8 Brand-New Romance Authors

CHAPTER TWELVE

GEORGINA HELD THE LETTER in shaking hands. Santos hadn’t wasted any time. He must have instructed his solicitor to file for divorce the moment she’d left his apartment. But what had she expected? That he would miss her? Come after her and declare his undying love?

He’d admitted that he didn’t understand. They’d been almost his last words to her that morning.

Well, if he thought she’d hide away and meekly sign the papers then he had another thought coming. She would show him she could be as strong as he was. She would go down fighting. Fighting for the love she couldn’t deny herself but had to.

With that in mind she tapped in to the same fiery determination that had given her the courage to march into his office and suggest they marry in the first place.

She put on her charcoal suit, her high heels and applied make-up. Then she pulled out her rarely used briefcase, put the letter inside and left, slamming the front door behind her. The few persistent photographers waiting intently outside her flat almost fazed her—they’d been camping out since the details of their marriage had hit the headlines, desperate for a story—but she passed through them, refusing to answer their questions or make a comment, quickly hailing a taxi.

By the time the taxi pulled up outside the Ramirez International offices it had started to rain, but she refused to rush in, head down against the rain. With her head held high she walked determinedly in, hardly giving the rain a second thought. Alone inside the lift she had time to check her appearance. It was vital she looked as sleek and sophisticated as possible. He must never know how devastated she was by the last two weeks, how little sleep she’d had recently.

She smoothed her hands down her skirt, took a deep breath and walked proudly out of the lift as soon as the doors opened. His secretary looked up as she pushed open the heavy glass door, but Georgina wasn’t about to stop and ask permission to see her husband. He was going to listen to what she had say whether he liked it or not.

‘Excuse me, Miss...’ the shocked woman said as she made her way straight towards Santos’s office.

Georgina stopped and turned to face her. ‘It’s Mrs,’ she said firmly. ‘Mrs Ramirez. And I’m here to see my husband.’

With that she turned and walked down the wide corridor that led to his office. Nothing was going to stop her now.

She paused briefly outside the door, her hand poised above the handle. Last time she’d stood there full of nerves, hardly able to believe she was about to propose to a man she’d never met.

Not for one minute had she thought she would find him so devastatingly attractive. And if she’d known that from the very first moment their eyes met a sizzle of desire would weave a spell so strong about them she would have turned and run, regardless of her motives.

She’d never expected to fall in love with him so quickly and so completely.

It had taken the letter instigating their divorce this morning for her to realise what she had to do—that she couldn’t run any more. She’d stood by and watched two men she’d loved in very different ways from the way she loved Santos leave her. This time she was determined it would be different. This time she wouldn’t shrink from the pain. This time she’d face it head-on.

She took a deep breath, gathered all her nerve and opened the door.

He was sitting at his desk, looking cool and composed. Her heart lurched just at seeing him, but she couldn’t let that get the better of her now.

‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

His words were as cool and clear as a mountain stream but she couldn’t falter now.

She put her briefcase on his desk, looked him in the eye and flicked it open. The dark depths of his eyes glittered as he watched every slow, purposeful movement. Taking out the letter, she placed it on the desk and then closed her briefcase.

‘Don’t play games, Santos. You know why I’m here. To put an end to our marriage.’

But not until he knew how she felt—knew she loved him. But telling someone who hated even to hear the word, let alone acknowledge the emotion, wasn’t going to be easy.

He stood up, his height as intimidating as the breadth of his shoulders, but she held his gaze, trying hard to ignore the lurching of her heart.

* * *

‘A marriage you instigated, Georgina. Here, in this very room.’

Santos moved from behind his desk and came closer to her, even now unable to resist the challenge her eyes fired at him. The first time she’d stood in his office, with fire and determination burning in her eyes, he’d wanted her.

He still wanted her. The force of the attraction hadn’t lessened after spending the night with her. It had increased.

‘One you willingly went along with. You changed it to suit your needs simply to get a business. You didn’t think I was worthy of an explanation about the heir you needed to inherit everything.’

Her angry accusation had found its mark but he wouldn’t let her see that.

‘You make it sound calculated when it wasn’t.’

He leant against the edge of his desk, folded his arms across his chest, fighting the urge to tell her everything. Then he remembered the pain in her voice when she’d told him she couldn’t have children.

‘I had no idea then that you couldn’t have children.’ His voice sounded unsteady even to him, and she closed her eyes, her long lashes shutting him out. He reached out to her, his hand touching her arm in a gesture of concern. She jumped back from him, her eyes now blazing. ‘I’m sorry.’

She remained silent, her steady gaze holding his, and he wished she’d let him close. He’d never meant to hurt her. She had made him feel things he’d never thought he would. He still found it hard to comprehend the aching void in his life, an ache born out of love. But now she hated him.

‘It’s not that I can’t have children, Santos.’

She spoke in a harsh, raw tone, her words snagging his conscience.

‘I just couldn’t bring a child into the world for that reason. I would have thought you of all people would understand that.’

His mind roared as the pain of his childhood rushed back at him. He’d been a mistake. One that had forced his mother into marriage with a man she couldn’t love. With dreadful clarity he realised Georgina was right. If he’d had to he would have resorted to fathering a child just to get the business—a child that he didn’t want. But wasn’t that why he’d never married? To avoid such a decision?

Guilt slashed at him, making his next words harsh and serrated.

‘If I could have avoided that I would have done.’

‘The same as you could have avoided all this.’ She pointed fiercely at the letter which lay on her briefcase. ‘If you’d just talked to Carlo he wouldn’t have had to go to the extremes he did. You denied Emma her big day.’ She paused for a moment, her dark eyes flecked with gold sparks of determination. ‘You should still talk to Carlo.’

Again she was right, and he gritted his teeth angrily. Talking to Carlo hadn’t been an option before, but he could put that right. With an exasperated sigh he thrust himself away from the desk and strode towards the windows. Raindrops ran down them, diluting the view of London.

‘Don’t hide from it, Santos. You used me to score points on your own brother.’

The accusation flew at him but he kept his back resolutely to her. She made him feel exposed, vulnerable. Damn it, she made him feel emotions he didn’t want—emotions he didn’t need.

He turned to face her, and despite the hardness of her expression he saw the pain on her face, felt it radiating out.

‘I was caught up in battle started by my mother. On her deathbed she made me promise never to let go of what was rightfully mine. When you so calmly offered marriage I never meant it to go any further.’

She made a sound that was a mixture of a gasp and a whimper—a sound full of pain. ‘So seducing me, getting me into your bed, was a mistake too?’

He watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest and realised she wasn’t nearly as rational as she wanted him to believe. ‘No, Georgina,’ he said as he moved towards her, his tone lower and huskier just from his memories of that night. ‘I wanted you then as much as you wanted me.’

She blushed, and it shocked him to realise how he’d missed that innocent blush.

‘I hate you for that.’

She hated him.

The venom in her voice left him in no doubt that she meant it and something changed inside him—as if somewhere a key had turned, unlocking something, some sort of emotion he wasn’t yet ready for.

‘Don’t play the wounded party with me when you already have one very convenient marriage behind you.’ Anger was the best line of defence. It would supress whatever it was she’d unlocked, because right now was not the time to analyse it.

‘Richard never forced me into his bed. He didn’t seduce me and I love him for that.’

Her words rang loud and clear in his head, as if she were at the top of a bell tower.

Santos gritted his teeth against those words. She’d loved Richard. It was as if he’d stepped back a few decades—as if he was witnessing the love his father and stepmother had shared, a love that had excluded him. But that exclusion hadn’t made him feel raw with the pain he now felt.

‘So you openly admit you married him for money?’ He maintained his angry defence—anything other than accept what the raging pain inside him might mean.

‘Yes, I did!’ She flung the words at him. ‘He asked me, he saw I needed help and offered it, but I had no idea then just how ill he was. That’s why he insisted I marry him—because he knew it was the only way to be sure he could provide for me into the future.’

He didn’t want to hear it, yet at the same time he did.

Her face softened. ‘He loved me, and for the chance he gave me I loved him.’

Santos was consumed with jealousy. He couldn’t hear anything else other than that she’d loved Richard.

* * *

Georgina watched as Santos’s face hardened. He couldn’t even stand to hear the word love—couldn’t contemplate such an emotion existed. He’d been denied it as a child and now, as an adult, he was determined to continue to deny himself.

She knew she was taunting him, using that word again, but she pressed on, hoping he’d see how she felt. ‘I loved him in a compassionate way. There wasn’t even a flicker of a spark of passion. It was a comfortable love. A safe love. Not the way I love you.’

Silence stretched between them. She remained tall and straight, even though she wanted to crumple on the floor right in front of him. The silence lengthened.

She shouldn’t have said anything—shouldn’t have opened her heart to his ridicule. Not when she knew how he scorned love. A lump gathered in her throat, almost choking her. This was no different from watching her father walk away. No different from having to say goodbye to Richard. As if her love had made them leave. She knew it wasn’t true, but the pain of it had made it feel that way.

Fear of going through that again was what drove her now. It was why she’d come here—why she was exposing herself so utterly to Santos’s contempt. If she was yet again to lose a man she loved, she was going to make her feelings clear.

‘Do you really expect me to believe that when these last weeks have been nothing but a big lie, an act for you?’ His words were sharp, heightening the tension between them.

‘It wasn’t a lie. There were times...’ She paused, feeling heat spread across her cheeks as she remembered their wedding night, the passion they’d shared. That night there hadn’t been any pretence, any acting on her part. She swallowed hard and continued. ‘There were times when it was real.’

‘Would that be the moment you kissed me at the party, or the morning you all but seduced me into staying on the yacht? Or the times when all your acting skills were called upon so that you could cover for Emma and Carlo running off to get married?’

The cynicism in his voice lashed at her like hail, each word stinging. How could he still believe she had had any part in it?

‘I had no part whatsoever in their marriage,’ she fumed at him, frustration rising like a spring tide. ‘They deceived me too, Santos.’ She stood facing him across the office, the expanse of soft cream carpet seeming to grow bigger between them with every passing second. ‘They were desperate.’

‘Back to that again, are we?’

Each word was like a bullet in her heart, each one wounding her further.

‘I can see that whatever I say won’t make any difference to you, Santos. You’re incapable of love.’

‘I made that perfectly clear from our very first meeting.’

In exasperation she covered her face with her hands briefly, dropped her head and took in a long, shuddering breath. She couldn’t take it any more, and gave vent to her frustration. ‘You’re so cold, so proud, and so damned stubborn. It was a mistake coming here.’

She pulled her jacket tighter about her body, as if it would deflect the hurt. For a moment his gaze lowered, caught by the movement. He took a step closer to her, his eyes meeting hers once more. She stepped back instinctively, needing space to be able to think.

‘So why did you come, mi esposa? Tell me. Why?’

His accent became heavy and to her dismay he moved closer still, rendering thought almost impossible.

She whirled round and grabbed the papers from his desk, knocking her briefcase to the floor in the process. ‘To sign these.’ She waved the papers at him furiously. ‘To put an end to something that should never have been started.’

‘You could have sent them via your solicitor.’ His calm voice irritated her further.

‘And I wish I had. But I was taking a chance—a gamble.’ She watched as he frowned, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘I had to know.’

He said nothing, as if he was trying to take in what she said, so she dropped the papers on the desk purposefully, picked up a pen and signed, tossing the pen back onto the polished surface next to the papers.

‘And now I do.’

* * *

Santos watched her sign the papers, listened as the pen crashed to the table. Each breath was hard to take, as if he was being suffocated. He hurt. Pain raced through him.

Even as she walked across the office he couldn’t say a word, couldn’t move, as if he’d been frozen in time. What the hell was the matter with him?

Something snapped, as if chains had broken. He inhaled deeply. The noise caught her attention and she turned to look at him. Her face was pale.

‘I know I was a fool.’ She threw the words at him as if he was nothing more than dirt at the edge of the road. ‘I gambled and I lost.’

He tried to make sense of her words. What was she trying to tell him?

Not the way I love you.

His mind replayed what she’d said moments before. Purposefully he moved towards her, and when she turned again panic tore through him. If she left now he’d never see her again. He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. He loved her; he’d just refused to admit it.

‘I gambled too.’

The words hurried out and he clenched his hands, trying to keep himself from reaching for her, from preventing her from leaving.

She spun round and faced him again, her eyes sparkling with molten gold. ‘Not with emotions, you didn’t.’

She moved towards the door so suddenly he was taken off guard.

‘You gambled with your brother’s happiness, your greed. You won, Santos, and I hope you’re happy.’

Happy? He was the furthest thing from happy. He hadn’t felt like this since the day his mother had calmly left, saying goodbye as if she was just going shopping.

‘Georgina.’

He tried to form the words, tried to tell her he hadn’t gambled with Carlo’s happiness—at least not intentionally. He wanted to tell her he’d gambled his own—and hers. Something he hadn’t even realised until just a few seconds ago.

‘Don’t, Santos. I don’t want to hear how you’re driven by power and the need to control everything.’

‘That may have been true once.’ The words rushed out and for the first time in his adult life he knew he was losing.

‘And it still is.’ Her words were softer now, as if she’d given up fighting.

Mutely he watched as she opened the office door and paused in the doorway.

‘Goodbye, Santos.’

His reaction was so swift he didn’t have time to think. All he wanted to do was stop her from leaving, from walking out of his life for good. A life that wouldn’t be the same once she’d gone.

He reached out and took hold of her arm, propelling her back into the room, and kicked the door shut on the enquiring glances of passing staff. She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide, darkening rapidly, her breathing hard and fast. But it was the current of pure electricity between them that told him he was doing the right thing.

He didn’t want her to go. It wasn’t possession. It wasn’t power. It was more than that.

It was love.

He loved her.

This passionate woman had unlocked his heart, healed his wounds and shown him how love could be. He’d just been too stubborn to realise.

* * *

Georgina stepped back as he let her go, watching the show of emotions cross his handsome face. His pain and confusion were palpable, and she wanted to reach out to him—but to do so would be her undoing. Again she stepped back, but he moved closer until she had nowhere to go, the wall against her back.

‘This is what you do to me.’ His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘I can’t think around you. I can’t sleep without you by my side. I can’t let you go.’

Her heart fluttered wildly and she dragged in a ragged breath. ‘Santos...?’ His name was barely a whisper from her lips.

He placed his palm on the wall above her shoulder, his face coming closer to hers, bringing him irresistibly close. Too close.

‘I want you, Georgina,’ he said huskily as he lowered his head to kiss her.

She moved sideways, away from temptation, but instantly he placed his other hand above her shoulder. Trapping her.

‘I want you with a passion so raw it almost hurts. In fact it does.’

She looked up into his dark eyes, so close now she could see how enlarged his pupils were, see the desire swirling there.

Say it, her mind urged him, but she refused to utter the words aloud. The blood rushed in her ears as her heart thumped and she bit her bottom lip hard. She would never beg anyone to say it. If he loved her he had to tell her.

‘I’ve never known this before, Georgina.’

‘What?’ she asked in a timid whisper, hardly daring to hear the answer.

‘Love.’

Her heart sang as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lips, easing the pain where she’d bitten into them hard.

‘I’ve never met a woman like you. From the moment you walked in here my fate was sealed. I just didn’t know it then. I couldn’t admit it—not even to myself.’

‘Can you now?’ she said in a cracked whisper.

He took her in his arms, pulled her close against him. ‘I love you, Georgina. My heart belongs to you and I never want it back.’

Her knees weakened and his arms tightened around her as he brushed his lips over hers. She pushed against his chest so she could look into his eyes. ‘I love you, Santos.’

With that he claimed her lips in a kiss so passionate it took all her breath away, leaving her light-headed.

‘Can we start again? Begin our marriage now, with honesty and love?’

As she looked up into the handsome face of the man she loved sunbeams lit up the office, casting a glow all around them. Once again the storm was over—and this time it was for good.

‘Only if it means we get another wedding night,’ she teased.

He laughed gently. ‘Now, that I can promise you, mi esposa.’