“I wonder if a year apart has made any difference?”

Roman continued, “Perhaps we should try to find out. Would you still reject me if I came to you in the night?”

“Don’t!” It was wrenched from her. Once Cassie had thought she loved her husband; now she knew better. He couldn’t get to her on any level if she didn’t let him. “If you think I’m going to oblige you, lie down on the floorboards while you satisfy your sexual curiosity, then you can think again!”

Roman drawled, “I had something rather more civilized in mind, mi esposa. Share my bed for the next three months and satisfy my…sexual curiosity, and I won’t bring charges against your brother.”

VIVA LA VIDA DE AMOR!

They speak the language of passion.

In Harlequin Presents®, you’ll find a special kind of lover—full of Latin charm. Whether he’s relaxing in denims or dressed for dinner, giving you diamonds or simply sweet dreams, he’s got spirit, style and sex appeal!

Latin Lovers is the new miniseries from Harlequin Presents®—for anyone who’s passionate about love and life.

Look out for our next Latin Lovers title:

Her Secret Bridegroom

by

Kate Walker (#2191)

Claiming His Wife
Diana Hamilton

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS warm and airless in the room, but not unbearably so. Outside on the bleached rolling miles of the campos, the heat of this July afternoon would be almost intolerable.

Cassie waited. Her body felt damp with perspiration beneath the grey and cream linen suit she had worn for the journey from London to the vast Las Colinas Verdes estates in Andalusia.

The suit, understatedly elegant and deliberately so, had survived the flight and the taxi-ride out here well, she thought thankfully. No way had she wanted to present herself looking less than businesslike and in control.

She lifted a hand to check that her rich chestnut hair was tamed, severely anchored into the nape of her neck. And her heartbeats were steady—that was another consolation. There was no reason for them to be otherwise, of course; she was no longer a nervous, besotted bride of just twenty-one. She was three years older and a whole lot wiser.

Satisfied that her appearance was as good as it could get—given her average kind of looks—she glanced at her watch and wondered how much longer she would have to wait. The taxi that had brought her from Jerez airport had deposited her here at the farmhouse over half an hour ago. The atmosphere in the heavily furnished, sombre room was beginning to stifle her, the louvres closed to keep out the merciless white heat of the sun.

‘I will send someone to tell your husband that you are here,’ her mother-in-law had stated. Doña Elvira had spoken politely; she always had, Cassie remembered, even when offering up her barbed insults, insults unfailingly echoed by her two older sisters, Roman’s aunts—Tía Agueda and Tía Carmela.

‘Is my son expecting you?’ A faint pinching of patrician nostrils had denoted that that lady had known Roman was not, that he had long since lost whatever interest he might once have had in his unsuitable, estranged wife.

No longer as frighteningly squashable as she once had been, Cassie had ignored the question and coolly stated, ‘I’ll wait. In the meantime, I’d like to see Roy. Perhaps you could send him to me.’

And so she waited. Her disgraced twin brother, Roy, it transpired, was not available. He had been put to work erecting fences out on the estate, under the blistering sun, a part of the punishment that was only just beginning.

‘I’m under house arrest at Las Colinas Verdes, while Roman decides what to do with me,’ he’d complained during his distraught phone call of a couple of days ago. ‘I can’t face ten years in a Spanish jail, sis—I’d rather top myself!’ he’d added, his voice beginning to rise with panic. ‘You could persuade Roman not to bring charges. He won’t listen to me. You know what he’s like—he’s got a tongue like a whip and a mind like a maze; you never know what he’s thinking! It makes it impossible to get through to him!’

‘I’ll phone him this evening,’ Cassie had reluctantly promised. She’d felt sick with disappointment over what her brother had done, the way he was dragging her into the mess he had made. ‘I’ll call him from the flat; the boutique’s busy right now.’ In fact, it was buzzing with bargain-hunters on the first day of their summer sale. Her boss and best friend, Cindy Corfield, had already gestured frantically to her to end this call and come up front to help out. ‘Though Roman isn’t likely to listen to me, either,’ she’d warned Roy, her voice tight. ‘If I ask him not to bring charges against you, he’ll probably do just the opposite to spite me. You shouldn’t have been such a damn fool in the first place!’

‘I know, and I’m sorry—but for pity’s sake, sis, phoning him won’t help me! He’d just hang up on you—he’s rigid with pride, you know that! Come out here. He won’t be able to blank you then. He’ll listen to you—well, he’ll have to, won’t he? Damn it all, Cass, the guy’s still in love with you, even if you did walk out on him!’

Which was absurd. Roman Fernandez had never loved her. He’d married her because it had been, for him, a matter of expediency at the time. And for her? She didn’t think about that, not ever. Three years ago she’d been naive and terribly vulnerable. Roman had taken the tears from her eyes and replaced them with the stars that hadn’t lasted much longer than the actual wedding ceremony.

But she was a mature adult now and refused to dwell on past mistakes. And because she’d looked out for her volatile twin for most of her life she’d agreed to do as he’d begged. Roy probably didn’t deserve it, but she knew how frightened and alone he’d be feeling, so she’d give it her best shot and hope it would be good enough.

And so now she waited and refused to let herself fidget. During the forty-eight hours or so since she’d received her brother’s cry for help she’d worked out what she would offer in return for Roy’s freedom.

Offers only a hard-hearted brute could dismiss. She tried not to remind herself that that was exactly what Roman was, and against all her hopes and expectations her stomach flipped over when he finally walked into the room and closed the heavy panelled door behind him.

He was wearing a straight-brimmed black hat tipped forward over his eyes and the black denim of his shirt and jeans was covered in the dust of the campos. He brought the evocative scent of leather and maleness and white heat into the musty room that she knew from her long, lonely months spent here was never used, except as a repository for unwanted furniture.

She had never tried to pretend that he wasn’t the most shatteringly fantastic-looking man she had ever seen, because that would have been pointless. But hoping she looked in control, like a woman who had taken a long hard look at her life, edited out all the bad bits—in which he featured as the central character—and got on with her life, she dismissed the impact he made.

Reminding herself that looks counted for nothing if they hid a hard, unloving heart, she rose to her feet. Five feet five inches of severely groomed adult woman, supported by three-inch spindly heels, was a match for any man, even if he was six feet something of steel-hard muscle and twelve years her senior.

‘They told me you were here,’ Roman imparted in the husky, sexily accented voice that, despite everything, still had the power to send shivers careering up and down her spine. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’ He removed his hat, and sent it languidly spinning across the room to land on a dour-looking table beneath one of the shuttered windows, revealing slightly overlong soft hair, as dark as the wing of a raven, and smoky charcoal-grey eyes that told her he wasn’t sorry at all.

Roman had never considered her feelings when they’d lived together. There was no reason on earth why he should do so now.

‘So, what brings you?’ He tilted his head in enquiry, his ruthless, sensual mouth unsmiling, his dark eyes cold. ‘A year away, working in a second-rate dress shop in a little town that no one has ever heard of, living in a tiny, squalid flat above the premises, has made you wake up to the fact that you’re far better off with your husband? Is that it?’

His long legs were straddled, his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans, his unforgettable features blanking out whatever thoughts were passing through his cold, cruel mind.

She didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t avoid it without appearing to be a coward or, worse, shifty, as if she had something despicable to hide. And the burn of inner heat that pulsed so violently through her veins was anger, nothing else.

Anger at his sarcastic denigration of her work, her home, the bitter knowledge that he must have kept tabs on her over the past twelve months without her being aware of it.

Not willing to waste breath on telling him that the boutique she ran with Cindy was thriving, that the flat above the premises might be small but was light years away from being squalid, she made her features as cool and unreadable as his and told him, ‘I came because Roy’s in trouble and he needs me.’

‘Now, I wonder why that fails to surprise me.’ The words were drawled, casually sardonic, but a flicker of some dark emotion over his harshly beautiful features and the thinning of his aristocratic nostrils told her she had somehow hit a nerve.

She narrowed her tawny eyes at him, waiting for some further reaction, something she might be able to use to her advantage. And when none came, and there was nothing but the thick, uncomfortable silence, she returned to the straight-backed heavily carved chair and lowered herself into its unforgiving embrace.

Slowly, she crossed her long silk-clad legs and watched him watching the unconsciously elegant, vaguely provocative movement; she realised with a tiny shock that made her breath catch in her lungs that his brooding eyes had taken in the way her narrow skirt had ridden way above her knees and quite definitely liked what they saw.

Sex. She would not let herself think about that.

She said levelly, refusing to let him see how nervous she had suddenly become, ‘I understand how angry you must be with Roy. I feel exactly the same. What he did was nothing short of disgraceful.’

‘Then for once in our lives, mi esposa, we are in agreement.’

Smooth, cool, even very faintly amused, his riposte didn’t help. Twisting her fingers together, she pulled in a breath. ‘But sending him to prison wouldn’t help; you must see that. It would blight the rest of his life—he is only twenty-four…and do remember the hallowed Fernandez name.’

A bite in her voice there. She hadn’t been able to help it. Pride in their exalted ancestry, the ownership of vast tracts of land supporting vines, cattle, wheat and olives, their place in society as members of one of the old sherry families, had been the favourite, seemingly endless topic of conversation between Don˜a Elvira and the aunts. Indulged in, she had no doubt at all about it, to reinforce their opinion that she was nowhere near good enough to be the wife of the heir to the kingdom!

‘You are suggesting that his crime goes unpunished?’

Roman was moving now, with the indolent grace that was so characteristic of him, his wide hard shoulders relaxed, his lean body tapering down to flat, narrow hips and endless legs. He opened the louvres, letting the harsh light flood the room. Probably the better to see her, she thought tiredly.

He stood with his back to the windows, his face shadowed. Enigmatic. So what else was new? She had never been able to tell what he was thinking.

But that didn’t matter. He was nothing to her now. She had walked out on their empty marriage a year ago and after another year she could begin divorce proceedings. All she cared about was helping her brother out of this mess and then getting back to England.

‘If you don’t bring charges against him, I’ll take him back home with me—that could be a condition.’ She offered the solution she had been turning over in her mind ever since Roy had phoned her. ‘Leaving Spain permanently would be punishment enough. He loves this country.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Roman replied implacably. ‘What he loves about Spain is being connected by your marriage to one of the wealthiest families in Andalusia. It makes him feel important.’

Cynic! Cassie swallowed the instinctive accusation. Why waste her time and her breath on stating the obvious? He had married her for purely cynical reasons and nothing had changed.

Grimly, she refused to let memories eat away at the poise she had gathered during her year away from her unloving husband and his incurably snobbish family. She was over whatever it was that she had once felt for him and was making a life for herself where she was respected and liked, and where no one tried to make her feel inferior.

She straightened her already rigid shoulders, mentally crossed her fingers, and played her ace. ‘Do you really want that sort of blot on the revered family name? Somehow, I don’t think so. Imagine the gossip when it becomes known that Roman Fernandez’s brother-in-law is behind bars.’

He moved into her line of vision, standing over her, his height, his breadth, the power of him suddenly and unwelcomingly intimidating.

‘The sympathy would all be with my family for its association with yours. We would be seen as upholding the rule of law, no matter what the cost. Quite noble, you must agree.’ He smiled, but his eyes were still cold and hard. ‘You will have to do better than that.’

Cassie muffled a sigh and reined back the urge to slap that beautiful, arrogant face. There was no point in appealing to his better nature. Still less point in trying to get through to him. She had never been able to do that, not even when they were first married.

‘I’ll repay every peseta he stole from you,’ she offered without a great deal of hope. She had no idea how much that was—Roy, to put it mildly, had been incoherent on that subject. It could take her the rest of her life, but it would be worth it. She lifted eyes to him that were now sparkling with defiance—she refused to admit that the emotion raging inside her was hurt—and said, ‘You’ll get your money back, get me and Roy out of your sight. In a year we can divorce and you can forget your precious family was ever associated with mine! And then—’ she drew in a breath, surprised by the pain that gripped her heart in a cruel vice ‘—you can marry that highly suitable Delfina who was always hanging around. Make your mother and the aunts happy—Delfina, too. The way she flirted with you, and the way you played up to her, used to make me sick!’

Too late, she deeply regretted the unguarded words that had revealed some of those earlier painful insecurities. She was over them now; she didn’t care who he eventually married. But his ego was too large to let him believe that simple fact, as was clearly demonstrated by the upward drift of one dark brow, the knowing tilt of his head.

He thought she was jealous, that she still felt something for him. It was intolerable!

Cassie shot to her feet, smoothing the non-existent wrinkles out of her skirt with unsteady hands. She was beginning to get a headache and her stomach was tying itself in tense knots because, so far, her visit hadn’t achieved a thing except to remind herself of two of the most unhappy years of her life.

Still, she had to try. She tilted her chin. ‘Do we have a deal?’

She couldn’t plead with him, not even for her twin’s sake. She had pleaded with Roman too often in the past—to no effect whatsoever—to want to go through that humiliating experience again, to put her pride on the line for him to trample on.

‘No,’ he said implacably. ‘At least, not the one you outline. You surprise me, Cassandra,’ he added, as if he questioned her sanity. ‘When we married I found work for your brother in the Jerez accounts office because, according to him, he didn’t want to cut the apron strings and go back to England without you and he didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps and study medicine. In fact he almost shed tears when I reminded him that that was what his father had wanted.’

‘He was barely twenty-one and he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He’d not long lost his father, had had to face the fact that the family home had to be sold to pay Dad’s debts—and, unlike you, he hadn’t come into this world cushioned by money and holding the entrenched belief that he was superior to everyone else on the planet!’

He ignored her protective outburst as if the heated words had never been said, just as he had ignored every opinion, every need of hers, in the past. ‘I gave Roy a job with a living wage, then paid the rent on an apartment because after a while he complained that he wanted to be independent of the family household in Jerez. He repaid me by going in to the office late and leaving early—when he bothered to go at all—and finally betrayed me and my family by embezzling a not insubstantial amount of money.’ He lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug, as if the conversation was beginning to bore him. ‘Having you rescue him from the consequences of his crime and repay the money he stole would not build his character, I think.’

Cassie winced. She hated to admit it, but in a way he was right. But she knew her brother far better than Roman did, and a spell in prison wouldn’t help Roy achieve responsible adulthood.

She put her fingers to her temples. The pain was getting worse. She’d made this journey, come face to face with Roman again, had the humiliation of seeing her offer brushed aside as if it had been made by a fool, and accomplished precisely nothing. She felt as if she’d been chewed up and spat out, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. She pushed herself to her feet.

‘If that’s your final word, I’ll leave, but I’d like to see Roy before I go,’ she said thickly. ‘I’ll wait here until he finishes work.’ Surely he couldn’t be heartless enough to deny her that? She had to see her twin, let him know she’d done her best. Advise him to take his punishment like a man and tell him to come back to England, to her, when he was free, and she’d do everything she could to help him to make a fresh start.

‘And here was I, beginning to think you’d developed a backbone,’ he said lightly. ‘I think you give up too easily.’

Perspiration was slicking her skin and she folded her arms jerkily across her chest as she tried to contain the feeling that she was about to have hysterics. ‘And I think you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, hanging on to what little poise she had left. ‘You won’t listen to what I have to say so what am I supposed to do? Sit in my chair like a good little girl until I grow roots?’

‘I listened,’ Roman remarked with an indolence that made her hackles rise.

She felt her face go red. ‘Maybe. But you still refused to consider what I said!’

‘I wasn’t aware that it was mandatory.’ One broad shoulder lifted in a very slight shrug.

He was impossible! Swallowing fury, she hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She was leaving! But easier said than done, because a graceful long-legged stride, one hand on her arm, stopped her.

She didn’t want him touching her. The heat of his hand through the fine fabric of her sleeve brought back memories she had no desire to acknowledge. Her tongue, though, was welded to the roof of her mouth and, before she could unstick it, he said at a smooth tangent, ‘You’ve gained weight. For most of our two years together you reminded me of a stick. Sometimes I used to worry about you.’

What a lie! Concern for her happiness and well-being had been so low on his list of priorities it had fallen off the bottom of the paper!

‘Liar!’ she accused scornfully. ‘The only people who worried about my weight loss were your mother and aunts. And that, according to the precious Delfina, was because they thought I was anorexic and possibly infertile. She even told me that having your child was the only way they would ever accept me.’ Seized by a wild, uncontrollable anger, she surged on, ‘I should have told them that I lost weight because I was desperately unhappy. That I couldn’t conceive because you never came near me!’

The words blistered her mouth but she didn’t regret them. It was time Roman faced the truth.

‘I thought you didn’t want me to?’ The sensual line of his mouth tightened. ‘You rejected me, or don’t you remember?’

It was framed as a question but he’d wait until hell froze over before he got an answer. She’d die before she admitted how much she’d regretted pushing him away, turning from him, lacking the courage to tell him how she felt; how later she’d ached for his touch; how his indifference, his long absences had hurt her.

She thinned her mouth as, probably in retaliation for her stubborn silence, glittering charcoal eyes veiled by thick black lashes made a lazy inventory of the curves she privately thought had grown a little too lush just lately. Her body burned hotly where his eyes touched and she tried to squirm away, aware that her breath was thick in her throat. His unanswered question and the explicitly intimate way he was looking at her was beginning to fill her with embarrassment and confusion.

What did he know about how she had felt? The sense of inadequacy, the beginnings of the shame that had grown right throughout their marriage because he had obviously decided she was frigid, not worth the trouble of going to her room at night.

His fingers tightened on her arm, his other hand resting lightly on her waist, just above the feminine roundness of her hips; his voice was sultry and wicked as he asked, ‘I wonder if a year apart has made any difference? Perhaps we should try to find out. Would you still reject me if I came to you in the night?’

‘Don’t!’ It was wrenched from her. She went rigid. She had taught herself not to cry; she wasn’t going to forget those harsh lessons and disgrace herself now.

Once—it seemed like a lifetime ago now—she had thought she loved him, had worshipped him, believed him to be the most perfect being ever to draw breath.

Now she knew better. He couldn’t get to her on any level if she didn’t let him. She threw back her head and challenged him, ‘If you think I’m going to oblige you, lie down on the floorboards while you satisfy your sexual curiosity, then you can think again!’

She slapped his hands away, one after the other, and headed for the door, her lips clamped together to stop herself screaming with all the remembered pain, and he drawled behind her, ‘I had something rather more civilised in mind, mi esposa. Share my bed for the next three months and satisfy my…sexual curiosity, and I won’t bring charges against your brother.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU need time to think about it?’ Roman asked as the brittle silence stretched until it was painful. The soft, almost scornful strand of amusement in his voice finally snapped her out of her state of numbing shock.

‘You can’t be serious!’ The thin, wavery bleat of her own voice secretly appalled her. She hadn’t meant to sound so utterly withering. Cassie swallowed convulsively and tried again, tried to do better. ‘You must be desperate if you have to resort to blackmail to get a woman to share your bed!’

This time the contempt she felt must have echoed in her tone because she saw his eyes narrow, his jawline harden. He was a passionate man; she knew that—passionate about his work, the land he loved, the family name, his women. Never about her, though, and they both knew it. Her taunt would have damaged his inbred, fierce Spanish pride.

‘Not blackmail—a condition,’ he corrected harshly. ‘Non-negotiable. You are free to take my offer, or leave it.’

‘My body’s not a commodity to be bartered,’ she stated, suddenly feeling shivery, as if her flesh had been plunged into a deep freeze. What he was suggesting was completely out of the question.

But he obviously wasn’t seeing it that way because his voice roughened. ‘It was before, if I remember correctly. Your body in my bed in exchange for my ring on your finger, a life of luxury, payment of your father’s debts—and let’s not forget that nice soft option for your brother, which we now know he abused. And again, with you, I got the rough end of the bargain and found myself sharing a bed with a block of ice. My bride made me feel like an animal with depraved and intolerable appetites—it was not an experience I wished to repeat.’

So he had left her completely alone. And he hadn’t had the sense to understand that she’d been terrified.

Not of him, because she had loved him then, but scared half to death of failing the shatteringly sexy, passionate and experienced man who had swept her off her feet with one smile from those sensually moulded lips, one glance from those sultry, smoky eyes. The man who hadn’t seen that his family’s displeasure at his choice of wife had already made her feel inferior and totally inadequate.

And she hadn’t had the courage to explain all of that to him, to at least try to tell him how she felt. Cassie shook that unwanted thought out of her head and closed her eyes as she dragged in a deep lungful of air; when she opened them he was holding the door open, his powerful body graceful, relaxed.

Showing her out? Bored? Impatient to get rid of her now he knew she would have nothing to do with his outrageous suggestion?

So why did she feel giddy with relief when he told her, ‘I’m not suggesting something immoral. You are my wife.’

‘We’re separated,’ she reminded him, defensively putting her light-headedness down to the trauma of the last few days, the expenditure of courage that had been needed to bring her to face him again.

‘Not by my wish,’ he stated dismissively. He swung on his heels.

Catching her breath, she followed him along the stone-flagged passageway that connected the old farmhouse to the newer, more comfortable addition that had been built in his father’s lifetime. Surely there was room for negotiation? Surely she could make him see that his cruel suggestion simply wasn’t practical, then ask him to reconsider her original offer?

‘Roman!’ If there was a desperate edge to her voice, she couldn’t help it. Her brother’s future depended on her ability to make her estranged husband change his mind. ‘Even if I wanted to come back to you—’ which she most definitely did not ‘—I couldn’t. I have a living to earn, a job to go back to. I told Cindy I’d only be away for a couple of days. It’s one of our busiest times.’

He stopped, turned, his impressive figure framed in the archway that led into the main hall. He lifted wide shoulders dismissively. ‘No problem. I’ll phone my cousin and explain. She’ll understand.’

Of course she would! Cindy idolised Roman, she hadn’t been able to believe her ears when Cassie had returned to England with the news that her marriage was over.

The relationship wasn’t as close as Roman had stated. Cindy’s grandmother had been Don˜a Elvira’s eldest sister. She’d married a Scot and they’d lived in England, producing Cindy’s mother. Although the Fernandez family hadn’t approved of the alliance with a mere foreigner, Don˜a Elvira and her surviving sisters had remained in contact.

Cassie and Cindy had been best friends since they’d met at school as five-year-olds, and it had been to her and her warm and loving family that Cassie had turned when her and Roy’s father had died from a heart attack.

They couldn’t have been more supportive. When the shock news had come that the house Cassie and Roy shared with their widowed father would have to be sold to cover his debts, Cindy’s mother had suggested, ‘We’ve been planning a holiday in Spain, visiting relatives on my mother’s side. Why don’t you and Roy come with us? I know they’ll make you welcome when I explain the circumstances. And it would give you and Roy a chance to get your heads round what’s happened.’

That was how she’d met Roman; that was when the short and, with hindsight, strangely distant courtship had begun. And the rest, she thought tiredly, was history. A history she wished had never been written.

‘Any other objections?’ he enquired flatly. ‘Or is the resumption of our marriage for three short months too high a price to pay?’

Much, much too high! Roy had done wrong and the only way Roman would allow him to avoid punishment was to punish her in her brother’s stead. Their wedding night had been a total fiasco. Although they had consummated the marriage, her fear of disappointing him had made her about as responsive as a lump of rock, thereby ensuring that the experience was one she didn’t want to repeat. The fear of further failure had made her push him away when he’d tried to take her in his arms on the following nights after that. So why would he want to force her to share his bed now—unless it was to dole out punishment?

Oh, her objections were legion! Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she framed the words of the only one that wasn’t personally insulting to him—which meant it was the tritest. ‘I came prepared for an overnight stay in Jerez before getting a flight back to England. How can I stay when I haven’t got much more than the clothes I’m wearing now?’

His smile was thin and it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I think we might be able to find a store that stocks female clothing somewhere in Spain, don’t you? And, Cassandra—’ his eyes narrowed to slits of smoke-hazed jet ‘—I’m not prepared to discuss this further. You take my offer, or you leave it. Sleep on it and give me your decision in the morning.’ He turned again, lobbing over his shoulder, ‘I’ll get someone to show you to a room you can use for tonight. We eat at nine, as you may remember, and afterwards you and Roy can have some time together to discuss your futures.’

Dispiritedly, she watched as he strode across the polished terracotta tiles of the airy, square hallway. She had honestly believed she was mature enough now to stand her ground against that overweening authoritarianism of his—that she would never again allow him to tell her what to do, where to go.

Yet she had to admit, after one of the maids—new since her own departure, just over a year ago—had shown her to a bedroom overlooking the courtyard at the back of the house, that her interview with Roman had sapped her of the energy she would have needed to arrange for a taxi to pick her up here and drive her back to Jerez, where she would have had to find overnight accommodation.

Also, this way she was guaranteed some time with her twin. She could sit through dinner with Don˜a Elvira and the dreadful aunts for the sake of the opportunity to speak to Roy alone afterwards. If she insisted on leaving now, Roman would make sure she didn’t get so much as a glimpse of her brother.

She needed to apologise in person for having failed him. Break the news that Roman would be bringing charges against him. It made her sick just to think of it. She’d been looking out for him ever since their mother had died a few days before their eighth birthday, but the price Roman was demanding was way too high. She had worked hard to turn her life around. How could anyone expect her to put herself back in the prison she’d escaped from a year ago?

Her pale face set, she gave the room she’d been shown to a cursory glance. It was very similar to the one she’d used when she’d spent the greater part of her two years of marriage here. Roman had simply dumped her, leaving her with his mother and the aunts while he’d been away doing his own thing. Business in Jerez and Cadiz, with plenty of fringe benefits in the form of fancy restaurants, fancy females, climbing in the Himalayas, skiing at Klosters—whatever turned him on.

Shrugging, consigning her memories back into the past, she unpacked her overnight bag. Cotton night-dress, a change of underwear, make-up and toiletries. Her heart hovering somewhere beneath the floorboards, she went to the adjoining bathroom for a much-needed shower and wished she and her twin had never heard of Roman Fernandez.

Candles—dozens of them—set in shallow crystal bowls imparted a warm, flickering glow to the old silver of the elaborate place settings. Dinner at Las Colinas Verdes was always a formal affair and tonight all the stops had been pulled out because there were two guests.

Herself the unwanted one. And Delfina The Desirable, who had been flavour of the month amongst Roman’s female relatives for as long as Cassie had known them.

Roman was seated at the head of the long table with the Spanish woman on his left. Delfina was as exquisite as Cassie recalled, her dark hair cut in a fashionable jaw-length bob, her slender figure clothed in ruby satin, leaving the delicate sweep of her shoulders and arms bare.

‘You are looking well, Cassandra. Better than I have seen you. You are obviously happier in your own country.’ Don˜a Elvira, remote and dignified in black silk, was seated at the foot of the table, to Cassie’s right. Her remark was made in her perfect English and carried the customary barb.

‘Thank you.’ Cassie inclined her head coolly. She could have answered that she would have been ecstatically happy in Spain if her husband had loved her, if his family had accepted her. But what was the point raking over a past that was dead and buried as far as she was concerned? She would not let this ordeal undermine her hard-won poise. She wouldn’t let any one of them intimidate her now.

Tía Agueda and Tía Carmela, Roman’s aunts, were seated opposite, their small dark eyes constantly flicking between Cassie and Delfina. Delfina was speaking in animated Spanish to Roman who, naturally, took pride of place at the head of the gleaming mahogany table. Her hand was continually moving to touch the back of his, or to linger on the white fabric of his sleeve, as if to emphasis a point she was making, her dark eyes flicking and flirting beneath the lustrous sweep of her lashes.

During her time in Spain Cassie had picked up enough of the language to get by, but the other woman’s voice was pitched too low, too soft and intimate to allow her to hear what was being said.

She fingered the stem of her wine glass and, as if noting the unconsciously nervous gesture, Don˜a Elvira said, ‘It is an uncomfortable time for all of us.’

And wasn’t that the truth? Cassie speared a sliver of tender pork fillet. Her twin was conspicuous by his absence. House arrest, he’d told her. He probably had to eat in the kitchen with the servants. She laid down her fork, the food unwanted.

‘I’ll be returning to England tomorrow,’ she stated, squashing the wicked impulse to tell her mother-in-law of her son’s attempt to blackmail her into resuming their marriage. Only for three short months—but, even so, Don˜a Elvira and the aunts would hate that. They were probably already counting down to when Roman could be free of his unsuitable, hopeless wife and they could begin pressing him to marry someone of his own nationality, someone with breeding and lots of lovely old money!

Something clicked inside her brain. Of course! She could see it all now. Roy’s fall from grace had given Roman the leverage he needed. It wasn’t just sexual curiosity about her, as he’d so insultingly claimed—his family must be nagging him again to produce an heir, and this time he could put them off if it appeared that he was having another stab at making his marriage work!

Sharply, her mind skidded back to the afternoon Roman had proposed to her. The older family members had been taking a siesta; Roy and Guy—Cindy’s older brother—had taken a couple of horses out onto the campos while Cindy and her mother were upstairs packing. About to follow suit—the month-long holiday was over and they were leaving for home the next day—she’d been halfway up the handsomely carved staircase when Roman’s softly voiced request had stopped her in her tracks.

‘Cassie, got a few minutes to spare?’

Her hand had shot out and tightened on the polished banister until her knuckles stood out like white sea-shells as a wave of raw heat flooded her body. She had been sure she was in love with him, helplessly and hopelessly in love, and it had turned her into a gibbering idiot when he was around.

Cindy had said, ‘Mucho macho!’, pretending to swoon. ‘He doesn’t even notice me but he follows you with his eyes, you lucky pig!’

Trying not to think of the gross stupidity of that remark—why should a man as gorgeous, as self-assured and wildly wealthy as Roman spare a very ordinary woman with no social skills and about as much sex appeal as a carrot a second glance?—she had waited until the gauche heat ebbed from her face before slowly turning.

He had been watching her from the foot of the stairs. Watching. Waiting. Her throat muscles had gone into spasm.

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Yes?’ Had her expression been intelligent, or just plain dumb? The latter, she suspected, because the slight shake of his dark, handsome head, the very slight abrasiveness of his voice had suggested impatience.

‘Not here. In the courtyard, for privacy. Come down.’

She’d gone; of course she had. If he’d asked her to walk to the North Pole with him she’d have gone without a murmur. And the sun-soaked courtyard had been deserted except for just the two of them, the scent of the rosemary and lavender planted in the centre perfuming the hot air. And his proposal had been the very last thing she’d expected.

‘As my mother and aunts never tire of telling me, it’s time I married and sired an heir. They’ve been dangling suitable females under my nose for the past five years and now that I’ve reached the venerable age of thirty-three they’ve stepped up their campaign.

‘I tell them to hold their meddling tongues, to put the succession of simpering creatures back into the boxes they dug them out of; I tell them that I will marry the woman of my choosing, not theirs. It makes no difference and, quite frankly, Cass, I am tired of it.’

At that point he had taken her hand and her whole body had melted, turning her into an amorphous mass of sensation, blanking out every last one of her brain cells. What else could explain the unseemly haste, the total lack of logical thought that had accompanied her acceptance when he’d increased the pressure of his fingers on hers and murmured, ‘I think we could make a successful marriage. You’re young for your years. Don’t take that as a criticism—you lack the guile and artifice that bores me in other women, and I find that very appealing. I do need an heir, and for that I need to marry. I want a woman I can live with, a woman whose primary concerns aren’t the perfection of her appearance, attending parties that take her days to prepare for, or empty-headed gossip.’

His mouth had indented wryly. ‘The bargain wouldn’t be one-sided. Since the death of your father you’re a ship without a rudder; I gather that he had you convent-educated then used emotional blackmail to keep you at home acting as an unpaid housekeeper. Cass, marriage and motherhood would give you the direction you want. And no need to worry about the debts waiting for you at home—naturally, as your husband, I would discharge them. And for me—’ his eyes had softened as he’d smiled into hers ‘—I would be free of the endless carping from my female relatives. In time, there would be our children to take their meddling minds away from me, and I could get on with my life in peace. And, more importantly, I would have a wife I’d chosen for myself. Will you think about it, dear Cassie?’

She hadn’t, she thought now, defiantly draining her wine glass. She’d simply accepted him and thought about it later, when it was too late to do anything other than acknowledge the fact that he had married her because she was biddable, undemanding, a creature of no consequence, and someone he could hide in a corner and forget about. Someone to provide him with the heirs the vast Fernandez estates needed.

Only it hadn’t worked out like that, had it?

‘I see Delfina still visits you,’ she remarked coolly to her mother-in-law. Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she added, ‘So kind, don’t you think, when sophisticated social events, glitzy restaurants and expensive shops are her natural milieu? Or so she always led me to believe.’

Before, she would never have dreamed of saying such a thing. She had almost literally withered away whenever her mother-in-law or the aunts had spoken to her, almost always with some criticism or other—the way she dressed, her apparent inability to conceive or keep her husband at her side, her weight loss.

‘She has always been fond of my son.’ Don˜a Elvira dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘As I said, it has been an uncomfortable time for all of us.’

Was that sympathy in the older woman’s eyes? Cassie thought so. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Formerly, had she only listened to the words, failing to see the concern for her well-being and happiness that lay behind the apparent criticisms?

She laid down her napkin, made her excuses, and left the room without even glancing at Roman. Sympathy from a most unexpected quarter wasn’t worth thinking about. Not now. It was over.

‘Sis!’

As Cassie closed the door to the formal dining room behind her Roy emerged from beneath the stone arch that led to the kitchen quarters. It took her two seconds to reach him. She wanted to shake him but he looked so wretched she hugged him instead.

‘I couldn’t sit through dinner, not knowing whether you’d persuaded Roman to give me another chance.’

She had meant to tell him that she’d tried and failed, that he was on his own now and had to take the consequences of his dishonesty, but she could feel his wiry body shaking. Her heart lurched. Her eyes filled with tears.

In the past she’d fought all his battles for him. Maybe he would have been a stronger character if she hadn’t. Maybe she was to blame for the way he’d messed up his life.

But how could she fail him now, when he needed her most?

‘It will be all right,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘You’ll be given another chance. Make the most of it, though, because it will be your last.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE kitchen was in the older, original part of the house; the stone walls were painted white and the huge black range added to the warmth of the early morning. Asunción, who ran the household and catered for the unmarried estate workers with unruffled efficiency, was kneading dough; two of the maids sat at the other end of the central table, chattering over their toasted rolls and coffee.

‘Have you seen Señor Fernandez?’ Cassie asked as her appearance made the housekeeper stop pummelling and the maids fall silent.

Unless they’d changed their habits during the past twelve months, Don˜a Elvira and the aunts wouldn’t surface until after they’d breakfasted in their rooms at ten. But when he was here Roman was always out on the estate soon after sunrise; she didn’t want to miss him and hang around until lunchtime, getting more nervous and downhearted with every passing second. She wanted to get this over with.

‘No, not this morning, señora.’ Asunción planted her floury hands on her wide hips, her small dark eyes sparking with curiosity. ‘Señorita Delfina waits for him also.’ One of the maids smothered a giggle, earning a quick dark look from the housekeeper. ‘If you join her in the courtyard, someone will bring coffee out for you.’

‘Thank you, Asunción.’ Cassie retreated smartly, her cheeks burning. Las Colinas Verdes was like a small village; everyone knew everyone else’s business and the affairs of the family were the subject of eternal gossip and conjecture.

They would all be wondering why the runaway, unsuitable English wife had returned and why el patrón had taken his young brother-in-law out of his comfortable office in Jerez and put him to work like a labourer in the fields. Uncomfortably, she wondered what answers they’d come up with.

She had no wish to join Delfina but she really did need that coffee. Her night had been restless, tormented by the knowledge of what she’d let herself in for. She couldn’t go back on her promise to Roy, but if Roman wanted her to pretend that they were making a fresh start, and get his relatives off his back, then she had a condition of her own to make, she thought firmly.

Delfina was sitting in the shade of the sprawling fig tree which grew against one of the high stone walls of the courtyard. She was wearing form-fitting stretch jodhpurs and a cream-coloured, heavy silk shirt; the long sleeves were casually rolled up to just beneath her elbows, displaying lightly tanned forearms and a matching pair of thin gold chain bracelets.

She looked every inch the aristocrat, as if she belonged here. Cassandra couldn’t understand why Roman was going to such lengths to pretend he wanted another shot at making his marriage to an average-looking nobody like her work, when surely he could see that this beautiful, sophisticated daughter of a wealthy sherry family would make him a perfect wife. Or had he really meant it when he’d said that Delfina’s type bored him?

‘If you’re looking for Roman, you’re out of luck,’ Delfina snapped. ‘We had a date to go riding but he must have left without me.’ The lovely, perfectly made-up face was petulant, the scarlet mouth drooping sulkily. ‘He always did head for the hills rather than spend time around you, so I guess that’s what’s happened now.’

‘Is that so?’ Cassie slid on to the bench seat on the opposite side of the table, in the full glare of the already hot sun, noting that the other woman had barely touched her coffee or her juice. Roman might enjoy the flirtatious attentions of Delfina, and the way she hung around him would boost his already considerable ego. But he certainly wouldn’t want to marry her, and not only because her shallowness would bore him.

Delfina had been born to elegance and style, and was accustomed to the high life. She certainly wouldn’t allow herself to be isolated here, seeing her husband only when he felt like dropping by for a week or two, producing babies and closely chaperoned by his mother and aunts while he swanned off, free as a bird. She would make a demanding wife, while he had wanted a dutiful, self-effacing one, one who didn’t ask questions or demand a single thing of him.

Roman Fernandez was far too selfish to completely tie himself down to a woman; he enjoyed the pleasures of a bachelor-style life far too much. But at least, Cassie knew, he wouldn’t seduce the other woman. She came from an important family and he wouldn’t compromise her; his Spanish code of honour wouldn’t let him. Though why she should see that as a consolation, Cassie couldn’t imagine. She no longer cared what he did.

‘I can’t think why you came back after all this time,’ Delfina said pettishly. ‘You’re wasting your time if you expect Roman to take you back—because he won’t, you know. How long are you staying, anyway?’ she wanted to know. ‘It can’t be too long if the only thing you’ve got with you is the same old suit you wore to dinner last night,’ Delfina added disparagingly. ‘And you really shouldn’t sit in the sun, not with your ginger colouring. You’ll get covered in ghastly freckles, just like your brother. And what’s he doing working here? I thought Roman had given him an easy life back in the office in Jerez.’

‘He’s learning estate management from the bottom up,’ Roman’s dark, velvety voice supplied. He was standing in the shadow of the pillared arcade that surrounded the courtyard on three sides. ‘And you never know, if he’s not otherwise engaged when Miguel retires in six years’ time, Roy might make manager.’

Cassie got the message. Roy could make something of himself here on the estate, or go to prison. She shivered, despite the warmth of the sun. At least Roman hadn’t confided the true situation to Delfina. She offered up a silent word of thanks for his tact.

‘We had a date,’ the Spanish woman cooed as Roman stepped out of the shadows. The petulance gone, she was all smiling welcome. She stood up, smoothing her hands over her prettily curved hips. ‘I’ve waited for ages, but at least you’re here now—so just this once I’ve decided to forgive you!’

He wasn’t dressed for riding. Wearing narrow fawn-coloured cotton trousers topped by a black shirt in the finest lawn, he looked fantastic, all raw male sexuality—and then some. Cassie knew exactly why Delfina couldn’t keep away from him; she could imagine how the Spanish woman’s hopes would have soared when she’d learned that his failure of a wife had left him.

Cassie almost felt sorry for her!

‘You’re going to have to ride alone this morning,’ Roman stated abruptly, as if his patience was running out. ‘I have urgent business with my wife. But,’ he added as a palliative, ‘I had Demetrio saddle up for you. The mare’s ready and waiting in the stable yard.’

His cool smile seemed to soften what was obviously a blow and pushed what petulant words Delfina might have been about to say back down her throat. Asunción, bearing down on them with a huge tray, did the rest.

As the housekeeper, with a murmured, ‘Señor, Señora,’ set out breakfast for two and cleared away the offerings Delfina had barely touched, the Spanish girl swept her eyes dismissively over Cassie, gave Roman a commiserating smile and drawled, ‘I’ll leave you to your boring business then, caro. You can make amends for letting me down when you’ve finished with it.’ Another pointed glance in Cassie’s direction and then she was walking away, leaving the sultry perfume that was her trademark behind in the hot summer air.

As Asunción left, Roman took the seat Delfina had vacated and Cassie eyed the crispy rolls, honey, fresh fruit and coffee and felt her throat close up. Alone with him, she felt wound up enough to explode, and he made it a thousand times worse when he reached out a hand and ran the back of his fingers lightly down the side of her face.

‘Unlike your unidentical twin, your skin doesn’t freckle.’ His voice was slow, sexy and smooth, the smoky eyes following the movement of his fingers as they rested briefly on the corner of her mouth. ‘And I wouldn’t describe your hair as ginger—far more like burnished chestnuts, Cassie.’

After those first few disastrous days of their honeymoon he’d never touched her, except perhaps by accident. He’d certainly never touched her skin deliberately, lingeringly, seductively. So why touch her now? Why was he trying to contradict Delfina’s earlier insults? Her huge eyes were bewildered.

She tried to move, to jerk her head away from the gentle stroke of his fingers, the warmth that was setting fire to her skin—but she was mesmerised, trapped beneath the intimacy of his eyes, for all the world as if she were twenty-one years old again. Vulnerable, gullible, innocent and still traumatised by recent happenings.

‘Awwwk—’ The sound that emerged from her painfully tight throat was more like a croak than the opening for a sensible statement. As if he knew he could sweet-talk her into a state of feeble submission where his threats had failed, one dark brow quirked upwards; a slight smile curved his sensual mouth as he dropped his hand and lifted the coffee pot.

But it wasn’t that; it really wasn’t. She was beyond all that self-serving charm. It was just that she dreaded having to commit herself, but knew she had to if she were to save her twin.

And now—apart from that condition she was determined to make—the time had come to tell him she agreed to accept his monstrous offer.

She could hardly believe this was happening to her. It had taken courage to walk out on him, and a whole lot of determination to put him and what he had meant to her right out of her mind.

Her throat jerking, she swallowed around the constriction in her throat, stared into the rich, steaming coffee he had placed in front of her and stated as evenly as she could manage, ‘If you must use me to divert your family from pestering you to provide an heir then I’ll stay with you for the three months you stipulated. But—’

‘A diversion? Interesting…’ Roman looked almost amused.

‘What other reason could you have?’ Suddenly, Cassie was wary.

‘None.’ A glint of wickedness in the dark eyes belied the blunt disclaimer, but she was reassured by his, ‘You catch on quickly; well done! You are my wife, you’re here, and you suit my purposes—but don’t forget, the deal includes you sleeping with me, as a good wife should…’

Cassie swallowed hard and forced an edge into her voice, ‘Point taken. You don’t have to paint a picture. I’ll keep my part of the bargain, but not here.’

‘Is that an ultimatum, mi esposa?’

‘Take it or leave it.’ She echoed his former words, trying to blank out the knowledge that he was not a man to be coerced, trying to look as if she wouldn’t back down while all the time knowing that she would have to if he didn’t agree.

‘I wonder what it is about Las Colinas Verdes that you dislike so much?’ he queried idly. Cassie shot him a suspicious glance from beneath her lashes. Buttering a roll, spreading it with honey, he gave every appearance of being totally relaxed about the whole surreal situation. ‘I seem to recall a previous time when you asked if we might make a home somewhere else.’

She hadn’t simply asked, she’d begged—practically pleaded with him on her knees! She hadn’t been able to bear being left here, watched over and criticised by his mother and his aunts, enduring Delfina’s visits—visits which had always miraculously coincided with Roman’s own.

But he had barely listened. But then why should he have when her misery—the feeling of being abandoned, a prisoner—hadn’t been important to him? After their disastrous wedding night, it had suited him to have her out of sight and out of mind.

‘It isn’t the place,’ she corrected sharply. ‘It’s the people.’ And if that was insulting to his family, tough! She had grown out of pussy-footing around him, trying to please him, vainly hoping he would start to feel something for her beyond indifference. ‘If we were here, they’d be watching like hawks to see if I got pregnant. I’ve been there, done that. And I don’t want a repetition.’

‘You could have told them they were wasting their time,’ he said coldly. ‘That the likelihood of your conceiving my child was non-existent because you couldn’t bear me to touch you.’

Cassie swallowed the instinctive, vehement response that the blame for that was just as much his as hers. After all, she’d broached this subject yesterday; the snap of his eyes and the tightening of his jaw line had showed her that her criticism of his family had made him angry.

She took a deliberate sip of coffee, then took a deep breath and made her tone entirely reasonable as she told him, ‘I don’t want to get into a fight, Roman. Our marriage was a mistake. It didn’t work for all sorts of reasons. The past is best forgotten; it’s no longer important. What matters right now is deciding how we’re going to handle the next three months, and where we’ll spend them.’

Another few sips while she weathered the startling frisson that racketed through her body at the mere thought of the coming three months. And, if anything, her prosaic words—meant to pour oil on waters that were beginning to look ominously turbulent—seemed to have worsened the situation, because his black brows were drawn together, his haughty Spanish disdain sharp enough to cut.

‘We’ll spend them together. That was the bargain.’ He got to his feet, the dappled shade reinforcing the mystery of the man. He was a complex character, many-faceted; she had never been able to understand him. ‘I will break the news of our reconciliation to my family. Be ready to leave in an hour.’

His mouth pulled back against his teeth, he stared down at her, as if daring her to say another word, then swung round and walked away. He left her wondering at his change of mood.

Set to charm the socks off her to start with—most probably in an attempt to persuade her to fall in with his wishes. Then showing flashes of simmering black temper after she’d agreed to what he wanted: the pretence of a reconciliation!

No, she never had been able to understand him. But it really didn’t matter now, did it?

CHAPTER FOUR

BEYOND a few lines of self-consciously banal chit-chat, they had barely spoken. The prickly silence inside the air-conditioned car was beginning to get to Cassie, but it didn’t seem to bother Roman and that annoyed her.

Everything had happened so quickly her throbbing head was still going round in ever accelerating circles.

Yesterday they’d driven away from the finca, the vast Las Colinas Verdes estate, leaving behind Don˜a Elvira and the aunts, who had looked as if they didn’t know what had hit them, Delfina, who knew very well what had hit her and hated it very much indeed, and a suitably chastened and contrite Roy.

Roy had hurriedly assured her in a last-minute undertone that he would work his socks off on the estate to make up for what he had done, adding gruffly, ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve got my head straightened out. Just concentrate on making a go of your marriage this time, sis. Roman’s crazy about you; he’s been unbearable to be around since you went away.’

Which only went to show that working under the hot Spanish sun had sent her twin brother completely loopy.

They’d arrived in Seville in the sweltering afternoon heat and booked into a hotel where, to her knee-sagging relief, she’d been given a room of her own, complete with a four-poster bed and wonderful views of the Giralda. Then, before she’d had time to unpack her meagre belongings, Roman had knocked on the door, insisting on taking her to a surprisingly elegant boutique off the pedestrianised Calle Sierpes.

The sheer, rather stark grace of the dark-haired woman who had approached them had made Cassie sit up and take notice. The discreet decor, the clever lighting, the single garment on display—a simple cream silk suit with a designer label to die for—shrieked serious money.

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