Chapter Three
SEBASTIáNDIDN’TLIKE that and it was obvious. Anger burned in the smoky golden depths of his eyes and his powerful body radiated tension. And heat. She could feel the warmth of him from where she stood; she hadn’t realised quite how close to him she’d got, closer than she’d ever been before. She could smell him too, horse and dry earth, sunshine and hay, and under that something spicy and masculine that made her whole body tighten with want.
He was so much taller than she was, his shoulders wide and his chest broad. He made her feel petite and fragile, and while a part of her hated that, another part, the part that had always wanted to be the same delicate, pretty little princess that her sister was, loved it.
Heat climbed in her face, her heartbeat accelerating. A mistake to get so close. She needed to put some distance between them before she gave herself away.
Except he was the one who turned abruptly and strode off in the direction of the courtyard without a backward glance.
Alice swallowed and tried to control her thumping heart. She couldn’t get that close to him again. She was too susceptible and if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up taking her eye off her goal. It was Diego who was important, and she couldn’t forget that.
Emily had wanted him brought home to New Zealand. Emily had wanted him to grow up loved.
In her letter she had written:
I’m so sorry to put you in this position and I know it’s asking a lot. You may not ever forgive me for what I did and I’m not asking you to. I wouldn’t if I were you. But this isn’t about me. This is about Diego. And I’m afraid of what Sebastián will do if he finds out Diego isn’t his.
He won’t hurt him—he’s not violent. But he’s cold and proud and blood means everything to him. I want Diego to grow up loved...
Well, Sebastián was certainly proud, but it hadn’t been ice in his eyes when he’d spoken of Diego. It had been fire. She could almost imagine him as an ancient warrior with a sword in hand, defending his family, his home, from any invaders who dared cross his threshold.
Emily hadn’t said much about their marriage, but Alice had often had the feeling her sister wasn’t happy. It was obvious now, of course, since she’d been having an affair with Edward, but Alice wondered what it was that had made Emily so unhappy. Sebastián was a duke, with an ancient lineage and centuries of wealth behind him, and he was gorgeous. Emily liked status and money and a pretty face. She liked having someone being possessive and protective, but...
Why had she thought Sebastián cold? Why did she fear him bringing Diego up? Was it something to do with their own father? Emily had been his favourite—he hadn’t known what to do with tall, stubborn Alice—and he’d doted on her. Maybe that was it. Maybe all she’d wanted was for her son to have a father who doted on him the way their father had doted on her.
Well, whatever her reasons were, Alice was going to have her work cut out for her if she was going to change Sebastián’s mind, that was for sure.
She took a breath and followed him into the courtyard.
Outside, under the shade of a trellis trailing bougainvillea, was a wooden table neatly set with a white tablecloth, plates and cutlery, and stemless wine glasses. The heat of the day had faded, leaving behind a warm, pleasant twilight, the air scented with lavender.
Lucia was setting out plates of food that smelled absolutely delicious. Sebastián stood near her, saying something in Spanish that it was clear she did not like one bit. She frowned at him, replying in stern tones as if she was telling him off about something.
Alice tensed. He was already burning with anger, which meant surely Lucia was taking her life into her own hands speaking to him like that.
He glared at her and said something else in a hard, curt voice. Lucia merely shrugged, unbothered. Then, noticing Alice standing there, she said in English, ‘It is rude to talk in Spanish when Se?ora Alice cannot understand us, Se?or Sebastián.’ She looked at him sternly, and added, ‘I have cooked a meal for you both, and you will sit down and eat it. Together.’
Alice blinked. She’d never seen Sebastián be told what to do and for a moment she wondered what on earth Lucia was thinking. His carved features were set in uncompromising lines, his hard mouth unyielding. His golden eyes burned with sullen fury.
Alice waited for him to launch into a verbal attack, maybe even fire his housekeeper on the spot, yet instead he muttered something short and sharp in Spanish, went over to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘Manners, Se?or Sebastián,’ Lucia murmured.
He muttered another curse, got to his feet, moved over to the chair opposite his, pulled it out and looked fiercely at Alice. ‘Please,’ he said, his voice like iron. ‘Won’t you join me for dinner?’
A small shock arrowed down her spine. It seemed that this hard, proud man had not only been roundly told off by his housekeeper, he was also doing exactly what she said, albeit with all the grace of a sullen teenager.
Alice almost wanted to smile.
Lucia, who didn’t seem in imminent danger of being fired and obviously wasn’t afraid of Sebastián in any way, gave an approving nod, gathered up her trays, and disappeared back into the hacienda.
Sebastián remained standing rigidly behind the chair he’d pulled out. He looked as if he wanted to bite someone’s head off.
Alice took another silent breath then moved over to the table. ‘I had no idea Lucia was so fierce,’ she said as she sat down, trying to keep her voice light.
‘She doesn’t like it when her meals are under-appreciated.’ Sebastián’s tone was hard as rock, but Alice could feel the masculine heat of him at her back, smell his delicious scent. It made her mouth go dry.
‘Don’t feel you have to sit and eat with me,’ she said as he pushed her chair in for her. ‘I’m sure you have plenty of other things to do.’
‘Lucia wants us to eat together.’ He came around the table and sat down opposite her. ‘The hospitality of the ancient dukes is important to her and we have certain standards to uphold.’ He glowered across the table at her. ‘Especially to “family”.’
This was clearly going to be so much harder than she’d thought. So much. His anger and resentment seemed to reach across the table and wrap around her throat, choking her.
But she wasn’t Emily. She wasn’t going to crumble and weep in the face of male temper. She often had to deal with that at her company and she’d never let it intimidate her before. She wasn’t going to let it now.
Calmly, she picked up one of the snowy white napkins and shook it out over her lap. ‘And what? You do everything she says?’
His gaze sharpened, cutting like a knife. ‘She has been here for decades and is part of the family. I value her so, yes, on occasion I do what she says.’ He said it as if this were self-evident and she was stupid for not understanding. Which of course made her bristle with annoyance.
Except she wasn’t going to rise to his bad temper. Men could be so overly emotional sometimes and maybe this was doubly true of Spanish men.
You like his passion. You’ve always liked it.
In those early days after Emily had first married him, Alice had received lots of glowing emails from her sister about how attentive and protective Sebastián was. Emily had also overshared about his demands in bed and how thrilling that was. Alice had determinedly shoved away her envy, choked her jealousy, and shut down any fevered fantasies about what it would be like to be in Sebastian’s arms herself.
She had been married to Edward, who had been loving and attentive with her even after they’d lost the baby. In fact, he’d been very careful and gentle and while she’d been recovering that had been exactly what she’d wanted. But years past the loss—at least physically—what she’d wanted was passion. Desperation. Possession. She’d wanted Edward to be hungry for her, desire her feverishly. She’d wanted to feel as though she was still attractive to him instead of an empty vessel, her fertility gone and her dreams of a family along with them.
But he hadn’t been hungry for her, as it had turned out. He’d been hungry for her sister and who could blame him? Emily, petite and feminine and fertile, everything that Alice wasn’t.
Edward had been a childhood friend of both her and Emily, and she’d had a crush on him for years. Except he’d only had eyes for Emily. And then Emily had left to go to university in Australia, leaving Edward behind with Alice, and the two of them had grown closer. Alice had been thrilled when he’d told her that he’d fallen in love with her and then asked her to marry him.
Her instead of Emily. Not that Emily had been jealous. No, she’d been Alice’s bridesmaid at the wedding and had given the loveliest speech. Except...he’d obviously had second thoughts, hadn’t he?
But Alice couldn’t bear thinking about that particular past. It was futile. Edward was gone, and so was Emily, and all she had left was Diego.
‘Well,’ she said in a cool voice. ‘Lucia is not here now, so please don’t stay on my account.’
Sebastian’s gaze didn’t even flicker. ‘You wanted to talk about Diego.’ He made a gesture with one long-fingered hand. ‘So. Talk.’
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to sit opposite her and talk about how Diego would be better off going back to New Zealand with her. He didn’t want to talk to her at all.
But Lucia had insisted and he wasn’t so petty as to put aside the wishes of a loyal and valued employee. It was only one dinner and he could handle that and, besides, it was probably useful to get the subject of Diego over and done with now.
Then tomorrow, with any luck, Alice could leave.
‘Fine,’ she said with that irritating cool that got under his skin so badly. ‘Why do you want Diego to stay with you?’
He’d already told her his reasons, but if she wanted him to repeat them then fine, he would.
He picked up the bottle of wine on the table and leaned forward, pouring some into her glass before doing the same for himself. ‘He is my son. What other reason is there?’
‘But...he’s not actually your son, is he? He’s Emily and Edward’s.’
There was no denying that, though Sebastián preferred to keep that secret to himself. Easy enough when everyone thought Diego was his anyway. There had been some rumours, some mutterings about an affair in the elite circles he moved in after Emily had died, but he’d shut them down hard before they could gain traction.
No one was going to take Diego from him and that was final. Of course, Sebastián would tell him when he got older who his parents were and that he could find out more about them. After all, Sebastián wasn’t like Mateo, his father, who’d hidden the identity of Sebastián’s biological father from him, refusing to tell him anything about him. Sebastián would never be so cruel. But there was no other reason to give him up. Edward had no family and Emily’s parents were dead. The only problem was Alice, who seemed to think she had a better claim on him.
‘They aren’t here,’ he said with finality. ‘But I am.’
‘In case it’s escaped your notice, so am I.’ Her voice was as level and cool as her gaze. ‘Emily’s letter said that—’
‘I don’t care about Emily’s letter,’ he interrupted, his temper starting to slip the leash. ‘Diego was born here, in the hacienda. I was there. I held him. He carries my name. He is my son, my heir, and there is nothing more to be said.’
This time her gaze flickered and she looked down at her wine, picking it up and taking a sip. Faint colour stained her cheekbones. In the rose and gold of twilight, her skin looked luminous, lit from within, her hair glossy and soft. She was so different from Emily’s honey-haired fragility and he didn’t know why she appealed to him on such a gut-deep level. It didn’t make any sense.
Emily had. He’d seen her on the terrace of a hotel in Madrid, enjoying a glass of wine and laughing with a friend. She’d been so pretty and joyful, and at that point in his life, after his father had so recently died, he’d needed joy. He’d been feeling the weight of the dukedom on his shoulders and, initially, she’d been only an escape for him, a distraction.
But after he’d spent more time with her and she’d told him of her dreams of having a family and a place to put down roots, he’d decided that she would be his new duchess. She hadn’t made him feel as if he was missing something vital from his make-up, the way his father always had. She’d made him feel as if he was everything his father had always wanted, the scion of an ancient house. Proud. Strong. Honourable. As if the purest noble blood ran in his veins instead of that of the stable hand his mother had had an affair with.
The stable hand he’d had much more in common with than the man who’d brought him up.
‘Emily was my sister,’ Alice said. ‘And I’m sorry, but there is plenty more to be said.’ She reached down, brought out a piece of folded paper from the pocket of her dress, and held it out to him. ‘Read this.’
He didn’t look at the letter, only stared at her. ‘Emily’s letter, I presume?’
She nodded.
‘And what does it say?’ He tried to keep his tone even. ‘That she was afraid to leave her son with me?’
‘Read it, Sebastián.’
‘No.’ What was the point, when he knew what was in it already? ‘I don’t need to. She told you I would make a terrible father, didn’t she?’
Alice let out a breath and put the letter down in the middle of the table. Then she fussed with her napkin. ‘She said she wanted him to grow up...loved.’
Something twisted painfully inside him, but he made sure nothing showed on his face. He deserved that. They’d never spoken of the hole in the centre of their marriage. Emily had avoided any conversation about it because she hated confrontations, and since confrontations inevitably resulted in Emily weeping, so had he.
But he knew Emily had wanted more from him. She’d wanted love. He’d given her what he could, yet it hadn’t been enough. She’d known he was holding something back, and he had been.
His heart. Because the problem was that love, in his experience, was mean and petty and cruel, and he’d wanted nothing to do with it.
Then he’d met Alice and what he’d felt for her, he’d never been able to pin down. He’d never wanted to. It had felt too obsessive, too painful, and so he’d put it aside. Now all that was left was physical desire—somehow that hadn’t faded the way the other emotions had. That and the only love he’d ever permitted himself, for a little baby who wasn’t even his.
She should have known you’d love him. She should.
No, she shouldn’t. Why would she? She’d only wanted what any wife wanted from their husband, and he’d failed her. This letter and the pain that came with it were his punishment.
You should give Diego to Alice and be done with it.
Except every cell in his body rebelled against that thought. He wasn’t giving up his son. Diego was his. He’d claimed him and a Castellano duke never gave up what was his.
Alice had gone still, watching him from across the table. What she saw he didn’t know, until she said, ‘I’m sorry. She only wanted what was best for her son and she thought him being in New Zealand was best for him.’
So, he hadn’t hidden his grief and pain as well as he thought. He didn’t like that she could read him and far more easily than Emily ever had.
She thinks Emily was right, that it’s better for Diego to go back to New Zealand with her.
His heart twisted again as if in protest, though, really, why should it matter what Alice thought of him? He wanted her, it was true, and he always had, but all the other powerful feelings she’d managed to evoke had gone. He’d starved them completely. So it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter at all.
The urge to explain himself was still strong, but he shoved it aside, reaching for the cold, hard manner that had served him so well in the past. The manner his father had insisted on since that was the manner of a duke, not a common stable hand.
Sebastián leaned back in his chair and met her level gaze. There was a softness in her dark eyes that hadn’t been there before. Dios. Did she feel sorry for him? Well, there was no need. He wasn’t giving up his son—yes, his son. Not for anything.
‘Why do you want him?’ he asked instead. ‘What is he to you?’
Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. He’s my nephew, Sebastián.’
Her calm was infuriating. ‘So?’
‘So?’ Finally, as he’d seen out by the corral and on the stairs, fire flickered in her gaze. ‘Like I told you, he’s all I have left of Emily.’
‘Blood is the only reason, then?’ he demanded. ‘Because your sister was his mother and your husband his father? What do you know of him though? Do you know that he takes a little time to settle and that he loves a Spanish lullaby? That he also likes the sound of horses’ hooves during the day and will only nap if he can hear them? Do you know that his first smile was three weeks ago and for me? And that when he cries, sometimes only I can settle him?’
Something crossed her face then and it wasn’t that cool, calm expression she’d been giving him. It was sharper, flickers of pain and grief.
Do you really think she’s untouched by this? That she doesn’t care? You know she does.
Before he’d met Alice and shut down all conversation about her with Emily, his wife had told him about her tall, practical older sister. It hadn’t been entirely complimentary and he’d envisaged a stodgy, humourless, dull sort of woman. Except that hadn’t been the case. The two sisters had had a fractious relationship, it seemed, and yet it was clear that the pair of them had loved each other dearly despite it.
Of course this would affect Alice and he couldn’t ignore that, no matter how much he wanted to.
She is passionate too, remember?
A memory surfaced, making his heartbeat suddenly fast. Of the last Christmas that Alice and Edward had come to the hacienda. It had been Christmas Eve and they’d all been in the living room sipping eggnog. It had been late, but he’d gone out to deal with an urgent matter in the stables, and when he’d come back, everyone else had gone to bed leaving only Alice standing by the fire, staring down at it.
What she’d been wearing, he couldn’t remember, but he remembered every contour of her face and how the fire lit her as though she’d been painted with gold. The curve of her cheek. The lush dark fan of her lashes. The fullness of her bottom lip. And the sadness in her expression that had reached inside him and twisted hard.
He’d wanted to know what had made her so sad. He’d wanted to know everything, and then he’d wanted to fix it. And only after that had he wanted to take her in his arms and make her forget whatever it was that had caused her so much grief, wake the passion that he knew was inside her.
Except she hadn’t been his and he hadn’t been hers and he hadn’t been able to do any of those things.
She’d looked up in that moment and their eyes had met. And whatever that thing was between them, the instant connection, the passionate energy, had suddenly sung in the room.
For one long minute they’d stared at one another and he’d seen the look in her eyes catch fire, and he’d known that if they’d both been free to choose, nothing could have kept them apart.
But they hadn’t been free, and he was as wedded to his honour as much as he had been to Emily, and so choice hadn’t been an option for him.
So he’d turned and walked away.
He wanted to walk away now but... He couldn’t. Regardless of how sorry he felt for her, he wasn’t going to let Diego go and the sooner she understood that, the better.
‘I do care about him,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s why I wanted to take him home. The country his parents came from, to the family that—’
‘He was born Spanish. He is Spanish. And I am his family.’
Her jaw firmed and a spark leapt in her gaze, hot and burning. And he felt the same fire in him respond.
He should look away, he really should.
‘I’m not leaving, Sebastián,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want to see my nephew and I will see him. You’re not going to stop me.’
The sun was behind him, sending long fingers of light across her face, bathing it in glory. She wasn’t typically beautiful, not as Emily had been. It was her spirit that was beautiful, that caught him by the throat and refused to let go. That made him want to sweep away all the dishes on Lucia’s perfectly set table and grab her, haul her over it and into his arms. Put his mouth on hers and finally ease the hunger of years.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Following his own wants and needs had always been a mistake, and he wasn’t going to start now. Besides, he had the honour of the Castellanos to uphold, and dukes did not do such things.
What does it matter if she sees him? Dukes aren’t petty either, they are capable of justice and magnanimity.
He could do that. He could allow her to stay, and once she’d seen Diego and spent time with him she’d leave. In the meantime, he’d simply keep his distance from her. And if she insisted once again on taking Diego, he’d get his lawyers to deal with her. That way they could avoid any dangerous situations like this one, where anger only fuelled the fire that burned between them.
‘Fine,’ he said, his voice little more than a growl. ‘You have three days. No longer.’
Then he did the only other thing he could.
He shoved back his chair and walked away.