The Society Wife (6 page)

Tentative butterfly wings of hope were beginning to flutter inside her. He was offering her the thing she'd always longed for. Marriage; a proper family for this baby—not like the inadequate, truncated version she had grown up in. Not quite a fairy tale happy ending, but a version of it. Hadn't she always vowed that she would give her own children the family life she had never had?

‘This won't be that kind of marriage,' Tristan said coldly. ‘This will be in name only.'

‘What do you mean?' she whispered.

He made a brief, dismissive gesture. ‘I have a life. A life that I have carved out for myself against all the odds. A life that I won't give up and I won't share. You'll be my wife, but you'll have no right to ask anything about where I go or what I do.'

‘That's not a marriage,' she protested fiercely, feeling the emptiness beginning to steal through her again. ‘That's not a proper family.'

As she spoke he shrugged off his dinner jacket and now he laid it around her trembling shoulders, tugging the lapels so that her whole body jerked forwards. ‘No. But it's the best I can offer,' he said harshly. ‘I can't make you happy, Lily. I can't be a proper father to this child. Find someone who can.'

The deliciously scented warmth of his body lingered in the silk lining of his jacket, and she pulled it closer around her. The
unexpected thoughtfulness of the gesture he had made breathed life back into the fragile hope inside her. Looking up into Tristan Romero's dark, aristocratic face, Lily saw the pain there, and instantly she was transported back to the tower; to standing at the window as the rain fell on the lake outside and looking at the watery moonlight washing his sleeping body on the bed. She remembered exactly the muscular curve of his back, the small, shadowy indentation of his spine at its base, the ridges of his ribs. She remembered the tracery of long, pale scars that cut across his shoulders and she remembered the suffering etched into his sleeping face and the anguish in his voice as he'd cried out…

She remembered gathering him to her. Stroking him until his heartbeat steadied, until the lines beneath his brows were smoothed away and she had chased away whatever nameless horrors tormented him. For a short while then, against the odds, she had touched him. She had reached him and he had clung to her. Could she reach him again? Not for a moment, but for a lifetime, for the sake of the baby she wanted so much?

That was what fairy tales were about. About quests that were seemingly impossible, where you had to follow your heart and fight for the things you believed in.

And she believed in love. In marriage. In families and fairy tales. She always had. Raising her chin now, she met his bleak gaze steadily.

‘No. If that's how it has to be…we get married.'

He flinched, very slightly, his eyelids flickering shut for a split second before the steel shutters descended again and that small glimpse of suffering and humanity was concealed.

‘Right. If that's your choice.' His voice was cold, clipped, but contained a note of weary resignation. ‘Just for God's sake don't tell anyone yet.'

‘But what about Scarlet?' she protested. ‘I can't lie, Tristan—'

‘No? Then maybe we should drop this whole charade now,' he said silkily.

‘She's my best friend.'

His perfect, sculpted lips stretched into a sardonic smile. ‘Then I would have thought that you would be able to see that announcing your own shotgun wedding at her engagement party might not be the most tactful thing to do. You can tell people in good time. For the moment you have to behave in a way that means it won't come as a complete surprise when you do.'

‘How are we going to do that?' she whispered hoarsely.

‘Just follow my lead,' he said coldly, turning on his heel and walking back towards the entrance to the castle. ‘You might not be able to lie, but I hope you can act.'

For a moment Lily didn't move, watching him walk away, his head bent and his shoulders held very straight.

No. She couldn't act, as the director of the perfume commercials would certainly testify. But the thing was, in this case she suspected she wouldn't have to.

 

‘What's going on?'

Tom's tone was as light as always but Tristan knew him well enough not to be deceived. Behind Tom's affable, self-deprecating façade was a mind sharp and incisive enough to have earned him a first at Oxford. He wouldn't be easy to fool.

Leaning against the massive stone fire place, Tristan took a thoughtful sip of his drink and let his gaze wander around the room. ‘Nothing. Why?'

The speeches officially announcing the engagement and welcoming Scarlet to Tom's illustrious family were over, and the guests had stirred and reassembled them selves as fresh bottles of champagne were circulated around. Lily was standing over by the window, talking to Scarlet's parents, who were finally beginning to lose a little of the terrified look they had worn all evening. The light from the fading, flame-streaked sky outside put roses in her pale cheeks.

‘That's why,' said Tom gently. ‘You haven't taken your eyes off her for the last two hours.'

Tristan's hand tightened around his glass. With some effort he tore his gaze from Lily and looked at Tom levelly.

‘Come on, Tom. You're engaged, not blind. She's beautiful. Any man could be forgiven for looking.'

‘As long as that's all you do.' Tom softened the warning with a smile. ‘Lily's sweet. She deserves a nice steady guy who'll buy her flowers and give her break fast in bed, not a man like you who'll—'

‘Buy her diamonds and give her orgasms in bed?' Tristan cut in ruthlessly. ‘It doesn't sound so bad to me.'

‘Ah, well, that's because you can't see that there's more to life than money and sex.'

‘How little faith you have in me.' Tristan took a swig of his drink and grimaced. ‘What if I told you I've decided it's time to give up the one night stands and settle down?'

Tom laughed. ‘I'd ask if it was just orange juice in that glass, or whether you've diluted it with vodka like you used to do in school. And then I'd probably look out the window to check for flying pigs and ask myself if it was April the first.' Throwing an arm round Tristan, he slapped him affectionately on the back before moving away to rejoin his other guests. ‘The day you get married I'll swim naked around the moat,' he added with a grin.

Tristan didn't smile.

‘Deal.'

At that moment he wished very fervently that there were vodka in his glass. And no orange juice. He wanted nothing more than to have something to slow the incessant, ruthless progress of his thoughts and bring warmth back to the frozen places inside him.

A baby.

His gaze moved inexorably back to Lily. She was sitting on the window seat now, deep in conversation with Scarlet's mother. Or rather, he noticed, Scarlet's mother was deep in conversation with her. Lily's head was bent slightly as she listened, her face thoughtful. The gentle, sleepy quality he had noticed
the first time he met her struck him again as he watched the graceful movement of her hand as she smoothed a strand of hair back from her forehead.

He felt as if something were crushing his chest.

But it wasn't her beauty that caught him by the throat and squeezed. It was her goodness. Tom was right. She needed a decent man, a kind husband who would love her as she deserved to be loved.

Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo knew with a cold, bleak certainty that he could never be that man.

 

He was the kind of man who was effortlessly good at everything he did, she knew that. So it came as no surprise to Lily to discover that Tristan's acting ability was excellent.

It wasn't a surprise. But it was still shocking.

She was acutely aware of his presence, as if some internal satellite navigation system were constantly signalling his whereabouts to her, inexorably pulling her towards him and making it impossible not to keep looking at him. Every time she did she found he was looking back, smiling a little, his eyes dark and glittering with obvious desire.

Acting the part.

And, of course, she was acting too. Standing with Scarlet's brother Jamie, as she smiled and talked and put her glass to her lips she was acting that everything was normal. Acting as if she weren't in the grip of raging pregnancy hormones, that she hadn't just agreed to enter into a loveless marriage with a notorious playboy, and—most challenging of all—that she weren't feeling as if her husband-to-be were slowly stripping her naked with his eyes from the other side of the room.

Husband?

The word was too domestic, too tame to be applied to the man who could make her squirm with guilty longing simply by looking at her from twenty feet away in a room full of people. Married life was going to be extremely uncomfortable if this was the effect he had on her.

Oh, God, what was she doing?

Scarlet's brother Jamie was talking about the band he was in at university. Making vague, encouraging noises, Lily tentatively turned her head to where Tristan was leaning against the huge stone fireplace talking to Tom's gorgeous teenage cousin. The cousin had her back to Lily, but Lily could imagine the expression of slavish adoration on her face from the way her head was tilted up, her whole body arched towards Tristan.

At that moment he looked up, his eyes meeting hers as if she had just pulled on some invisible wire stretching between them. The look was of such smouldering sensuality that Lily felt as if he had slammed her against the silk-covered wall and were holding her by the throat.

And then he smiled.

It was like sunrise. A slow warming, a delicious golden promise of the scorching heat to come. Lily was dimly aware of the cousin looking round, following the direction of his gaze, visibly wilting as she saw that it was directed at someone else.

‘Get your coat, Ms Alexander, I think you've pulled a billionaire.'

Jamie's low, amused voice brought her back down to earth. She whipped her head round to face him again, trying to hide her flaming cheeks behind the curtain of her hair, but before she could think of a suitable explanation he dropped his voice and said, ‘Right, he's coming over. This is the moment when I slip away and leave you to it. Good luck!'

She wanted to reply; she wanted to tell him to stay, but suddenly her mouth was so dry that the words didn't come. As Jamie vanished into the crowd she turned away, feigning interest in a portrait of an insipid man in a powdered wig with a sour lemon expression. Regency men were supposed to be rakish and dashing, she thought vaguely, remembering the Georgette Heyer heroes that she and Scarlet used to sigh over. They had despaired of ever finding men like that in Brighton…

‘This would be a good time to leave, I think. Don't you?'

Her whole body jolted as the husky Spanish voice caressed her ear. Standing behind her, he very gently picked up the lock of hair that was falling over her shoulder and smoothed it back, tucking it behind her ear.

Tongues of flame were licking downwards into Lily's pelvis, making it hard to think straight.

‘But I'm staying here tonight…'

‘That was Plan A, sweetheart,' he murmured softly, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her against him as his mouth brushed her neck, her jaw, her ear lobe. ‘I asked for your things to be brought down to my car. I'm taking you home.'

Lily couldn't speak.

But even if she had been able to she wouldn't have had the strength to argue.

A
LMOST
as breathtaking as the skill with which he had assumed the act was the speed with which he dropped it.

Sitting beside him in the low passenger seat, her blood still thrumming from his touch, Lily darted a surreptitious glance at Tristan. The moment they had left Stowell he had distanced himself from her completely, and in the light of the dash board his face was emotionless. The face of a handsome stranger. She shivered.

‘Are you cold?' he asked with distant courtesy.

‘No. Well, a little.'

He flicked a switch and warm air caressed her. ‘I think we should get married as soon as possible,' he said, effortlessly guiding the sleek black sports car around a bend in the road without seeming to slow down.

Lily clung to the edge of her seat. ‘So fast…' she murmured anxiously.

‘Sorry.' He slowed down sharply. ‘I'm not used to having a passenger.'

A gust of laughter escaped her. ‘I wasn't referring to your driving. I meant life.' But as the words left her lips she knew that he wasn't used to having passengers in that either. And that was what she had become.

He showed no sign of having heard. ‘What are your work commitments for the next few weeks?'

She shrugged. ‘Not much. When I got back from Africa and
I wasn't well I told my agent not to take anything else on. And when I…well, since I found out about the baby…' the words gave her a warm little glow, like a tiny candle, deep inside; gentler, sweeter than the blowtorch of feeling he unleashed in her ‘…I haven't gone for any jobs. I'm still under contract to the couture people, though, and we're shooting another perfume commercial in Rome in two weeks time. And then, after that I'm pretty free, until the beginning of December…'

She bit back a hysterical giggle. It was as if she were making a dentist appointment, not arranging what should have been the most important event of her life.

‘Good,' he said shortly. ‘Keep it that way. I'll make all the necessary legal arrangements for the marriage and you can fly straight from Rome to Barcelona for the wedding.'

Lily swung her head round to look at him. ‘Barcelona?'

One corner of Tristan's mouth lifted into an ironic smile. ‘You're going to be a Romero bride. You have to get married in Spain.'

Her stomach clenched and her throat felt suddenly as if it were full of sand. She folded her hands over her stomach in an automatic gesture of comfort.

Romero bride.

‘Of course,' she said hoarsely. ‘I didn't think. Your family—'

‘Leave them to me.' He frowned, as if something had just occurred to him. ‘What about your family? Do you want them to be there?'

‘God, no.' Lily swept her hand over the frosted window, clearing a space and looking out into the blackness beyond the cocoon of the car. ‘My mother's in some ashram in India, balancing her chakras or something.'

Susannah Alexander had been searching for spiritual enlightenment and inner peace for as long as Lily could remember, but the search had shifted to more high-budget locations since being funded by Lily's modelling income.

‘And your father?'

Lily gave a soft laugh. ‘I wouldn't know where to send the invitation.'

Tristan said nothing, merely flicking a glance towards the rear-view mirror as he pulled out to overtake a line of cars and accelerate away into the darkness beyond. Lily was pressed back into the soft leather upholstery. The speed ought to have been frightening, but not for a second did she doubt that he was in absolute control of the powerful car.

Of everything.

‘What's happening at the beginning of December?' he asked eventually.

‘I'm going back to Africa.' she said, unable to maintain her frostiness and keep the enthusiasm from her voice as the words spilled out of her. ‘It's early days yet, but I've been asked to be an ambassador for a children's medical charity, and at the moment it's just a case of finding out exactly what I can do, and what issues I can best highlight. I'm just hoping they'll continue to use me because I'd love to give up modelling and do it full time. I've only been over there once so far…' she faltered ‘…just after we—'

‘So you said.' There was a dangerously silky note in Tristan's voice as he cut her off. ‘It was where you picked up the bug that put us in our current position.' He gave a short, scornful laugh. ‘You can't seriously be thinking of going back?'

A small dart of alarm shot through Lily, leaving a trail of bright anger in its wake. ‘And you can't seriously be thinking that I won't!' she said tersely. ‘If you'd seen what I saw… Orphaned children, sick and malnourished. Babies whose mothers were too ill to feed them, or even to pick them up and cuddle them; ten-year-old boys forced to take on the role of father to their brothers and sisters, desperately trying to keep their families together—'

‘Thanks, but you can spare me the humanitarian lecture.'

He sounded almost bored. The spark of anger flowered into a blaze, fuelled by the anxiety and the frustration and uncertainty of the evening. ‘And spare
me
the autocratic alpha male
routine!' she hissed. ‘You were very quick to tell me that you had no intention of having your life disrupted, but I assume that as
a Romero bride
I'm not to enjoy the same freedom? Well, I've gone along with you this far, Tristan, and I've tried to respect your family and your history because that's going to be the heritage of the child that I'm carrying, but just because you have wealth and privilege and titles doesn't mean you have the right to bully or control or intimidate me.'

‘I thought you wanted to keep this baby.' Tristan's voice was icy cold, but in the sodium glow of the streetlights Lily could see a muscle flickering in his cheek.

She sat bolt upright, feeling the seat belt pull tight against her. It was holding her back, restraining her, just like Tristan. Angrily she yanked it away from her body.

‘I do! I want that more than anything, I—'

‘Then I would have thought,' he said with a lethal softness that chilled her to the bone, ‘that you'd want to do what was best for it. Your desire to
help
is laudable, but do you really think that the most deprived and disease-ridden parts of Africa are the best place for a pregnant woman? You were ill last time. Who's to say you won't pick up something again?'

Lily sank back against the seat, turning away from him and closing her eyes as horror at her own stupidity hit her, along with another wave of dizzying sickness, as if the baby too were trying to remind her of its presence. Groping blindly for the controls for the window to let in some air, she mistakenly took hold of the door handle. The next moment there was a roaring sound as the door swung open and a wall of cold air hit them like an avalanche.

Tristan's reactions were like lightning. Steadying the wildly swerving vehicle with one hand, he pushed her back against the seat with the weight of his body as, with an ear-splitting screech of tyres, he hauled the steering wheel round to bring the car into the side of the road. The engine cut out, and the sudden silence was filled by the sound of their rapid breathing.

Very slowly Lily turned her head to look at him. His head
was bent, his eyes closed, and his arm still lay across her body, shielding her, protecting her more surely than any seat belt.

‘I'm sorry,' she whispered.

For a moment he didn't move. Then she watched as the fingers of the hand that lay on her thigh curled slowly into a tight fist before he straightened up, placing it with terrifying precision on the steering wheel.

When he turned to her the expression on his face made Lily's heart turn over.

‘Understand this, Lily. I will never be a good husband or a perfect father, but I am
not
a tyrant. I will
never
bully or control you.' Just for a second his mask of control cracked and Lily caught a glimpse of the terrible bleak ness and anguish that lay behind it. She felt her lungs constrict, sucking her breath inwards in a sort of hiccupping gasp, as all her instincts told her to reach out to him. But it was too late. The mask was back, more chillingly perfect than ever. ‘I can't offer you love,' he said in a low voice, ‘but I'll give you security. I will do everything in my power to protect you and the baby, and keep you safe. Do you understand?'

Shocked into silence, Lily nodded mutely.

 

Tristan pulled up outside the Primrose Hill address he'd managed to extract from Lily just before she fell asleep. He looked up at the house—a pretty Victorian town house with a late-flowering rose trailing over the stucco frontage—and then across into the sleeping face of the girl beside him. The streetlight above gleamed on the flawless skin, and cast deep shadows beneath the sweep of her thick eyelashes and sharp cheek bones. It was a composition that would have made photographers and magazine editors the world over sigh with bliss.

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he exhaled a long, slow breath and closed his eyes.

If only she weren't so beautiful.

He probably wouldn't be in this position to start with, he thought acidly. But even if he was, it would make the role he
was being forced into a damned sight easier to play. A business arrangement; that was what this had to be. A simple matter of legality—of a name, and money.

Not sex, because, unless it was of the one night stand variety, sex involved emotion.

And emotion was something he didn't do.

Once, on a long distance flight, he had read a newspaper article saying that scientists had proved that if certain neurological pathways weren't opened up in the early years of life they would never be forged at all. Reading with clinical detachment he had recognised himself in every line, and as he closed the paper had smiled thinly to think that the teary accusations of many of his past lovers were actually now backed up by scientific fact.

Having never experienced love as a child, he was simply incapable of it.

The realisation had brought with it a strange kind of relief, and left him free to pursue his emotionless liaisons without guilt. He was careful, considerate, always making it clear that there was no possibility of anything long term…

How naïve that carefulness seemed now.

With a small sigh she stirred, and he watched her forehead crease into a frown in the second before her eyes flickered open.

‘We're home?' she asked softly, sitting up and looking out of the window. ‘Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep. I'm so tired I could sleep on a clothes line most of the time at the moment.' She bent to pick up her bag, then looked up at him hesitantly. ‘Would you like to come in for coffee?'

He felt his eyebrows lift and couldn't keep the sardonic smile from his lips. ‘Coffee?'

‘Yes, coffee.' She held his gaze. ‘I'm a hormonally unbalanced pregnant woman. You're quite safe.'

‘I think,' he said cruelly, ‘that's what you said last time. I'll pass on the coffee, but I need to get a copy of your birth certificate for the marriage licence. Do you have it?'

She nodded, not meeting his eyes.

Tristan took her overnight bag from the boot of the car while she went ahead of him up the short black and white chequered path. Opening the front door, she switched on a table lamp just inside the hallway and slipped off first one high-heeled sandal and then the other. The light from the lamp shone through the thin silk of her dress, clearly showing the outline of her endless legs.

It was a momentary snapshot, but it was of such pure, concentrated sexuality that Tristan felt the breath rush from his lungs as if he'd been punched in the stomach.

Slamming the boot of the car with unnecessary force, he followed her inside.

The interior of the flat surprised him. He had expected something modern, impersonal—a base for two career girls who spent their time either travelling or partying. What he found was a home filled with beautiful things. Interesting things that looked as if they'd been collected over time, with no regard for value or fashion.

Lily had her back to him and was looking through a drawer in a pretty rosewood desk in the corner of the sitting room. Leaning against the doorframe Tristan looked around. The faded velvet sofa was piled high with cushions in turquoise and raspberry-pink silk, and the walls were hung with a mixture of Victorian oils, modern advertising prints and photographs that demanded to be looked at more closely.

He gritted his teeth and turned his head away.

A grey cat slipped through the open front door and slunk between his feet, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. Another two, smaller versions of the first, followed.

‘How many cats do you have?' he asked, breaking the silence.

Lily turned around, a bundle of papers tied with a faded red ribbon in her hand.

‘Officially, none. I'm away too much, but there are lots of strays round here and I feed them whenever I can and keep an
eye on them.' She untied the ribbon and took a piece of paper from the top of the bundle. ‘That little grey one was just a baby herself when she had the kittens. I feel awful—I should have taken her to be spayed.'

She crossed the room and handed him a piece of paper. Tristan took it without looking at it, then, levering himself up from the doorframe, walked back down the hall, saying with cold sarcasm, ‘It's a little ironic, given our current situation, that you're worried about your failure to take responsibility for the contraception of the feline population, wouldn't you say?'

She stopped in the doorway, her eyes downcast, running the length of tattered silk ribbon through her long fingers. ‘Yes, maybe.'

Her quiet acceptance sent an arrow of guilt and self-loathing shooting straight into his derelict heart, and he tensed against the acute and unfamiliar pain that flashed through him.