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It hadn’t been easy to rearrange Luis’s life to accommodate her demanding role as a medical student, but then she’d discovered that the best things in life always had to be fought for. And Luis wanted her to achieve her dream as much as she did. He told her how proud he was of what she’d done and what she’d achieved, in spite of all the odds being stacked against her.
These days, he travelled as little as possible and had made his main base in England. From their sprawling Hampshire estate with its easy proximity to the sea, he now masterminded his latest business success—three ocean-going cruise ships as well as a flourishing yacht business. As for the rest of his global concerns, somewhere along the way he had become—as Carly told him with some pride—a consummate delegator. He employed the best people who gave of their best—and consequently the Martinez foundation had evolved, and was flourishing.
And even though he never really grew to love the English climate, he made sure he took them on plenty of sunny and luxurious vacations to compensate. Which was why Carly could often be found reading a haematology textbook on the beach, beside the clear aqua waters of the Caribbean.
She sighed, feeling Luis’s thumb tracing enticing little circles over her nipple. From the window a clear river of light flooded in, illuminating the large bed in which they lay. She loved their home. They had bought a house overlooking the water not far from the medical school, from where she had graduated last week with honours.
But before the graduation ceremony had come their wedding, a wedding which Carly had resolutely refused to consider while she’d been in the middle of her studies. It had driven Luis crazy. For someone who had shied away from matrimony all his adult life, it had become one of his fiercest ambitions to wed her. The trouble was that he’d fallen in love with a woman who seemed resistant to wearing his ring.
‘But you don’t believe that men can do fidelity, remember?’ she had flung at him, only half teasingly.
‘Wrong tense,’ he had growled back. ‘I didn’t—until I met you!’
The more he tried to persuade her to change her mind, the firmer she stood, but in a funny kind of way that had only made him love her more.
She had finally agreed to become his wife just before she graduated, telling him that she wanted to bear his name and to be Dr Martinez. And that simple declaration had thrilled him in a way which had left him shaken.
They had married in a small grey chapel overlooking one of Hampshire’s green valleys and Carly had worn white roses in her hair and a simple dress, which had whispered over the flaggedstoned floor as she had walked to the altar to greet him.
Bella had been there, her initial poorly disguised jealousy at Carly’s fate suddenly eclipsed by the presence of Luis’s jet-setting friends at the ceremony. The Sultan of Qurhah was in attendance, with his beautiful wife and their gorgeous new baby. Niccolo Da Conti and Alekto Sarantos were easily considered to be the best-looking men there and the fact that they both happened to be billionaires only added to their appeal as far as Bella was concerned.
‘Good luck with that,’ Luis commented drily to his bride as he watched her sister slink across the room towards Niccolo, in a dress so tight that he privately wondered how she was managing to walk.
Carly turned in the direction of his gaze. ‘But he’s single, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s single.’ Luis laughed. ‘But if you think I was a commit
ment-phobe, let me tell you that Niccolo Da Conti takes the concept into a whole new stratosphere!’
‘And you turned out to be the least commitment-phobic man on the planet!’
‘Only because I met the only woman who could change my mind.’
‘Oh, Luis.’
‘Oh, Carly,’ he murmured indulgently.
Her mother had been there, too; a mother amazed by Carly’s ‘lick’ in finding herself such a rich husband. And if Carly was disappointed not to have been commended for working her way through med school—she kept it to herself. She’d learnt that there were some things you could never change and therefore it was a waste of time even trying.
She’d learnt so much, along with the demands of medical science.
That her love for Luis grew stronger with every day that passed and that she wanted to have his baby before too long.
That a man whose heart had been wounded only needed the constant love of a woman to repair it. And that love was boundless and limitless.
She’d learnt that sometimes things happened which you wouldn’t have even dared to dream about. She was living that dream and so was Luis. He didn’t want a life in the fast lane any more. His days as ‘The Love Machine’ were over. He told her that he’d never really believed that one woman could be everything for one man.
But now he did.
‘Come here,’ he growled softly. ‘I have something I need you to hear.’
Carly smiled as she turned her face to his. ‘What is it?’
‘I love you,’ he said, his arms tightening around her waist. And then he said it again in Spanish just before he kissed her.
* * * * *
