‘Don’t worry about me.’ She essayed a tiny throwaway shrug and put her empty glass down on a handy side table. ‘I’m no longer your responsibility, remember. I might even marry Ollie,’ she threw in idly. A bare-faced lie—she wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing—but it would get Javier off her case. If she were an about-to-be-married woman his self-inflicted duty to her could be crossed off his list of tiresome responsibilities. ‘He’s asked me often enough.’ She levelled a hopefully dismissive look at him. ‘I’ll send you an invitation.’
Blind rage darkened Javier’s eyes, set his shoulders tautening beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. So her relationship with that low-life scum was more serious than he’d hoped. How could he stand by and see her ruin her life by marrying a man who, to his certain knowledge, had never done a day’s work in his rotten life, whose reputation locally was lower than a snake’s belly! The weird idea jumped back into vision. It wasn’t as crazy as he had at first thought.
‘You want to be married? Marry me.’
Some impulses were crazy. This was not. He could keep her safe from predatory males.
Silenced by shock, Zoe could only stare, her eyes widening by the second. How many times had her foolish heart driven her to dream up marriage-proposal scenarios? Millions!
At last she managed a strangled, ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Never more so.’
Something inside her crumpled. It was what she had dreamed of for years. Yet—‘You don’t even like me,’ she accused thickly.
Javier released his breath on an incredulous sigh. Not like her? The Spanish in him brought his proud head high. ‘I’ve cared about you since you were a bereaved eight-year-old transplanted into a cold, unloving environment. I cared enough to take you off your grandmother’s hands. I admired your spirit when you dug your heels in and decided to go your own way—even if you had turned yourself into a fright,’ he admitted with one of those smiles guaranteed to take her breath away. ‘And it is precisely because I care about you that I’m suggesting we marry.’
Dared she translate ‘care’ into ‘love’? Unconsciously Zoe shook her head. But could she stop herself? Her bones tightened. Fine tremors attacked every inch of her tense frame.
Flaring black brows drew together as the episode in Spain came back to taunt him. From her attitude towards him this afternoon, her worrying relationship with Sherman, he was as sure as dammit that she’d outgrown that schoolgirl crush. In any event, it was time to spell out precisely what he had in mind.
‘Needless to say, it would be a marriage on paper. I wouldn’t expect you to share my bed. Simply my life and my home for the next two years when, with guidance, you’ll be able to prioritise your values and decide what you really want to do with your life and how best to manage your future inheritance. Naturally, an annulment would follow,’ he impressed gently, concerned for her.
He could see how her slender hands were shaking, even though they were tightly clasped together in an attempt to disguise it. And all the natural colour had ebbed from her face. His voice lowered with soft persuasion. ‘In the meantime as my wife you would be protected from the likes of Sherman, men who would marry you for your money, exploit your open, generous nature and make your life a misery. Try to remember, your future inheritance is no secret. Word gets around and brings the low-life out of the woodwork.’
Zoe got to her feet with difficulty. She felt giddy and nauseous with the pain of hearing his proposal, featuring so often in her soppy daydreams, turn into such a nightmare. But she managed, albeit shakily, ‘As a proposal of marriage, that sucks!’
She wasn’t going to cry. She never cried! But her wretched eyes had other ideas and flooded her face with scalding, humiliating rivers. Scrubbing furiously, she shot at him, ‘So by your reckoning no one could love me for me. Only for my money! That makes me—’ her voice threatened to disintegrate ‘—feel—feel really good about myself!’
Her objective was the door. She managed six inches before she was cradled in his arms, the free-flow of her tears soaking his shirt.
For a few short moments Javier held her in self-loathing silence. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. The muffled sobs that were shaking her supple frame mortified him. ‘Don’t cry,’ he murmured against the silky top of her head. He had to comfort her. Had to. Her hair smelled of summer flowers. ‘Of course you’ll be loved for yourself, I promise you. You are beautiful, intelligent and spirited. How could you not be?’ he impressed.
No more sobs. Her body had stilled within the circle of his arms. Poor scrap! He patted her shoulder blades, the avuncular intention somehow getting lost as his hands slid down to the narrow span of her waist and lingered there.
‘I was clumsy,’ he confessed. How soft and warm her skin felt beneath the thin fabric. ‘But the thought of you throwing your life away on the likes of Sherman got me on the raw. You deserve better. Much better. I just want to protect you.’
Slowly, Zoe’s head came up. She could hardly breathe for the welter of emotions that were making her heart beat as if she’d just run a marathon. When he’d said she was beautiful he had sounded sincere. He must mean it. And he’d been so quick to recognise how hurt she’d been, quick to offer the comfort of his arms. More than comfort. She felt her body stir, the core of her melt; her eyes swept up to mesh with his.
Eyes awash with tears. Glowing and golden, damp, naturally dark lashes tangled. Lush mouth vulnerably parted, very slightly quivering. Was she still hurt, unsure of her own worth? A solitary tear slid down to the corner of her soft lips. He vented an interior savage oath for his earlier crassness just as a wash of tenderness drenched through him. This girl needed kissing…
CHAPTER TWO
ZOE was having a hard time keeping her cool. She wanted to throw her arms in the air, punch holes in the sky, shout and leap all over the place. Sheer joy made her feel as if she were about to explode.
She’d got a silly grin on her face and didn’t care who saw it. Her love-drenched, sparkly eyes swept the length of the lodge’s wide terrace to where her brand-new husband was keeping a watchful eye on his father as he confidently coped with his walking cane and the broad flight of steps down to the south lawn where the buffet table was ready for the guests.
His six-feet-plus athletic frame was clothed in formal pale grey suiting, his dark hair gleaming in the early July sun. He was so spectacular. Her heart jumped beneath the fitted jacket of her cream silk suit as she lovingly assimilated every line of his impressive profile. Lingering on the perfect blade of his aristocratic nose, then the set of that sensual mouth, the high slashing cheekbones.
Now he was hers!
She blithely discounted the time limit, the hands-off rule he’d put on their marriage. Javier didn’t know it yet, poor deluded darling, but she would do all in her power to make him rethink that preposterous scenario!
That kiss had had her changing her mind at the speed of light about vehemently turning down his hurtful suggestion of a paper marriage. True, he had stepped back, gently put her away from him, but in those blissful, mind-blowing moments when that kiss had turned into something eager, primal and shattering she had felt that strong body harden in raw response and had known, just known, that she could turn their marriage into a proper one, make him happy, give him children.
During the three weeks since she’d accepted his less-than-flattering proposal—with an equally unflattering, ‘I might as well marry you, if it will get you off my case for a couple of years’—she’d been sorely tempted to instigate another of those wild and cataclysmic kisses. But with new maturity she knew she