by Jennie Lucas
Tonight after dusk, she and Santiago would be bound together in lifetime vows, surrounded by family and friends. Letty and Darius had come back from Greece with their fat, adorable baby, specifically to attend. Letty would even be coming to the house a few hours early, to help Belle do her hair and makeup for the ceremony. And that wasn’t all.
Two days ago, Santiago had sent his private jets to collect Belle’s younger brothers: Ray from Atlanta, where he now owned his own plumbing business, and Joe from Denver, where he was training to be a fireman.
Belle had cried when her brothers arrived. It was the first time she’d seen them in two years. For a long time, the three siblings just hugged each other. Her brothers were excited to be uncles. They’d exclaimed both at the size of her belly and the luxurious brownstone mansion.
“You’re in a new world now, Belle,” Ray had said, pulling off his John Deere cap to survey the foyer in awe. Even their guest rooms had amazed them. Joe confided he was afraid to use the towels, until she’d tartly told him that this was her house and she wouldn’t accept any more foolishness. Joe looked at her.
“You’re happy, aren’t you, Belle?” He shook his head. “I mean, I know this guy’s got private jets and mansions and all that. But does he love you? Do you love him?”
And looking at her baby brother’s hopeful, pleading face, Belle had done the only thing an older sister could do. She’d lied.
“Of course Santiago loves me.” Then she’d realized something horrible. Something that wasn’t a lie. She’d whispered, “And I love him.”
Two days before her wedding, she’d been forced to face the truth. She was in love with Santiago.
When she’d first accepted his proposal—when he’d blackmailed her into it—Belle had told herself she shouldn’t take it personally if Santiago didn’t love her. He was just a hard-edged, ruthless tycoon who couldn’t love anyone. Love wasn’t in his character. She’d told herself she could live with it.
She was wrong.
“I earned a billion-dollar fortune. For her.”
She could still hear the raw huskiness of Santiago’s voice when he’d told her the story of the woman he’d once loved with all his heart. The night of their engagement party, all her rationalizations had fallen off a cliff.
Santiago did know how to love. Her stomach churned now as she stared out the window at the waking city. He’d once loved a woman so much he’d spent literally years trying to win her, just like in the fairy tales Belle used to read her brothers when they were little. A peasant boy proves his worth by killing a dragon or vanquishing an army or sailing the seven seas to win the hand of the fair princess.
Only Santiago hadn’t won his true love. Instead, the princess had just been one more privilege he was denied because he’d been born the bastard son of a maid. And everything he’d done to prove he didn’t care about his father’s rejection—from buying the historic ranch in Texas, to building a world-class art collection, to amassing a bigger fortune than him—only proved the opposite.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself desperately. It all happened long ago. The woman had married his elder brother and they all lived in Spain, on the other side of the world.
But here in New York, the fairy tale was different. Belle was the peasant, and Santiago the handsome, distant king. She’d have given anything to win him. Slay any dragon, conquer any army. But how?
She might bear his child, but would she ever claim his heart?
Belle looked back at Santiago, still sprawled across their bed. The cool light of dawn was starting to add a soft pink glow through the windows. Her eyes traced the contours and outlines of his muscular, powerful body, with the white sheet twisted around his legs. She longed for him to be hers, really hers.
And in a way, he was. She would be his wife. His partner. His lover.
But never his love.
Going to the en-suite bathroom, she took a long, hot shower, trying to get the anxiety out of her body, and the growing fear of marrying a man she loved, but who would never love her back.
A man who, for all she knew, was still in love with that woman from long ago.
Maybe our baby will bring us together, she tried to tell herself, but she knew this was a delusion. Santiago would be a caring father, and he’d love their daughter. That didn’t mean he’d feel anything more than respect for Belle as a partner. Anything more than desire for her in the night.
He would never let her in his heart. He would never slay dragons for her, sacrifice his life for her, as he had for that beautiful Spanish woman long ago.
Getting out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a white fluffy robe. Wiping the steam off the glass, Belle looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, but her eyes were suddenly sad.
She looked down at the enormous diamond ring sparkling on her left hand. As ridiculously impractical as it was, as heavy and cold, it was beautiful and special. He’d picked it out just for her. Didn’t that mean something, at least?
When she came out into their bedroom, Santiago was gone. He’d told her he would be at the office until shortly before their candlelight ceremony was due to begin, at seven, but she’d somehow hoped he would change his mind and be with her, today of all days. She was desperate for reassurance about their upcoming marriage. She was suddenly terrified she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life, and that she wouldn’t be the only one to suffer for it.
Right or wrong, she told herself, the choice has already been made. I’m marrying him today.
But the day passed with agonizing slowness, with too much time for her to worry. She saw her brothers at breakfast, right before the two young men set out to see the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. She got one last checkup from her obstetrician, then finished last-minute wedding details.
In the late afternoon, it was finally time. She went to her closet and stroked the empire-waist wedding gown of cream-colored lace, tailored to fit her eight-months-plus pregnant belly. She’d found it at a vintage shop in Chinatown, and loved it.
She took a deep breath.
Smoothing rose-scented lotion over her skin, she put on her wedding lingerie, an expensive confection of white satin bralette, panties and white stockings with garter belt. Any moment now, Letty would be here to help with her hair and makeup. Belle would have to somehow pretend to be a blissfully happy bride, hiding how scared she really was that she was doing the wrong thing, permanently giving her life and heart to a man who would never love her back.
I’m marrying him for our daughter, Belle told herself desperately. But would her daughter grow up thinking it was normal for married parents not to love each other? That it was expected and right, to live without love?
Belle felt like she was hyperventilating as she went to the huge closet and took the beautiful wedding dress from the hanger. She heard a hard knock at the door.
Expecting Letty, she called, “Just a sec!”
But the door was flung open. Belle turned with a yelp of protest, trying to hide her half-naked body with the wedding dress. Then she gasped.
“Santiago! What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride in her wedding dr—?” Her voice cut off when she saw his face. “What’s wrong?”
“My brother...”
“Your brother? Is he here?”
He gave a strangled laugh. “He’s dead.”
“What?”
His expression was pale and strange. “He died two days ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Belle whispered. Her wedding dress dropped unheeded to the floor as she went to him. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him, offering comfort, not caring that she was wearing only the bra and panties and that it was bad luck. “What happened?”
“Otilio had a heart
attack and crashed his car. It’s just lucky no one else was hurt.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, her eyes filling with tears. “Even though you never met, and your relationship was complicated, he was still your brother and...”
“The funeral is tomorrow morning in Madrid.”
Belle sucked in her breath. “You’ll miss it. You...”
Then he met her eyes, and she suddenly knew.
“You’re not going to miss it,” she said slowly. “You’re going to Madrid.”
Santiago gave a single short nod. “I’m leaving immediately.”
“But our wedding...” she whispered.
“I’ve already had my executive assistant start making calls. I’m sorry, Belle. Our wedding must be temporarily put off.”
Belle had just been arguing that they were family, but now she said in a small voice, “But you don’t even know them.”
“My father needs me.”
“He called you?”
His jaw tightened. “No. It was my brother’s widow who called. She asked me to come, for my father’s sake.”
“Your brother’s...” It took several seconds for this to sink in, and then Belle staggered back a step.
His brother’s widow.
His widow.
The only woman Santiago had ever loved was free now.
Single.
What must the woman be like, since Santiago had spent years trying to win her love? Beautiful, chic, witty, powerful, sexy, glamorous? All of the above?
How could Belle compare with that?
She couldn’t.
She felt sick inside.
“Belle?”
“Um.” She tried to gather her thoughts. “It must have been...strange to talk to her again, after all these years.”
“It was,” he said in a low voice. “She said my father wants to see me. He has no one else now. His wife died years ago. Otilio and Nadia never had any children. I’m the last Zoya.”
Belle’s lips parted. “Are you saying...?”
“After thirty-five years, the Duque de Sangovia is willing to recognize me as his son.”
And with that, Belle suddenly knew that her whole life, and her baby’s too, had just changed, because a man she’d never met had had a heart attack in Spain.
“I’m sorry I have to postpone the wedding,” he added, but something about his voice made her wonder how sorry he really was. Even as she had the thought, she reproached herself for it. How could she selfishly think about her own hurt, when Santiago’s brother had just died, and his father was reaching out to him for the first time?
She put her hand on his arm urgently. “I’ll come with you. To Madrid.”
He shook his head. “It’s across the Atlantic. You’re getting too close to your due date to travel.”
“I’ll manage. I mean—” she gave an awkward laugh “—isn’t that why you have a private jet? I just had a checkup this morning and I’m not anywhere close to labor. I’ll be fine for a few days.”
He looked at her, his jaw tight. “You would be willing to go to so much trouble, to attend the funeral of a man you’ve never met? At your state of pregnancy? After I canceled our wedding like this?”
“Of course I would,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I’m going to be your wife.”
He set his jaw.
“Come, then.”
She didn’t get the sense that he was overjoyed.
“Unless you don’t want me...”
“That’s not it. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“I’ll be fine. I can’t let you face it alone.”
“That’s very thoughtful.” His eyes were unreadable as he looked down at her. “But then, I’d expect no less of you. Such a loving heart.”
His words should have cheered her, and yet somehow, they didn’t feel like a compliment. They felt like an accusation.
He looked her over in the white silk wedding lingerie, as if not even seeing her. “Change your clothes. Pack as quickly as possible. We leave in ten minutes.”
She stared after him, her heart sick with fear.
When she’d woken up that morning, she’d been so scared of marrying Santiago and spending the rest of her life loving him, when he didn’t love her back.
But now she realized there could be something even worse than that. Watching as Santiago fell back in love with the beautiful, aristocratic woman who’d once claimed his heart.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MADRID. ROYAL CITY of dreams.
The city was the third largest in Europe, built on a grand scale, from the classical grandeur of the Plaza Mayor to the world-class art of the Prado Museum and designer shops on the wide, graceful Gran Vía.
Santiago hadn’t been back to this city since he’d fled at eighteen to make his fortune. Now he was back, no longer a desperate, penniless teenager, but a powerful tycoon, a self-made billionaire.
At fourteen, he’d begged his father to see him. Now the Duque de Sangovia was doing the begging, not him.
Actually, it had been Nadia who’d begged on his father’s behalf. It had been strange, unpleasant, to hear her voice on the phone, like resurrecting a long-dead ghost. He’d felt nothing, not even hatred.
Perhaps he should thank her, he thought. She was the one who’d spurred him to become the man he was today. Powerful. Rich.
Heartless.
He stared out the car window as the Duque de Sangovia’s chauffeur drove the limousine through the city’s clogged morning traffic, carrying Santiago and Belle and their two bodyguards from the private airport. Madrid had once been a medieval dusty village, until King Phillip had moved the royal court here during the Spanish Golden Age. And even back then, the Zoya family had served their king, fighting his battles to build an empire of their own.
Each generation had become more powerful, with a better title to pass on to their heirs. His elder half brother Otilio had been born with the title of marqués, raised to be the next duke. But now his brother was dead.
Brother. Such a meaningful word for what had been, in their case, such a nonexistent relationship. Second only to father.
Today, at Otilio’s funeral, he would finally meet his father in person. All Santiago knew of him came from the news and from his mother’s scant stories, when he was very young. And he would see Nadia, the woman he’d once loved, whom he’d thought a kindred spirit. They’d both achieved the dreams they’d had at the orphanage, some twenty years before. He was a billionaire. She was a world-famous actress.
But not a duchess, he thought. That dream, at least, had been lost to her, from the moment her husband died.
He looked out at the weak morning light of Madrid. The September weather was chilly, the sky drizzling rain. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect setting for a funeral.
Belle was sitting beside him in the back of the vintage Rolls-Royce limousine, wearing an elegant black shift dress with a long black jacket. It should have been chic, but was somehow ill-fitting and uncomfortable-looking on Belle’s pregnant, curvaceous body. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
She’d barely spoken two words to him on the overnight flight across the Atlantic, leaving him alone with his own dark thoughts. She hadn’t reproached him about canceling their wedding. Not a single word.
Not one woman in a million would have been so understanding, he thought. But of course Belle was always so kind. So loving.
Emotions were bubbling up inside him, hot as lava. He’d pushed his feelings down for most of his life. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it up.
He hadn’t gone to his mother’s funeral, twenty years before, because there hadn’t been one. She’d had no money, the husbands she’d divorced were long gone, and in her frustra
tion and bitterness, she’d alienated most of her friends. Her son was the only one left, and she’d done her best to make him hate her as well, knowing he couldn’t leave.
As a young boy, he’d noticed other boys getting hugs and kisses from their mothers, and wondered why Mamá never treated him with such devotion. “Because you’re bad all the time,” she told him angrily. “You make your stepfathers angry when you don’t put away your toys. You make them leave.” It had hurt him when he was young. But by the time he was fourteen, he’d realized the real reason she never loved him. She blamed him for all the fairy tales gone wrong. Starting with his father, the duke.
Living in the orphanage, at least he’d known where he stood. He was on his own.
He’d loved New York from the beginning. The city was heartless and cold? Well, so was he. They were perfect for each other.
“Oh, my word,” Belle breathed next to him. “Is that the crowd for your brother’s funeral?”
Santiago blinked as he saw huge crowds of well-wishers and gawkers standing on the sidewalk outside the cathedral, held back by police. The driver pulled up to the curb, then opened their door.
Santiago got out of the backseat, turning back to assist Belle, who glanced nervously at the crowds, then looked up at him with dark stricken eyes.
Reaching for her hand, he helped her from the limo toward the gothic stone cathedral. The driver held an umbrella over their heads as the rain continued to drizzle from the gray clouds, falling against the vivid yellows and reds of the trees in September.
“It’s like all Madrid is here,” she whispered. “How famous was he?”
“They’re not here for him,” he ground out.
Belle frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something you should know about his wife...”
But before he could finish, the oversized door of the cathedral opened, and they entered. The nave of the cathedral was crowded with people who’d come to pay their last respects to Otilio, Marqués de Flavilla, the only legitimate son and heir of the powerful Duque de Sangovia, and the husband of the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
