of a father it had been burdened with.
He’d been prepared to leave the raising of any child he had with Freya in her hands. Sophie, he suspected, would want him to be involved.
Sophie, who wanted him to share a bed with her every night. To share a space.
Dios, he hadn’t shared personal space since he and Luis had left their grandparents’ home when they’d turned eighteen to set out on their own, determined even at that young age to earn themselves a fortune. They had rented a small two-bedroom apartment and for the first time in his life Javier had found himself with a room to call his own. The freedom had been like learning to breathe for the first time.
He thought hard before rolling his neck and taking a sharp breath. ‘Bueno. You win. We will try it your way and share a bedroom but only here in this house. I have made it very clear what my own red lines are. I need my solitude. I am a loner and I will never change. I dislike company. When I travel on business, you will not be invited to accompany me, so don’t waste your time thinking of arguments for why you should. I have no need for a confidante, so do not expect me to pour my heart out to you. If I wish to go out for an evening on my own do not expect me to take you with me. If I tell you I need space then I expect you to respect that.’
‘I will respect all of that,’ she promised.
‘Good.’ He nodded tightly and got to his feet. ‘Excuse me but I need to shower before dinner.’
He strode to the bathroom before she could object, needing to get away from Sophie and that floral fragrance she wore that had already permeated the walls of his bedroom.
She might have inveigled herself into it but he was damned if he would let her get a foot in any other aspect of his life.
He could manage nights with her, he reasoned. After all, night-time was for sleeping.
He would dine out more frequently, he decided. Work even longer hours than he already did, hit his personal gym with more vigour, exhaust himself so greatly that when he did rest his head beside hers he would not care that Sophie and her sinfully tempting body lay there. He would simply fall asleep.
* * *
‘Is Luis going to be your best man?’ Sophie asked when she could bear the silence no more.
They’d finished their first course of cured meats and accompaniments and were now eating their main course. They’d been sitting in the dining room for half an hour and Javier had hardly exchanged a word with her. Her every attempt at conversation had been met with monosyllabic answers and grunts.
To make the tension in her stomach even worse, this was the very table he had made love to her on.
It felt so long ago now it could have been a different life but being in here with him brought back memories and feelings that had been smothered under the weight of the fear she had carried with her since, from the horrifying realisation they had failed to use protection to the terrifying realisation she was pregnant with his child.
His lips tightened but he didn’t look up from his phone, which he was typing on with his left hand while working his fork absently between his food and his mouth with the other. ‘No.’
His own twin wasn’t going to be his best man? ‘Who is, then?’
‘I’m not having one.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have no need for one. We do not need guests. Our wedding ceremony will be quick and serve a function.’
Not need guests? What kind of a wedding would it be without them?
‘I’ve already invited my parents.’
‘Un-invite them.’
Sophie put her fork down, folded her arms across her chest and stared at him for so long that eventually he noticed and flickered his eyes at her.
‘I am not getting married without my parents,’ she told him flatly. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. They’ve already booked their flights.’
His jaw clenched. ‘Have you told them they can stay here?’
Do I look stupid? she wanted to retort, settling instead on ‘They’re booked in a hotel.’
He stared at her for so long tumbleweed could have crossed the huge dining room twice. ‘Have you invited anyone else without consulting me?’
‘I didn’t realise I needed permission to invite my parents to our wedding.’
‘Consultation is not the same as permission.’
‘I quite agree, which is why I think it’s outrageous you’ve decided we should have no guests at all without any consultation with me.’
She did not drop her stare. Respect worked both ways and he needed to learn that.
A pulse throbbed in his temple.
Javier, she realised, was so tightly wound that to pull him any tighter would make him snap.
It didn’t scare her. Javier needed to snap. It could not be healthy keeping everything bottled inside him all the time.
‘I am very close to my parents,’ she told him in a gentler tone when he made no effort to respond. ‘It would break their hearts if I married without them.’
His lips pulled together before he finally inclined his head.
‘Bueno, your parents can come.’
She bit back the words of thanks she wanted to say. Gratitude on this would make her look weaker than he already thought her to be.
The sooner Javier came to regard her as his equal, the better.
She had a feeling that with the exception of his brother, he rarely saw anyone as equal to him. Freya had gained his respect, she thought with a pang that felt suspiciously like jealousy, but then Freya was the female version of Javier; single-minded and driven.
If Sophie could cut through Freya’s walls then she could at least chip away at Javier’s.
By the time their child was born she would have chipped away at enough of it that he could be the loving father their child needed and deserved.
Taking her cutlery back in her hand, she cut a bite of the delicious pork fillet and added some of the red pepper and chorizo sauce.
Eighteen months in Madrid had given Sophie a great appreciation of its culture but its food had been something she’d limited herself with, her ballet diet too strict for her to dare eat out much. It had been safer to prepare all her own tried and tested meals and ignore the tantalising aromas that had greeted her whenever she’d stepped onto Madrid’s bustling streets. She had missed out on so much but what surprised her was how little she had missed dancing since she’d quit.
She’d been so ashamed of what she’d done with Javier that she had left the company the next day. By the time she’d taken the pregnancy test she’d known she would never dance professionally again. Without the drive of constant performances and
