Chapter Six
‘YOU LOOKED LIKE you enjoyed yourself,’ Xavi commented as they drove out of the de la Rosa estate.
‘I had a great time.’ Beth smiled wistfully.
‘It was lovely seeing everyone—I’d forgotten how big your mother’s side of the family is.
’ The first time Beth had seen the whole family together, she’d felt incredibly intimidated, a state of affairs that lasted only seconds as everyone had made her so welcome.
She’d had no qualms about seeing them all again, and she left with a lovely warmth in her chest, which made a wonderful change from the ice that had been in it since she’d wrenched herself out of that horrible dream.
Her cheeks had received more kisses in one night than the whole of her face had received in eight years.
‘It was a shame your grandfather couldn’t be there,’ she added. She’d managed only a few short words with Ferdinand at the funeral.
‘He will be at the wedding.’
‘Good.’ She tried to sound like she meant it.
She liked Ferdinand as much as she liked the rest of Xavi’s family, and it had struck her that evening that they would all be there at the wedding, would all hear them exchange their vows and believe Beth meant hers.
Guilt was already trying to scratch at her over this.
When she took the Rosbel Group from Xavi, they would all wonder if she’d been playing them, too.
She could only hope they all, Mireia, Carlota and Blanca especially, found it in their hearts to forgive her.
None of the women cared about the business, not in the way Xavi did, and had no financial stake in it anymore, but she didn’t want to hurt them.
If she could stay married to the family without having to stay married to the man, then she’d take it in a heartbeat.
She had to stop thinking like this and keep her focus on her revenge.
Her professional life had gone forward in leaps and bounds these past eight years, but her personal life had been stuck in stasis.
She’d tried to move on, but it had proved impossible.
Xavi had ruined her for every other man.
Until she eradicated him from her life once and for all, she would never have the family she had once so craved. She wouldn’t be capable.
They would already have a family if he hadn’t put his precious business above his feelings for her. There was no way of knowing if their child would have survived if they’d stayed together, but Xavi would have been there for her through the loss, and they would surely have tried again.
Knowing from the tightening in her stomach and chest that she was on the cusp of falling into melancholy, she breached the deliberate distance he’d once again created between them and leaned into him. For her revenge to have maximum impact, she needed to keep focused.
‘Are you nervous for Saturday?’ she asked softly, resting her hand on his lap.
In the old days, he would have covered her hand and slid it up to his groin. This time, he covered it and squeezed. ‘I don’t do nerves, mi vida.’
And neither would she. Nor guilt.
Twisting her bottom, she draped her leg over his lap and tugged her hand out of his hold to press it to his chest.
He gripped the thigh lying on him, but made no effort to slide his hand up the skirt of her dress.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked with husky bemusement when she undid a shirt button and slipped her hand through the gap to place her palm on his naked skin.
Her heart trembled at the familiar warmth of his smooth skin and the softness of the hair covering it, and then trembled more violently to feel the strength of his heart beating beneath it.
In their old life, Beth had spent hours with her head on his chest while he slept, listening to the rhythmic beat that kept him alive while he was unconscious.
Death was something Beth had always had a strong respect for, a respect that verged on fear.
As a child, she’d often woken in the night and slipped into her father and grandparents’ bedrooms to check they were all still breathing.
With her family, that check had been enough for her to go back to sleep.
With Xavi, she’d woken regularly through the night, that switch in her brain pinging her awake just to check he hadn’t slipped beyond the veil.
Every morning, without fail, she messaged her father and grandmother with two words: Good morning.
She never felt settled in her skin until she heard back from them, and now, with the weight of Xavi’s heart thumping so strongly against the palm of her hand, she wondered for the first time if she’d become such a prolific social media poster because the likes and comments Xavi gave them were the proof her subconscious needed that his heart was still beating.
So frightening was this thought that instead of answering with something flirty and seductive as she’d intended, her whispered, ‘I just need to touch you,’ came from her trembling heart.
His grip on her thigh tightened.
By the time the driver had dropped them off and they were taking the elevator back up to the apartment, Beth had shaken off most of the strange thoughts that had almost caused her to reevaluate the meaning behind her social media content.
She’d never lied to herself about Xavi always being at the forefront of her thoughts whenever she pressed the post button, but that had always been because she knew he kept an eye out for her posts, and she wanted him to see what a fabulous life she was living without him. To think it had meant more than that…
Nope. Not possible. All she felt for Xavi was hate.
In fact, she might just pluck some of his body hairs out while he slept and make a voodoo doll with them.
Obviously, she’d need to do an internet search on DIY voodoo dolls, but she was creative and could follow instructions.
It would be easy. She’d just have to learn where to poke the pins in so it only maimed him rather than anything serious, because if she…
There was a lurch in her stomach and heart that made her reflexively squeeze the warm fingers laced through hers.
‘Are you okay?’
She met the concerned dark brown eyes and nodded.
His forehead furrowed. ‘You’ve lost colour on your face. Are you sure you’re okay?’
She forced another nod and, because she couldn’t tell him the truth, said the first thing that popped into her head. ‘Someone just walked on my grave, that’s all.’
‘Is that one of those English sayings?’
This time, she managed to dredge a smile with her nod. ‘You know that sensation when a shiver runs through you with no warning or apparent reason? That’s what the saying refers to.’
Right, so voodoo dolls were out. She might be working to destroy him, but she didn’t want to hurt him.
She didn’t just not want to hurt him, she couldn’t hurt him. Her brain wouldn’t even let her think of it, not even as a macabre joke.
The elevator door opened. Instead of stepping out, Xavi cupped her cheek and brought his face down to hers and murmured, ‘Very soon, mi vida, the only shivers you will experience will be the shivers of pleasure.’
Just to feel his breath on her face was to send shivers of sensation racing through her and remind her that hate wasn’t the only emotion she felt for him. It wasn’t even the strongest.
There was the lightest touch of his mouth to hers before his eyes gleamed, and he turned to lead her into the apartment.
Her heart beating erratically, Beth kept her hand in his firm grip and concentrated on breathing as they walked closer and closer to the bedroom.
It had been many years since Xavi had sat propped against a headboard in a bed with such heavy anticipation coiling through his veins and with the beats of his heart feeling so weighty. Even his skin felt like it had come to life; electrical tingles charging through his atoms.
He’d finished in his section of the bathroom first. He’d showered, heavily aware of Beth showering on the other side of the divide.
There was no door separating them, just the marble wall that divided his side from hers.
If he’d wanted to, he could have walked around the end of the divide and joined her.
The Xavi of old would have knocked the wall down to join her if it had saved seconds walking.
He wasn’t that Xavi anymore. He was no longer driven by his desire for Beth. He controlled his desire, not the other way round. He would have taken her without thinking in the study that day of the funeral, but only because he’d not been prepared for her ‘chemistry test.’
He was prepared now. Prepared for the rest of his life.
He could delay his gratification as he’d proved numerous times that day.
Showering with a full-on erection just to imagine Beth lathering herself naked only feet from him was but one of the many tests to his control.
He could have taken her in the car on the way from the airport and the drive to and from his family villa.
He could have taken her before they’d left for the dinner.
He could have taken a casual walk to the hidden spot at the bottom of the de la Rosa garden and taken her there as he’d done a dozen times before.
He’d never had to think about delaying gratification in the intervening years. His control had never come close to being compromised…well, except in those early days after he’d ended things with her, but that had been a different form of control he’d struggled to keep hold of.
The bathroom door opened.
Even before she emerged into the dimly lit room, his arousal throbbed and hardened into rock.
His chest filled, and his throat ran dry.
He’d expected her to emerge naked. Instead, she wore a skimpy translucent black negligee that both covered and revealed her most intimate, feminine parts and showcased the spectacular curves that had always driven him so wild.
Long hair loose around her shoulders, full, weighty breasts gently swaying, she stepped slowly to him.