limbs wrapped around him.
Of all the good moments within their marriage, this was the memory that stood out for him, the vivid remembrance of the belief that they were the happiest, most perfect couple in the world.
‘I’ll be ready,’ she repeated.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going over the plans for the development.’
‘What for? I told you, I’ll be using my own team.’
Her shoulders raised stubbornly. ‘I’ve put hundreds of hours into this. It’s stupid not to at least take it into account.’
‘I’m sure my architect will be delighted to have your input,’ he drawled.
Shoving her chair back, she got to her feet. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said, her voice tight.
‘One hour.’
‘So you keep telling me.’ She closed the adjoining door firmly behind her. He heard the lock slide into place.
Raul flexed his fingers and took a deep breath.
The past four days had been like living with a sullen teenager. He’d given her a little leeway, which had been decent of him under the circumstances, but from now on he would not put up with it.
Tomorrow, the deeds would be signed and she would be indebted to him.
Curiosity made him look at the papers sprawled over her desk.
A few moments later he sat on the chair still warm from her body heat with a frown on his face.
Peering more closely through the stack before him, he saw she’d taken each room of the new building and committed to paper her ideas for the renovations. Each drawing was done to scale.
Charley had said she’d done these plans.
Had she been lying in an attempt to impress him?
But no—the notes in the margins, the numbers indicating the measurements, these were all in her girlish writing.
He rubbed at his temples, his chest tightening as he imagined her sitting in that tiny study in the tiny home she’d been living in, working diligently on these plans. Alone.
* * *
After a quick shower and shave, Raul found Charley in the living room.
‘You’re ready?’ he asked, astonished to find her waiting for him. He was equally astounded at what she was wearing: a pair of cropped grey figure-hugging patchwork trousers and a sheer black blouse. On her feet were a pair of flat black strappy sandals.
‘Yes.’ Rising from the sofa, she passed the window, the low early evening sun shining through to allow him to see perfectly the lacy black bra she wore beneath the seemingly modest blouse.
‘What?’ she asked, a scowl forming.
‘Are you really intending to go out for a meal with friends wearing that?’
‘Yes, Raul, I am. Why? Is there something wrong with it?’
‘I’m surprised, that’s all.’ She looked good—she looked beautiful—there was no denying that but he could not recall a single time after they’d married when she’d worn trousers or jeans. Now, other than the party she’d gatecrashed and the morning of her meeting with the bank manager, he’d not seen a single sign of her legs. The Charley he’d been married to wouldn’t have dreamed of going out for dinner in anything less than a designer dress and five-inch heels. She would hardly breakfast in anything less.
‘This is what I have in my wardrobe.’
‘What happened to the rest of your clothes?’ Charley had had a wall at the back of her walk-in wardrobe filled with shoes alone. Thinking about it, he couldn’t see how her tiny Valencian bedroom would fit even a fraction of her clothes in it.
‘I gave most of them to charity shops.’
‘What did you do that for?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s not much call for Dolce & Gabbana at Poco Rio.’
‘I’ll give my sister a ring and see if she’s free to go on a shopping trip with you over the next few days.’ He reached into his pocket for his phone.
Charley folded her arms and shook her head, but the scowl disappeared, replaced by a look that was almost...sad. ‘I don’t want to go on a shopping trip. I like my wardrobe just fine as it is.’
‘Charlotte,’ he said, striving for patience, ‘over the next four months we will be dining out and socialising as we always used to do. The clothes you have are fine for what you’ve been doing at the centre but those days are currently over. You’re my wife and you know what that means.’
‘That I have to dress up like a doll?’
‘No.’ She was being deliberately obtuse. ‘But being a Cazorla does mean projecting a certain image—’
‘Why?’
He rubbed the nape of his neck and whistled air through his teeth. ‘We discussed this when we first became engaged. My family is highly respected here, our hotels some of the finest in the world. People look up to us.’
It had been for her sake that he’d wanted her to fit in. He knew what it was like to be judged as not good enough and had never wanted that for her. He hadn’t wanted the woman he loved to enter a social situation and feel insecure about anything. He’d done his best to give her all the tools she’d needed to assimilate into high society as if she’d been born into it.
‘I still don’t understand why that means I have to dress like a doll.’
‘You don’t have to “dress like a doll”,’ he said, his jaws clamping together. ‘I really don’t understand what the problem is. You loved dressing up when we lived together before.’
He remembered the light in her eyes after that first shopping trip with Marta and their personal shopper and Charley’s bursts of laughter as she’d carefully taken each item out of its box for him to look at and comment on. Her happiness hadn’t been fake, of that he was certain.
The corners of her lips curved into a whimsical smile, the closest thing to a real smile he’d seen all week, although there was nothing happy about it.
‘I did at first, yes. But what twenty-year-old wouldn’t love being let loose in one of the most exclusive shopping arcades in Europe with an unlimited credit card?’
‘So you admit, you did marry me for my money?’
She shook her head, her blonde hair brushing over her shoulders. ‘I won’t lie; your wealth turned my head. Your whole lifestyle did. But I would have married you if you’d lived in a shack.’
He laughed humourlessly. ‘It is lucky your nose is not like Pinocchio’s or it would be sprouting leaves as we speak.’
