His Suitable Bride: Rafael's Suitable Bride / The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain / Cordero's Forced Bride. Kate Walker
‘Of course.’
This wasn’t what Cristina had imagined, not as a marriage proposal nor, for that matter, as a likely outcome for her conversation with him. Gradually, though, his words sunk in. Not only was he prepared to offer her hope that their relationship was more serious than she could ever have dreamed possible, but he was proving it by doing the one thing he had spent years avoiding! It might have been a bit flat as far as proposals went, but he wasn’t given to sweeping emotional displays, and wasn’t this her dream come true? Her fairy-tale ending?
She smiled tentatively and he took her hand and idly played with her wedding finger. ‘So … is that a yes?’ he asked softly.
‘It’s a yes!’
‘Good.’ Rafael sat back, satisfied. ‘In that case, a ring is in order. I think it’s safe to say that we might as well enjoy a brief spell of calm before our families are let loose.’
That funny, flat feeling was gone as her imagination took wing and began to soar. A ring! She would be sporting an engagement ring! And would be marrying the man of her dreams! How much better could life get?
She went across and flung her arms around him. ‘Does that mean,’ he drawled, ‘That you’re offering yourself for dessert?’
‘Just making the most of this brief spell of calm, as you ordered,’ Cristina laughed. ‘And, in case you’re still hungry, you can have whatever dessert you like …’
CHAPTER SIX
IN ALL good movies, the dashing man proposed on bended knee, flourishing an antique engagement ring, which magically always fitted the blushing bride-to-be. Sometimes the ring was concealed in a fortune cookie, which had always got Cristina wondering what might happen if it were to be accidentally swallowed.
She decided that it was probably much better to actually choose the engagement ring together and, Rafael being Rafael, the minute she had accepted his marriage proposal he took charge.
He knew exactly which jewellers to visit, as he had used them himself in the past. Cristina wondered what, exactly, he had bought from them, but she kept that uneasy question to herself, happy to go along with the flow. Despite owning some valuable pieces of jewellery herself, most of which were pointlessly locked in bank vaults, Cristina was not a jewellery person. Rings and necklaces might look fine on her sisters, but she personally found that they got in the way of normal day-to-day activities, like gardening or playing sports. How on earth could she coach football with a tiara on her head or a string of pearls wrapped around her neck?
‘We’ll try and stay away from the flamboyant pieces, in that case,’ Rafael had told her. But when, two days later, they found themselves in the exclusive jewellery shop, Cristina watched in dismay as drawers of rings with diamonds the size of oranges were pulled out.
‘You know, I could always get it from one of Dad’s shops in Italy,’ she said faintly, staring down at something that glittered so much she felt she might need to fetch her sunglasses out of her handbag.
‘Nonsense. What’s wrong with the selection here?’
‘Remember what I said about not really liking rings with diamonds the size of rocks?’ She picked out one of the smaller pieces and held it up. It was a good diamond, but it was still a very large diamond. The man clucking around them had discreetly positioned himself to one side and Cristina turned to Rafael awkwardly.
‘We could always go for something really cheap and cheerful,’ she joked. ‘That way, when I get knocked football coaching, it won’t matter too much if it falls off.’
Rafael frowned. ‘What do you mean, when you get knocked football coaching?’
‘It happens.’ Cristina broke it to him in a teasing voice. ‘Running around on a muddy playing field with a bunch of teenagers trying to score a goal. Sometimes they don’t see me on the sidelines shouting instructions. Or maybe they do.’ She laughed, expecting him to laugh back with her, but instead his ebony brows were knitted into a frown. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, slotting the ring back into its velvet niche and signalling for the proprietor to take the case away.
‘Why would you be football coaching?’ Rafael asked with genuine puzzlement in his voice.
‘Ah.’ Cristina was beginning to understand. She turned to the proprietor with a smile. ‘We’re going to go away for a bit and think about which ring is right for us,’ she said. ‘Rafael, shall we go and grab something to eat and we can discuss this?’
‘What’s there to discuss? There must be a ring in this shop that you like, Cristina.’
‘Come on.’ She placed her small hand on his arm and guided him out of the shop into the bright sunlight outside. A sunny Saturday in London was not the most relaxing place on the face of the earth to be. The streets were overflowing with people, tourists snapping pictures, young girls frantically trying to shop, people scurrying to destinations unknown, and all of them in a terrible rush from the looks of it.
Across the street was a coffee shop, one of those newfangled ones that sold fancy coffees with long names and over sized prices, along with paninis, baguettes and tiny salads in eco-friendly packaging.
‘Look, Rafael,’ she opened, when they had finally emerged from the queue and were sitting in front of their tall paper cups of coffee. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’ She took a careful sip of her latte and thought about what she was going to say. This was something she had never considered when she had joyfully accepted his proposal of marriage. Rafael was all Italian, and his way of looking at marriage had been through the eyes of a man who could see no reason for his wife to work. Not only could he more than afford to keep her in whatever style she so desired, but that would be his right and his duty. It would make no difference that she could more than afford to keep herself in whatever style she chose. He was Italian, and that would be the way things would work.
She took a deep breath. ‘I love what I do, Rafael. I came over here so that I could open my flower shop and try and fulfil some of my ambitions. I know that, next to yours, you probably find my ambitions a little limp, but there’s no way I am going to give up everything I’ve worked for the minute there’s a ring on my finger.’
Rafael frowned. ‘I see no reason for my wife to go out to work,’ he said heavily.
‘That’s a very Victorian point of view. This is the twenty-first century. Women go out to work. They don’t stay indoors doing the cooking and cleaning and laundry and waiting for their husbands to come through the front door at the end of the day.’ She thought that Anthea would have been very proud of that little speech. Of course, compared to her friend, she was alarmingly old-fashioned, but Rafael. Rafael … was a positive dinosaur.
‘I’m not asking you to do the cooking and cleaning and laundry,’ he now pointed out. ‘I have my own chef, and someone comes in twice a week to do the cleaning and laundry. Actually, it won’t be a problem if she comes in every day. I’m sure she would be more than amenable if she’s offered enough money.’
‘And what would I do all day?’ Cristina asked, knowing that she should be angry with him for his out-dated attitude, but warmly aware that there was a note of possessiveness behind it that thrilled her to death.
Rafael shrugged. ‘Whatever women who don’t go out to work do all day.’ He wouldn’t go into too many details on that one. His dearest ex-wife had managed to pack in a surprising amount in her days. Unlike Cristina, she had been more than happy to ditch her job and begin the arduous marital task of running through vast sums of money. Along the way—and seemingly immune to the stunningly obvious piece of logic which states that a man must work in order to earn—she had grown bored with a husband who was always at work, bored with random spending, and had taken to distributing her favours elsewhere, on men who’d flattered her ego and filled the increasing absences of her husband.
Ironically Cristina, who came with money of her own and didn’t