Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key

Every inch of Rafael’s tall, lean, muscle-packed frame oozed sex—every hollow and plane of his dark face. Maggie’s eyes drifted from the full curve of his sensual upper lip to his hooded glittering gaze, and her level of anxiety went off the scale.

‘You’ve never had a one-night stand, have you?’

Maggie considered lying, but decided it was doubtful she could pull it off. ‘Not as such…’ she conceded reluctantly.

He leaned into her close, very close, but not touching. ‘But you came with me. What were you thinking of…?’

Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

CHAPTER ONE

SUSAN Ward manoeuvred herself down the ramp into the kitchen, her daughter and husband protectively shadowing her progress.

Propping her crutches against the chair her husband pulled out, Susan lowered herself into her seat, ignoring her nearest and dearest as they hovered anxiously.

Maggie, watching the procedure apprehensively, released a relieved sigh when her mum was safely seated. ‘You’re getting pretty good on those things, Mum,’ she observed, privately concerned that she was also far too ambitious. It was lucky her dad was now retired from his job on the oil rigs so was around to keep an eye on things when she wasn’t.

It had been three months since the experimental surgery, but to see her mum, who had been confined to a wheelchair for the last eighteen years, on her feet even for short periods still gave Maggie a thrill.

And now, if things went according to plan, in a couple of months she would no longer need the chair or even the crutches.

Susan dismissed the comment and turned her frowning regard on her daughter, who took a seat opposite. ‘Never mind that, how are you feeling? Really feeling,’ she added, holding up her hand in anticipation of her daughter’s reply. ‘She looks exhausted, doesn’t she, John?’ She appealed to her husband for support.

John Ward’s warm glance swept his daughter’s pale face, touching the warm dark ebony curls that clustered around her heart-shaped face. ‘She looks beautiful.’

Oh, well, Maggie reflected, at least I have got one fan even if he is my dad. ‘Thank you, though according to you I was beautiful when I was twenty pounds too heavy, had teenage acne and braces,’ she reminded him.

‘Don’t change the subject, Maggie,’ her mother said sternly.

‘I told you, I’m fine, Mum,’ she replied, pasting a determinedly cheerful smile on her face to illustrate the level of her fineness.

She had perfected the ‘I’m fine’ smile a long time ago, because no matter how bad her day had been Maggie had always been pretty sure growing up that her mum’s had been worse.

This conviction dated from the day when her dad had returned home from the hospital with her baby brother and no Mum—she had been four at the time.

Her other brother Ben, at the noisy toddler stage, had run around the room while John Ward sat with baby Sam in his arms and explained to Maggie that Mum would not be coming home yet and when she did Maggie would have to be a big girl and help her because Mum was not well.

Maggie had only vaguely understood the explanation of what was wrong with her mother, but she had known it was bad because her big strong dad didn’t cry.

The tears had scared her and made her feel sick inside. She had begged him to stop crying, and promised that if he did she would never ever be a bad girl.

Of course she had not been able to keep that promise, but the determination that had been born that day to protect her mum and stop her dad crying had never left her.

Compared with what her mum had coped with, a broken engagement and a cancelled wedding faded into insignificance.

‘Seriously, I am fine,’ Maggie promised in response to the sceptical looks directed her way as she anchored her heavy dark hair at the nape of her neck with one hand and accepted the mug of coffee her father passed her. ‘I’m just sorry about messing everyone about this way,’ she added, her brow furrowing as she tried to calculate how much her parents had already laid out on the wedding.

It was easier to address the practicalities of the situation than think about what an idiot she had been. ‘All that money,’ she fretted.

‘Forget the money,’ her father said firmly. ‘That’s not important—’ He broke off mid sentence as the door opened to let in a cold gust of air and two young men in muddy rugby kit.

They ignored their sister, grunted in the direction of their father and mother before heading for the fridge.

‘Glass, Sam,’ Susan said out of habit as her younger son raised a carton of milk to his lips.

He lowered the carton and said, ‘We lost, if anyone’s interested.’

His older and slightly more intuitive brother nudged him with his elbow and removed the pad he was holding to his own cut lip. ‘They’re not interested, Sam. So what’s up, guys?’

Maggie got to her feet. Telling her parents had been bad enough—they at least, bless them, had not asked any awkward questions even though she knew they were dying to. She could not, however, rely on her brothers to be similarly restrained. ‘Nothing. That lip could do with a stitch,’ she added, casting an expert eye over her brother’s mouth.

Ben rolled his eyes and, taking the carton from his brother, took a swig of milk before subjecting his sister to an equally critical narrow eyed stare. ‘Sure. You always look like death warmed up.’

‘I’ve just worked a ten-night stretch in a busy casualty department,’ Maggie reminded him.

‘So?’ Ben retorted, looking unimpressed. ‘Nothing new there—you always work crazy hours. You have to be certifiably insane to be a nurse.’

‘Thanks.’ Maggie’s mouth twisted into a grim little smile.

Simon had called her the perfect nurse. The recollection sent her stomach muscles into tight unpleasant spasm, though, to be totally accurate, apparently Simon had been quoting his mother, the possessive Mrs Greer, whom Maggie had found to be manipulative and very overprotective of her only child, when he said this.

She resisted the temptation to cover her ears as snippets of that conversation drifted through her mind.

‘Obviously you won’t work when we are married. You can help out with my constituency work, and the social engagements.’

‘I like my work,’ she had replied, wondering how Simon would take the news she had no intention of giving up work.

‘Of course you do, darling. Mother has always said you are the perfect nurse and when she moves in—’

Maggie had been unable to hide her horror. ‘Your mother is going to live with us?’

Simon had looked annoyed by the interruption, giving a thin lipped smile. ‘Of course.’

He had made it sound as if it were a done deal, and why not? she thought with a grimace of self-disgust. She had always gone along meekly with what he said.

‘Did you get any injuries from the train derailment I saw on the telly, Mags?’

Maggie dragged her wandering thoughts back to the present and responded to the ghoulish enquiry from Sam with an absent nod of her head.

‘That explains why she looks so wrecked,’ Sam observed.

Ben shook his head. ‘No, it’s not work…’ His eyes widened. ‘Are you pregnant?’

The colour flew to Maggie’s cheeks, and Susan Ward looked uncomfortable, making it obvious that this had been her first thought too.

‘Ben!’ his father warned.

‘No, it’s OK, Dad,’ Maggie said, placing her hand on her dad’s shoulder. ‘It’s not a secret.’ She took a deep breath. ‘If you must know the wedding is off.’

Sam closed the fridge with his elbow and let out a silent whistle. ‘So no more slimy Simon!’

‘Simon is not…’ Maggie stopped. Actually he was. She suddenly felt pretty stupid that her little brother had recognised the characteristic and she hadn’t.

She had wasted four years of her life on Simon, which might have been acceptable if she had been desperately in love with him, but Maggie now knew she hadn’t been.

Maybe she was one of those people that couldn’t fall in love? A depressing thought but a definite possibility; she had certainly never experienced the sort of blind, intense passion her friends spoke of.

‘Do you have to send back the presents? There’s a coffee maker that’s much better than the one we have—’

Sam’s brother cut across him. ‘Did he dump you? Or…God, had he been cheating on you?’ The idea drew a chortle of laughter from his brother. ‘I didn’t think he had it in him.’

‘Simon did not sleep with anyone.’ Not even with me, Maggie thought, swallowing the bubble of hysteria in her throat.

‘Well, what did he do, then?’

Maggie’s eyes fell as she hesitated. For the first time in her life she felt awkward bringing up the topic of her adoption.

She had never had any hang-ups at all about being adopted, no yearning secret or otherwise to find her natural mother—it had never even occurred to her that Simon had any concerns.

Though concern was clearly an understatement considering the lengths he had gone to to trace her birth mother. Thinking ahead, he had called it; anticipating future problems, he had explained with a self-congratulatory smile.

Maggie closed her eyes and could hear him calling her birth mother’s identity ‘a potential skeleton-jumping-out-of-the-cupboard situation’ before going on to explain in the same pompous manner that a politician in his position—one with a future—could not be too careful.

‘He had a problem with…’ She looked at the expectant faces and hesitated again.

Mum and Dad had told her years ago that they would understand if she wanted to contact her birth mother, but Maggie had never believed they could be as all right with the idea as they appeared.

Maggie, who had always been keenly conscious of the crazy guilt thing Mum had about not being able to do the things with her children that able-bodied mums took for granted, had no intention of searching out a mother who was able to enter the mums’ race on sports day.

To her mind even thinking about her birth mother felt like a betrayal of the parents who had loved and cared for her, and why contact a stranger who had given her away and risk rejection for a second time?

Would they believe that Simon had made the unilateral decision to search for her birth mother? Or would they think that she had decided they were not enough family for her? Maggie decided there was no point taking a risk.

‘It was a lot of little things. We simply decided that we didn’t suit. It was all very amicable,’ she lied, absently touching the bruised area on her wrist.

‘Maggie will talk about it when she’s good and ready and you two,’ John Ward said sternly, ‘have all the sensitivity of a pair of bricks. Your poor sister—’

‘Had a lucky escape,’ Ben interrupted. ‘And don’t look at me like that—I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking. Sorry, Maggie, but it’s true.’

Susan broke the awkward silence that followed this pronouncement.

‘What you need is a holiday.’

Maggie laughed. ‘You think I should go on the honeymoon cruise?’

Maggie had no desire to go on the cruise that had been a cause of friction. Though Simon had reluctantly agreed that it might not be proper to take his mother on their Mediterranean honeymoon, he had assured her that next time of course she would go with them; Mother apparently loved cruises.

He hadn’t asked Maggie if she enjoyed them.

‘Oh, goodness, no, there’d be too many middle-aged people on a cruise,’ Susan exclaimed, adding, ‘Where did I put those brochures you brought home the other day, John? I think they’re on the piano stool. Go get them, Ben.’

‘Mum, I can’t go on holiday. There’s so much to do. I need to cancel the—’

‘Your father and I will do that.’

John nodded. ‘Of course, and you might as well say yes, Maggie, because your mum will wear you down eventually. She always does,’ he added, dropping a kiss on the top of his wife’s fair head.

He wasn’t wrong. By the time the weekend was over Maggie found she had booked herself on a European coach tour.

Her mum had mixed feelings about her choice.

‘But, Maggie, there will be nobody under forty on a coach tour.’

‘Mum, I’m not looking for romance.’

‘What about fun?’

It was a question that Maggie considered on more than one occasion over the next few weeks.

Maybe, she mused, she ought to put sensible on hold and try spontaneous, though not as spontaneous as her friend Millie had suggested when she heard the news of the broken engagement. Fun was one thing but, as she told Millie, the idea of a casual fling with a stranger did not appeal to her.

She had responded with a mystified shake of her head to Millie’s suggestion that she might not have met the right stranger yet.

What Millie didn’t get was that she simply wasn’t a very sexual person.

CHAPTER TWO

RAFAEL worked his way across the room crowded with members of two of the most ancient and powerful families in Spain, brought together to celebrate the baptism of the twin boys who were the result of the marriage that had joined the two dynasties.

His cousin Alfonso, a frown on his face, approached.

Rafael arched a dark brow. ‘A problem?’

‘I’ve just been speaking with the manager, Rafe.’

Rafael nodded encouragingly.

His cousin shook his head and said quietly. ‘I can’t let you pay for this, Rafael.’

‘You don’t think I’m good for it?’

His cousin laughed. The extent of Rafael’s fortune was something that was debated in financial pages and gossip columns alike, but even the most conservative estimates involved a number of noughts that Alfonso, who was not a poor man himself, struggled to get his head around.

Like all the Castenadas family members present, Alfonso was old money, though like many of the old families, including his wife’s, the Castenadas family were not the power they once had been.

Except Rafael, the family maverick whose massive fortune was not down to inherited wealth.

When Rafael’s father died in a sailing accident he did leave his son an ancestral pile and several thousands of acres, but the land that hadn’t been sold off had been mortgaged to the hilt and the ancestral pile had been sadly neglected.

The estancia had needed a massive investment of, not just cash, but enthusiasm and expertise to bring it into the twenty-first century.

Rafael had both.

In the last year Rafael-Luis Castenadas had added a newspaper and a hotel chain to his already wide-ranging holdings. It was a long way from the disgrace Alfonso’s uncle had always predicted his son would bring to the family name.

‘If he was still with us Uncle Felipe would have been proud of all you’ve achieved.’

Rafael raised a dark slanted brow to a satirical angle. ‘You think so?’

Alfonso looked surprised by the question. ‘Of course!’

Rafael shrugged, recalling his father describing his career choice as a ‘passing phase.’

‘All things are, I suppose possible.’ All things except his ability to please his father, Rafael mused, unable to recall the exact moment he had realised this, but able to recall the sense of release he had got when he’d finally stopped trying.

Following this revelation there had been a short interval when out of sheer perversity he had adopted a lifestyle guaranteed to embarrass his father.

He had rapidly outgrown the rebellion, but he was still paying the price for this youthful self-indulgence, those early colourful bad-boy antics had attracted the attention of the press at the time, and Rafael had never totally shaken that youthful reputation or the interest of the media.

‘But surely…’ Alfonso protested.

Rafael’s lips curved into a sardonic smile.

‘My father was an elitist snob—being a Castenadas was his religion.’ How anyone could think an accident of birth made him somehow better than his fellow man had always seemed bizarre to Rafael.

The lack of emotion in the dry delivery, as much as the sentiment, made his cousin stare.

Reading the shock and disapproval Alfonso struggled to hide reminded Rafael that, though he had always got on well with his cousin, who was the epitome of a decent guy, when it came to family pride they were not reading from the same page.

‘You will allow me to give my godsons this gift.’

Responding to the charm in Rafael’s smile—very few did not—Alfonso grinned back. ‘Gift? What were the cases of vintage wine?’

Rafael’s arm moved in a dismissive gesture. ‘Wine is a good investment and I managed to locate some rare vintages.’

‘I’ll say, and I’m grateful on the boys’ behalf but that’s not the point, Rafael.’

‘The point is I wish to do this for my godsons. They are, after all, my heirs.’

Alfonso laughed. ‘I won’t raise their hopes. You’re thirty-two, Rafael—I think you might manage an heir or two of your own,’ he observed drily.

‘I have no interest in marriage.’ Why perpetuate a flawed formula?

He was surrounded by failed marriages, unhappy marriages and expensive divorces. If marriage were a horse it would have been put down years ago on compassionate grounds, but it was a product of wishful thinking and people, it seemed, needed dreams.

Rafael was content with reality.

He rarely had a relationship that lasted more than a couple of months, which was as a rule about the time when he started hearing ‘we’ a lot. It was also generally around this time he began to find the qualities that had first attracted him to a woman irritating.

He was not waiting to find his soulmate.

‘I will leave the domestic bliss to you and Angelina. I do not buy a restaurant if I want a meal and I do not intend to take a wife in order to have sex.’

Alfonso winced and said, ‘Nice analogy.’

‘I do not have a reputation for niceness,’ Rafael reminded him. He did, however, have a reputation for being utterly ruthless and single-minded when he pursued a goal. It was debated whether it was this ruthlessness, his sharp analytical mind or a combination of the two that accounted for his success.

Rafael, not given to introspection, had never attempted to analyse the formula; he did what he did because he liked the challenge—when he stopped enjoying it he would walk away.

An hour later all was still going smoothly—so far, at least. In the days when he’d had to attend every last family event, Rafael had seen far too many that had gone sour to rule out the possibility totally.

It might at least liven the proceedings, he mused, and almost immediately felt ashamed of the selfish sentiment. This day meant a great deal to the proud parents so for their sake he hoped the day stayed boring.

With luck he would not be obliged to see his family until next Christmas.

He put down the drink he had been nursing since he arrived, glanced at his watch and wondered when he could leave without causing offence.

‘Have I thanked you for all this?’

He turned at the sound of the voice behind him, the hard light of cynicism that made several of his relatives uncomfortable absent from his eyes as he smiled at Angelina.

It was hard not to smile, not just because his cousin’s wife was a beautiful woman—it was more than that. Angelina was the most genuine person he had ever met, she had a warmth that made people around her feel good.

A tall woman, and one blessed with symmetrical features set in a perfectly oval face, a slim, elegant figure and an aura of serenity, his cousin’s wife was probably many men’s idea of a perfect woman.

Rafael had wondered more than once why he wasn’t attracted to her in a sexual way, but he never had been.

‘Alfonso has already thanked me.’

She watched the uncomfortable look cross his face and gave him a hug. ‘Why do you hate people to know you can be nice?’ she wondered.

‘I am not nice. I always have an ulterior motive—ask anyone.’

‘Yes, you’re totally selfish. I can see how much you’re enjoying yourself.’ She angled a quizzical look at his dark face. ‘Wondering when to make your escape?’

There was an answering smile in Rafael’s eyes as he asked, ‘Should I mention you have baby vomit on your shoulder?’

Angelina carried on smiling, displaying a perfect set of white teeth as the dimple in her chin deepened. ‘No, Rafael, you should not.’

The first time he had seen Angelina and Alfonso together it had been obvious even to a cynic like him that they were crazy about each other, and as far as he could see the honeymoon was still on.

Ten years down the line, who knew?

‘Motherhood suits you.’ He saw the flicker cross her face and knew he had inadvertently dredged up a memory.

‘Thank you, Rafael. The twins, it’s hard not to think about…It was all so different this time.’

Rafael had no trouble interpreting the disjointed sentence. He watched her swallow and wished he had kept his mouth shut.

He saw her lips quiver and hoped she was not going to start crying. He put a lid on his empathy, a sympathetic word or gesture now would no doubt open the floodgates and he had a major dislike of female tears. ‘Why think about it?’ he said brusquely.

Rafael’s philosophy was if you made a mistake you lived with it. Beating yourself up over it was to his way of thinking a pointless exercise, and an indulgence.

‘You’re right.’

‘If only more people realised that.’

Generally appreciative of his ironic sense of humour, Angelina did not smile.

Her shadowed eyes were trained on the far end of the vaulted hall where her husband, a son balanced expertly on each arm, paused to allow admiring relations to kiss the cherubic cheeks.

‘He is such a good father.’

‘And you are a good mother, Angelina.’

She shook her head. ‘It makes me think…did I do…?’ She lifted her troubled brown eyes to Rafael. ‘Was it the right thing?’

Rafael had no doubt. ‘You did the right thing.’

Rafael had strong feelings about advice: he never requested it and he never gave it.

It was a sound position, it was just a pity that he had forgotten and made an exception for Angelina.

‘But I hate lying…’

‘Confessing might have made you feel better, but what would it have achieved other than—?’

‘Make Alfonso call off the wedding. He would never risk a scandal.’

‘Maybe,’ Rafael lied. In his mind there was no maybe.

He actually had no doubt at all what the outcome would have been had Angelina found Alfonso and not himself at home the day she had arrived at his cousin’s city apartment to confess all.

Would Alfonso have felt sympathy for Angelina, forced to give birth at sixteen to her married lover’s child? Yes.

Would he have married her after she had confessed? No.

‘You did the right thing, Angelina. Why should you suffer now for a mistake you made when you were little more than a child? You were the victim then—is it fair you be the victim now? Everyone makes mistakes…’