The Spaniard's Woman: Contemporary Romance

By Kat Davidson

Rhianna spent three years trying to forget Gabriel Ortega, the man she once adored. Gabriel considered her his mistress, nothing more and when he decides to marry, she knows she must leave him. But Gabriel has never forgotten. When he finds Rhianna again he is determined to have her in his bed again. But he soon discovers she left Spain with more than just his pride. She also took his son...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Harper
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465947000

Kat Davidson

Loves to write contemporary romances with zing!

Book preview

The Spaniard’s Woman

Kat Davidson

Copyright KatDavidson@2011

http://www.kate-harper.com

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Girona, Catalonian Coast, Spain

If she ever saw his face again she would kill him!

Rhianna St James stood gazing out of the full-length windows that overlooked the Mediterranean but she didn’t see the sparkling azure blue of the water below. Her mind was too preoccupied with her final encounter with Gabriel Ortega.

‘I thought you loved me -’ She flinched when she remembered how her voice had broken on the words.

‘Love?’ His brief laughter had been the cruelest cut of all, shattering her world. ‘You are my mistress, pequeno tonto. What has love got to do with what I have told you? You have known all along that I must marry. Now, the time has come.’

Perhaps she had known – he’d certainly told her at the beginning – that one day he would marry but she’d never really believed it would be to some well born Spanish girl. Gabriel loved her. He had never said as much but the evidence was there every night, when they lay in each other’s arms. How could he think the intensity that they shared could be anything but love? ‘Please, Gabriel!’

He’d touched her cheek then, finger a delicate caress and she’d shivered. ‘Why are you so upset? Nothing will change between us. I will still come to you -’

‘Before or after you’ve made love to your wife?’ Rhianna had demanded bitterly. How could this be happening?

Impatient, he’d shaken his head, his hand dropping away. ‘Did you think an Ortega could marry any woman who has no history, no family? This marriage has been arranged for many years. There is no need for these tears. You are a modern woman. Although we did not speak of it, you must have understood how these things work. I still want you, still want that amor dulce,’ his voice had thickened and he’d reached for her then, pulling her closer and for a moment and Rhianna had closed her eyes, wanting only to hold onto him, to inhale his scent and pretend that things were the way she had believed them to be, such a short time before. There had been no escaping his words, however. They had been relentless. ‘Little will change. You will see.’

His words had fragmented something deep within her, destroying a part of her that was so fragile that she had known instinctively it was gone forever. It had taken an enormous effort of will to pull away from the endless temptation that was his body. ‘Everything’s changed,’ she had told him, voice deadened with shock as the tears dried on her cheeks. ‘I thought that I meant more to you. Apparently I was wrong.’

Gabriel’s face had darkened. ‘This is foolish! How can you doubt that I care for you? Have I not given you this place to live in? Our place, just for the two of us.’ His hands had reached for once more but she had moved away, determined not to be drawn back towards the powerful magnetism that was Gabriel Ortega. ‘You are behaving like a child. You are my lover, my woman. You are shocked now and perhaps I was too harsh, telling you like this but in time you will see that things don’t have to change between us. In Spain, wives expect that their husbands will keep a mistress. Ana will not object to our arrangement.’ Turning, he’d collected up his jacket and car keys. ‘You are upset. I will leave you now but I will return tomorrow. Perhaps then we can talk sensibly about this.’

‘I won’t be here tomorrow,’ she had told him quietly. Ana, the women Gabriel had decided came from suitable bloodstock to be the mother of his children, might not mind that he kept a mistress but Rhianna would mind it very much. She wanted no part in such a future. She’d been a fool. For eleven months Rhianna had lived in a fantasy, pretending that the life she was leading with Gabriel would have some kind of fairytale ending, but it was over now. Even though it felt as if her heart would break, her relationship with Gabriel was finished. ‘I’m leaving.’

He’d laughed then, genuinely amused. ‘But of course you will be here. Where would you go? You and I know both know that you belong with me.’ His eyes, obsidian dark, had raked her from head to toe, dangerously seductive. She had seen the fire in his gaze and had felt her own senses flare in response, despite herself. ‘My beautiful, delicious Rhianna…’ The words had been a low, hungry growl and she’d tensed, wondering how she could bring herself to reject him when every part of her was programmed to respond to his touch. Fortunately, she hadn’t been put to the test. Gabriel had decided that she needed time alone to get used to his marriage bombshell. His idea of ‘handling’ the situation, no doubt. ‘I shall return in the morning,’ he had told her roughly, ‘We’ll talk again then.’

Rhianna had stared at the face of the man who had been so beloved to her. She’d lived with Gabriel for nearly a year and she had been so sure that she knew him, through and through.

How could she have been so wrong?

At that moment, Rhianna had seen Gabriel Ortega with different eyes. He was a man who had an unshakable sense of his own place in the world. Even though the finely angled plains of his face had been as familiar as ever, he’d suddenly been a stranger who bore no resemblance to the man who had held her in his arms, night after night. Who had showed her an intensity of passion that she had never experienced before.

At that moment, something inside her withered and died.

When she’d said nothing, he spoke again, voice edged with exasperation. ‘I will return tomorrow Rhianna. Do you understand?’

‘I understand,’ she had repeated dully. He would return tomorrow. But by tomorrow, she intended to be gone.

She had remained silent, frozen, as he had turned and walked out the door and out of her life. Ten minutes passed before Rhianna had moved and then she had flung herself onto the vast bed and cried until it felt as if there were no tears left in her body. But when the tears had stopped, the pain had not because, dry-eyed, her world was still the same. Shattered.

Rhianna turned from the window and looked around the airy, spacious room that she had discovered so much joy in. Everything that it contained had been bought for her by Gabriel. Bought for his mistress, she realized now, fool that she’d been. Profoundly in love for the first time in her life, Rhianna had honestly believed that he would grow to see how much they belonged together. It was true that he had never offered her marriage. Indeed, he had always said that one day he would have to marry one of the fine women that his family had long since decided that he should form an alliance with. But that had been a vague threat Rhianna had never truly believed in. Their bodies had sang together in the kind of perfect harmony that had made her feel that she was the most fortunate woman in the world.

‘I will take care of you, mi dulce Rhianna,’ he had whispered, while his strong, hard body had covered her own, night after night, his mouth raining kisses down onto her bare skin, ‘You are mine now, mi encantador...’

And she had been his, for as long as it had taken him to tire of her, just as Grady had warned her he would.

Turning, she picked up her handbag that contained her passport and a small overnight bag. Her beautiful dresses were still hanging in the closets, her fine underwear in the drawers and there they would stay. It was time to go home.

Chapter One

Sydney, Australia.

‘You need a holiday.’

Rhianna gave a wry smile and glanced towards the enormous windows of the small, crowded cafe. It was teeming outside and fog from the heat of bodies and food obscured most of the view. Which, in Rhianna’s opinion, was a good thing because the world outside was far from welcoming. ‘That’s what Doctor Griffith said yesterday. That Dylan and I should get away for awhile.’

Jenny Fisher’s face softened. ‘How is Dylan?’

‘At home with Mrs. Fitzpatrick.’ The familiar, nagging fear that had been her constant companion since her son had contracted pneumonia eight weeks before had eased since his recovery but it still lingered like a ghost. Dylan was getting better but he looked so fragile, so white. Little boys were supposed to be all rough and tumble and that was the way her son used to be. Now, he tired easily and his appetite still hadn’t returned. ‘He’s not as good as he could be. It would be great to take him up to Queensland for a week or two. Get him some sunshine and fresh air.’

‘Well?’ Jenny said gently, ‘What’s stopping you. If it’s money you know Adam and I would -’

‘No.’ Rhianna leaved forward to squeeze her friend’s hand. Of course Jenny and her husband Adam would pay for a holiday. They were wonderful friends. But they were going through their own financial hardships at the moment, with Adam retrenched from his work six months before. It had taken him several months to get another job and there certainly wasn’t enough money to splash out on holidays, now when they’d nearly lost their house. Jenny sighed. ‘Grady, then. You know he wouldn’t mind.’

Rhianna nodded slowly. Ever since the doctor had recommended taking Dylan away, Rhianna had been trying to think of a way to manage it. She didn’t have any money. Dylan’s stay in hospital, his tests, his medication… they’d all eaten into her savings. Which left Grady. ‘I hate to ask. He’s been so good to us.’ It had taken her several weeks when she had returned from Europe four years before to realize that she had been pregnant with Gabriel’s child. The discovery had brought her a rollercoaster of emotion; joy at the discovery of new life inside her and the terrible realization that she would have to tell Gabriel that he was a father. And since he was the last man on the face of the earth that she felt like seeing, the prospect had sent her into a tailspin of nervous despair. She needn’t have worried. While she wrote two letters, she never received a response to either and after a time, she had stopped thinking about Gabriel. Almost.

Since she had returned from Europe over three and a half years before, she had been forced to make choices she would never once have contemplated. Her son was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her in a long time and she was determined to give him the best start possible. To do that, before she had returned to Australia she had taken a chance and called the man she had once contemplated marrying. They’d stayed in touch while she was in Spain, against all odds because the two of them had very little in common. Now a days, Grady was sort of her friend, definitely her employer and a difficult man to deal with in either role. But he had been very good to her and Dylan.

‘And you’ve been very good to him.’ Jenny reminded her firmly. ‘He’s not exactly a whole lot of fun to deal with.’

Which was true enough. Grady O’Farrell had suffered a fall from a horse when he was eighteen that had put him in a wheelchair. While there was no doubt his accident had given him a twisted attitude to life, it hadn’t stopped him from taking control of his families extremely lucrative computer business. Orphaned at the age of fourteen and with no family of her own to turn to, it had been immensely reassuring to have a job to return to; Grady had promised that, if she returned to Sydney instead of her home town of Melbourne, he would find something for her. She’d thought that he might organize a position in the offices of O’Farrell Industries, which was a large software corporation in the city. Rhianna had no idea what she would do there, but she would have been happy with anything. Instead of a company job however, he had suggested that she become his ‘personal assistant’, a live in position that had ended up offering a great many benefits, one of which was her own suite of rooms. All she needed to do for him in return was... well, everything, as it turned out. Since taking on the job Rhianna did everything from organize Grady’s business meetings to fix him meals when the housekeeper was absent. It wasn’t the life she would have chosen but she no longer just had herself to think about and at least her position with Grady let her have Dylan with her.

Of course, the down side of the arrangement was that she owed Grady big time and he wasn’t about to let her forget it. That and the fact that he frequently acted like a bear with a sore head. His former PA’s hadn’t ever stuck around for very long, unable to cope with his surly temper, which might have explained why he offered the position to her in the first place.

‘Ask him.’ Jenny said firmly. ‘You and Dylan both need a holiday. Go up to the Gold Coast or Darwin and catch some down time. I think you’ll discover that it’ll really get Dylan back on track.’

Rhianna nodded slowly. She’d do anything for her son, even if it meant becoming even more beholden to a man she already owed so much to. The hiccup, of course, would be taking a few weeks. Grady liked her to be around. ‘I’ll ask him. I’ve got to do something.’

‘Such as find a nice man and think about yourself for a change?’ Her friend suggested wryly. Jenny and Rhianna had gone to university together for two years down in Melbourne, until Rhianna had decided to go overseas for a holiday, using some of the small nest egg that her mother had left her. When Rhianna had returned eleven months later they had bumped into each other out of the blue. Jenny’s degree had landed her a job in Sydney and she’d moved there permanently. When she’d met Rhianna again she had noticed an indefinable change about her and it wasn’t just because she was obviously pregnant. Something, some spark, had been extinguished. She had been eager to know the story behind her old friend’s swollen belly and had probed ever so gently. At first Rhianna had been reticent but after awhile she’d confided in Jenny a little, not everything but enough for Jenny to know that someone had hurt Rhianna very deeply indeed.

Rhianna dismissed the idea with a wave of her hands. ‘I’ve got more than enough men in my life!’

‘Is Grady still suggesting marriage?’ Jenny demanded.

Rhianna nodded. ‘He says it would be a more stable environment for Dylan.’

Jenny gave a snort of disgust. ‘Grady O’Farrell is a manipulative, overbearing pain in the butt.’

Rhianna smiled. ‘Doesn’t that apply to most men? At least I know exactly where I stand with him. Believe it or not Jen, I trust Grady. And I can handle him.’

‘If you say so,’ her friend did not sound convinced but then, Jenny was always concerned about Rhianna’s happiness.

Just the same, on her way back home Rhianna reflected that what’s she’d told Jenny was quite true. She really did know how to handle Grady and it was a relief to work for a man who had no interest in her sexually. Once, there might have been a spark but it had died a natural death and they had ended up as friends. And while Jenny was right about her employer and old high school beau being both manipulative and overbearing, at least she always knew what to expect. Grady had been suggesting they get married for the past six months.

‘Why not?’ he’d urged, thin face creased in the usual frown, ‘You get an upgrade to the O’Farrell family fortunes and I get a wife which might stop people from feeling sorry for me.’ The bitterness in his voice

Reviews for The Spaniard's Woman

[Cristal Lopez · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

the story had a good plot but there was to many inconsistencies that make the book hard to follow

[Bupe Besa · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Had me wanting to throw my phone across the room. She has no backbone. Going with whatever he wants as if he’s got something on her.

[BDO · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Heroin was too much of a door mat, simply spoilt the storyline. Seemed she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome at a point.

[kteacher56 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The author needs to read her own book. At the beginning, it states that Gabriel expected the h to remain his mistress after he married later it says that he broke things off with her. Ruined the book for me.

[melaquarius · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

do not waste your time .shitless. Very bad bad spineless heroine