A Spanish Marriage by Diana Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

six-feet-plus athletic frame was clothed in formal pale grey suiting, his dark hair gleaming in the early July sun. He was so spectacular. Her heart jumped beneath the fitted jacket of her cream silk suit as she lovingly assimilated every line of his impressive profile. Lingering on the perfect blade of his aristocratic nose, then the set of that sensual mouth, the high slashing cheekbones.
    Now he was hers!
    She blithely discounted the time limit, the hands-off rule he’d put on their marriage. Javier didn’t know it yet, poor deluded darling, but she would do all in her power to make him rethink that preposterous scenario!
    That kiss had had her changing her mind at thespeed of light about vehemently turning down his hurtful suggestion of a paper marriage. True, he had stepped back, gently put her away from him, but in those blissful, mind-blowing moments when that kiss had turned into something eager, primal and shattering she had felt that strong body harden in raw response and had known, just known, that she could turn their marriage into a proper one, make him happy, give him children.
    During the three weeks since she’d accepted his less-than-flattering proposal—with an equally unflattering, ‘I might as well marry you, if it will get you off my case for a couple of years’—she’d been sorely tempted to instigate another of those wild and cataclysmic kisses. But with new maturity she knew she had to be patient, play the waiting game, because if he knew how she really felt about him he’d retract it and probably run a mile.
    â€˜Come and join your guests, nuera . They are few but they expect you, sí ?’ Isabella Maria, wildly elegant in a flowing peacock-blue brocaded silk coat topped by a cartwheel hat, tucked her hand beneath Zoe’s elbow. ‘I am too happy to know my son has at last taken my advice to marry to complain too much about that quiet civil ceremony or the wedding celebrations that could be mistaken for a wake.’
    â€˜I know what you mean.’ Zoe swallowed a giggle as she fell in step beside her mother-in-law, her eyes glowing beneath the shallow brim of a cream tulle hat decorated with tiny yellow rosebuds. Seated stiffly at the table, Grandmother Alice and her ancient companion/housekeeper looked like black crows and theRamsays, Ethel and Joe, in their Sunday best didn’t look much more festive.
    â€˜Javier wanted a really low-key wedding,’ Zoe confessed cheerfully. ‘Just our immediate family and the Ramsays who would have been very hurt to be left out—he’s always treated them like equals, not a bit like paid servants.’
    â€˜And this is what you wanted?’ Isabella Maria had no interest in the Ramsays’ standing in her son’s household. ‘You could have had the wedding of the year, a marquee packed with the great and the good, the cream of society, music and dancing, everyone admiring and envying you.’
    Not giving Zoe the chance to explain that she would have married Javier in the back of a dustcart with two tramps hauled up off the street as witnesses if he had so directed, Isabella Maria slowed her steps and lowered her voice, ‘A word of advice, nuera , in future don’t let Javier get all his own way. He is tough when he needs to be and can appear remote. But underneath he has the soft heart. And you, my dear, have emerged into quite a beauty. Use the gifts nature gave you wisely and you will twist him round your smallest finger.’
    As Zoe had been thinking along similar lines since the revelation of that steamy, X-rated kiss the advice was unnecessary. But Isabella Maria had thrown in a remark about having given her son advice on the subject of marriage. She was about to ask what pearls of wisdom had been offered, but the words died in her throat as Javier strode to meet them. If he was impatient of their painfully slow progress he didn’t showit. The smoky eyes were