Chapter Eight
XAVI RUBBED HIS exhausted eyes and closed his laptop.
That was it. The Grimaldi buyout would be finalised the week after his return from the Caribbean.
All business was done for the next six days.
He would be contactable in the event of an emergency, of course, and he had a couple of video conferences lined up, but they couldn’t be helped.
His father had worked during family holidays.
Xavi and his sisters hadn’t thought twice about it…
although he seemed to remember his mother pursing her lips when he was late joining them for a meal or activity because of it.
His father had been on the verge of stepping into the role Xavi now held. The Rosbel Group founders had been preparing to embrace retirement when he’d received his diagnosis. Overnight, everything had changed. Retirement plans were put on ice as a miracle that never came was sought.
Strange how prominent his father had become in his thoughts in recent weeks. He was always in his heart, of course, but since Raul’s death, he’d pushed himself to the very edge of Xavi’s consciousness; a spectre watching his every move.
He’d been five, maybe six, the first time his father had taken him to the Rosbel Group headquarters.
As young as he’d been, he’d recognised the respect and deference all the many, many people who worked there had shown him.
Xavi remembered how his chest had puffed up with pride that Javier de la Rosa was his father, and hoped that if his father was watching and looking over him, that he felt an ounce of that same pride.
He would give anything for him to be there to witness his wedding.
Xavi waited until he was being driven home before calling Beth.
It disturbed him how he’d had to stop himself calling her numerous times that day.
It had been hard enough putting her from his mind to concentrate on his work while she’d been back in England, but knowing she was here, in his city, and with the thrills from their lovemaking still alive in his veins…
Dios, he could still hear her laughter as she’d climaxed in the swimming pool.
He’d forgotten how much fun sex with Beth could be. Forgotten how intoxicating that could be.
Putting her from his mind had been close to impossible.
The Xavi of old would have locked his office and video called her.
Just to hear her cheerful, ‘Hi, Xavi,’ was enough to ease the tightness he’d barely been aware of forming in his chest.
‘How are things?’ There was a lot of background noise on her side.
‘Bonkers. I didn’t realise you’d booked the entire hotel for our wedding. My grandmother, who considers more than half a glass of wine with her Sunday dinner as binge drinking, is currently doing shots with Beno?t Blanchet.’
‘The creative director of Kovoski?’ Xavi had steered the buyout of the Kovoski brand a year earlier and paid a small fortune to the hugely flamboyant and hugely talented Beno?t to extend his contract with them.
‘The one and only… And Gustav Blanc’s just joined their party. Oh, dear. The bar staff are pouring them what looks like flaming sambucas.’
He grinned. He’d only met Beth’s grandmother once, when Beth had impulsively whisked him off to England for a long weekend to meet her family.
Her grandmother could have come from the central casting version of what a grandmother should be.
To imagine her drinking shots with the temperamental Beno?t and the normally ice-cold fashion editor Gustav Blanc was beyond his imagination, which reminded him that Gustav’s birthday party was coming up soon, and being hosted in Madrid.
Xavi disliked Gustav, but the man was powerful in the fashion world and needed to be courted. ‘Is everyone else behaving themselves?’
‘Only my father. He’s gone to bed. He’s terrified he’s going to screw up our walk down the aisle and thinks lots of sleep will stop that happening.’
‘And you? What are you doing?’
‘Drinking wine with friends and keeping an eye on my grandmother.’
He came within a whisker of asking if those friends included men. He’d seen the guest list she’d provided and was certain a number of the men on it were men she’d posted pictures of herself drinking with.
Xavi had told Beth he didn’t care about the men she’d been with while they’d been apart, but it had been a lie. He knew he shouldn’t care. Knew he had no right to care. But he did. He always had.
‘How are things your end?’ she asked. The background noise had diminished. He guessed she’d moved somewhere quieter. ‘Finished working yet?’
‘All done and on my way home.’
‘Good. You work too hard.’
‘For the next six days, I belong only to you.’
‘I’m going to hold you to that.’
He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
‘You won’t be given a choice. I’m not taking any clothes with me on our honeymoon. Only bikinis.’
He groaned softly at the memory of Beth in a bikini. ‘I’m tempted to say let’s skip the wedding and go straight to the honeymoon.’
‘But then I’ll miss the pleasure of seeing your reaction to my wedding lingerie.’
‘Is it sexy?’
‘Very sexy.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’m still debating whether to bother with the knickers.’
His groan was louder.
‘And with that thought, I shall bid you good-night.’
‘You’re saying goodbye to me now, when you’ve just made me hard?’
‘Have I?’ she asked innocently.
‘You know you have, you tease.’
Her voice lowered even further. ‘Remember how we used to have video sex?’
‘You’re trying to kill me.’
She laughed huskily. ‘Beunas noches, Xavi. Sweet dreams.’
‘Beunas noches, mi vida. Dream of me.’
There was a long passage of silence before she softly said, ‘Always.’
She disconnected the call.
His heart as swollen as his cock, Xavi threw his head back and laughed.
Beth put her phone back in her bag, rested her hand against her thumping heart and willed the burn between her legs to ease enough to enable her to walk back into the hotel bar without anyone wondering what was wrong with her.
For a few beautiful moments, it had felt like she’d slipped back in time to an age when her love and desire for Xavi had been the purest emotions on this earth.
‘Beth!’
She looked at her grandmother, who was half hanging off her stool.
Her grandfather was hovering protectively close by.
His bemused yet indulgent expression suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d seen his wife let her hair down like this, and she felt such a wave of tenderness for them it was almost a physical pain.
In their quiet way, they’d taken real, loving care of her when she’d returned to England after Xavi and the baby.
They hadn’t asked her any questions, just given her the unconditional support and love she’d needed to pick herself up.
Her father had been the same, and it was this loving support that had allowed her to put his lies about her mother’s family behind her.
All three of them had rallied around, and when she’d announced she was moving to Manchester, they’d rallied again to help her.
Their lack of surprise at her sudden announcement years later that she would be marrying Xavi was something she chose not to think about.
What was harder not to think about was the growing ache in her heart for their marriage to be real.
The ache was a ghost from her past, a ghost of the young woman who’d loved him with the whole of her heart and had been loved back with what she’d believed to be the whole of Xavi’s heart.
Xavi had to hold himself still. He wanted to pace the cathedral, preferably by the entrance so he could assure himself of his bride’s arrival.
The cathedral was packed. Outside, the press had gathered en masse. The wedding of the century was minutes away. All they needed was the bride.
He checked his watch again. She was now officially late.
‘Your grandmother was fifteen minutes late for our wedding,’ his grandfather said with quiet knowing.
‘Yes, you said… You’re sure you have the rings?’
His grandfather patted his top pocket.
Not until he’d been deciding on a best man for himself had Xavi considered that he didn’t have a single close friend. He had friends. Lots of them. He received regular invitations to parties and nights out, some of which he accepted. But close friends? Not in years.
When had he let his social group slip away from him and become so solitary that he could think of no one to act as a natural fit to the role of best man? He’d briefly flirted with asking Carlota or Blanca to take the role but hadn’t wanted to deal with the inevitable fallout from the one not asked.
The natural fit had been right in front of him. Who better than his grandfather, one of the original halves of the Rosbel Group, to hand over the rings as the de la Rosas and Belmontes became more than friends and business partners and became family?
He liked to think it was a decision—and a wedding—his father and Raul would approve of.
It was the change in atmosphere that alerted him to the bride’s arrival.
Holding her father’s arm, she emerged bathed…shimmering…in light.
All the breath left his body.
Clutching a posy of pink and white flowers, her glimmering white lace dress clung to and accentuated her curves.
Strapless, it fitted like a heart-shaped hourglass to her thighs before spreading out like a mermaid’s tail, trailing gently behind her.
Her auburn hair, swept over her left shoulder in soft waves, shone and sparkled, and as she walked slowly towards him, a lock of her fringe fell into her eyes.
Without tearing her gaze from his, she blew it away before her lips formed their dazzling upside-down heart.
Only the roar of blood in his ears told Xavi his heart was still beating.