had experienced only one day worse than this. The day his father had murdered his mother.
* * *
Sophie waited until the driver opened her door before stepping out in front of the imposing Tuscan-style villa that was Javier’s home.
The first time she had been there she had been filled with so many emotions she had hardly taken anything in other than its titanic size.
Now there was an array of sights and smells filling her senses. She’d noticed that increase in her perceptions during the first week of her pregnancy. It was like discovering secrets of the world, an unexpected symptom that warmed her.
She needed all the warmth she could get.
She’d lain in her hotel bed telling herself over and over that she was doing the right thing. Not telling Javier about the pregnancy had never been on the cards. He was the father. He deserved to know and deserved to be involved if that was what he wanted.
She was glad for their child’s sake that he did want to be and that he’d come to the decision of marriage so quickly. For once, it hadn’t been the anguish she always felt at the thought of disappointing her adoptive parents, good, loving, decent people who believed strongly in the sanctity of marriage, but for her child. Her child deserved nothing less.
Sophie often thought of her biological father. Had he ever known of her conception? Had he been party to the decision to abandon her? Or had he spent twenty-four years unaware he had a daughter out there, being raised by people who were strangers to him?
These were just some of the many questions that had haunted her life. She had long stopped seeking answers for them—they all led to dead ends—but had never stopped wondering. She would wonder about the man and woman who had given her life for ever.
Her child would not. Whatever happened between Sophie and Javier, her child would know who both its parents were.
Stepping onto the marble stairs that led to a wrap-around porch, Sophie followed the driver, who had insisted on taking her suitcase, to the front door.
Everything about Javier’s home looked so much richer and more palatial than her first and last visit. Private and secluded from the bustle of Madrid’s busy streets, it screamed opulence. This was the kind of house any self-regarding billionaire would be proud to call home.
Marble pillars flagged the wide oak door that opened before the driver could raise his hand to knock.
Javier stood there, casually dressed in an olive-green shirt unbuttoned at the neck and black jeans that showcased the muscularity of his thighs. Thick stubble covered his jawline. His hooded light brown eyes met hers for the briefest of moments before he nodded his thanks at the driver and dismissed him.
‘Refreshments are being made for us,’ he said as he led her through the grand reception room twice as high as a normal room and adorned with ancient Egyptian relics, including a bust of a sphinx almost as large as Javier himself.
The first time she had been there she had been too overawed at being invited in by the man she had mooned over for so long to pay much attention to anything, but now she was determined to keep an analytical head and pay attention to everything.
‘Is it okay to leave my suitcase in here?’ she asked.
He stopped and turned, a frown creasing his forehead, fleshy, sensuous lips pulling together. ‘Why have you brought your suitcase with you?’
‘I checked out of my hotel.’
Now his eyes narrowed. ‘I hope you are not expecting to move in today.’
‘I’ve checked out of the hotel because my reason for staying in it is done—you know about the baby. I’ll fly back to England when we’ve finished discussing everything and set a game plan out.’
Disconcerted, Javier ran his fingers through his hair. He could read nothing but honesty in Sophie’s wide gaze and he didn’t trust it an inch.
The dreamless sleep he had hoped for had proven fruitless. He doubted he’d had more than an hour of solid sleep.
Sophie was pregnant with his child. The puffiness of her eyes was proof she must have found sleep as elusive as he had, but where his stomach was knotted with thorny barbs she had a calm serenity about her.
She’d had a head start on getting her head around being a parent, he reminded himself grimly. She’d known for certain for six whole weeks and had kept it to herself when she should have told him immediately.
Dios, his head felt ready to combust. All these betrayals, it was like a sickness. Benjamin’s refusal to accept his own negligence and then stealing Freya from him had been only the start, culminating in the disaster that had been the night before, the night when he and his twin celebrated their mother’s memory with a world determined to remember her torrid death rather than her magnificent life, now tainted for ever. Luis, his own twin, had betrayed it and had betrayed him so greatly it felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. The business they had built from nothing would have to be split, the brotherhood that had driven his life rent apart with one gross act of disloyalty.
And he was going to be a father. He was going to marry a woman so far removed from his ideal of what a suitable wife for himself should be that she could be from Venus.
‘Let us discuss our game plan now,’ he said icily, leading her through to one of his four living rooms, his least favourite for relaxing. He would never allow himself to relax again around Sophie. It was too dangerous, especially for her.
Initially he’d planned for their meeting to take place in the dining room but when he’d stepped into it a powerful memory of making love to her on that table had sent a thrill of desire racing through him, so, with a click of his fingers, he’d ordered the documents to be moved.
He indicated the sofas arranged in a square around a coffee table. ‘Take a seat.’
She obeyed his command by sitting gracefully and crossing her legs.
He wished she hadn’t. Until that moment he had refused to pay any attention to her attire but now his eyes focussed on the athletic but decidedly feminine figure clad in fashionably ripped jeans and an oversized thin sweater that fell off the shoulder. She’d left her long blonde hair loose.
A member of his staff entered the room carrying the refreshments he’d ordered and he was glad of the diversion.
He waited until the drinks and pastries had been laid out before seating himself opposite Sophie and pouring himself a coffee. ‘Help yourself.’
Again, she obeyed. Soon she had a palmier on a plate on her lap and was sipping a glass of fresh orange juice.
He allowed himself a slight breath of relief. So far she was displaying all the signs of obedience. Things would be much easier if she were to fall in with his plans without questioning them. He knew little about Sophie but the impression he’d formed before he’d stupidly made love to her had been of a shy woman who had little in the way of spine or gumption.
He’d climbed out of his bed that morning knowing he needed to learn something concrete about the woman he was going to marry, so he had woken the ballet company’s human resources manager, ordering her to email Sophie’s employment file to him. It had been
