A Spanish Affair: Naive Bride, Defiant Wife / Flora's Defiance. LYNNE GRAHAM

Would it do her so much harm to give their marriage another shot? Of course it went without saying that it wouldn’t work out and that both the trial and the subsequent break-up would hurt her again, but wouldn’t agreeing give her the satisfaction of knowing that she had tried every option and made the best effort she could?

      In the heat of that last inspiring thought, Jemima turned back to focus on her tall, darkly handsome husband. ‘All right. I’ll come back to Spain but initially I’m only agreeing to stay for three months,’ she extended, nervous tension rippling through her in a quivering wave as she realised what she was giving her consent to.

      Alejandro stared back at her with brooding dark eyes, revealing neither satisfaction nor surprise at her surrender. ‘I will accept that.’

      Jemima gazed back at him, suddenly horrified at what she had allowed herself to be persuaded into. He had the silver tongue of the devil, she decided wildly. He had made her feel that any decent mother would have another go at being married for her child’s sake. He had studied her with those smouldering dark golden eyes and told her that he still wanted her. Not only had she liked that news very much but her body had burned and her brain had shrivelled while she’d thought that truth through to its natural conclusion.

      ‘Have you had lunch?’ Alejandro asked.

      Jemima backed away a step like a drug addict being offered a banned substance. ‘No, but I’m not hungry. I think I should get back to the shop.’

      ‘Of course, you’ll have a lot of arrangements to put in place. I’ll instruct a recruitment agency to find you a manager,’ Alejandro imparted smooth as ice, gleaming dark golden eyes raking over her with a subdued heat that she felt as deep as the marrow of her bones. ‘I don’t want this to take too long. I also want to see Alfie.’

      ‘Will you still be here over the weekend?’ At his nod of assent, Jemima added breathlessly, ‘Then come down and see him tomorrow.’

      ‘How soon will you come to Spain?’ he prompted.

      ‘Just as soon as I can get it organised.’

      ‘I should take you home,’ Alejandro murmured before she got as far as the hall.

      ‘No. I’m used to getting the train…’

      ‘I’ll take you to the station, mi dulzura.’

      The immediate change in his attitude to her made a big impression on Jemima. All of a sudden he believed it was his job to look after her again and it felt seriously strange to have someone expressing concern on her behalf. She accompanied him down to the basement car park and climbed into his shiny car. As she clasped the seat belt Alejandro reached for her, a lean hand tugging up her chin so that his beautiful mouth could crash down on hers without anything getting in the way. It was like plugging her fingers into an electric socket or walking out unprepared into a hurricane. As he plundered her readily parted lips her hand rose and her fingers speared into his luxuriant black hair, holding him to her. The passionate pressure of his mouth on hers was a glorious invitation to feel things she hadn’t felt in too long and the plunge of his tongue stoked a hunger she had never managed to forget.

      ‘Dios mio! Te deseo.’ He told her he wanted her in a voice hoarse with desire and it sparked a flame at the heart of her and made her shiver with shock. That fast, he had contrived to turn the clock back.

      As Jemima drew back from him, breathless with longing and self-loathing, his brilliant gaze scanned her flushed face. ‘If you stayed, I would give you so much pleasure.’

      Jemima tore her stricken eyes from his, shame sitting inside her like a heavy rock because she was tempted. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday,’ she said tightly.

      All the way home on the train she was picturing his lean, strong features inside her head and tearing herself apart over what she had agreed to do. He might as well have hypnotised her! Sandy picked her up in the shop van and dropped her at Flora’s cottage.

      Twenty minutes later, Jemima was sitting at the island in her friend’s kitchen with Alfie cradled half asleep on her lap from his afternoon exertions. Flora was studying her with wide and incredulous green eyes. ‘Tell me you’re not serious…I thought you hated your ex.’

      Jemima shifted her hands in an effort to explain a decision that felt almost inexplicable even to her. ‘What Alejandro said about giving our marriage another go for Alfie’s sake made sense to me,’ she confided ruefully. ‘When I walked out on him I didn’t know I was still pregnant and I’m not sure I would’ve gone if I’d known.’

      Her friend’s face was troubled. ‘You were a bag of nerves when I first met you and you had no self-esteem. It’s not my place to criticise your husband but if that’s what being married to him did to you, something was badly wrong.’

      ‘Several things were badly wrong then, but not everything was his fault.’ Alfie snuggled into his mother’s shoulder with a little snuffle of contentment and she rearranged his solid little body for greater comfort. ‘Marco’s living in New York now and another…er…problem I had, well, it’s gone too,’ she continued, her expressive eyes veiled as she thought back reluctantly to those last stressful months in Spain, which had been, without a doubt, the most distressing and nerve-racking period of her life.

      ‘You want to give your marriage another chance,’ Flora registered in a tone of quiet comprehension. ‘If that’s what you really do want, I hope it works out the way you hope. But if it doesn’t, I’ll still be here to offer support…’

       CHAPTER FIVE

      FROM HER STANCE on the edge of the small adventure playground, Jemima watched Alejandro park his sumptuous vehicle. Halston Manor estate lay a few miles outside the village and its grounds were open to the public the year round and much used by locals. Jemima had arranged their meeting with care, choosing an outdoor location where Alfie could let off steam and where all interaction between his parents would have to be circumspect.

      Alejandro was dressed with unusual informality in a heavy dark jacket, sweater and jeans. Black hair ruffled by the breeze and blowing back from his classic bronzed features, he looked totally amazing and every woman in the vicinity awarded his tall, well-built figure a lingering look. Jemima tried very hard not to stare and, shivering a little in the cool spring air, she dug her hands into the pockets of her red coat and focused on Alfie, who was climbing the steps to the slide, his big dark eyes sparkling with enjoyment.

      ‘The family resemblance is obvious,’ Alejandro remarked with husky satisfaction. ‘He is very much a Vasquez, though he has your curls and there is a look of you about his eyes and mouth.’

      ‘I’ve told him about you,’ Jemima informed him.

      ‘How did he take it?’

      ‘He’s quite excited about the idea of having a father,’ she confided. ‘But he doesn’t really understand what a father is or what one does.’

      In receipt of that news, Alejandro gave both Jemima and Alfie an immediate demonstration, striding forward to intervene when a bigger boy pushed his way past Alfie on the slide steps and the toddler nearly fell. Jemima watched as Alejandro grabbed her son and steadied him. Alfie laughed and smiled up at Alejandro, who spoke to him before stepping back to applaud Alfie’s energetic descent of the slide.

      Her attention glued to man and child, Jemima hovered. Father and son did look almost ludicrously alike from their black hair and olive-tinted skin to their dark eyes and the brilliance of their smiles. Alfie shouted at her to join them at the swings and she went over, her small face taut, her eyes wary. She could barely speak to Alejandro, yet they’d had a child together: it was an unsettling thought. She pushed Alfie on the swing and watched him show off for his father’s benefit. Then her son jumped off the swing before it came to a halt and fell, bursting into tears of over-excitement.

      Alejandro scooped him up and took him straight over to another piece of equipment to distract him and