A Spanish Passion. Carol Marinelli

of the air-conditioned sitting rooms, totally absorbed in some structural engineering project, while she was beating herself up over the unresolved situation they found themselves in. Man-like, he would be able to put it out of his mind, not wasting mental energy on a problem that couldn’t be solved until they knew whether or not she was pregnant.

      Despising herself for being unable to do likewise, she entered the dressing room to find something to wear. Vast fitted hanging cupboards, two chests of drawers, an antique pier-glass.

      Teresa had unpacked for her, so he’d told her. He’d also said ‘our room’, she remembered. The fine line of her arched brows drew together as her heart began a foolish gallop. Was he really expecting them to share a room, a bed?

      Get real, she told herself forcefully before she could get too excited by that prospect and what it might mean. Teresa’s unpacking all their gear in the shared room would have been proposed to nip gossip in the bud, as had his decision to tell her and Manuel that their services would not be needed. The true state of their marriage had been kept from his parents, so he would want to guard against the likelihood of Teresa confiding in his mother that her son and daughter-in-law didn’t sleep together.

      She dismissed that miserable thought. A rapid inspection revealed that the hanging cupboard on one side of the room contained just about every lightweight garment she owned, and a row of his stuff in the other—ranging from smart-casual right down to knockabout washed-out jeans and cut-offs.

      Very His and Hers.

      So, OK. He’d use the dressing room. But he would have no desire to share her bed. He’d use one of the others. You bet he would! Hadn’t he demonstrated that he had no wish to get any closer to her than inhabiting the same slab of the planet necessitated?

      Snatching a turquoise silk wrap from the depths of the space allotted to her, she thrust her arms into it and savagely tied the sash around her waist. Javier was hateful! She didn’t know why she loved the brute! Didn’t he realise that she had feelings?

      The brute who was filling her head to the exclusion of anything else appeared in the dressing-room doorway. Zoe felt his presence, so immediate and compelling, like a blow to her solar plexus and spun round to face him, the fine silk of her wrap clinging to her still-damp body.

      Her face flushed feverishly. He was utterly, unfairly gorgeous, wearing just those low-slung shorts, his skin slicked with water, his dark hair clinging to his skull. And just for a moment she saw tension grip that sensational bone structure, his eyes narrowing as if to block out the unwelcome sight of her. And then it was gone, the beginnings of a politely impersonal, meaningless smile starting to deal with the savage line of his mouth.

      And before he could come out with an equally meaningless pseudo pleasantry Zoe got a grip, not willing to let him guess how this game of manners was winding her up to the point of explosion. ‘You’ve been swimming,’ she cooed. ‘What a great idea!’ She bounced to the Hers chest of drawers, breathed a short but heartfelt sigh of gratitude as her hand fell on her favourite bikini.

      Clutching it to her heaving breasts, she sped from the room at a speed that ensured she was able to keep an empty smile on her face before it could inevitably crumple into stifled sobs as soon as she hit the privacy of the outer corridor.