it had played in her recovery—she’d lost her mother and she’d chosen to turn her back on her father and her brother. Oh, there was no scandal, no unpleasant estrangement, but she’d walked away from them and all they stood for, choosing to live the life she’d always fantasised about.
A quiet life, with simple pleasures and easy friendships.
She didn’t say how Hedgecliff had pulled her back together when she’d been searching for her real identity, separating herself from the girl who’d been the daughter of a supermodel and then a billion-pound heiress.
And whether he had questions or not, she didn’t know because he moved their talk along, sharing his own stories of his time at university—his degree at Cambridge, and then he’d done postgraduate study at Harvard, which explained why his English was so perfect. And all the while he’d been overseeing his family business.
She knew from previous conversations that these years would have involved a time when Giacomo and Carlo were actively trying to ruin Herrera Incorporated, but he glossed over that too, undoubtedly for her benefit.
It was a pleasant night, and if Amelia had been asked two weeks earlier if that was possible she would have sworn until she was blue in the face that there was nothing on earth that would induce her to spend a nice quiet evening with Antonio Herrera—and especially not to enjoy it.
But dinner drew to a close and the sun dipped low over Madrid, setting late in the evening owing to the time of year. They were just two people then, with night before them, and all she could think about was the way he’d looked at her earlier.
She’d said she didn’t want him, and he’d contradicted that.
Yes, you do, hermosa, and I’m going to enjoy proving that to you.
‘Well,’ she said, awkwardness in the small word, ‘I might go to bed.’
She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
He didn’t respond directly. ‘Have you told your family about this?’
She was very still, her heart heavy inside her. ‘Not yet.’
At that, she felt him stiffen. ‘You haven’t mentioned our marriage?’
‘Nope.’
‘Your pregnancy?’
She shook her head from side to side.
‘Dios mío! For what reason?’
She chewed on her lower lip, reaching for her water glass and sipping from it to bring some moistness back to her dry mouth. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said after a moment.
‘Complicated? To tell them you are pregnant?’ He stood, and her eyes dragged up his frame, drawn to his strength and breadth as though he were a magnet.
‘You’re not just some man to them, though. You’re the devil, remember?’ Her brows knit together. ‘The fact I’m in some kind of relationship with you would be enough to kill them,’ she muttered. ‘Let alone when they realise it was just a stupid one-night stand from which I ended up pregnant.’
His expression was inscrutable as he came to crouch beside her, his trousers stretched over his powerful haunches.
‘Come on,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘You hate them; obviously they feel the same about you. And the last thing I want is for me or my baby to become some kind of pawn in your feud. If they knew I was pregnant, they’d have absolutely refused to let me marry you.’
He arched his brows and reached a hand for her chin, holding her face still when she would have turned away from him. ‘And you’d have let them control your life in that way?’
‘No.’ Her eyes sparked with his. ‘Because I’m doing this for the baby, because I want him or her to have a family, remember?’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t want them trying to stop the wedding, and I didn’t want them making a huge deal out of this.’
He frowned. ‘It’s ironic that you are attempting to keep our marriage a secret,’ he said with a grimace.
‘Why is that ironic? Can’t you see that it makes sense?’
‘No,’ he said firmly, with a shake of his head.
‘I obviously plan on telling them some time. I just...don’t quite know when,’ she finished vaguely.
In truth, the idea of having that conversation sat heavily on her shoulders. Nothing about this pregnancy was straightforward. Not the circumstances, not the baby’s father, and certainly not the family history that shrouded their child, even before birth. And yet, in spite of that, one emotion had overridden all others: happiness. And, selfishly, she didn’t want anything to detract from that. Giacomo and Carlo would be furious—and she understood why. But she didn’t want to have that discussion yet. There was enough to adapt to—marriage to Antonio, getting to know him, settling into life in Madrid, dealing with her pregnancy.
Her 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