Carol Marinelli – A Spanish Passion: A Spanish Marriage / A Spanish Engagement / Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse (страница 14)

His words felt like bullets in his throat. Anger and hostility burned in his brain. He had never lifted a finger against a woman in his life, never wanted to. But now he wanted to turn her over his knee and paddle her delightful backside! But he would never betray his honour by doing any such thing.

An insistent hand on the small of her back was sufficient to guide her unresistant body out through the main doors, into the quiet night. There was nothing quiet about his thoughts. How long had Sherman and his wife been mauling each other, propped up against that wall? How long before the two of them would have sneaked away to somewhere more private?

‘Get in.’ He opened the passenger door of his Jaguar. Zoe lifted her head to look into his face. All hard angles and sharp planes, his eyes like lasers. She had never faced such savage anger before. Her throat went dry. No knight to the rescue. More like an avenging angel.

She shivered as the night air cooled her overheated skin, pulling herself together, remembering that he was no longer part of her life. ‘I’ve got my own car.’ The Lotus, parked right beside his, he couldn’t have failed to see it. ‘The keys are in my hotel room. I’m going back to get them and check out. You can’t tell me what to do, not any more. The stupid farce of our marriage is over.’

Javier ignored that. He picked up on the damning evidence, and his voice pulsed with outrage. ‘Then it’s a pity you and Sherman didn’t use the room you’d booked instead of having sex in full view of half the county.’ He dragged in a tight breath. ‘Get in.’

In this mood there was no talking to him, Zoe recognised, her heart sinking. Just for a moment she’d had the fleeting thought that, not believing he was rescuing her from a hateful, scary situation, he’d actually been jealous. Not the case. Hadn’t she learned enough during the last eleven months to stop herself hoping for the impossible? The primary source of his anger stemmed from what people might say about his wife’s behaviour, making him look like a cuckolded fool! How he would loathe that!

Wordlessly, she folded herself into the seat, shuddered as he slammed the door closed and hated him for the power he had to hurt her time after time. Then as he took his seat behind the steering wheel she asked in a viciously tight voice, ‘So what brought you back from the delights of Cannes?’

‘Your stated intent to go out on the prowl,’ he shot back tersely as he fired the powerful engine.

Recalling the rebellious lie didn’t make her feel guilty. Quite the opposite. Folding her arms across her chest as he pulled out of the hotel car park, she fumed, ‘It’s all right for you to do as you please, go where you like, hang out with other people—women, as far as I know. But I must sit in an empty apartment twiddling my thumbs, is that it?’

Accelerating, he growled, ‘Grow up, Zoe!’

‘I am,’ Zoe shot at him through gritted teeth. ‘I’m taking charge of my own life from now on. I’m not a child, in case you hadn’t noticed! And I won’t be treated like one.’

It wasn’t the way she’d wanted to end it. Not in an undignified spat with him losing all patience with her. She’d intended to tell him of her decision to end the sham of their marriage before schedule coolly and civilly, explain that he had no need to worry about her, thanks to him she was on track. But what he’d walked in on had put paid to that.

Subsiding into miserable silence as the explosive tension coming from him in almost tangible waves made her bones shake, made her remember the times his patience had seemed inexhaustible.

Learning to drive in London when they’d first been married. Apart from sessions with qualified instructors Javier had taken her out time after time to practise the dreaded parallel parking. Calm, good-humoured and above all patient when she’d repeatedly, session after session, got it all wrong. Spending what must have been hours with her until she’d eventually got the hang of the manoeuvre.

To celebrate passing her driving test at the first attempt he’d bought her what she’d privately called a granny-going-shopping car, sedate and sensible. Not like the Lotus.

Thinking of those happier times, innocent and improbably naive times, when she’d hoped that their marriage would turn into a real one, made her want to cry.

So she injected steel into her spine when the short journey was completed and she exited the car and found to her shame that her legs would barely hold her upright.

As the security lights came on Zoe leant against the side of the car for much-needed support and watched Javier unlock the front door. She was shaking again, but with rage this time. How dared he think she’d arranged to spend the night with Oliver Sherman?

To immediately leap to that conclusion—not even bothering to ask for her side of the sordid story—had to mean that his opinion of her morals was solid rock-bottom!

Had he always thought she was a slag?

Her head high, she walked into the house, passing him without so much as a glance, and on up the stairs, her soft mouth tightly compressed to hold back the scalding words of self-defence that were blistering her tongue. Throw them at him and it would all come out—the stark truth that she had never slept with Oliver Sherman, or any other man. The pathetic fact that he, Javier, was the only man she’d ever wanted.

A savage thrust of anger made Javier’s heart thump against his chest as his narrowed eyes followed her progress. The scarlet dress was a come-on if ever he’d seen one, making the most of her glorious man-teaser body, emphasising the sexy curve of her hips and the length of her shapely legs.

Had the minx bought it especially for her assignation with Sherman? And how many times, during his absences, had the two of them been together? His teeth grated, tightening his rock-hard jaw. He shouldn’t have left her to her own devices, her own inclinations. Once again he’d solved the problem he’d faced by withdrawing. This time not to allow his absence to cool her ardour, but his own!

He took the stairs two at a time. To hell with cool, gentlemanly withdrawal—that solution had been born of his pragmatic English genes. The Spaniard in him demanded confrontation, the airing of the emotions that were turning his insides to fire.

Her bedroom was empty, just the teasing subtle ghost of the perfume she wore and the muted sound of the shower. His hands stuffed in the pockets of his tailored trousers, he paced the floor, feeling the tiger inside his chest try to claw its way out.

Her statement that she was about to go out on the town had rung alarm bells loud and clear. He’d packed four days’ worth of meetings into two and flown back to London. And waited. Her car hadn’t been in the underground parking area and the wedding invitation had told him where she’d be.

He should have known the new butter-wouldn’t-melt persona was just an act!

The cool blue pristine bedroom, the ornate bed with its smooth cream cover, mocked him. She was a normal healthy young adult. She had a sex drive like anyone else. A frustrated sex drive. Despite her volunteer charity work, to which he had to admit she’d willingly and enthusiastically given large chunks of her time, she’d been bored within the sterile bounds of their marriage and had taken up the invitation her former lover had issued.

With hot enthusiasm?

A groan vented through his clenched teeth. She was his wife, dammit!

As if on cue the object of his fevered thoughts exited the bathroom. Water darkened her hair, slicked her silky skin; the towel around her body was tiny. Golden eyes widened with shock, lush lips parting. Her breathing accelerated, exposing the tops of her full breasts as they thrust against the towelling barrier.

The thought of Sherman luxuriating in that sensational body filled him with blistering anger. Sherman had entered that heaven on earth while he had behaved like the perfect gentleman, putting on that cool façade while every move the little witch made him want her more, absenting himself, putting temptation behind him. What kind of man did that make him?

‘You dishonour me!’ His Spanish genes came to the fore as he spoke with savage contempt. ‘My wife making a cuckold of me in front of an audience! Are you always so indiscreet? Or were you both too drunk to care? His breath would have made a distillery smell like fresh sea air!’

Eyes darkening to pitch castigated her. Zoe threw sparks of loathing back at him. How dared he?

And perhaps the most crushing thing to come out of this was the painfully obvious fact that his gripe had little to do with his premise that she and Oliver had been having sex, but a lot to do with their lack of discretion!

Reining back the wild-cat impulse to slap those strong dark features cost more in self-control than he would ever know. Hitching the towel more securely around her tense body, she came back with a cool that took a huge mental effort to achieve. ‘If that’s what you think of me then you’ll be happy to know that I won’t dishonour your name any longer than it takes to get an annulment. And I have never been your true wife!’