CHAPTER 18

          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.