by Jennie Lucas
But I was starting to get my revenge. His lips were now set in an annoyed line as he kept his eyes on the road, pressing on the gas of his very expensive, very fast sedan. “We are husband and wife now, Lena. You must accept that.”
“Oh, I do,” I assured him. “But we’re a husband and wife who happen to hate each other. So perhaps just not talking is best.”
Alejandro exhaled in irritation, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. I turned away, staring out wistfully at the scenery of Spain flying past us. In any other circumstance I would have been in awe at the magnificent view. The farmland and soft hills of central Spain were turning to a drier landscape. Lovely thick bushes of pink and white oleander flowers separated the highway, a vivid, wild, unexpected beauty, much like Spain itself.
Oleander. I shivered a little. So beautiful to the eyes. But so poisonous to the heart.
Just like Alejandro, I thought. I wouldn’t let him in. Husband or not, I’d never let him close to me. In any way.
We’d stopped only once since we left Madrid, to feed and change the baby, and to put gas in both cars. Alejandro offered to take a small detour and stop for lunch in Córdoba, to show me the famous cathedral that had once been a Great Mosque. But I’d refused. I didn’t want him doing me any favors. Though later I regretted it, because I heard a lot about the famous Mezquita.
As the car flew south, turning on a new road, I blinked in the bright sun flooding the windows. After weeks of rain in San Miguel, and London’s drizzle and overcast skies, the Spanish sun had come as advertised, with a wide blue horizon that held not a single cloud. The arid landscape suddenly reminded me of Mexico. Which reminded me of the freedom and independence I’d had so briefly.
And Edward.
I’ll be back for you, Lena.
“Stop it,” Alejandro growled.
I nearly jumped in the smooth leather seat. “What?”
“I can hear you. Thinking about him.”
“You can hear me thinking?”
“Stop,” he said quietly, giving me a hard sideways glance. “Or I will make you stop.”
“Make me—” I snorted derisively, then I looked at him, remembering his last ruthless kiss in the cloakroom. And the one before it, which had been even more dangerous. I remembered how it had felt, surrendering to his embrace, how it had made my whole body tremble with need.
“You’re such a jerk,” I muttered, folding my arms mutinously. “My thoughts are my own.”
“Not if they are of a man like St. Cyr. Thoughts lead to actions.”
“I told you, I don’t even like him anymore!”
He snorted. “And that is supposed to inspire trust? You’ve made it plain you did not wish to marry me. Perhaps you’re wishing now you took the other choice.”
I looked at him. “What other choice?”
“A war between us,” he said grimly. He was staring forward at the road, his jaw tight. “St. Cyr would be eager to help you with that.”
My arms unfolded. “No.” I frowned. “I don’t want war. I’d never deliberately hurt you, Alejandro. Not now.”
“Really,” he said in clear disbelief.
“Hurting you would hurt Miguel.” I looked out the window and said softly, “We both love him. I realized the truth last night, even before your marriage ultimatum—neither of us wants to be apart from him.” Blinking fast, I faced him. “You’re right. We’re married now. So let’s make the best of it.”
“Do you mean it?” he said evenly. I nodded.
“Let’s make sure Miguel has a wonderful childhood and a real home, where he’ll always feel safe and warm and loved.”
His hands seemed to relax a little around the steering wheel. He looked at me. There was something strange in his eyes, something almost like—yearning—that made my heart twist.
“If it’s really true you’d never deliberately hurt me...” He seemed to be speaking to himself. “I wish I could...”
“What?”
He shook his head, and his jaw went hard. “Nothing.”
What had he been about to say? I looked down, blinking as my eyes burned. Telling myself I shouldn’t care. Willing myself not to care.
My lie is about something else.
What?
I remembered the stark look in his eyes. Me. Only me.
Stop it, I told my heart fiercely. Don’t get sucked in! Keep your distance!
Silently, Alejandro stared forward at the road. For long minutes, the only sound was Miguel cooing to himself in the backseat, chortling triumphantly as he grasped a soft toy hanging from the top of his baby seat, and making it squeak. I smiled back at my son. He was the reason. The only reason.
“I’m glad you feel that way. The truth is I don’t want to hurt you, either.” Alejandro tightened his hands on the steering wheel. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Our son is what matters. We’ll focus on him. I’ll never leave you or Miguel. Together we’ll make sure our son is always well cared for.”
Our eyes locked, and an ache lifted to my throat. Turning away, I tried to block the emotion out with a laugh. “Miguel will be a duke someday. That’s crazy, isn’t it?”
Alejandro turned his eyes back to the road.
“Sí,” he said grimly. “Crazy.”
I’d been trying to lighten the mood. But his voice sounded darker than ever. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. You are correct. Miguel will be Duque de Alzacar.” I frowned. But before I could figure out what lay behind the odd tension in his voice, he turned to me. “So you forgive me for forcing you to marry me against your will?”
I exhaled.
“It’s a very complicated question.”
“No. It is not.”
Something broke inside me. And words came pouring out.
“You think I was silly and selfish to want to marry for love. But for the past ten years, that dream was all I’ve held on to.” I looked at my hands in my lap. “Ever since I was fourteen years old, I’ve felt so alone. So unwanted. But then, last year, when I met you...” I lifted agonized eyes to his. “All my dreams seemed to be coming true. It was as if...I’d gone back in time. To the world I once knew. The one filled with love. The world where I was good enough. Wanted. Even cherished.”
Alejandro’s expression darkened. “Lena...”
“Then you abandoned me,” I whispered. “You told me you didn’t love me, that you never would.” I looked at him. “But I still married you yesterday, Alejandro, knowing that. Knowing you’ve lied to me in the past and will lie in the future. I married you knowing that the loneliness I tried to leave behind me in London will now follow me for the rest of my life. Only now, instead of being a poor relation, I’m the gold digger who got pregnant to ensnare a rich duke. And everyone will say, weren’t you so good and noble to marry me? Wasn’t it an amazing sacrifice for you to make me your wife? How generous of you! How kind!”
He glowered. “No one will say that.”
I cut him off with a low laugh. “Everyone will. And I know there will be days when I’ll feel that marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.” I drew a deep, shuddering breath, then met his gaze. “And yet I can’t regret it,” I whispered. “Because it will make Miguel’s life better to have you in his life. Every single day. He will know you. Really know you.”
“I wish he could.” Alejandro stared at me. His dark eyes were liquid and deep. “I wish I could tell you...”
I held my breath. “Yes?”
His face suddenly turned cold, like a statue. He looked away. “Forget it.”
I exhaled, wishing I hadn’t said so much.
He drove the car off the main road, then took a smaller one, then turned on a private lane that was smaller still, nothing but a ribbon twisting across the broad-swept lands. Aleja
ndro stopped briefly at a tall iron gate, then entered a code into the electronic keypad. We proceeded inside the estate, which looked so endless and wide, I wondered how anyone had wrapped a fence around it, and if the fence was visible from space, like the Great Wall of China.
Then I saw the castle, high on a distant hill, and I sucked in my breath. It was like a fairy-tale castle, rising with ramparts of stone and turrets stretching into the sky.
“Is that...?” I breathed.
“Sí,” Alejandro said quietly. “My home. The Castillo de Rohares. The home of the Dukes of Alzacar for four hundred years.”
It took another fifteen minutes to climb the hill, past the groves of olive trees and orange trees. When we reached the castle at last, past the ramparts into a courtyard surrounding a stone fountain, he stopped the car at the grand entrance on the circular driveway. He turned off the engine, and I could hear the bodyguards climbing out of the SUV behind us, talking noisily about lunch, slamming doors. But as I started to turn for the passenger-side door, Alejandro grabbed my wrist. I turned to face him, and he dropped my arm.
“I am sorry I hurt you, Lena. When I left you last summer, when I refused to return any of your phone calls—I did that for good reason. At least—” his jaw tightened “—it seemed like good reason.”
“No, I get it,” I said. “You didn’t want me to love you.”
“No. That’s not it at all.” He lifted his dark eyes to mine. “I didn’t leave because you loved me. I left because I was falling in love with you.”
CHAPTER SIX
I STARED AT him in shock.
“What?” I breathed.
A hard knock banged against the car window behind me, making me jump. Turning my head, I saw a plump smiling woman, standing on the driveway outside, dressed in an apron and holding a spoon. She waved at us merrily. I saw the bodyguards greeting her with obvious affection as they went into the grand stone entrance of the castle.
“Another housekeeper?” I said faintly.
“My grandmother,” he said.
“Your—” I whirled to face him, but he had already opened his door and was getting out of the car, gently lifting Miguel out of his baby seat. Nervously, I got out of the car, too, wondering what the dowager Duchess of Alzacar would make of me.
“Come in, come in,” she said to the bodyguards, shooing them inside. She kept switching from English to Spanish as if she couldn’t quite make up her mind. “Knowing Alejandro, I’m sure you didn’t stop for any lunch, so everything is ready if you’ll just go straight to the banqueting hall...”
“Abuela,” Alejandro said, smiling, “I’d like you to meet my son. His name is Miguel.”
“Miguel?” she gasped, looking from him to Alejandro.
He blinked with a slight frown, shaking his head. “And this is my new wife. Lena.”
“I’m so happy to meet you.” Smoothing one hand over her apron, she turned to me with a warm smile, lifting the wooden spoon high, like a benign domestic fairy about to grant a really good wish. “And your sweet baby! I can hardly wait to...” Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Your new what?”
Coming over to me, Alejandro put his free arm around my shoulders. “My wife.”
She lowered her spoon and looked me over, from my long hair to my soft white blouse with the Peter Pan collar, to my slim-cut jeans and ballet flats. I braced myself for criticism.
Instead, she beamed at me, spreading her arms wide.
“Oh, my dear,” she cried, “welcome to the family. Welcome to your new home!”
And she threw her arms around me in a big, fierce, welcoming hug.
Shocked, I stiffened. Then I patted her awkwardly on the back.
“But I’m being silly,” she said, drawing back, wiping her eyes with her brightly colored apron. “My name is Maurine. But please call me Abuela, if you like, as Alejandro does. Or Grandma. Or Nana. Whatever. I’m just so happy you’re here!”
“Thank you,” I said, unsure how to handle such immediate warmth and kindness.
“But you—” she whirled on her grandson with a scowl “—you should have known better than to elope!”
Alejandro looked abashed. It was a funny, boyish expression on his masculine face. “We would have waited and had a proper wedding,” he said, rubbing his neck sheepishly, “but Abuela, it happened so quickly....”
“Huh. Don’t think you’re getting off that easy. We’ll talk about it later. Now—” her plump face softened as her eyes lit up “—let me hold that baby.”
Ten minutes later, Maurine was giving me a speed tour of the castle, on the way to the dining hall. “The foundations of Rohares date from the times of the sultan,” she said happily. “But most of the building dates from the early seventeenth century. It was bombed in the war, then when we came back we had no money and it fell into disrepair.” She looked sad, then brightened, smiling up at her grandson. “But Alejandro made his fortune in Madrid, then restored every part of it, made Rohares better than it had ever been before! And here’s where we’ll have lunch....”
I stopped in the huge doorway of an enormous dining hall that looked as if it came from the late Renaissance, complete with soaring frescoed ceilings, suits of armor beside the ancient tapestries and a stone fireplace tall enough to fit a person inside. And at the center of the huge, gymnasium-size room, there was a long wooden dining table, large enough to seat forty or fifty people, and groaning beneath the weight of the luncheon spread, flower arrangements, and place settings carefully designed with fine china and the brightest decor.
My mouth dropped as I stared at it.
“Cold and drafty, sí?” Alejandro said smugly, grabbing a marinated green olive and piece of cheese off the platter on the table. “Just as you said.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I breathed. “And the food...”
He gave a low chuckle. “Abuela believes food is love.”
“I can see that,” I said faintly, staring up at his face.
I left because I was falling in love with you.
My knees were still weak at what he’d said in the car. It was so far from everything I’d ever imagined, I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right. “Alejandro...”
“Abuela can be bossy about it, but she loves nothing more than taking care of people, along with her garden and home.” He grinned, shaking his head ruefully. “She now has an unlimited budget, a clear schedule—now she’s given up her charity work—and infinite time. When it comes to the domestic arts, she is unstoppable.”
“Amazing.” I looked at him hesitantly. “But Alejandro...”
“Yes?”
“Did you mean what you said?”
His dark eyes met mine. He knew what I was talking about. “Don’t be afraid. As you said—much has changed in this past year.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, but at that, I exhaled, like air fizzing out of a tire. “You’re right,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Everything is different now.”
“The past is past. Now we are partners, parents to our son.”
“Exactly.” I looked away. The bodyguards, apparently accustomed to being fed lunch like this by the dowager duchess, were already at the table, filling their plates and murmuring their appreciation.
Maurine suddenly reappeared in the solid-oak doorway, holding Miguel with one hand, a small card in the other. Going to the table, she snatched a card off a place setting, then replaced it with the new card. Turning back, she patted the chair, beaming at me. “You’re to sit here, dear.”
“Oh. Thank you, Maurine.”
Smiling, she looked at Miguel in her arms, and started another peekaboo game. She’d been lost in baby joy from the instant she’d picked him up in her arms, and the love appeared to be mutual. I watched, smiling, as Mauri
ne hid her face with her hand, before revealing it so Miguel could reach out to bat her nose triumphantly, leaving them both in hopeless squeals of laughter. Alejandro watched them, too.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
His dark eyes met mine. “For coming to Spain like you promised.”
“Oh.” My cheeks flooded with shame to remember how I’d initially refused. “It’s, um, nothing.”
He turned away, watching his grandmother play with his son. “It’s everything to me.”
My blush deepened, then I sighed. “I was wrong to fight it,” I admitted.
“You? Wrong?” Alejandro shook his head. “Impossible.”
I scowled at his teasing tone. “Yes, wrong. I’m woman enough to admit it. After all, Maurine is Miguel’s family, too.” I looked around the huge banqueting hall, filled with antiques that seemed hundreds of years old. I had to crane my head back to see the wood-timbered ceiling, with its faded paintings of the ducal coat of arms. “And this is his legacy,” I said softly. “This will all belong to him someday....”
Alejandro was no longer smiling.
“Yes,” he said. “It will.”
For some reason I didn’t understand, the lightness of the mood had fled. I frowned.
He abruptly held out his arm. “Let’s have lunch, shall we?”
Even through his long-sleeved shirt, I could feel the warmth of his arm. The strength of it. From the end of the long table, I saw the bodyguards looking at us, saw one of them nudge the other with a sly grin. To outward appearance, we must have looked like goofy-in-love newlyweds.
Alejandro pulled out the chair Maurine had chosen for me, waited, then after I sat down, he pushed it in and sat beside me.
Looking down at the table, I saw three different plates of different sizes stacked on top of each other in alternating colors. At the top of the place setting, there was a homemade paper flower of red-and-purple tissue paper, very similar to the paper flowers my mother had made for me when I was young. Beside it was a card that held a small handwritten name, with elegant black-ink calligraphy.
