LITMIR.BIZ

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he released his hold on her elbow, got to his feet and strode away from her.

      ‘I do not want a real marriage,’ he told her as he paced. ‘What you are asking for is impossible. I like my solitude.’

      ‘We both need to make sacrifices. Speaking on a personal level, you are the last man I would wish to commit my life to but this is not about you or me, this is about our child, who deserves the best life can give. It deserves to be raised with a mother and father who are united. If you’re worried that I’m after your money then I am happy to sign an agreement that protects your wealth if we divorce.’

      He pounced on her words. ‘You are already thinking that far ahead!’

      He’d known she couldn’t be as self-sacrificing as she was making herself out to be, her words all a script designed to make him feel like a bastard for wanting to protect her from the dangers he posed.

      Dios, how could she be so naïve? There was a reason he had reached the age of thirty-five without a single long-term relationship to his name. For a woman proving herself to be far more intuitive than he had credited, she should surely be able to see it.

      ‘If we both enter marriage with open minds we can make it work for our child, I truly believe that,’ she replied, following him with her eyes. ‘But I am not stupid. The odds are against us and we should work together to protect our child against every eventuality. I will be glad to sign a contract that states that should we divorce the only thing I get from you is a home of my own here in Madrid so we can share custody of our child. I don’t want a war with you, Javier, and I absolutely do not want our child to be a casualty of it either. I would have thought you of all people could appreciate that.’

      For a moment he stopped pacing to stare at her, stunned.

      No one—no one—ever alluded to his parents, not to his face.

      His parents’ marriage had been fodder for the press long before his mother’s death. His father, Yuri Abramova, had been a ballet dancer from Moscow from the days of the USSR and had defected to New York in the seventies. Clara had been a Spanish prima ballerina, much younger than her famous husband, whose own fame had soared with her talent until she had eclipsed him in all ways. Their marriage had been volatile and filled with infidelities and jealousy on both sides. Lovers had popped up like cockroaches to sell their stories to an eager press who had known stories of the most famous marriage in the ballet world always sold out its print run.

      In the midst of all this toxicity had been two boys who had both suffered but who had got through it by sticking together and protecting the other.

      If someone had told the young Javier that his twin, his only confidant, would one day betray him for a woman he would have laughed in their face.

      But now their brotherhood was dead, as dead as the mother Javier had worshipped but who had always preferred Luis and as dead as the father who had worshipped Javier and hated Luis.

      His entire past was gone. The grandparents who had raised him and Luis after their mother’s death and father’s incarceration had died within a year of each other a decade ago. Louise Guillem, his mother’s closest friend, who had been like an aunt to them, had died seven years ago. Benjamin, Louise’s son and Javier and Luis’s oldest playmate, was alive and kicking but effectively dead to him.

      They were all gone and yet...

      Inside this woman who stared unblinkingly back at him, life grew. A child. His child.

      An unexpected stab of guilt plunged into his guts.

      Sophie was right. Their child was innocent, just as he and Luis had been innocent. His child deserved more than to be used as a weapon before it had grown bigger than his thumb.

      Staring hard at the mother of his child, he could see in her eyes that already she loved it enough to fight for its best interests in any way she could. As a child he would have given anything to have been on the receiving end of that kind of love from his own mother.

      Was that how Sophie had found the nerve to allude to his childhood and not flinch? How else could she look at him and not recoil in fear at the man who stood before her?

      But she hadn’t been scared when she had turned up at his door with the same documents he’d had remade early that morning in her name...

      Coldly perfect Freya had never displayed any overt fear for him either, but that had been understandable because coldly perfect Freya had never shown any emotions other than on the stage when she came alive in her dance.

      Why wasn’t Sophie scared of him?

      He dragged his fingers down his face and contemplated her some more before nodding slowly. ‘Bueno. I do not know what your expectations of a real marriage are...’

      ‘One that doesn’t give the husband a licence to take a mistress for a start,’ she interjected drily.

      He gaped at this unexpected glimpse of humour. ‘You expect fidelity?’

      He’d had the clause put in that he could take a mistress if he chose as a black-and-white warning that he was committing to a marriage only on paper. Freya hadn’t blinked an eye at it.

      ‘My only expectation is that we both try to make things work.’ She expelled a long breath of air and sat back on the sofa. Taking hold of her glass, she gave him a rueful smile. ‘All we can do is our best. To be faithful, to be honest, to just...try.’

      How could he argue with that? he thought, anger mixing with incredulity.

      Sophie had flipped everything on its head and made it all sound so easy.

      Did she not see that she was asking the impossible? Javier had no idea if he was capable of fidelity; he’d never had a relationship run long enough for him to find out.

      But honesty he could do. He was always honest.

      ‘Do not expect the impossible,’ he warned her darkly. ‘You know the kind of marriage I had envisaged for myself. I like solitude. I always have and always will. I suspect your idea of a real marriage differs greatly from mine.’

      She shrugged. ‘The contract makes clear the kind of marriage you want, my refusal to sign it makes clear it’s not the marriage I want. We’ll both have to make compromises. I’m willing to try if you are.’

      For the first time in his adult life Javier found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to bend to someone else’s will. With Luis there had been much compromise in the way they ran their business but they had been so in tune with each other’s thoughts it had never been an issue. Besides, Luis was his twin. It was a different scenario.

      Sophie was only...

      The mother of his unborn child.

      Damn her, being so reasonable, leaving him little room to manoeuvre.

      The thought of sharing his daily life with another person made his skin crawl. The thought of sharing it with this woman made his chest tighten and his stomach cramp.

      He made sure her attention was fixed on him before giving a sharp nod. ‘Bueno. We will try it your way, but I warn you now, keep your expectations realistic. I live my life to please myself. This is my home and it is run to suit me. I will make accommodations for our child when it is born, but if you want to enter a marriage where the small details of our lives are not already agreed on then you must live with the consequences when you find the reality not to your liking.’

      * * *

      For the third time in as many months, Sophie approached Javier’s front door. This would be her last approach as a visitor. When she stepped through it this time, she would be staying.

      This beautiful villa was going to be her home.

      This was the best course of action, she told herself firmly, for what had to be the hundredth time.

      The past fortnight had passed in a whirl of activity, Sophie busy packing and making arrangements for her

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