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EPILOGUE
Four years later
‘I’MAMAZED RUY let that painting out of the palacio from its place of honour at the top of the stairs,’ Mercedes teased as she glanced at the huge portrait of Suzy at the centre of the exhibition, the one of her in her feather dress in the orange grove. ‘Rigo had to really work on him to get him to loan it out for this and he’s gnashing his teeth now because he could have sold it ten times over! And, of course, Ruy will not sell a picture of you to anyone.’
‘Or of Mateo,’ Suzy added, thinking warmly of her two-year-old son and of the pair of little girls she was currently carrying.
It was only a few weeks since the gender scan and only a couple of weeks more since she had learned that she had conceived twins. Her pregnancy with Mateo had been easy but the twin one was proving a little tougher in terms of nausea and tiredness and she would be glad when her due date arrived. Although she was wildly excited at the prospect of two little girls to dress, she adored her son. He was a black-haired dark-eyed little replica of his father, full of energy and personality. She was already wondering what the girls she was carrying would be like and was considering the names Rosa, after her own mother, and Ramona, after Ruy’s late mother. She liked names with a family connection.
‘We wouldn’t ever sell the one Ruy did of Javier either.’ Mercedes laughed, mentioning her little boy, who was barely six months older than Mateo. ‘I don’t know how he got either of the boys to sit still long enough for him—’
‘He made me amuse them. I tried balloons and that was a disaster, so were the bubbles because the boys got up to chase them, but turning handstands worked and plain bribery worked. Your son is particularly fond of ice cream with multicoloured sprinkles. Mateo’s more into crisps.’
‘It meant so much to Rodrigo that Ruy came out as V at his gallery with that first exhibition he allowed him to put on for him. That’s when the frost really started to melt between them,’ the curvy brunette opined.
‘Or it could have been the fact that we simply ignored the frost and kept on forcing them together by making dinner dates!’ Suzy commented with dancing eyes, loving above all things that, along with Ruy, she had married into a happy family. Rigo had also finally met Cecile and a cautious friendship was beginning to grow between him and the half-sister whom he had once refused to acknowledge.
Mercedes had become Suzy’s best friend, always ready to offer advice in the early days of Suzy’s marriage when she had been less sure of herself dealing with Ruy’s relatives and entertaining. That they were almost the same age, married to brothers and both had young children had undoubtedly helped as well. Suzy’s Spanish had come on by leaps and bounds once she was living in Spain.
Ruy had retained the house in Norfolk but he had had to extend it to accommodate their family. Their last wedding anniversary had been spent in England and Suzy had been stunned when Ruy took her through the woods to show her the tree house he had had built. It was a monster of a construction with proper stairs and loads of safety features and Mateo was going to love it when he was old enough to use it. It had provided Suzy with yet another glimpse of her husband’s essentially romantic and passionate soul. He had been determined to commemorate that meeting of theirs in the woods when she had been so rude to him.
When they were in England, Suzy spent time with her father and Cecile’s family. Roger Madderton was now in a relationship with Flora’s daughter, Maddie, a divorcee, who had recently moved to the village. Suzy liked the effervescent blonde and reckoned that it was past time her father found someone of his own.
After the court case in which Percy had been fined for assault, Suzy had heard no more of the older man. He had sold up his businesses locally and moved. Ruy had bought up those same businesses and they were thriving since the opening of the stately home to tourists. He had also financed the rebuilding of the community hall after the place was vandalised and set on fire.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mercedes whispered and then followed the direction of Suzy’s eyes.
‘Dios mio...leaving Ruy alone is like setting down a roast chicken in front of sharks!’ the brunette exclaimed.
At least four very beautiful women were circling Suzy’s husband and striking poses.
‘Every one of them wants to become his next model because featuring in a V painting gives you a definite cachet.’
‘And here I am, obviously pregnant and not at my sleekest and they think this is a good time to pounce and try and tempt him,’ Suzy completed darkly. ‘Excuse me...’
Ruy was talking to an art critic, quite impervious to the predators hovering nearby. Suzy slid a possessive arm through his and he smiled down at her before continuing his conversation. Moments later he pulled away from the other man and leant down to Suzy to say, ‘Are you feeling all right? You’re a little flushed.’
‘I’m pulling the possessive-wife intervention because other women are hovering hoping to steal your attention.’
‘You are the only woman who gets my attention, today and every day,’ Ruy countered with amusement. ‘And well you know it, mi vida.’
Suzy stared up at him with a glow of appreciation in her eyes, thinking of how much he had changed from the man she had first met. For a start, he was infinitely more relaxed and less driven. A wife and a child had given Ruy another focus and had taught him that neither art nor finance were the be-all and end-all of life. As for Suzy, she had never known that she could be so happy or so contented.
Later that evening, she studied Mateo as he slept at an angle across his junior bed, the covers heaped on the floor. He was a very restless sleeper. He looked angelic with his ruffled hair and fan-shaped lashes resting on his flushed cheeks, something he never looked awake because he was full of mischief.
Ruy paused in the doorway of the nursery and then crossed the room to scoop her off her feet. ‘You’re tired,’ he told her. ‘You were standing too long.’
‘If you’ve got legs, you can’t escape standing,’ Suzy scoffed as he settled her down on the sofa at the foot of their bed. ‘I’m not an invalid.’
Ruy knelt at her feet, sliding a very high shoe off one slender foot and gently flexing her crushed toes. ‘I don’t know why you bother with shoes like these.’
Suzy knew but she didn’t tell him. He loved her legs, he particularly loved them when shod in glitzy heels. As the other foot received the same gentle treatment, she wriggled the zip down on her dress with its cowl neckline. A silk and lace apricot and grey bra came into view, a bra she filled to capacity when she was pregnant. The dress slid to her waist. Eyes burnished with heat, Ruy vaulted upright. Suzy stood, shimmied her hips so that the dress fell away and revealed matching panties. He breathed in deep.
‘You are so beautiful, mi corazón,’ her husband husked with pride and satisfaction.
He believed it too, she thought fondly, and even she had come to believe that, in his eyes, she was beautiful. He lifted her up in his arms and crushed her mouth hungrily under his, his tongue stabbing deep, sending a flare of white-hot excitement shafting through her. There was no more talk now of her tiredness. Sometimes Ruy’s protectiveness got in the way of her need to be a desirable woman but triggering his hot-blooded nature always overcame that obstacle.
‘Dios, meencantas...you enchant me, mi preciosa,’ he husked. ‘I love you.’
‘To the moon and back,’ she slotted in. ‘For ever and ever.’
Ruy brought her down gently on the bed and dealt her an appreciative smile. ‘You always have to get in that final word...’
But Suzy had always known that she could safely leave that final word to him.
