Spanish Marriage Solution

Chapter Four

THENEXTMORNING Alice sat in the dim, cool living room of the hacienda, a ball of nervous tension sitting in her gut. Her palms were sweaty and her heartbeat loud.

It was silly to feel so nervous about meeting a four-month-old baby, but she couldn’t help it. She’d read all the books she’d been able to lay her hands on about babies when she was pregnant the first time, so it wasn’t that she didn’t know what to expect. It was only she had no actual practical experience with children, and what if she was terrible at it? What if she dropped him? What if he cried and refused to be comforted?

Emily hadn’t called her at all after his birth, but she had emailed, and the only thing Alice had known about him from those emails was that he was a good baby who settled well and hardly ever cried.

‘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?’

Sebastián’s voice from the night before at their aborted dinner drifted through her head, deep and fierce. His expression had been hard yet the smoky gold of his eyes had shone like pirates’ treasure at the bottom of a dark sea.

Her mouth had gone dry then, even as her own anger at him and his intransigence had leapt. He just...burned. He was that warrior with a sword in his hand and a baby in his arms, determined to protect. Determined to keep.

All she’d been able to think about was how hungry she was for a piece of that determination, that possessiveness. Because Edward hadn’t had either, or, if he had, he’d never displayed it towards her.

He’d told her after she’d lost the baby, after she’d lost any hope of having a family of her own, that it would all be fine. They could adopt or even have a surrogate, anything she wanted. Yet every time she’d try bringing the subject of a child up again, he’d wave her gently away or agree vaguely, and then never follow up on it. He hadn’t touched her the way he once had, either. Sex had become perfunctory, as if he’d been doing it because he’d had to, not because he’d wanted to. And then, in the last year, they hadn’t had sex at all.

She’d always had issues around her femininity, largely driven by her parents’ constant comparison—even if unconscious—to Emily, and in the last year of their marriage, Edward had made her feel as if she’d actively repulsed him. She’d tried to talk with him about it but he hadn’t been interested, and it hadn’t been until the car accident and Emily’s letter that she’d found out why.

Edward had had a child with another woman. Her sister.

But she couldn’t think about that now. It hurt too much and, anyway, her feelings about the whole thing weren’t important. Only Diego was.

She took a breath as Sofia, his nanny, came into the room, a small wrapped bundle in her arms.

Alice got to her feet, resisting the urge to wipe her hands down the front of her denim shorts.

Sofia said something soft in Spanish that Alice didn’t understand—Lucia had told her that Sofia didn’t speak English—and then put the little bundle into Alice’s arms with an encouraging smile.

He was heavier than Alice had expected and warmer too.

She looked down into his face and met Emily’s wide blue eyes staring back at her.

Her throat closed, her vision full of unexpected tears, but she forced them back. Perhaps she should have expected the likeness but she hadn’t, and the complex wave of grief and joy that swamped her took her by surprise.

And there was joy. This little person was Emily’s and, by extension of blood, hers, too, and the emotion that filled her, a powerful love, made Sebastián’s ferocity about him suddenly understandable.

He felt this way about Diego too and so... How could she take Diego away from him? Yet also, how could she leave Diego herself?

The baby had settled against her and all her nerves had gone. Not that she knew any more about babies than she had a moment before, she was just even more certain that she couldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t. Three days, Sebastián had told her, but it wasn’t enough. Which meant she was left with two choices: either she initiated proceedings with her lawyers to get Diego home or...she stayed here in Spain until she and Sebastián could work out some kind of custody arrangement.

Slowly, still cradling the little boy in her arms, Alice turned towards the windows and walked towards them. Her nephew’s eyes were very wide, looking up into hers, and her heart contracted. She had a life back in New Zealand, but it wasn’t much of one, only her, rattling around in the house in Auckland she and Edward had bought. There was her investment company and that was far more successful, but it could keep. She could also work remotely.

What else could she do?

Diego was Emily’s and he had her eyes, and, even though Emily had wanted him to be brought back to New Zealand, Sebastián had a point. This couldn’t be about what Emily wanted, but what was right for Diego. Not when Emily was dead. Still, her sister was right about one thing: this little boy needed to be loved and while Sebastián was certainly possessive, could he give Diego the love that he needed? Perhaps he could. Perhaps Emily’s worries about him were unfounded and unfair. Regardless, Alice was also certain that her nephew needed a mother.

She looked down into his little face, seeing traces of Emily in his nose and in the delicacy of his mouth.

His own mother was gone now, but Alice was here. She could be that for him. She would always be that for him. Fathers could be difficult and sometimes harsh, and that needed to be balanced out with someone who could accept him no matter what.

Not that her own mother had been any more accepting of her, but at least she’d shown Alice what not to do. All a child really needed was to know that they were loved, and she had plenty of love to give. She would give it to Diego.

She spent a half-hour with the baby, just holding him and getting familiar with him, and when it was time for him to go down for a nap, she let the nanny take him.

As much as she wished she could, there was no point putting off the conversation she needed to have with Sebastián. He had to know immediately that she was intending to stay longer than three days. He wouldn’t like it—he’d already made his feelings about her presence here known—but that was too bad. He’d have to deal with it.

After a cursory look around the hacienda failed to locate him, she went down to the stables. But he wasn’t there either. Then, as she was coming back to the house, she heard the distinctive sound of helicopter rotors. There was a helipad not far from the house and, since any helicopter around was likely to be for him, she headed in that direction.

Sure enough, she arrived at the helipad in time to see him striding along the path from the house in the direction of the chopper. And despite herself, her breath caught.

He was in a suit today, perfectly tailored to highlight his height and muscled physique. It was of dark blue wool and he wore a black business shirt with it and a blue silk tie. Darkly handsome, phenomenally arrogant and every inch the Spanish duke, his golden eyes smouldering like distant fires, he almost stopped her in her tracks.

Stupid of her. She couldn’t let him get to her, especially with the well-being of her nephew at stake.

With an effort, Alice threw off the paralysing effect of his charisma, and called, ‘Sebastián! I need a moment.’

He came to a stop and glanced at her as she approached, his gaze raking her from head to toe. She could feel herself start to blush, which was infuriating. Compared to him, all dark beauty and athletic grace, she felt dowdy and frumpy, and she resented it. She wished she’d worn the red dress today, but Lucia had taken it to be washed, and so she’d flung on a baggy pair of denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt. Emily had always dressed herself to the nines because she’d said that Sebastián ‘liked it’. What he must think of her current outfit she had no idea and didn’t particularly want to know either.

‘What do you want?’ he asked coldly. ‘Be quick, please.’

Alice tried to calm her frantically beating heart. ‘We need to talk more about Diego.’

His expression darkened. ‘Do we? I thought we said everything we needed to last night.’

‘You might have,’ Alice snapped, needled by his tone. ‘But I didn’t.’

Sebastián glanced towards the helicopter then back at her. ‘Well, it will have to wait. I’m leaving on a business trip and I need to go now. You can call me when you get back to New Zealand.’

‘No, I won’t be calling you, because I’m not actually leaving,’ Alice informed him flatly. ‘Three days isn’t enough time, Sebastián. Diego needs a mother in his life and, since Emily is gone, I’ve decided to be that mother.’

His hard handsome features remained still, carved out of stone. Only his golden eyes burned. ‘That option is not available—’

‘I’m staying,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m not leaving him.’

A muscle leapt in his jaw. ‘If I find you still here when I return, I will have you arrested for trespassing.’

Alice’s temper began to slip through her fingers. ‘Do it, then,’ she shot back. ‘I’ll pitch a tent here on the lawn.’

The pilot of the helicopter appeared suddenly at Sebastián’s elbow and said something to him in a low voice. Sebastián nodded curtly then glanced back at Alice. ‘I haven’t got time to talk about this now. We will discuss it—’

He broke off as Alice turned from him and started furiously towards the helicopter. Because one thing was clear; he was only going to keep fobbing her off or walking away, and she was tired of it. She hadn’t come all the way here just to be told what to do by Sebastián Castellano. She had come for her nephew, and they were going to talk about him, business trip or not.

A discussion needed to be had, an agreement come to, and they would come to it even if she had to go with him on his stupid business trip herself.

The pilot came rushing after her, but if he’d been intending to stop her he was too late, because by the time he arrived, Alice had already climbed into the helicopter and had belted herself in.

Sebastián halted by the open helicopter door and stared at her. ‘What the hell are you doing, Alice?’ he demanded.

‘Coming with you,’ she said, daring him to protest. ‘If you won’t stay and have this conversation with me here, I’ll come with you and have it there.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ he growled, anger disturbing the ice in his voice, his accent more pronounced. ‘Get out of the helicopter right now.’

‘No.’ Alice lifted her chin. ‘If you want me out, you’ll have to pull me out yourself.’

Fury burned in his eyes, his body full of a coiled tension that was almost palpable, and for a minute she wondered if she’d made a mistake and if he would actually pull her out himself. Then the pilot said something to him, and he cursed again, low and vicious. Then he said, ‘Fine. Vámonos.’ And got into the helicopter and pulled the door shut.

It was only then that Alice realised that she had in fact made a mistake. A terrible one. Because as soon as the door closed, she was locked into the helicopter with him and it was a small space. He was right next to her, the warmth of one powerful thigh almost touching hers, and she was surrounded by his delicious scent; masculine spice, sunlight, and hay.

Her mouth dried and her stomach dipped as he held out a headset without glancing at her.

Okay, so this was actually going to happen, was it? He’d called her bluff and now they were actually going to...

‘I... I need to get a bag,’ she said, trying not to sound so hesitating.

Only then did he glance at her. ‘Too late. We need to leave now because we’re going to lose our weather window.’

‘But I—’

‘You wanted to come, so you’re coming.’ One black brow rose. ‘Or have you changed your mind?’

He wanted her to change her mind; she could see it in his eyes. He wanted her to give in and get out of the helicopter. And maybe she should. Maybe she could wait to have this conversation when he returned.

But he was right. It was too late. She couldn’t back down now and she wasn’t going to.

Alice held his gaze and grabbed the headset from him. ‘No, of course not. So where are we going?’

‘Madrid.’

Shutting himself into a confined space for the couple of hours it would take them to fly to Madrid, and then to spend the duration of his business trip with his sister-in-law, was likely to be a mistake, and Sebastián was well aware.

But she’d left him with no choice.

He was hardly going to manhandle her out of the helicopter and even though he would dearly have loved to leave her sitting in it for the next couple of hours, the pilot had been very clear about the window they had for departure. There was a storm coming in over the mountains and they had to go now.

She hadn’t been expecting him to call her bluff, that was certain, not given the way her dark eyes had widened as he’d climbed in beside her and shut the door. But she’d covered her shock very well, her chin determined, her expression set, her lush mouth in a hard line.

Maybe it was for the best in the end. They couldn’t keep having the same conversation and he was tired of her pushing him on it. He could involve the police to get her removed from the house if she continued to be difficult, but he didn’t want to do that. Lucia would be appalled, and Alice was his sister-in-law after all.

She wasn’t going to be put off, which meant he was going to have to sit down with her and come to some arrangement about Diego. Some kind of civilised arrangement.

The only problem was that he didn’t feel particularly civilised, not with her sitting next to him, wearing only a pair of denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt that was so thin he could see the lace of her bra. Her legs were long and tanned and smooth, and they were sitting close enough that her bare skin nearly brushed the wool of his suit trousers.

He could barely think, and he was furious with himself.

He’d thought he’d made himself clear when he’d walked away from the dinner table the night before. Yet he should have known that she wouldn’t meekly do what he said, that she wouldn’t stay the requisite three days and then leave. And he thought he’d been smart in taking this business trip over the time she would be staying so he didn’t have to have more contact with her. Except it hadn’t turned out that way and he still couldn’t understand how it had got away from him.

He only knew that he hadn’t taken into account her sheer stubbornness and now he was dealing with the consequences. Which were Alice, sitting next to him in a helicopter for two hours, one bare thigh pressed against his, and him as breathless as a teenage boy with his first crush.

The pilot had got in and was spinning up the rotors, and the moment where he could have got rid of her was gone. So, he put on his headset and tried to ignore her as they lifted off smoothly, climbing into the sky, heading for the mountains.

‘So,’ Alice’s voice came crisply through the headset, ‘Diego needs a mother, Sebastián. You do know that, don’t you?’

He’d been going to work on the trip to Madrid, but with her sitting next to him there was no hope of that. ‘We can talk about this when we get to Madrid,’ he said curtly.

‘If this is a two-hour trip then we might as well discuss it now.’

Sebastián gritted his teeth. ‘Diego has Sofia. Until I—’

‘Sofia, I’m sure, is a faultless nanny, but she’s not his mother.’

‘No, his mother is dead,’ he bit out. ‘And if you’d let me finish, I would have told you that he will have a mother eventually. When I remarry.’

There was a shocked silence that satisfied him far too much and yet made him feel guilty at the same time. It was too soon after Emily’s death to even contemplate, but he had to. With his wife gone, he needed to remarry, because Alice was right, Diego did need a mother. Sebastián’s own mother had died when he was born so he’d grown up without one, his cold, distant father his only parent. He didn’t want that for his son. Not that he had any intention of being like Mateo, but a child should have at least some maternal influence in their life.

Also, he wanted more children. Diego was his heir, despite not being of Sebastián’s own blood, which was fine. Sebastián was not Mateo’s biological son after all. But he had been an only child and it had been lonely. Diego should have siblings.

‘Remarry?’ Alice echoed. ‘But Emily is only two—’

‘Months gone?’ he interrupted. ‘Yes, I’m well aware. Still, I need more than one heir and you’re right, Diego does need a mother. In which case I’m going to need another wife.’

‘Emily said you were cold. I had no idea just how much.’

He glanced at her and her dark eyes met his, the expression in them furious. He couldn’t blame her. He was cold. His heart had always led him astray and so he had to be careful. Mateo had been very clear what was expected of a duke and that was not to allow his emotions to get the better of him.

Yet it was difficult to hear what his own wife had accused him of on more than one occasion coming out of Alice’s mouth.

‘You’re so cold,’Emily had said a couple of times. ‘Don’t you care about anything?’

But he had cared, that was the problem. He’d cared too much and, unfortunately for Emily, it wasn’t her that he’d cared about, not as intensely as he’d cared about Alice.

‘I prefer practical,’ he said, wrestling with his own temper. ‘I have responsibilities now and I need to keep Diego’s future in mind.’

Anger flickered in her eyes. ‘Oh? Until you have a child of your own blood, you mean?’

Sebastián stared at her a long moment. Did she really think that was what his issue was? Apparently so. Well, he needed to disabuse her of that notion. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Diego is my heir and will remain so, no matter how many other children I have. But I don’t want him to grow up an only child. He should have siblings.’

Alice didn’t reply immediately, but her gaze was searching. Did she not believe him? Did she really think he would lie about this?

Are you surprised? She doesn’t know you, remember? You can’t blame her for having a low opinion of you when you cultivated that yourself.

A shiver of electricity moved through him, though why he had no idea. Because it was true. He’d deliberately made himself unpleasant when it came to her. He was never openly rude but was always subtly cold. Distant. Making sure she never got too close.

No wonder she thinks Diego would be better off with her. And no wonder she believed what Emily told her about you.

‘Siblings?’ she asked. ‘That’s really the only reason? Come on, Sebastián. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t disinherit him in a second if you had a child of your own blood.’

A flicker of pain went through him, though he could think of no earthly reason why, when what she thought of him didn’t matter in the slightest. He’d never given her reason to think differently and what was the point now?

However, she still seemed to believe that Diego was unimportant to him and he really couldn’t let that stand.

‘I see you believe every word Emily told you about me,’ he said. ‘And that she didn’t tell you anything about my history.’

A small crease appeared between Alice’s eyebrows. ‘What history?’

He didn’t tell people about his true origins. His father had guarded the secret jealously and, after Mateo had passed away, so had he. Even now, even after the rumours about him had largely disappeared, only Emily had known the truth. He’d sworn her to secrecy and it was clear she hadn’t told her sister a thing. Perhaps he shouldn’t let Alice know now. Then again, if he did, she’d understand how he felt about Diego. Perhaps she’d then go home and leave him in peace.

‘I am not actually my father’s son by blood,’ he said. ‘A childhood illness left him sterile, but he needed an heir and so when he found out about my mother’s affair with a stable hand, and that she was pregnant because of it, he raised the child as his own.’

Alice’s eyes widened. ‘You?’

‘Yes. No one ever knew I wasn’t Mateo’s son. He made sure of it.’

She looked shocked. ‘Did Emily know?’

‘Of course.’

‘And Diego...’

‘Will be my heir. I’ll bring him up as my own son and, no, it won’t make any difference if I have children of my own blood.’

‘So you’ll treat him the way your father treated you?’

‘No,’ he snapped before he could stop himself. ‘I would never do that.’

Something shifted in her gaze, though he wasn’t sure what it was. Interest perhaps, or curiosity. ‘Why? How did your father treat you?’

But he wasn’t going to have that conversation, not with her. ‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Diego will not be disadvantaged because he is not biologically related to me. He will be my son in every other way.’

She didn’t say anything immediately, the expression in her gaze unreadable.

‘You have my word,’ he added, because if she was searching for the truth then he’d give it to her. She needed to know that, while he might have failed Emily, he wouldn’t fail Diego.

It had never been a good idea to look into her dark eyes for too long and he knew he shouldn’t look now. He didn’t want her to see the need burning in him for her. He had to keep it locked away. It would be a disaster if she knew, because then...

Then you might throw caution to the winds? Say ‘to hell with it’ and take her? Ignore your control and give your heart what it wants instead?

He could. His wife was gone and there was nothing stopping him now. Nothing but the years of denial and guilt and relentless self-control. Nothing but his father’s constant, painful example of how love and desire could eat you alive from the inside out and turn you into someone vindictive and cruel and petty.

He wouldn’t follow that example. He’d spent years trying to do the right thing, the honourable thing, because he was a Castellano duke and Castellano dukes were always honourable. He couldn’t allow those years to be wasted on something so ephemeral and meaningless as sex. And that was all it would be. Just sex and nothing more. Dios,if he wanted a woman, he’d find someone else. Someone far less complicated than Alice.

So he kept tight control of himself and it was she who looked away, glancing out of the window, colour staining the olive skin of her cheekbones.

Curious that he’d made her blush, not that he should have noticed.

‘You’re not who I thought you were,’ she said after a moment.

He studied the curve of her cheek and the fan of delicate dark lashes almost resting on it. They were very long, those lashes, and silky looking. ‘And who did you think I was?’

‘Someone who’d let Diego go easily. I thought that you wouldn’t want him because he’s not yours.’

He shouldn’t keep looking at her, and yet he couldn’t stop. The sun through the window was glossing her dark hair. She had it in a low ponytail at the back of her neck and he couldn’t help noting that the T-shirt she wore was faded. Old clothes. She really hadn’t expected to be going anywhere today, had she?

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You thought wrong.’

Her eyes had widened, and they were even darker, her pupils dilating. Abruptly the tension between them pulled tight, the air in the helicopter filling with a crackling heat.

The colour in her cheeks deepened and a startled expression flickered through her velvet dark eyes, as if she’d read every thought in his head, and that was bad, very bad. He’d wondered, after that Christmas Eve moment in the living room, whether she’d guessed at how he felt about her. Yet that moment had never repeated itself and she’d never said anything, so he’d told himself she hadn’t guessed, and it was better that way.

Perhaps she hadn’t. She did now, though.

He should have said nothing, should have let the moment pass unremarked. But he didn’t.

‘No,’ he said fiercely instead. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Alice.’

Her eyes widened even further, the red blush staining her cheeks now creeping down her neck, and that was when he realised things were going to be even more complicated than they were already.

Because Alice felt the same way he did.