One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West
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“It’s nothing,” I said. My teeth chattered. “M-my easel fell.”
“Ah.” He smiled at me, his dark eyes warm. “Let me take care of that.”
“Don’t look at the painting!” I cried. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. For your birthday.”
Good-naturedly covering his eyes, he handed me the canvas. “I didn’t see a thing.”
I took the painting, slightly smeared from the fall and half-finished, with Maurine and Miguel looking like ghosts. And I wished I’d covered my ears and not heard a thing when Edward had told me about the woman in Granada.
* * *
“It has occurred to me,” Alejandro murmured a week later, leaning over the sofa where I sat feeding Miguel, “that we never had a honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon?” I said, twisting my head to look back at him. I shook my head. “You mean, without Miguel?”
“Don’t worry.” He brushed the back of my neck with his fingertips, making me shiver. “I’m not thinking Tahiti. That will have to wait. But a single night, just a two-hour drive away, surely you could manage that?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know...”
“I promise you’ll enjoy it.” He stroked my hair, then gently kissed the crook of my neck, the edge between my shoulder and my neck. My shiver turned harder. “We will get a nice hotel. Go out for dinner. I’m thinking Granada....”
“Granada?” I stared at him, and the color must have drained from my cheeks, because he frowned.
“I thought you wanted to see the Alhambra.”
I’d dreamed of seeing the famous Moorish castle since I was a child. But I’d spent the past week guarding my heart. Trying to stay distant and cold. Trying not to think about what I didn’t want to know. Granada was the last place on earth I wanted to go.
Or was it?
“Maybe,” I said.
He smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a week. Since I’d started keeping my distance, even when we were as close as a man and woman could be. “Is that a yes?” He tilted his head, looking over me slowly with a sensual, heavy-lidded gaze. “I’d be happy to spend time persuading you....”
My body immediately clamored for him to persuade me, hot and sweet and long. But sex wasn’t our problem. We made love every night. Physically, we were closer than ever.
Emotionally, the weight of secrets had caused an ocean between us.
You know, you must know, about the woman he visits in Granada?
My smile faded. Like my courage. I shook my head. “On second thought...forget it.”
“Why?” His eyes narrowed, and he moved around the sofa with lightning speed. He cupped my face, looking down at me fiercely. “I am trying to make it up to you!”
“What?” I breathed, searching his gaze. “What are you trying to make up for, Alejandro?”
“Whatever has made you so angry at me.” His fingertips tightened infinitesimally. “I want you to look at me like you used to.”
“And I want to trust you,” I choked out, “like I used to.”
He stared at me. He’d never heard that tone from me before. “When I was in Granada...”
I held my breath.
He continued, “You were alone with my grandmother. Did she...” He hesitated. “Did she say something?”
“Did she tell me your secret, you mean?” I said bitterly. “No. She is loyal to you.”
He abruptly released me and rose from the sofa, his face hard. “Enough. We are taking a one-night honeymoon. You will come with me. You will have a good time.”
I lifted my chin defiantly. “Is that a command, Your Excellency?”
“Take it as you wish.” He glared back at me, his eyes cold. “I will tell the staff to pack your things immediately.”
The drive to Granada was short, especially after Alejandro stepped on the gas of his yellow Lamborghini. But with just the two of us trapped in the small space, it still took far too long. The tension between us was boiling, about to explode.
I forced myself to look at the guidebook he’d bought me about Granada. I tried to distract myself with its history. To choke back my frustration, my hurt, my rage. Because if I let out my feelings, I feared our marriage would end, and so would any chance at happiness. Forever.
I desperately wanted to ask him about the woman.
I desperately was afraid of the answer.
Alejandro did not speak to me. He drove us to a small hotel, a parador amidst the gardens of the Alhambra itself, in a building that was once a fifteenth-century convent, and a royal chapel to the kings of Spain, and before that, a palace and mosque of the Moorish emirs. Once there, he seemed angry at everyone. He glowered at the hotel staff. The moment we were alone in the simple, starkly furnished bedroom, he turned on me, and pressed me to the large four-poster bed in a ruthless, unyielding embrace.
All the women’s magazines tell you to do one thing. To have self-esteem. To turn away from any man you cannot completely trust. Especially one who has broken your heart before. They say the past predicts the future.
I knew all this, but when I felt his hand stroke my cheek, the sweet satin stroke of his touch sent liquid fire through my veins. I saw the dark gleam of his eyes as he slowly lowered his head to mine, and I could not resist.
He kissed me, and I felt my heart explode in my chest. Felt my taped-together soul shatter again into a million pieces, even tinier than before, in infinite chiming shards that I would never be able to put together again.
I had to ask him. I had to be brave enough to ask, and be brave enough to listen to his answer—whether he answered with words, or with silence.
I suddenly realized this might be the very last time we’d ever make love....
“Maravillosa,” Alejandro whispered against my skin. As he pulled off my clothes, as I pulled off his, as I kissed him, tasting the salt of his skin, I knew that even amid the pleasure, I was tasting the salt of my own tears.
I loved him.
So much.
And I knew—I’d always known, really—how this would someday end.
Through my tears, I kissed him back desperately, letting him pull me into the whirlwind of mingled anguish and pleasure.
But when the heat between us was satisfied, coldness was all that was left. Both of us still naked, he held me against him on the bed. His voice was low.
“Why do you not look at me like you used to? What has changed? What do you—know?”
I looked at him. His face shimmered through my tears.
“Edward came to see me last week. At Rohares.”
“What!” he exploded, sitting up.
I held his hand. “I didn’t ask him to come. He snuck in. I only spoke with him for a moment. He wanted me to run away with him. When I refused, he told me...you had a woman here. In Granada. That you visited her. That you bought her a tavern. That you even sing to her....”
For a long moment, we stared at each other in the slanted bars of sunlight coming through the window blinds. I could almost hear the pounding of my heart.
Then Alejandro’s lip slowly curled.
“I will kill him,” he said, and with cold menace, started to rise from the bed.
“No!” Grabbing his arm, I looked up at him