A Price Worth Paying?

by Trish Morey

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her as he lifted himself over her, not knowing how he could have let her alone for so long; promising himself he never would again, knowing he would never have to.

  She opened herself to him and his fingers found her slick and wet for him. She cried out as his thumb teased her sensitive nub, arching on the bed. He should linger there, he knew. He should take his time and pleasure her properly and he would.

  Next time.

  This time he knew what she wanted.

  He didn’t reach for a condom. He didn’t need one. She was pregnant already, with his child in her belly.

  He stroked the flat of his hand over her mound, over that belly, over one perfect breast that would feed his child, while he steadied his swaying erection with the other, finding her centre, finding her hot and slick and oh, so sweet.

  And, oh God, he thought as he entered her in one long thrust, and she angled her hips to meet him, so welcoming.

  He kissed her then, in that exquisite moment of joining, making love to her mouth while buried to the hilt inside her.

  It was mind-shattering.

  And then he moved and it got better.

  He groaned. He would not last. It had been a long time. Too long. And her needy cries and hungry fingers on his skin told him she needed this as much as he did.

  Maybe more.

  She moved both with him and against him, tight and hot around him, and so perfect he wanted to control it and stay this way for ever.

  His traitorous body wouldn’t let him, the slip and slide of flesh against flesh compelling and urgent and unable to be withstood.

  And when she came apart around him, any last shred of control was blown away in the fallout.

  With a cry he unleashed himself inside her, pumping into her perfect body as her muscles tightened around him and urged him on.

  Spent, he rolled off her, tucking her close against him as ragged breathing eased and their bodies calmed. He kissed her hair and she nestled into him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered and he kissed her on the head again. He lay like that in the dark, listening as her breathing steadied and feeling her body relax as she slipped inexorably towards sleep.

  How had they come to this place, he wondered, where he was so comfortable with her staying—where he was comfortable with the concept of her having his child?

  Where he was happy with it?

  When had the change occurred?

  And why?

  He had no answers as the woman beside him slumbered in his arms. Maybe tomorrow, with the cool clear light of a new day, it would make more sense.

  Already he looked forward to the morning, but for more reasons than that alone. Because come the new day the woman beside him would awaken and they would have sex again. Come the new day she might be feeling better and more in the mood for talking.

  Surely then she would remember to tell him about the baby.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE WOKE IN his arms feeling sad, but better than she had in weeks. Warm, cossetted and maybe even a little loved. For it would be nice to think Alesander loved her, just a little, after she was gone. Because last night had proved one thing to her, and that was that she loved him.

  He’d helped her feel alive when all she’d felt was numb. He’d shown her that after death, life went on. He’d given her a gift of life-affirming sex gift-wrapped in his tenderness, and she loved him all the more for it.

  Leaving him would kill her, but she would have the memory of their lovemaking to keep her warm at night.

  She woke wanting to make love again, knowing there would not be many more times, but he gently put her away, kissing her on the forehead and telling her that he didn’t want her to overdo it, and he would make breakfast for her. Confused and a little hurt, she wondered if already he was withdrawing, in preparation for her leaving.

  Then, all during breakfast—while she sat and ate the omelette he’d insisted on making for her—he seemed to be watching her, almost as if he were waiting for something. Was it that she was leaving or did he worry she might suddenly collapse in a heap again? Was that the reason for his sudden care?

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, putting down her knife and fork when she caught him looking sideways at her again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said disingenuously. ‘I just wondered if there’s something you wanted to tell me.’

  She blinked. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, who can say?’ he said, the corners of his mouth turning up. ‘Can you think of anything you might be keeping from me that maybe you should share? That I might be interested in hearing? A secret, perhaps?’

  A chill descended her spine.

  Surely he couldn’t know.

  Not that. There was no way he could know that.

  They’d barely spoken in the last month and she hadn’t said anything last night in the depths of passion. Had she? ‘I don’t have any secrets.’

  ‘None? Nothing at all to tell me?’

  Nothing that you would want to hear.

  ‘I can understand you might be nervous about telling me,’ he said, and all the while she was thinking, He knows. ‘I know I’ve warned you enough times, but I’d like to think our relationship has changed. I don’t want you to think there is anything you can’t share with me.’

  She swallowed, both nervous and excited in case it meant he felt the same way. Could it be possible? Had Alesander fallen in love with her too? The way he had treated her last night made her want to believe it. And the way he was looking at her now made her think it might even be possible.

  He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. ‘You don’t have to be nervous,’ he prompted. ‘You can tell me.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, her heart hammering in her chest, trying to find the courage to tell him the truth. ‘Maybe there is one thing.’

  He smiled encouragingly. ‘I thought so. What is it?’

  His fingers were warm and reassuring around her hand, his eyes dark with promise and so she relaxed and smiled. ‘Then I guess it’s time you knew. Alesander, I love you.’

  A blank stare met her confession. ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Isn’t there something else? I thought you were going to tell me about the baby. When were you going to tell me about the baby?’

  ‘The baby? There is no baby.’

  He dropped her hand. ‘But I heard you tell Felipe …’

  Oh God. And she had just told him that she loved him. ‘You were there?’

  ‘Of course I was there. The nurses called me—told me it was close. And I heard you. You told Felipe you were pregnant, that we were having a child. You told him you were going to call it Felipe. I heard you!’

  ‘Alesander …’ she swallowed ‘… you have to understand—’

  He spun out of his chair, strode away across the room, raking the fingers of one hand through his hair, his other on his hip. ‘Damn it, you said it. Why the hell would you do that if it wasn’t true?’

  ‘Because it’s what Felipe wanted to hear. It’s what he needed to hear!’

  ‘Felipe could barely hear you let alone understand that!’

  ‘No, listen to me, that day in the vineyard, the day he fell—he told me that day that it was his greatest wish that there be news of a child before he died. He wanted to know his family would go on after he died.’

  ‘But that was the day—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We had unprotected sex that day. And you said nothing since. And when you told Felipe that you were having a baby, I thought … I thought.’

  ‘I’m sorry. My period came last week. I didn’t tell you. We were barely talking and I didn’t think you cared.’

  No baby.

  He strode aimlessly to the windows and stared blankly out of them.

  She’d got her period.

  She wasn’t pregnant.

  She’d thought he didn’t care.

  Why did he?

  He’d tri
ed not to. For the best part of a month he’d pretended he didn’t care, but when he’d heard her tell Felipe that she was pregnant and realised that meant she would have to stay, he’d learned that he did care, more than he’d thought possible.

  But no baby.

  No child.

  No son.

  And that last grated more than the rest. He spun around. ‘Do you ever tell the truth?’

  ‘Alesander,’ she appealed, ‘please—’

  ‘You’ve been spinning lies from the moment you arrived.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve lied! All the time I’ve been here, I’ve been lying to Felipe and I hated myself for it, but there was a reason why I lied—good reason. Felipe was able to die happy because of those lies.’

  ‘You probably don’t even know how to tell the truth.’

  ‘I told you the truth.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re capable of it.’

  ‘Alesander,’ she said more firmly. ‘I told you the truth.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I said I love you.’

  His eyes shuttered closed, his mind reeling back through their conversation. And she had said that, but he’d been blindsided by the words she hadn’t said, by the words he’d been expecting, the words he’d grown used to since he’d first heard her utter them.

  He hadn’t had time to process these new ones.

  ‘It was the truth. It is the truth. I’m only sorry it wasn’t the truth you were wanting to hear.’

  And they weren’t the words he’d been expecting to hear, true.

  But there was something in them, something that didn’t bother him as much as he might have thought.

  Something that resonated with him.

  He didn’t want her to go. He’d thought a baby would keep her here. He’d been devastated to know she wasn’t pregnant, that she’d lied for Felipe when he’d wanted her words to be true.

  There was no baby, but if she loved him, maybe there was a chance she still might stay.

  ‘Do you have to go home to Australia?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know you have your studies to return to, but do you have to go? We have universities in Spain, after all. You could study here, finish your studies, improve your Spanish at the same time.’

  Her heart leapt. What was he saying? She bit her lip, trying desperately not to read too much into his questions. There had been too many misunderstandings between them, too many times they had misunderstood each other and let each other down. ‘Alesander?’

  ‘Because if you do not need to leave, perhaps you could stay here, with me.’

  ‘Even though I’m not pregnant?’

  ‘Who says you’re not? We had unprotected sex last night. I didn’t think I needed to bother with a condom, under the circumstances. Only now I find the circumstances have changed and that perhaps you might be pregnant after all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her heart sank. She’d been right not to get too excited. ‘Oh, and you want me to wait. In case this time there’s a baby.’

  ‘Yes, of course I want any child of mine. But I want you too. I did not know that at first. I was determined to keep you here and when I heard that you were pregnant, it gave me a reason to make you stay. Because I want you here with me. Because I love you, Simone …’

  She blinked.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I love you. And I want you to stay. And we’ll have unprotected sex as many times as it takes if it means you will.’

  ‘Alesander …’

  ‘I know I have not been easy to live with. I know I have treated you badly and that I have no right to ask for your love.’

  Her heart was beating so fast it was all but tripping over itself, her smile was so wide it hurt and still she couldn’t stop. ‘You always told me not to make the mistake of thinking you were nice.’

  ‘I am not nice. I am the first to admit it. But I will also admit that I am in love with you. Will you stay here in Spain with me, Simone? Will you stay and be my real wife and be the mother of my children? Will you stay and bear a son named Felipe and honour the memory of your grandfather? What do you say?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she cried, her heart bursting with happiness. ‘I say yes. I love you, Alesander, I love you so very much.’

  And he smiled and took her into his arms and kissed her until she was giddy with joy.

  ‘I love you too. I will always love you.’

  EPILOGUE

  SIMONE ESQUIVEL WENT into labour nine months later, on a warm autumn night where the vine leaves rustled on the breeze up the trellised slopes and where the wine grapes grew fat on the view over the spectacular coastline.

  It was exactly one year since the day she’d arrived on Alesander’s doorstep and delivered her crazy proposal, a year that had changed like the seasons, and been filled with despair and loss, and hope and renewal.

  And like the vines themselves, ancient and strong and with roots eighty feet deep, love had featured through it all.

  Alesander was more nervous than Simone, fussing and fretting as he tried to manoeuvre her into first the car, and then into the hospital, as if he were trying to herd the sheep that grazed between the vines.

  And when Simone refused to be herded and told him to calm down, he tried to herd the staff instead, barking out orders and demands so that nobody was in any doubt that the Esquivel baby was arriving tonight.

  He held her hand while she laboured and fretted, and barked orders some more. He sponged her brow and moistened her lips and rubbed her back when she needed him to. And when their baby was born he watched in wonder and awe at this strong woman who he loved deliver him a son.

  ‘You didn’t lie to him,’ he said later, as he sat by her side, his finger given over to the clutches of their tiny child, clearly besotted by their new son.

  She must have looked as if she didn’t understand.

  ‘To Felipe. That last time you spoke to him before he died. You told him the truth. You told him you were having a baby and that you would have a son and we would name him Felipe.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ he said, ‘our baby was conceived that night. You spoke the truth.’

  She smiled at him, this man who was her husband, who she had married to make an old man happy but who had given her his heart and this child and who now was giving her yet another precious gift.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Did I ever tell you I loved you, Alesander Esquivel?’

  ‘You did,’ he told her, ‘but I didn’t believe you then.’ He leaned over the child they had made and kissed her ever so preciously on the lips.

  ‘But I’ll never doubt you again.’

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  by Mills
& Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.

  Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,

  Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Trish Morey 2013

  eISBN: 978-1-472-00194-8