Read Online A Spanish Marriage by Diana Hamilton - Free Book Online Page A

animal. She was just a kid. She’d proved it by the casual, almost insultingly off-hand way she’d fallen in with his suggestion that they marry. No adult discussion, no sensible stipulations of her own to make. As if she was viewing the novel idea of wearing a wedding ring as just another experience to be explored. He’d come damn close to giving in to lust and making this marriage a real one—he must have been mad!
    A few strides took him past the bed, the centre of his dark, hot thoughts a few moments ago, and onthrough the wide-open doorway into the sitting room with its chaise upholstered in rich dark blue velvet, the cream marble-topped coffee-table sporting that hateful bouquet. Had she arranged the vulgar blooms herself? Placing them one by one in the crystal vase, remembering the ‘fun’ she’d had with her lover? Deprived of real love for so many years, had she made sex a substitute?
    Was she hooked on it? Could any personable male meet that need? Remembering the thick sizzling shaft of the sex thing when their eyes had clashed down there in the conservatory, he answered his own question.
    Watching Javier take the violently coloured roses and lilies, which the misguided Ethel must have arranged, and toss them out of the open window, Zoe felt the weight of rejection settle heavily on her slim shoulders.
    She’d been so sure he wanted her, had changed his mind about his wretched paper marriage. The aura around them as he’d carried her up the stairs had been alive with sex, so heady she’d felt intoxicated, convinced that need would follow want on the direct path to love.
    She’d hoped that he had the acumen to realise that the message from Ollie had been nothing more than a spite-filled attempt to cause havoc, but he’d only had to see those horrible flowers to make him put her away from him as if she were contaminated material.
    The volatile Spanish part of his make-up that had had him hurling the contents of the vase out into the night vanished as he turned back to face her, fastidiously brushing his fingers together, his features wiped of expression as he gave a casual shrug. ‘The smell of those lilies was overpowering. They had to go if I’m to get any sleep at all on that sofa. If you had a sentimental attachment to them, then I apologise.’
    Zoe’s tummy gave a sickening lurch. Her face felt frozen. If he thought his violent disposal of Ollie’s flowers had upset her then he was completely off his trolley. It was so unimportant she didn’t waste breath on a comment. But, ‘Why don’t you sleep in your own room? That chaise will be torture.’ Act as if you hadn’t really expected him to share your bed on your wedding night, she silently adjured herself. Act as if you didn’t want it with all your heart, body and soul. She tried to smile and couldn’t.
    He was unbuttoning his shirt. Zoe’s eyes widened as she forced back tears. ‘My mother’s an early riser,’ he imparted prosaically.
    Her lovely eyes looked haunted. Had Sherman’s bouquet meant that much to her? The hard, hot knot in his gut tightened.
    â€˜Mama is incorrigible, as you’ll discover when you get to know her better,’ he sliced at her. ‘Her dearest wish is to hold her grandchildren and if she discovered—and she would, believe me—that we had separate rooms she would raise the dead with her earsplitting shrieks of outrage. As it is, that little charade downstairs should have put her mind at rest for the moment.’
    The shirt was flung over the back of a chair. Zoe’s mouth went dry. Faced with six feet plus of masculine power and perfection, bronzed skin covering sleekmuscles, she almost exploded with the desperate need to fling her arms around him. Every taut inch of her racked by internal tremors, she resisted the insistent temptation of him.
    Been there, done that, she reminded herself hollowly. And