Page 4 of Claiming His Wife

‘My body's not a commodity to be bartered,' she stated, suddenly feeling shivery, as if her flesh had been plunged into a deep freeze. What he was sug­gesting was completely out of the question.

But he obviously wasn't seeing it that way because his voice roughened. 'It- was before, if I remember correctly. Your body in my bed in exchange for my ring on your finger, a life of luxury, payment of your father's debts—and let's not forget that nice soft op­tion for your brother, which we now know he abused. And again, with you, I got the rough end of the bar­gain and found myself sharing a bed with a block of ice. My bride made me feel like an animal with de­praved and intolerable appetites—it was not an ex­perience I wished to repeat.'

So he had left her completely alone. And he hadn't had the sense to understand that she'd been terrified.

Not of him, because she had loved him then, but scared half to death of failing the shatteringly sexy, passionate and experienced man who had swept her off her feet with one smile from those sensually moulded lips, one glance from those sultry, smoky eyes. The man who hadn't seen that his family's dis­pleasure at his choice of wife had already made her feel inferior and totally inadequate.

And she hadn't had the courage to explain all of that to him, to at least try to tell him how she felt. Cassie shook that unwanted thought out of her head and closed her eyes as she dragged in a deep lungful of air; when she opened them he was holding the door open, his powerful body graceful, relaxed.

Showing her out? Bored? Impatient to get rid of now he knew she would have nothing to do with his outrageous suggestion?

Oh, why did she feel giddy with relief when he told "I'm not suggesting something immoral. You are my wife.'

‘We are separated,' she reminded him, defensively ng her light-headedness down to the trauma of the last few days, the expenditure of courage that had been needed to bring her to face him again.

‘Not by my wish,' he stated dismissively. He swung on his heels.

Catching her breath, she followed him along the stone-flagged passageway that connected the old use to the newer, more comfortable addition bad been built in his father's lifetime. Surely was room for negotiation? Surely she could I him see that his cruel suggestion simply wasn't practical then ask him to reconsider her original offer?

‘Roman!’ If there was a desperate edge to her voice couldn't help it. Her brother's future depended on her ability to make her estranged husband his mind. 'Even if I wanted to come back to you’ which she most definitely did not '—I couldn't. I have a living to earn, a job to go back to. I told Cindy I'd only be away for a couple of days. It is one of our busiest times.' stopped, turned, his impressive figure framed the archway that led into the main hall. He lifted his shoulders dismissively. 'No problem. I'll phone my cousin and explain. She'll understand.'

Of course she would! Cindy idolised Roman, she hadn't been able to believe her ears when Cassie had returned to England with the news that her marriage was over.

The relationship wasn't as close as Roman had stated. Cindy's grandmother had been Dona Elvira's eldest sister. She'd married a Scot and they'd lived in England, producing Cindy's mother. Although the Fernandez family hadn't approved of the alliance with a mere foreigner, Dona Elvira and her surviving sisters had remained in contact.

Cassie and Cindy had been best friends since they'd met at school as five-year-olds, and it had been to her and her warm and loving family that Cassie had turned when her and Roy's father had died from a heart attack.

They couldn't have been more supportive. When the shock news had come that the house Cassie and Roy shared with their widowed father would have to be sold to cover his debts, Cindy's mother had sug­gested, 'We've been pla

nning a holiday in Spain, vis­iting relatives on my mother's side. Why don't you and Roy come with us? I know they'll make you welcome when I explain the circumstances. And it would give you and Roy a chance to get your heads round what's happened.'

That was how she'd met Roman; that was when the short and, with hindsight, strangely distant court­ship had begun. And the rest, she thought tiredly, was history. A history she wished had never been written.

'Any other objections?' he enquired flatly. 'Or is the resumption of our marriage for three short months too high a price to pay?'

Much, much too high! Roy had done wrong and the only way Roman would allow him to avoid pun­ishment was to punish her in her brother's stead. Their wedding night had been a total fiasco. Although they had consummated the marriage, her fear of disappointing him had made her about as re­sponsive as a lump of rock, thereby ensuring that the experience was one she didn't want to repeat. The fear of further failure had made her push him away when he'd tried to take her in his arms on the fol­lowing nights after that. So why would he want to force her to share his bed now—unless it was to dole out punishment?

Oh, her objections were legion! Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she framed the words of the only one that wasn't personally insult­ing to him—which meant it was the tritest. 'I came prepared for an overnight stay in Jerez before getting a flight back to England. How can I stay when I haven't got much more than the clothes I'm wearing now?'

His smile was thin and it didn't reach his eyes. 'I think we might be able to find a store that stocks female clothing somewhere in Spain, don't you? And, Cassandra—' his eyes narrowed to slits of smoke-hazed jet '—I'm not prepared to discuss this further. You take my offer, or you leave it. Sleep on it and give me your decision in the morning.' He turned again, lobbing over his shoulder, 'I'll get someone to show you to a room you can use for tonight. We eat at nine, as you may remember, and afterwards you and Roy can have some time together to discuss your futures.'

Dispiritedly, she watched as he strode across the polished terracotta tiles of the airy, square hallway. She had honestly believed she was mature enough now to stand her ground against that overweening authoritarianism of his—that she would never again allow him to tell her what to do, where to go.

Yet she had to admit, after one of the maids—new since her own departure, just over a year ago—had shown her to a bedroom overlooking the courtyard at the back of the house, that her interview with Roman had sapped her of the energy she would have needed to arrange for a taxi to pick her up here and drive her back to Jerez, where she would have had to find overnight accommodation.

Also, this way she was guaranteed some time with her twin. She could sit through dinner with Dona Elvira and the dreadful aunts for the sake of the op­portunity to speak to Roy alone afterwards. If she insisted on leaving now, Roman would make sure she didn't get so much as a glimpse of her brother.

She needed to apologise in person for having failed him. Break the news that Roman would be bringing charges against him. It made her sick just to think of it. She'd been looking out for him ever since their mother had died a few days before their eighth birthday, but the price Roman was demanding was way too high. She had worked hard to turn her life around. How could anyone expect her to put her­self back in the prison she'd escaped from a year ago?

Her pale face set, she gave the room she'd been shown to a cursory glance. It was very similar to the one she'd used when she'd spent the greater part of her two years of marriage here. Roman had simply dumped her, leaving her with his mother and the aunts while he'd been away doing his own thing. Business in Jerez and Cadiz, with plenty of fringe benefits in the form of fancy restaurants, fancy fe­males, climbing in the Himalayas, skiing at Klosters—whatever turned him on.

Shrugging, consigning her memories back into the past, she unpacked her overnight bag. Cotton night­dress, a change of underwear, make-up and toiletries. Her heart hovering somewhere beneath the floor­boards, she went to the adjoining bathroom for a much-needed shower and wished she and her twin had never heard of Roman Fernandez.

Candles—dozens of them—set in shallow crystal bowls imparted a warm, flickering glow to the old silver of the elaborate place settings. Dinner at Las Colinas Verdes was always a formal affair and to­night all the stops had been pulled out because there were two guests.

Herself the unwanted one. And Delfina the Desirable, who had been flavour of the month amongst Roman's female relatives for as long as Cassie had known them.

Roman was seated at the head of the long table with the Spanish woman on his left. Delfina was as exquisite as Cassie recalled, her dark hair cut in a fashionable jaw-length bob, her slender figure clothed in ruby satin, leaving the delicate sweep of her shoulders and arms bare.

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