‘No, it’s not okay.’ Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair and was gripped with sudden indecision. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring through the window at nothing in particular and he couldn’t blame her. If Cristobel had sat and plotted for a thousand years, she couldn’t have come up with a better way of getting her own back on him for her ruined marriage plans. And how had he reacted when that horrendous picture had been thrust at him? With virtual silence. Was it any wonder that she couldn’t bear to set eyes on him?
‘I…’ he began hesitantly. He shook his head, impatient with himself, and strode towards her, ignoring the way she shied back as she spun around and watched him descending on her.
‘I had no idea that Cristobel was going to be in New York,’ he said slowly. ‘She got me on my mobile, claimed that she just wanted to talk to me, that I owed her that much at least, so I reluctantly agreed to take her out to dinner.’
‘Yes, well, I could see reluctance brimming over in that snapshot of the two of you.’
This close to her, he could breathe in her clean soapy scent and the elusive apple and honey fragrance of her recently washed hair.
‘Whatever you see in that photo,’ he murmured, ‘you’re way off target. The dinner was only successful in so far as it made me see what a damn fool I had been to have ever became engaged to Cristobel. Not only is she a vain, shallow person, but there was a spitefulness there that repelled me.’
‘You’re just saying that,’ Alex whispered.
‘She must have planned the whole thing, right down to making sure that someone would be there to capture us on camera. She knows that there’s no hope in hell that I’ll ever have anything more to do with her, but a woman scorned is still a woman scorned.’
Alex folded her arms and stared at the right sleeve of his shirt.
‘You…you do things to me, Alex…’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Yes, really.’ He tilted her head so that she could look at him and she jerked back. Her eyes were glazed and damp and he felt his heart constrict. ‘You do the same things to me that I do to you.’
‘What’s that?’ Alex flung at him, rubbing her leaking eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Turn you on?’
‘Make me cry.’
At that, Alex looked up at him. Her mouth was parted, ready for attack, but her brain had seized up. She made a soft choking sound and blinked.
‘I was an arrogant sod the first time you met me. Too young to realise that you were the best thing to ever happen in my life. You showed up again and I was still an arrogant sod but it didn’t take me long to grow accustomed to you. To have you in my head every minute of the day. I can’t focus when you’re not around. You complete me.’
Alex’s eyes were like saucers. For someone who didn’t do the touchy-feely stuff, he seemed pretty spectacular right now and she didn’t want the moment to end.
‘You’re gaping.’ He gave her a crooked smile. He risked touching her, just a feathery brush of his finger along her cheek. ‘I love you, Alex, and if you still want to walk away from marrying me then I won’t try to stop you.’
‘You love me? Why didn’t you ever say?’
‘I didn’t recognise it, my darling. How was I to know that love was something that could ram into you when you weren’t looking with the force of a freight train? How was I to spot that the first sign would be when your sense of complete control starts unravelling?’
Alex smiled, then she beamed and then she reached up and stroked his face. ‘And I love you too. I never stopped, Gabriel. Even when I was as mad as hell with you, I still loved you. That’s why I agreed to marry you. After Cristobel came and spouted all that stuff about you being the sort of Spaniard who would lose interest in me, I knew that I had to do whatever I could to turn what you felt for me into something strong enough to see us through.’
She closed her eyes and reached up, her mouth searching for his, her lips parting as he kissed her with fierce, burning hunger. She whimpered when he eventually pulled back to look down at her with such loving eyes that her heart skipped a beat.
‘So you’ll marry me…’ he murmured huskily.
‘You wouldn’t be able to stop me.’
‘You wait and see,’ Gabriel promised solemnly. ‘I will be the best father, the best husband, the best lover and the best friend you will ever have.’
A sigh of pure contentment escaped her lips. She curled her arms around his neck and sighed again when his hand cupped her breast with possessive intimacy.
‘Right back at you,’ she whispered.
EPILOGUE
THOSE missed years could never be replaced but Alex was good at not allowing Gabriel to beat himself up over that. The present was all that mattered and the present was a pretty wonderful place to be, he had to concede.
Luke was now seven and the apple of his father’s eye. Indeed, Gabriel could hardly remember that time when he had lived and breathed work. His life had been one-dimensional, he now realised, although if someone had said so to him at the time he wouldn’t have had a clue where they were coming from.
‘I blame you,’ he mused aloud, as Alex slid into the chair opposite him.
They had returned to the island to celebrate their third wedding anniversary, having left Luke with his grandparents in Spain. The housekeepers had been dispatched and here was his beloved wife now, dressed in a floaty cream creation which he would enjoy removing very, very slowly in a couple of hours’ time.
Food had been prepared by Ana, who was still their loyal retainer at the house, and Alex was doing the honours. I may not be a brilliant cook, she had laughed, but I’m good at heating things up.
‘Blame me for what?’ She grinned because, over time, she was discovering just how complex this man of hers was.
‘I’ve been domesticated.’
Alex sipped her champagne and smiled, leaning across the table and cupping her face in her hand. ‘It’s inevitable, I’m afraid.’
‘So your mother told me the last time we visited them. Your married brothers have become pussycats.’
What he had anticipated as being a difficult relationship had been surprisingly easy. Alex’s parents had accepted him without fuss and, although her brothers had initially given him a few filthy looks, they had grudgingly allowed him into their hallowed circle when he had proved himself knowledgeable on most things Irish. After some consolidated help from the Internet on his part. Now he had fun outsmarting them on their own turf, although they had wised up to his tactics and were always polishing up new ways to catch him out.
‘Nice dress, by the way,’ he murmured, angling his body so that he could nudge his thigh against her leg under the table. ‘I’m going to enjoy taking it off. All those little buttons at the front. Could be an interesting challenge.’
Their eyes met and Alex felt that wonderful whoosh in her stomach that always happened when he was with her.
‘You have a one track mind,’ she teased, laughing.
‘And you’re always the woman at the end of that track.’
‘Quite right!’
‘The past three years have been the best of my life,’ Gabriel told her seriously. ‘I always thought that I was a pretty relaxed kind of guy. I was wrong. You taught me how to kick back. You and Luke…’ he cleared his throat, just in case his voice did something stupid like sound unsteady ‘…you mean everything to me.’
‘Which is terrific…’ Alex stroked the side of his face with her hand and smiled tenderly at this brilliant man who was her own breath of life ‘…just so long as there’s room in there for a little more love because I’m pregnant.’
Gabriel stood up and tugged her to her feet, his smile warm and loving. His hand moved to curve over her still flat stomach and he thought, with pleasure and with a sense of utter peace and contentment, that this was what it was to be home.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8794-9
A SPANISH BIRTHRIGHT
Previously published in the U.K. as T
HE SECRET SPANISH LOVE-CHILD
First North American Publication 2011
Copyright © 2010 by Cathy Williams
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A Spanish Birthright aka The Secret Spanish Love-Child Page 17