The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain. Эбби Грин

the first time.

      Nearly three years ago.

      This couldn’t be happening. This was too, too cruel. Life couldn’t be this harsh. And yet she knew well that it could.

      He was still talking. And then abruptly he stopped, and the warm smile faded. Dark blond brows drew together over piercingly light blue eyes. The colour of blue ice. They pierced all the way through to Rowan’s heart and soul, ripping her open, laying her bare to the myriad expressions crossing his face: the shock of recognition, disbelief…and then something much more potent. Disgust, anger…hatred. Rejection.

      Rowan felt her mouth move as if to speak. But nothing came out. Everything seemed to hurtle around them in fast forward, but they were cocooned in an invisible bubble. Suspended in time. She looked at the little boy held high in his arms, and that was her downfall. She felt as if her heart would explode. It was all too much. She had one coherent thought before she slid into a dead faint at her husband’s feet: my baby.

      Isandro Vicario Salazar stood at the window of the bedroom in the suite that he’d carried Rowan upstairs to just a short time before. He looked at the distinctive telecom tower in the near distance, the bumper-to-bumper traffic in the streets down below, and saw none of it. His eyes were narrowed.

      Rowan Carmichael. Rowan Salazar. His wife.

      His mouth twisted into an even thinner line. His errant wife. The wife who had walked out on him and abandoned her own baby just hours after the birth because she hadn’t been ready to deal with it. A drumbeat of rage, barely contained, beat under the surface of his skin. In his blood. Stunning him with its force. That day he’d left her to rest after the birth, and returned some hours later—only to find her gone. He’d not laid eyes on her from that moment to this. He still reeled with the shock of seeing her. He reeled with the torrent of emotions that seeing her had evoked within him—emotions he’d suppressed long ago, that day, when she’d revealed her true nature and had shown him how unbelievably duped he had allowed himself to become. But not a hint of his inner emotions showed on his face even now.

      A faint sound from the bed made him tense, and slowly he turned around.

      Rowan waited a moment before opening her eyes. It was something she’d got used to in the past couple of years. A moment before reality rushed in, a moment to take stock, do a body-check, feel the sensations, feel if there was pain present…feel if she was well. But this time, as the muted sounds of car horns and traffic came from just outside, albeit a long way down, she tensed. The previous moments rushed back. The last thing she cared about right now was physical pain or if she felt well.

      Her eyes flew open and there he was. It hadn’t been a mirage. Her husband stood with his back to the window, hands deep in pockets of what she knew would be superbly crafted bespoke Italian cloth. Like his shirt and his jacket. The clothes moulded to his form, hugging every hard contour, emphasising every part of his tall, broad-shouldered and powerful body. Exactly how she remembered…but even more devastating in the flesh.

      She knew on some level that it was the cushion of shock that allowed her to be so coolly objective. He was, if anything, even more handsome. Although in fairness handsome was too trite a word, too pretty. He was altogether too male for a word like handsome. And he was right here in front of her, living, breathing…not a figment of her imagination. The exquisite pain of seeing him again when she knew well what he must think of her was mercifully not allowed to penetrate too deeply.

      ‘So…’ he drawled with a sardonic edge, ‘you were obviously shocked to run into me. Surprising, really, considering this is my hotel.’

      Rowan felt the numbness fade, the protective shock starting to shatter. His hotel? Since when had he owned a hotel in London? Even though he’d had to do a lot of business here, he’d never hidden his antipathy for the place. And how had she unwittingly chosen this hotel…out of a million others?

      She’d quite literally come back and walked directly into the lion’s den—like an industrious ant following the scent of a familiar pheromone.

       How had she got up here to this room?

      And then she remembered. It was too joyful and painful to bear, slicing through the shock and opening a raw wound. Her baby, her son…she’d seen him, held him. It had been him. She hadn’t conjured him up. That knowledge was still too much for her to cope with fully; she knew that. Her brain would be close to going into meltdown if she focused on what had just happened too intensely.

      ‘Did I…did I frighten him?’ Her voice felt scratchy.

      The cold flash of sheer disgust that crossed her husband’s face was like a slap. If she’d had any doubts about his reaction they were laughably quashed now.

      ‘No. If you had I wouldn’t be here right now.’

      The protective tone in his voice was unmistakable. Rowan pushed herself up to sit on the side of the bed. Her head still felt light, as if stuffed with cotton wool. Warily she looked up at Isandro. It almost physically hurt to see him like this after all this time. She’d dreamed of this moment for so long…but of course she had to concede that never in her imaginings had she fooled herself into believing that Isandro would be pleased to see her. That had been confined to her fantasies.

      ‘Did you call him Zacarías?’ she asked with a husky catch. Her eye was drawn to a muscle clenching in his jaw. But his curt, tight voice brought her eyes back to his.

      ‘Zac. Yes.’

      ‘After your grandfather…’

      A look of disdain flashed across his face. ‘Please let’s not pretend that you actually care.’

      Rowan winced, her face paling. She’d known exactly what she might expect when she confronted Isandro, but she just hadn’t expected it so soon. She’d wanted to be in control, to have the chance to explain, be ready… Who was she kidding? In that moment she felt like she’d never be ready to explain.

      ‘Your lover was sent on his way.’

      Rowan had been in the act of standing, and promptly sat back down again. Isandro watched her coolly, but he felt anything but cool inside. It was taking all his self-control not to walk over, haul her up and demand…what? He shook inwardly with the force of the emotions running through him. The strongest of which felt suspiciously and awfully like jealousy. But he told himself it was only his pride that he cared about, that this vortex threatening to consume him couldn’t possibly be linked into feelings. He’d learnt that lesson two years ago.

      ‘My what?’ She looked at Isandro incredulously. Now she really felt removed from reality.

      ‘Your lover,’ he spat out. ‘The man you had come to meet. No doubt you have a room booked here somewhere? Is this how you’ve spent the last couple of years? In a debauched world tour of hotel rooms with insignificant men? Is this what you meant when you said you weren’t ready to deal with marriage and motherhood?’

       Insignificant men?

      Rowan’s head throbbed, and she put a hand to her temple, struggling to make sense of what he said. And then it hit her as a benign, friendly face swam into her mind’s eye. She looked up at him again, her eyes wide. ‘You must be talking about David Fairclough. He’s my solicitor. I was due to meet him downstairs, just when…just when…’

      Isandro snorted contemptuously. ‘A likely story. You really wanted to rub my nose in it, didn’t you?’

      Rowan barely heard what he was saying. She finally found the strength to stand, her hands balled into fists at her sides. ‘It is true. I was meeting him…’ She faltered. She really hadn’t planned on it happening this way, but there was nothing she could do now. She hitched up her chin. ‘I was meeting him to discuss how best to contact you and talk about seeing my son.’

      Isandro crossed his arms across his chest, making him look even more powerful, formidable. He blocked the light coming