Книга - Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret

Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret
JENNIE LUCAS


You wouldn’t have been able to resist either, believe me!He broke down my defences as if they were paper. One dark, unfathomable glance from Alejandro, the notorious Duke of Alzacar, and I was his. It was only later that I realised why he’d seduced me, and I had no choice but to flee.Nine months on, he’s found me. No matter how my body and my heart react to him, I can never let the Duke take our son away from me. But Alejandro will stop at nothing. I have just one card left to play…Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/jennielucas







“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 our engagement.

My body trembled. All I wanted to do was turn and flee through the crowd, to disappear, never to 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, that no matter how I’d tried to deny it I would never be truly free of Alejandro—ever.


Dear Reader (#u83fda7ab-bc37-510b-83c4-a5b6cdb281d9)

For my twenty-first book for Harlequin Mills & Boon


I wanted to try something new. I wanted my heroine, Lena Carlisle, to be able to tell her own story—in her own words.

Writing the book, I wanted to feel the joy and anguish and passion of her story as directly as if it were happening to me. I wanted to be gripped with emotion as I went, with Lena, from being neglected and ignored—’invisible,’ as she says, ‘like a ghost in my own home’—to becoming, through the love of a wealthy, handsome Spanish duke, the strong, beloved woman she was always born to be.

Alejandro’s thoughts are never directly revealed in the story, but I hope you can still feel his anger and grief and passion, as Lena does. And come to love him as I did.

Lena has nothing but her baby, her courage and a pure heart; Alejandro has money, wealth and power, but is in danger of losing his soul. She is the only one who can save him. She can give him hope, and give him a future, with her love. If he’ll just let her in …

I hope you enjoy their story.

With love

Jennie Lucas


Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret

Jennie Lucas






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


JENNIE LUCAS grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career, a sexy husband and two small children, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com (http://www.jennielucas.com), or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com (mailto:jennie@jennielucas.com)


To Pete


Contents

Cover (#u4056e041-2d3f-5f97-9cbb-0366cf712fbb)

Introduction (#u804117be-785e-59a7-9886-56f7521c1c20)

Dear Reader

Title Page (#u66561861-3c35-5e81-aeb6-0f6335c91bf5)

About the Author (#ucf31470e-6fdb-5a95-9268-80f38d0f1f99)

Dedication (#u1010a82c-d02b-583d-8546-6368ac00fc4c)

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Extract

Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


PROLOGUE (#u83fda7ab-bc37-510b-83c4-a5b6cdb281d9)

HE SEDUCED ME EASILY. He broke down my defenses as if they were paper. You wouldn’t have been able to resist, either, believe me.

After so many years of feeling like a ghost in my own home, invisible, unloved, I think I would have fallen into his arms for one dark glance—one husky word. But Alejandro gave me so much more than that. He looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman on earth. Listened to me as if every word on my lips was poetry. He pulled me into his arms, made me burst into flame, kissed my grief and cares away. After so many years of living in a cold gray world, my life exploded into color—because of him.

There was no reason why the Duque de Alzacar, one of the richest men in Spain, would want someone like me—plain, poor—rather than my beautiful, wealthy cousin. I thought it was a miracle.

It was only later that I realized why Alejandro had chosen me. He hadn’t seduced me out of love—or even lust. It was many months before I realized the selfish reason that had caused him to overwhelm me with his charm, to dazzle me, to make me love him.

But by then, it was too late.


CHAPTER ONE (#u83fda7ab-bc37-510b-83c4-a5b6cdb281d9)

THE GRAY, LOWERING sky was falling like a shroud across the old colonial city of San Miguel de Allende when I heard the words I’d feared in nightmares for the past year.

“A man was here looking for you, Señora Lena.”

Looking up at my neighbor, I staggered back, clutching my five-month-old son in my arms. “What?”

The woman smiled, reaching out to chuck the cooing baby’s pudgy chin. “Gracias for letting me watch Miguelito for an hour. Such a pleasure...”

“But the man?” I croaked, my mouth dry. “What did he look like?”

“Muy guapo,” she sighed. “So handsome. Dark-haired and tall.”

It could be anyone, I told myself desperately. The old silver mining town in central Mexico was filled with American expatriates who’d moved here to enjoy the lovely architecture and take classes at the famous Instituto. Many single women had come here to start new lives, pursuing new businesses as artists and sculptors and jewelry makers.

Like me. A year ago, I’d arrived pregnant and full of grief, but I’d still managed to start a wonderful new life. Perhaps this dark stranger was looking for a portrait of his sweetheart, nothing more.

But I didn’t believe it. Fear was cold inside me. “Did he give his name?”

Dolores shook her head. “The baby was fussing in my arms when I answered the door. But the man was well dressed, with a Rolls-Royce. A chauffeur. Bodyguards, even.” Her smile spread to a grin. “Do you have a rich new boyfriend, Lena?”

My knees went weak.

“No,” I whispered.

It could be only one man. Alejandro Guillermo Valentín Navaro y Albra, the powerful Duke of Alzacar. The man I’d once loved with all my innocent heart. The man who’d seduced and betrayed me.

No. It was worse than that.

“He’s not your boyfriend, eh?” My neighbor’s voice was regretful. “Pity. Such a handsome man. Why did he come looking for you, then? Do you know him?”

Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. “When was he here?”

She shrugged, looking bemused. “A half hour ago. Maybe more.”

“Did you say anything about—about Miguel being my son?”

Dolores shook her head. “He didn’t give me the chance. He just asked if you lived in the house two doors down. I said yes. He pulled out his wallet and asked me not to mention his visit, because he wanted to surprise you. Can you imagine?” She flourished some bills from her apron pocket in delight. “He paid me a thousand pesos for my silence!”

Yes. I could imagine. I briefly closed my eyes. “But you told me anyway,” I whispered. “Bless you.”

She snorted. “Men always want to arrive with a flourish of trumpets. I thought it better for you to be prepared.” She looked at my shapeless white sundress and plain sandals with a moue of disapproval, then at my long, casual ponytail and makeup-free face. She sighed. “You have a good figure, but in that dress you look like a marshmallow. You don’t make the most of yourself. It’s almost like you don’t want to be noticed!” She shook her head. “But tonight you must be at your most irresistible, your most sexy, sí? You want him to want you!”

No. I really didn’t. Not that he would want me anyway, now his evil plan had succeeded. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“So picky!” She made a tsk sound. “You don’t want this billionaire, you don’t want that one—I tell you, wealthy, handsome men are not so thick upon the ground as you seem to think!” Dolores glared at me. “Your son needs a father. You need a husband. Both of you deserve every happiness.” Her expression turned suddenly sly. “And the man at my door looked like he would bring a lot of happiness to a wife. Every night.”

“No doubt,” I said over the razor blade in my throat. It was true. Alejandro had brought me intense joy for one summer. And a lifetime’s worth of anguish since. “I should go.”

“Sí. It’s almost Miguel’s nap time, isn’t it, pequeño?” she crooned.

My baby yawned, his fat cheeks vying with his sleepy dark eyes for cuteness. Those eyes just like his father’s.

I exhaled, running a hand over my forehead. I’d allowed myself to think we were safe. That Alejandro had given up looking for me. I should have known. I should have known better than to start sleeping at night, to start making friends, to start making a real home for myself and my son. I should have known they would someday find me....

“Lena?” My neighbor frowned. “Is something wrong? You do not seem happy.”

“Did you tell him when I’d be back?”

“I wasn’t sure when you’d be done, so to be safe I said four o’clock.”

I glanced at the clock in her brightly painted front room. It was only three. I had one hour. “Thank you.” In a burst of emotion, I hugged her, knowing that she’d been kind to me—to both of us—but I would never see her again after today. “Gracias, Dolores.”

She patted my back. “I know you’ve had a hard year, but that’s in the past. Your life is about to change for the better. I can always feel these things.”

Better? I choked back a laugh, then turned away before she could see my face. “Adios....”

“He’ll be your boyfriend, just wait and see,” she called after me gleefully. “He’ll be your husband someday!”

My husband. A bitter thought. I wasn’t the one Alejandro had wished to marry. He wanted my wealthy, beautiful cousin, Claudie. It was the whole reason he’d seduced me, the poor relation living in the shadows of Claudie’s London mansion. If he and Claudie wed, together they’d have everything: a dukedom, half of Andalucía, political connections across the world, billions in the bank. They’d have almost limitless power.

There was just one thing they could never have.

My eyes fell on my baby’s dark, downy head. I clutched Miguel tightly against me, and he gave an indignant cry. Loosening my grip, I smoothed back his soft hair.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” I choked out, and I didn’t know whether I was begging my son’s forgiveness for holding him too tightly, for tearing him away from his home or for choosing his father so poorly.

How could I have been so stupid? How?

Hurrying down the small street, I glanced up at the heavy gray sky. August was the rainy season, and a downpour was threatening. Cuddling Miguel against my hip, I punched in the security-alarm code and pushed open the heavy oak door of my brightly painted home.

The rooms inside were dark. I’d fallen in love with this old colonial house, with its tall ceilings, its privacy, its scarcity of windows on the street. I could not have afforded the rent in a million years, but I’d been helped by a friend who’d allowed me to live here rent-free. Well—I thought of Edward St. Cyr as a friend. Until a week ago, when he’d—

But no. I wouldn’t think of that now, or how betrayed I’d felt when the friendship I’d come to rely upon had been revealed for what it was.

I’m tired of waiting for you to forget that Spanish bastard. It’s time for you to belong to me.

I shuddered at the memory. My answer had sent Edward scowling from this house, back on his private jet to London. There was no way I could remain in this house, living rent-free, after that, so for the past week, I’d looked for a cheaper place to live. But it was hard to find any place cheap enough for the income of a new, self-employed artist. Even here.

San Miguel de Allende had become my home. I would miss the city’s cobblestoned streets, growing flowers in my garden and selling portraits in the open-air mercados. I’d miss the friends I’d made, Mexicans and expats who’d welcomed an unmarried, heartbroken woman and her baby, who’d taped me up and put me back together.

Now I took a deep breath, trying to steady my shaking nerves. “I can do this,” I whispered aloud, trying to make myself believe it. I knew how to grab passports, money and clothes and be out of here in five minutes. I’d done it before, in Tokyo, Berlin, Istanbul, São Paulo and Mumbai.

But then, I’d had Edward to help me. Now I had no one.

Don’t think about it, I ordered myself, wiping my eyes. I’d go on foot and hail a taxi on the street. Once at the station, my baby and I would take the next bus to Mexico City. I’d use the emergency credit card Edward had left and fly to the United States, where I was born. I’d head west. Disappear. Once I found a job, I’d pay back Edward every penny.

I’d raise my child in peace, in some small town in Arizona or Alaska, and this time, I’d make sure Alejandro would never, ever find me....

A lamp flicked on in the foyer.

Alejandro was sitting in a chair across the room, staring at me with eyes that burned like fire.

I halted, choking out a gasp.

“Lena Carlisle,” he said in a low voice. “At last.”

“Alejandro,” I breathed as terror racked through me. My hands instinctively tightened on my baby in my arms. “What are you— How did you...”

“How did I find you?” He rose to his feet, tall and broad-shouldered. “Or how did I get in to your house?” His voice was low and husky, with only the slightest accent, blurred from growing up in Spain, followed by years of running a billion-dollar business conglomerate from New York and London. “Do you really think any security system, no matter how expensive, could keep me from being where I wanted to be?”

He was even more handsome than I remembered. Seeing him in the flesh, after a year of being tormented by sensual dreams, made my knees tremble. I clutched Miguel closer, willing myself not to faint.

Alejandro’s cold eyes never left mine as he walked toward me. He was dressed in black from his well-cut coat to his glossy Italian shoes, draped in power.

“What do you want?” I choked out.

He looked from me to my yawning, drowsy-eyed baby.

“Is it true?” His voice was deadly quiet, but the words burned through my heart. His face was grim. “Is this my baby?”

His baby. Oh, God. Please, no. I stumbled back in blind panic.

“My men are outside. You won’t even make it to the street....”

I ignored him. Grabbing the wrought-iron handle, I pulled open the heavy, weathered oak door and started to run. I stopped.

Six hulking bodyguards stood outside my house, in a semicircle, in front of the expensive sedan and black SUV now jamming the slender residential lane.

“Did you think,” Alejandro said softly behind me, “that when I finally found you, I would leave anything to chance?”

He stood close behind me, so close I caught the scent of his cologne. So close I could feel the heat emanating from his powerful body. Briefly closing my eyes, I shivered at being so close to the man who had once possessed me, body and soul.

Unwillingly, I turned back to face the ghost who still haunted my heart. His hot black gaze held mine, and in the dark embers of that fire, I was lashed by memories I’d tried so hard to forget. I’d loved him hopelessly from the moment he’d first come to call on my beautiful, wealthy cousin. I’d watched from hallways, made them tea, organized their dinner parties. I’d done it all with a smile, any and all work my cousin required, ignoring the ache of my heart when she bragged after he left that she was going to catch the uncatchable Spanish duke. “He’s nearly in my grasp!” Claudie had crowed. “I’ll be a duchess before the year is out!”

Then, to everyone’s shock, he’d suddenly jilted her.

For me.

He was the first man who’d ever noticed me—really noticed me—and I’d fallen like a stone beneath the sensual onslaught of his power and glamour and dangerous, sexy charm. For six reckless, miraculous weeks in London last summer, Alejandro had held me in his arms, and I felt as if I owned the world.

Memories of the hopes I’d had, the naive girl I’d been, ripped through me now like a torrent of blows. Alejandro’s expression was stark, but I could remember his playful smile. The intensity of his dark gaze. The sound of his husky voice whispering sweet words in the night. I could remember hot kisses, and the feel of our naked bodies intertwined in his London hotel suite. In the back of his limo. And once, against the wall in the back stairs of the Carlisle mansion.

Our affair had seemed as infinite as the stars in the sky. But on that bright summer day when I finally gathered the courage to tell him I was in love with him, his smiling face had changed in front of my eyes.

“Love me?” Alejandro had repeated scornfully. “You do not even know me.”

Two minutes later, he was gone, leaving me bereft and bewildered. But the broken, truly broken, came later...

Now, Alejandro took my hand, glancing up and down the quiet Mexican street.

“Come back inside, Lena. We have much to talk about.”

Feeling the electricity of his hand wrapped around mine, I looked up with an intake of breath.

He was so close now. Touching me. My lips parted. He was somehow even more devastatingly handsome than I’d remembered. He had the kind of face that could break a woman’s heart into a million pieces, to little shimmering fragments of gray dust, leaving you too dazed with his power and beauty to feel anything but gratitude as he lazily destroyed you.

Without my notice, he led me back into the foyer. Reaching over my head, he towered over me, his arm brushing against my hair, his body pressing against mine. I shivered, clutching my baby close. But he merely closed the heavy door with a sonorous bang behind me.

The hard-edged billionaire duke, in his sharply tailored clothes, stood out starkly against my comfortable, bohemian home, with its warm tile floors and walls I’d decorated with homemade paper flowers and my own paintings, one of the Parroquia de San Miguel, but the rest of my baby, the first from when he was just six days old.

Looking down at me, Alejandro said softly, “Is what Claudie told me true? This baby in your arms—it is mine?”

Trembling, I pulled away. Gathering my wits, I glared at him. “Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“It’s an easy enough question. There are only two possible answers.” Reaching out, he stroked my cheek, but there was no tenderness in his gaze. “Yes. Or no.”

“You’d be a horrible father! I won’t let my sweet boy be turned into a heartless bastard like—”

“Like me?” His voice was dangerously low. His dark eyes gleamed in the shadowy foyer. “Is that what you really think of me—after all we once shared?”

Caught in his gaze, I trembled. Once, I might have believed so differently. I’d managed to convince myself that beneath his wealth and power and aristocratic title, Alejandro was decent and good. Like generations of women before me, I had seen what I wanted to see. I’d been blind to the truth, until, against my will, the blindfold had been torn from my eyes.

“Yes. That’s what I think of you.”

A strange expression flickered across the chiseled planes of his face, an emotion I couldn’t identify before it swiftly disappeared. He gave me a sardonic smile.

“You are right, of course. I care for nothing and no one. Least of all you, especially after you and your cousin have gone to such lengths to blackmail me over this child.”

“Blackmail you?” I gasped. “You’re the one who deliberately seduced me, and got me pregnant, intending to steal my baby away so you could raise him with Claudie!”

He grew very still.

“What are you talking about?” he ground out.

My body was shaking with emotion. “You think I didn’t know? When I found out I was pregnant, you’d already left me and gone back to Spain. You wouldn’t return my calls. But fool that I was, I was still desperate to share the news, because I hoped you might care! So I begged Claudie for enough money to fly to Madrid. I was scared to tell her why I needed the money. She’d planned so long to marry you. But when I told her I was pregnant, she did something I never imagined.”

“What?”

I took a deep breath.

“She laughed,” I whispered. “She laughed and laughed. Then she told me to wait. She went into the hallway, but she left the door open and I heard her call you. I heard her congratulate you on your brilliant plan! Thanking you, even! How brilliant you were, how clever, to seduce her lowly cousin, the poor relation, to provide the heir you knew she could never give you! Now the two of you could get married immediately.” My voice turned acid. “Just as soon as her lawyer forced me to sign papers terminating all my parental rights.”

“Yes. She called me.” His eyes narrowed. “But I never...”

“‘Don’t worry, I’ll get Lena to sign her baby away,’ she said!” My voice trembled as I remembered the terror I’d felt that day. “She asked you to send over a few security guards from your London office, just in case I tried to fight!” My voice choked and I looked away. “So I ran. Before either of you could lock me away somewhere for the duration of my pregnancy and try to steal my child!”

Silence fell. His eyes narrowed.

“From the day, from the hour Claudie told me you were pregnant, I’ve had investigators trying to track you down, chasing you around the world. Yes, she had some crazy idea that it was her inability to have children that kept me from marrying her. She was wrong.” He came closer. “I raced to London, but you were already gone. And ever since, you’ve always managed to disappear in a puff of smoke whenever I got close. That, querida, is expensive. And so is this.” He motioned at the high ceilings of the two-hundred-year-old colonial house. “This house is owned by a shell company run out of the Caymans. My investigators checked. So why don’t you just admit who’s helping you? Admit the truth!”

Something told me not to mention Edward St. Cyr. “And what’s that?”

“Once you found out you were pregnant, you knew I would never marry you.” His voice softened, his dark eyes almost caressing me. “So you came up with a different plan to cash in, didn’t you? You struck a deal...with your cousin.”

Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t that. I stared at him. “Are you crazy? Why would Claudie help me? She wants to marry you!”

“I know. After you disappeared, Claudie told me she knew exactly where you were, but that you refused to let me see the child until we could guarantee a stable home. Until I married her.”

My lips parted in shock. “But I haven’t spoken to Claudie for a year. She has no idea where I am!” I shook my head. “Did she really try to blackmail you into marriage?”

“Women always want to marry me,” he said grimly. “They think nothing of stealing or cheating or lying for it.”

I snorted. “Your ego is incredible!”

“It’s not ego. Every woman wants to be the wife of a billionaire duke. It’s not personal.”

Of course it is, I thought unwillingly, my heart twisting in my chest. How could any woman not fall in love with Alejandro, and not want him for her own?

“But what I want to know is...” His voice became dangerously low. “Is this baby in your arms truly mine? Or is it just part of some elaborate plot you’ve set up with Claudie?”

My head snapped back. “Are you asking me if my son is some kind of stunt baby?”

“You would be surprised,” he said tightly, “how often in life someone pretends to be something they are not.”

“You think I’d lie about this—for money?”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps for some other reason.” He paused. “If you were not working for Claudie, perhaps you were working for yourself.”

“Meaning what?”

“You hoped that playing hard to get, disappearing with my child, would make me want to pin you down. To marry you.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Not a bad calculation.”

My mouth had fallen open. Then I glared at him. “I would never want to be your wife!”

“Right.”

His single small word was like a grenade of sarcasm exploding all over me. For an instant my pride made me blind with anger. Then I remembered the dreams I’d once had and my throat went tight. I took a deep, miserable breath.

“Maybe that was what I wanted once,” I whispered. “But that was long ago. Before I found out you’d coldheartedly seduced me so you could marry Claudie and steal my baby.”

“You must know now that was never true.”

“How can I be sure?”

He shook his head. “I never intended to marry Claudie or anyone.”

“Yes, you said that. You also told me once that you never intended to have children. And yet here you are, fighting for a DNA test for Miguel!”

“I do not have a choice.” His expression changed as he said sharply, “You named the baby Miguel?”

“So?”

“Why?” he demanded, staring at me with a sudden suspicious glitter in his eyes that I did not understand.

“After the beautiful city that took me in—San Miguel became our home!”

He relaxed imperceptibly. “Ah.”

Now I was the one to frown. His reaction to our baby’s name had been so fierce, almost violent. Had he wondered if I’d named him after another man? “Why do you care so much?”

“I don’t,” he said coldly.

My baby whimpered in my arms. Fiercely, I shook my head as I hugged him close, breathing in Miguel’s sweet baby scent, feeling his tiny warm body against me. I nuzzled his head and saw tears fall onto his soft dark hair. “If you didn’t get me pregnant on purpose, if it happened by accident and you don’t want a child...just let us go!”

His jaw tightened. “I have an obligation....”

“Obligation!” I cried. “To you, he’s just someone to carry on your title and name. To me, he’s everything. I carried him for nine months, felt him kick inside me, heard his first cry when he was born. He’s my baby, my precious child, my only reason for living.” I was crying openly now, and so was my baby, either in sympathy or in alarm or just because it was past his nap time and all the adults arguing wouldn’t let him sleep. Miguel’s chubby cheeks were red, his eyes swimming with piteous tears. I tried to comfort him as I wept.

Alejandro’s expression was stone. “If he’s my son, I will bring both of you to live with me in Spain. Neither of you will ever want for anything, ever again. You will live in my castle.”

“I’d never marry you, not for any price!”

“Marriage? Who said anything about that?” His lips twisted. “Though we both know you’d marry me in a second if I asked.”

Stung, I shook my head furiously. “What could you offer me, Alejandro? Money? A castle? A title? I don’t need those things!”

He moved closer to me, his eyes dark.

“Don’t forget sex,” he said softly. “Hot, deep, incredible sex.”

In the shadowy hacienda, Alejandro looked at me over the downy head of the baby that we had created. My breasts suddenly felt heavy, my nipples tightening. My body felt taut and liquid at once.

“I know you remember what it was like between us,” he said in a low voice. “Just as I do.”

I lifted my gaze to his.

“Yes,” I whispered. “But what use are any of those things really, Alejandro? Without love, it’s empty.” I shook my head. “You must know this. Because the money, the palaces, the title—and yes, even the sex... Have those things ever made you happy?”

He stared at me. For a long moment, there was only the soft patter of the rain against the roof, our baby’s low whimper, and the loud beat of my aching heart.

Then abruptly, for the first time, Alejandro looked, really looked, at our son. Reaching out, he stroked Miguel’s soft dark hair gently with a large, powerful hand.

As if by magic, our baby’s crying abruptly subsided. Big-eyed, Miguel hiccupped his last tears away as father and son took measure of each other, each with the same frown, the same eyes, the same expression. It would have been enough to make me grin, if my heart hadn’t been hurting so much.

Suddenly our baby flopped out a tiny, unsteady hand against Alejandro’s nose. Looking down at him in surprise, Alejandro snorted a laugh. He seemed to catch his breath, looking at Miguel with amazement, even wonder.

Then he straightened, giving me a cold glare.

“There will be a DNA test. Immediately.”

“You expect me to allow a doctor to prick my baby’s skin for a blood test, to prove something I don’t want to be proved? Forget it! Either believe he’s your son, or—better yet—don’t! And leave us in peace!”

Alejandro’s face looked cold and ruthless. “Enough.”

He must have pressed a button or something—or else he had some freaky bodyguard alert, like a dog whistle I couldn’t hear—because suddenly two bodyguards came in through the front door. Without even looking at me, they kept walking through the foyer, headed across the courtyard toward the bedroom I shared with Miguel.

I whirled on Alejandro. “Where are they going?”

“To pack,” he replied coolly.

“Pack for whom?”

A third bodyguard who’d come up silently behind me suddenly lifted Miguel out of my arms.

“No!” I cried. I started for him, arms outstretched, but Alejandro held me back.

“If the DNA test proves he is not my son,” he said calmly, “I will bring your son back to you, safe and sound, and I’ll never bother either of you again.”

“Let me go!” I shrieked, fighting him—uselessly, for with his greater power and strength, his grip was implacable. “You bastard! You bastard! I will kill you! You can’t take him from me—Miguel! Miguel!”

“You are so sure he is mine?”

“Of course he is yours! You know you were my only lover!”

“I know I was your first....”

“My only! Ever! Damn you! Miguel!”

Something flickered in Alejandro’s eyes. But I was no longer looking at him. I was watching as the bodyguard disappeared through the door, my baby wailing in the man’s beefy arms. I struggled in Alejandro’s grip. “Let me go!”

“Promise to behave, Lena,” he said quietly, “and I will.”

How I wished I could fight him. If only I had the same power he did—then we’d see who gave orders! If I had his physical strength, I would punch him in the face! If only I had a fortune, a private jet, my own bodyguard army...

My lips parted on an intake of breath.

Edward.

Would he help me? Even now?

That wasn’t the question.

Would I be willing to pay the price?

“I don’t want to separate you from the baby,” Alejandro said, “but I must have the DNA test. And if you’re going to fight and scream...”

I abruptly stopped struggling. Nodding, I wiped my eyes. “I’ll come quietly. But please,” I said softly, looking up at his face, “before you take him to Spain, could we stop in London?”

He frowned. “London?”

I nodded, trying to hide my eagerness—my desperation. “I left something at Claudie’s house. Something precious. I need it back.”

“What is it?”

“My baby’s legacy.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Money?”

“And also,” I said on a wave of inspiration, “if we could talk to Claudie, together, we could force her to admit how she played us both. Then maybe we could actually trust each other, going forward....”

Alejandro rubbed the back of his head, then nodded. “That would be better. And to be honest, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with your cousin myself.”

His voice was grim. I believed him now when he said he didn’t want to marry Claudie. Maybe Alejandro hadn’t deliberately planned to get me pregnant after all.

But I’d been right about one thing. He still planned to steal my baby. He intended to keep Miguel at his side, to raise him as his heir in some cold Spanish castle, until he turned him into some heartless, unfeeling bastard like himself.

And Alejandro didn’t intend to marry me. So I’d be powerless. Expendable.

“So we have a deal?” Alejandro said. “You’ll allow the DNA test, and if he is my son, you’ll come with us to Spain?”

“With a stop in London first.”

“Yes. London. But after that, Spain. I have your word?”

“I honestly hate you,” I whispered with feeling.

“I honestly do not care. Do I have your word?”

I glared at him. “Yes.”

He looked down at me in the shadows. For a moment, there was a current of electricity between us, sparking in the shadows of the room. His fingers tightened. Then he abruptly released me.

“Thank you,” he said coldly, “for being so reasonable.”

Hiding the cold determination in my heart, I left him without a word, and nearly sprinted toward my baby.

Alejandro thought he owned me now. But I wasn’t as helpless as he thought. I had one card left to play, if I was willing to pay for it.

Was I?

For my son?

Yes. I was.


CHAPTER TWO (#u83fda7ab-bc37-510b-83c4-a5b6cdb281d9)

THE FIRST TIME I saw London, I was a grief-stricken fourteen-year-old, newly orphaned, just arrived from New York. My grandmother, whom I’d never met, sent her driver to collect me from Heathrow. The sky was weeping and gray. I remembered trembling as I walked up the steps of the tall white mansion in Kensington, a house roughly the same size as my entire apartment building in Brooklyn.

Brought in by the butler, I’d found my grandmother sitting at her antique desk in the morning room. I stood in front of the fireplace for some moments, my eyes stinging and my heart aching, before she finally looked up.

“So you’re Lena,” she’d said, looking me up and down, from the lumpy coat my mother had made before her hands grew frail in illness, wasting away like her heart since my father’s death six months previously, down to my feet crammed into cheap, too-small shoes that had been all my loving but sadly unskilled father had been able to afford. “Not much of a beauty,” she’d said crisply, with some regret.

It was raining in London today, too.

As Alejandro’s driver waited, holding open my door, I shivered, looking up at the white mansion. I felt suddenly fourteen again. Except now I was going to face my cousin.

Claudie and I were the same age, but she was so different in looks and manner that we could have been born on opposite sides of not just the Atlantic, but the universe.

When I’d first come to the house—devastated by the loss of both my mother and my father within six short months—I’d tried so hard to make my beautiful, spoiled cousin like me, but she’d scorned me on sight. She’d been determined to drive me from the house. Especially once grandmother died and she saw the terms of the will. And she’d finally gotten her wish. She’d won....

“What are you waiting for?” Alejandro said impatiently. “Get out of the car.”

“I changed my mind. I don’t need to go in.”

“Too bad. You’re going.”

He looked far too handsome and rested. He’d slept and showered on his private jet. He was in a fresh suit. I, on the other hand, hadn’t slept at all since yesterday. After an interminable visit to a private hospital in San Miguel de Allende, where he’d paid a small fortune for the DNA test, we’d gotten on his private 747 and I’d spent the long flight walking back and forth in the cabin, trying to calm Miguel enough to sleep. But the cabin pressure hurt his ears, and only my continual walking soothed him. So I’d gotten exercise, at least, using the aisle of Alejandro’s jet as my own private treadmill.

But there’d been no shower for me. I felt groggy, sweaty and dirty, and I was still wearing the same white cotton sundress I’d worn in Mexico. There was no way I was going to face my cousin like this.

It was bad enough letting Alejandro see me.

He’d barely said ten words to me on the plane; in fact, he’d said just five: “Want me to hold him?” Of course, I refused. I hadn’t wanted to give up possession of my baby, even for a moment. Even thirty thousand feet in the air, when there was no way for him to run off. The DNA test had proved the obvious—that Alejandro was Miguel’s father—but I was fighting his emotional and legal claim with every cell and pore.

Now, as Alejandro looked at me in the backseat, the difference between his sleek gorgeousness and my chubby unattractiveness was so extreme I imagined he must be asking himself what he could ever have seen in me. Which begged the question: If he hadn’t deliberately seduced me last summer to create an heir, then why on earth had he?

I licked my lips. “Alejandro,” I said hesitantly. “I...”

“Enough delay,” he growled. “We’re going in.”

I looked at my baby, tucked into a baby seat beside me in the back of the limo, now sleeping in blessed silence. “You go. I’ll stay here with Miguel.” Which would also be the perfect way for me to sneak to Edward’s house, at the end of the street.

“Dowell can watch him.”

I glanced at the driver doubtfully. “No.”

“Then bring Miguel with us.”

“Wake him up?” I whispered, scandalized. I narrowed my eyes. “Of course you wouldn’t worry about that. You’re not the one who spent the whole flight walking in circles trying to make him sleep.”

Alejandro set his jaw. “I offered to take him....”

“You could have offered again.” I was dimly aware that I sounded irrational. There was no way he could have taken Miguel from me on the jet except by force, which wouldn’t exactly have gone over well, either. My cheeks got hot. “It doesn’t matter.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You do know how to take care of Miguel better than I do.”

His tone told me whom he blamed for that. “I had no choice. I thought you were going to steal him from me.”

“So you stole him first?”

I blinked. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

“You could at least have called me directly,” he ground out.

Now, that was unfair! “I tried! You wouldn’t take my phone calls!”

“If I’d known you were pregnant, I would have.” His jaw tightened. “You could have left a message with Mrs. Allen....”

“Leave a message with some faceless secretary at your London office to let you know, oh, hey, I’m pregnant with your baby? Seriously?” I lifted my chin. “You should have just taken my damn call!”

Alejandro stared at me, his lips pressed in a thin line. “This argument is over.” He turned away. “Unlatch the baby carrier and lift it out of the seat. That won’t wake him up, as you know perfectly well.”

My cheeks burned slightly. Yes, I’d known that. I’d just been hoping he wouldn’t.

When I didn’t move, Alejandro started to reach around me. With a huff I turned and unlatched the seat. Miguel continued softly snoring in sweet baby dreams, tucked snugly in the carrier with a soft blanket against his cheek.

As the driver closed the door behind us with a snap, I stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the cold white mansion.

I’d never wanted to return to this house. But there was one silver lining. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Alejandro I wanted to come back for Miguel’s legacy. Something I’d been forced to leave behind that had nothing to do with the inheritance I’d lost.

As I looked up, the soft drizzle felt like cobwebs against my skin. Like memories. Like ghosts.

“What now?” Alejandro was glaring at me as if I wasn’t his favorite person. I couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t my favorite person right now, either.

Although at this moment there was one person I liked even less. I swallowed.

“I’m scared,” I whispered.

He stared at me. “Of Claudie?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he said gruffly. “I’m here with you now.” Reaching out, he took the baby carrier from my trembling hands. “Come on.”

Alejandro carried our sleeping baby up the stone steps and knocked on the imposing front door.

Mr. Corgan, the longtime butler, opened the door. His jowly face was dignified as he greeted Alejandro.

“Good morning, Your Excellency.” Then he glanced at me and his eyes went wide. “Miss Lena!” He saw the sleeping baby in the carrier, and the usually unflappable Mr. Corgan’s jaw fell open. “It’s true?” He breathed, then glanced at Alejandro, and the mask slipped back into place. Holding open the door, he said sonorously, “Won’t you both please come in?”

He led us into the elegant front salon, with high ceilings and gilded furniture. Everything looked just as I remembered—vintage, French and expensive. I’d been allowed in this room only a handful of times, the last being when I’d begged Claudie for money to fly to Spain. The day my life had fallen apart.

Mr. Corgan said, “I regret that Miss Carlisle is...out...at the moment, but she has a standing order to welcome you at any time, Your Excellency, if you care to wait.”

“Sí,” Alejandro said coldly. “We will wait.”

“Of course. She will be so pleased to see you when she returns. May I offer refreshments? Tea?”

Alejandro shook his head. He sat down on the pink striped couch near the window. He seemed incongruous there, this dark, masculine Spaniard with severely tailored black clothes, in a salon that looked like a giant powder puff, with the powder made of diamond dust.

He set down the baby carrier on the white polished marble floor beside the sofa. I swiftly scooped it up, and exhaled in relief now that my sleeping baby was safely back in my possession. I followed Mr. Corgan out of the salon and into the hallway.

Once we were alone, the butler’s mask dropped and he turned to face me with a happy exclamation.

“We missed you, girl.” He hugged me warmly. I closed my eyes, smelling pipe smoke and brass polish. Then I heard a crash and pulled back to see Mrs. Morris, the housekeeper, had just broken a china plate in the hallway. But she left it there, coming forward with a cry.

A minute later, both of them, along with Hildy, the maid, were hugging me and crying and exclaiming over Miguel’s beauty, his dark hair, his fat cheeks.

“And such a good sleeper, too,” Mrs. Morris said approvingly. Then they all looked at each other. I saw the delicate pause.

Then Hildy blurted out, “Who’s his father, then?”

I glanced back at the salon, biting my lip. “Um...”

Hildy’s eyes got huge when she saw who was in the salon. Then she turned to Mr. Corgan. “You were right. I owe you a fiver.”

His cheeks went faintly pink as he cleared his throat with a harrumph. “I might have heard some of your conversation with Miss Carlisle the day you left, Miss Lena.” He shook his jowly head with a glare. “It wasn’t right what she did. Driving you from the house a year before you would have got your grandmother’s inheritance.”

I was surprised for only a second. Then I gave a wry smile. Of course they knew. Household staff knew everything, sometimes even before their employers did. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does,” Mrs. Morris said indignantly. “Miss Carlisle wanted your inheritance and the moment she convinced you to move out of the house, she got it by default. Just a year before it would have finally been yours!”

I pressed my hand against my temple as emotions I had spent the past year trying to forget churned up in me.

When I turned eighteen, I could have left for college, or gotten a real job. Instead, I’d remained living in this house, working as a sort of house manager/personal assistant for my cousin beneath her unrelenting criticism as she tried her best to drive me away. I’d had a small salary at first, but even that had disappeared when she’d lazily announced one day that she was cutting the salaries of the staff by twenty percent. “They don’t need it,” she sniffed. “They are lucky, working all day in my beautiful house. They should be paying me!”

Mr. Corgan and Mrs. Morris and the rest had become my friends, and I knew they had families to support. So I’d given up my salary rather than see them suffer. Leaving me virtually destitute for years, in spite of working eighteen-hour days.

But I hadn’t minded, not really, because I’d known all I had to do was remain in this house until I was twenty-five, just a few months from now, and I would have gotten the huge inheritance once destined for my father, before he’d been cut out of the will for the crime of marrying my mother.

Eight years ago, when my grandmother lay dying, she’d clutched his old teddy bear and dissolved in tears I’d never seen before as she remembered the youngest son she’d once loved best. She’d called for her lawyer.

If Robert’s child proves herself worthy of the Carlisle name, my grandmother’s will had read, and she still lives in the house at the age of twenty-five, she may claim the bequest that would have been his.

But now it had all reverted to Claudie. I hadn’t cared a whit about the money last year, when I’d feared my baby would be stolen from me. But now...

“The house hasn’t been the same without you, Miss Lena,” Mr. Corgan said.

“Half the staff resigned after you left,” Mrs. Morris said.

“She’s been intolerable without you to run interference.” Mr. Corgan shook his head grimly. “I’ve worked for this family for forty years, Miss Lena, but even I fear my time here is nearing an end.” Leaning closer, he confided, “Miss Carlisle still insists she’ll marry your duke.”

“He’s not my duke....”

“Well. He’s the only man rich and handsome enough for her, though she says she’d marry any rich idiot who’d make her a duchess....” Glancing back over his shoulder, he coughed, turning red.

Turning, I saw Alejandro standing in the doorway of the salon. I wondered how much he’d heard. His face was half hidden in shadow, his expression inscrutable.

“Did you change your mind about the tea, Your Excellency?” Mr. Corgan gasped, his face beet red.

Alejandro shook his head. His eyes were dark, but his lips quirked at the edges. “We rich idiots prefer coffee.”

The butler looked as if he wished the earth would swallow him up whole. “I’ll get it right away, sir....”

“Don’t bother.” He looked at me. “Did you get what you came for?”

He’d heard everything, I realized. He thought I’d come for my inheritance. He thought that was the precious thing that had brought me here. It wasn’t.

I turned to Mrs. Morris urgently. “Did she throw out my things?”

“She wanted to,” she said darkly. “She told me to burn it all. But I boxed it all up and left it in your attic room. I knew she’d never bother to go all the way up there to check.”

“Bless you,” I whispered, and hugged her. “Stay and have coffee,” I called to Alejandro. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I started up the stairs, carrying my sleeping baby with me.

Climbing three floors, I reached the attic. It looked even more desolate than I remembered, with only one grimy window, an ancient metal bed frame and stacks of boxes. Setting down the baby, I went straight for the boxes.

“What are you looking for?”

Hearing Alejandro’s husky voice behind me, I turned. “These boxes hold everything from my childhood.”

He stepped inside the attic room, knocking his head against the slanted roof. He rubbed it ruefully. “I can see why Claudie wouldn’t come up here. This place is like a prison cell.”

“This was my home for over ten years.”

His dark eyes widened. “This room?” He slowly looked around the attic, at the rough wood floors, at the naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. “You lived here?”

I gave a wistful laugh. “From the time my parents died when I was fourteen, until I left last year when...well. It looked nicer then, though. I made decorations, paper flowers.” A lump rose in my throat as I looked around the bare room where I’d spent so many years. The bare mattress on the metal bed frame where I’d slept so many nights. I gently touched the bare lightbulb and swung it on the cord. “I had a bright red lampshade I bought from the charity shop on Church Street.”

“A charity shop?” he said sharply. “But you’re Claudie’s cousin. A poor relation, I know, but I’d assumed you were well paid for all your work....”

This time my laugh was not so wistful. “I was paid a salary after I turned eighteen, but that money had to go to—other things. So I started earning a little money doing portraits at street fairs. But Claudie allowed me so little time away from the house...”

“Allowed you?” he said incredulously.

I looked at him. “You heard about my inheritance.”

“How much would it have been?”

“If I was still living in this house on my twenty-fifth birthday, a few months from now, I would have inherited thirty million pounds.”

His jaw dropped.

“Thirty...”

“Yes.”

“And you left it all?”

“To protect my baby. Yes.”

“To protect our baby, you sacrificed more money than most people see in a lifetime.”

He sounded so amazed. I shook my head. “Any mother would have done the same. Money is just money.” I glanced down at Miguel, and a smile lifted my cheeks as I said softly, “He is my life.”

When I finally looked up, his dark, soulful eyes were looking at me as if he’d never seen me before. My cheeks went hot. “I expect you think I’m an idiot.”

“Far from it,” he said in a low voice.

He was looking at me with such intensity. Awkwardly, I turned away and started digging through the top box. Pushing it aside, I opened the one beneath it.

“What are you looking for?” he said curiously.

Not answering, I pulled out old sweaters, old ragtag copies of books I’d read and reread as a teenager, Rebecca, A Little Princess, Jane Eyre. Finally, at the bottom of the box, I found the three oversize, flat photo albums. “Thank you,” I whispered aloud when I saw they hadn’t been burned, or warped from being left to rot in the rain or scribbled on with a venomous black marker, or any of the other images I’d tormented myself with. Pressing the albums against my chest, I closed my eyes in pure gratitude.

“Photo albums?” Alejandro said in disbelief. “You begged me to come to London for photo albums?”

“I told you,” I said sharply. “I came for my baby’s legacy.”

“But I never thought...” Frowning, Alejandro held out his hand. “Let me see.”

Reluctantly, I handed them over, then watched as he turned through the pages of the top album, at old photographs pressed against yellowing adhesive pages beneath the clear plastic cover.

“It nearly killed me to leave them behind,” I said. “It’s all I have left of my parents. My home.” I pointed to a picture of a tenement building where the ground floor was a butcher’s shop. “That was our apartment in Brooklyn.”

He turned the page. “And this?”

My heart twisted when I saw my mother, young and laughing, holding a ragtag bouquet of flowers, sitting in my father’s lap. “My parents’ wedding day. My dad was a student in London. He fell in love with a waitress, an immigrant newly arrived from Puerto Rico. He married her against his family’s wishes, when she was pregnant with me....”

Alejandro looked at me for a long moment, then silently turned more pages. My babyhood flashed before my eyes, pictures of me as a tiny baby, getting bathed in the sink, sitting on a towel on the kitchen floor, banging wooden spoons against a pot and beaming with the same chubby cheeks that Miguel had now.

Finishing the first album, Alejandro handed it to me without a word, and thumbed through the second book, then the third. My childhood passed swiftly—learning to ride a bike...my first day at school...

“Why are you interested?” I said haltingly. “Is it—to make fun of me?”

“To make fun?” He looked at me with a scowl. “You think I would taunt you about having a happy childhood?” He shook his head. “If anything, I envy you,” he said softly, looking back at the pages that my tenderhearted mother had made for me when I was a child. Right up to the very last photo, of my father at Christmas, sitting beneath the tree wearing a Santa hat, smiling lovingly at the camera as he held my mother’s homemade gift of a sweater. Two months later, he was dead. There were no more photos. The last few pages of the album were blank. Alejandro said softly, “I have no pictures of myself with my mother. None.”

I blinked. “How is that possible? I mean, I’d think you’d have a million pictures taken....”

He abruptly looked at me. Without answering, he closed the photo album and handed it to me.

“Perhaps you’re not who I thought you were.”

“Who did you think I was?”

“Exactly like all the other women I’ve ever dated. In love with the idea of being a rich duchess.” He looked down at me, his dark eyes infinite and deep as the night sky. “But I’m starting to think you’re different. A woman who would willingly leave thirty million pounds... You were actually in love with me, weren’t you?”

My breath got knocked out of me.

“That was a long time ago.”

Our eyes met, and I suddenly had to get out of the attic. I picked up Miguel’s baby carrier with one arm and carried the albums with the other. “I’ll be downstairs.”

Without looking back, I fled, rushing down the flights of stairs. My teeth were chattering, and I was shaking with strange emotion. Edward, I reminded myself. The other reason I’d come to London. I had to get his help before Alejandro could bully me into going to Spain. Although it actually wasn’t going to Spain that frightened me. It was never being able to leave again. It was being separated from my baby. It was being completely under the control of a man who’d almost destroyed me once, just by making me love him.

As I reached the bottom of the staircase, I heard a car door slam outside. Through the windows, I saw a flash of purple.

Claudie had come home.

I turned to where Hildy was loitering at the bottom of the stairs. “Hildy!”

“Oh, hello,” she said, blushing when she saw me. “I was just dusting the banister, Miss—”

“My cousin is here. Please.” Grabbing Hildy’s arm, I whispered, “I need you to take a message to Edward St. Cyr.”

“Edward St. Cyr?” Hildy’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Mr. St. Cyr himself? Are you serious?”

“Tell him I need to see him,” I said with more assurance than I felt.

“Here, miss? You know he and Miss Carlisle hate each other....”

Hearing my cousin fumbling at the door, I shook my head. “Tell him...the Princess Diana Playground in thirty minutes.”

With a quick, troubled nod, Hildy hurried toward the back door. Just in time, too. The front door slammed.

“Well. Look who’s back.”

My cousin’s voice was a sneer. Warily, I turned to face her for the first time in a year.

“Hello, Claudie.” She was wearing a tight, extremely short bandage dress, the kind you might wear to a club if you wanted a lot of attention, in a vivid shade of purple that almost matched the hollows beneath her eyes. “Late night?” I said mildly.

She glared at me.

“If you came to beg for your inheritance, forget it. My solicitors went through the will with a fine-tooth comb,” she ground out. “You’ll never...” Then she saw the baby and gasped in triumph. “You brought the brat here? I knew you’d see reason.” She rubbed her hands together in glee. “Now I’ll either make him marry me, or else I’ll—”

“You’ll what, Claudie?” Alejandro said coolly from the top of the stairs.

My cousin looked up, speechless for the first time in her life. But she recovered almost instantly. Smiling up at him, she put her hand on her hip, setting a pose that showed her figure to advantage, wearing her six-inch heels and skintight purple dress, trailing a cloud of expensive perfume. Her gorgeous, long blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, emphasizing the bone structure of her sharp cheekbones.

But as she licked her big lips, beneath her smile, her eyes were afraid. “Alejandro. I didn’t know you were here.”

He came down the stairs, looking down at her. He stopped in front of her. Even though she wore such high heels, he was still taller.

“You lied to me, Claudie,” he said pleasantly. “Lena wasn’t holding my baby hostage. You were.”

She visibly trembled, then tried to laugh. Reaching into her crystal-encrusted bag, she got out a pack of cigarettes. “Darling, I don’t know what kind of lies my precious cousin might have told you, but...”

He grabbed her wrist almost violently.

“Do not,” he said coldly, “smoke near my son.”

“Your son,” she breathed, searching his gaze, then ripped her arm away. “Are you so sure of that?” Her beautiful blue eyes hardened. “How do you know he’s yours? You should have seen all the men who used to come through here, Alejandro—trooping up to Lena’s bedroom every single night—”

A little gasp escaped me, like an enraged squeak.

Alejandro lifted an eyebrow. “Then they must have been lost, on their way to your room, Claudie.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t like what you’re implying—”

“We did a DNA test,” he said, cutting her off. “The baby is mine.”

For a moment, she stared at him. But you could almost see her gather her forces. “He doesn’t have to be.” She looked from him to me. “If you don’t treat him like your son, no one else will.”

“You think I would abandon my own child?”

“Fine,” she said impatiently. She flung a skeletal finger toward my sweetly sleeping son. “We can take her baby. She’s nobody, Alejandro. She won’t be able to stop us....”

With a gasp, I protected the baby carrier with my body.

“Just think.” Claudie swayed her hips as she walked toward Alejandro with her hypnotic red smile. “Just think how perfect our future could be.” She started to wrap her arms around him. “With your money and title, and my money and connections...the two of us could rule the world.”

He looked down at her coldly. “Do you really think I’d want to rule the world, if the price would be marriage to you?”

Shocked, she let her arms fall to her sides.

“You used Lena for years as an unpaid slave,” he said, “then threatened to take her baby, for the sake of stealing what you wanted—her inheritance. And then you tried to blackmail me into marrying you!”

She licked her lips. “I...”

He held up his hand sharply, cutting her off. His voice was deep and harsh. “For the past year, you’ve lied to me, saying if I ever wanted to see my child, I had to marry you. Blaming Lena, making me think she was the one to blame. For that, you deserve to go to hell. Which I hope you will find—” he gave her a sudden, pleasant smile “—very soon. Adios, Claudie.” Scooping up the baby carrier, he turned to me gravely. “Shall we go?” Without another word, he walked out the front door.

“Alejandro, wait,” Claudie gasped, but I was the only one left to hear. “You.” Her face as she turned to look at me really did look like a snake’s. Or maybe a dragon’s—I could almost see the smoke coming out of her nostrils as her blue, reptilian eyes hardened. “You did this!”

For the past decade, I’d dreamed of what I would say to her if given the chance, after all my lonely years, crying alone in my attic. All the subtle and not so subtle ways she’d insulted me, used me, made me feel worthless and invisible for the past ten years. But in this moment, all those things fled from my mind. Instead, the real question came from my heart.

“Why did you hate me, Claudie?” I whispered, lifting my tearful gaze to hers. “I loved you. You were my only family. Why couldn’t you love me? Why wouldn’t you let me love you?”

My cousin drew herself up, all thin gorgeousness.

“Why?” She lit her cigarette with shaking hands. “Because you’re not my real family.” Taking a long draw on her cigarette, she said in a low, venomous hiss, “And you’re not good enough for Alejandro. Blood always tells. Sooner or later, he will be embarrassed by you, just as I was. He’ll take your child and toss you in the gutter, like you deserve.”

My mouth fell open as her poisoned dart hit me, square in the heart.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” I choked out, and I turned and fled, still holding my photo albums against my chest, like a shield.

Outside, a sliver of sun had split through the dark clouds, through the rain. Stopping on the sidewalk, I turned back and looked up at the Carlisle mansion for one last time.

“Goodbye,” I whispered.

Then I climbed into the limo, where the driver waited with my door open, and he closed it behind me.

“Enjoy a tender farewell?” Alejandro was already in the backseat, on the other side of Miguel, who had woken and was starting to whimper.

“Something like that,” I muttered, trying to surreptitiously wipe my tears.

“I was surprised. It’s not like you to let me walk off with—” His voice cut off as he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. Turning to my baby, I pressed his favorite blanket against his cheek and tried to comfort him. Tried to comfort myself. My baby’s tears quieted and so did his quivering little body, as he felt the hum and vibration of the car’s engine beneath him. His eyelids started to grow heavy again.

“What did she say?” Alejandro said. Frowning, he looked closer at my face. “Did she...”

There was a sudden hard knock on his window. Miguel’s little body jerked back awake, and his whimpers turned to full-on crying. Alejandro turned with a growl.

Claudie stood by the limo, her eyes like fire. “Open this window!” she yelled through the glass.

Alejandro’s expression was like ice as he rolled it down a grudging two inches. She leaned forward, her face raw with emotion.

“We could have ruled the world together, Alejandro, and you’re throwing it all away—for that little whore and her brat!”

Alejandro said softly, his face dangerous, “If you ever insult either my son or his mother again, you will regret it.”

Claudie looked bewildered. To be fair, she’d insulted me for so long she’d probably forgotten it wasn’t nice.

“But Alejandro...” Her voice had a strange begging sound I’d never heard from her. “You’ll never find someone with my breeding, my beauty, my billions. I love you....”

“You love my title.”

Her cheeks flushed red. “All right. But you can’t choose her over me. She’s...nothing. No one.”

I swallowed, blinking fast.

“Blood always tells,” she said. “She’s not good enough for you.”

Alejandro looked quickly at my miserable face. Then he turned back to Claudie with a deliberate smile.

“Thank you for your fascinating opinion. Now move, won’t you? I need to take Lena shopping for an engagement ring.”

“You’re—what?” Claudie staggered back. I gasped. Miguel was crying.

The only one who looked absolutely calm was Alejandro. Turning away from her, he sat back in the plush leather seat, and said to Dowell, “Drive on.”

Claudie stared after us, looking stupefied on the sidewalk, and almost forlorn in her tight club dress and bedraggled mascara. Looking back at her through the car window, I felt a strange wave of sympathy.

Because I, too, knew what it felt like to be left by Alejandro Navaro y Albra.

“You didn’t have to be so cruel,” I whispered.

“Cruel?” he said incredulously. “You defend her, after the way she treated you?”

“She’s still my cousin. I feel sorry for her....”

“Then you’re a fool,” he said harshly.

I stroked my crying baby’s cheek. My lips creased sadly. “Love makes us all fools.”

“She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t even know me.”

“That’s what you said to me, too,” I said softly. I met his gaze. “I wonder if any woman will ever truly know you.”

For an instant, I thought I saw hunger, even yearning in his dark eyes as he stared down at me. Then the expression shuttered, leaving me to decide I’d imagined it. But even then, he continued to look at me, as if he couldn’t look away.

“What are you staring at?” I put my hand to my messy ponytail, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I must look a mess.”

“You look...” His eyes slowly traced over my hand, up my arm, to my neck, to my lips. “You look like a woman who cares more about her baby than a fortune. Like a woman who works so hard and so well—for free—that she’s beloved by the entire household staff. You look,” he said softly, “like a woman who feels sympathy, even for the coldhearted creature who tried to destroy her.”

“Are you—complimenting me?”

He gave a low laugh. “If you’re not sure, I must be losing my touch.”

I flushed. Turning away, I took a deep breath. And changed the subject. “Thank you for bringing me back to London. For these.” I motioned toward the photo albums. “And for giving me the chance to finally ask Claudie something I’ve wanted to know all my life. I always wondered why nothing I did was good enough to make her love me.” I looked out the window at the passing shops of Kensington High Street. “Now I know.”

Silence fell.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded over the lump in my throat.

“I know how it feels,” he said in a low voice, “to be alone.”

“You?” I looked at him sharply, then gave a disbelieving snort. “No, you don’t.”

His dark eyes were veiled. “When I was young, I was good friends with...our housekeeper’s son. We were only six months apart in age, and we studied under the same governess. Friend? He was more like a brother to me,” he said softly. “People said we looked so much alike, acted so much alike, we could have been twins.”

“Are you still friends?”

He blinked, focusing on me, and his jaw tightened. “He died in the same crash that took the duke, the duchess. The housekeeper. Twenty-three years ago.”

“They all died in the same crash?” I said, horrified.

He looked down. “I was the only one to survive.”

I thought of a young boy being the only survivor of a car accident that took his parents, his best friend. That made him a duke at the tender age of twelve. I couldn’t even imagine the loneliness. The pain. Reaching out, I took his hand and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Alejandro drew away. “It was a long time ago.” I saw tension in his jaw, heard it in his voice. “But I do know how it feels.”

I swallowed, feeling guilty, and embarrassed, too, for all my complaining when he’d suffered worse, and in silence. “What was his name? Your friend?”

He stared at me, then his lips lifted slightly. “Miguel.”

“Oh.” I gave a shy smile. “So that’s why you don’t mind that I named our baby Miguel—”

“No.” He seemed to hide his own private smile. “I don’t mind at all.”

I frowned, looking at him more closely.

His expression shuttered, and his dark eyebrows came down into a scowl. “His surname, however...”

I sighed. “I thought you might want to change that. But don’t worry.” I gave an awkward smile. “I won’t hold you to your marriage proposal.”

His eyes were dark and intense. “What if I want you to hold me to it?”

My lips parted in shock.

“What?” I said faintly.

His dark eyes challenged mine. “What if I want you to marry me?”

“You don’t want to get married. You went on and on about all the women who tried to drag you to the altar. I’m not one of them!”

“I know that now.” Leaning his arm across the baby seat, he cupped my cheek. “But for our son’s sake, I’m starting to think you and I should be...together.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” He gave a sensual smile. “As you said, I already broke one rule. Why not break the other?”

“But what has changed?”

“I’m starting to think...perhaps I can trust you.” His eyes met mine. “And I can’t forget how it felt to have you in my bed.”

Something changed in the air between us. Something primal, dangerous. I felt the warmth of his palm against my skin and held my breath. As the limo drove through the streets of London, memories crackled through me like fire.

I remembered the night we’d conceived Miguel, and all the other hot days of summer, when I’d surrendered to him, body and soul. I trembled, feeling him so close in the backseat of the limo, on the other side of our baby. Every inch of my skin suddenly remembered the hot stroke of Alejandro’s fingertips. My mouth was tingling, aching....

“That’s not a good reason to marry someone. Especially for you. If I said yes, you’d regret it. You’d blame me. Claim that I’d only done it to be a rich duchess.”

He slowly shook his head. “I think,” he said quietly, “you might be the one woman who truly doesn’t care about that. And it would be best for our son. So what is your answer?”

My answer?

I remembered the darkness I’d fallen into the last time Alejandro wanted me—then stopped wanting me. I’d never let myself be vulnerable to him ever again. I couldn’t. He’d almost destroyed me once. I could never live through that again.

Sooner or later...he’ll take your child and toss you in the gutter, like you deserve.

I couldn’t give him control over me, ever again. I couldn’t be tempted. My only hope was to get away. My only hope was...

Oh, heaven...what time was it?

“I need to...” As I saw the time on the dashboard of the limo, my heart nearly burst in panic. “Stop the car!” I leaned forward desperately toward the driver. “Let me out!”

Looking confused, Dowell pulled over on the side of the busy road.

“What are you doing?” Alejandro demanded, looking at me as if I was crazy. I felt crazy.

I unbuckled our baby, who’d just stopped crying and was looking drowsy. “Miguel needs a walk to help him sleep....”

“Is that a joke?”

I didn’t answer. Cradling our baby, I stepped out on the sidewalk in front of Kensington Palace, and started running into the park, toward the playground. Toward Edward.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a41dd34d-35e6-5056-a2e1-4dff211b77f9)

THE PRINCESS DIANA PLAYGROUND was in the corner of Kensington Gardens, just north of the palace. It was still early, and the playground had just opened, but in the midst of August holidays it was already starting to fill with children of every age, laughing and whooping as they raced toward the teepees and leaped on the ropes of the life-size pirate ship. It was a magical place, as you might expect of a children’s playground, near a palace, based around a Peter Pan theme and named after a lost princess.

But I was here desperate for a different kind of magic.

Protection.

Edward St. Cyr had protected me more than once. We’d first properly met three years earlier, when I’d been walking up from the Tube late at night and I’d passed a group of rowdy teenagers on Kensington High Street. I’d been weighed down with groceries, and tried to keep my head down as they passed. But some of the boys had followed me up the dark street, taunting me crudely. As one started to knock the grocery bags out of my hand, there’d been a flash of headlights on the street and the slam of a car door, and suddenly a tall man in a dark coat was there, his face a threatening scowl, and the young men who’d scared me fled like rabbits into the snow. Then he’d turned to me.

“Are you all right, miss...?” Then his expression had changed. “But wait. I know you. You’re Claudie Carlisle’s cousin.”

“Yes, I...”

“You’re all right now.” He’d gently taken my trembling hand. “I’m Edward St. Cyr. I live a few streets from here. May I give you a ride home?”

“No, I couldn’t possibly. I...”

“I wouldn’t mind a walk myself,” he said briskly, and with a nod to the driver of his Rolls-Royce, he’d insisted on walking me home, though it took ten minutes.

“Thank you,” I’d said at the door. “I never meant to impose....”

“You didn’t.” He’d paused. “I remember what it’s like to feel alone and afraid. Will you let me check on you in the morning?”

I’d shaken my head. “It’s truly not necessary.”

“But you must.” He’d lifted a dark eyebrow. “If for no other reason than it will annoy your cousin, whom I’ve despised for years. I insist.”

Now, as I looked out at Kensington Gardens in the distance, I saw the paths where we’d once walked together, he and I. He’d been kind to me. We’d been—friends.

Or had we? Had he always wanted more?

I’m tired of waiting for you to forget that Spanish bastard. It’s time for you to belong to me.

I shivered. When we left Mexico yesterday, I had been prepared to make any sacrifice to save my baby from Alejandro. Even if the price would have been going to bed with a man I did not love.

But now I was starting to wonder if that was truly necessary. Perhaps Alejandro was not entirely the heartless monster I’d once feared him to be....

“You shouldn’t have run.”

Hearing Alejandro’s dark voice behind me, I whirled around. “How did you catch up so fast?”

He was scowling. “Did you think I’d let you disappear with Miguel?”

“I didn’t disappear. I...”

“Had some kind of baby emergency?” He folded his arms. “You ran for a reason. And we both know what it is.”

Could he have somehow found out about Edward St. Cyr? The two men were slightly acquainted. And far from being friends. I didn’t think he would take it well. I bit my lip, breathing, “I...”

“You panicked because I asked you to marry me,” he accused.

Oh. I exhaled. “We both know you weren’t serious.”

“We both know I was.”

“You won’t be, once you have a chance to think about it. You don’t want to get married. You said so a million times.”

“I never intended to have a child, either,” he pointed out, “so there was no reason to marry. But now... You heard what Claudie said. Marrying you will make clear to the whole world that he’s my son. That he’s my heir. Right or wrong,” he said tightly.

Right or wrong? Meaning I wasn’t good enough? That Miguel wasn’t? My eyes narrowed. “I don’t love you.”

“I can live with that,” he said sardonically. “We both love our son. That is the only love that matters.”

“You’re wrong,” I said stubbornly. “My parents loved me, but they also loved each other, till the day they died. I remember how they looked at each other....”

“Most people are not so fortunate,” he said harshly. “I’ve spent a year pursuing you, Lena. I don’t want to fight over custody now. I don’t want to worry, anytime you take him for a walk, that you might try to run away with him. I want this matter settled between us, once and for all.”

Ah. Now we were getting down to it. “You mean I should give you total control over me, body and soul, so you can avoid the inconvenience of a custody battle?” I said incredulously, then shook my head. “This idea of marriage is just a momentary madness with you—it will pass....”

My voice trailed off as I saw Hildy on the edge of the playground, frantically signaling.

Alejandro frowned. “What is it?” He started to turn his head. “What are you...”

“On second thought, let me think it over,” I said quickly. Touching his arm, I gave him a weak smile. “So much has happened since yesterday. Maybe I’m too exhausted to think straight.” I pointed toward the outdoor café at the front of the playground. “Could you...please...get me some coffee?”

Alejandro’s dark gaze flickered over my bedraggled dress, the dark circles under my eyes. “Of course, querida,” he murmured courteously. Turning away, he started toward the outdoor café.

The instant he was gone, I rushed to meet Hildy.

“Where’s Edward?” I said desperately.

She was already shaking her head. “Mr. St. Cyr wasn’t home. They said he’s in Tokyo.”

Of all the bad luck! “Can I borrow your phone?”

“Yes....” She reached into her pocket, then looked up, her mouth a round O. “I didn’t bring it! It’s still at home!”

Alejandro was already handing over money at the café. I saw him pick up two coffees from the counter. No time.

My shoulders fell. “Thanks anyway. You’d better go.”

“Good luck, miss....”

Defeated, I looked out across the green park, deep emerald beneath the lowering gray London sky. I suddenly wondered what the weather was like in Spain. Warm. Sunny. Blue skies. With the chance of a hot, seductive Spaniard demanding that I share his bed.

No! I couldn’t let myself think about it! Just sharing custody of Miguel would be bad enough. I would never, ever be Alejandro’s lover! And certainly not his wife!

“Here.” Alejandro handed me a white paper cup that warmed my hands. The coffee smelled like heaven. I took a sip, then sighed with appreciation as I felt the heat melt me from the inside. It was sweet, and creamy.

“You remembered how I liked it,” I said in surprise.

He took a sip of his own black coffee, and gave a wicked grin. “That’s how all women like it.”

“That’s not true!”

He shrugged. “It’s mostly true. Cream and sugar will calm a woman down every time.”

I glared at him. “You are such a—”

“A heartless bastard?” He paused, then tilted his head. “Do you still think I’ll be such a disaster as a father?”

He sounded wistful, even—hurt? No. Impossible. A man like Alejandro had no heart to injure. But still, guilt rose in me, making my cheeks burn. “Maybe you’re not completely evil.” I looked down at the cup. “You did get my coffee right. Even though you’re completely wrong with your stereotype about women liking cream and sugar.”

“Obviously,” he agreed. He tilted his head. “Your arms must be getting tired from holding Miguel all this time.”

“A bit,” I admitted sheepishly. “He’s starting to get too heavy to carry like this for long.”

Finishing off his coffee, he threw the empty cup in the trash and reached out. “Give him to me.”

I hesitated, then handed him over. I watched anxiously, but Alejandro was careful, holding him, even turning Miguel around so he could see the world around him. Alejandro caught my look. “How am I doing?”

“Not bad,” I said grudgingly.

“Would you care to walk?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Since he needed a walk so badly that you almost jumped out of a moving car. This taking babies on walks must be a serious business. Or else you had some other reason for coming here that you don’t want me to know about.”

I looked at him sharply. Did he know something? Or was he just fishing?

He gave me a bland smile.

I shrugged. “It was what you said. Pure panic at your marriage proposal.” I took a sip of coffee. “Kind of like how you reacted last year when I told you I loved you. Instant disappearance.” For a moment, we stared at each other. Then I turned away. “Yes. Let’s walk.”

The rain had eased up, and though gray skies were hovering, eager children of all ages, speaking many different languages, were now playing everywhere as we strolled past the pirate ship.

“So what is your answer?” he said casually, as if he’d been asking me out for a movie.





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/jennie-lucas/uncovering-her-nine-month-secret/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.