The Spanish Billionaire’s Pregnant Wife

want to risk spoiling the ambience they had achieved.

They had had a wonderful honeymoon six months after their wedding. She had strolled along the city ramparts at Lucca, wandered through the medieval streets of Florence and Siena, occasionally pausing to explore ancient buildings and admire spectacular art at a leisurely pace. A hundred special memories had ensured she would never forget their time at Casa Limone. The scent of new-mown grass would forever remind her of making love in the lemon orchard beside the house and lying drowsing in the languorous aftermath in Leandro’s arms until it was almost dinner time. In the same way the taste of glorious chocolate would always remind her of being pregnant. She lusted after that wonderful taste-bud-melting flavour almost as much and as continuously as she lusted after Leandro, who didn’t know what a full night’s uninterrupted sleep was. He had confessed that he felt badly misled by the book he had read that suggested that a woman’s interest in sex would wane as her pregnancy advanced.

Propping her chin on the heel of her hand, Molly surveyed her vibrantly handsome husband with dreamy appreciation. He was gorgeous and she felt that wanting to touch him pretty frequently was normal because sometimes she just couldn’t believe her good luck in having him and needed to satisfy herself that he really was hers in every way that mattered.

‘Are you thinking about our flight back to Spain tomorrow? Your family will be staying with us this weekend,’ Leandro reminded her.

Molly smiled, recognising his concern that she might be less than eager to return to the castillo, but that wasn’t the case. On the contrary, she was looking forward to the prospect. She was confident that everything would be different this time around. After all, Dona Maria was no longer in residence and Molly’s marital home would finally be her own. To give him his due, Leandro had been appalled when he had realised that Molly had been prevented from having any input into the household arrangements and his mother had lied when she had announced that that had been his idea.

‘I can’t wait to see Ophelia again,’ she admitted.

‘But the two of you are always talking on the phone,’ Leandro pointed out with a shake of his dark head.

‘You’ll be going back to work the day after tomorrow,’ Molly said ruefully, knowing that that was normal life but dreading it all the same, for she had adored having him around all the time.

Dark golden eyes level, Leandro brushed the back of her hand in a perceptive gesture. ‘I won’t work the hours I used to. I won’t be travelling for a while either and I’ll phone you at least twice a day.’

‘The sun is gleaming over your halo,’ Molly teased.

‘It’s very important to me that you be happy.’

As she was convinced that he would have taken his first marriage equally seriously, she could not help wondering what had gone so badly wrong. That evening they dined out at a little restaurant they had visited before. On the drive home, she said softly, ‘Tell me about Aloise…’

‘She was all things to all people. Her family idolised her. Her colleagues admired her. I regarded her as a very close friend. Our families began pushing us together when we were in our mid-twenties. I’d enjoyed my freedom up until that point and I assumed she had as well. We could have said no, but our marriage seemed to make sense. I thought we wanted the same things out of life and you know I’m not the romantic type,’ Leandro told her confidently in spite of the fact that he had lit pink candles round the hot tub and scattered rose petals on the water for her.

‘So you saw your marriage as a practical arrangement?’

‘I thought Aloise had the same view. She wasn’t any more in love than I was, but she was very feminine and, naturally, I found her attractive After the wedding, our friendship just seemed to die. I didn’t know what was wrong and she insisted that there was nothing wrong,’ he breathed in a driven undertone.

They walked into the villa. Molly put on lights. ‘What happened the day of the accident?’

Leandro dealt her a cloaked look. ‘What I tell you must remain private for the sake of her family. She didn’t want them to find out.’ The silence hummed and his hand clenched taut as he made an awkward movement with it. ‘I demanded to know why she was treating me like an enemy. So, she finally told me the truth and I lost my temper with her…’

‘How?’ she whispered, her attention welded to his haunted expression in the lamplight.

‘I accused her of deceiving me and ruining both our lives because she wanted us to go on living a lie and… Dios mio, I wanted out!’

Molly was frowning. ‘I don’t understand. What was the truth?’

Leandro vented a harsh, unamused laugh. ‘That she was gay. The moment she admitted it, I couldn’t comprehend how I hadn’t realised it for myself. She felt trapped in our life. Our marriage was a disaster, but she was willing to sacrifice both of us to keep her secret. At the moment she most needed my understanding and friendship, I turned on her and that’s why she ran out, got in her car and ended up crashing it and killing herself.’

Molly was very much shocked and she reached out to grip his hands with hers. ‘You must have been shattered and very bitter to find out after so many troubled years together. Of course you felt she had deceived you. It wasn’t your fault she crashed, or your fault that your marriage didn’t work. How could it have done? She was upset, Leandro. She must have been very unhappy. You both were. Let it go at that. Don’t blame yourself for an accident.’

Leandro loosed his hands and bent down to lift her off her feet. ‘You’re always so considerate of how I feel and I honestly didn’t know I had so many feelings until I met you, mi corazon. Uppermost was the pure erotic pleasure of a woman who wanted me just for myself,’ he confessed huskily. ‘Was it any wonder that I couldn’t keep my hands off you?’

Molly blinked, still coming to terms with what he had shared with her about Aloise. He carried her upstairs and settled her on the big divan. ‘I’m not any stronger. You’re incredibly addictive,’ she told him. ‘I was a clean-living girl until you came along!’

Leandro gave her a rakish grin that tilted her heart on its axis. ‘It meant a lot to me that I was your first lover. I think I fell in love with you the very first night we met, but I had no idea what had happened to me. Although I wasn’t in love with her, Aloise hurt me,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘I tried so hard with her and got nowhere. I wanted to keep a distance with you, not get too involved, too close…’

Molly was transfixed by what he had said. ‘You fell in love with me?’

‘Dios mio…like a brick being chucked off the roof of a skyscraper. I’d never been in love before. In lust, si. In love, never! But I couldn’t tell the difference. The whole time I was in conflict with myself. I asked you to be my mistress.’

‘And that hurt me.’

He crouched down in front of her, grasped her hands and kissed them in fervent apology. Her eyes shiny with love, her fingers smoothed his handsome dark head.

‘It served you right that I was pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Why were you so careful to tell me that you couldn’t give me love when you proposed?’

‘I didn’t know I had it to give. Love has never been my style. I was jealous of Jez for a long time.’

‘Jez?’ Molly yelped in disbelief.

‘You and he had close ties that I found threatening,’ Leandro admitted.

Molly rather liked the knowledge that Leandro wasn’t as sure of himself as he always seemed. She leant forward and kissed him with loving brevity.

‘Meeting you has been a humbling experience for me.’ Springing upright, Leandro raised her and wrapped his arms round her in a possessive hold. ‘I did everything wrong. I didn’t give you the wedding or the honeymoon you should have had.’

‘You were the bridegroom from hell,’ his beloved confided without hesitation. ‘But really great in bed after banking hours.’

‘I love coming home to you-’

‘But you were late back every night!’ Molly complained, unable to let that claim go past unchallenged.

‘I forced myself to play it cool, so that I didn’t feel out of control,’ he breathed. ‘I hate feeling out of control.’

‘I like it when you’re out of control,’ Molly whispered, ready to take shameless liberties with her exploring hands and then suddenly freezing in dismay. ‘Oh, gosh, I still haven’t told you about the birth control pills I found in the wardrobe!’