Chapter Sixteen
They left the next day, amid pleas to stay longer. Ramon and Izzy were staying through the end of the year, but both royal families were needed at home.
“Joaquin has work and we’re attending a New Year’s Eve gala. But I’m not so far away anymore,” Siobhan reminded Cinnia. “Come see us anytime.”
They hugged it out and Siobhan was still floating in warm, happy vibes when they arrived back in Barcelona.
She loved his home here. It was two stories in an older building and managed to be both spacious and cozy at the same time.
There was a comfortable breakfast nook in a sunny corner of the kitchen and a wraparound terrace that looked onto the sea.
A Jacuzzi tub stood on the balcony off the primary suite surrounded by wintering shrubs strung with fairy lights.
Empty flowerboxes promised a riot of color in the spring.
After all the drama at LVG and the shock of her pregnancy and the busy-ness that had led up to Christmas, she needed the pleasant bubble of contentment that encased them between Christmas and New Year’s.
Joaquin mostly worked from home while she read a book on pregnancy and combed through a contract for him, making notes that had him saying, “Good catch.” They cuddled in the evening while watching movies, slept late and made love midday because why not?
It was a life she could get used to. It was the life she wanted. With him.
But it only lasted until the last day of the year.
Neither of them had left the penthouse much and, now that they were away from Madrid and LVG, Siobhan had begun to believe Lorenzo no longer posed a threat. It was the sort of complacency she should have known better than to fall into, but she did.
She booked herself into a spa for the day, one where she knew the massage would put her to sleep. She needed a nap if she was going to stay awake until midnight tonight.
Toward the end of her pampering, when her makeup was done and the stylist was finishing her hair for the party, the woman in the chair next to her looked up from her phone.
“Are you Dorry Whitley?”
The bottom fell out of her stomach. Siobhan reached for her phone while playing it off with a confused, “Why do you ask?”
“This is you, isn’t it?” The woman angled her screen to show Siobhan her own face.
Her phone rang in her hand. It was Joaquin.
“Are you safe?” he asked tightly.
“I think so.” Ripples were traveling through the salon. She was getting surreptitious looks. “Qahira is here.” As a precaution, Joaquin had hired her a bodyguard, one who had so far had precious little to do since she left the house so rarely. “What happened?”
“My father must have discovered your identity. The gossip sites are showing photos of us in Madrid with headlines about Dorry Whitley surfacing after being missing for years.”
As though she was some sort of criminal who’d gone into hiding and had suddenly been spotted? Yuck. But it didn’t surprise her. It was exactly the type of made-up scandal the press had pinned on the Sauveterres for years.
“I’ll call Cin and warn her.”
“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”
“No, I’m almost done. I’ll leave in a moment.” She glanced at the woman doing her hair. The woman nodded.
In the few minutes it took for her to put on her coat, someone from inside the spa had sold the tip. A number of photographers were gathered outside the spa in the courtyard entrance of potted trees that surrounded a reflecting pool.
Siobhan’s driver pulled the SUV up as closely as he could, but there was no straight path to it. She had to walk around the water into one of the lines of photographers.
As she stepped outside with Qahira, the piranhas closed in, snapping their cameras. That caught the attention of several passersby who halted to record her with their phones. Someone shoved a microphone toward her face and asked a question in Spanish.
Qahira blocked him and shouted for everyone to “Move back!”
Siobhan saw an opening and tried to dart through, but was yanked to a stop when someone grabbed her arm.
She reacted on instinct, surprising her attacker by flowing into the force of his tug on her arm.
She continued into a pivot, pulling the photographer off balance.
As she did that, she ducked low and threw her hip into his groin.
She heard his breath leave him as she reached behind her shoulder, grabbed behind his neck, got her back into his stomach and used his own momentum and the strength in her thighs to lift him off his feet.
She flipped him into the pool of water. His camera clattered to the bricks and the splatter of drops hitting the pavement was overloud. Everyone froze in shock.
“That’s what you get when you touch someone without their permission,” Siobhan said. “Who’s next?” She took a threatening stomp toward the nearest person holding a cell phone.
Everyone stumbled backward.
“Senora.” Qahira opened her long arms, forming a barrier while the driver opened the back door of the SUV.
Siobhan dove in.
Joaquin was livid when he saw the footage. Livid.
Siobhan’s altercation with the photographer was posting on all the social media channels and entertainment sites, all from different angles, all showing her defending herself from the attack.
She called him from the car to reassure him she was safe. Then Killian called him as Joaquin was watching it. Then Henri called him. Siobhan’s phone was pinging like popcorn as he met her in the lobby of his building.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said as he tried to keep himself from crushing her in his twitching, battle-ready arms.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Shaken up, but that photographer will be the one wearing bruises.” She pulled away and stalked into the elevator.
Joaquin waited until they were in the apartment to say, “The baby?”
“Fine, I think.” Her profile turned stiff and wan. “I wasn’t hurt and I was moving furniture before I knew I was pregnant. Nothing happened. I’ll see a doctor if it becomes necessary, but for now, I’d rather be here where I’m safe and comfortable.”
If it became necessary. The mere thought of her losing the baby made him sick. If she went through anything more because of his father—
Joaquin closed his eyes. He couldn’t let himself think of it. It made him too murderous. This had to end. Today.
“No, you don’t have to come,” Siobhan was telling her mother over video chat.
“I promise I’m fine. This will blow over in a few days— Yes, I know, but now that I know I’m doxxed, I’ll take precautions.
Yes. Cup of tea. Feet up. I’m doing it now.
Tell the girls I’m fine, but I’m turning off my phone for a while.
Thank you. I love you, too.” She sank onto the sofa and blew out a long breath.
“Will you put the kettle on for me?” Siobhan called while she watched the video. “Oh, come on,” she couldn’t help exclaiming.
“What?” Joaquin asked shortly. “I thought you were turning that off.”
“I was on the phone the whole way here. I hadn’t seen the video.
” She sent him a bright grin, then looked back at the screen.
“Whenever I took those self-defense classes, they would warn me that it’s different in real life, that I might freeze in shock, but muscle memory works.
I look like a freaking action star. And could I have been more camera ready?
” She pointed at the hair and makeup that had withstood her tussle and was still on point and tapped Watch Again. “I’m so glad I wore those boots today.”
“It’s not funny, Siobhan,” he near shouted.
“It kind of is.” She couldn’t help her smirk. “The guy looks like a cat that fell in the toilet.”
“Nothing about this is funny.”
She sobered as she took in his hair standing in spikes from his agitated fingers, his grim expression and the light of torment in his eyes.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She dropped her phone onto the cushions and rose to hug his waist, finding his body had turned to concrete, but his arms locked tightly around her.
“I’m sorry you were worried about me.” She rubbed her cheek on his chest then tilted her head back.
“But don’t you find it a little bit reassuring that I can take care of myself? ”
“You shouldn’t have to!” He pulled away and shot his hand into his hair again.
“I know, but this isn’t your fault. We don’t even know if your father is behind it. Someone else may have recognized me.”
“No, it was my father,” he said grimly, pacing a few steps. “Henri called me just before you arrived. I’ve been using him as a go-between to buy up some of Lorenzo’s debts. One of the creditors put it together and tipped off my father to my plan.”
“Wait, what? You were using Henri?” Her heart juddered to a stop in her chest. Her whole body went cold.
Joaquin held up a hand. “That was a poor choice of word. I asked Henri at Christmas to let me use his channels, so my father wouldn’t know I was behind the buying of his debts.
We were trying to stay ahead of my father learning of your connection to the Sauveterres.
I knew he would exploit it once he found out. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She waved an agitated hand.
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“And you knew I would be upset,” she said, growing worse than upset. “You knew this was a red line for me. I thought you wanted me. Not Henri and his resources. I thought you and I were growing closer. I thought I could trust you.” She had fallen in love with him.
“You can,” he swore, but the shadows of betrayal stayed heavy over her heart.
She shook her head, wondering how she could have been so stupid. Again.
“For God’s sake, Siobhan. This is what he does.” Joaquin’s voice shook. “If he can’t take what I have, he destroys it. Don’t let him do that to us.”
“What us? I’m here because I thought we were a team.
A partnership.” She had to blink fast because her eyes were welling.
“I trusted you so you would trust me. I took a chance for our baby. For you. I wanted to show you it was safe to love me so I—” Her throat flexed, nearly closing over the words. “I let myself fall in love with you.”
He drew a rough breath and held out a hand, but she brushed it away.
“Don’t act like that’s news to you. I told you it could happen! I thought at the very least it was safe to love you, but it’s not.”
A number of emotions flashed across his face before he shuttered his expression, brick by brick.
“It’s not safe, no,” he said in a tone that was so grim, it lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “Not until I’ve dealt with him once and for all.” He picked up his phone and walked to the door.
Her blood was congealing in her veins at how murderous he sounded. “What are you going to do?”
“Whatever I have to.”
“Joaquin, stop,” she cried, truly afraid he would do something he couldn’t undo.
“How does leaving like this reassure me you’re in this relationship for me?
I need to feel like I’m more than a means to an end, but you’re choosing hating him over loving me.
Do you see that? He is not the one tearing us apart. You are.”
“What do you want me to do?” His voice was tortured. “Tell you I love you and beg you to stay here until I get back?” He shook his head in a way that negated his thrown-away words. “You’re better off as far away from me as you can get.”
Her brittle heart cracked. “Then I won’t be here when you get back,” she warned.
His breath cut in as though her words had been a knife into his chest, but he only asked, “Where will you go? Your sister’s?”
“What do you care where I go?”
He didn’t even say, I care. He just left.