Chapter Five
A SHORT WHILE LATER, and Beth had to work to maintain her smile when they drove through the wide, open arch of a stunning white-and-red Baroque building with turrets on its roof and came to a stop in an immaculate courtyard that edged sprawling lawns ringed with enormously high trees and a pond so big she wasn’t sure if it shouldn’t be called a lake.
It was exactly the kind of home she’d once dreamed of them living in, and she was glad she couldn’t cry because knowing Xavi had gone ahead and bought their dream home without her filled her with emotions it was hard to breathe through.
Luckily, the time it took for him to whisk her to the top floor in a private elevator that needed his fingerprint to operate gave her time to compose herself.
Inside, the vastness of the high-ceilinged open spaces came as no surprise—Beth’s months of living in Spanish opulence had inured her to what incredible wealth could buy you—but the tastefulness of it all did.
Neutral walls were enlivened with an eclectic mix of artwork, the mass of dark leather seating richly inviting.
Hating to imagine Xavi consulting with a lover—Ellen? Appendage lady?—over the interior, she stepped out onto the living room’s balcony to breathe in the warm air, and soaked in the grounds from this new perspective.
It was hard not to sigh with wonder at it all, and just incredible to believe something like this existed in the heart of Madrid.
‘This place must have cost you a fortune,’ she commented when Xavi stood beside her at the balustrade.
‘It’s my most expensive piece of real estate, but worth every cent.’ She felt his gaze turn to her. ‘What do you think? Can you be happy here?’
She tightened her grip on the iron railing and fought her throat from closing.
Eight years ago, she would have been ecstatic.
As amenable as the de la Rosas had been to her practically living with them, Beth had longed for her and Xavi to have a place of their own.
As much as they’d spoken of buying a place just like this, she’d have been happy anywhere so long as it was with Xavi.
Eight years ago, she’d been a naive fool.
She brought a smile to her face and said, ‘Waking up to this view every day will make me happy.’
The glass door opened, and his housekeeper stepped out carrying a tray of coffee for them.
Taking a seat at the balcony table, Beth tried not to wonder how many other women had taken this very seat.
‘Is the whole top floor yours?’ she asked once the coffee had been poured and they were alone again.
‘The whole building is mine,’ he said. ‘I rent the other apartments out.’
‘You bought the whole building?’ If she were judging it by London standards, she would estimate it could be divided into homes for a minimum of ten families, all living in plentiful space and luxury. By Manchester standards, twenty families.
A muscular shoulder lifted. ‘Why own a part of something when you can own the entire thing?’
‘You do have a thing about owning the entirety of things, don’t you?’ At his raised eyebrows, she added, ‘The primary reason you’re marrying me is so you can keep control of the entirety of the Rosbel Group.’
His shaded stare stayed steady on her. ‘Yes, keeping control of the company is my primary reason for marrying you, but that doesn’t make my other reasons redundant, and it doesn’t change that you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to marry.’
Rather than throw her coffee over him, she laughed and fixed her gaze back on the distant lake-size pond.
Figures she thought looked small enough to be children were paddling in it.
If their child had lived, it could have been one of those children.
It would have just turned seven, and it never failed to hurt her heart that it hadn’t lived long enough for her to know its sex.
‘I mean it, Beth. No one else has come close to you.’
‘Gosh, I am honoured.’ She would not give him the satisfaction of saying no one had come close to him, either…not that she believed him. Xavi would say whatever needed saying and do whatever needed doing until he had his ring on her finger.
‘You don’t believe me?’
She shrugged. ‘Does it matter when we’re getting married in two days?’
‘It matters to me.’
‘Regaining my trust in you is going to take time.’ Until the end of days and then some.
An edge came into his voice. ‘If you don’t trust me, why agree to marry me?’
So I can destroy you.
‘Because you made such a convincing pitch for it?’ She laughed again and shook her head, wondering why she couldn’t just outright lie to him.
‘Xavi, let’s not pretend that everything’s going to be chocolate sprinkles straight away.
We need to get to know each other again.
’ She removed her sunglasses to look more directly at him.
‘Just remember, if I didn’t hold such strong feelings for you, I would never have agreed to marry you.
I’m uprooting myself from my life, all of it.
Everything I’ve built for myself these last eight years.
I’m leaving my family and friends behind and walking away from the job I love for you. ’
Removing his shades, too, Xavi studied Beth with the same intensity he’d studied her at her grandfather’s wake.
Beth had warned him that she’d changed from the young woman he’d been in love with all those years ago, but he’d already known that before proposing.
He wouldn’t have contemplated taking this path if he’d thought they were the same people as they’d been eight years ago, but the changes to Beth weren’t just in general maturity; there was something else, too, something that had been gnawing at his gut since she’d returned to England and had grown stronger with each excuse to delay her return to him.
The Beth he remembered had fed on emotion.
This Beth fed on logic and rationality. The passionate fire and zest for life that burned so bright in her had muted, and he couldn’t shake the feeling she was smothering it deliberately, just like he’d been unable to shake the voice nagging in his head that something else was going on with her.
He pulled in a deep breath through his nose and reminded himself that she was here and that in two days she would be his wife.
After eight years apart, he couldn’t expect things to be chocolate sprinkles immediately—he needed to find some patience, a trait he was forced to admit was not on his list of attributes.
Beth was right that he was spoiled, and being spoiled with women counted in that, too.
Xavi had grown used to women pretending that the sun shone out of his backside and could see how easy it was for men in his position to believe it actually did.
Not every man of his position had a younger sister called Carlota primed to bring him back down to earth at every given opportunity.
Beth had never treated him as if the sun shone out of his backside.
She’d treated him as if he were her sun, but his family’s wealth and standing had meant nothing to her.
She’d loved him for him, and that had been as intoxicating as the sex between them, and now she was back in his life, marrying him and entrusting her shares to him and so securing his position within the Rosbel Group.
She’d entrusted her grandfather’s estate into his care, too; trusted him with billions in the form of assets, cash and shares.
She trusted him where it most mattered; that was the important thing.
The second most important thing was that Beth was the only woman he’d ever wanted to marry, the only woman he’d envisaged having children with.
That had never changed, and there was nothing to make him think they couldn’t make it work.
They still shared a humour, and the spark was still there between them, too.
A lot of marriages survived with less than spark and humour.
He didn’t think his parents’ marriage had been miserable, but he couldn’t remember it being particularly happy, either.
That hadn’t stopped his mother’s utter devastation at his father’s death.
She’d wandered the rooms of their home like a wraith for months, unable to settle, unable to concentrate, incapable of caring for her three grieving children.
‘You need to step up now, Xavi,’ his grandfather, grieving the loss of his only son, had told him privately the night his father had taken his final breath. ‘It is time for you to become a man. Your mother and your sisters need you. I need you.’
And so he’d stepped up to the mark his grandfather had set for him and become the man his family needed.
He’d channelled the grief that had threatened to choke him and taken control of the household, from directing the domestic staff to ensuring his sisters did their homework and that Carlota, then only nine, brushed her teeth.
He’d held everything together until his mother came out of her fugue, and then devoted his time to the studies he’d neglected for the sake of his family.
Knowing his grandfather’s retirement plans had been put on ice, he’d worked hard and earned his place at Oxford on merit, and completed back-to-back degrees.
His studies done, he’d joined the Rosbel Group, ready, willing and able to be groomed into taking over from the two aging men who were both more than ready to devote their lives to their local golf course; and then within months, Beth Granger had appeared in his life, and for six months derailed him from everything that was important in his life.
Reaching across the small table, he took hold of her dainty hand and brought the tips of her fingers to his lips. ‘I will make all your sacrifices worthwhile, I promise.’
Something flashed in her eyes before she leaned closer and clasped her fingers around his, her lips stretching into the upside-down heart he so loved. ‘If I didn’t know it would be worth it, I wouldn’t be here.’