Love? That elusive thing she craved but wasn’t sure actually existed. For her at least.
“Practicality,” Alejandro murmured, sensing her hesitation, “is the thing to base a marriage on. Not this creative storytelling everyone is trying to sell these days of happily-ever-afters that don’t exist.”
“My parents were in love,” she said quietly. “That’s why he is the way he is, my father. Because he’s never gotten over her.”
“Isn’t it better to avoid that completely? To base a relationship on pragmatism and affection instead?” He shook his head. “I won’t lie and promise you things I don’t believe in, Cecily. But I do believe we can make this work. Think about how good we were in Kentucky.”
She didn’t want to think about that because she wasn’t sure if any of it had been real. That he wasn’t playing her right now to get what he wanted in his child. Except, she acknowledged, swallowing past the tightness in her throat, it was impossible to forget how patiently he had helped her and Bacchus reconstruct their relationship. How he had helped her reconstruct herself in those difficult weeks they’d spent together.
She studied the hard, uncompromising lines of his face. Could he really have manufactured the depth of caring he’d displayed? Why would he have when really, there’d been no reason for him to do it—every reason to do the opposite in fact?
“Why did you help me with Bacchus?” she asked.
“I couldn’t stand to watch you hurt,” he said quietly. “Even though I told myself it was a bad idea, even though I tried to make myself immune to you, you got under my skin.”
Her heart contracted. Emotions, feelings, she’d convinced herself had been a figment of her imagination, a product of her naiveté, flooded back in a storm of confusion. She would have preferred the cold, hard truth to this gray area she couldn’t process.
She pushed to her feet and walked to the windows, staring out at the lights dripping from the skyscrapers like tear drops hanging from their tall, imposing perches.
“This is insanity.”
“You aren’t in this alone, Cecily. I’m here.”
He who had never intended on saddling himself with a wife in this revenge plan of his...a notorious bachelor by anyone’s standards.
She turned around and rested her palms on the sill. “What about all the women you seem to possess for every different social occasion? I’m supposed to believe you will simply give up your bachelorhood to marry me because of our baby?”
He smiled, that whiskey-colored glimmer that did funny things to her insides lighting his eyes. “I find I like the idea of you as a wife. We would never be short of fireworks. I’m sure it would be more than enough to prevent me from straying.”
His arrogance hit her right in the solar plexus, right where Davis had torn her heart out. “If I am crazy enough to agree to marry you,” she stated icily, “which is doubtful at this point, I will not tolerate infidelity. Any hint of it and I walk.”
His gaze narrowed. Rolling to his feet, he covered the distance between them. “It was a joke,” he murmured. “My father is a serial affair artist. I would never do that to my own relationship.”
“That was the truth then, what you said that night about your parents’ dysfunctional relationship?”
“All of it was the truth.” His gaze held hers. “Now do you want to tell me why you have that look on your face?”
She shook her head. No way was she offering him her truths when he had withheld his.
“Fine. But you will tell me, Cecily, because we are going to repair these trust issues of ours.”
She sank her teeth into her lip, feeling far too vulnerable, fragile like glass. “If I were smart,” she breathed, “I would be getting on a plane right now and flying home, because this is not rational. I should not trust you.”
“But you do,” he countered softly. “You have from the beginning. You know me, Cecily. Trust me now. Do this with me.”
A haze of indecision clouded her brain. “I need time,” she rasped. “To process this. To figure out what to do.”
“Fine. You have a week.”
“A week?”
“It’s too explosive a situation to prolong. My grandmother wants action taken. Plus,” he added, “I am due to attend an anniversary party in England at the end of the month. If we are to be married, you should be the woman on my arm.”
“You mean you don’t already have one lined up?” She hated the sharp claws of jealousy that scored her insides. “I would have thought they’d be chomping at the bit to be at your side.”
“Funny that,” he murmured, eyes on hers. “I was having trouble getting a certain blonde out of my head. I kept remembering how she wrapped herself around me and took me for the ride of my life...those sexy moans she made when I took her apart...how sweet she tasted when I did.” His eyes were hot, black velvet now. “I find I want more.”
Her insides fell apart, a wild heat invading her cheeks. A satisfied smile curved his mouth. “We are good together, querida, you know we are. Now you just need to admit it.”
She lifted her hands to her burning cheeks. “I am not going to make a decision based on our...sexual compatibility. That would be foolish.”
“Then make it based on rationality. Your life has imploded around you, Cecily. You need me to take control and fix this. We need to make a home for this child. It is the only solution.”
A flustered denial bubbled to her lips. It died in her throat when he picked up his glass, drained its contents and walked to the door.
“Make a decision,” he said, swinging around to face her, “and let me know.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CECILY FED A chilled-out Bacchus the last handful of his favorite breakfast treat as she stood perched on the bottom rung of the pasture fence on a gorgeous, sun-soaked day at Esmerelda.
Clearly enjoying his sojourn from his intensive training schedule, her horse was utterly content grazing with his pasture mates. His mistress, however, was still fighting the crushing disappointment of watching her dream go up in smoke.
This morning, she’d called the head of the decision making committee to let him know about her pregnancy—that she wouldn’t be competing for a world championship team spot. It had killed her to do it—worse when he’d given her no idea if she’d have been chosen or not, a nudge of confidence she’d sorely needed in that moment.
And still she hadn’t told her father.
A whisper of apprehension fluttered in her belly. She needed to do that today, because today was the deadline Alejandro had given her to make up her mind on whether she would become his wife. A Salazar.
She knew what her decision had to be—she’d just been too afraid to voice it.
She couldn’t bring up this baby alone, not after she’d lost her own mother so young. Not when that void would always be with her and she wouldn’t do that to her child. Nor could she simply stand by and watch her legacy destroyed, her beloved horses taken away, everything her mother and grandmother had accomplished wiped away in a red stain of disrepute. Because Alejandro would win this battle—she knew he would.
Which left her with only one option: to marry him. He’d already been as good as his word, flying to Belgium this week to convince his grandmother to accept a public apology on the part of the Hargroves as compensation for her family’s crime. Then he’d followed that up with a call to sweeten the pot. Marry him and he would buy them a property in upstate New York where she could build her dream stables away from the oppressive presence of her father.
A generous gesture of goodwill, a tempting one at that, but it couldn’t buy her trust. That he would have to earn.
She bit her lip as she considered a brilliant, clear blue Kentucky sky. Her choice might be clear but none of it negated he
r fears of picking up her life and plunking it down in New York as Alejandro’s society wife. The thought of leaving her home was unbearable. She simply didn’t think she had any choice.
She gave Bacchus a final scratch behind the ears and headed for the house and the inevitability that lay ahead. The door to her father’s study was closed. About to turn away, deep male voices raised in anger froze her feet in place.
Alejandro’s voice.
He couldn’t have. Wouldn’t have.
Breaching the social etiquette that had been drilled into her since birth, she turned the handle on the door and let herself inside the leather and cigar-infused room. Her father, dressed in casual slacks and a shirt, stood toe-to-toe with Alejandro who looked gorgeous in a navy suit and ice-blue tie.
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as her father turned a freezing gray gaze on her. “Tell me it isn’t true,” he rasped.
She swallowed hard, knees weak. “What isn’t true?”
“That you are pregnant with his child.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, throat tight. “Yes,” she said quietly, looking her father in the eye. “I am. I was going to tell you today. Alejandro clearly beat me to it.”
“Today?” her father bellowed. “You knew he came here under false pretenses. Knew what he was planning and you didn’t tell me? What were you—so caught up in him you were blind?”
Her anger caught fire. “You knew about Zeus. About Bacchus... You lied to me, Daddy.”
“I was protecting you from their lies,” he roared. “How could you be so stupid as to do this? I thought I raised you with some sense in your head.”
Alejandro stepped to her side and slid an arm around her waist. “I think you should watch how you’re talking to your daughter,” he said evenly.
“Stay out of this.” Her father kept his gaze trained on her. “The Salazars are out to ruin our name and you are playing right into their game.”
“Granddaddy already did that. He broke laws doing what he did. He stole from them.”
“It never happened. Adriana has never been able to get past her jealousy at Harper’s success, at our success, so she chooses to try and tarnish our name with her crazed ramblings.”
“Alejandro has proof. The truth needs to come out, Daddy. No more lies.”
Her father turned to Alejandro. “I want you off my property. Now. We will settle this in court.”
“You are being shortsighted,” Alejandro drawled. “Take what my grandmother is offering... It’s the best you’re going to get. Make a public apology and put this all behind us.”
Her father scowled. “You think I would risk a century-old dynasty offering the Salazars an apology for something that never happened?” He shook his head. “I will tie this up in legalities forever. It will never see the face of a courtroom.”
Cecily’s heart sank. If it wasn’t true what her grandfather had done, there would be no need to stall a court case because the truth would come out.
What else had her father been lying to her about?
Alejandro’s fingers tightened against her back. “You are willing to trade your daughter’s happiness to perpetuate a lie? If you keep this up, Clayton, there will never be peace between our two families and your grandchild will be stuck in the middle.”
“No it won’t,” her father disagreed. “The courts will give Cecily custody. They always rule in favor of the mother.”
“That may be the case,” Alejandro rebutted coolly, “but it’s inconsequential because Cecily is going to marry me.”
Her father’s face went a deep shade of gray. “That can’t possibly be true.”
Furious at both men, Cecily would have loved to have told both of them to go to hell. But she’d made her decision. This baby was going to grow up with both its parents.
“It’s true,” she confirmed. “I am going to marry Alejandro. So you, Daddy, need to wrap your head around ending this feud.”
Clayton Hargrove’s jaw hardened. “No daughter of mine is marrying a Salazar. You walk out that door with him and you cut your ties with this family.”
Her stomach lurched. “You don’t mean that.”
Her father crossed his arms over his chest. “Stay and we’ll work through this. Leave and you are on your own.”
Alejandro lowered his head to hers. “Go pack a bag. You can send for the rest of your things later.”
She blinked. “You want me to leave with you now?”
“Do you want to stay?”
One look at her daddy’s face convinced her that no, she did not. She’d made her decision. She needed to go.
* * *
Alejandro spent the flight back to New York stickhandling the two deals he had up in the air after his whirlwind trip to Belgium and Stockholm—the Scandinavian tie-up he’d been negotiating with Joaquim and the acquisition of a twenty-five billion dollar Columbian coffee company Salazar had been lusting after for decades.
He thought it a good thing Cecily had some time to cool down with a parade of drivers, passport officials and flight attendants providing a buffer between them. She was clearly furious with him, in one of her patented snits, when all he’d been trying to do was help given how wary she’d sounded about approaching her father.
Having scaled three countries in forty-eight hours cleaning up the mess she had had an equal hand in creating, he was not in the mood. Not after his confrontation with his grandmother in which she had accused him of a lack of judgment, of loyalty, when he’d told her about his relationship with Cecily.
His knuckles gleamed white as he snapped his laptop shut with more force than necessary. They had cut right through him those words, coming from the woman who had taught him the meaning of honor—who’d been the guiding force in his life. For her to question his loyalty had both gutted and infuriated him, made worse by the fact that he’d been forced to lie to her about being in love with Cecily in order to bring some sanity to the situation.
His grandmother had, nonetheless, grudgingly agreed to make the compromise he’d asked of her—the offer Clayton Hargrove had so foolishly rejected. He could only hope Cecily’s father had the sense to come around.
His fiancée, unfortunately, was no calmer by the time they got home. She turned on him the minute they’d walked through the door of his architecturally striking, five-story Upper East Side townhouse, blue eyes blazing.
“Why did you do that?” she erupted. “You just made everything worse.”
“It’s going to be fine,” he murmured soothingly, shutting the door. “I promise you. Your father will cool down, I will bring your horses to New York, we will find a place to keep them and we will have a good life together.”
“I just don’t understand,” she raged, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Is your head so thick you didn’t think I’d know the right way to handle this?”
His jaw clenched. “Then why haven’t you? What were you doing, waiting for divine inspiration...for the muses to give you the green light? Perhaps if your father had already absorbed the shock of your pregnancy, he would have been better able to consider my offer.”
“I was going to tell him after I talked to you. I would have eased him into it. But no, you had to fly in like a big hotshot and call all the plays.”
“That’s not what I was doing,” he said silkily, temper beginning to fail. “I’m stretched to the limit as I seek to solve our dilemma, querida. I was trying to help. Forgive me if I neglected to use the finesse you so clearly desired.”
She blinked. “How could you possibly be helping?”
“You sounded unsure about telling your father. I thought if we handled it together it would be better.”
“You handled it by yourself,” she growled. “You have no sensitivity. A typical male.”
Por amor a De
us. He ran a hand through his hair. Was this what his marriage was going to be? One argument after another? The very thing he’d promised himself it would never be.
He understood she was upset, that her life had been blown apart, but so had his. He was marrying her, for God’s sake. He was going to be a father. If he wasn’t so busy he might be experiencing a severe case of “free market pre-withdrawal” withdrawal.
“And then,” she bit out, on a roll now, “you had the audacity to assume I was going to accept your marriage proposal before I even gave you my answer.”
“But you were,” he came back evenly. “Just out of curiosity, why did you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “My mother died when I was fourteen. I spent my most formative years without a female influence. I will never deprive my child of its father.”
“Then we both agree that putting our child first is what this is all about.”
She gave a reluctant nod.
“Along that vein,” he suggested pleasantly, “let me give you a tour of your new home. I think you’re going to love it here.”
“I will never love New York,” she said flatly. “Not like I love Kentucky. I mean it’s exciting and all, but I feel like I can’t breathe here.”
“You can, I assure you. I do it every day.” He flicked a wrist toward the living room. “After you...”
He gave her a tour of the luxury residence he’d paid twenty-three million for—through the dramatic, double-height living room with its twenty-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls and fireplace, to the magnificent dining room built to entertain.
He thought perhaps the private nanny quarters, the yoga studio or the multi-level roof garden might win her over, but Cecily remained stone-faced throughout the tour. He abandoned his enthusiasm when they reached the top floor master bedroom suite with its massive arched windows and wood burning fireplace, leaving her to freshen up before dinner.
He must’ve been insane to ever contemplate this marriage. Not only was his soon-to-be wife persona non grata with his family, she was so far from the practical solution he’d envisioned, it was like ending up with a custom-made, extremely temperamental sports car when all you’d really wanted was a sleek-looking sedan.
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