The Holiday Escapes Collection. Sandra Marton

That it was a joke to me?”

      She looked down. “You taking me as a wife was certainly a joke. A joke you used to convince him to pass Vega into your hands then.”

      “Evidence that nothing about Vega Communications was ever a joke to me.”

      “Because providing mobile phone service to an ever-increasing number of countries is your passion?”

      “Because it’s my birthright. It’s part of my family legacy.” And because if he failed at that, he had nothing to strive for. “Like you, I did very well at university. I earned a degree…I earned my position. Yes, I had connections, but you managed to get into Vega as an intern. You’ve managed to make your own connections. Why be disdainful simply because my course was more set than yours?”

      She looked thoughtful as she took a mussel on the half shell between her thumb and forefinger. “I was disdainful because I never thought you cared about it. Or even wanted it. Not really.”

      “I expected it. I suppose, given that it seemed a certainty, I lacked the blatant desperation you possessed.”

      She put the mussel between her lips and sucked out the flesh. It wasn’t a sexy action. Not really. And yet, when she did it, it was oddly compelling. It was because her lips managed to look sensual, inviting and soft, all while her eyes told him she’d happily bite his tongue if he dared follow the impulse that originated south of his belt.

      “Desperation?” she asked, taking the white linen napkin from her lap and dabbing the side of her mouth. “Drive, maybe.”

      “If it makes you feel better.”

      “It does. Humor me.”

      He inclined his head. “If you wish. Anyway, I may sympathize with you a bit more now. I have to fix this. Vega is my family. My life.”

      The glee she’d seemed to take from her initial thought of his being desperate had diminished. “You used to like other things better.”

      “I did.”

      “Parties. Loose women.”

      “I was faithful to you during our marriage.” A statement more true than she realized. But the fallout from the head injury had been extensive. He’d lost his passion for everything. Had lost friends. He’d had a hunger for life once. For fun and pleasure, for laughter.

      He had nothing more than a white-knuckled grip on existence now. A human, biological need to keep breathing. And with that, came the need to save Vega.

      It gave him a reason to go on, anyway, and that was, at this point in his life, more valuable than passion.

      “Prince Charming in the flesh,” she said lightly.

      The waiter returned and set a fish course before them, Spanish rice and spiced greens on the side. Hannah wasted no time in helping herself. She had always liked eating. He’d been fascinated by it. When they would go to his family’s house for dinner, she’d always eaten as much as he did, if not more. Still, she’d always looked thin. Hungry. But he’d suspected, even then, that her hunger wasn’t for food.

      She’d been hungry for money. Status. Success.

      She still was. It was why she was here with him. Why he’d been able to demand she return to Spain.

      “Not entirely,” he said, his tone heavier than he intended it to be.

      “So tell me then,” she said, blue eyes glittering with mischief. “Will you be faithful to me during our reconciliation?” Her lips closed around her fork and his gut tightened.

      “That all depends, Hannah,” he said, words forming before thought, his body leading the proceedings.

      “On?”

      “On whether or not you intend to share my bed this time.”

      Hannah nearly choked on her rice. “What?”

      Eduardo leaned back in his chair, a dark glint in his eye, a lean, hungry look to his features. “You heard me, querida. Will I need to seek my amusement elsewhere? Or will you share my bed?”

      “I am not sleeping with you,” she said, the very idea of the invasion, the intimacy, the loss of utter and complete control, making her feel shivery and panicky. Hot.

      “Then I suppose the answer to the question is not your concern.”

      “No,” she bit out.

      She didn’t truly care who he slept with. She’d been trying to goad him, nothing else. They did that. They always had. Verbal sparring had been the only level they’d ever truly connected on.

      They shared a love of arguing, which, in some ways, made them the perfect married couple for the public. For all she knew of married couples.

      “At least we’re on the same page,” he said, returning his focus to his dinner.

      What did that mean? That he didn’t want her? That made her…mad. And it shouldn’t. She shouldn’t care. Men, attraction, sex, none of it fit into her life. She’d been about to make room for Zack, and of course she’d intended to sleep with him eventually. But she’d been in control of it, no question. She’d been able to wait, and so had he. She and Zack were both all about control, about keeping things in order, in their neat little boxes.

      Eduardo would never fit into a box. She would never be able to shove him to one side of her life and ignore him unless she wanted to open him up and indulge. Nope. That wasn’t possible. He was too much. Too…present. He was impossible to simply ignore.

      She didn’t want to sleep with him anyway. She’d denied her sex drive, rightly, necessarily, for the past nine years. Sure, she’d been about to end the dry spell with marriage. But it hadn’t been the attractor to marrying Zack. It had never been that important. It wasn’t all-consuming.

      It wouldn’t be with Eduardo, either. She could keep on ignoring it, no question. And Eduardo wouldn’t change that.

      So his lack of desire for her shouldn’t matter. Her ego was just feeling bruised.

      “Good thing. So,” she said, “what’s your plan for tomorrow? Just waltzing into the office and announcing we’re reconciling?”

      A smile curved his lips. An unsettling, dark smile that made her stomach tighten and her heart pound. “Why don’t we just see what happens?”