Modern Romance April 2019 Books 5-8. Chantelle Shaw
He interrupted her, his words spoken with the same strength as a blade of steel. ‘I am willing to do what it takes to make you my wife.’
She swallowed, the intensity of his statement almost robbing her of breath. This was about possession, she reminded herself, nothing more. Possession, ownership, control. He wanted their baby: she came with it.
She couldn’t have said why the thought was unpalatable to her. ‘Do you just have engagement rings sitting in your desk drawer on the off-chance a woman might drop by?’
His eyes smouldered when they met hers. ‘I got it from the family vault the day after you left Madrid.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew you’d be back.’
She made a groaning noise in acknowledgement of that. ‘What if you’d been wrong?’
He caught her hand and ran his fingertips lightly over the ring. ‘Then I would have come to England and helped you see sense,’ he said, the words simple, light, and yet a shiver of anticipation and adrenalin coursed through her veins.
Was she seeing sense? Or had she moved into the realm of insanity by agreeing to this?
Amelia couldn’t say: only time would tell.
* * *
Antonio stared at his desk, his expression brooding.
It was all laid out before him: the totality of his aggressive investment in diSalvo Industries, the way he’d been slowly, meticulously devaluing them, ruining them for the sake of destruction alone. Businesses that had little interest to him beyond one aspect: their ability to wound Carlo and Giacomo.
His fiancée’s family.
I can’t marry a man intent on destroying my family.
And yet she was, and he was. Destroying the diSalvos had obsessed him for so long, and now, since his father’s death, it had become his reason for being.
For so long, he had planned it: he would take what he could from them, and he would enjoy standing over them, seeing the shock on their faces when they realised how completely he’d masterminded their downfall.
He’d thought Prim’Aqua was the sum total of what he wanted, but now there was Amelia. Was it possible that in marrying her, creating a family with her, raising the child as the Herrera heir, he held the greatest key to destroying them?
Carlo hated Antonio—just as Antonio hated Carlo. So what would this child’s existence do to the diSalvos? His smile was one of dark pleasure. It would destroy them, that was what. They would possibly even believe that Antonio had planned it—the seduction, the pregnancy—planned it all. His grin spread. And wouldn’t that kill them? They’d hate it.
So much the better.
A light on his phone blinked, signalling a call, but he ignored it.
Amelia would be on a flight by now. His brows knitted into a gesture of silent disdain at her insistence that she fly commercial—yet again. To his disbelief, she hadn’t even booked first class.
It was clear that she was engaged in some kind of protest against her wealth and situation, but to ignore all the luxuries she had at her disposal, and then the luxuries that he could furnish her with, beggared belief.
Then again, didn’t everything about this situation?
Sleeping with her had been a mistake. A beautiful, heavenly mistake. Because, while the sex had been unforgettable, he’d returned to Madrid knowing he had to forget her. He had to put that misstep in the past and refocus his attention on his need to avenge the insults inflicted on his father.
And he’d been doing that, destroying the diSalvos and relishing his success.
But her pregnancy... He frowned, thinking of the unlikelihood of that. He was religious about using contraceptives. He was no monk. Sex was a part of his life, and he knew children weren’t on his wish list. But the second Amelia had dropped her bombshell he’d felt an explosion of protective instincts, a primal, all-encompassing need to do whatever he could for that child.
That it was a child he would be raising with a diSalvo was something he would have to accept.
That had nothing to do with business—what he and Amelia shared, the life they would make for their baby, was all personal.
‘I NOW PRONOUNCE you husband and wife.’
The words swum around Amelia’s mind, heavily accented, and ever so slightly like a death knell.
Only that was stupid and dramatic. She was no little lamb, being led to the slaughter. She’d chosen this marriage, and she had to remember that. She wasn’t a piece of detritus being drawn into an ocean’s current—she had gone to Antonio and told him of her pregnancy, and she had chosen to at least try to create a life with him.
A real life?
Anxiety gnawed at the edges of her stomach as she came to the crux of the question that was tormenting her.
What exactly did a ‘real’ marriage look like, to Antonio Herrera?
She barely knew him, she thought, sliding a sideways glance to the man beside her. He drove the car through the streets of Madrid with effortless ease, the afternoon sunshine warm and golden, the powerful car eating up the distance between the utilitarian courthouse in which they’d said their vows and...
And what?
His home.
Another thing she had no idea about. Would it be a luxurious penthouse? A mansion? A yacht? Trepidation at the unquestionable glamour and luxury that awaited her had her remembering the life she’d fled, a life she’d sworn she’d never return to. Yet here she was: as far from her life as a primary school teacher as it was possible to be.
He wore a tuxedo and she wore a dress—simple, white, no lace, no pearls, no beading, no zips. The only concession to the fact it was a wedding was a little bouquet of white roses Antonio had presented her with when the limousine had brought her, straight from the airport, to the town hall. To any passers-by they might have even looked like a normal couple, sneaking off to quickly marry, happy at the prospect of the future that awaited them.
But this was far more like a business arrangement than anything else.
So who exactly had she got into bed with? No, not bed! Her cheeks infused with pink heat and she focused her gaze on the city streets as they passed.
He was ruthless, if his behaviour towards Carlo was anything to go by. But then, there were his charitable works—was that just an excuse, though, to soften his reputation as a hard-hearted bastard? Good PR work, the strings being pulled by an agency focused on rehabilitating his image rather than being motivated by any genuine social concern?
It was hard to believe Antonio particularly cared about his image, or how people might perceive him.
And it was better for her to believe that the man who would be a father to her child had good in his heart, somewhere.
I am not actually a bad person, he’d said, right before suggesting this marriage.
A marriage you agreed to, her memory pointed out sharply.
Her eyes dropped to her finger, and the rings she wore now. A simple diamond band accompanied the engagement ring, sparkling back at her encouragingly.
‘Having regrets?’ The words surprised her. They hadn’t spoken in at least thirty minutes, since leaving the town hall.
She angled her face towards his and wished she hadn’t when she found his eyes momentarily scanning her. Only for a scant few seconds, then his attention