Дженни Лукас – One Night in Madrid: Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife / The Spaniard's Defiant Virgin / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride (страница 21)

Because to him, nothing had happened. Lying alone in that bed, with her passionate responses cooling as rapidly as the sheets that Raul had just left, Alannah had had to force herself to face the real truth. Two years before, when he had believed her worth marrying, even if her value to him had been only that she would be his virgin bride and bear him the children he so desperately longed for, Raul had always held back; always restrained his hungry passion for her.

He would not make love to her until they were married, he’d said, and he’d held to that no matter how hard it had obviously been for him. Until tonight.

If she had needed any proof of how little she meant to him then it had been there in the way he had taken her here, in this bed that she now could no longer bear to stay in but had flung herself out of, grabbing at her clothes and rushing into them in miserable desperation.

She had handed herself to Raul on a plate and he had taken everything she had offered. He didn’t want to want her but he couldn’t stop himself. And as soon as he had had what he wanted he had been making plans to leave. Assuming that what had happened had meant as little to her as it had to him.

And then he had strolled back into the room, large as life and twice as arrogant, assuming something else. Assuming that she would be sitting there—preferably lying there—waiting for him to take up where he had left off. So that he could deal with the problem as quickly as possible and be on his way.

And, fool that she was, she had been waiting. She had stayed in that room, silent and—damn it—obedient to his wishes! No wonder he had thought that he could take what he wanted from her, that she would pander to his every desire. If she had had any sense she would have snatched the opportunity while the porter was at the door to come out of the bedroom, sweep past him and out of the door before he had a chance to protest or complain. And the thought of him trying to explain why a half-dressed woman with no shoes might need to get out of the hotel suite as swiftly as possible brought a certain grim satisfaction to her mind.

‘Why should I want to sit down? And what could we possibly have to talk about?’

‘I have a proposition I want to put to you.’

‘A proposition?’

Alannah eyed him warily. He still looked calm—worryingly so. What had happened to the hotly passionate lover of just a few short minutes before—and the arrogant swine who had declared ‘I don’t have to snap my fingers—just use them to touch you, and you’ll be mine to do exactly as I command’? It seemed that in the space of just a few brief moments Raul Marcín had been at least three different men, if not more. There was the hotly passionate lover, the man who with calm good humour and spectacular arrogance had dismissed her protests as unnecessary and now here, it seemed, was the businessman who had a proposition to put to her. And she had no way of beginning to guess just which of them was the real person.

‘What sort of a proposition?’

Why was she even asking? She didn’t want to spend any more time in his company. It was too upsetting, too disquieting, too dangerous to her peace of mind and her sense of self-preservation. She wanted to get out of here.

Didn’t she?

But just as her mind threw the question at her she knew that she had already hesitated for too long even to convince herself. The angry impetus that had fired her, driving her feet towards the door, refusing to let her look back or even consider any other possible alternative, had seeped away from her, her yearning senses were already reminding her of what they were missing and the nagging ache of frustration low down in her body was almost too much to bear.

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you.’

Raul gestured towards the settee but the memories the big leather sofa held were too strong, too devastating for her to be comfortable. So she deliberately chose another seat, one of the big armchairs that matched the settee, and sat there stiffly, legs primly together, her hands clasped on her knees. She was painfully aware of the way that there must be a huge contrast between her position and the state of her tumbled hair, the still gaping dress.

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