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At the beginning, pretending to be Cindy had been like a game she’d played, she saw now. Exotic travel and fancy clothes had been seductive trappings for a young woman bored with her own dull and uneventful life. Nor could she blame Cindy for persuading her into that disastrous masquerade. Her twin had had no suspicion that Joaquin Del Castillo had sent the plane tickets to snare a woman he believed to be a con-artist.
Yet Joaquin had had right on his side in what he’d been trying to do. She had even recognised that reality. She had tried to persuade herself that she was still lying for her sister’s sake, but by then hadn’t she been just as afraid that telling Joaquin the truth would wreck any chance she had with him? Not until she had witnessed Joaquin’s absolute revulsion had she registered just how inexcusable her continuing deception had become. Like many other people, Joaquin couldn’t stand liars. And Lucy had never felt so miserable in her life.
Outside the church after the ceremony, when the photographer had almost finished his task, Roger strolled over to Lucy’s side, bent his head and said to her with a grin, ‘Have I got a surprise for you!’
Her brow furrowing, she turned to ask her new brother-in-law what he meant, but Roger and Cindy were already heading for the car which would ferry them ahead of their guests to the reception. However, Lucy did not have very long to wait to discover the surprise in store for her. The very first person she saw when she walked into the hotel function room was Joaquin!
Sheathed in the dark suit that fitted his wide-shouldered, slim-hipped physique to perfection, his white shirt and elegant silver-grey silk tie accentuating his bronzed skin and black hair, he looked stunningly handsome. But what shocked Lucy even more was that Joaquin was with Roger, and the two men appeared to be conversing with all the ease and familiarity of old friends.
Breaking away from a group of guests, Cindy made a beeline for her twin. ‘When Roger arrived at the church, he saw you outside with Joaquin. He guessed who he was and he jumped out of the car before Joaquin could drive off and persuaded him to come to the reception. Roger trying to play cupid…I still can’t believe it!’
‘Yes, well…’ Lucy was all too well aware of why Roger had made that effort on her behalf. Roger knew that she was carrying Joaquin’s baby, news that she still had to share with her sister.
‘And Roger didn’t even tell me what he’d done until we were on the way here, and now, for goodness’ sake, they’re getting on like a house on fire!’ Cindy marvelled with a rueful but accepting laugh. ‘Isn’t that just like men? They just ignore all the drama and start talking about sport!’
One of the bridesmaids settled a drink into Lucy’s hand. Across the foyer, Joaquin finally took note of Lucy’s presence. Brilliant, unreadable green eyes rested on her taut face, and with a final word to Roger he strode over to her.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ Lucy began awkwardly.
Joaquin elevated a sardonic brow. ‘Is it? Roger stepped into the breach with admirable common sense. Fidelio’s problems may be at an end but your brother-in-law knows that ours are not. Even if I wanted to, I’m not in a position to just walk away now.’
At that grim assurance, Lucy’s chin came up, her violet blue eyes furious. ‘You can walk away any time you like! OK?’
So the baby was a problem. Well, what other attitude had she expected from Joaquin? Few men would welcome being saddled with the consequences of a one-night stand! At least he was being honest, she tried to tell herself, seeking some saving grace in that blunt admission, but she still felt cut to the bone. She hadn’t asked to be pregnant and she didn’t want to be pregnant. In fact, right at that moment, the knowledge that there was a baby growing inside her just filled her with fright. She felt more like a teenager than the adult she had believed herself to be.
Joaquin closed long fingers over hers as she attempted to move away. ‘We’ll talk later,’ he spelt out warningly, tightening his grip when Lucy engaged in a covert tug of war with his hand, and then disconcerting her entirely by using his other hand to separate her from the wine glass she was still holding. ‘I’ll get you a mineral water. I seem to recall that alcohol is not recommended, es verdad?’
‘Will you just keep quiet about my condition?’ Lucy hissed at him out of the corner of her mouth, seething emotions washing about inside her to such an extent that she believed she might explode from the pressure.
‘My apologies,’ Joaquin breathed with icy hauteur. ‘But at this moment I can think of nothing else.’
Quelled by that confession, which was a most ironic match for her own troubled state of mind, they headed for the top table where a place had been made for Joaquin. As she passed by her sister, Cindy broke off her conversation with her father-in-law, rose from her seat with a beaming smile and enfolded Lucy in a sudden effervescent hug. ‘Congratulations, sis! Doesn’t Joaquin move fast? I’m so happy for you I could cry!’
A bewildered look stamped on her face as Cindy dropped back into her seat, Lucy muttered, ‘What on earth…?’
Joaquin urged her further down the table and into a chair. ‘Naturally I informed Roger of my intentions.’
‘What intentions? Roger?’ Lucy questioned in a daze, still struggling to work out what her twin had been congratulating her on.
‘Dios mio…he is your closest male relative. To whom else would I have spoken?’ His crystalline green eyes veiled from her view by lush black lashes, Joaquin sank with fluid grace down into the seat beside her. ‘But never before have I been so aware of the gap between your culture and mine. Had Roger been Guatemalan, he would not have waited for me to approach him. He would have demanded the same result with a gun to my head and the church already booked!’
‘J-Joaquin…’ Lucy whispered shakily, her throat closing over as what he was saying began to make sense. But she was hampered by the reality that she just couldn’t credit the ‘result’ he was talking about. ‘Exactly what are you saying?’
His beautiful mouth hardened. Tilting back his arrogant dark head, he dealt her a cool, unimpressed glance that questioned her apparent inability to follow his meaning. ‘That we will be married just as soon as I can arrange it, querida. What else?’
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE same instant, Roger stood up to make a speech. But Lucy was welded to the formidable challenge in Joaquin’s cool gaze. Her mouth running dry, she tore her shaken eyes defensively from his.
Strange how a proposal she would have received with joy just a few days ago now filled her with a deep sense of hurt and humiliation, Lucy conceded painfully. No wonder Roger and Joaquin had got so chummy so fast! But what did Joaquin expect from her? Applause? Grovelling gratitude? He had not even proposed to her! Although nothing had yet been discussed between them, although many explanations had yet to be made on her part, Joaquin had decided all on his own that there was only one solution. An old-fashioned shotgun marriage with a bridegroom set on doing what he felt he ought to do rather than what he wanted to do!
Lucy thrust up her chin. ‘With reference to the proposal you put before my brother-in-law before you even thought to mention it to me,’ she countered tartly. ‘No, thanks!’
At that point, Roger insisted on giving a toast to ‘Cindy’s just-got-engaged-sister, Lucy.’ Lucy shrank in her seat, face flaming with self-consciousness and growing outrage. What was wrong with everybody? Without one word of personal assent from her, her relatives were happy to assume she was getting married. Of course, it would certainly get her out of their apartment. The minute she thought that silly petty thought, she suppressed a groan and struggled to get a rational grip on herself.
‘Let’s dance,’ Joaquin suggested when the meal was at an end and the floor had filled.
‘Forget it,’ Lucy snapped, after maintaining the longest and most sullen silence in history.
‘You’re behaving like Yolanda!’ Joaquin lowered his head to give her what felt like the ultimate put-down, brilliant green eyes exasperated.
Lucy reddened, stood
up, and fought off an overwrought urge to both hit him and burst into tears. Joaquin tugged her into his arms. The achingly familiar scent of him enfolded her and did something crazy to her pulses and her heart. She closed her eyes, shaken to find that her wretched body was indifferent to her mental turmoil. The lure of that hard muscular physique against hers and the tantalising heat of him was almost impossible for her to fight. Little quivers of darting warmth glanced through her taut limbs, stirring up the hunger she would have done just about anything to stamp out. She trembled.
“‘No thanks”?’ Joaquin husked in effective repetition of her refusal an hour earlier, his silken derision sliding along her sensitive nerve-endings and then striking like a whip. ‘If you were in my bed now you would give me a very different answer, gatita.’
At that crack, she stiffened, and missed a step. ‘That’s what you think—’
‘That’s what I know, for your desire for me is the only honest thing you ever gave me!’ Joaquin breathed in a harsh undertone.
Lucy paled. ‘All right… I should’ve told you the truth sooner—’
‘You did not tell me the truth at all,’ Joaquin slotted in with crushing precision.
‘I was scared you would confront Cindy and cause more trouble between her and Roger before the wedding,’ she argued feverishly.
‘Poor little Lucy, always sacrificing her own best interests for those of others,’ Joaquin countered with deeply sardonic bite. ‘But isn’t it remarkable that instead of becoming my mistress you will now become my wife?’
Her teeth gritting at that comeback, Lucy saw red. She stretched up on her toes to gasp into his ear, ‘I wouldn’t be your mistress if you paid me.’
