Maggie Cox - Latin Lovers - Passionate Spaniards - The Spaniard's Marriage Demand / Kept by the Spanish Billionaire / The Spanish Doctor's Convenient Bride

THEY arrived at Leandro’s house in Madrid some time in the early evening when dusk was approaching. Not knowing his personal tastes at all, Isabella was struck by the quiet, unpretentious beauty of the stone-built farmhouse—known as a finca in Spanish, as Leandro had informed her—situated far away from the hub of the main town in rural splendour. Its edifice glowed cloud-white in the fading light of day and as they drove up in the car Leandro had left at the airport for his return the external lighting automatically came on, illuminating their way. Almost immediately there was something about the place that touched a chord deep inside Isabella. An inexplicable sense of coming home even though she told herself she was just being ridiculous and foolishly, unrealistically hopeful. Deliberately, she put the feeling aside.

She shivered slightly in the cool night air as she stepped out of the car, her senses immediately captivated by the richly resinous scent of the earth, and her blood was irrevocably stirred. She loved this land, she realised. She had grown up loving it because of her wonderful grandfather who had told her so many stories about his homeland that it had almost made Isabella homesick. That was why she had always longed to walk the Camino. Somehow, undertaking such a pilgrimage had brought her even closer to the spirit of her grandfather as well as to the land, and it had also set her on the way to discovering what was her own heart’s desire. Flicking a quick covetous glance at Leandro as he walked round to the boot of the car to see to their luggage—his long-legged stride and broad shoulders in his stylish sports jacket and jeans making her heart race suddenly—Isabella reflected that perhaps it hadn’t been so difficult for her to make the decision to come back to Spain after all.

‘He is asleep?’

‘Yes …he hardly even put up a fight. I think the plane journey and the travelling wore him out.’

‘Sí …I think you are right.’

Immediately detecting the apprehension in her expression that she could not hide, Leandro wondered how Isabella had viewed the fact that he had moved her immediately into the master bedroom—her cases down by his next to the big brass and iron bed that he usually slept in alone. They were going to be man and wife …and he saw no point in delaying the inevitable and making her doubt his intention by giving her a room of her own. Especially not when he had already waited eighteen months to experience the rapturous feeling of her body next to his again.

Raphael’s travelling cot, Leandro had placed next to Isabella’s side of the bed until Constanza—his mother—brought the beautifully carved cradle that he had slept in himself as a baby from her home tomorrow. It had been all he could do to dissuade her from visiting them tonight, such was her eagerness to see her grandson—but thankfully Leandro had been able to convince her that a visit was better left to the following day when Isabella and Raphael were more rested after their journey from London.

‘You look a little tired. Why don’t you come and make yourself at home?’ he suggested, his deceptively cool gaze hiding the clamour of aroused senses inside him that were inevitably charged by the sight of Isabella’s too-provoking beauty. Wearing a simple white linen shirt with light blue denim jeans and a black silver-buckled belt, her long ebony hair left unbounded and her feet fetchingly bare, she would have set the most impervious of male hearts to racing. If he were to point a film camera her way, Leandro had no doubt that that same captivating appeal would absolutely transfix an audience were she to appear on the screen. He knew his trade well enough to know that his instincts were right.

Studying her in silence as she moved across the room to seat herself on a couch draped with a vivid ochre-coloured Andalucian shawl, he could see why most people would naturally assume she was a true native of Spain—a bewitching señorita with eyes as black as treacle and a slow, sweet smile as sinful as ‘Diablo’ himself.

‘This is a great room,’ she commented, her gaze contemplating her surroundings with seeming pleasure.

***

Where should she look first? Isabella’s senses were confounded and captivated by the almost shockingly vivid colours that filled the room—colours that had no business complimenting each other but did. From the truly surprising candyfloss-pink-painted walls, to the mismatched rainbow hues on the chairs and couches and the breathlessly lovely interwoven Indian rugs that covered the generously proportioned stone-flagged floor. It was the unrestrained creation of an artist. Even if she never stepped outside the door and saw where they were, Isabella would instinctively know that she was under the spell of someone whose very soul was steeped in the culture and wilder landscapes of this arresting land. Even the books that crowded Leandro’s bookcases had bright, unrestrained, eye-catching spines that made her long to go over and examine them more closely, to see what treasures the well-thumbed pages were hiding. The result of all this dramatic use of colour and material was a passionate, seductive sensibility that seemed to spill over into everything. It agitated Isabella’s blood as well, making her acutely responsive to almost every single detail about this remarkable man at whose instigation she was here and whose steady commanding gaze drew her attention helplessly back to his as though magnetised.

‘I am glad that you like it, Isabella. This is my favourite home and it is here that we will spend the majority of the time together.’

‘Your favourite?’ she queried.

‘I have other homes in Pontevedra and in Paris where we will sometimes stay. But Madrid is my main base because I endeavour to arrange for most of my work to be here. I think it is important to help the economy by utilising local talent and locations whenever I can. Can I get you something to drink? Some wine, some juice, perhaps? We will eat later. In Madrid we are used to having dinner late …sometimes as late as eleven o’clock at night. Does that bother you?’

‘Not at all. I ate on the plane and I’m not hungry anyway. I don’t need a drink right now either, thanks.’

Mention of his work was enough to almost make Isabella beg him to tell her more. How she longed to have him talk freely to her about what inspired him, or moved him …what kind of scripts compelled him to direct them and what were his personal favourite films? Then, unwittingly catching the almost suggestive little smile curving his too disturbing mouth, she nervously recalled the fact that tonight she was expected to share a bed with this most enigmatic of men that the rest of the world seemed to hunger to know about. But as much as Isabella longed to know Leandro’s loving again and had been craving his presence even more since giving birth to Raphael, she did not know if she was ready to be intimate with him. She was so confused. It still stung to remember that disparaging comment the woman at his offices had made about there always being some woman hanging onto his coat tails. Could she trust a man who seemed to treat relationships with women so lightly? He might be a good father to Raphael, but was he capable of being the kind of devoted husband that Isabella secretly dreamed of?

As if intuiting her thoughts, Leandro moved across the room to stand before her. His gaze was quietly reflective as he stared down at her. ‘You know that we are sharing a room together tonight?’ he commented.

All the hairs stood up on the back of Isabella’s neck. ‘I saw,’ she replied quietly, her dark eyes widening. She knew he wouldn’t like what she had to say, but she had to say it. ‘To be honest …I don’t really think that’s such a good idea.’