Hot Nights With the Spaniard--3 Book Box Set by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer [Mortimer, Carole; Grey, India; Harris, Lynn Raye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Special Release
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘LILY, my darling!’

The nicotine-soaked rasp of Lily’s agent in London reached down the telephone line into the quiet of the Barcelona apartment like an echo from another planet.

‘Now, don’t hang up, angel—I’m not ringing to pressure you about work, I just want to know how you are. And of course make sure that you’re eating properly and getting plenty of sleep, darling. I’m worried about you.’

‘Just like the old days, Maggie,’ said Lily with a smile as she sank down into one of Tristan’s squat, modern sofas and slid a cushion into the small of her back. When Lily and Scarlet had arrived in London as green seventeen-year-olds Maggie Mason had clucked over them like a mother hen, although her motives were largely financial.

‘Ah, the old days, when I had to beg clients to cast you because you always looked so shy and serious until you got in front of a camera. That does seem a long time ago. Now you’re all grown up and married to the most eligible man in Europe! How’s it going, darling?’

‘Fine.’ Lily heard the slight stiffness in her voice and forced herself to smile. ‘I’m doing everything by the book. Tristan has registered me with the top obstetrician here, so I’m being well looked after.’

‘That’s good! Fantastic!’ There was a pause, and Lily could vividly picture Maggie briskly tapping the ash from her cigarette into an ashtray placed precariously on the landslide of paper and magazines on her desk. ‘Well, in that case, darling, how’s everything else? You’re keeping busy? Only you would not believe how inundated I am with requests for you to work. Simply swamped with demands from just about every luxury brand imaginable, all wanting the new Marquesa de Montesa to represent them. Of course I tell them all that it’s impossible—that you’re absolutely off the circuit and far too busy with your gorgeous husband and your glamorous life to work, for heaven’s sake … Am I right?’

Lily hesitated for a fraction of a second, before saying brightly, ‘Yes, yes, that’s right, very busy,’ but the lie seemed to echo around the emptiness of Tristan’s stark and beautiful apartment. She tried to soften it a little. ‘It’s the baby, really. I mean, I’m sure if you could see me now the only work you’d be offering me would be the back end of a cow in a butter commercial.’

Unconsciously while she’d been talking she found that she’d pushed up the cashmere jumper of Tristan’s that she was wearing and was gently rubbing the flat of her hand over the neat mound of her bump. At almost six months pregnant she already felt huge, and although she was deeply relieved that the stage of morning sickness had passed she found it constantly surprising how the simplest tasks suddenly seemed overwhelmingly challenging.

Maggie was not to be deflected. ‘Come, come now, darling. I saw that picture in Hello! of you and Tristan at some function last week. Pregnancy suits you—although,’ she teased, ‘I’m

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