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CHAPTER 17
Diego brought out a defiant streak in Jacqueline that had remained dormant and unknown even to her until she had met him. She wondered why it was that he had only to address her in a certain tone or raise an aristocratic eyebrow to excite her even temper to screaming pitch.
Provoked beyond bearing, he swept up the magazine and slung it aside.
“Look at me while I’m talking to you,” he said harshly.
“So, now you’re going to add bullying to all your other sins,” Jacqueline commented in a tone that bothered him even more. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised…”
“What other sins? What the hell are you talking about?” Diego raked at her incredulously.
“Take my word for it and let’s not get into this right now. You won’t like it… Your Excellency,&rdq
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By the time Diego entered the compartment, Jacqueline was fast asleep. Curled up in a ball, toffee-brown waves tumbling over a delicate cheekbone, she looked very young, incredibly pretty, and alarmingly vulnerable. He looked at her for a while. She was now his wife. HIS WIFE. It was a disturbing moment of truth for Diego. She was now Jacqueline Maxwell Martinez del Río, the Duquesa de Altamira (Spanish for ‘Duchess of Altamira’). She had a lot of grounds for complaint, Diego acknowledged that. His handsome mouth hardened on that admission of self-blame. He wasn’t accustomed to finding himself in the wrong. But he had criticized her behavior as his wife without once accepting her right to be treated as though she was his wife.
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A sense of humiliation stormed through her anger and brought hot tears to her eyes.“That’s what I mean about you, Diego… You’re impossible! You are Mexican and you’re correcting my English!”“Jackie, it was thoughtless,” he acknowledged.“No, Diego, it wasn’t. You think about everything, you always know exactly what you’re doing…”“I didn’t know exactly what I was doing when I married you. I didn’t look for the bigger picture. I must’ve been insane. I was certainly guilty of poor judgment,” Diego countered grimly. “I didn’t even foresee the complications that would come out from the consummation of our marriage. But from that night, our wedding night, preciosa, my desire for freedom disappeared.” A poundi
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