His Suitable Bride: Rafael's Suitable Bride / The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain / Cordero's Forced Bride

It was already seven in the evening by the time they finally made it to Maria’s country house. Cristina had spent much of the trip dozing, much to Rafael’s amusement. He had never been known to send a woman to sleep, and he found that he rather missed her chatter, having become accustomed to her random remarks about perfectly ordinary things and perfectly dull-looking people. Sometimes in the past few weeks, when his day had been particularly gruelling, he had picked up the phone knowing that her good-natured, irrepressible small talk would soothe and entertain him.

‘We’re here,’ he said, turning to her as he pulled into the drive and killed his engine. In a minute his mother would be outside, and he very much looked forward to a weekend spent without that insidious message being passed to him in silent but pointed waves that it was time for him to find himself a good wife and settle down. He had taken her advice and, hats off to his mother, he felt perfectly contented with his decision.

‘Was I asleep?’ Cristina asked, yawning.

‘Asleep and snoring.’

‘I wasn’t!’ She shot up into a sitting position and looked at him in horror, but grinned when she saw the expression on his face.

Rafael kissed her swiftly on the mouth. ‘That’s about all we’ll be getting,’ he murmured. ‘At least while my mother has her beady eyes on us. She’s never been one to approve of public displays of affection. I might just have to creep into your bedroom tonight under cover of darkness.’ He glanced towards the front door and, as it was still shut, he slipped his hand under her shirt. No bra.

He touched one pert nipple with his thumb and felt her quicken and melt under the caress. Did he have time for more? He would have liked to shove that shirt up and fasten his mouth to that sweetly ripened, throbbing bud, would have liked to have her sink further down the plush leather seat so that he could ravish her in the cool, expensive elegance of his car.

Unfortunately …

He withdrew his hand with marked reluctance and took a few deep, steadying breaths because his body was already slamming into response. ‘We’d better go inside,’ he growled. ‘Or else I’ll be sorely tempted to reverse back down the drive and head for the nearest lay-by. Which wouldn’t exactly be cool, now, would it?’

‘Especially not when your mother’s waving at us from the downstairs bay window.’

She smiled as Rafael jerked back and pushed open his car door, leaving her to try and calm her body’s tempestuous reaction to his fondling. Making out in a car was strictly for teenagers, she had always thought. Definitely not cool when it came to adults. But if Maria hadn’t appeared just then, and if he had driven his Bentley to the nearest lay-by, then she would have happily let him have his way with her.

Her skin prickled at the thought of them in his car, his head buried between her thighs, nuzzling at her breasts, claiming her mouth …

She’d never thought that she would see the day when she would need a cold shower, but that seemed to be the effect he had on her. One glance, a fleeting touch, and she melted like a candle over an open flame.

As Rafael had predicted—and she would have been surprised otherwise—they had been put in separate bedrooms, with the very long distance of hall and corridor between them. Maria belonged to that generation of adults, just as her parents did, who would never have contemplated their offspring sharing a bedroom with their current partner, even if the partner in question was sporting a very expensive engagement ring on her finger. No; the only ring that would have led to a king-sized bed prepared for two was of the wedding variety.

But on Cloud Nine, which was currently Cristina’s address, it was of little importance. She had the rest of her life to enjoy getting to know the man she was going to marry. A couple of nights under the same roof but in separate beds was not going to be unduly stressful.

She was also looking forward to getting to know Maria a little better as well. And she was pleased that they were going to be staying in, enjoying a home-cooked meal, instead of going to a restaurant.

‘Of course,’ she confided as she guiltily tucked into a second helping of Maria’s exceptional home-made lasagne, ‘I really shouldn’t be indulging in this.’ She sighed. ‘Too much cheese. Very bad for the figure.’ There was also tiramisu for dessert. Cristina had spied it sitting temptingly in the fridge earlier on and, ruthlessly honest as she was with her own eating habits, she’d known that she would be indulging. Then there had been the wine. Very dry and very cold and very drinkable. She had had three glasses and was feeling pleasantly relaxed. The conversation had flowed, with Rafael at his most witty and charming, Maria had chatted about incidents in her youthful past that had featured her friends and Cristina’s parents, and it was all so very comfortable that she’d had to pinch herself a couple of times just to make sure that this was really happening.

‘Nonsense,’ Maria laughed. ‘You have a real figure.’ She wagged one finger warningly. ‘Men don’t like this stick-insect woman,’ she said, smiling. ‘A real man likes a woman with some substance!’

Rafael was laughing as he left the dining room carrying an armful of plates and Maria turned to Cristina and said fondly, ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am that that son of mine finally listened to what I told him.’

‘What’s that?’

Maria covered Cristina’s hand with her own and gave it a little squeeze of affection.

‘About settling down. I told him that he would become a sad, lonely old man if he didn’t find himself a suitable wife, and for once he listened to what I had to say! And, I must say,’ she added with a hint of complacency in her voice, ‘I couldn’t have picked a better daughter-in-law myself! Now, my dear—’ she stood up and yawned ‘—I am going to leave you two young things … dessert in the fridge … old lady like me …’

Cristina heard Maria’s voice as just a background whisper barely audible above the roaring in her ears. Yes, yes, yes … She was nodding as if her mind wasn’t exploding, agreeing with Maria that indeed she would have some of the tiramisu, that she knew where her bedroom was, that she shouldn’t be too late up because there were plans to go to the market the following day … sunshine predicted … another warm one …

Five minutes ago she had heard Rafael doing domestic things in the kitchen and she had felt utterly and completely happy. Now she wanted to lock the dining room door, shut him out until she could assimilate what Maria had said—those casual, throwaway words about finding a suitable wife.

Cristina remembered that surreal feeling she had had, that a man like Rafael, so supremely eligible, could ever have managed to be attracted to her. He had made her feel sexy and desirable, but really and truly, when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see the sort of woman she would have associated with him. And now, in the stillness of the dining room, all of Anthea’s warnings came flooding back to her, washing away her happiness like footprints on a beach.

She felt the sting of tears prick behind her eyes, and she wanted to duck down under the table and hide until she could sneak away from the house, back to the safety of her own apartment, where she might be able to get her chaotic thoughts back into some sort of order.

Rafael had never once told her that he loved her, but like a fool, she hadn’t let that stand in the way of believing that he did, that he must, because why else would he have asked her to marry him?

She cast her fevered mind back to his proposal. She had laughed at herself at the time for expecting something romantic, and had simply accepted that he wasn’t the romantic type—not the sort to kneel and slip the antique ring on her finger, not the sort to wax lyrical about having her for his wife.

She heard the sound of his approaching footsteps and looked up from where she was sitting in frozen silence. He had a tea cloth slung over one shoulder, the picture of the domestic man. But looks, as she now knew, could be deceiving. Rafael was no more domestic than a jungle animal, although he was willing to dabble if he had to.

Rafael paused at the door to the dining room, his antennae picking up something, although he wasn’t sure what. He frowned and slowly began clearing the rest of the dishes from the table, expecting her to stand up and give him a hand. She normally did this sort of stuff. She didn’t. Instead she remained where she was, staring down at the remnants of the food, as if looking for the table to provide answers to some internal question.

‘What’s the matter?’ Rafael asked, relegating any disquiet to the back of his mind. He swung round to stand behind her and then he leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck. His mother was safely tucked up in her bed, and the thought of having the place to themselves made him feel horny. Being at his mother’s house, knowing that he had done the one thing in the world guaranteed to make her happy, was as rewarding as he had anticipated. His mother heartily approved of Cristina, and he had been spared those prickly conversations about his future which he had always found frustrating.

‘All is quiet on the western front,’ he murmured seductively into her ear, but where she once would have squirmed with pleasure Cristina now pulled away slightly and twisted around to face him.

‘I … I don’t feel comfortable, not when we’re here in your mother’s house …’

‘Now who’s being the dinosaur?’ Rafael teased her. ‘My mother has retired early for a reason. She may not openly condone us sleeping together, but she isn’t a fool.’ But that little ripple of disquiet showed its teeth once again.

It took all of her will power not to succumb to his massive charm. Or for that matter to her treacherous body, which was doing its own thing, ignoring what her head was telling it to do. She stood up and did a funny little side step out of his embrace, then she began clearing the rest of the plates, eyes averted.

Rafael followed her into the kitchen where he had made a rudimentary attempt to load the dishwasher, but unsurprisingly, had only managed to stick in the plates and cutlery, leaving all things difficult piled up in the sink.

‘I’ll finish these off,’ Cristina said quietly, looking at the pile of dirty dishes instead of at him. ‘You can head up to bed. You must be exhausted after all that driving.’

‘I like it when you look at me when you talk,’ Rafael drawled. ‘Or are you in one of those mysterious moods which women seem prone to?’

Cristina felt an unaccustomed surge of rage rush through her, and she gritted her teeth together to suppress the awful desire to shout at him.

‘You should know about women and their mysterious moods,’ she muttered violently instead, and she felt Rafael still behind her.

‘Meaning …?’ He rested his hands on her shoulders and swivelled her around so that she was forced to at least face his direction, although she cravenly kept her eyes pinned to the flag-tiled kitchen floor.

Cristina took a deep breath and dived straight in. What choice did she have? She could continue making mysterious and bitter asides, but the truth was that sooner or later she would have to confront the issue and, who knew? Maybe she had misinterpreted Maria, or misheard. She had a fleeting moment’s peace of mind at the thought of that, of a perfectly harmless, innocent remark having been taken out of context and cruelly magnified into something suspicious.

‘Your mother and I were having a little chat while you were in the kitchen.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘It’s just that she said … Well, she mentioned something in passing that I need to talk to you about.’

‘I can think of better things to do than talk.’

‘I know I’m probably being over-imaginative …’

Rafael resigned himself to one of those conversations in which, he knew, only ten percent of his mind would actively participate. It would probably involve wedding preparations or something equally tedious and, whilst he would dearly have liked to distract her, he could tell from the stubborn angle of her head that this was important to her and he shrugged, dropping the tea cloth on the counter.

‘Okay. Do you want some of that dessert in the fridge?’

Cristina thought of Maria’s description of her, fondly intentioned but unwittingly cutting. A real woman. Cristina didn’t particularly want to be a real woman. Right now, she would happily have settled for Barbie-doll status, because, despite what Maria had said, men weren’t attracted to real women. How could she have been so blind as to imagine that Rafael was seriously attracted to her? She was a novelty at the moment, and he was probably making the best of a bad job in sleeping with the woman he had more or less been set up to marry. Just thinking about it now made her head swim and her legs feel weak.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Now I really am concerned.’

‘This is serious, Rafael,’ Cristina said more sharply than she was accustomed to, and he frowned at her. She could see him trying to work out what was going on and she realised, belatedly, how transparently predictable she had been—always thrilled to see him, always ready to make love, always sunny natured because that was her temperament. He had beckoned, and like someone in a trance she had walked towards him, never asking all those questions which she now realised she should have been asking.

Frankly, she had been clueless.

‘Could we go into the sitting room?’ she asked.

‘As you wish.’

Cristina nodded and led the way. It was a grand house, but many of the rooms downstairs were shut up because Maria, on her own, really only occupied the kitchen, the cosy den which she used as her office, the sitting room and her bedroom. In summer, she said that she liked nothing better than her garden room at the back, from which she could contemplate the beauty of nature. Consequently, those rooms which were used all year round were cluttered and cosy and quite different from the remainder of the house.

With the foundations of her fairy-tale future disappearing like a puff of smoke in a high wind, Cristina was piecing together all those missing jigsaw pieces which she had cheerfully ignored. For instance, she thought bitterly, how odd had it been that after only three months he had proposed marriage—a man accustomed to single life in the fast lane, surrounded by the most beautiful women in the world, sought after, courted, desired? How was it that he had suddenly decided to wave goodbye to all of that in a matter of a few seconds, so to speak, because she, plump, gauche and nothing stunning in the looks department, had come along?

‘You were saying?’

Cristina, lost in her thoughts, had almost forgotten what she had been saying. She focused her eyes on the man sitting next to her on the sofa and blinked.

‘I was saying that your mother … Maria said something and I need you to clarify.’

‘Get to the point, Cristina.’

Was he being understandably impatient because she was waffling, or were these just the signs of arrogance which she had conveniently chosen to overlook but which had been there all along?

‘She said that she was really happy … that you had decided to finally settle down.’

‘And so she is. Are we going somewhere with this or is it just the circles thing?’

‘She said that she had spoken to you … told you that it was time that you found a suitable wife.’ Bitterness had crept into her voice, and Rafael’s face darkened. ‘I need to find out what this is all about, Rafael,’ she pursued doggedly. ‘Finding a suitable wife. Is that what this is all about?’ The words were wrenched out of her and spoken straight from the heart.

‘You’re beginning to sound hysterical, Cristina, and I don’t do hysterics.’

‘I’m not being hysterical. I’m just asking you to tell me the truth, whether you were put up to this.’

‘I don’t think I like that expression,’ Rafael said, his lean, handsome face taut.

‘Well, I can’t think of another one to use. Your mother said that she told you that it was time to find a suitable wife and, lo and behold, here I am!’

‘You seem to have a problem with that term and I don’t understand why.’ The relaxing weekend Rafael had anticipated seemed to be going rapidly pear-shaped and he was at a loss to explain why. Cristina, so obliging for the past few months, was now asking questions which he personally found unnecessary, and standing her ground. Why? She should have been pleased that he considered her a suitable wife! He had already been through a wife who had been totally unsuitable. What higher compliment than to be chosen for her suitability?

Cristina’s hope that she had somehow misinterpreted Maria’s remark crumbled into ashes.

‘Yes, my mother suggested that it was time I settled down and I agreed with her.’ He gave a casual, elegant shrug. ‘Where is the problem in that? There comes a moment in every man’s life when he must weigh the advantages of playing hard against the peace of tying the knot.’

Cristina had a mental image of a pair of scales with ‘Fun and Frolics’ on one side and herself, ‘Giant Knot’, on the other. No love to be seen and, without love, how long before ‘Giant Knot’ lost its appeal? Would he then expect to resume his fun and frolics, with the added bonus of having Giant Knot at home raising children, cooking meals and waiting for him to return?

‘So this would be a bit like a business transaction, in other words?’

‘Why do you insist on using such emotive language?’ Rafael enquired impatiently.

Cristina turned away, the sting of tears making her blink rapidly, willing herself not to cry because she was pretty sure that he probably didn’t do crying along with hysterics.

‘It’s not going to work.’ She wriggled the engagement ring from her finger, turned back to him and silently held out her hand with the ring in her palm. ‘The diamond was too big anyway. How could I do football coaching or my flowers wearing it?’ She forced herself to smile in the face of his stony expression. ‘I should have seen that as a sign. We couldn’t even agree on the ring.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE evening and following day were a nightmare of misery and tension. Cristina had handed Rafael back his ring, but he had refused to accept it. Instead, he had looked at her with a long, cool expression and told her to consider the implications of not wearing it. The explanations to his mother, which would be uncomfortable at the very best. What would she say—that they had had a massive row and she had decided to call the whole thing off? His mother, he had assured her, would smile indulgently and probably tell her something wise about pre-wedding nerves. Or else she could go for the truth, tell his mother … that what? She considered herself at the wrong end of a deal which she had now decided she didn’t care for—a deal to marry one of the most eligible men in the world?

‘Wear the ring,’ he had told her. ‘We can discuss this later.’

Coward that she was, Cristina, faced with the scenario which Rafael had succinctly depicted in sparse but extremely graphic detail, had silently slipped the ring back onto her finger, but it had felt like barbed wire against her skin.

She had smiled, and the following day had limped by, each minute feeling like a lifetime, until finally, at four in the evening, they’d been standing by the door with their cases by their feet, ready to face the long journey back to London.

She had managed to successfully avoid ‘the cosy chat’ situation by disappearing outside at all available opportunities, and then reappearing with the excuse that she was seeking inspiration for her landscape project, that she couldn’t get enough of the countryside. Towards the end Maria had been eyeing her with a puzzled expression, and Cristina had realised that she’d been walking the thin line between appearing engagingly committed to her ambitions and a complete lunatic.

She gave Maria a hug of genuine warmth, and suddenly a small but promising idea presented itself to her. Here she was, idiotically in love with a man who felt nothing for her but a temporary attraction, a man who saw her as a suitable partner. On paper, she made sense—right background, right connections, even the added bonus of a history among parents. He would marry her because, like any sensible investment, she would stand the test of time. He hadn’t banked on her response on discovering that she was a useful commodity. In fact, he hadn’t banked on her finding out that little gem, although it wouldn’t have worried him unduly if she had, because it would never have occurred to him that she wouldn’t go along for the ride. Well connected she might be, but she was no model, nor did she have the finesse of someone whose life had been relatively pampered. He had probably imagined that her gratitude would take her right up to the altar and beyond, whatever his reasons for marrying her.

This was an engagement from which she had to wriggle out with as much subtlety as she could muster, because to admit to anyone that she was marrying a man who saw her as a sensible investment … Well, she would sooner have grabbed the nearest spade, dug a hole for herself and jumped in. The humiliation would have been unendurable. Her sisters would have smiled sympathetically and encouraged her to go along with it because, after all, she wasn’t getting any younger. But behind her back they would have shaken their heads in sympathy and thanked their lucky stars that they’d been blessed with husbands who had genuinely been attracted to them.

And her parents would have supported her, of course, but they too would have retired to their bedroom and, with no one around to hear them, lamented the fact that their poor baby would never know the meaning of true love.

Frankly, it was too horrible to think about, and her only solution was to extricate herself with as much dignity as she could.

She beamed at Maria and stood back, her hands resting lightly on Maria’s arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that hateful diamond glittering mockingly at her, and she sighed.

‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it’s been coming up here.’ She allowed her eyes to linger on the magnificent landscape. The extensive acreage, lawned and forested, blended seamlessly into the fields and open countryside, giving you the feeling that you were, indeed, mistress of all you surveyed.

‘London has a buzz,’ she said, allowing a note of wistful sadness to creep into her voice—and at the back of her mind wondering whence she had dredged her acting skills, she who had always felt so strongly that playing games was a waste of time. ‘But my heart really belongs in the country.’

‘I can tell,’ Maria said wryly.

‘Oh, you mean you’ve noticed? I wasn’t that obvious, was I?’ She glanced at Rafael standing alongside her and looked away hurriedly at his raised brows. ‘Rafael and I have discussed this so many times … the fact that I can’t bear the thought of living in London for the rest of my days …’

‘You’re only young, my dear.’

‘I know!’ Cristina interjected, determined to capitalise on whatever headway she had gained. ‘But I like to think ahead. The bigger picture and all that.’ She fiddled with the lump of rock on her finger. ‘I really had only planned on living in London for a brief time, until I found my feet over here. It seemed the most promising place to start, and I was right; my flower shop is doing great. In fact, Anthea and I, well, we’ve actually thought about extending it, opening another shop—maybe incorporating a landscape-design service. And naturally we would want to do that somewhere in the country. Anthea’s from the country herself … Well, the New Forest area, in actual fact—not entirely sure where that is … quite rural, I gather …’ She could feel herself losing sight of her original purpose, which had been to build for herself the foundations for her eventual escape from the predicament in which she now found herself.