The Spanish Aristocrat's Woman by Katherine Garbera Page A

trouble in Madrid were probably in the same situation we were. Not enough of the right kind of activity.”
    “That makes sense. Too much free time is never good when you’re young.”
    “Did you get into trouble?”
    “No. I’m a rule follower. I like to know what the boundaries are and to stay within them.”
    “I like to know where the boundaries are, too,” he said, shifting the car into gear when the light changed. Kara lifted her hand to his and he joined their fingers together and held them loosely on the gearshift.
    “Yes, but you blow right past the limits, don’t you? Even as an adult you still don’t like to follow the rules.”
    “How do you know that?”
    She arched one eyebrow at him. “You must be kidding. I’m engaged to you because you told me I am.”
    That startled a laugh out of him. She was relaxed, teasing him. And he was seeing a woman…a woman he never wanted to let go.
    That was another nice thing about marriage, he thought. For the first time, he realized that regular sex wasn’t the only plus to being married. There was also this quiet conversation. This teasing between the two of them.
    He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
    “What are you thinking?” she asked.
    He noticed she did that a lot. For some reason, she wanted to know what made him tick. But he wasn’t about to tell her what he was thinking now, because those kinds of thoughts left him too vulnerable.
    She’d become important to him, and how the hell had that happened? She was a woman he was marrying so that he wasn’t the odd man out with his friends. She was the woman he was using to get Elvira out of his system and to finally, after ten long years, move on.
    Kara was the woman who was supposed to be there when he needed her. And he was supposed to only need her for sex and for social functions. But, holding her hand in his, he realized he needed her for this. This quiet sharing in the middle of the night was just as important as the other reasons.
    And he came to realize in that instant that he really did need her, and he wasn’t ever going to let her go.

    Kara didn’t know what to expect when they got home, but after the way he’d kissed her in the car, it wasn’t to separate in the foyer. But Vincent was waiting for them, and she knew that something must be important for Gui’s secretary to be waiting up for them at one-thirty in the morning.
    “I’ll see you upstairs?”
    “Si, bebe,” he said, kissing her lingeringly.
    She pulled away reluctantly and looked back at him just once before hurrying up the elegant staircase. She opened the door to her bedroom and walked inside, trying to tell herself that this romance was all in her head. That what she and Gui had was about convenience, both of them needing and wanting marriage for business reasons. It had nothing to do with romance.
    Except, on this moonlit night, it sure didn’t feel that way to her.
    She opened the door to her balcony and stepped outside into the cool spring evening. The moon was full and bright and she lifted her hand to cup it.
    Holding the moon in her hand…Was that like fooling herself into believing that she and Gui had real romance between them?
    “Bebe?”
    “Out here,” she said.
    He walked out onto the balcony. He’d shed his dinner jacket and tie before joining her.
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Yes. I need to call Tristan first thing in the morning.”
    “Oh?”
    “Seconds business. We had to fire one of our finance officers recently for embezzling.”
    “I don’t understand why someone would steal.”
    “You wouldn’t,” he said and drew her into his arms, kissing her the way he did.
    And immediately she caught fire. One touch of his mouth on hers was all it took to arouse her. It didn’t help matters that her entire body was still tingling from the orgasm he’d given her before they left for the dinner party.
    He nibbled on her lips and held her still when she would have