Retaining His Bride (A Completed Novella)

CHAPTER 4

The back of Clio's car was packed with the professional photography equipment Enrique had hired for the weekend. While he'd been out getting it, Clio had been on the phone to Sir Michael and his daughter, Tamsin, the bride, informing them about the change in photographer and soothing their initial panic. It had been damage control, big time. But she thought she'd got away with convincing them of the exclusivity of having a Spanish photographer.

Just over an hour later, she was driving her small French hatchback down the A3 heading for the wedding venue: Sir Michael's multimillion-pound house in Surrey.

She was very aware of Enrique in the passenger seat, his broad shoulders and muscular thighs just touching distance away. He must work out to have developed such a powerful body. The young Enrique had danced in nightclubs for exercise and played soccer with his brothers. This older Enrique obviously took fitness seriously. His disconcerting presence made it difficult for her to think about anything else but his extraordinary reappearance in her life.

He made the occasional comment as they passed through the south-west suburbs of outer London. Bare trees were stark against bright, clear blue winter skies. Perhaps they would have snow for Christmas. She forced herself to make casual conversation when all she really wanted to do was fire questions at him:Why did you deliver your grandma's bequest in person when you could have sent a courier? Why don't you wear a wedding ring? Have you ever stalked me on the internet like I stalked you? Did you miss me at all over the last fifteen years?

By the time the wedding was over, she was determined to have some answers.

"How did you describe me to your client?" Enrique had a question of his own.

"I boasted about you as a high-end photographer who chooses to work only with a select number of clients," she explained. " Exclusive was a word I kept on throwing into the conversation."

She had every confidence in his skills as a photographer as well as his ability to get people on his side. She'd bet he would have the bride charmed within minutes.

"Your clients will not be disappointed," he said with the confidence verging on arrogance that had always been part of him.

Clio smiled. "I'm sure they will," she said. She kept seeing glimpses of the boy in the darkly handsome man he had become.

Back in Madrid, he'd swept her away with his energy and charisma. She took a surreptitious glance at his profile, that strong, straight nose, the determined jaw already darkened with beard growth, his sensual full mouth. He'd changed into newly purchased black jeans, a black cashmere roll-neck sweater and black boots. Her heart seemed to miss a beat, he looked so smoulderingly sexy-if you could call a man that.

"Did you tell your clients I've won awards for my photography?" he said.

"I didn't know that, but be assured I'll tell them straight away. They can't wait to meet you as it is."

"Do they know we were once lovers?" he asked.

Clio nearly veered off the road in shock at the change of topic. Lovers.

"Of course not."

Living in Madrid had been a revelation for a sheltered only child of older parents. She'd revelled in her freedom and independence-and Enrique had been part of that. He had introduced her to uninhibited sensual pleasure and a more bohemian, relaxed life of late nights and siestas, of eating tapas and paella on stools at the bar rather than seated because it was cheaper, of not worrying about what could be put off until mañyana, tomorrow. He had dragged her though every room in the Prado art museum, giving her his sometimes very amusing take on the paintings and sculptures.

Blazing with energy and passion and creativity, Enrique had been so different from the boys she'd dated back home. She'd soon started to spend most of her free time in his small studio in one of the oldest parts of the city, where she'd posed for him and slept in his arms-wanting it to go on forever.

But it hadn't just been physical-they had connected on an emotional level so deeply she'd felt they'd shared the same soul. She had ached for him for months after they'd split. Again she glanced at his dark profile. She still ached for him.

"I said we were friends from university. Privacy is important to me. I keep my personal life separate from my work."

"I will not mention our past relationship then," he said.

Panic rose in her throat. "Please don't. As far as they are concerned we are friends." She glanced quickly at him. Decided to risk it. "I'd like us to be friends, Rico. After all, we shared a time in our lives when-"

He slammed his hand on the dashboard as he spat out a Spanish expletive. "No. I could never be friendswith you, Clio. I told you that fifteen years ago. My wife-or nothing. You chose nothing."

She flushed and had to swallow hard before she choked out a reply. "I get it."

There she was, slipping back into an old pattern of acquiescence. That had been the trouble back then. He'd swept her along with the force of his personality and the power of their passion. Of course she'd wanted to be his wife, she'd wanted to live with him and have his babies and just love him. But somewhere along the way her needs had been subsumed. Her life had become what Enrique wanted for her, without her being sure of what she actually wanted. Until she'd panicked and decided that to rush headlong into marriage wasn't right for her at that time.

Of course, she hadn't managed to get a relationship right since then. Which had made her start to wonder about Grandma Sofia's curse.

Enrique must have picked up on the nuances of her voice. "Clio, I didn't mean that to sound harsh. What I meant was that you are much too beautiful for a red-blooded male to be a hands-off friend with you. It would be beyond endurance."

"That's one way of putting it," she said lightly.

"But it's true. I don't believe people who shared the kind of love we did could ignore it and become platonic friends. Do you?"

"Perhaps not," she conceded.

Maybe he'd had the right idea when he'd cut off all contact between them-although it had nearly destroyed her at the time. If it were otherwise, could she cope with seeing him with another woman, having to act as if all that passion and fire and ecstasy had never happened?

"So better leave it as acquaintances then, as far as Sir Michael is concerned," she said. Being near him was arousing the memories of being in his arms, his kisses, their times together on the Moroccan carved day bed in his studio. Just acquaintances would be safer for her too.

"You're the boss," he said with a shrug and the ghost of a smile that told her he didn't believe that for a moment.

Neither did she.