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In fact Antonio seemed delighted that she had proved to be a complete novice in the sex stakes. But Sophie was unnerved and mortified by the speed with which he had deduced that reality. If she didn’t watch out he would soon be questioning the significance of why she had yielded her precious virginity to him. He would guess that she was a lot keener on him than appearances might suggest. And if that happened, she knew she would die a thousand deaths from shame and never look him in the face again.
‘Not at all, enamorada,’ Antonio confirmed with lazy cool, running a confident and appreciative hand along the quivering line of one slender thigh. ‘I suspect we’re going to have a huge amount of fun filling in the blanks in your education.’
Employing all the self-control she could muster, Sophie pulled back from him. ‘You’ve got me so wrong. I may have acted the innocent to amuse myself, but there is just no way I was a virgin and I can’t believe you should think that I was.’
‘Why are you trying to deny the obvious? Why should you be embarrassed about the fact that you didn’t sleep around? Why would you want to persuade me otherwise?’ Brilliant golden eyes full of incomprehension rested on her. ‘I think that you being a virgin on our wedding night is an amazing achievement. You should be proud.’
Her small hands coiled into fierce fists. He knew what he knew and her secret was a secret no more. Her clumsy attempt to blow dust over her tracks had failed. His awareness that he had been her first lover made her feel horribly exposed and vulnerable. Gripped by the growing suspicion that she had behaved very stupidly with him, she scrambled out of the bed.
Snatching up the towel on the floor, she dragged it round herself again as though it were her only cover in a life-threatening storm. ‘Look, stop going on about it!’
‘Come back to bed,’ Antonio murmured as gently as if he were dealing with a wild creature.
‘No, been there, done that,’ Sophie slung with jewel bright green eyes full of angry defiance, dull coins of pink burning over her cheekbones. ‘You were great and you did me a favour, but let’s leave it at that!’
‘A favour?’ At that contemptuous dismissal, Antonio went rigid and any desire to humour and soothe left him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU said I did you a favour. Explain what you mean by that,’ Antonio instructed with lethal cool.
Playing for time, Sophie dragged in a ragged breath. ‘Can’t you guess?’
Hard dark golden eyes rested on her with uncompromising force. ‘Answer my question, por favor.’
‘OK.’ Sophie lifted and dropped her slim shoulders, attempting to strike a casual note while she frantically plumbed her imagination for a suitable explanation. She was totally terrified that Antonio would guess why he had found it so easy to get her into bed. ‘I set you up,’ she claimed daringly.
Unimpressed, Antonio elevated an aristocratic black brow. ‘No me diga…you don’t say!’
His apparent calm only made her more desperate than ever to save face. ‘I’m nearly twenty-three years old and I thought it was way past time I stopped being a virgin,’ she spelt out, ‘so I picked you to do the deed.’
That brazen claim hit home and outrage powered through Antonio. ‘You did…what?’ he raked at her in raw disbelief.
The atmosphere could have been cut with a knife and Sophie was so nervous she was trembling. Forced to defend her story, she paled. ‘You’ve been around,’ she muttered in haste. ‘So I reckoned you’d make the experience reasonably pleasant…and you did. Can we drop the subject now?’
Antonio might have dismissed that fantastic claim had he not remembered her walking in to join him clad only in a towel and then virtually luring him down into the cushions. Scorching golden eyes lit on her like lightning bolts. ‘You selected me like some kind of stud to have sex with you?’
‘Look, least said, soonest mended,’ Sophie mumbled, hot-cheeked, while wishing that she had come up with a less inflammatory story.
In a towering rage, Antonio sprang out of bed and began to get dressed at speed.
The intense claustrophobic silence intimidated and frightened Sophie.
‘Antonio—?’
‘Silencio!’ His tone of derisive distaste sliced back at her, his lean, darkly handsome face grim. ‘I had begun to think of you as my wife. Qué risa…what a laugh! I won’t make that mistake again. I may have misjudged you the night after your sister’s wedding, but you think like a slut and behave like one. It will be a cold day in hell before I share a bed with you again!’
All the colour bled from Sophie’s heart-shaped face. ‘Don’t be like that. Stop being so angry with me—’
‘What else did you expect? Approval?’ Antonio dealt her a chilling appraisal. ‘Your standards are not mine. From now on, we stick to the deal we agreed.’
Her hands were shaking. She had really offended him. She spun away so that he could no longer see her shaken face. Her eyes were hot and scratchy with tears and she was stiff with shock. It was better this way, she told herself wretchedly. They should not have gone to bed together. She should have had more self-control. Almost three years back she had listened to Pablo talking enviously at his own wedding about his older brother’s phenomenal success with women. Naturally the act of sex would be a minor event to a guy like Antonio. Women were too easily available to him and who valued what was not in short supply? But what she could not bear was that Antonio should be so angry with her that he thought badly of her and condemned her for thinking like a slut.
She locked herself in the bathroom and studied herself with tear-filled eyes of pain and regret. If only the dream could have lasted a little longer, if only she had not settled on that stupid, shameless story of having slept with him purely to get rid of her virginity. Why had he believed that? Didn’t he know how irresistible she found him? But when and how had she forgotten that he had only married her in the first place so that she could take care of Lydia? She had promised to leave him free to live exactly as he pleased. That recollection suddenly became the source of deep distress.
After a very poor night’s sleep, Sophie got up soon after seven the next morning: Lydia would be awake and looking for her. She was really disconcerted to find Antonio in the nursery. He had Lydia in his arms and he was talking to her in soft Spanish.
Sophie hovered, determined to take the opportunity to clear the air between them. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find you in here.’
His keen dark-as-midnight eyes were level, his lean bronzed features unreadable. ‘I thought I ought to say goodbye to Lydia—’
‘Goodbye…you’re going somewhere?’ Sophie interrupted in dismay. ‘Thanks for not waking me!’
The instant she made that crack she regretted it, for even to her own ears it sounded juvenile.
‘I saw no reason to disturb you this early. I intended to phone later,’ Antonio imparted with unassailable assurance. ‘I have business to take care of. I had hoped to take a couple of days off and remain here, but it is not to be.’
Sophie had become very pale and tense. ‘When will you be back?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ he admitted calmly. ‘I’m flying to Japan and then on to New York. After that, I must attend to matters in Madrid.’
‘Antonio…’ Hurt and disappointment and frustration were roaring through Sophie’s slight frame. ‘Don’t you think we should talk?’
‘I think that all that needed to be said was said last night,’ Antonio countered with chillingly courteous finality.
Pride and intense insecurity silenced the apologetic tale of woe and explanation on Sophie’s lips. She had met with rejection and disillusionment too often in life to deliberately court them. Why had she assumed that he would even be interested in what she had to say? After all, she was not an important element in Antonio’s exclusive world. Why risk exposing herself to more of his contempt? If he was still angry with her, she reasoned unhappily, maybe it was better to let the dust settle for a couple of weeks before tackling him again.
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