—Romantic Times Mothers-To-Be(17)

“Shut up!” she screamed, pausing to get her breath back. It took her another ten minutes and he didn’t shut up. As the bolts finally gave that final, necessary inch Bella slumped back winded on the dirty ground, as wrung out as a limp dish rag. Rico strode out and the first thing he did, which she found quite inconceivable, was to close the doors again and force the bolts back with an ease that made her hate him.

With a powerful hand he hauled her upright and dragged her towards the rickety barn doors.

“Suppose they are out there?” she hissed.

Rico, his dark features alight with savage determination, shot her a silencing glance. He pushed the barn door back slowly and she tried to duck under his arm to see what was beyond. Rain was lashing down in sheets outside.

“Come on … skulking here isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he asserted.

She sidled out after him, paradoxically appalled by the emptiness she saw all around them. A derelict stone cottage lay off to one side, and in every other direction all she could see was the rough moorland edging the muddy track that ran down the hill. There was no sign of life anywhere. “Now what?”

The wind and the rain made a truly ghastly combination as they raced down the lane. Rico hauled her relentlessly in his wake and she forced herself onward, fearfully aware that they were not safe until they could transport themselves some distance from their prison. They reached a road, not a very wide one—the sort of road which might see a vehicle maybe once a day, she thought hysterically.

“I’m so cold,” she gasped, soaked to the skin and shivering.

“Moving will keep you warm.” Shimmering dark eyes appraised her. His mouth tightened. He wrenched off his jacket and held it out to her.

Bella gave him a startled glance before she dug her numbed arms into the sleeves.

“Now you’ll freeze,” she muttered guiltily.

“The subtle difference between a creep and a gentleman—the creep stays warm,” he drawled from between clenched teeth.

“We have to find shelter. It’ll be dark soon.”

The road twisted and curved downhill for what felt like miles, and at the foot of that hill met yet another narrow road. Without any other options they kept on heading down. The rain slackened off but both of them were so wet that it made little difference. When they finally rounded a corner and saw a dim light at the top of a rough track Bella thought it was a mirage. Every muscle in her body ached by that stage and her steps were clumsy and wildly uncoordinated. Even speaking was too much of an effort. She stopped, staggering like a drunk.

Rico put a strong arm around her and propelled her towards the track.

Later she couldn’t recall climbing that final hill. A dog circled them, barking fit to wake the dead. A light went on, blinding her, and she came to a halt and swayed.

“Come on,” Rico pressed, and he was already almost carrying her.

She tried—she really did try—but in all her life she had never been so tired. Her legs simply folded beneath her, her head swimming, and she sank down into the thick, welcoming darkness behind her eyelids without a murmur.

“Wake up…”

Bella surfaced, cocooned in wonderful warmth, a fleecy blanket against her cheek. Her eyes opened and focused on the logs crackling in the grate several feet from her, and then landed on Rico, who had crouched down to block her view of the fire. She searched his starkly handsome features with softened green eyes. A helpless smile curved her lips.

“You look wonderful.” Her voice was slurred, sounding as though it was coming from miles away, and with immense effort she freed a hand from the blanket and reached out to him, curving her palm against his blue-shadowed jaw-line.

“But you need a shave.”

“Much as gracias, querida mia.” She connected with his brilliant golden eyes and her heart turned right over. He caught her hand in his and pressed his mouth almost reverentially to the centre of her palm.

“You scared me,” he muttered roughly.

He sprang upright again and moved out of her view. It was still too much of an effort to turn her head. She heard another voice, female, elderly, somewhere behind her. Rico said something about a phone, and the lady was-talking nineteen to the dozen about food and hot baths and him needing to change out of his clothes right this minute, stressing the fact with the kind of gentle but steely authority which reminded Bella very much of one of her former schoolteachers.

She drifted off again then, curiously uninterested in her unfamiliar surroundings, content merely with the warmth and the feeling of security. Time had no meaning until Rico reappeared. He bent down and swept her up off the sofa. “You can have a bath now that you have warmed up sufficiently,” he informed her.

That struck Bella as hilariously funny. She giggled.

“By the sound of it you’re feeling better.” An elderly woman with a stern but smiling face looked down at her where she lay nestled in perfect relaxation against Rico’s broad chest.

“Some day you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren that you almost died of exposure on your honeymoon. That should provoke a few interesting questions.”

“Honeymoon?” Bella whispered blankly as Rico carried her up a flight of stairs.

He set her down on a chair in a large, old-fashioned bathroom and peeled her out of the blanket. She was dismayed to discover that she was wearing not a stitch of clothing, but before she could react to the startling discovery he had lifted her up and settled her down into a massive Victorian bath filled with deliciously hot water. “Honeymoon?” she said again.

“I thought it best not to tell the truth. I said that we had got lost and our car had broken down. Mrs Warwick is a widow living alone.

This is a remote place. I wished to minimise any fears she might have about opening her doors so generously and trustingly to complete strangers who look far from respectable. ” As he talked he was stripping off his clothes.

Bella’s cheeks warmed to a temperature that had little to do with the bath water. Smooth brown shoulders gave way to a muscular torso sprinkled with curling black hair that arrowed down into an intriguingly silky furrow over his flat stomach and then. Embarrassed, she glanced away, but still she saw him before her—the lean, angular hips, the long, powerful thighs, the sleeping promise of his manhood in a nest of ebony curls.



“You were wearing a ring on your right hand. When I was undressing you downstairs I slid it onto your wedding finger.”

Belatedly she noticed the ring.

“It was my grandmother’s.”

“Move over…”

“Rico!” Bella twisted her head round and skidded forward towards the taps in a rush, water sloshing noisily everywhere as he simply stepped into the bath behind her.

“Lord, you’re cold!” she gasped, all of a quiver as a pair of long, icy thighs closed round her hips from behind.

“Sorry, I should’ve thought. I’ll get out!”

As she began to get up he reached for her and pulled her back, bringing her down on top of him, anchoring both arms round her. Above her head he laughed sonorously as she went-from rigid to trembling and back again.

“You have so much to learn, gatita mia. I shall enjoy teaching you.”

Bella squinted frantically down at the hands firmly cupping the pouting thrust of her breasts and blushed. Beneath his palms she could feel her nipples swelling and tightening in shameless, instantaneous response.

“Rico…?”

“I have informed my chief executive, Kenway, of our whereabouts. I also spoke to the police. Thanks to Mrs Warwick, I was able to give the exact location of the barn,” he imparted with sudden harshness.

“They will stake it out and wait until those bastards come back to check on us again. They will walk into a trap just as we did in that car park. The police will be waiting for them.”

The icy chill in his voice made her shiver. All Bella had thought about was freedom—the luxury of the fire and the bath, the wonderful release from fear to safety. Her world had not yet expanded beyond those things. The intensity of her relief and her continuing exhaustion had combined to blunt and blur her reasoning powers. Rico, she noted, was not similarly affected. He was already grimly anticipating their kidnappers’ capture and punishment.



“Had they asked for a ransom?”

“S and the agreed arrangements will continue so that they do not become suspicious. Kenway has been in constant touch with Hector Barsay on your behalf. He will inform him of your release—’ ” How did they know who I was? ” A yawn was creeping up on her. She was lying naked in a bath with a man and she was ready to fall asleep, so complete was her relaxation. She couldn’t believe it.

“My chauffeur knew your address,” he reminded her. “Had he not, the police might have suspected that you had something to do with the kidnapping.”

The? ” It barely penetrated. Her eyelids felt as if someone had attached weights to them, but she wasn’t so far gone that she was not aware that Rico’s lean, hard length was reacting far more energetically to her proximity. But she didn’t tense, only smiled sleepily. There was something so wonderfully reassuring about being that close to Rico.

“You’re falling asleep,” he groaned with more than a hint of incredulity.