‘I can’t wait to see Ophelia again,’ she admitted.

‘But the two of you are always talking on the phone,’ Leandro pointed out with a shake of his dark head.

‘You’ll be going back to work the day after tomorrow,’ Molly said ruefully, knowing that that was normal life but dreading it all the same, for she had adored having him around all the time.

Dark golden eyes level, Leandro brushed the back of her hand in a perceptive gesture. ‘I won’t work the hours I used to. I won’t be travelling for a while either and I’ll phone you at least twice a day.’

‘The sun is gleaming over your halo,’ Molly teased.

‘It’s very important to me that you be happy.’

As she was convinced that he would have taken his first marriage equally seriously, she could not help wondering what had gone so badly wrong. That evening they dined out at a little restaurant they had visited before. On the drive home, she said softly, ‘Tell me about Aloise…’

‘She was all things to all people. Her family idolised her. Her colleagues admired her. I regarded her as a very close friend. Our families began pushing us together when we were in our mid-twenties. I’d enjoyed my freedom up until that point and I assumed she had as well. We could have said no, but our marriage seemed to make sense. I thought we wanted the same things out of life and you know I’m not the romantic type,’ Leandro told her confidently in spite of the fact that he had lit pink candles round the hot tub and scattered rose petals on the water for her.

‘So you saw your marriage as a practical arrangement?’

‘I thought Aloise had the same view. She wasn’t any more in love than I was, but she was very feminine and, naturally, I found her attractive After the wedding, our friendship just seemed to die. I didn’t know what was wrong and she insisted that there was nothing wrong,’ he breathed in a driven undertone.

They walked into the villa. Molly put on lights. ‘What happened the day of the accident?’

Leandro dealt her a cloaked look. ‘What I tell you must remain private for the sake of her family. She didn’t want them to find out.’ The silence hummed and his hand clenched taut as he made an awkward movement with it. ‘I demanded to know why she was treating me like an enemy. So, she finally told me the truth and I lost my temper with her…’

‘How?’ she whispered, her attention welded to his haunted expression in the lamplight.

‘I accused her of deceiving me and ruining both our lives because she wanted us to go on living a lie and…Dios mio, I wanted out!’

Molly was frowning. ‘I don’t understand. What was the truth?’

Leandro vented a harsh, unamused laugh. ‘That she was gay. The moment she admitted it, I couldn’t comprehend how I hadn’t realised it for myself. She felt trapped in our life. Our marriage was a disaster, but she was willing to sacrifice both of us to keep her secret. At the moment she most needed my understanding and friendship, I turned on her and that’s why she ran out, got in her car and ended up crashing it and killing herself.’

Molly was very much shocked and she reached out to grip his hands with hers. ‘You must have been shattered and very bitter to find out after so many troubled years together. Of course you felt she had deceived you. It wasn’t your fault she crashed, or your fault that your marriage didn’t work. How could it have done? She was upset, Leandro. She must have been very unhappy. You both were. Let it go at that. Don’t blame yourself for an accident.’

Leandro loosed his hands and bent down to lift her off her feet. ‘You’re always so considerate of how I feel and I honestly didn’t know I had so many feelings until I met you, mi corazón. Uppermost was the pure erotic pleasure of a woman who wanted me just for myself,’ he confessed huskily. ‘Was it any wonder that I couldn’t keep my hands off you?’

Molly blinked, still coming to terms with what he had shared with her about Aloise. He carried her upstairs and settled her on the big divan. ‘I’m not any stronger. You’re incredibly addictive,’ she told him. ‘I was a clean-living girl until you came along!’

Leandro gave her a rakish grin that tilted her heart on its axis. ‘It meant a lot to me that I was your first lover. I think I fell in love with you the very first night we met, but I had no idea what had happened to me. Although I wasn’t in love with her, Aloise hurt me,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘I tried so hard with her and got nowhere. I wanted to keep a distance with you, not get too involved, too close…’

Molly was transfixed by what he had said. ‘You fell in love with me?’

‘Dios mio…like a brick being chucked off the roof of a skyscraper. I’d never been in love before. In lust, sì. In love, never! But I couldn’t tell the difference. The whole time I was in conflict with myself. I asked you to be my mistress.’

‘And that hurt me.’

He crouched down in front of her, grasped her hands and kissed them in fervent apology. Her eyes shiny with love, her fingers smoothed his handsome dark head.

‘It served you right that I was pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Why were you so careful to tell me that you couldn’t give me love when you proposed?’

‘I didn’t know I had it to give. Love has never been my style. I was jealous of Jez for a long time.’

‘Jez?’ Molly yelped in disbelief.

‘You and he had close ties that I found threatening,’ Leandro admitted.

Molly rather liked the knowledge that Leandro wasn’t as sure of himself as he always seemed. She leant forward and kissed him with loving brevity.

‘Meeting you has been a humbling experience for me.’ Springing upright, Leandro raised her and wrapped his arms round her in a possessive hold. ‘I did everything wrong. I didn’t give you the wedding or the honeymoon you should have had.’

‘You were the bridegroom from hell,’ his beloved confided without hesitation. ‘But really great in bed after banking hours.’

‘I love coming home to you-’

‘But you were late back every night!’ Molly complained, unable to let that claim go past unchallenged.

‘I forced myself to play it cool, so that I didn’t feel out of control,’ he breathed. ‘I hate feeling out of control.’

‘I like it when you’re out of control,’ Molly whispered, ready to take shameless liberties with her exploring hands and then suddenly freezing in dismay. ‘Oh, gosh, I still haven’t told you about the birth control pills I found in the wardrobe!’

Leandro was astonished, but quickly realised they could only have belonged to Aloise. ‘So, she didn’t want children with me.’

‘If she felt trapped in her life, a child would only have trapped her more,’ Molly suggested.

‘What does it matter now?’ Leandro tugged her down onto his hard thighs and linked his hands round the swell of her belly with an air of proud satisfaction. ‘It’s all so long ago and you and I belong together. The minute I saw you I was drawn to you.’

Molly thought of all the years of feeling that she was not good enough for the people and the things she wanted and needed out of life. Her new-found siblings and Leandro had between them washed away all those wretched insecurities. Bubbling over with happiness at the new knowledge that she was loved, she realised that she owed him the same honesty.

‘I only realised that I loved you the day I left the castle. Leaving broke my heart,’ she confided.

‘It took me far too long to realise what I was doing to you. When you walked out, I felt gutted,’ Leandro admitted grimly. ‘But it certainly did wake me up, mi vida. I had no idea you loved me.’

‘Madly, passionately and for ever,’ Molly swore with fervour and he surrendered to the glow of warmth in her eyes and kissed her with a passion that stole the breath from her lungs.

Eighteen months later, Molly walked down to the beach with Ophelia and her three children. The Greek island of Kastros, which belonged to her brother-Ophelia’s husband-Lysander, was an oasis of perfect peace.

The latest addition to the family circle, little Felipe, slumbered in his all-terrain buggy. Black lashes as long as fly swats brushed his olive-skinned cheeks. With his black curls and green eyes, Molly and Leandro’s firstborn was a handsome combination of his parental genes. A livewire toddler, usually he rarely slept during the hours of daylight. But they had had a barbecue on the beach the night before, which had kept him awake long past his usual bedtime and he was now making up for that.

Molly had given birth by Caesarean and made a speedy recovery. Felipe’s birth had to some extent mended fences within Leandro’s family. Thanks to Molly’s intervention, Doña Maria had been allowed to attend her grandson’s christening and had managed to be scrupulously polite to her daughter-in-law throughout the event. Her elder daughter, Estefania, was already a regular visitor at the castillo, having chosen to take her brother’s side rather than her mother’s when the family ructions were still at their height. Molly was under no illusions about the precise depth of her mother-in-law’s warmth in her vicinity, but she preferred to tolerate occasional visits for the sake of peace and unity.

Julieta remained a close friend. The younger woman had long since got over her failed relationship with Fernando Santos and was currently dating a wealthy entrepreneur who seemed to think the sun rose and shone on her, and who had already gained Leandro’s seal of approval.

Molly flew over to London regularly to meet up with her siblings and often made time to see Jez Andrews as well. Jez now had a girlfriend as committed to following the sport of motocross as he was and Molly fully expected to hear that Tamara would be moving in with him soon.

Molly’s life in Spain had become frantically busy, which she loved. She had decided that the farmyard where her studio was would make a great craft village where local artists could work, exhibit and sell their wares. Financed by Leandro and by Nikolai, who had insisted on taking a financial stake in the concern as well, the concept had taken off like a rocket and had had the added benefit of providing a welcome local tourist attraction.