‘Marry me, Hollie.’
She looked up from her crumbled cake, her expression one of shock then confusion, as if she hadn’t heard him properly. She knitted her brows together. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, marry me, Hollie.’
‘Is that an...order?’
‘Does my method of asking offend you? Do you want me to pretend?’ he demanded huskily. ‘To go down on one knee with a ring-pull from a cola can and tell you I’ll buy you a thirty-carat diamond ring when we hit the shops?’
‘No, Maximo, I don’t want you to pretend anything. I want you to tell me why you’ve suddenly come out with this extraordinary proposal.’
There was a pause. She’d told him she didn’t want him to pretend, so he wouldn’t. ‘Because I think it’s the only sensible solution to our dilemma.’
‘Dilemma? Is that what you call it?’
‘Don’t try to gilt-edge a situation which neither of us ever intended to happen,’ he said roughly. ‘But instead, let’s try to make the best of what we have. To make the lemonade, as you said. I don’t want this child to grow up thinking his father didn’t want him.’
‘But you don’t, do you?’ she questioned baldly. ‘Want him. Or her, for that matter.’
He shook his head. ‘Now that the shock has worn off, I find that I do.’
‘But that isn’t enough to justify marriage, Maximo.’
‘No lo es—I agree. And if it were someone else, I suspect I would not be having this conversation. But I find you easy company, Hollie, and that is rare—for my past relationships with women have not been easy. And believe me, our sexual chemistry is even more rare.’
‘But...marriage,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a rather extreme solution?’
Her continued opposition rather than the instant capitulation he’d been anticipating only spurred Maximo on—because never did he feel quite so alive as when he was having to fight for something. ‘I don’t think I’ll have a problem living with you. Plus my work takes me away a lot, which would give us both space. You will never have to worry about money. Ever. And that will still apply even if you find the situation intolerable and ask me for a divorce.’
He looked at her, his eyes cool and expectant, and Hollie felt the lurch of something she couldn’t quite define. Or maybe she just didn’t dare to. Because surely she should be feeling offended by his rather brutal words. Surely she shouldn’t be excited about the thought of getting wed to a man who was clearly offering marriage out of some archaic form of duty? But she was. She couldn’t help herself. She might try to talk herself out of her feelings by applying logic, but they were still her feelings.
The truth was that she found him easy company, too. And while she had no experience of sexual chemistry, she didn’t imagine it was possible for that side of their relationship to get any better.
But the main thing to consider was her baby.
Their baby.
She touched her fingers to her belly and felt a little spark of hope flickering inside her. Didn’t she owe it to this innocent life inside her to offer their child the best possible start in life? To not have to worry about spiralling childcare costs, or the fact that her baby had no contact with a single other blood relative than her. Hadn’t she grown up that way and found it lonely and miserable? And Maximo had experienced that too—he’d effectively admitted it to her earlier.
Yet she didn’t have a clue about what passed for normal behaviour in the world of this privileged billionaire. For all she knew, he might want what she believed was called an ‘open’ marriage and some instinct deep in her gut told her she would find that intolerable.
‘What about fidelity?’ she blurted out. ‘Are you intending to be faithful to me?’
‘I am and I will,’ he said, his voice suddenly growing harsh. ‘But I will also be truthful, Hollie. And if ever I meet a woman I desire more than you, then I will tell you so immediately and we will dissolve our marriage.’
It wasn’t the answer she’d wanted, but she guessed it would have to do. Because although once again his words were brutal, at least they were true. She thought of the story he had told her and the bitter sadness she had seen in his eyes as he’d recounted it. Maximo had his vulnerabilities too, she realised, just like her. Couldn’t they be there for each other—to reach out to each other in times of need—united against a sometimes cruel world?
So Hollie nodded as a sudden sense of calm filled her and the smile she gave him came straight from the heart. ‘Then I will,’ she said softly. ‘I will marry you, Maximo.’
CHAPTER NINE
THE THAW SET in and it was as if the snow had never existed. As if it had all been nothing but a dream. As if Christmas Day and the four days which followed had never actually happened.
Except that they had. At the end of that delicious and sensual sojourn in the ancient castle Kastelloes, Maximo Diaz had asked Hollie Walker to marry him. And her future had changed in an instant. Her image of herself as a plucky but sometimes lonely single mother had crumbled away and instead she was having to get her head around the fact that soon she was going to be the wife of the sexy Spanish tycoon.
Maximo was still sleeping as she slipped silently from the bed, wrapping herself in velvet—green today—before staring out of the window. Water was dripping from branches, from bushes—drip-drip-drip. The dark turrets of the castle were no longer topped by a crown of white and nor did the bushes look like giant white stones. The magic had gone, she realised, a sudden whisper of apprehension prickling over her as she studied Maximo’s tousled black head lying against the pillow and all her suppressed fears were suddenly given life.
Would he wake up and regret the resolution they’d come to at the end of Christmas Day, when—possibly affected by the emotional aftermath of the things he’d told her—he had asked her to be his wife? Perhaps it would be better if she gave him the opportunity to retract words he might have delivered too hastily, and she wondered if she could manage to do it in a way which meant that neither of them would lose face.
His lashes fluttered open—so dark against the silken olive of his skin—and mentally Hollie steeled herself against his beauty as he surveyed her through a shuttered gaze.
‘The snow has melted,’ she said baldly.
‘That’s good.’
‘Good?’
‘Sure. Unless you were planning to build a snowman. Don’t you need a change of underwear, and don’t we need to get to London? If the roads are clear, it means we can go.’
‘London?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘You never said anything about London.’