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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS USUAL Javier woke early, snapping awake as if he’d been plugged into a power circuit. His mind homing straight in on Zoe asleep in the master suite on the other side of the villa.
During the five days they’d been here he’d got exactly nowhere with his too-confident plan to softly persuade her to start believing that they could have a good life together, the best. He’d actually gone backwards, in his puzzled estimation. Of the Zoe he knew and had grown to love—the talkative, perky, sometimes stroppy, always vital, generous, intriguing minx he had known for most of her life—there had been no sign.
His ego-driven decision to make her change her mind about walking away from their marriage—showing her what a real nice guy he was, considerate and caring of her, undemanding and smothering his natural inclination to call all the shots, demonstrating that making love to her wasn’t the first and only thing on his agenda and hopefully rekindling something of her earlier, self-confessed love for him—wasn’t working. So he would have to jettison that approach and go for a more open strategy.
No matter how hard he’d tried to make her time here in Spain with him a truly enjoyable experience he’d come up against a solid brick wall. Every outing or new experience he’d suggested had been met with downswept eyes and a mute shake of her beautiful spun-gold head.
Once he’d made his mind up on a plan of action he always carried it through. This time it had backfired on him big time. She spent most of her waking time in the little summerhouse deep in the garden, her pretty nose buried in a book, and all his attempts to discover what was troubling her—for something obviously was—had been met with a stubborn, ‘Nothing’. He wasn’t used to being thwarted. His dark brows thundered together as he contemplated this new experience.
Under the cold shower, one of the many he’d been forced to take while he’d been pussyfooting around the woman who only had to walk into the room to have his craving body leap to attention, he decided grimly that this unbearable stand-off had to end.
In the past Zoe had always been able to talk to him, about anything and everything, and he remembered with yet another shock that he disliked chattering women but that with Zoe it had always been different. He’d relished every word she’d ever said to him. If it was the last thing he did in this life he would get her confiding in him again, opening up about what was wrong with her.
It came to him as he pulled on a pair of denim cut-offs that she might actually be ill. The thought terrified him into snatching up a sleeveless T-shirt and dragging it over his head at speed.
No one could deny that there were dark shadows around those lovely eyes, a worrying pallor lying over her tense features and her normal healthy appetite had shrunk out of existence.
Javier had never felt distraught in the whole of his life and he was trying to deal with that unwelcome emotion when the thought that the reason for her withdrawal and unwell appearance could be down to worry struck him with the force of a runaway ten-ton truck.
Her fear of possible pregnancy!
His intention to make coffee and take a cup to her room forgotten, he froze on his feet at the foot of the staircase he’d descended at foolhardy speed.
All his fault.
She’d been all set to cut loose—she’d stated that all too clearly—leave him behind while she made her own life, found her own friends, and now she would be afraid that an unwelcome pregnancy would shatter all her plans for single-woman freedom.
Snapping around, Javier hared back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Convinced he now knew what her un-Zoe-like behaviour signified, he had the solution. He had to reassure her, remove all her fears and worries at a single stroke.
No question of the divorce she’d said she wanted, of course, that went without saying, but she had to know that if she was carrying his child she would have nothing to worry about. She would get the very best ongoing gynaecological attention that money could buy, and he, personally, would wrap her in cotton wool, cherish her, and the baby when he or she arrived would never know a moment’s neglect if she wanted to pursue her voluntary charity work because top-notch professional nannies would be employed around the clock.
Besides, he thought with a rush of warmth to the region of his heart, he would enjoy the experience of parenting and would take to it like a duck to water.
But whatever his wishes on that subject, Zoe came first and always would and she had to know that. He could not, would not, stand by, say nothing, while he watched her worry herself half to death!
As Zoe climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her body she knew she had to tell Javier and put his mind at rest.
Today. She could delay it no longer. Keeping the news to herself for five whole days was desperately unfair; she knew that, and didn’t much like herself for such uncharacteristic sneakiness.
Catching sight of her miserably guilty face in the mirror, she looked away quickly. Black bags under her eyes and a complexion the shade of putty she did not want to have to see.
These last days had been torment. Javier had been at his kindest, astonishingly patient and gently affectionate, never seeming to mind when she turned down his invitations to go swimming, sailing, eating at a quayside restaurant where, he told her, the speciality lobster dish was out of this world.
And her eyes actually swam with tears when she recalled his gentleness when he’d