‘I know what I’m doing,’ Molly told her oldest friend. ‘I want my baby to have what I never had-a
‘Let’s hope Leandro is up to the challenge,’ the blond man responded drily.
‘I don’t think he’d be so keen to marry me if he wasn’t,’ Molly answered, striving to look more positive than she actually felt. The offer of a bribe not to marry Leandro had seriously dented her confidence. Was it possible that she was unsuitable as a wife for him?
Jez had agreed to act as a witness at the ceremony. Molly was glad to have her friend’s support as the limo ferried them through the traffic to the church. The photographer Molly had engaged for the occasion snapped her on the church steps with her bouquet of pink rose buds and her lucky horseshoe favour and told her that she had a lovely smile. Her heartbeat was pounding frantically fast at the base of throat when she walked down the aisle with a hand braced on Jez’s arm. Leandro, accompanied only by one other man, awaited her at the altar. Sheathed in a charcoal-grey pinstripe suit, which he’d teamed with an immaculate white shirt, he looked breathtakingly handsome.
Leandro, still recovering from the unexpected ordeal of having to pose or the photographer who had intercepted him outside, surveyed Molly, who looked every inch the blushing bride. Her green eyes were luminous pools in her delicate face, her pink mouth as lush as the roses she carried and as full of sensual appeal as the creamy swell of her rounded breasts above the neckline of her romantic dress. As she knelt down by his side it was a challenge for him to take his eyes from her and the tightness at his groin merely intensified.
Molly spoke her vows in a clear voice that betrayed nothing of the nervous butterflies in her tummy. She was fiercely aware of Leandro’s proximity. She allowed her gaze to linger on his hard, bronzed profile and felt her pulses leap when he turned lustrous dark eyes on her as they exchanged rings. He was her husband now, she thought with a rush of disbelief at the concept when the ceremony ended. He introduced her to his lawyer, who had acted as his witness, and it took her aback that he had not asked a friend to perform the office as she had.
Both witnesses declined the invitation to join them for lunch. Jez gave her an emotional hug as he knew they were flying straight out to Spain after their meal.
‘I can’t believe we’re married,’ Molly told Leandro chattily over the lunch, which was served in a hotel suite. Having been too nauseous to eat earlier in the day, she now made up for it with a healthy appetite.
In comparison, Leandro had felt married from the instant he’d walked into the church. He was already fighting off an oppressive sense of confinement, which had not been helped by his mother’s hysterical last-minute phone call pleading with him to change his mind while assuring him that he would live to regret making the biggest mistake of his life. Perhaps he had been too optimistic in expecting his family to see the sound good sense of his decision. After all, a pregnant bride met two of their expectations at once. He remained uneasily conscious, however, that when he looked at Molly her radiance and glorious curves grabbed him first and made her fertility status the very last thing on his mind.
‘I suppose I’d better get changed,’ she said, rising from the table.
‘No…keep the dress on,
Molly’s brows pleated. ‘For the flight?’
‘Why not?’ Dark golden eyes hot with hunger, Leandro closed a hand over hers to pull her close and savour the fresh lemony scent that he had come to associate with her presence. ‘I want to take it off you. You can change before we land.’
Colour turned her cheeks poppy-red. His sensual appraisal sent raw sexual awareness shooting through her in a responsive wave. Her nipples swelled and damp heat stirred between her thighs. He had taught her to want him and, although it annoyed her a great deal, she couldn’t yet keep a lid on her desire for his touch.
‘What was your last wedding like?’ Molly asked on the way to the airport, while gritting her teeth and refusing to look at him. The question had been hovering at the back of her mind all day and she had kicked it off her tongue a dozen times before finally sacrificing her pride and voicing it.
Leandro froze as if she had turned a gun on him. ‘I don’t think we should discuss that.’
Offended by his reticence, Molly sent him a glimmering look of suspicion. ‘Why not?’
Leandro breathed in deep. ‘It was different-a big society wedding.’
And that was it, one sentence and he fell silent. Nevertheless, he had said enough to satisfy her curiosity. Molly wished she hadn’t asked, for she was making all the tasteless comparisons he would have condemned. He had pushed out the boat without complaint for his first marriage, which really told her all she needed to know about how he viewed his second excursion into matrimony. But, then, hadn’t he already displayed his indifference to her feelings most effectively? He hadn’t once smiled or paid her a single compliment on the day when all women expected to feel special.
A lot of people turned to stare at her in her wedding dress at the airport. Molly ignored them, but she could feel how much Leandro disliked the scrutiny. His lean, dark features settled into grim lines and his silences got more extended. It didn’t help when his security team weren’t quick enough to prevent a photographer from stepping into their path and taking a flash photo of them.
‘You should have let me get changed,’ Molly told Leandro while he bit back a curse after having been snapped by a paparazzo.
‘I thought you were enjoying the attention,
Molly breathed in so deep and long to control her temper that she was vaguely surprised that she didn’t burst with the effort of holding her ire in. She did not require his dislike of public attention to warn her that the VIP lounge was not the place to start an argument with a guy who wouldn’t go down without a very aggressive fight. Biding her time, she clenched her small white teeth together until they had boarded his private jet. Even while she was appreciating the sheer luxurious comfort of the cabin, she was already wondering how soundproofed it would be as she didn’t fancy their row providing entertainment for the air crew.
Layers of white organza foaming all around her, she settled into a leather seat and did up the belt.
‘Possibly asking you to keep the dress on wasn’t a good idea,’ Leandro conceded soon after take-off.
‘Oh, well, at least you didn’t ask me to put a paper bag over my head and pretend I didn’t know you back at the airport!’ Molly snapped back.
An imperious ebony brow climbed. ‘What is the meaning of that strange comment?’
‘That when you criticise me for hiring a photographer, you expose just how unreal your expectations are!’ Molly extended, jerking open her seat belt to plunge upright again. ‘This is supposed to be my wedding day. Unlike you, I haven’t been there and done it before and I would have enjoyed a more memorable occasion. Of course, what I might want doesn’t matter in the least to you…you’re not just naturally authoritative, Leandro-you’re well on the way to being a domineering tyrant!’
‘You’re hysterical,’ Leandro informed her coldly.
‘No, I’m not. If I was hysterical I would be throwing things and screaming. As it is, I’m just furious with you. Of course I wanted photos of my wedding! Some pretence that this was a normal marriage may come in useful in the future. Or would you be happy to tell our child that we have no photos because it was a shotgun wedding and you didn’t see the need to dignify or celebrate the occasion in the usual way?’
Simmering dark golden eyes lit on her with punitive force. ‘If you had wanted a photographer you should have mentioned it to me-’
‘When? You were abroad and I wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with the arrangements,’ she reminded him.
‘I assumed you’d be relieved to have everything taken care of for you,’ Leandro retorted with cool assurance.
‘What was wrong with asking me how I felt about it? But then you don’t ask me anything, do you?’ Molly sniped. ‘You don’t care how I feel, so why would you bother?’
‘If I didn’t care about you, you wouldn’t have that ring on your finger,’ Leandro shot back at her with deflating conviction.
‘No, if you cared you wouldn’t have threatened me to ensure you
Smouldering dark golden eyes collided with hers in direct challenge. ‘I regard it as a necessary act, driven by my understandable concern for your welfare-an action which ensured that I am now in the perfect position to look
