One Night: Latin Heat

“I care,” I whispered.

“Bull,” he cut me off ruthlessly. “You’re too strong to be ruled by gossip.” His hands moved slowly down the bare skin of my upper back, and I shivered, fighting my own desire. “It’s this you’re afraid of. This.” He stroked my arms to my breast, then abruptly pulled me up to stand, hard against his body. “This is all that matters....”

“It’s not,” I choked out. “There’s love. And trust....”

“Love for our son. And trust for your husband. Your partner.”

For a second, I trembled. I did want those things. A real home. I’d already accepted that we would need to live in the same town, or better yet, the same house. Why not accept a partnership? We could share a life, a son, even a bed. Would it be enough, without romantic love? Could I live without that? Could I?

For Miguel’s sake?

“Maybe I could accept a marriage without love,” I said in a small voice. I took a deep breath and raised my gaze to his. “But there is no partnership without trust. Can you promise you’ve never lied to me? And that you never will?”

I watched as the brief triumph in his eyes went out. “No.”

My lips parted in a silent gasp. I hadn’t expected that. My heart twisted as I thought how, with just a few hot kisses and the dream of giving Miguel a real home and family, I’d been perilously close to giving up my dreams.

“Well, which is it, Alejandro?” I choked out. “Did you lie to me in the past? Or will you lie to me in the future?”

His jawline tightened. For a moment, his face seemed tortured. Then, as I’d seen happen before, his expression shuttered, becoming expressionless, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing. “Take your pick.”

I stiffened. Hating him—no. Hating myself for letting him kiss me. Letting him? All he’d had to do was touch me and I’d flung myself into his kiss with the hunger of a starving woman at a piece of bread. “What have you lied to me about?”

“You expect me to tell you the truth about that?”

“Other women?”

He glared at me. “I told you. I believe in honor. Fidelity. No. My lie is about—something else.”

“What?”

“Me,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “Only me.”

Which didn’t tell me anything at all! “Fine. Whatever.” I glared at him. “You shouldn’t have kissed me.”

He relaxed imperceptibly now that we were no longer talking about his secrets.

“This isn’t the place,” he agreed.

“I didn’t just mean the cloakroom. I mean anywhere.”

“I can think of many places I’d like to kiss you.”

“Too bad.” My cheeks flamed, but I wouldn’t let him distract me. “Take your kisses, and your lies, somewhere else.”

“A marriage in name only?” He sounded almost amused. “Do you really think that will work?”

“Since I can’t even trust you, let alone love you, there will be no marriage of any kind,” I snapped. “And if you keep asking, even our engagement will be remarkably short.”

“Why are you trying to fight me, when it’s so obvious that you will give in?” he said. “You want to raise Miguel. So do I. What do you expect to do—live next door? In my stable?”

“Better that than your bed.”

His dark eyes glittered. “That wasn’t how you kissed me.”

Heat pulsed through me. I could hardly deny it. I looked away. “Sex is different for women. It involves love!”

He snorted. “Right.”

“Or at least caring and trust!” I cried, stung.

“Who is speaking in generalities now?” he said harshly. A cynical light rose in his eyes. “Many women have sex with strangers. Just—as you said—as many women prefer to drink their coffee black, without the niceties of sugar and cream!”

My cheeks flushed. “Fine for them, but—”

“Lust is just an appetite, a craving, such as one might have for ensaladilla rusa. No one says that you must be deeply committed to the mayonnaise in order to enjoy the taste of the potato salad!”

I lifted my chin. “Go seduce one of those salad women, then! I don’t want you in my bed, I don’t want you as my husband and I just regret I’m stuck with you as Miguel’s father!”

“Enough.” His voice was deadly cold. “You have made enough of a fool of me, making me beg—for the truth about Miguel, for the DNA test, for access to him. I even had to beg you to keep your promise to come to Spain. There will be no more begging, at least—” his eyes glittered “—no more begging from me.”

Alejandro had begged me for stuff? I must have missed that. “I never—”

“You will marry me. Tonight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Right now. Choose.” His expression had hardened. “A priest. Or a lawyer.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Call it what you want.”

I licked my lips, then tried, “Edward would help me. He has money and power to match even yours....”

“Ah.” Alejandro came closer, softly tucking back a long tendril of hair that had escaped when he’d crushed me a few moments ago in his passionate embrace. “I wondered how long it would be before Mr. St. Cyr’s name made an appearance. That was even quicker than I expected.”

My cheeks went hot, but I lifted my chin. “He would still help me if I asked.”

“Oh, I’m sure he would,” he said softly. “But are you willing to accept the cost of his help?”

I swallowed.

“And the price to Miguel. Think of it.” He tilted his head. “A custody war, when each side has infinite resources to pay lawyers for years, decades, to come.” He gave a brief, humorless smile. “Miguel’s first words after mamá and papá might be restraining order.”

I sucked in my breath.

“And the scandal... The press will have a field day.” Pressing his advantage, he stroked my cheek almost tenderly. “Miguel will grow so accustomed to paparazzi he’ll start to think of them as members of his family. With good reason, for he’ll see them more frequently than he sees either of us.” He dropped his hand. His voice became harsh. “Is that really what you want?”

“Why are you doing this, Alejandro?” I choked out.

“I won’t risk having Edward St. Cyr as my son’s future stepfather.”

I shook my head. “It will never happen!”

“I’m supposed to believe that? A few minutes ago, you promised you’d never see him again. Now you’re threatening to use his wealth and power in a custody battle against me.”

He looked at me with scorn, and I didn’t blame him. I wiped my eyes. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that—but you’re forcing my back against the wall! I have no choice!”

“Neither do I.” His sensual lips curved downward. “You think you can control him. You cannot. He’s selfish. Ruthless. Dangerous.”

I flashed him a glare full of hate. “Are you talking about him,” I said bitterly, “or yourself?”

“Yes, I could be dangerous,” he said softly. “If anyone tried to hurt someone I cared about. I would die—or kill—to protect someone I loved.”

“But you don’t love anyone!”

“You’re wrong.” His voice was low. His lips pressed together in a thin line. “So will it be marriage between us—or war?”

“I hate you!”

“Is that your final answer?”

Tears of hopeless rage filled my eyes, but I’d told Edward the truth. Alejandro had owned me from the moment I’d become pregnant with his child. I would give anything, sacrifice any part of myself, for my son. My heart. My dreams. My soul. What were those, compared with Miguel’s heart, his dreams, his soul?

My baby would not spend his childhood in and out of divorce courts, surrounded by pushy paparazzi, bewildered by the internecine battles of his parents. Instead, he would be safe and warm and surrounded by love. He would be happy.

It was all I had to cling to. All I had to live for.

My shoulders fell.

“No,” I whispered. “You win. I will marry you.”

“Now.”

“Fine! I hate you!”

He looked down at me, his expression sardonic. “Hate me, then. At least that I can believe. Far more than your so-called love. But you will be my wife. In every way.”

Yanking me into his arms, he kissed me, hard. But this time, there was nothing of tenderness, or even passion. Just a ruthless act of possession, showing me he owned me, a savage kiss hard enough to bruise.

Pulling me out of the cloakroom and outside into the warm Spanish night, he called for his driver. The paparazzi were long gone, and the street was quiet, even lonely.

Alejandro took me to the house of a local official, where with a quiet word a certificate of permission to marry was produced in record time. Then to a priest, in a large, empty church, so old and full of shadows it seemed half-haunted with the lost dreams of the dead.

And so Alejandro and I were wed, in that wan, barren church, with only flickers of candlelight and ghostly moonlight from the upper windows lighting the cold, pale marble. My pink ball gown of silk and embroidered flowers, which once seemed so beautiful, now hung on me like a shroud.

There was no wedding dress. No cake. No flowers. And no one, except the priest and his assistant called as witness, to wish us happiness.

Which was just as well, because as I looked at the savage face of my new husband as we left the church into the dark of night, I knew happiness was the one thing we’d never have.

* * *

Alejandro looked across the front seat of the car. “You’re going to have to talk to me at some point.”

I looked out the window at the passing scenery as we drove south into Andalucía. “No, I don’t, actually.”

“So you intend to ignore me forever?” he said drily.

I shrugged, still not looking at him. “Lots of married couples stop talking eventually. We might as well start now.”

We’d been alone in the car together for hours, but it felt like days. Alejandro was driving the expensive sports sedan, with Miguel in the baby seat behind us, cooing and batting at plush dangling toys. Three bodyguards and his usual driver were in the SUV following us. “I want some private time with my new bride,” Alejandro had told them with a wink, and they’d grinned.

But the reason he’d desired privacy wasn’t exactly the usual one for newlyweds. I’d given Alejandro the silent treatment since our ghastly wedding ceremony last night. Seething. It wasn’t natural for me to bite my tongue. I think he was waiting for me to explode.

He’d gotten me home by midnight as promised. The instant we returned to his Madrid penthouse I’d stalked into the bedroom where my baby slept, and though I couldn’t slam the door—too noisy—I’d locked it solidly behind me. Very childish, but I’d been afraid that once Mrs. Gutierrez left, he might demand his rights of the wedding night. Pulling on flannel pajamas, I’d stared at the door, just daring him to try.

But he hadn’t. About three in the morning, feeling foolish, I’d unlocked the door. But he never came, not even to apologize for his brutish behavior. There was no way I would have let him seduce me...but my nose was slightly out of joint that he hadn’t even bothered to try. Our marriage was only a few hours old, and he was already ignoring me?

I didn’t see him until this morning, when he was coming out of the guest bathroom next door, looking well rested and obviously straight out of the shower. His dark hair was wet, a low-slung towel wrapped around his bare hips and another towel hanging over his broad, naked shoulders.

I’d stopped flat in the hallway, unable to look away from the muscular planes of his bare chest, laced with dark hair, or the powerful lines of his body, to the slim hips barely covered by the clinging white terry cloth.

Alejandro had greeted me with a sensual smile. “Good morning, querida,” he’d purred, then lifting a wicked eyebrow as if he already knew the answer, he’d inquired, “I trust you slept well?”

But I was starting to get my revenge. His lips were now set in an annoyed line as he kept his eyes on the road, pressing on the gas of his very expensive, very fast sedan. “We are husband and wife now, Lena. You must accept that.”

“Oh, I do,” I assured him. “But we’re a husband and wife who happen to hate each other. So perhaps just not talking is best.”

Alejandro exhaled in irritation, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. I turned away, staring out wistfully at the scenery of Spain flying past us. In any other circumstance I would have been in awe at the magnificent view. The farmland and soft hills of central Spain were turning to a drier landscape. Lovely thick bushes of pink and white oleander flowers separated the highway, a vivid, wild, unexpected beauty, much like Spain itself.

Oleander. I shivered a little. So beautiful to the eyes. But so poisonous to the heart.

Just like Alejandro, I thought. I wouldn’t let him in. Husband or not, I’d never let him close to me. In any way.

We’d stopped only once since we left Madrid, to feed and change the baby, and to put gas in both cars. Alejandro offered to take a small detour and stop for lunch in Córdoba, to show me the famous cathedral that had once been a Great Mosque. But I’d refused. I didn’t want him doing me any favors. Though later I regretted it, because I heard a lot about the famous Mezquita.

As the car flew south, turning on a new road, I blinked in the bright sun flooding the windows. After weeks of rain in San Miguel, and London’s drizzle and overcast skies, the Spanish sun had come as advertised, with a wide blue horizon that held not a single cloud. The arid landscape suddenly reminded me of Mexico. Which reminded me of the freedom and independence I’d had so briefly.

And Edward.

I’ll be back for you, Lena.

“Stop it,” Alejandro growled.

I nearly jumped in the smooth leather seat. “What?”

“I can hear you. Thinking about him.”

“You can hear me thinking?”

“Stop,” he said quietly, giving me a hard sideways glance. “Or I will make you stop.”

“Make me—” I snorted derisively, 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.”

CHAPTER SIX

I STARED AT him in shock.

“What?” I breathed.

A hard knock banged against the car window behind me, making me jump. Turning my head, I saw a plump smiling woman, standing on the driveway outside, dressed in an apron and holding a spoon. She waved at us merrily. I saw the bodyguards greeting her with obvious affection as they went into the grand stone entrance of the castle.

“Another housekeeper?” I said faintly.

“My grandmother,” he said.

“Your—” I whirled to face him, but he had already opened his door and was getting out of the car, gently lifting Miguel out of his baby seat. Nervously, I got out of the car, too, wondering what the dowager Duchess of Alzacar would make of me.

“Come in, come in,” she said to the bodyguards, shooing them inside. She kept switching from English to Spanish as if she couldn’t quite make up her mind. “Knowing Alejandro, I’m sure you didn’t stop for any lunch, so everything is ready if you’ll just go straight to the banqueting hall...”

“Abuela,” Alejandro said, smiling, “I’d like you to meet my son. His name is Miguel.”

“Miguel?” she gasped, looking from him to Alejandro.

He blinked with a slight frown, shaking his head. “And this is my new wife. Lena.”

“I’m so happy to meet you.” Smoothing one hand over her apron, she turned to me with a warm smile, lifting the wooden spoon high, like a benign domestic fairy about to grant a really good wish. “And your sweet baby! I can hardly wait to...” Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Your new what?”

Coming over to me, Alejandro put his free arm around my shoulders. “My wife.”

She lowered her spoon and looked me over, from my long hair to my soft white blouse with the Peter Pan collar, to my slim-cut jeans and ballet flats. I braced myself for criticism.

Instead, she beamed at me, spreading her arms wide.

“Oh, my dear,” she cried, “welcome to the family. Welcome to your new home!”

And she threw her arms around me in a big, fierce, welcoming hug.

Shocked, I stiffened. Then I patted her awkwardly on the back.

“But I’m being silly,” she said, drawing back, wiping her eyes with her brightly colored apron. “My name is Maurine. But please call me Abuela, if you like, as Alejandro does. Or Grandma. Or Nana. Whatever. I’m just so happy you’re here!”

“Thank you,” I said, unsure how to handle such immediate warmth and kindness.

“But you—” she whirled on her grandson with a scowl “—you should have known better than to elope!”

Alejandro looked abashed. It was a funny, boyish expression on his masculine face. “We would have waited and had a proper wedding,” he said, rubbing his neck sheepishly, “but Abuela, it happened so quickly....”

“Huh. Don’t think you’re getting off that easy. We’ll talk about it later. Now—” her plump face softened as her eyes lit up “—let me hold that baby.”

Ten minutes later, Maurine was giving me a speed tour of the castle, on the way to the dining hall. “The foundations of Rohares date from the times of the sultan,” she said happily. “But most of the building dates from the early seventeenth century. It was bombed in the war, then when we came back we had no money and it fell into disrepair.” She looked sad, then brightened, smiling up at her grandson. “But Alejandro made his fortune in Madrid, then restored every part of it, made Rohares better than it had ever been before! And here’s where we’ll have lunch....”