Read Online The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife by Kate Walker - Free Book Online

to stop. And as far as I can see the only way to make it stop for good is to give my father what he wants. He wants me married. So if I get married—if I have a ring on my finger and the respectable name that goes with it, then people will forget the past. My father will forget the past.’
    ‘But you’ll have to live with the present.’
    ‘I know. Do you think I haven’t thought about this? That I haven’t gone over and over it in my head until I thought I was going completely mad? Do you think I haven’t tried to come up with some other solution?’
    ‘But why me?’
    ‘I told you…’
    But he wanted more. She could see that in his face. There was more but she wasn’t at all sure she could tell him that now. Not now, with the space of the room between them, the expanse of the floor seeming to stretch out like some wide, gaping chasm with each of them on a different side of it.
    She couldn’t tell him now.
    ‘I told you…’ she repeated forlornly.
    ‘Tell me again.’
    Ramón pushed himself away from the wall and covered the space between them in five swift strides. He came to where she was sitting and leaned over her, one hand on the high back of the chair, the other on the padded arm where she sat. His position enclosed her completely, trapping her; she was unable to move.
    She risked one swift glance up into the dark, shuttered face, the ice of his eyes, and couldn’t take any more. Dropping her own gaze, she tried to stare down at her knees but only succeeded in making herself sharply, painfullyaware of the way that his body was surrounding hers, putting her into a cage made of the long, powerful limbs, the hard, solid wall of his torso. His arms were braced against the chair, long muscles stretched taut to take his weight. His body was so close to her face, the heat of his skin, the tangy scent of some lime-based cologne tormenting her nostrils.
    His hips were against her knees, the narrow leather belt at his waist within inches of the hands that rested on her thighs. If she was just to reach out, ever so slightly, she could touch him…
    But even as the thought slid into her mind Ramón’s hand came under her chin, forcing her face up with a rough, jerky movement.
    And this was so much worse. Because now, if she looked up, she was drowning in the silvery pools of his eyes. If she tried to drop her gaze then it rested on the beautiful, sensual shape of his mouth. On the lips that had kissed her only once but that she had dreamed of ever since. That kiss had driven her insane with wanting and it was the wanting that surfaced, hot and hungry now, just remembering.
    ‘Tell me what you’ll get out of this,’ Ramón commanded, the harsh, grating tone slicing through the sensual haze that clouded her mind.
    ‘I told you—my freedom. I’ll get my freedom.’
    ‘And that’s enough? Enough to make you tie yourself to a stranger?’
    ‘Not just any stranger—you.’
    Ramón’s breath hissed in through his teeth in a sound that expressed his struggle for control.
    ‘And why me? I’ve asked this before, Estrella, and I’ll keep on asking it until you give me an answer. Why me?’
    Why me?
    Oh, how did she answer that? With the truth. It was the only way. So although her stomach quailed deep inside, hernerves twisting into tight, agonising knots, she swallowed hard, forced herself to meet his eyes, and told him.
    ‘Because of what you said earlier. Because you weren’t going to ask me when my father wanted you to. You walked out on the deal you wanted—that’s why. And—and…’
    ‘And?’ Ramón prompted when she couldn’t go on, the words refusing to come past the blockage in her throat. ‘And what?’
    ‘And this.’ Estrella sighed. ‘And this…’
    Raising her head, she pressed her mouth to his, kissing him softly.
    Just for a second she felt his shock, the hardening of his body in resistance, and a terrible arrow of fear streaked through her brain at the thought that maybe she’d