Chapter Ten
A FEW DAYS LATER, on the morning of his flight to New York, Xavi quickly showered, shaved his neck, brushed his teeth, dressed and styled his hair. Incredibly early though it was, he should have left the apartment thirty minutes ago, and he left the dressing room fastening his cufflinks…
‘Don’t tell me you were planning to leave without saying goodbye.’
He stopped short and turned his head.
Beth was sitting on one of the window ledges, the last of the moonlight pouring on her. She was wearing her silk kimono dressing gown, her glorious hair mussed from their night of lovemaking. It was all that lovemaking that had made him oversleep.
‘I thought we said goodbye last night.’
She smiled seductively and beckoned him with a finger.
He closed his eyes briefly as he prayed for strength. ‘Mi vida, I’m already running late.’ If they had to take a later flight slot, he would be lucky to make it to the meeting with the Grimaldi executives on time. There had been last-minute hitches to the deal he needed to personally fix.
‘Too late to give your wife a final kiss goodbye?’ she said in such an innocent voice that he knew before he looked back at her that he was making a mistake.
The smile still playing on her lips, she slowly peeled her kimono open and exposed her naked body to him. Batting her eyelashes, she cupped a weighty breast. ‘Sure you won’t give me a kiss goodbye?’
He groaned, part with frustration, part with desire. Dios, she was irresistible, but he was already late…
She spread her legs and raised her thighs.
Arousal, already fighting his willpower, punched its way through his resistance.
His trousers were undone and he was with her in three strides.
He was freeing himself as their hungry mouths came together, his tongue diving into her mouth as he pressed the tip of his erection between her legs.
In moments, he was inside her slick heat, thrusting hard, her wanton moans of pleasure and encouragement feeding him, lost in the exquisite sensation of Beth.
He sensed her climax building and drove harder and faster into her, barely holding on to the thick contractions that pulled him deeper into her ecstasy.
With a loud shout, he let go, bucking his release furiously into her in one long, drawn-out climax so powerful, white light flickered behind his eyes.
She laughed softly into his neck before her mouth found his again. ‘Now you can go.’
Xavi did his best to hold on to his temper. It was rare for him to lose it. Rare for him to even come close to losing it.
It was also rare for him to make such a colossal error.
Okay, so the mistake hadn’t been directly his, but it was a mistake in the Grimaldi contract he should have picked up on much earlier, not on the day they were due to finally sign it.
Heads would have to metaphorically roll, but the responsibility was ultimately his.
Taking a deep breath, he called Beth.
‘Hello, you,’ she said, her voice filled with joyful surprise. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’
‘I need to stay in New York an extra day. Maybe two.’
Her tone immediately flattened. ‘Oh.’
‘There’s an error in the contract that needs to be rectified.’
‘What kind of error?’
‘One that, if not fixed, will cost us millions.’ An error that would have seen the Rosbel Group forking out tens of millions extra to the Grimaldi brand’s founders.
Xavi had spotted it an hour earlier when he’d been poised to sign it, but had decided to give the contract one last skim read first. ‘It will be simple to rectify the contract itself, but we’re all going to work through the night reading and rereading it to ensure nothing else has slipped through the net. ’
‘Shall I fly out to you?’
‘No. You’ll only be a distraction. Stay in Madrid with Diego.’ Raul’s dog had officially moved in with them. Knowing Beth had him for company held back the unnecessary guilt at leaving her behind. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow or Saturday.’
‘Okay.’ He could hear the upset she tried to disguise, and tried not to feel resentful of it. If he hadn’t been so distracted by his new wife, he’d have spotted the error on his first read of the contract.
For all the vows he’d made to himself and the stakes he’d set out when making his proposal to her, Beth had woven him into her spell all over again, and he, lust-filled fool that he was, despite knowing all the dangers, had allowed it to happen.
Time to reset their marriage to how it should have been from the beginning with immediate effect.
‘Do you want me to cancel Gustav’s party?’ she asked quietly.
He swore under his breath. He’d forgotten about Gustav Blanc’s fiftieth birthday party.
As the editor of one of the last remaining international high-end fashion magazines to still make a profit, Gus was hugely influential in the fashion world, a man with the power to make or break brands.
It didn’t matter that the Rosbel Group was sailing so high, keeping Gustav onside was necessary and prudent.
‘I’ll be back for the party,’ he said tiredly. ‘I need to go.’
‘Call me later?’
‘Unlikely. I’ve got too much on. I’ll get Fenella to keep you updated and let you know when we’ll be back in Madrid.’
‘I can’t have video sex with Fenella.’
‘Beth…’ He sucked in a breath and tempered his tone. She was only trying to lift his mood; he knew that, but it was his constant need to lose himself in Beth that had got him into this mess. ‘I can’t be distracted with that sort of talk. Keep me in your dreams and I’ll be home as soon as I can.’
He ended the call and cursed himself again. Keep him in her dreams? Where the hell had that come from? How was that resetting his marriage to where it was supposed to be? Sweet pillow talk was fine, but talk like that when working?
After stalking to his office door, he yanked it open and barked out an order for coffee.
Then he sat back at his desk, took a deep breath, pushed his beautiful wife far from his mind and reread the offending contract, praying not to find any further errors in it.
Beth paced the living room of the apartment, holding her phone with one hand and rubbing her queasy stomach with the other, trying her hardest not to take Xavi’s irritation personally.
It was hard not to, and hard not to feel a painful sadness that the cloak of happiness they’d both been shrouded in had been so unceremoniously ripped away.
He was under huge pressure, she reminded herself. This buyout was a big deal. The business press had been reporting on it and were expecting to report its finalisation at any minute. Delays, no matter how small, always fed wild speculation.
She was letting her brain feed on wild speculation, another thing it was hard not to do when the memory of Xavi dumping her after a business trip with nights away from her had never lost its vividness.
History was not going to repeat itself. Xavi’s irritation at his situation was perfectly understandable, not a portent of anything bad being about to happen.
She rubbed her belly again. She’d been feeling queasy since she woke up, and it was now mid-afternoon. If Xavi hadn’t been so short and irritable, she’d have mentioned it. Mentioned, too, that her period was two days late…
The ringing of her phone made her jump, and made Diego, asleep in the corner of the room, lift his head curiously.
‘Hi, Erika, is everything okay?’ she asked her lawyer, trying to pull herself together.
‘All good here, thank you. Just returning your call.’
Oh, yes. She’d forgotten about that.
Organising her thoughts, she said, ‘Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. One thing I promised myself I would do with my inheritance was buy my old company, Miss Amore. I want to approach the owner directly, but I can’t find any information on him.
The company was bought out not long after I started with them.
I remember hearing at the time it had been bought by a businessman as an investment, but my investigative powers are clearly rubbish because I can’t find anything about him.
Or her. I think it must be a shell company or something like it that owns it. ’
‘You want me to find the owner for you?’
‘Yes, please. And I’d like a contact number so I can call them directly.’
‘We can make the approach for you, if you wish.’
‘No, thank you, I want to do it myself.’ It wasn’t like she currently had anything better to do with her time.
‘Leave it with me. Do you want me to call when I have news or should I wait for you to make contact?’
‘You can call me.’ No more cloak-and-dagger behaviour. No more going behind Xavi’s back. She would never keep another secret from him. Secrets were corrosive.
When Xavi got home, she would make her confession, drag the past into the present and then put it to bed, for good.
She cuddled up to Diego with the very strong feeling that when Xavi got home, she would be telling him he was going to be a father.
Beth’s very strong feeling proved right two mornings later.
Fed up of going to the toilet every five minutes to double-check her period hadn’t started and unable to bear the suspense a second longer, she’d taken Diego for a walk to the nearest pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test.
It was unequivocal. She was pregnant.
She’d barely processed it when Xavi messaged to say the deal had gone through and he would be home early evening. He’d even added a kiss to the message, which eased the tightness in her chest a little.
While it seemed that all the ducks lining themselves up were ducks from the past, history wasn’t about to repeat itself. This was something she reminded herself every five minutes.
What she didn’t like to remind herself was that the main reason history wasn’t poised for a repeat was the business. Xavi needed her shares. If only for that, he wasn’t going to come home and sever her from his life again.