Martinez's Pregnant Wife
Her heart thumped. Stupidly she thought he was referring to love and to her dismay her eyes fluttered closed, hope filling her.
‘That passion is still there, is it not?’ Her eyes flew open, not because of the heavy accent of his words, which reminded her of those intimate moments when she could easily fool herself that he loved her, but because of what he considered to be between them.
‘Passion isn’t enough.’ Her hot retort did little to deflect the charm that this man was renowned for.
‘But it’s something.’
She looked away, desperate to break the heady contact of his dark eyes. Beyond the small but well-equipped office she looked through the window and out over London lying beneath dark heavy clouds. She was about to turn back to him, to tell him that maybe he was right, when papers on his desk caught her attention.
The petition for divorce. On top of the acknowledgement form lay a pen, as if he’d been interrupted in the process of signing it.
* * *
Max followed her gaze and looked at his desk, seeing a story he knew she would quickly piece together. The pen lying where he’d dropped it as he’d answered the phone call from his half-brother, Raul, which had thrown everything into disarray—and that had only been the beginning.
Then he’d been poised ready to sign the papers, to end a marriage he’d made in haste, but even before the ringtone of his phone had slashed through his thoughts he’d been unable to do it. Unable to make it so very final.
‘You were going to sign them,’ Lisa said softly as she looked back to him, and the pain in her eyes clutched at him, stabbing his conscience.
The truth of it all was that even before the phone call his hand had hovered over the form, ready to sign but not able to. Still the shock of receiving them cut deeply. He’d failed. Just like his father, he’d been unable to be the man he’d promised to be.
‘Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’ He deflected her question, throwing one back at her, and he knew that if he stood any chance of being in his child’s life he had to get Lisa to understand that they needed to remain married.
‘Yes,’ she said, but the hint of hesitation told him he was finally winning. ‘It was.’
‘And now that you are carrying my child? Do you still want me to sign them?’ He moved away from her, wanting to give her space to think but more importantly to take away the temptation to kiss her.
He looked out over London, the tension in the room notching up as her silence lengthened. He went to his desk, turning the papers round to face him and picked up the pen.
He looked at her, saw the way she bit at her lower lip, her focus on his hand. ‘The baby changes nothing, Max. We should never have married.’
‘But we did,’ he said as he put down the pen and stood tall, his arms folded across his chest. Anything to stop himself from going to her, from trying to kiss some reason into her. She was his wife and the thought of her moving on, of her meeting someone new, lashed at him like icy rain.
‘I don’t want a reluctant father for my child, Max.’
He drew in a deep breath as her words hit at his biggest insecurity. ‘Then we agree on that at least because I want to be there for my son or daughter all the time. Which is why I want to give our marriage another chance.’
‘We already know we don’t work.’
‘I’ll make a deal with you, Lisa. We give the marriage one last chance. We live as a married couple for the next two weeks and if by New Year’s Eve you still feel the same, I will not contest the divorce and we can both start our lives again.’
* * *
‘Why?’ she asked, her brows furrowing in suspicion. ‘You don’t love me. You told me that in no uncertain terms.’
Lisa looked at Max as his eyes met hers across the small space of his office. Her heart flipped over and her stomach fluttered just as it always had done when he’d looked at her like that. For her it was all about being in love, but for him it was something different.
‘Because we have created a child, our child, and we owe it to that child to at least try.’ His words confirmed her thoughts. This was about his conscience, about doing the right thing.
She’d never wanted a divorce. Not because she couldn’t admit they’d made a mistake, but because she still loved him. It had been his cold and cruel words after their passionate night that had prompted her to tell him that morning she wanted a divorce and the pain had stung long enough to ensure she’d eventually seen it through.
‘Our night together should never have happened.’ She turned and glared at him, pushing down her softer side, the one that wanted to fall into his arms and take anything he was offering. She might have been able to do that once, but not any more, not now she had a child to think of.
‘So why did it, Lisa?’ His voice was deep, gravelly and very sexy.
She bit down hard, keeping the truth inside. There was no way she was ever going to let him know she still loved him. She’d thought her dreams had all come true at once when she’d first met Max and giving up on her dreams was hard. Too hard.
‘Far too much wine.’ She snapped the words she’d used earlier and turned, leaving the small office and the air that was full of the scent of Max. She couldn’t stay here any more, not when every word, every look, made her remember all she’d lost.
‘Nothing else?’ He taunted her and she stopped, her breathing deep and fast as she looked steadfastly at the door of his apartment, her escape. She wouldn’t turn round, couldn’t look at him.
‘No.’ She shook her head and took the final steps to the door but before she could open it Max was in front of her. ‘Nothing.’
‘But there is something now,’ he said all too calmly. ‘Our child.’
She clutched at the first thing she could think of to change the subject. ‘What about your brother? Aren’t you intending to meet him this afternoon?’
‘I am meeting my brother...’ he paused and lifted his arm to look at his watch, the movement exposing his tanned wrist and, try as she might, she couldn’t tear her gaze away ‘...in one hour. Which means, we will have to continue this discussion later.’
‘In that case, I’ll go home.’ Her blasé reply made his brows rise in a suggestive and incredibly sexy way and she drew in a deep breath.
‘You will come with me, Lisa, and afterward, we will call at your apartment to collect all you need to move back in here while we sort things out.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Quite possibly.’ He smiled, the kind of smile that left her in no doubt he was sure he held all the power. ‘But I am not about to allow you to walk away with my child.’
‘A child you’ve never wanted.’
‘That may have been the case once, but not any more.’
CHAPTER THREE
MAX’S MIND HAD been a turmoil of thoughts as he and Lisa had made the journey across London to the hotel his brother had suggested for their meeting. One minute he’d been thinking of his brother and how finally meeting him would affect him, and then his thoughts had gone to the child he was now responsible for. How could he be a father when he was the son of a man who’d led a double life, effectively having two families simultaneously?
He looked at Lisa as she sat down in one of the cosy-looking armchairs in the hotel foyer. A wave of unease washed over him as he noticed she was still pale beneath the heavy make-up she nearly always wore. It was her armour, her wall to hide behind. He knew that much at least, although not why. In fact he knew very little about her past. Nothing else had mattered at first because he’d seen the real Lisa, had loved the real Lisa—at least physically.
Then he’d broken her heart because his past meant he couldn’t open his heart to hers. He couldn’t let himself love her. It was an emotion he wasn’t capable of. His father’s sudden abandonment had seen to that, not that he’d been around much before he’d walked out for good. Max had never known where he went for weeks at a time, but now, finally, he did. He’d gone to his other family, to his legitimate son and legal wife—leaving his mistress and his illegitimate son behind.
A stab of hurt pierced into him. He had been nothing more than a bad secret to be swept out of sight. A child to be avoided, forgotten, not loved and finally knowing why only intensified the pain. The shadows cast by his past reached far into the future, destroying everything. If he hadn’t been able to love Lisa, how could he love his child?
Hell, he really didn’t need this guilt now. Not on top of recent revelations and now today’s headlines, which played to the one thing he hated—being illegitimate. The bastard child of the man who’d broken his mother’s heart and wrecked their lives without so much as an apology and definitely never an explanation. He’d walked out one night and never come back. Max had tried to console his mother, but, at eight, that had been a tall order and yet another failure as far as he was concerned.
Now he had to face that man’s legitimate son. The son he must have really wanted. His true heir. His half-brother, Raul, had only said that as part of his will his father had wanted him found and brought into the family business. So what was this all about? His father’s pathetic attempts to make peace?
He moved away from Lisa and all the complications, wanting to get this meeting under way. He paused outside the restaurant, took a deep breath and then opened the doors and walked in. It was empty of anyone except a couple who were locked in a heated debate. They were lovers, of that there wasn’t any doubt, lovers who hated and loved with equal passion. Neither was he in any doubt that he was looking at his brother.
For a moment Max waivered. If he couldn’t do emotions, could he be any kind of brother? Savagely he pushed the thought aside. He’d do this to show his father he wasn’t completely cast from the same mould as him.
* * *
Lisa’s nerves were so taut she could hardly sit still, the events of the day, which had unfolded at breakneck speed, only adding to her nausea. Raised voices had come from the room and the hasty retreat of another woman had made her more anxious. It had all gone quiet now. Too quiet.
‘How did it go?’ She jumped up from her chair as Max pushed open the door. From the look on his face she already knew the answer to that. She also had so many more questions to ask, not least who was the woman who’d fled the room, almost in tears. What had happened in there?
‘As well as such a meeting can go.’ He fired the words back at her, his jaw firm and hard, and a tremor of fear slithered down her spine.
‘That’s it?’ Lisa could see the defensive wall being built around him. He was shutting her out, keeping her away from him, from his emotions, just as he always did. Her heart softened. She’d picked the wrong day to tell Max he was going to be a father.
‘For now, yes,’ he said, but from the frown on his face, the tight set of his jaw, she knew things were far from right.
‘Will you see him again?’
Finally, Max looked at her properly, as if he’d buried all the hurt that must have come from meeting a brother he’d never met. ‘I will, yes. We have agreed not to let the past cloud the future. In light of the press headlines we will present a united front, but now it’s over I can deal with other problems.’
That fear turned to ice, draining any warmth from her body. Was she just another problem to be briefly addressed then pushed aside to be forgotten? ‘What other problems?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Lisa. You know as well as I do that your news this morning is a problem.’
Was he blaming her? The accusation in his dark eyes and laced into every word certainly made it feel like that. Anger fired through her, its heat chasing away the chill of fear. ‘One you no longer need to worry about.’ Sickness filled her stomach, but she remained strong as she turned to walk away from him, in disbelief as he said nothing to stop her. He thought that little of her and the baby he was letting her simply walk away. She bit down the cocktail of anger and disappointment and continued walking, each step almost killing her.
Max caught up with her and took hold of her arm, bringing her to an abrupt stop. ‘Where the hell are you going?’
She whirled round to face him, freeing herself from his grasp. ‘As far away from you as possible.’
He looked at her, a frown of worry creasing his brow. ‘That will not be possible. You are coming home with me.’
Lisa looked at him with total shock. ‘I am not going home with you.’
‘We agreed.’ His lips pressed into a firm line, but she was too angry, too irrational to care what he thought.
‘You agreed and you can’t make me.’ She knew she sounded emotionally unstable, but she couldn’t help it, not when her body was full of pregnancy hormones, which flung her from highs to lows in just a few seconds. Or was that Max? Was he the one turning everything on its head?
‘You are coming home with me. You are my wife.’ The feral growl of his voice served only to spike her mutinous anger even higher.
‘Only when it suits you, it seems.’
‘Don’t challenge me now, Lisa. You have just told me you are expecting my child. And that changes everything. We are married and will remain married—living under the same roof.’
Like an angry lion he stood and almost snarled out his demands and instantly she became the defensive woman she’d grown up to be. The need to fight her corner, to stand up for herself and be heard, dominated all her thoughts and she lashed out verbally.
‘You might have watched your father walk away but I will not allow that to happen to my child, not when I know what it’s like to be despised by my own father and then stepfathers.’ She hadn’t meant to let the past creep out, but as he took a step toward her, towering over her, she stood steadfast, refusing to be dominated. Ever. Not by anyone, least of all the man she’d married.
‘I’m not the only one with a past to hide, or hide behind, am I, Lisa?’
‘No, you’re not,’ she raged against him and the past she’d been trying to escape all her life. She’d thought marrying Max had finally meant that she could put all that behind her, that she could finally settle and make a home, but how wrong she’d been. The situation she had been plunged into meant she had to face that head-on. ‘But I’m not the one still running.’
The barb, laced with recrimination, hit its mark. His eyes glittered with anger but she matched his with her own. Being brought up on the wrong side of town had made her always ready to leap to her defence with anger. She didn’t need him—or any man. She was more than able to look after herself and now she would do the same for her baby, just as her mother had had to do. But with one difference. She would not be inflicting a constant stream of father figures on her son or daughter. She’d rather do this alone than risk that.
‘You think coming here today, meeting a brother I never knew I had, is running away? You think saying we will remain married—living together for the sake of our child—is running away?’ He moved closer to her, his intoxicating presence making her head swim, increasing the nausea, but she remained, tall and strong.
‘It is not a physical presence that counts. It’s more than that and it’s something you have already proved you are unable to do when you walked out on our marriage. I’m not going anywhere with you.’
As the words flew like accusing bullets from her lips the nausea took over, weakening her body. The luxury of the hotel foyer blurred and the last thing she could focus on was the Christmas tree, resplendent in gold, its lights twinkling like a thousand stars. She couldn’t hold on any longer and slipped into the bliss of soft darkness and the sanctuary it offered.
* * *
‘Lisa.’ She heard Max say her name and smiled weakly. She’d always loved the way his accent lengthened her name, made it sound so exotic and sensual, but this time there was a hint of panic.
In the depths of darkness, she was aware of her body beginning to fall but before she reached the floor Max’s arms were around her, his strong and muscled chest now a cushion for her head. She leaned against him, finally finding the will to fight the blackness as she inhaled the scent of the man she loved. The only man she would ever love. A man, by his own admission, incapable of love.
That last thought lingered in her mind like the frost that had covered the ground this morning; its chill revived her mind, her body, bringing everything once more into stinging focus.
‘I’m okay.’ She pushed against him, but his arms held her tightly. Weariness and confusion muddled her mind.
‘Is she all right?’ Another male voice, one as strong and commanding as Max’s, forced her to open her eyes.
She looked into a handsome face, one so familiar to that of the man whose strong arms now carried her to the chair she’d been sitting in only a short time ago. His brother. Her mind processed the information slowly but she knew that there could never be any doubt about that fact.
‘This is my wife, Lisa.’ She looked up at Max as his arms slipped from her, allowing her to sit in the chair again, but he stayed, crouched low, at her side, lines of anger on his face, and she wished he could look as concerned for her as his brother did. ‘Pregnancy is not agreeing with her.’
Not agreeing with her. How very dared he? He was the one who found this pregnancy disagreeable.
‘You should take her home. Call the doctor.’ The dominating male voice of Max’s brother spoke again and she looked up at him, standing over them like a demon.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Вы ознакомились с фрагментом книги.
Для бесплатного чтения открыта только часть текста.
Приобретайте полный текст книги у нашего партнера:
Полная версия книги