The Buenos Aires Marriage Deal by Maggie Cox Read Free Book Online Page B

her body in the plain, nondescript nightwear…the firm rounded breasts that pressed against the thin material, nipples provocatively erect, the perfect Botticelli angel-like curve of her hips and her long shapely bare thighs.
    ‘I’ve anguished so long about talking to you about things. Then it turned out you’re the VIP guest this weekend and—and it was such a shock. I wasn’t deliberately trying to avoid discussing what happened between us earlier…I just needed time to get my bearings.’
    ‘So now you have had plenty of time to deal with the fact that I am here—and you owe me an explanation…to put it mildly!’
    ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Moving gracefully towards the striped pink and cream slipper chair that she’d laid her robe across, she gathered up the flimsy blue garment and slipped it on over the matching oversized T-shirt, leaving the chair empty.
    Barely knowing how to contain his impatience and frustration at what he perceived to be deliberate delaying tactics, Pascual threw up his hands in temper. ‘Do not tell me what to do!’ A string of Spanish invective escaped him, and he saw the frisson of fear that flickered across the darkened grey irises, but just then he refused to concern himself with the fact she might be intimidated by him. ‘All I want is a truthful explanation of your actions. After that…’
    ‘After that…what?’
    ‘ Dios mio! Just stop wasting time and tell me!’
    ‘All right. I—I wanted to tell you not long after you’d proposed…There’s no easy way to soften this, but the truth is I’d begun to seriously realise that I was only kidding myself that a marriage between us could ever work.’
    The sense of rejection and pain that had never left him since Briana had walked out coiled like a band of steel round Pascual’s chest and squeezed as tight as a deadly cobra, intent on crushing it.
    ‘You only have to start with our backgrounds,’ she continued, unable to disguise her apprehension. ‘You were born into the most extraordinary wealth and privilege, with all the expectations that go along with that, and I came from much more…shall we say ordinary beginnings? I was never going to fit into the incredibly elite lifestyle you were used to, Pascual! Your family made me quite aware of that very early on. They saw me as a drifter. Someone with no purpose or direction because I had taken time off from my usual routine to travel and work at not very prestigious jobs to keep myself.’
    ‘Why bring my family into this? You are just using them as a convenient excuse. You clearly did not feel the same way for me as I felt for you, and were simply too cowardly to just come out and say it!’
    ‘No! That’s not how it was at all.’
    ‘Then why did you not tell me that you were pregnant? How could you have left, knowing that you were carrying my baby? What kind of man do you think I am that I would not be interested in such an incredible piece of information? Did you not think that I would want to know my own child and have some say in how he was raised? You must either have taken temporary leave of your senses or you are even more heartless than I thought!’
    The lovely face before him crumpled a little, but quickly she appeared to gather herself and determinedly returned her gaze to Pascual’s. As he studied her, his heart was thundering as fast as a racehorse galloping for the finishing line. Years of turmoil and anguish over her desertion had just reached a crescendo, and he had no intention of reigning in his emotions now. Especially since he had so shockingly discovered that Briana had had his baby and had deliberately kept him in ignorance of the fact.
    She pressed her hand to her chest. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left. I only found out a couple of weeks after I got home…The thing is, Pascual…’
    For a moment the depth of pain that glimmered in her ethereal grey eyes and the small catch in her voice unexpectedly got through the