Читать книгу One Night Of Consequences Collection - Ким Лоренс, Annie West - Страница 65
ОглавлениеI’M NOT GOING to lie. A private jet makes travel easier. Especially with a baby. We had a quick flight from London to Madrid. No standing in lines, no fighting for overhead space. And I felt much better than I had on the last flight. I was well slept, showered. My hair was brushed until it tumbled over my shoulders. I’d even put on a little mascara. Arriving in Madrid in my new soft pink blouse and form-fitting jeans, I felt almost pretty.
“Where’s your diamond handbag?” Alejandro teased as we left the jet, going down the steps to the tarmac of the private airport, followed by his men carrying our luggage. “Don’t you like it?”
I bit my lip. “Well...”
He put his hand on his heart, as if it had been stabbed with grief. “You don’t!”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’ll still use it. I was needing a new diaper bag.”
He gave a low laugh, then sobered, his dark eyes resting on mine as he said softly, “I’ll have to see if I can find some other gift to please you more.”
I shivered at his glance, then looked out the window of the SUV. He’s not trying to seduce me, I repeated silently to myself. He’s not. He’s just trying to lure me into a loveless marriage of convenience—don’t fall for it, don’t...
Madrid was beautiful, an elegant, formal city with its nineteenth-century architecture, spreading regally across the banks of the Manzanares River. All the gray clouds of San Miguel and London seemed a million miles away. Here, the August sky was bright blue, and the Spanish sun burning hot.
Alejandro’s driver took us to his penthouse apartment near the Prado, the bodyguards and luggage following in the car behind. We arrived at the flat, which took the entire top floor, and were answered at the door by a middle-aged woman who seemed far too young to be his grandmother. He quickly introduced her as his longtime housekeeper, the only paid staff at the penthouse, Mrs. Gutierrez, who lived on a floor below.
Alejandro walked us around the enormous apartment, with its stark contemporary furnishings and enormous windows overlooking the city. “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” I said slowly, “but so cold. You can hardly tell anyone lives here.” Shivering, I cuddled my warm baby close. “You must not stay here much.”
He blinked. “More blunt honesty.”
“Was I rude?”
“I can take it.” He shifted his weight, then clawed back his thick, dark hair. I wondered what it would feel like to... No! I stopped the thought cold. Oblivious of my inner struggle, he continued with a sigh, “My company is headquartered here. I am in Madrid all the time.”
“Oh,” I said, looking at all the sharp edges of the furniture, all the glass and chrome. “Um. Well. It’s very—masculine.”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Perhaps it needs a woman’s touch.”
In my current frame of mind, I wondered if he was talking about more than his apartment. My cheeks went hot and I cleared my throat. “I’m surprised your grandmother isn’t here. She sounded so keen to meet her great-grandson.”
“You’ll meet her tomorrow. I have an event tonight in Madrid, and Abuela doesn’t like to leave her roses, or all the people who count on her at the castle.”
“The castle?”
“Rohares, near Seville. Where the Dukes of Alzacar have lived for four hundred years.”
“Cold and drafty,” I sighed.
“Exactamente.” He gave me a sideways glance, seeming to hide a smile. “I can hardly wait for you to see it.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “How many rooms?”
“I lose count,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking. But at least such a large building would create more space between us. Even this large penthouse felt too...close, when we were together. Every glance, every word, made me more attracted. It was dangerous.
As soon as his grandmother met the baby, I told myself firmly, I’d be out of this country and away from Alejandro. We’d come to some agreement over custody. Preferably one that involved Miguel living with me in Mexico.
Although it would be a shame to separate my son from a father who loved him, just because I was afraid of being hurt....
I pushed the thought away. “You said something about an event tonight?”
“A celebration—a ball, really. Hosted by my company. Starts in—” he glanced at his platinum watch and said calmly “—twenty minutes.”
Thank heavens! I wouldn’t have to spend the evening with him, trying desperately not to feel tempted! With real relief, I said, “Go and have a good time. We’ll be fine. I’ll tuck Miguel into bed and maybe read a book until...”
But he was already shaking his head. “Leave you alone with our son, giving you the opportunity to run away again? No.”
“Why do you think I’d run away?”
“Why would I think you wouldn’t?”
“You could post your bodyguards at the door,” I suggested.
“You’d charm them and escape.”
He thought I was charming? For an instant I felt flattered. Then I folded my arms. “You could just decide to trust me.”
“I will trust you.” He tilted his head, looking down at me with amusement. “As soon as you marry me.”
“Never going to happen, and believe me, after this momentary madness—or whatever it is—passes, you’ll thank me.”
“Fine,” he sighed, plunking down on the soft sofa in front of a wide-screen TV and a window with a view of the city. He reached for the remote control. “Shall we see if there are any good movies on tonight? Maybe order takeaway?”
I stared at him, my lips parted. “You can’t miss your own party.”
He shrugged. “Yes. It’s a pity. Especially since it was to celebrate my company’s upcoming IPO on the stock exchange. But I can miss it to watch a TV movie with you. No problem.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t miss something like that. You’re the host! If you don’t even bother showing up, what do you think it will do to your stock price?”
“It’s fine. Really.” He shrugged. “I don’t have a date to the ball anyway.”
“You honestly expect me to believe you don’t have a date—you?”
“You have to admit it’s kind of your fault.”
Now we were getting down to it.
“How is it my fault?” I said suspiciously.
Tilting his head, he looked at me from the sofa. “I did have a date for tonight.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “A beautiful Swedish swimsuit model, in fact. But when I called her yesterday and explained I wouldn’t be picking her up in my jet because I’d just discovered a former mistress had my baby and I had to spend the day buying you presents instead of flying to Stockholm to collect her, well—for some reason, Elsa wasn’t interested in flying coach to Madrid to be my date tonight.”
I hid a laugh, tried to look mad. “Too bad for you. But it’s really not my problem.”
He nodded sagely. “You’re scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of spending time with me. You’re scared you’ll be overwhelmed with desire and say yes to everything, and wake up tomorrow morning, in my bed, with a ring on your finger.”
In his bed? My mouth went dry.
“It’s all right. I understand.” He fluttered his dark eyelashes outrageously. “You don’t trust yourself, because you want me so badly.”
It was so true. “That’s so not true!”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Then you’ll be my date?”
I thought about the type of people I’d be likely to meet at his party. A bunch of wealthy, beautiful, mean people. Just like Claudie. “No, thanks.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“The baby will wake up at midnight for a feeding...” I said weakly.
“I’ll have you back by midnight. Via pumpkin coach if necessary.”
“There’s no one I can trust as his babysitter!”
“Mrs. Gutierrez raised four children, and has ten grandchildren. She’s very trustworthy and experienced, and she’s agreed to stay.”
“You thought of everything,” I grumbled.
“So say yes.”
“I won’t fit in with your friends, okay?”
“Always so afraid,” he sighed. “Of me. Of them. Of your own shadow.”
He was clearly taunting me, but I couldn’t help but bristle. “Even if I wanted to go with you, it’s too late. Your party starts in twenty minutes, and unless you bought a ball gown in London yesterday without me noticing, I have nothing to wear!”
Alejandro smiled. “Did I ever show you our bedroom?”
I shook my head with a scowl. “It’s either yours or mine. Not ours.”
“That’s what I meant,” he said innocently. Walking ahead in the hallway, he pushed open a door.
The bedroom was enormous, with an amazing view of Madrid, but sparsely furnished, with only an expensive, masculine bed. And, incongruously, a crib beside it.
But when I looked closer at the bed, I saw a flash of pink. Coming closer, I gasped when I saw a pale pink gown, a delicious confection of flowers and silk, spread across his plain white bedspread. I picked it up with one hand, then dropped it when I saw the tag peeking at me. Oscar de la Renta.
A pumpkin coach, indeed! I whirled to face him. “You bought this yesterday. You always intended to bring me as your date tonight,” I accused.
His lips were curved in a sensual smile, then his hands went up in mock surrender. “I admit it.” Then he put down his hands, and his expression changed. His dark eyes became intent. Sensual. “I always get what I want,” he said softly, searching my gaze. “And I don’t give up. When something is difficult to possess, that only makes me want it more.”
For a long heartbeat, we stared at each other in his bedroom.
Then I tossed my head, hoping he couldn’t see how my body was trembling. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ll come with you tonight, since it means so much to you. I’ll do it for Miguel’s sake, so your friends will know he wasn’t just the result of some cheap one-night stand. But that’s it.”
His dark eyes burned into mine. “A cheap one-night stand? That is the last thing you were to me. You should know that by now.”
A shiver went down my spine and through my soul. I straightened, locking my knees, and I handed him the baby. “I’ll get dressed as quickly as I can.”
Thirty minutes later, Alejandro helped me out of the limo, holding my hand as we walked up a red carpet, past the flashbulbs of the paparazzi.
“I thought your company was a metals and real estate conglomerate,” I murmured beneath all of the attention.
“It is,” he said innocently, “among other things. We recently bought a movie studio. Look.” I followed his gaze to see a beautiful movie star whom I’d admired for years just ahead of us in a tight sequined gown. “That’s the reason for the paparazzi.”
“She is beautiful,” I said.
He looked down at me. “You’re more beautiful than her on your worst day. Even when you are wearing a dress like a sack and barely brush your hair.”
I snorted, expecting mockery. “You are so full of—”
Then I saw his expression, the frank hunger in his eyes as he looked at me, and my mouth went dry.
“Come on,” he said roughly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can go home.”
I licked my lips, tasting lipstick, which was foreign to me. But in this pale pink ball gown, I didn’t feel like myself at all. I might as well have been wearing glass slippers....
Alejandro led me into a large ballroom, filled with people dancing and drinking champagne beneath enormous crystal chandeliers high overhead. I watched as, ten minutes after we arrived, he went to the elevated dais and made a short speech into a microphone, congratulating the staff of his company, and thanking all their investors and friends, which was met by a roar of applause. When he left the microphone, he returned to my side.
“Now the work is done,” he whispered, nuzzling my ear. “Let’s have some fun.”
He took me out on the dance floor, and I trembled, remembering the last time he’d held me in his arms on a dance floor, the way he’d slowly seduced me, until I surrendered in my first kiss. Now, I felt his arms around me, and I shuddered from deep within, feeling his warmth and strength beneath the tuxedo, breathing in his cologne and the scent that was uniquely him. When the music ended after the first dance, I pulled away.
“I—I need some champagne,” I said unsteadily.
“Of course,” he said huskily, his dark eyes intent, as if he saw through me, every inch and pore, down to my heart and soul.
For the rest of the night, Alejandro was the perfect gentleman, solicitous, getting me champagne, even cheerfully introducing me to the acquaintances who quickly surrounded us.
One of his friends, a German tycoon of some kind, looked me over appreciatively. “Where did you keep this beautiful creature hidden, Your Excellency?”
“Yes, you should have introduced us,” a handsome Japanese millionaire said.
“You sure you want this guy, Miss Carlisle?” An actor I recognized from a big summer movie, where he’d gotten revenge against aliens who blew up Paris, gave me a big shiny grin. “You haven’t given the rest of us a chance yet.”
I blushed. The whole night seemed unreal, as if I were playing a part, with my hair pulled back into a high ballerina bun, wearing the petal-pink ball gown with tiny flowers embroidered over it. Remembering the part I was to play, I glanced at Alejandro. “Sorry. I only want Alejandro.”
His relief was palpable. He smiled back at me.
“Awww, so sweet,” the movie star said, somewhat ironically. “Well. Whenever the romance is over, feel free to...”
“It’s not a romance,” a man said behind us. “It’s extortion.”
Turning, I sucked in my breath. A man stood behind us, dressed exactly like the others, in a sharp black tuxedo. The man I’d been so desperate to see—and yet, oddly, he seemed out of place here. Handsome. But malevolent.
“Edward,” I breathed. “I thought you were in Tokyo—”
His eyes softened. “My staff called me. I was glad to hear you’d gone to London to see me. But not so glad to hear who was with you.” He glared at Alejandro, his jaw tight, even as he continued to speak to me. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right,” I said, suddenly nervous.
The two men were glaring at each other, both of them straining the size of the ballroom between their shoulders and masculine pride. I had a sudden dismaying flash of two predators, growling over the same female—or the same prey.
Alejandro’s eyes narrowed, but with a swift glance at me, he politely put out his hand. “Edward St. Cyr. I know you by reputation, of course.”
The words were courteous and cool. Edward took them as the insult they were no doubt intended. Without taking the offered hand, he bared his teeth in a smile. “How gracious of you to say so. I know of you not just from reputation, but also from more...personal sources.” He looked down dismissively at Alejandro’s hand. “It does seem a little...tacky?...that after dragging Lena to Europe, you’d force her to pose as your date.”
“I didn’t force her.”
“Of course you did,” he said roughly. “What is it, some feeble attempt to project stability for the benefit of future shareholders? Or—no, don’t tell me—some attempt to make her love you again?” Smiling his shark’s smile, Edward held up his glass of champagne in salute. “You’d think destroying her once would be enough for you. But if anyone would be selfish enough to try for twice, it’s you, Navaro.”
No respectful Your Excellency. Just Alejandro’s surname, tossed out with scorn. The entire group, including me, stared wide-eyed as Edward drank down the entire contents of his champagne glass. We looked at Alejandro.
He had dropped his hand, his eyelids now narrowed to slits. “Whatever you might have heard about me, it was a mistake.” He glanced at me. “Lena now knows the truth.”
Edward lifted an eyebrow. “Convinced her of that, have you?”
“What are you even doing here?” Alejandro’s face hardened. “I don’t recall sending you an invitation.”
Setting his empty glass down on a nearby tray, Edward looked over the ballroom with a small smile. “I have plenty of friends. One was happy to bring me along.”
“Who?”
“The Bulgarian ambassador.” Edward turned back with lifted eyebrows and said mildly, “Surely you’re not going to throw us out and risk an international incident?”
Alejandro looked at a gray-haired, distinguished-looking man across the ballroom, who appeared deep in conversation with someone I recognized from newspaper photos, who’d recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. He turned back with gritted teeth. “What do you want, St. Cyr?”
“I want Lena, since she’s asked for me,” he said softly. He turned to me, holding out his arm. “Shall we go, love?”
I heard a low, almost barbaric growl, and suddenly Alejandro was in front of me, blocking me from Edward’s outstretched arm.
“So it’s like that, is it?” Edward said. “She’s your prisoner?”
“She’s here with me of her own free will.”
“Free will.” Edward’s lips pulled back, revealing white, sharp teeth. “Meaning you probably blackmailed her over that baby. You have no real claim on her.”
“I have every claim.”
“Because she had your child?” He snorted, jerking his chin. “Keep it,” he said derisively. “If I’m the man she wants, I will give her more.”
I gasped aloud at his cold reference to Miguel. It?
Edward couldn’t have referred to my precious baby as “it.” He couldn’t have implied that he could get me pregnant and replace Miguel in my arms, in my life, as easily as someone might replace a new shoe.
Could he?
The black slash of Alejandro’s eyebrows lowered. Every line of his hard-muscled body was taut, as if he were barely holding back from attack. He reminded me of a lion, or a wolf, coiled to spring, with only a thin veneer of civilized reason holding him in check—but not for much longer.
The two of them were about to start a brawl. Right here, in this elegant gilded ballroom, surrounded by the glitterati of Spain and all the world. The crowd around us was already growing, and so were the whispers. I wished I’d never started this by trying to contact Edward. Desperately, I yanked on his sleeve. “Please. Don’t...”
Edward looked down at me condescendingly. “It’s all right, Lena. I’m here now. I won’t let him bully you.” His eyes were hard, and his broad shoulders were square, like a rugby player’s. And the condescending smile he gave me, after the cold, contemptuous stare he’d just given Alejandro, made me wish he was a million miles away. “You’re safe. I’ll take over.”
“Take over?” I repeated incredulously.
Just yesterday, I’d wished so ardently for Edward’s help. I’d remembered only that a year ago, when I’d needed to escape London, when I’d felt desperate and terrified and alone, I’d been grateful for his strength. But now...
I’d forgotten what Edward was really like.
Forgotten the times he’d visited his house in Mexico after Miguel was born, when he’d seemed irritated by Miguel’s cries when my son’s tummy hurt or he was unable to sleep. Edward had made several dark hints about adoption, or sending the baby back to Claudie and Alejandro. I’d thought Edward’s jokes were in poor taste, but I’d let it go, because I owed him so much.
But now—
Edward was no longer even looking at me. He was smiling at Alejandro, utterly confident—like a dog who couldn’t wait to test out his slashing claws and snarling teeth, to prove who was the stronger, meaner dog, in the pretext for a brawl of fighting over a bone—me.
Alejandro’s dark eyes met mine. For a moment, they held. Something changed in his expression. He seemed to relax slightly. He drew himself up, looking almost amused.
“Yes, Lena is the mother of my child,” he drawled. “And because of that I have a claim on her that you never will. But that’s not the only claim. I have one deeper even than that.” He glanced at me. “We intended to keep it private for a few days more, as a family matter, but we might as well let everyone know, shall we not, querida?”
“Um, yes?” I said, as mystified as everyone else.
Still smiling that pleasant smile, Alejandro turned and grabbed a crystal flute and solid silver knife off a waiter’s passing tray. For a moment I froze in fear. Even with a butter knife—heck, even with his bare hands—I knew Alejandro could be dangerous. Boxing and mixed martial arts were hobbies in his downtime, the way he kept in shape and worked out the tension from a hard day making billion-dollar deals.
I exhaled when he didn’t turn back to attack Edward. In fact, he rather insultingly turned his back on him, striding through the ballroom, to the dais, as the crowds parted like magic. He climbed the steps to the same microphone where he’d given the speech before. Most of the guests, seeing him, immediately fell silent. A few continued to whisper amongst themselves, staring between him and Edward—and me.
Alejandro chimed his knife against the crystal flute, so hard and loud that I feared the delicate glass might break in his hand. The entire ballroom fell so quiet that I could hear my own breath.
“I know this is a business gathering,” he said, “but I must beg your indulgence for a moment. I am, after all, amongst friends....” His eyes abruptly focused on me across the crowd. “I have some happy news to announce. My engagement.”
No. My face turned red and my body itched in an attack of nervous fear beneath my pale pink ball gown as a thousand people turned to stare at me. The whispering increased, building like the roll of distant thunder.
“Many of you probably wondered if I’d ever get married.” Alejandro rubbed the back of his dark hair then looked up with a smile that was equal parts charming and sheepish. “I confess I wondered that myself.” His low, sexy voice reverberated across the gilded ballroom. “But sometimes fate chooses better for us than we could ever have chosen for ourselves.”
No, no, no, I pleaded desperately with my eyes.
He smiled.
He lifted his champagne flute toward me. “A toast. To Miss Lena Carlisle. The most beautiful woman on earth, and the mother of my baby son...”
The whispers exploded to a sharp roar.
“...to the future Duchess of Alzacar!”
There were gasps across the crowd, the largest of which was probably mine. But Alejandro continued to hold up his flute, so everyone else did, too. He drank deeply, and a thousand guests drank, too. Toasting to our engagement.
Only two people continued to stare at him blankly.
Edward.
And me.
My body trembled. All I wanted to do was turn and flee through the crowd, to disappear, to never come back. To be free of him—the man who’d once destroyed me. Who could, if he tried, so easily do it again—and more, since now our child could be used against me.
But that child also meant, in a very real way, that I was bound to Alejandro for the rest of my life. We both loved Miguel. We both wished to raise him.
Which meant, no matter how fiercely I wished otherwise, and no matter how I’d tried to deny it, I would never be truly free of Alejandro—ever.
Cheers, some supportive, some envious and some by bewildered drunken people who’d missed what all the fuss was about but were happy to cheer anyway, rang across the ballroom, along with a smattering of applause. Alejandro left the dais, where he was stopped by crowds of well-wishers, including the glamorous movie star I’d recognized and two heads of state.
Behind me, Edward seethed with disappointment and fury, “He doesn’t own you.”
“You’re wrong,” I whispered. I turned to Edward with tears in my eyes. “He owned me from the moment I became pregnant with his baby.”
Edward’s face went wild.
“No,” he breathed. He started to reach toward my face, then he stiffened as he became aware of all the people watching us, the strangers starting to hover, no doubt awaiting their chance to congratulate me on snagging a billionaire duke into illustrious matrimony. Gorgeous, beautiful women in designer clothes, thin and glossy like Claudie, were already staring at me incredulously, clearly in shock that someone like me could possibly have captured the heart of a man like Alejandro.
The answer was simple. I hadn’t.
This was my future. Everything I thought I’d left behind me in London, all the pity and dismissive insults. Except it would be even worse. Being described as a poor relation was practically a compliment, compared with the epithet that strangers would soon use to describe me: gold digger.
It would have been different if Alejandro and I had actually loved each other. Thinking of it, my heart ached. If he’d loved me, and I’d loved him, I wouldn’t have given two hoots what anyone else thought. But as it was...
“You agreed to marry him?” Edward said incredulously.
“Not exactly.” Swallowing over the ache in my throat, I breathed, “It doesn’t matter. Now he has proof he’s Miguel’s father, he’ll never let him go. And I will never leave my son. So we might as well be married....”
“Like hell.”
Edward grabbed my arm, his eyes like fire. Without warning, he pulled me through the crowd. I had one single image of Alejandro’s shocked face across the ballroom, watching us, before I was out the side door and down the hall, pushed into a dark, quiet corner of the empty coatroom.
Edward turned to me, his face contorted by shadows.
“Run away with me,” he said urgently.
I drew back in shock. “What?”
“Navaro has no hold on you.”
“He’s Miguel’s father!”
“Share custody of the kid if you must,” he said through gritted teeth. His hand gripped my forearm. “But don’t throw yourself away on a man who will never deserve you.”
“What are you saying?” I tried to pull away my arm, but his grip was tight.
“He terrified you for a year—got you pregnant just to steal your baby—”
“I was wrong—he didn’t! It was all Claudie! She’s the one who said it, and I believed her.”
“So he’s innocent? No way,” he said grimly. “But even if he is—even if he didn’t do that one awful thing, what about the rest?”
“What do you mean?”
“He made you love him, then he abandoned you. Don’t you remember how gray your face was for months afterward? How your eyes were hollow and you barely spoke? I do.”
I swallowed. “I...”
“Where was he when you wanted to give him everything? When you tried to tell him you were pregnant? He changed his phone number. How can you marry him now? How can you forget?”
I flashed hot, then cold. Yes. I remembered.
“And after all that, he gets you back?” Edward pulled me closer, looking down at me in the shadowy cloakroom with a strange light in his eyes. “No. I was there for you. I took care of you. I’m the one who—”
“Get your hands off my woman.”
The low voice was ice-cold behind us. With a gasp that must have sounded guilty, I whirled to face him. “Alejandro!”
His eyes were dark with fury as he looked at me. “So this is why you were so reluctant to marry me?”
“No, you—”
“Be silent!”
I winced.
“Don’t talk to her that way,” Edward said.
Alejandro didn’t look away from me. He held his body in a dangerous stillness as he ground out, “You have nothing to do with us, St. Cyr.”
Either Edward didn’t see the warning, or he didn’t care. “Don’t I? Who do you think was supporting her this past year? Who held her together after you blew her apart?” Coming closer to Alejandro, he said softly, with a malicious look in his eyes, “Who was at Lena’s side at the hospital, when she gave birth to your child? Where were you then, Navaro?”
Alejandro slowly turned to look at him. I saw the hard set of his shoulders, the rapid rise and fall of his breath. I saw his hands tighten at his sides, and knew Edward was about to lose half of his face.
“Stop!” I cried, stepping between them in real fear. “Stop this at once!” I pressed on Edward’s chest. “Just go.”
He lifted his eyebrows in shock. “You can’t honestly choose him over me?”
“Go. And don’t come back.” I glanced back at Alejandro and knew only the fact that I stood between them kept him from attack. I took a deep breath. “Thank you for everything you did for me, Edward. I’ll never forget how you helped me.” My jaw hardened. “But it’s over.”
Edward’s face contorted. “You’re throwing yourself away on him? Just because of some stupid baby?”
My sympathy disintegrated.
“That stupid baby is my son.”
“Dammit, you know I didn’t mean...”
But my heart had iced over. Releasing him, I stepped back, closer to Alejandro. “Yes, I choose him. Over you.”
“You heard her,” Alejandro said roughly. “You have thirty seconds to be out of my building, before security throws you out.”
“Sending in your goons, eh?” he sneered. “Can’t be bothered to do it yourself?”
“Happy to,” Alejandro said grimly, pushing up the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket as he took a step forward, fists raised.
“No!” I grabbed his arm. My hand couldn’t even fully wrap around the full extent of the hard, huge biceps beneath his tuxedo. “Please, Alejandro,” I whispered. “Don’t hurt him. He was good to me, when I had no one else. I never would have survived without him. Neither would Miguel. Please. For my sake.”
Jaw taut, Alejandro slowly lowered his fist. “For your sake.” His voice was low and cold as he turned to Edward. “Thank you. For protecting what I love.”
Love? For a moment I stared at Alejandro, then I realized he was speaking of Miguel.
Edward glared at him. Obviously not realizing he’d just narrowly escaped death, he sneered, “Go to hell.” At the door, he turned back and said, “I’ll be back for you, Lena.”
Then he was gone. And Alejandro and I were suddenly alone in the cloakroom. But my relief was short-lived.
“No wonder he loaned you his house,” he said. “No wonder he protected you. He sees you as his. Why does he believe that?”
I whirled to face him. The cold fury in his eyes was like a wave. But there was something else there, too. Hurt.
“He tried to kiss me last week,” I admitted in a low voice, then shook my head. “But I just gave a shocked laugh and he left. Whatever he might have hoped, all he ever was to me was a friend—”
“Friend,” he said scornfully. “You knew what he wanted.”
I shook my head fiercely. “Not until last week, I never—”
“Then you were willfully blind. He’s in love with you.”
“You’re wrong there.” Shivering, I crossed my bare arms over my pink strapless ball gown. “If he’d really loved me, he would have loved Miguel, too. But he was always getting annoyed about him. Suggesting things...like I should send him away, farm him out for adoption...”
Alejandro’s eyes darkened. “And you were willing to call him a friend? To let him near our son?”
I wanted to lash back at him. To tell him he was being unreasonable, or that I hadn’t had a choice. Instead, I said the only thing that mattered. The only thing that was true.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice. “I was wrong.”
He’d been opening his mouth to say more, no doubt cutting, angry accusations. But my humble, simple words cut him off at the knees. For a long moment, he stared at me in the shadowy cloakroom. Down the hall, we could distantly hear music playing, people laughing. Then he turned away, clawing back his dark hair.
“Bien. I wasn’t exactly perfect, either,” he muttered. Lifting his head, he glared at me. “But you’re never to see him again. Or let him near Miguel.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine?”
“He stopped being my friend the moment he called my baby ‘it.’”
“So,” he said with a casual tone that belied the tension in his shoulders, “did you let him kiss you?”
I gaped at him. “Oh—for heaven’s sake!” I stomped my foot against the plush carpet. “I’m not going to say it again!”
“I found the two of you here, talking...”
“And I just saw you talking to an actress in the ballroom. I didn’t accuse you of making out! He made a pass at me last week. I refused. End of story.”
“Once we are married...”
My cheeks went hot. “Married!” I stared at him, shocked. “Who said anything about marriage?”
Now Alejandro was the one to look shocked.
“I just asked you to marry me!”
“Asked?” My voice was acid. “When you asked, I said no. Tonight, you just announced it! In front of everyone! You may have asked—I never said yes!”
“We are going to be wed. Accept it.”
“I will accept an engagement,” I retorted. “I will accept that we need to live in the same town, perhaps even the same house, for our son. A public front, a pretense for Miguel’s sake, to make it appear we are actually a couple—that he wasn’t just some mistake! But nothing more. There’s no way I’m actually going to marry you. Do you think I would ever give you my body again? Or my heart?”
“I told you,” he ground out. “I’m not asking for your heart.”
“Then you can forget anything else—I won’t give you my body, or take your name! I owe you respect as Miguel’s father, but that’s it,” I said through gritted teeth. “Whatever you might believe, you don’t own me, any more than Edward did!”
“I’m not Edward. I’m the father of your child.” He grabbed my wrist, looking down at me. “I’m the man you will wed. I don’t need your heart. But your body, at least, will be mine.”
“No!” But even as I gasped with fury, heat flashed from his possessive grip on my wrist. Electricity crackled up my arm, to my throat, to my lips, to my breasts, down, down, down to my core. Pushing me back roughly against the coats, he looked down at me in the shadows.
“Did you really think,” he said softly, “once I found you, I would ever let you go? I gave you up once for the sake of a promise. I gave you up to do the right thing. But fate has thrown you back into my arms. Now you will be entirely mine—”
Lowering his head, Alejandro kissed me fiercely, his lips hot and hard against mine, plundering, demanding. I tried to resist. I couldn’t let myself feel—I couldn’t—
Then I melted as the banked embers inside me, beneath the cold ash of the past lonely year, roared to a blazing fire. My body shuddered beneath his ruthless, almost violent embrace, and I wrapped my arms tightly around him, holding him to me, lost in the sweet forbidden ecstasy of surrender.
