CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
Diaz watched Rose absorb his words.
As hard as it had been to keep his distance from her and by extension their daughters these last few days, he’d known it was necessary to wait for the Rose he’d known all these years to emerge from the fugue of exhaustion that had cloaked her all these months.
As much as he’d wanted to wait a few days more to get his business affairs in order before having this conversation, one look at Rose had told him the time was now.
She really did look remarkably better, from the colour on her cheeks to the straightness of her back when she walked, but it was the return of the spark in her eyes that convinced him she was ready to deal with what he had to throw at her.
‘You have got to be kidding me?’ she finally blustered. ‘Stop giving me the run-around and file the papers already.’
He shook his head. ‘I appreciate this has come as something of a shock to you and that you will need time to digest it, but I want our marriage to continue and—’
‘We don’t have a marriage,’ she snapped.
‘Then it’s time we did. Our girls deserve to be raised by both their parents.’
‘They already have that.’
‘But not always under the same roof. Not as a real family.’
She visibly blanched but didn’t back down. ‘When you’re around, you spend all the time with them that you want. I have never denied you access or even tried to deny you access. For heaven’s sake, Diaz, I didn’t even ask you to return your keys once the house was put into my sole name. You come and go as you please.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed evenly, ‘but only until night falls and then I’m expected to sleep elsewhere.’
‘So for the sake of you getting a few extra hours with them, you think we should pretend to play happy families, even though those extra few hours are spent with the girls fast asleep?’
He held her stare so she could not misunderstand his meaning. ‘Who said anything about those night-time hours being spent with the girls?’
For the second time in as many minutes, her mouth dropped open. Dark colour slashed her cheeks and, shaking her head as like was in a daze, she took a step back. ‘Absolutely not.’
He could have written her script.
Having set his plan in action, the last few days a form of torture, sensing her attraction unfurl back to consciousness but not allowing himself in all good conscience to do a damn thing about it.
The only way through it had been to bury himself in work and wait for the Rose he’d experienced the whole gauntlet of emotions for over the years to unfurl the whole of herself back to life. And now she was here, barefoot and more beautiful than should be human.
With a blink like the shutter of the camera she always used to have slung around her neck, Diaz finally allowed himself the luxury of taking the whole of her in with the appreciative eyes that had known better than to devour her while she was postpartum and exhausted.
It felt like he was finally allowing himself to breathe again.
All those months of pretending not to notice the sexiness of the legs currently on display before him in that chic but pretty dress, pretending not to catch glimpses of those high breasts in the times when she’d not noticed the V of her robe gaping open. He’d deliberately put his own desire to sleep but now he could let it wake again and, Dios , the rush that came from it…
He recaptured the blue eyes that had turned to liquid as she’d come undone in his arms and which in turn had turned him to liquid. ‘We don’t have to fight it any more, Rose. Our night together—’
‘Don’t,’ she interrupted, her voice suddenly tremulous. ‘Don’t ever bring that night up. I never want to speak of it or think of it again.’
His hands curled, a heaviness settling in his chest.
Diaz had always known walking out on her the way he’d done after everything they’d shared had been cruel. Unforgivable. But it had been completely necessary, and if not for their daughters he’d have spent the rest of his life forbidding himself to ever think about their night together. At some point he might even have found the energy to take a lover to aid this forgetting.
The birth of their daughters had changed everything for him. He could not endure the thought of his daughters being raised under the same roof as another man, not even on a part-time basis. And he could not endure the thought of Rose with anyone else.
He’d spent what felt like his whole life fighting his feelings for her but it had taken her near-death for him to understand and accept that Rose was a part of him and there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
‘We don’t have to speak of it, but you cannot pretend it didn’t happen or that it wasn’t out of this world.’ He’d always known that if the chemistry between him and Rose was ever given an outlet, it would be good. He’d never dreamed just how good it would be or how deeply it would mark him. ‘We can have that again, Rose, for the rest of our lives, and we can be a family.’
She took another unsteady step back. ‘No. It would never work. Families are built on love, not hate, and you hate me. You’ve always hated me. And I hate you,’ she added as an afterthought.
Did he hate her still? He had, for a long, long time, but for years his hate had always been mixed with other equally virulent feelings, a sickening combination that had stopped him sleeping whenever they shared a roof and kept him alert to her every sound, like he possessed invisible antennae attuned only to Rose’s frequency.
He worked hard to keep his voice even. ‘What would you say if I told you I loved you? Would that change your feelings on the matter?’
She flinched as if he’d slapped her.
The tension in the silence that followed was loud enough to hear the air enveloping them crackle.
Slowly, she lifted her stare back to him. Her voice barely rose above a whisper. ‘If you were to say that then I would say you’re a warped, cruel bastard and that I’m taking the girls and going home. In fact, I’m going to do that right now. I don’t know what sick game you think you’re playing but I want no part in it and I will not allow our daughters to be used as pawns in it.’
Filled with more clashing emotions than any woman could bear, Rose turned her back on him and aimed her trembling body back to the villa.
She’d known there was more to this trip than a simple break, but this ?
The worst of it was that she knew Diaz was being serious. He really thought, after everything he’d done and all the poisoned water that had passed under the bridge between them, that she would consider turning their sham of a marriage into something real.
But to play with her emotions by mentioning love of all things? How could he? To request a real marriage in one breath and then stab her in the heart the next?
She’d barely left the seating area when he called out. ‘Rose, I don’t want to have to play it like this but you cannot take the girls back to England without my consent.’
She froze in her tracks.
‘We have shared legal responsibility, remember? You cannot take them out of the country without my permission.’
Feeling like ice had been injected into her veins, she turned to face him.
He’d risen from his seat, arms folded over his broad chest, all his upper muscles flexing.
‘They’re British citizens,’ she dragged out. ‘You can’t stop me taking them home.’
‘They are half Spanish. They have dual passports and those passports are in my possession.’ He gave a visible deep breath. ‘If you try to take the girls without my permission, I shall notify the authorities and have them barred from leaving the country.’
* * *
Rose felt the blood drain out of her, from the roots of her hair all the way down to her toes as everything fell into place.
‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘You had this all planned.’
His handsome features taut, he inclined his head in agreement.
‘You’ve trapped me.’
‘No. You are free to leave—I cannot prevent that if that is your wish.’
‘But not the girls?’
‘Not the girls,’ he echoed. ‘I would never take them from you, Rose, but I had a sense you would refuse to hear me out so took preventative measures to ensure—’
The roar in Rose’s ears was too loud to hear anything more. She didn’t even feel her feet move. One moment she was on the path, the next right in front of him with her arm raised, shouting obscenities. She didn’t even know what her arm was raised for until Diaz snatched hold of her wrist and, in one deft move, spun her around so she was trapped between the hulking great slab of muscle that was Diaz and the table.
‘Calm down,’ he ordered tersely, his breath hot in her hair.
Hating the thrills careering through her to be held against him like this as much as she hated him, she kicked him with her bare foot. ‘Let me go.’
‘When you are calm.’
She twisted her face so she didn’t have to breathe in his hateful, heavenly scent or have his strong, tanned neck so close to her mouth. The way she felt right then, she didn’t trust that she wouldn’t bite deep into the skin and draw blood. ‘How can I be calm when you’ve effectively kidnapped me?’
Without giving her the space to escape, he loosened his hold and moved an inch back to gaze down at her. ‘This isn’t a kidnap and it isn’t for ever unless you want it to be. All I’m asking for is time.’
‘Time for what ?’
‘For you to consider making our marriage a real one like my grandmother always wanted.’
But that only twisted her heart into a sharp ball, and she slammed her hand into his chest and shouted…was a whisper away from sobbing… ‘We could have had that. You’re the one who walked away from it without a word of goodbye.’
The intensity of his stare didn’t diminish. ‘I know I did, but now I’m walking back to it and I want you to walk back to it too.’
She kicked his leg again. ‘Never.’
She barely registered the stinging in her bare foot from where it had connected to his shin bone for in the breath of a moment she was lifted onto the table with her thighs pushed apart and Diaz filling the space.
‘Stop trying to hurt me,’ he ordered.
‘You’re the one trying to hurt me ,’ she half snarled and half cried, skimming his calf with her heel at the next lash of her foot. Hurting her with words that would once have made her heart soar not weep, and hurting her with the closeness of the body that had made such tender love to her, and she pounded a fist into the rock-hard arm that had cradled her while she sobbed.
A large hand clamped onto the top of her thigh and his handsome face closed in on hers. ‘Rose, you need to calm down,’ he warned.
Panicked at how close their faces were, she reared away from him, but, with the hold he had on her, succeeded only in pushing her pelvis forwards. In the beat of a moment his groin was against hers.
Her breath caught in her throat as the world came to a juddering stop.
Every inch of her tensed.
And every inch of Diaz tensed too.
Jaw clenched, nostrils wide, he breathed in heavily, and then she felt it, the hard jut of his arousal.
The throb in her pelvis came from so deep inside that another breath of air caught and her body, stiffened in resistance, began to melt at the same speed as the steel in his stare.
His pupils dilating and pulsing, the firm mouth that had kissed her into senselessness inched closer.
Her aching lips pleaded to be crushed to his again.
Stifling another sob that came from nowhere, Rose turned her face before their mouths could come together.
It was the hunger on his face. She couldn’t bear to see it. Couldn’t bear the reminder of the last time he’d looked at her like that and the ache of his absence she’d lived with ever since.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she whimpered, her voice nowhere near as strong as she wanted it to be.
‘Believe me, I have spent years trying not to,’ he said hoarsely as the hand on her thigh skimmed down an inch to the hem of her dress. ‘Years fighting it. We both have.’ Strong, warm fingers slipped beneath the skirt of her dress, and she jolted at the sensation of flesh upon flesh. ‘You have weaved through my dreams for years, Rose Martinez.’
‘Gregory…’ She had to swallow hard to continue, had to fight to think coherently. Diaz’s fingers were tiptoeing up her inner thigh, gentle caresses trailing fire over her vulnerable skin and deepening the burning pulses alive inside her.
She needed to push his hand away and tell him to stop, but she was melting too fast, too furiously, his touch dispelling the last of the tension that was her only resistance to him.
‘My surname is Gregory…’ Her words became a gasp as his fingers tiptoed higher still.
Gently, he stroked her pubis and huskily murmured, ‘It should be Martinez, and our marriage should be real.’
Barely aware of what she was doing, she raised her thighs and grabbed at his chest, making a fist of his polo shirt. ‘How…’ She gasped as he adjusted his hand and slipped his fingers beneath the lace. ‘…can it be when…’ His fingers skimmed over her hidden nub. ‘When we…’ Oh, heavens. Oh, God. ‘We…’
But she couldn’t finish her plaintive argument, not with the wondrous things Diaz was doing to her. His fingers were caressing her with increasing pressure, coaxing her, stimulating the need for him living beneath her skin that had been building for days into a burn of blazing life.
His mouth pressed into her hair, soft words whispered in Spanish she didn’t understand but which sent thrills racing through her that were as bone melting as the clever manipulation of his fingers. When he moved his fingers from the source of her pleasure and slid first one then another into her sticky heat, she cried out, half from the loss of the pleasure where she most needed it and half from the new waves of pleasure he was filling her with until he pressed his palm on her nub, giving her the stimulation she craved, and Rose was lost.
All sense gone, she threw her arms around his neck and rocked into him, her mouth pressed tight into his shoulder, conscious of nothing but the maelstrom of sensation being evoked by the incessant movement of his pleasuring hand and the heat of his breath against her hair.
‘Oh, God… Diaz… ’
‘That’s it, mi corazón ,’ he encouraged softly, burying his mouth even tighter into her skull as he intensified his movements. ‘Let it go. Let it all go.’
‘Oh, God …’ With a loud cry, her entire being splintered and she was engulfed in waves of pleasure so powerful she was helpless to do anything but ride them until she was nothing but limp skin and bone clinging to him.
* * *
Sanity returned slowly.
Rose could feel the strong thud of Diaz’s heart echoing through her breasts and cheek. Hear the raggedness of his breathing. Feel the manic thuds of her own heart.
Oh, God, what had she just done ?
She wanted to cry. Really, really wanted to cry.
Mortification over what had just taken place creeping steadily through her, she tried to disentangle herself from him but he tightened his hold… since when had he wrapped both arms around her…? and kissed the top of her head.
‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly, as if he knew how close to tears she was. ‘Everything will be okay.’
‘How can it be?’ she choked into his shoulder.
How could it ever be okay?
Loosening his hold, he slid his hands up her arms and gently cradled her cheeks, forcing her to meet his stare.
‘Give us a chance, Rose. That’s all I’m asking for—a chance, for our daughters’ sake, because they deserve the full family neither of us ever had. Give us until the end of the summer. If we can’t make the marriage work and you still want to walk away then I will not stop you taking the girls back to England.’
There was sincerity in his stare but she knew to her cost that Diaz was as capable of lying with his eyes as with his mouth. Actions spoke louder than words and his actions had come close to breaking her.
Blinking back tears, she shook her head. ‘How can it possibly work when we’ve spent half our lives hating each other?’
His jaw clenched then loosened with a low laugh. ‘We’ve also spent half our lives fighting this thing between us. We’ve both fought it but always it refused to die, and you cannot pretend it isn’t still there.’
Fresh mortification burned through her veins.
How could she deny this when she had literally just lost complete control of herself with nothing but his touch?
‘Is it not time to stop fighting and see if we can create something good out of it?’ he asked, intensity returning to his gaze. ‘I don’t know if we can make it work but I know we owe it to our daughters to try. If we can’t make it work by the end of the summer and you want to take the girls back to Devon then I will not stop you, and as a sign of good faith I will give you their passports now.’
She could have laughed. There hadn’t been an ounce of good faith between them in fourteen years. ‘You can still stop me leaving the country with the girls, even with their passports.’
‘That works both ways.’
‘I’m not a billionaire with all the power.’
‘Stay married to me and you will be.’
Despite all the churning emotions wrecking her, a short burst of laughter did break free, an amusement briefly matched in Diaz’s stare, and for one tiny breath of a moment, lightness cut through.
But only for the breath of a moment.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. ‘You agree to try?’
Her stomach plummeted.
Oh, but her thoughts were a muddle of confusion, her heart feeling as if it were being yanked on a yo-yo.
How could she possibly say no when she’d been so successfully backed into a corner?
More importantly, how could she look her daughters in the eye when they reached an age to question why their mummy and daddy didn’t live together? How could she tell them she’d been the one who’d refused to even try to create a proper family unit?
But how could she live even for a few short months as Diaz’s wife? she wondered with something close to desperation. To share his bed and his life knowing that if not for their daughters, she would never have seen him again, that their wedding certificate would already have been replaced with divorce papers and that he’d be getting on with his life forgetting she existed?
He must never suspect that she would never have been able to do the same, and it was with this thought and their daughters’ faces lodged in her mind that Rose fortified her spine with steel.
Heart beating fast, she summoned her courage to meet Diaz’s dark, questioning stare. ‘Okay. I agree we owe it to our girls to try and make a go of our marriage, and I know exactly what you mean by it, but…’ She swallowed. ‘Don’t expect miracles. I promise to try but I can’t promise more than that.’
His stare continued to bore into hers.
‘What I’m trying to say is don’t push me.’
The tension of his features finally loosened. The sides of his eyes crinkled as he gave a short laugh. ‘As if I have ever been able to push you into doing anything you don’t want to do.’
She thought of all the years of his fury at her unbreakable friendships with his sister and grandmother, and shook her head with a small smile. ‘My refusal to comply with all your demands over the years must have driven you crazy.’
His lips made a wry twist. ‘You can have no idea.’
‘Oh, I think I can.’ She’d taken bitter satisfaction from never letting him drive her out of the lives of the women she’d loved.
He expelled a long breath then captured a lock of her hair and gently pulled down its length. ‘When I return from Sweden I’ll be taking a few weeks off. Let’s use that time for making peace.’
Peace? How could there ever be peace between two people who’d spent half their lives at war?
Reading her thoughts, he gently caught her chin. ‘Our past doesn’t have to determine our future, Rose. Not unless we let it.’
Trapped all over again in the stare that had haunted her waking and sleeping dreams for so long she couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been a part of them, she whispered, ‘Can you really let it all go?’
‘I only know I owe it to all of us to try.’
How her poor, foolish heart longed to believe him.
The loud ring of his phone broke the spell cast over them in one trill.
With a rueful smile, he brushed his thumb against her chin before stepping back to pull his phone out of his pocket. Reading the message, he captured her stare one more time. ‘It is time to change for my trip.’
That strange alchemy of relief and disappointment collided all over again.