Page 50 of Shock Marriage for the Powerful Spaniard
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was still very much on the ball in those days and he always put my best interests ahead of everything. He didn’t tell me what he was up to, just had her checked out and presented me with the findings. Turned out she had never stopped sleeping with the boyfriend she’d had when she met me. I was a good catch. Young, rich and, at the time, emotionally unstable. I fell straight into her honey trap.’
‘You of all people.’ Sofia imagined a vulnerable young Rafael and wished that she had known him then, wished that she had known the boy who had become the man.
‘I’m taking that as a compliment. As it turns out, by the time I was presented with all the facts, including the fact that the boyfriend was very much still a presence in her life, I had already realised that love was the last thing I felt for the woman. I got rid of her but it was an ugly, drawn-out business that ended up costing me a fortune—but not, as I’ve said, nearly as much as it would have done if David hadn’t decided to be proactive and take the bull by the horns.’
‘No wonder you’re so attached to him. He’s always had your back.’
‘The only one to. Sofia...’ He paused and their eyes tangled, and she released a little sigh of helplessness.
‘I thought I’d learned how to protect myself. I thought I was immune to the dangers of getting in too deep with any woman, but I didn’t know what love was, and I should have had the courage to tell you that when you asked instead of letting you believe that my marriage was something it most certainly was not. I didn’t know what love was, and after Gemma I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to trust emotions again. Wherever I looked, bloody emotions were always letting the side down. It wasn’t just me and my nightmare foray into wedded bliss. My parents were highly emotional, couldn’t seem to get the balance right, and David...well... David never recovered from your mother and, as I incorrectly assumed, her desertion. I toughened up and I never thought that the day would come when I would revisit my decision to lock the door on my feelings and throw away the key.’
Sofia found that breathing was becoming difficult. She stared, willing him to continue, and not daring to trust what her eyes and her ears were telling her.
‘And you have?’ she whispered into the ever-lengthening silence.
‘You came along,’ Rafael said gravely. ‘My convenient wife. Everything changed for me and I didn’t even realise that things were changing. Or maybe I did and I subconsciously decided to turn a blind eye because turning a blind eye was the safer option. What started as a sensible arrangement with a timeline turned into the very last thing I expected. I fell in love with you, my darling.’
Sofia closed her eyes. She felt as if she was actually swooning, like a Victorian maiden. When she looked at him, her eyes were bright, although hope was still at war with caution.
‘You’re not kidding, are you, Rafael?’
‘I’m not kidding. I love you. I don’t know when it happened. Was it a gradual process? Or did it happen the very instant I first laid eyes on you? All I know is that my life changed the second you entered it. And yet, when you cornered me this evening, all I could do was fall back on the tired old routine of avoiding direct questioning because it was what I had always done. You walked out of that door earlier,cara, and I could feel my world falling apart.’
‘So was mine.’ Her heart was singing. She was giddy with joy. She almost had to pinch herself to believe that the fairy tales she had spun in her head were coming true. Since when didthathappen?
‘I love you too,’ she said softly and he smiled.
‘I know.’
‘Youknow?’
‘On some level, I think I’ve known for quite a while—which was probably why I was so spooked when you tried to pin me down. I knew that it was a crunch moment. I had to make a choice to take what we had beyond the level of just sex, but sex was all I’d ever known when it came to women, and going past that was...bloody terrifying. It didn’t matter that I’d crossed that line a long time ago with you.’
Sofia laughed, caressed the side of his face and then leant forward, tugging him towards her so that she could kiss him. It was somehow different this time. The uncertainty that had plagued her, the hopes and half-formed dreams waiting to be dashed, had been replaced by shining certainty.
‘Meeting you was like a bolt from the blue as well for me,’ she confessed on a sigh. ‘You had your life in order and so did I and I guess both of us, in our own different ways and for our own different reasons, were sceptical about the whole business of falling in love. I definitely never expected to fall for a guy like you. Good-looking, self-assured, alpha male...’
‘So many weedy men out there waiting in the wings...’ He yanked her towards him and she toppled against him, laughing, loving the feel of his hands moving over her body. ‘You’d have eaten them alive.’
‘Not sure that’s a compliment!’
‘It is. Trust me. You’re strong and have a mind of your own and it’s just one of the many things I love about you.’
‘So I guess you could say,’ Sofia mused dreamily, sinking into his arms, ‘that the marriage of convenience is over?’
‘Very definitely over,’ Rafael assured her. ‘From here on, this marriage is very much for real, and I think we should do something to celebrate that. We did what was necessary at a register office. Now, let’s do something more meaningful.’ He grinned at her and then kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll get David working on that. He’s been complaining recently about being bored.’
‘I’m sure he’ll love planning a fancy meal somewhere!’
‘And a blessing. This time round, when I look at you, you’re going to know that what we have is for now and for ever. David won’t just have gained a long-lost daughter, he will, I very much hope, my darling, be able to look forward to adding to the family tree.’
‘I’d like kids.’
‘Good. Then I suggest,cara, that we get going...right about now...’
* * * * *
