Page 36 of Cinderella's Christmas Secret

With a few more robotic words she cut the call, though all the time she was berating herself. How stupid she had been. Sorrow clamped its way around her heart like a vice and then she gave a bitter laugh. She might have lost her virginity but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still laughably naïve, did it? She had stupidly imagined she had no illusions about the opposite sex, but it seemed she was still capable of being blinded by the stars which had temporarily danced in front of her eyes. She had wanted love so badly that she had been prepared to overlook what was blazingly obvious. Because she didn’t know Maximo at all, not really. The man she saw was the man she had wanted to see, not the one with hidden depths which he kept concealed from her. He was marrying her to gain control of one of Spain’s most successful companies. Of course he was. Although he certainly didn’t need the money, maybe he felt it was a justified legacy—to make up for his father’s rejection. Payback time. But it didn’t alter one key and painful fact...

That he had betrayed her, just as her father had betrayed her mother.

Her knees felt weak and she gripped the back of the chair even harder, afraid they might buckle. But the weirdest thing was that after that moment of dizziness had passed, Hollie felt calm. Icy calm. Almost as if she had been expecting this. As if things had always been too good to be true.

Because they were, weren’t they?

Plenty of women got pregnant without getting married. Did she really think that someone like Maximo Diaz would ask someone like her to be his wife if he didn’t stand to gain something from it, especially when he’d told her right from the start he didn’t want a baby? Or had she walked into the self-deceptive trap of thinking they had something special between them, just because she’d fallen in love with him?

She had fallen in love with him.

Well, more fool her.

He stands to inherit the family business. Cristina’s words were branded on Hollie’s brain like fire.

If he’d told her himself, she might have understood. If he’d said Look, this baby means that I can get something I’ve always lusted after, she probably could have accepted it. If he’d kept it coldly businesslike from the beginning, then perhaps she wouldn’t have built up all those fantasies in her head. But he hadn’t and that had given her imagination a free rein. No wonder she thought she’d seen a look of triumph on his face when he’d asked if they could announce the pregnancy. He was probably rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of all that new power.

She picked up her phone, turning it over and over in her hand before finally tapping her fingers over the keypad. It took longer than it should have done but that was because her hands were trembling so much. She kept the message short—because, really, it all boiled down to one simple fact whichever way you looked at it.

Maximo...

A tear dripped onto the back of her hand and, impatiently, she shook it away before continuing to type.

Being back in Devon has given me a bit of time to reflect on things and I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us.

Her finger hovered as she battled between the desire to put as much distance between them as possible and the knowledge that she needed to act like a grown-up.

If you like we can talk in a couple of days. Hollie.

She didn’t put any kisses, and that drove home the realisation that there had never been any of the stuff which defined most normal love affairs. No letters or texts of undying devotion. Just sex and a baby and a big diamond ring. She thought about the turrets and towers of Kastelloes and the thick snow which had trapped them there. She remembered how grateful she had been to that inclement weather, because it had brought her into Maximo’s arms. She’d been blown away by her Spanish lover, and hopeful when he’d opened up his heart to her. The world had felt tinged with magic, when all the time...

All the time he had been using their marriage as a way of getting his hands on the family business.

What a trusting fool she had been.

Well, not any more.

She had once told Maximo that sh

e could do all this on her own and she would—with or without his financial assistance. Because anything would be preferable to a lifetime of deceit.

She tugged the heavy ring from her finger and it clattered as she put it on the table and then, letting out a shuddered breath, she laid her face against her cradled arms and wept.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A THIN DRIZZLE of rain coated the windscreen in a slimy film as the car turned into the wintry English road. Maximo eased his foot off the accelerator, bringing the powerful vehicle almost to a halt so that it crept along at a snail’s pace. He stared fixedly ahead, not caring if he was wasting time. Because he needed time to work out what he was going to do. To assemble his whirling thoughts into some sort of order before he saw Hollie.

To say what?

He still didn’t know.

He thought about the bald little message he had received from her.

I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us...

He had been taken aback by the dark surge of pain which had flooded through him.

He had wanted to lift the phone and demand to know what had made her write it, but something made him change his mind—though he didn’t stop to think what that might be. Instead, he sought a solution in action, because that was how he operated. He had ordered his jet to be made ready and within hours had flown into Exeter airport, planning his movements with the precision of a cat burglar.

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