One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West
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bad,” I said.
Alejandro looked at me in amazement. Coming back, he wrapped his arms around me. “It’s not like you to be bloodthirsty, mi amor,” he murmured.
“I can be dangerous—” I reached up my hand to caress his cheek “—when it comes to protecting those I love.”
“Yes.” The corners of his sensual mouth quirked. Then his expression became serious. “But are you brave enough to face what lies ahead? There will be scandal. Or worse. Though perhaps I can protect Maurine....”
“How?”
“I will say that she was distraught over her family’s death, and that I tricked her into believing I was her grandson.”
“Oh, she won’t like that at all.”
“No,” he agreed. He looked at me, emotion in his dark eyes. “Can you bear it, Lena? The storm that might come? Miguel will lose his legacy....”
“You’re wrong.” I put my hand on his cheek. My eyes were watery. “His legacy is more than some title. It’s doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.”
“And love,” Alejandro whispered, pressing my hands together as he kissed them fervently. “Loving for all your life, with all your heart.”
“It’s family, always and forever.” Looking up at my husband, I smiled through my tears. “And whatever may come—our forever has already begun.”
* * *
There are all kinds of ways to make a family.
Some ways are big, such as the way Maurine took in an orphaned twelve-year-old boy and insisted on claiming him as her grandson.
Some ways are small, such as when I sent an invitation to my wedding reception to my cousin Claudie.
Autumn had arrived at Rohares Castle, and with it harvest season for our tenants. The summer heat had subsided, leaving a gorgeous swath of vivid colors, of morning mists and early twilight, full of excuses to sip oceans of hot tea with milk in the morning and go to bed early with my husband with a bottle of ruby-red wine. Every night, we lit a fire in the fireplace—and in our bed. And that fire, as months passed, seemed only to get bigger and brighter.
Just that morning, Maurine had caught us kissing in the breakfast room. She’d laughed. “I don’t think the honeymoon will really ever end for you two,” she said affectionately. Then the doorbell rang, and she’d hurried from the room with a desperate cry: “The florist! Finally!” And we were alone.
I’d given Alejandro a sensual smile.
“Could I interest you in a little more honeymoon?” I said, batting my eyes coyly, to which my husband whispered, “All day, every day,” before he kissed me senseless, then picked me up like a Neanderthal and carried me upstairs, back to bed.
Now, the crowded banqueting hall was lit up for evening, bedecked gloriously in autumn flowers in the most beautiful wedding reception I’d ever imagined. Across the crowds of our guests, I caught Alejandro’s eye. He smiled back at me hungrily, as if it had been a year since he’d last taken me to bed, instead of just a few hours. His hot glance almost made me forget we were surrounded by family and friends.
“I told you he would be your husband,” a voice crowed behind me. “I always can tell!”
“You were right.” Turning, I smiled at Dolores, my neighbor from San Miguel de Allende who’d been whisked here from Mexico for the reception. She’d been equal parts impressed and triumphant when Alejandro had sent a private jet to collect her.
I’d sent Mr. Corgan, Mrs. Morris and Hildy a first-class ticket here from London. They were still working for Claudie. “But she’s mellowed a great deal since she became Mrs. Crosby,” the butler informed me. “He’s rich, and that has made her very happy.”
But I could see that for myself. Claudie had arrived at my door swathed in fur, with her brand-new husband at her side.
“I’m going to give you your inheritance back,” was the first thing she announced to me. “David said it’s the right thing to do. And besides—” she grinned “—we can afford it.”
Same old Claudie, I thought. And yet not exactly the same. “Thank you,” I said in surprise. I paused, then smiled. “Donate it to charity. Introduce me to your husband?”
She beamed. “I’d love to.”
David Crosby was fat, short and bald, but he was indeed very rich, a king of Wall Street. They looked totally wrong together. Until you saw the way they looked at each other.
Claudie told me they’d met through a matchmaking service just for rich people.
“Trophy wives for billionaires?” I guessed.
“After all, Lena,” she sniffed, “not everyone can manage to randomly fall pregnant by the love of their lives.”
“No, indeed,” I said.
“And I’m so happy...” she said wistfully, and I thought that she, too, must have been very lonely in London.
“I’m happy for you, truly,” I said, and impulsively hugged her. My cousin stiffened, then let me hug her. I was encouraged. We weren’t exactly best friends, but it was a start. And after all, we were family....
Pulling away, she wiped her eyes. “At least you dress better now. Your style used to make me physically ill.”
Distant family, thankfully.
But Alejandro and I were surrounded by people who cared about us. I looked around at all the people who were here, celebrating our marriage. Thinking with relief about the one who was not.
I still woke up in a cold sweat occasionally, thinking how I’d almost lost everything by getting into Edward St. Cyr’s SUV that day.
Edward, sadly, had lived.
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Yes, he lived. From what I’d heard, he’d had an easier time than he deserved. A punctured lung and five broken bones. When the ambulance and police arrived, he’d refused to press charges against anyone, or even talk about the accident. But as he’d been lifted into the ambulance, our eyes had met, and he’d coldly and silently turned his face to the wall. He was done with me. A fact that left me profoundly grateful.
I tried to wish him well, because he had once been my friend.
Okay, but seriously. He’d tried to run over my husband with his Range Rover. That’s not the kind of thing I could ever forgive, or forget. So mostly I just tried not to think of it.
Because we had so many other things to be grateful for. As I stood in the banqueting hall of our castle, wearing flowers in my hair and a blue silk gown, I caught Alejandro’s eyes across the crowd. And I suddenly didn’t see all the princes and farmers, starlets and secretaries, or the happy mix of our neighbors and friends. I didn’t see the champagne, or the amazing food, or the flowers hung joyously across the rafters amid a profusion of music and laughter. When I met my husband’s gaze, I shivered, and no one else existed.
Alejandro had contacted a lawyer and confessed everything. With the lawyer’s advice, he’d thrown himself on the mercy of the court. As Maurine’s DNA test had proved, he was the duke’s heir, and his only heir at that, and so the group of nobles who oversaw this type of thing decided to allow him to keep his title. He’d also kept the name. Apparently the combination of money and being a direct blood descendant made a big difference. Suddenly, no one was using the word fraud.
The scandal was intense, though. For weeks, our castle had been under siege, with crowds of reporters shaking our gates, clamoring for a picture or an interview. But since no one on the estate or in the nearby town would talk, even the scandal died eventually, especially when the Hollywood star I’d seen at Alejandro’s party in Madrid had been discovered naked, drunk and belligerent at the