Chapter Two #2
‘For sure.’ He would not allow himself to remember the sensation of his heart ripping when he’d seen a post of Beth beaming widely with her cheek pressed to another man’s at a New Year’s Eve party months after he’d ended their relationship.
‘And now we both have eight years more experience of life and the world at large. We’re ready to take that step now.
You’re the only woman I’ve ever trusted—what I said about sharks and chancers circling you comes from experience.
You’re the only woman I’ve been with that I had complete certainty was with me for me and not for my money and connections, and you can have that same trust and certainty with me.
We were good together, Beth, and there is no reason to suppose we can’t be good together again, and this time we’re old enough and mature enough to make it work. ’
There was a flash in the green eyes that had been studying him so intently. ‘You say all that about trust…if it wasn’t for the shares now being mine, would you be asking me to marry you?’
He returned the intensity of the stare. ‘I’ve never stopped caring about you.’
‘That isn’t what I asked.’
‘I know, but if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be suggesting it.
I couldn’t marry someone I feel nothing for.
I’m ready for marriage now and ready for children, and who better to do all that with than the other half of the Rosbel Group?
Marry me and you will have the confidence that your fortune is safe because I will only ever do what’s best for the business, and I will keep you safe, too, and always act in your best interests.
It is a perfectly logical move for both of us…
Unless you are already in a relationship you haven’t gone public with? ’
Her pretty little nose lifted into the air. ‘I’m not officially attached to anyone at the moment if that’s what you mean.’
His heart thumped at this confirmation. ‘And neither am I.’
She took a step closer to him and lifted her chin, the clear eyes ringed with sweeping, thickly mascaraed lashes studying him even harder. ‘I always assumed you would end up with Ellen.’
His head reared back in surprise. ‘I wouldn’t marry that bunny boiler.’
Ellen had been a part of Xavi’s old social circle, a hanger-on who’d wormed her way into his group of friends during his years studying in England.
She’d been the most predatory woman he’d ever had the misfortune to know.
She’d made no bones about her attraction to Xavi—an attraction in no way reciprocated—and when Beth had come on the scene had been so snide and nasty to her that he’d taken to avoiding gatherings she’d be at to protect Beth from her.
‘So she didn’t finally lure you into her bed after we split?’
For the first time in their exchange, he hesitated before answering, remembering the time Ellen had sent him unsolicited nude selfies with the message: Look what you’re missing out on.
Up to that point, Beth had felt quite sorry for her, arguing that she must be lonely and insecure to be so bitchy and behave so outrageously.
One look at those pictures and the message, and she’d wanted to storm to Ellen’s home and rip her hair out. ‘No.’
There was another flickering in the green depths, her lips making the faintest of twitches. ‘Okay,’ she eventually said, tilting her head as she drained the last of her whisky. ‘I’ll think about marrying you.’
‘You will consider it seriously?’
‘Yes.’ She stretched her arm to put her empty glass on the cabinet. ‘But before I start thinking about it, I think we need to establish something first.’
‘Which is?’
‘This.’ Without any warning, she’d closed the gap between them, risen onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him closer, and then her soft lips captured his.
Since Xavi had been given the news of Raul’s death, his thoughts had been consumed twofold: with retaining his control of the business and with the certain knowledge that he would be seeing Beth again.
It wasn’t until he’d woken that morning, though, that the two strains of his thoughts had converged and the big picture had made itself clear.
Everything he’d told her of his reasoning for marriage had been the truth.
The biggest truth was that the Rosbel Group was his and he would do anything to protect it and protect his control of it, and so he’d concentrated all his energies on what he needed to say, instinct telling him this was his one shot at getting Beth’s agreement, and clamped down on all the physical reactions being in her presence had unleashed.
He’d suppressed the zing flowing through his veins, blocked his senses to the heady scent of her perfume, refused to allow his mind to strip her naked or remember the weight of her breasts in his hands…
One press of her lips to his, and the eight years they’d spent apart melted away along with all thoughts of the Rosbel Group.
There was no hesitation in her kiss. Her fingers scraped through his hair and her tongue slipped into his mouth, and then she was devouring him with a hungry boldness that sent his senses reeling under a blizzard of sensation.
Dios, he’d forgotten how much he’d missed her. Missed this. Missed the magic that he’d singularly failed to replicate with anyone else.
Revelling in the softness of Beth’s lips and the warm silkiness of her tongue, Xavi set the glass in his hand onto the cabinet and then wrapped his arms tightly around her, kissing her back with matching hunger.
Dios, she tasted even better than he remembered, and he deepened the kiss until her breasts were crushed against his chest and they were nothing but two tightly locked bodies and fused faces.
It was Beth who pulled away first.
Keeping her hands linked around his neck, she drew back to gaze at him with dilated pupils. Her cheeks were flush and there was a breathless quality to her voice as she murmured, ‘Well, that’s answered my question.’
‘What question was that?’ he asked huskily.
‘Whether the chemistry is still there…’ She brought her mouth back to his. ‘Let’s do that again.’
Lips and bodies crashing back together, the thrills that raged through him were strong enough to melt bone.
This was why there had been no magic with anyone since Beth. Xavi didn’t feel his desire for her just in his loins but in the whole of his being. Theirs was a chemical formula impossible to replicate.
Squeezing the succulent bottom that was as soft and pillowy as her glorious breasts, he gathered the skirt of her dress; would have steered her to the desk and lifted her onto it if she hadn’t broken the kiss again and gently pushed at his chest in an unspoken gesture to say their chemical experiment was over.
His breaths as heavy as the thumps of his heart and the weight of his erection, he gazed into Beth’s desire-laden eyes and didn’t know whether to laugh or groan when she blew her fringe out of her eyes, staggered to the desk to grab her bag and then staggered to the door.
Arousal coursed so strongly through him that it took a moment to speak. ‘Where are you going?’
The breathless quality in her voice deepened. ‘Somewhere to think.’ She turned back to face him and lifted her chin. ‘I’ll let you know of my decision soon.’
‘How soon?’
After gathering her gorgeous autumn-leaved hair onto the top of her head, she let it fall as she smiled knowingly. ‘As soon as I’ve made it.’
Another knowing smile, and she slipped out of the study, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Xavi stared at the closed door for an age and then shook his head and laughed, more with relief than anything else.
Considering he’d half anticipated a punch in the face, he’d say that had gone damned well.
Beth had given him a fair hearing, which, despite the friendly nature of their relationship since their split, was more than he’d expected. More than he deserved if he was being honest with himself. She hadn’t thrown anything at him. And she’d kissed him… Dios, how she had kissed him.
He wondered how many other men she’d kissed with such boldness, then cut the thought off at the knees with much-practised precision. He’d been Beth’s first, and if he had his way, he would be her last, a thought that was almost as satisfying as securing his control of the Rosbel Group.
All the years spent apart from her had been with the hovering thought that one day the time would be right to bring Beth back into his life.
Now was that time. All the things that had driven him to end things the first time no longer existed; the dangerous power Beth had had over him that had driven him to forget his responsibilities to the business now muted.
If she agreed to marry him, he had full confidence he could keep her compartmentalised in the way he’d never succeeded before.
Draining the last of his whisky, he came close to allowing himself the luxury of imagining Beth giving her agreement. But only close.
The only thing predictable about Beth Granger was her unpredictability.
Beth waited at the de la Rosas electric gates for her taxi and searched on her phone for a hotel. She’d sort out her hire car later. There were other things to do first. Things that had to take priority.
By the time her taxi turned up, she’d booked herself into a reasonably priced, superbly located hotel with decent reviews. Twenty minutes later, she was striding into its reception and being given the key to her room.
The room itself was clean, the bed large and comfortable.
Most importantly, it had a multitude of pillows.
She unzipped her boots, yanked them off and chucked them onto the floor, then crawled under the duvet, put her face on one of the pillows and pulled another two over her head, sandwiching herself in them.
Only then, knowing her screams would be muffled, did she open her vocal cords.