by Jennie Lucas
But today, at thirty-five, he suddenly realized happiness had nothing to do with that kind of so-called love. Wealth and power, physical beauty, what did they have to do with love? Those things didn’t last.
Real love did.
Love was having the loyalty and devotion of a kind-hearted, honest woman. A woman who could make you laugh. Who always had your back. Who would protect and adore you through good times and bad. Who cared for your child. A woman who was the heart of your home. The heart of your heart.
There was only one way to be happy: to give everything he had, just as she had done.
He had to be willing to die for her. And even more important: live for her.
Choose me. Love me.
This was what love meant. What family meant. It didn’t mean requiring someone to jump through hoops. It didn’t mean a lifetime of ignoring someone until you found a use for them, as his father had done. It didn’t mean abandoning them when you had a better offer, as Nadia had.
Love meant acceptance. Protection. It meant a lifetime of loyalty through good times and bad.
Love that will last for the rest of my life.
It meant forever.
Santiago sucked in his breath. Belle was his true family. She was his love.
And right now, Belle was in New York. In labor with their baby. Utterly alone.
Turning sharply, he checked for his wallet. He had his passport. He said, “I have to go.”
“But—where are you going?” Nadia sounded utterly bewildered. “What about your father’s press conference tomorrow?”
“Tell him to forget it.”
“You’re leaving us?”
Santiago looked at Nadia one last time. “I’m sorry. I don’t really care about you, or the old man, either. Be honest. Neither of you really care about me. You ignored me until you had a use for me.”
“But you’re supposed to be the heir,” she wailed. “You’re supposed to make me a duchess!”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Tell my father that if he wants an heir, I recommend he marry you himself.”
Leaving her behind, Santiago left the castle of Sangovia for good.
He was done with his old childish dreams. There was only one dream he wanted now. One dream that was real, and for that, he would risk everything he had. Heart and soul.
* * *
“Just a little longer...” her friend Letty pleaded.
Belle panted for breath, choked with tears of pain as the contraction finally ended. Stretched out in bed in the private room in the hospital, her legs beneath a blanket, she’d wanted to be brave, so she’d told the doctors she didn’t need an epidural. It was a choice she was now sorely regretting.
The labor had already lasted for hours and hours, and it still wasn’t time to push. Her daughter, after demanding to be born early, was suddenly taking her time.
“You’re doing fine,” Letty said, letting go of her hand with a wince, to reach for a cup of ice chips.
Belle took the cup gratefully and sucked on an ice chip, thirsty and exhausted in this brief respite between contractions. She knew that soon, the pain would start again, and hurt so much throughout her body that if she’d had anything left in her stomach, she would have thrown up.
“Thanks for being here with me,” she whispered. “I just hope I didn’t break your hand.”
“It’s fine,” her friend said, stretching her hand gingerly. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s nothing compared to how my hand will hurt after the next time I see Santiago’s face. After what he did to you... The bastard! The total bastard!”
“Don’t talk about him that way,” Belle said weakly as she started to feel the beginnings of the next contraction. “He tried his...best. He couldn’t...love me. So he let me go...”
They both turned their heads as they heard some kind of commotion in the hospital hallway, outside the door. It was loud enough to be heard over the medical equipment monitoring her heartbeat and the baby’s with beeps and lights.
“What on earth...?” With a frown, the nurse who’d been hovering by Belle’s bed went out to check, closing the door behind her.
But the noise only increased. Clutching her belly, Belle panted, “Go see what’s happening.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Letty said stoutly.
“Any...distraction...is better...”
With a reluctant nod, Letty went out into the hall.
And then the yelling really started. For a moment, Belle lost track of her labor pains in her sudden fear that World War III had just started in the hospital hallway.
The shouting abruptly stopped. The door exploded open to reveal the last person she’d expected to see. Standing in the doorway was Santiago, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark eyes bright.
Was she dreaming? Had she died?
As the pain started to crest, she stretched out her hand to him with a choked gasp, and in two seconds, he crossed to her side, putting his hand in hers. With him there, though the pain was worse than ever, suddenly she felt stronger and braver, and knew she could endure. With his hand in hers, she knew she could squeeze as hard as she wanted, and it wouldn’t hurt him. She didn’t have to hold back. So she didn’t. Clutching his hand tight, she screamed through the pain.
When the contraction finally was over, he had tears in his eyes. She was shocked.
“Did I hurt your hand?” she said anxiously.
“My hand?” he looked down at it in bewilderment, then shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“Then why—”
“Forgive me,” he choked out.
Then to her astonished eyes, Santiago fell to his knees beside the hospital bed, next to the blanket that covered her legs. He looked up, his dark eyes searing her soul.
“I was a coward,” he whispered. “Afraid to admit what was in my heart. I thought I could send you away and stay safe and numb the rest of my life. I can’t.” He set his jaw. “I won’t.”
“What are you saying?” she croaked out.
“You are everything I was ever afraid to want. Everything good. Everything I thought I didn’t deserve. I need you, Belle.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”
She gaped down at him. “I thought you could only love Nadia...”
“Nadia?” He snorted. “She was a trophy. Like art on my wall or a million-acre ranch. You are no man’s trophy, Belle.”
Her heart fell. She bit her lip. “No. I’m not.”
“You’re no trophy,” he said in a low, intense voice, “because you’re far more. You are my woman. My equal partner. My better half. My love. And if you’ll have me,” he said humbly, “my wife.”
She sucked in her breath. “Your—”
Then the new contraction hit, and she reached desperately for his hand. Rising to his feet, he took it immediately, holding it close, against his heart. The pain built sharply, leaving her gasping for breath.
For what seemed like hours, he held her hand unflinchingly, speaking to her in Spanish and English, calming her with his deep voice, giving her his strength, helping her through the pain. As the contraction finally subsided, the nurse checked her beneath the blanket, then gave a quick nod. “I’m going to get the doctor.”
Belle and Santiago were alone. She took a deep breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For being here. For our baby.”
His expression turned sad. “Just for the baby?” he said slowly. “It’s too late, isn’t it? I’ve
hurt you too badly to ever hope for forgiveness...”
She said in a trembling voice, “Do you really love me?”
Sudden, shocked hope lit his dark eyes.
“With everything I have. Everything I am. I love you.” Leaning over the hospital bed, he kissed her sweaty forehead tenderly. “Love me,” he whispered. “Forgive me. Marry me.”
Belle wondered if she was dreaming. Then she decided she didn’t care. “Yes.”
He drew back, looking down at her with joy. “You’ll marry me?”
Wordlessly, she nodded. Rushing to fling open the door, he called two people inside: a man dressed in a plain black suit and Letty, following behind, holding a bag from the hospital gift shop.
“This is John Alvarez, the hospital pastor,” Santiago told her. “He’s going to marry us.”
Her jaw dropped. “Right now?”
“What, are you busy?” he teased.
She snorted, then grew serious. “But...what about the big wedding you wanted?”
“We already have a license. I don’t want to live another moment without you as my wife.” He cupped her cheek. “I love you, Belle.”
A slow-rising smile lifted her lips.
“I love you too,” she whispered, tears falling down her face unheeded. Pulling on his hand, she brought him closer to the hospital bed and kissed him, laughing her happiness. Then she groaned, as she felt the next contraction begin to rise. “But we’d better do this fast.”
And so it was that, plain gold bands from the hospital gift shop were slipped within minutes on both their hands, and they were declared man and wife. And just in time.
“Anyone that’s not family, get out!” the nurse said, shooing the pastor and Letty into the hallway. In that moment, the doctor hurried into the room.
“All right, Belle,” the doctor said, smiling. “Are you ready to push?”
Forty-five minutes later, their daughter, named Emma Jamie Velazquez after the baby’s grandmother and grandfather, was brought into this world. A short while later, as Belle watched her husband—her husband!—hold their daughter, who was a fat eight pounds ten ounces, tenderly in his arms, she was overwhelmed with happiness.
“Someone wants to meet you,” Santiago said, smiling, and gently placed their newborn daughter in Belle’s arms.
As she looked down at their precious baby, the miracle she’d once thought she could never have, tears fell from Belle’s eyes that she didn’t even try to hide. She whispered, “She’s so beautiful.”
“Like her mother,” Santiago said. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead with infinite tenderness, then kissed their sleeping baby’s. He looked down at Belle—his wife—in the hospital bed. “I love you, Mrs. Velazquez.”
She caught her breath at hearing her name for the first time.
Letty peeked around the door into the room to make sure it was safe, then entered, beaming at the baby before she turned to Santiago. “Um, you forgive me for slapping you earlier, right? I feel kind of bad about it now.”
“I had it coming,” Santiago said, adjusting his jaw a little ruefully. “Thanks for helping with the rings.”
Letty grinned. “No problem. It was easy. It was either gold bands or the candy ones. Hey, you two lovebirds, there was one part of the wedding the pastor had to cut when we got kicked out.” Letty looked between them. “You may now kiss the bride.”
Santiago looked down at Belle with a gleam in his black eyes. “The perfect end to a perfect day.”
Belle smiled through her tears.
Once, she’d thought that all her chances for love and happiness had passed her by. She’d thought that her choice to take care of her brothers instead of herself, to sacrifice her own dreams for others, meant that she’d ended her own chance for a bright future.
Now she realized that life wasn’t like that.
Every day could be a new start. Every day could be a fresh miracle. And today, the first day of their marriage, the first day of her daughter’s life, she knew it wasn’t the end of anything. As her husband lowered his head to kiss her in a private vow that would last the rest of their lives, she knew it was all just beginning.
* * *
Santiago got married in a quick hospital ceremony just minutes before his baby was born, and his two best friends never let him forget it.
“And you said you’d never get married in some tacky quick wedding,” said Darius Kyrillos, who’d married at City Hall.
“You said you’d never get married at all,” said his friend Kassius Black, who’d wed at an over-the-top grand ceremony in New Orleans.
Santiago grinned. “A man can change his mind, can’t he?”
He was on his third helping of Texas-style barbecue, and the three men were sitting across a huge sofa in a corner of the ballroom of his Upper East Side mansion. Officially, it was a party to celebrate the christening of six-week-old Emma. Unofficially, it was also a wedding reception. The house was crowded, decidedly a family affair filled with friends and relatives, including Belle’s two brothers who’d come up to New York for the event, and neighbors, employees and their families. For dinner, they’d had champagne, beer, barbecue, corn on the cob and homemade ice cream. It was November, the time of Thanksgiving. But Belle had definite ideas about how she wanted this party to be.
“Fun like home,” she’d said with a grin.
So there was a bluegrass band playing, to the mild shock of the foreign dignitaries that had been invited. But they seemed to like it, and even strangers had become friends, with people dancing and kids running around. And did he actually see someone’s golden retriever running madly across the house...?
The only family not in attendance was his father, the Duke of Sangovia, who had recently, and rather shockingly, wed his former daughter-in-law, the famous movie star. Another marriage “partnership.” Santiago shuddered thinking of it. And those were the people he might have spent his life with, like a prison sentence, if Belle hadn’t saved him. If she hadn’t taught him to be brave enough to risk his heart and soul.
If she hadn’t taught him what love actually meant.
Now, as the three husbands sat together, drinking frosty mugs of beer and watching the crowd, Santiago looked down at his daughter, who’d fallen asleep in his arms. After six weeks, he was starting to feel like a pro as a dad.
Kassius and Darius, who’d also brought their wives and children to the party, looked down at the fat baby in Santiago’s arms.
“Babies are adorable,” Kassius said.
“Especially when they’re sleeping,” Darius said.
“That’s what I meant,” he said.
“To sleeping babies—” Santiago raised his beer mug “—and beautiful wives.” They all clinked glasses. Softly, so as not to wake the baby.
Across the crowd, Santiago saw Belle, and as always, he lost his breath.
She was beautiful—the center of this house as she was the center of his world. Her long dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, over her curvaceous body in the soft red dress. As she felt his glance, their eyes locked across the crowd. Electricity raced through his body.
Santiago had spent his whole childhood dreaming of having a place in the world. A home. A family. It had come true, just not in the way he’d expected.
He hadn’t been born into this family. He’d created it. He and Belle together. From the moment they’d fallen into bed and accidentally conceived a child.
Had it been an accid
ent? he suddenly wondered. Or was it possible he’d always known, from the moment he first met Belle, that she would be the one to break the spell?
Because that was what she’d done. It was funny. Belle had once compared him to a knight, saying he’d slain dragons for Nadia like something out of a fairy tale. But he hadn’t. All he’d done was make a lot of money. He’d never risked anything. He’d never saved anyone.
Not like Belle.
She was the true knight. She was the one who’d slain the dragon. She was the one who’d saved his soul. He would always be grateful for that miracle.
Tomorrow, they would leave on a two-month honeymoon—bringing baby Emma, of course—on a trip around the world. Belle had planned this reception, so he’d insisted on organizing the honeymoon. “What are your top five dream travel destinations?”
“Paris,” she’d said instantly, then “London.” She’d bitten her lip. “The Christmas markets in Germany. The neon lights of Tokyo. Or maybe—” she’d tilted her head “—a beach vacation in Australia? The Great Barrier Reef?” With a sigh, she’d shaken her head. “I’m glad I’m not the one who has to decide!”
But as it turned out neither did he. Because they were going to see everything. Emma would be a very well-traveled baby before she even had her first bite of baby food.
Their family would see the world together, all of them for the first time. It would all be new to Santiago, too. Because this time, he’d be leading with his heart.
In the ballroom, Belle came up to the sofa, smiling. “You boys having fun?”
“Yes,” they all said cheerily, and in Kassius’s and Darius’s case a little tipsily. Belle grinned at Santiago.
“Want to help cut the cake?”
“Absolutely.” He rose to his feet, their sleeping baby still tucked securely against his chest. With his free hand, he suddenly pulled his wife close and kissed her. Not a little kiss, either. He kissed her long and hard, until they started getting catcalls and whistles and cheers from the guests, and he felt her tremble in his arms.
