LITMIR.BIZ

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on the walls. If he closed his eyes he could smell her perfume.

      All day there had been a tight feeling of impending doom playing in his guts that had distracted his thoughts from the important meeting he’d been holding with his lawyer.

      Separating his business interests from Luis’s was proving to be much harder than he’d anticipated, almost as hard as wrapping his head around the fact he would be sharing his home with the Englishwoman who carried his child.

      In the two weeks since he’d seen her he’d carried on as normal. Apart from booking their wedding, that was.

      He’d lodged all the necessary paperwork and arranged for the officiant to marry them here in his home. The ceremony itself would be short and without any fanfare.

      In six days’ time he would be a married man.

      Losing his single status meant nothing to him. He’d always known he would marry when he found the right woman to breed with and continue the Casillas line. Freya had been that right woman, not Sophie. Freya, who would have recoiled at a ‘proper’ marriage as much as he did.

      Not the seemingly sweet, compassionate blonde woman who appeared to have a spine made of much sturdier stuff than he had initially credited her with.

      He had never thought about Freya in his private time. Yet Sophie...

      She was all he could think about, and as hard as he tried to push her from his thoughts, the harder she pushed back, those wide pale blue eyes staring straight into his whenever he closed his eyes.

      She had refused to sign a contract that would have given her an abundance of money each month.

      How could anyone be that selfless? It was not possible. Surely it had to be an act?

      If it wasn’t, if Sophie really was as sweet and giving as she portrayed herself to be, then she would be fragile with it. Sweet things broke easily.

      He did not want to break her but she had to understand that he could. The contract he’d wanted her to sign would have protected her as much as him. A person knew where they were with a contract. You signed it and abided by it, something Benjamin had failed to understand when he’d accused Javier and Luis of defrauding him. Benjamin had signed that contract. Javier could not be held responsible for his failure to read it.

      Without a detailed contract to knit their marriage together, they would have to forge their own path. Sophie spoke of compromise but that was a meaningless word in itself if both parties looked at compromise with different markers.

      He would not allow her to get close to him. Whether she liked it or not, their marriage would never be real in the sense she wanted it to mean.

      He looked at his watch and decided to take a shower before dinner and give himself a few minutes of solitude before he had to face her. He would be undisturbed, his staff knowing not to seek him out. Julio ran his household with military precision. Everyone knew their job and did it well.

      Treading heavily up the stairs, he loosened his tie from round his neck. He opened his bedroom door, went to step inside and came to an abrupt halt.

      Sophie was sitting on the ottoman at the end of his bed, her hand frozen on a stocking she was halfway through rolling up her bare leg.

      After a moment’s pause she turned to him and smiled. Only the stain of colour on her cheeks betrayed any nerves or fear she might have. ‘Good evening, Javier. Have you had a nice day?’

      A swell of rage punched through him, which he did not bother to disguise. Propping himself against the doorway, he growled, ‘What are you doing in here?’

      A small crease formed in her brow. ‘It’s moving-in day. You sent your private jet to collect me, remember?’

      ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’ he clarified through gritted teeth.

      The crease deepened. ‘Getting ready for dinner. As it’s our first night I thought I would make an effort.’ Then she smiled brightly. ‘I’m afraid there was a mistake and my stuff had been put in a room on the east wing. I could see how busy your staff were, so I moved it over myself. It didn’t take long. I found some empty space in your dressing room to put my clothes in; don’t worry, I didn’t touch any of your stuff. I’ll find space for my books and other bits and pieces tomorrow.’

      He had to inhale three times before he could be certain of speaking without hurling obscenities. ‘There was no mistake.’

      ‘Yes, there was.’

      ‘No mistake. My staff put you in the room I designated for your use.’

      ‘Oh, I do apologise for the confusion. I didn’t mean your staff had made a mistake in where they put me. I meant you had made a mistake.’ Then, dropping her eyes from his gaze, she rolled the stocking up over her knee and to her thigh, then patted the lacy top of it to keep it in place. ‘I’ve never worn hold-ups before,’ she added conversationally. ‘I normally wear tights but they’ve started getting a little tight around my belly and I’m not ready for maternity wear yet. I hope they don’t fall down.’

      Her nonchalance, her nerve, were astounding.

      Javier gritted his teeth even tighter and cursed himself for allowing his eyes to take in the milky-white thigh now encased in black lace.

      Sexy lingerie had never done anything for him and he could not believe his blood was pumping harder to see it on her.

      But, Dios, she was sitting on his antique ottoman, her cherubic looks and hair reminiscent of an angel, her blood-red dress, modestly cut though it was, reminiscent of a vampire. His grinding teeth were taken with the compulsion to sink into the milky flesh still exposed over the top of the lacy hold-ups...

      He clenched his hands into fists.

      This stopped right now. Whatever game Sophie was playing ended here. She had tempted him once, dressed only as a waif, had driven him to a place he had never gone before and which he had regretted the moment it was over.

      Healthy desire was good. Sex was good. Choosing the right person to have sex with was what made it good, a person you desired on a physical level, who made your loins tighten but with whom your heart kept its normal beat. A woman you could walk away from and never have to think about or consider again. A woman with whom wearing a condom was at the forefront of your mind, not a cursed afterthought when it was all over.

      ‘This is my bedroom,’ he said tightly. ‘My private space. You have been given your own bedroom for your own private space.’

      ‘Your house is big enough for us to both host individual parties without disturbing the other, so I would say there’s plenty of space to escape to if we get on each other’s nerves.’

      ‘Do not be flippant,’ he snarled.

      Sophie got to her feet and smoothed the red dress she had donned because it was her only decent dress that still fitted properly with her growing breasts, praying he didn’t notice the tremors in her hands and that he couldn’t see the beats of her frantically beating heart.

      Why did he have to walk in when she’d been putting the hold-ups on? Julio had told her Javier was expected home at seven p.m. but he had arrived back half an hour early. She’d wanted to be ready for him, be sitting on the light grey sofa that backed along the far wall, fully dressed.

      She still didn’t know how she’d found the nerve to move her stuff over to his bedroom. She had sat alone for almost an hour mulling over her options on how best to proceed. Should she stay in her designated room at the furthest point from his and hope that at some point in the future she would be allowed to join him in it? Or should she fight from the start for the marriage she wanted and which he had promised to try for?

      The latter had won and now she had to brazen it out.

      Standing as tall as her five-foot-nothing frame would allow, she stared up at his towering six-foot-plus form. ‘I know you and Freya were only going to share a bed one night a week

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