The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain. ABBY GREEN
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her. Anger at this renewal of response surged through him.
‘Very well. The bed was most comfortable.’ Rowan was not going to pretend for a second that she hadn’t had a night of perfect restful sleep.
A fleeting expression that she couldn’t decipher crossed his face as he pushed away from the door and came close. Rowan fought against backing away.
This morning his jacket and tie were gone, shirtsleeves rolled up. She noticed what looked suspiciously like dried food on his shirt. Had he been feeding Zac? An overwhelming urge to see her son again nearly floored her. She needed to see that he was real, that she hadn’t imagined him. That he was as beautiful and healthy as he’d looked…
Isandro folded his arms. Everything about him was forbidding. Rowan forced her swirling emotions down.
‘Your timing is impeccable…but then I guess you’ve proved that already.’
Rowan’s eyes met his cold ones. She ignored his barb. Waited to hear what he would no doubt explain. He brushed past her to the window, as if in deliberate provocation, and Rowan sucked in a betraying breath at the way he took her off guard by coming so close. At the way her skin prickled uncomfortably. His cool and musky scent wrapped around her, and another scent…that baby scent. Her heart lurched in reaction.
He stayed with his back to her for a moment. For some reason he couldn’t trust himself to face her, and he hated that. He spoke in a monotone. ‘Two months from now it will be two years exactly since you walked out of that hospital. You’ve returned now because we can both file for divorce and you can get your hands on the money agreed in the prenup. I see you’ve been careful not to go beyond the two-year desertion mark, which would have biased things against you. It must be killing you to come back and disrupt your plans, but once the divorce is through you’ll be off again.’ He turned around and fixed her with those laser eyes. ‘Yes?’
Rowan struggled through waves of shock at his cool mention of divorce to understand what he’d said. She had no concept of time or legalities. She’d come here now because she was able. Because she was finally well enough…
His arms were folded, every line in his face regal, hard, uncompromising. Her betrayal and his own shaming lack of judgment seared him again now he was faced with her wideeyed act of shock. He laughed briefly, harshly. ‘Come now—even you, with all your guile, hardly expected us to play happy reunited families?’
Rowan shook her head. His words, which committed to dust that childish and secret fantasy, had rendered her momentarily speechless.
His voice assumed a bored tone which did even more damage to her heart. ‘You’ve done me a favour. If you hadn’t turned up now I wouldn’t have been able to seek a divorce without your consent, so you’ve saved me the tedious job of having to track you down.’ His expression changed in an instant, and he moved closer, looking at her assessingly. ‘Let me guess. You’ve run out of your inheritance?’
Rowan blanched, going even paler. The sizeable inheritance from her mother was almost gone, but not for the reasons he’d so obviously guessed. But it was too late. He’d seen her reaction. A hard, triumphant glitter made his eyes icy.
‘As I thought.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, it disappoints me how predictable you women are. But then I don’t know why I’m surprised. I should have known this was on the cards.’ He continued. ‘So now you’re back, seeking to cash in on a prenup which will give you a nice nest egg…although at the rate you got through your mother’s money, I can’t see that mine will last much longer.’
Rowan’s anger built with a white-hot flash. She felt colour bloom in her cheeks and welcomed it. ‘I have no desire for your money, Isandro. The only thing I desire is to see my son.’
He looked bored. ‘I can see how he will be a good pawn for you, but please do not insult my intelligence. Turning up now shows just how deeply your mercenary streak runs. Being the mother of my son is an added insurance, to make sure you get as much as possible. No doubt this was all part of the grand plan.’
The grand plan? If only he knew…
‘Tell me,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘have you already planned your public defence? Are you going to go with postnatal depression, which is what the papers hinted at as being the likely cause of your curious absence from my side?’
Her mouth fell open. ‘Postnatal depression…you mean people don’t know?’ Rowan had feared that the press would have heard how she had deserted her child after she’d gone. She’d been prepared to deal with it, and it was more than surprising to her that Isandro hadn’t leaked the news for maximum benefit… Yet how could she forget that towering Spanish pride?
Isandro’s eyes narrowed on hers. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you pretending you don’t know?’
‘But… I don’t…’ Rowan felt woolly in the head. For the first six months after her departure she hadn’t seen one newspaper. Or the news. And by the time she’d been exposed to it again she’d never seen any mention of Isandro. She’d fought the urge to go looking, because every time she felt it, the guilt would rise up and overwhelm her. Her husband was the type of man rarely mentioned in tabloids or the common press. His power and astronomical wealth were such that he was effectively removed from such banal speculation or scrutiny. Protected.
However, the papers must have read something into the fact that Isandro Vicario Salazar’s wife had seemed to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth.
He answered her unspoken thoughts. ‘Nobody is aware of the fact that you deserted this marriage. They lost interest when I returned to Spain with Zac, believing that you had simply taken refuge from prying eyes at our…my Seville home.’
Rowan struggled to take it all in. ‘And your family…?’ She remembered his mother’s austere and pain-lined face. The coolness with which she had endured the wedding in London, patently hating every minute of it. Rowan also remembered the equally cold and suspicious face of Isandro’s older sister, Ana. Neither had offered any form of welcome.
‘Oh, they know exactly what happened. Somehow they weren’t surprised.’
Rowan knew she had to sit or else she’d fall. She walked unsteadily to a chair in the corner and sat down. She felt incredibly weary all of a sudden, and the magnitude of the fight she faced was sinking in. She couldn’t let the stark reality that he fully expected them to divorce overwhelm her. He didn’t have to know how little she’d prepared for this, and now she welcomed the prompt which had led her to seek a meeting with her solicitor.
‘All I want is to be able to see my son. That’s why I was meeting Mr Fairclough yesterday. Even I know that as Zac’s mother I will be allowed see him.’
Isandro fought down the anger that rose when she mentioned Zac’s name. He decided to go with his own plan and see how far he got. But he didn’t doubt that Zac was the golden ticket in Rowan’s plan.
‘I can have divorce papers drawn up today.’
Rowan’s heart sank. She was going to be faced with Isandro’s full ammunition.
‘If you agree to divorce proceedings, and agree to the terms I’ll outline for granting you access to Zac, I’ll triple the amount stipulated in the prenuptial agreement and it will be transferred into your account immediately.’
Rowan blanched. That sum of money would keep a small country running for some years. But she had no interest in money.
She stood up from her seat and raised her chin. She had to be strong. She could crumble later. She had to focus on Zac, because to think of anything else right now was too much to bear. ‘No.’
‘No?’ Isandro’s face darkened with anger. He was caught in a bind and he had no doubt that she knew it.
‘I’ll agree to…to…’ To her utter chagrin her mouth and tongue stumbled on the words. She felt herself flushing. ‘To the divorce,