Chapter Eleven
Beatrix
Santiago’s black gaze is direct, his expression granite hard. Sitting across from me in his exquisite dark blue suit, with his hard stare and his handsome features, he’s like a wall of immovable, masculine stone. A wall I want to take a sledgehammer to and break down.
After he left me in the sitting room, I didn’t know quite what to do.
His sudden change of mood from fury to controlled politeness was bewildering.
He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but he didn’t actually mean that, I know he didn’t.
It’s never stopped him before, after all.
He never seemed to be a man moved by tears, either.
Not long after he’d gone, Helene entered the room, smiling at me and telling me in English that I looked as if I needed to sit down and rest with some hot tea and a pastry or two.
Her kindness was a balm to my wounded soul, and so I let her mother and fuss around me as she sat me in the beautiful garden, then brought me tea and the pastries she’d mentioned.
I hadn’t realised how much I needed both until after I’d had a few sips of tea and a couple of bites of a pastry. The tea and food at least revived me enough to prepare myself for the return of the test results and whatever ‘decision’ Santiago was going to make.
I’d braced myself as he strode onto the terrace, bringing with him his usual tense, electric energy, and expecting once again his usual fury.
Except it wasn’t there. There had been another expression in his dark eyes, and it wasn’t until he’d sat down and offered me his apology that I realised the expression was yet again one of regret.
He didn’t look away as he’d said the words. He held my gaze the whole time, letting me see that yes, he was serious, and that he meant it.
It was the last thing I expected of him, and I honestly had no idea how to take it, especially considering that it was my stupid tears that had prompted it.
I really don’t like that he saw me being vulnerable. Even if those tears did cause him to have a change of heart, the fact that he saw them still makes me feel weak, and I’m angry at myself for not being strong enough.
Which doesn’t help me now that the truth has been revealed, the truth I already knew, that he is the father of my child.
My insides knot and twist with anger and fear, and that nagging, unquenchable desire for the man across from me. A hot, toxic mess of emotion.
He has to know, though, that this is not his decision. This is our decision, because I refuse to be cut out of my baby’s life.
His gaze flickers as if I’ve scored a hit, but all he says is, ‘Yes, of course it’s our decision.’
‘I’m not leaving my child,’ I tell him once again, in no uncertain terms. ‘What I would like is to bring them up at the Veracruz estate.’
He stares at me, unblinking for a long moment.
Then he sits back in his chair, stretching his long, powerful body out as he folds his arms across his broad chest. ‘No,’ he says succinctly.
‘I live here in Paris and I’m hoping my mother will join me eventually.
I would prefer the child to live with me. ’
A little shock goes through me. His mother? Antonio never talked about his first wife, not a word. All I knew was that he divorced her years and years before he met me.
‘She’s here?’ I can’t help asking.
Something flickers across his face, gone too quickly for me to read. ‘Not at present.’ His tone darkens, an edge creeping into it. ‘But she’ll be here at some point, and I’m sure she’d very much like to meet her grandchild.’
Her grandchild. By her late husband’s second wife and son.
The situation seems so complex all of a sudden. So convoluted and difficult. I want to be back at the hacienda, where at least there was only myself to manage, and I didn’t have to think about Santiago and all the issues associated with him.
But you’re not. You’re here. He’s the father of your child and you’re going to have to deal with him one way or the other.
I take a sip of tea to moisten my mouth. ‘What exactly is your objection to moving back to Spain?’ I ask, trying not to sound confrontational for a change. ‘Is it just about your mother?’
His brows lower. ‘No. My head office is here and so are my employees.’ There’s no give in his tone, none at all. ‘Also…’ he pauses, his eyes glittering ‘…you made me a promise.’
A flush of heat goes through me. Yes, I did make him a promise.
That if he wouldn’t take the child from me, I’d be in his bed.
Right now, I’d love to break that promise, argue for staying at the Veracruz estate, since it’s mine now, and the thought of leaving what I thought would be my home fills me with exhaustion.
But he’s a man without mercy, and, as he’s already made plain, he wants our child to stay with him.
I could fight him on this. I do have the resources.
But they’re not limitless, and I’ll likely run out of money long before he will.
It’ll be a protracted legal fight, and I really don’t want to spend my child’s inheritance on fighting with their father.
Yet I want a home for them. A place where they feel they belong.
It could be here, in Paris. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, yet the idea feels precarious.
This isn’t my home. This isn’t my place.
After so many years to finally have a place of my own, and then to be ripped away from it would be devastating.
Staying here will mean I’m the child’s mother and Santiago’s lover, but nothing else.
I’ll have no legal right to anything. I’ll be back to having no power and no agency, unless…
I blink as an unexpected idea occurs to me. There’s one way I could have power here, one way I could legally feel as if this was my home, too.
If I was his wife.
Across the table, Santiago’s black eyes narrow. ‘You’ve decided something,’ he says. ‘What is it?’
I meet his gaze, determined to hold it this time. ‘I’ll keep my promise to you, be in your bed the way you want me to be. But I want some protection for myself in return. Legal protection.’
His frown deepens. ‘I can draw up a contract if that’s—’
‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘I’m not talking about a contract.’
‘Then what are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about being your wife.’
The words hang between us, sharp and bright, and a strange, fizzing excitement moves through me, though I can’t think for the life of me why.
Like my marriage to his father, it wouldn’t be an emotional marriage.
It would be more a legal agreement that would provide me with some surety, stability, and protection.
He stares at me, his expression utterly unreadable. ‘You want me to marry you?’ The question is so determinedly neutral that I’m sure he hates the idea.
But I don’t look away. ‘Yes. It’s what you’re essentially wanting from me. I’m only asking to make it legal.’
His black eyes glitter with that familiar mix of heat and anger, but I’m used to that from him. I can do Santiago when he’s hungry and furious. That, at least, I know, unlike his apology, which was confusing.
‘So you want to add me to your trophy cabinet?’ he asks in an edged tone. ‘Another Veracruz to add to your list of conquests?’
I fight down my own defensiveness, not taking his bait.
‘If you want me to upend the life I’ve managed to create for myself in Spain, and move to Paris, where I own nothing and have nothing, because you want to stay here, then you’ll have to give me some surety that my place here is secure.
’ I keep my voice calm, cool. Logical. That’s something he should appreciate.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. ‘You could stay in Spain. No one is forcing you to move.’
‘You said you wouldn’t take the baby away from me,’ I counter. ‘You promised.’
‘And you promised you’d stay in my bed,’ he snaps, his hold on his temper clearly not as good as he wants me to believe.
‘Marry me,’ I say. ‘And I’ll be there every night.’
‘Why would I need to,’ he leans forward as if to emphasise his point, ‘when you’ve already promised me everything?’
I take a breath, trying to batten down the hatches on my sudden, rising panic.
I’ve spent my life trying to find stability, trying to find safety, trying to find a home that no one can take away from me.
I thought marrying Antonio would give me that, and it did, only for my own desperate need to undermine everything and upend the little life I’d built for myself.
I can’t face the idea of doing it again.
I’ll be at the mercy of Santiago’s desire, which will fade soon enough, and then where will I be? And what about my child?
With a supreme effort of will, I force away the panic.
Logic, that’s what I need. That’s what I’ll have to use to appeal to him, since playing on his feelings won’t work, I know that already.
‘What about when this chemistry of ours is dead?’ I ask.
‘What about when either of us doesn’t want the other any more?
What if I fall in love with another man and marry him instead, and petition for custody of—’
‘You will not be marrying another man,’ he interrupts with barely suppressed fury. ‘Not while you are sleeping with me.’
Something inside me shivers at the possessive note in his voice.
The needy part of me, the part that loves being wanted the way he wants me.
I don’t like giving in to it, but it does remind me that I can use his possessiveness to get what I want, too.
That there is one feeling of his that I can play on: his jealousy.
‘I’ll be faithful as your wife,’ I say, my skin tightening as I hold his stark black gaze. ‘I believe in marriage vows.’
He says nothing for a long moment, his gaze roaming over my face, studying me as if I’m one of his experiments and it’s not going according to his plan. ‘My mother won’t be pleased if I marry you,’ he says at last.
No, I don’t suppose she would be. ‘Do you care what your mother thinks?’
‘Yes,’ he says unexpectedly. ‘I’ve cared for her ever since Antonio threw us out.’
Another little shock goes through me. That’s something I was never told about. ‘He threw you out?’
Santiago’s lip curls. ‘Surely you must know that.’
‘No. He spoke of you, of course, but not about your mother. He never mentioned his first marriage.’
Santiago’s eyes narrow into thin slits of obsidian, no doubt searching for evidence that I’m lying. But, since I’m not, I stare back. I’ve got nothing to hide.
The intensity of his study eases, and he lets out a breath, sitting back in his chair again, apparently satisfied that I’m being truthful. ‘Perhaps it’s no surprise he didn’t tell you,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t exactly cast him in a favourable light.’
I don’t know what to think of the sudden curiosity that pulls tight inside me, but I do know that I can’t let it go.
Antonio never gave any details on why he viewed Santiago with such bitterness, and I always thought it must have been about something dreadful, especially since his bitterness seemed to get worse as the years went on.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘It’s very simple,’ Santiago says levelly. ‘My father wasn’t faithful to my mother. He had many affairs and I, unfortunately, found out about one of them after stumbling into a room at a family party, to find my father with one of his lovers.’
This doesn’t surprise me. Antonio was very proud of his virility. It was why he hired me to be on his arm, and why he insisted we consummate our relationship—at least as much as he was physically able.
‘That must have been awful,’ I say and mean it, because it must have been. ‘How old were you?’
‘Twelve,’ Santiago says. ‘He swore me to secrecy, told me to never breathe a word of it to my mother. But I was furious with him for betraying her, and so I told her anyway.’
‘He threw you out for that?’ I ask, shocked.
Santiago’s gaze is direct. ‘Yes. Turned my mother and me out on the street. She found some peace in the bottom of a wine bottle and I found mine in physics.’
I want to believe he’s lying to me, but I know a little of Santiago now and I know how he hates a lie.
He wouldn’t lie about this. What he’s just said about Antonio’s behaviour also rings true.
He was a man who held grudges, and would fly into a rage over the slightest little thing.
He was never awful to me—perhaps age had mellowed him—but I can see him doing exactly what Santiago said. Especially as a younger man.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, hearing how pathetic the words are but not knowing what else to say. ‘That must have been terrible.’
‘Why are you sorry?’ The muscle in Santiago’s jaw ticks again, anger flickering in his eyes, though I realise that this time it’s not directed at me.
‘It’s not your fault. He never forgave me, did you know that?
He shut me out. Left me and Mother without a penny.
I tried to mend fences with him over the years, but he refused to answer any of my calls, or emails or texts. ’
My chest tightens unexpectedly. Because beneath the fury in the words I can hear something else. Pain. ‘You loved him,’ I say without thinking. ‘Didn’t you?’