One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West
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then I looked at him, remembering his last ruthless kiss in the cloakroom. And the one before it, which had been even more dangerous. I remembered how it had felt, surrendering to his embrace, how it had made my whole body tremble with need.
“You’re such a jerk,” I muttered, folding my arms mutinously. “My thoughts are my own.”
“Not if they are of a man like St. Cyr. Thoughts lead to actions.”
“I told you, I don’t even like him anymore!”
He snorted. “And that is supposed to inspire trust? You’ve made it plain you did not wish to marry me. Perhaps you’re wishing now you took the other choice.”
I looked at him. “What other choice?”
“A war between us,” he said grimly. He was staring forward at the road, his jaw tight. “St. Cyr would be eager to help you with that.”
My arms unfolded. “No.” I frowned. “I don’t want war. I’d never deliberately hurt you, Alejandro. Not now.”
“Really,” he said in clear disbelief.
“Hurting you would hurt Miguel.” I looked out the window and said softly, “We both love him. I realized the truth last night, even before your marriage ultimatum—neither of us wants to be apart from him.” Blinking fast, I faced him. “You’re right. We’re married now. So let’s make the best of it.”
“Do you mean it?” he said evenly. I nodded.
“Let’s make sure Miguel has a wonderful childhood and a real home, where he’ll always feel safe and warm and loved.”
His hands seemed to relax a little around the steering wheel. He looked at me. There was something strange in his eyes, something almost like—yearning—that made my heart twist.
“If it’s really true you’d never deliberately hurt me...” He seemed to be speaking to himself. “I wish I could...”
“What?”
He shook his head, and his jaw went hard. “Nothing.”
What had he been about to say? I looked down, blinking as my eyes burned. Telling myself I shouldn’t care. Willing myself not to care.
My lie is about something else.
What?
I remembered the stark look in his eyes. Me. Only me.
Stop it, I told my heart fiercely. Don’t get sucked in! Keep your distance!
Silently, Alejandro stared forward at the road. For long minutes, the only sound was Miguel cooing to himself in the backseat, chortling triumphantly as he grasped a soft toy hanging from the top of his baby seat, and making it squeak. I smiled back at my son. He was the reason. The only reason.
“I’m glad you feel that way. The truth is I don’t want to hurt you, either.” Alejandro tightened his hands on the steering wheel. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Our son is what matters. We’ll focus on him. I’ll never leave you or Miguel. Together we’ll make sure our son is always well cared for.”
Our eyes locked, and an ache lifted to my throat. Turning away, I tried to block the emotion out with a laugh. “Miguel will be a duke someday. That’s crazy, isn’t it?”
Alejandro turned his eyes back to the road.
“Sí,” he said grimly. “Crazy.”
I’d been trying to lighten the mood. But his voice sounded darker than ever. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. You are correct. Miguel will be Duque de Alzacar.” I frowned. But before I could figure out what lay behind the odd tension in his voice, he turned to me. “So you forgive me for forcing you to marry me against your will?”
I exhaled.
“It’s a very complicated question.”
“No. It is not.”
Something broke inside me. And words came pouring out.
“You think I was silly and selfish to want to marry for love. But for the past ten years, that dream was all I’ve held on to.” I looked at my hands in my lap. “Ever since I was fourteen years old, I’ve felt so alone. So unwanted. But then, last year, when I met you...” I lifted agonized eyes to his. “All my dreams seemed to be coming true. It was as if...I’d gone back in time. To the world I once knew. The one filled with love. The world where I was good enough. Wanted. Even cherished.”
Alejandro’s expression darkened. “Lena...”
“Then you abandoned me,” I whispered. “You told me you didn’t love me, that you never would.” I looked at him. “But I still married you yesterday, Alejandro, knowing that. Knowing you’ve lied to me in the past and will lie in the future. I married you knowing that the loneliness I tried to leave behind me in London will now follow me for the rest of my life. Only now, instead of being a poor relation, I’m the gold digger who got pregnant to ensnare a rich duke. And everyone will say, weren’t you so good and noble to marry me? Wasn’t it an amazing sacrifice for you to make me your wife? How generous of you! How kind!”
He glowered. “No one will say that.”
I cut him off with a low laugh. “Everyone will. And I know there will be days when I’ll feel that marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.” I drew a deep, shuddering breath, then met his gaze. “And yet I can’t regret it,” I whispered. “Because it will make Miguel’s life better to have you in his life. Every single day. He will know you. Really know you.”
“I wish he could.” Alejandro stared at me. His dark eyes were liquid and deep. “I wish I could tell you...”
I held my breath. “Yes?”
His face suddenly turned cold, like a statue. He looked away. “Forget it.”
I exhaled, wishing I hadn’t said so much.
He drove the car off the main road, then took a smaller one, then turned on a private lane that was smaller still, nothing but a ribbon twisting across the broad-swept lands. Alejandro stopped briefly at a tall iron gate, then entered a code into the electronic keypad. We proceeded inside the estate, which looked so endless and wide, I wondered how anyone had wrapped a fence around it, and if the fence was visible from space, like the Great Wall of China.
Then I saw the castle, high on a distant hill, and I sucked in my breath. It was like a fairy-tale castle, rising with ramparts of stone and turrets stretching into the sky.
“Is that...?” I breathed.
“Sí,” Alejandro said quietly. “My home. The Castillo de Rohares. The home of the Dukes of Alzacar for four hundred years.”
It took another fifteen minutes to climb the hill, past the groves of olive trees and orange trees. When we reached the castle at last, past the ramparts into a courtyard surrounding a stone fountain, he stopped the car at the grand entrance on the circular driveway. He turned off the engine, and I could hear the bodyguards climbing out of the SUV behind us, talking noisily about lunch, slamming doors. But as I started to turn for the passenger-side door, Alejandro grabbed my wrist. I turned to face him, and he dropped my arm.
“I am sorry I hurt you, Lena. When I left you last summer, when I refused to return any of your phone calls—I did that for good reason. At least—” his jaw tightened “—it seemed like good reason.”
“No, I get it,” I said. “You didn’t want me to love you.”
“No. That’s not it at all.” He lifted his dark eyes to mine. “I didn’t leave because you loved me. I left because I was falling in love with you.”
I