Taken the Spaniard's Virgin

by Lucy Monroe

  It clicked in Amber’s brain and she turned to Miguel. “You told them?”

  “I did not realize you had not. I am very sorry,querida . I would not have done so had I known, but I was unaware things had changed so drastically between you and your mother.”

  “They didn’t.” Amber felt like things were cracking open inside her and she was scared to deal with them, but from the pain-filled expression in her mother’s drenched eyes, she knew she had to.

  She jumped up and hugged her mom tight. “They didn’t, Mom. Believe me. I just…I was so ashamed of what I’d done. I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even you.”

  “But you didn’t do anything.”

  “I killed my baby.”

  Miguel made a hoarse sound of protest, but it was her father’s foul curse that caught her attention. He was on his feet and coming around the table to put his arms around both her and her mom. “You didn’t kill your baby, Amber. The accident happened and you have to learn to live with it, but it’s called an accident because it wasn’t deliberate.”

  Amber shook her head.

  “Honey, I understand guilt, but you’ve got to let it go. I almost lost both you and your sister because of mine. I should have been driving the night your mother died. But I was working and she went to dinner with friends without me. I should have been protecting you and Ellie in the nursery, but I was too busy grieving to be there when Helen took you. I could have saved her, you…all of us so much pain. But I have to move on from that knowledge. We all do.”

  “But, Daddy…I stopped eating. I fell asleep because I wasn’t sleeping at night, trying to hide from my pain.”

  “Baby, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were trying to cope and it was too much. We’ll all miss the baby, but losing you, too, like we have for the past few months…that’s even worse. We all need you. And you needed us and none of us realized it until it was almost too late. We could apportion blame from now to eternity, but the only way to heal is to let it go. Let the guilt go and let us help you deal with the pain.”

  The words were so healing, but she was still scared. “Mom?” Amber asked, afraid of what her mom would think of her now that she knew the truth.

  But Helen Taylor looked at her with wisdom born of her own experience. “Sweetheart, if anyone understands guilt and pain, it’s me. We do the best we can and sometimes it just isn’t enough. If you’d realized you were pregnant, you would never have done anything to put your baby at risk.”

  “But it’s gone…”

  “I know, baby, I know.”

  And then all three of them were crying together and Miguel was there on the outer edges. His granitelike presence giving her comfort. Why that should be, she did not know, but it did. And then he was there, pushing into the midst of them, pulling her against him and she melted into his embrace as if he was her rock. With her parents’ arms around them both, they cried together for the loss of their baby.

  When the tears had finally abated, her mom and dad were no longer holding her and Miguel, but were sitting together, watching them with matching expressions of hope on their faces. She didn’t know what they hoped for, but she could guess.

  Why didn’t anyone understand that it was over between her and Miguel? Maybe because in expressing her deepest pain she had clung most strongly to him, her mind whispered. She ignored the small voice and allowed Miguel to mop her face while she tried to collect the emotions spilling like an overflowing river all around her.

  Emotions she had genuinely believed were gone.

  He kissed her forehead and it felt like a benediction. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes.” There was more to say, though she wasn’t exactly sure what. It just felt like things were not quite finished between them.

  “First we eat.”

  “Both of us,” she said with a small smile.

  He nodded, his lips not quite curving, but his eyes filled with warmth.

  Her mom and dad showed a tremendous amount of tact by actually going into the office and leaving Amber and Miguel alone but for the servants and security detail in the house.

  Even so, she decided she wanted to go back to her bedroom where they could talk without any interruption.

  They sat in the matching armchairs that faced the small fireplace at one end of her large room.

  He caught her gaze and held it, determination burning in his eyes along with a lingering pain that caught at something she thought was dead in her heart. “I love you, Amber. I want to be with you.”

  She hadn’t been expecting that. She really hadn’t. Wasn’t sure why not, after all, he’d made the claim the day before. But somehow, she had expected he’d want to talk about the baby, their breakup, anything but his supposed love for her.

  She shook her head. “You can’t.”

  “I do.”

  She spoke the only truth that mattered any longer. “You don’t belong to me anymore, Miguel.”

  “You are wrong. I am yours as you are mine.”

  “No.” She shook her head, but wasn’t able to look away from him any more than she’d been able to the night before.

  “Yes. I have been yours from that afternoon in Spain when we made love for the first time. Despite my stupidity on the phone, I have not touched another woman since you. Had no desire to do so. In my heart we were always together.”

  She almost choked on her shock. Miguel was an alpha male to his toes…talking about love and hearts was…well, it had to be as foreign to him as Chinese was for her.

  But she steeled herself against that knowledge and said, “Well, in mine, we weren’t. You broke up with me because you didn’t think I was worth trying to be celibate for—or making a commitment to—and I lived with knowledge. And when our baby died…when I almost died…you were nowhere around. If you had been mine, you would have been there. Stop deluding yourself, Miguel. I don’t know why you’re so intent on renewing a relationship that should never have happened, but it’s got nothing to do with undying love.”

  “You are so sure of that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And yet, I do love you.”

  “Your brand of love is deadly, Miguel. I don’t want it.”

  “But you admit it is love?”

  “No, only what you call love is bad for me.” And she finally recognized the metallic taste in her mouth. It was fear. Absolute terror in fact. She couldn’t let him in again because doing so the first time had almost destroyed her. This time, she might not survive. She almost hadn’t the first time.

  Maybe it was irrational, but she associated him as deeply with their baby’s death as she did herself and with her own near death. She hadn’t realized it until now, but that terror was undeniable. Loving Miguel was deadly.

  “There’s nothing to salvage between us.”

  “I think there is and I will convince you.”

  She shook her head.

  “I once showed you Barcelona, will you return the favor for me now?”

  “If I do, will you go away?” she asked desperately.

  “I can’t.” At least he didn’t lie. “I need you and I believe you need me. I will prove to you that you can trust me again.” He looked consideringly at her. “Your sister thinks it is a good idea.”

  “My sister believes in fairy tales, but then she’s living out her happy ending.”

  “Perhaps I can convince you to believe again, too.”

  She got up and went to her bureau drawer and grabbed a packet of pictures. She tossed them at him.

  He opened them, his breath hissing out and curses in several languages filling the stillness of the room.

  “You know it doesn’t do any good to swear in Chinese if I can figure out what you’re saying from your tone of voice.”

  “But you don’t know the words I’m using and they aren’t something I would ever repeat in your company.” His jaw clenched, though, as he obviously bit back more angry epitaphs while he went through the pictures. Pain sliced through him.


  She wished he’d just go ahead and swear. He was vibrating with anger. She wasn’t sure why, though. The pictures were a stack her agent had sent to her family when she’d gotten so far underweight. They showed her progression from too thin to dangerously starved. They were the reason her family had been waiting for her in the house in California that fateful day.

  “Loving you is dangerous for me.”

  “Only when I did not recognize my love for you.”

  “I almost died, Miguel. Our baby did die.”

  “And you blame me as much as you blame yourself…perhaps more.”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want to love you.”

  “You do not have a choice.” His hands gripped the armrests tightly, like he wanted to touch her but had to hold back. “I’m more sorry than I can say that I hurt you,querida, but if I have learned one thing in the last six months, it is that love does not come to order. And finally, I am grateful for it because I cannot live happily without you. We will find our way together again.”

  “We won’t.”

  “We will. Give me time…show me your new home, share your days with me. Give us a chance.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “So, am I.”

  She stared at him.

  He shook his head, still red rimmed eyes boring into her. “Do you think after seeing those photos I am not terrified right out of my arrogance?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Tell me what you would feel if I walked in front of a bus and you came to the hospital to find me on the verge of death.”

  Her heart stopped. “Don’t say things like!”

  “Exactly. Those pictures scare the hell out of me because they show me how fragile your life was, how fragile it could be again. I will not let that ever happen again.”

  “Only I can stop it.”

  “I will help you.”

  She wanted to believe him and the desire shocked her spitless. She wanted to trust him? “I’ll show you around Boston…a little.”

  He smiled at the caveat.

  “No sex.”

  His eyes filled with pain. “Understood.”

  She stood firm that first day, and the next, and the one after that, but he remained…a permanent fixture it felt like…in her father’s home. Miguel was there for breakfast; he was there at the office offering to take her to lunch; he was there when she came home. He shared their family dinners and treated her parents with a friendliness that belied any early animosity between them.

  And it felt frighteningly right.

  She kept her promise and showed him Boston…or at least a little of it. Their easy camaraderie returned when they played tourist and she looked forward to those times because they didn’t force her to think too hard. Not like when he told her that he loved her…which he did two or three times a day. Each time, it touched something inside she didn’t want touched. Made her feel things she thought she would never experience again.

  On the fourth evening, her father took her mom out to dinner and the theater. That relationship was definitely moving forward and while Amber still found it almost mind-blowingly strange that those two should make a couple of it, she was very happy for them.

  She and Miguel were in the living room after dinner, talking like they did in Spain, about everything.

  Suddenly she just blurted out, “How long are you staying?”

  “Forever, if that is what it takes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I do?” He looked at her quizzically, his sexy gray eyes yet again touching those feelings she’d thought were dead.

  And she found herself arguing more from habit than feeling. “You can’t leave your job behind…what about your responsibilities to your company?”

  He looked at her for several seconds of silence and then sighed. “Have you considered that if you had not discovered something about yourself that turned your life upside down, if you had…” He paused, took a deep breath, let it out…and went on. “Had you not lost our baby…my breaking off our relationship would not loom so largely as the insurmountable obstacle you perceive it to be?”

  “Are you saying it wouldn’t have hurt so much?” Because she doubted that. She’d loved him and he’d dismissed her as nothing in his life. Only, part of what he said resonated deep inside her.

  Their relationship happened so fast, maybe too fast for a man of his temperament to get his mind around it. She’d thought at first that sinceshe could and she’d never even had a semirelationship, he should have been able to as well, but they were two different people. Yes…she could admit this inside her own head at least—they were basically compatible personalities, but different nonetheless.

  He shook his head with a decisive jerk. “No, but I think youwould have forgiven me…would have talked to me the first time I called. I could have groveled and we would have worked it out then instead of spending more months apart.”

  “You would not have groveled.”

  “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?”

  “I…no…I…maybe. Gosh…sort of.” And that made her feel better than she had in a long time, which didn’t say much for her compassion and forgiveness level, did it? “But if that scenario had played out like you suggest, I would still be pursuing my modeling and a relationship between usstill would not have worked according to you.”

  “You forget, I thought youwere pursuing your career both the first and second time I called. I was willing…am willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to make the relationship work.”

  “You don’t mean that.” He couldn’t. If he did, that would mean he reallydid love her…even after finding out about the baby…after everything.

  “I am more serious than I have ever been.” And his voice and expression testified to that truth. “You asked me how long I plan to stay…the answer is forever—if that is what it takes to make our relationship viable.”

  “No. You wouldn’t do that. You’re too dedicated to your family’s company.”

  “I was…now, I have changed. Pain does that to a man. Speak to my father who will tell you that I was making plans to alter my responsibilities with Menendez Industries so that I could live near you in the States.”

  “Pain?”

  “What do you think?” He rolled his eyes like she’d lost her mind and maybe she didn’t blame him. “I missed you. I hurt you when I broke off our relationship, when I foolishly questioned my own ability to be faithful, butI hurt, too.”

  If he’d really cared…and she thought he had, of course he had hurt. She’d seen his pain over losing the baby. Over almost losing her. What had he said? Seeing the pictures of her too thin body had been like watching her walk in front of a bus. Hope welled deep inside, healing some pain, only comforting other.

  She would always grieve the loss of her baby, but did she have to give up Miguel to make it all right? Nothing could make it okay, but choosing to love, to live in hope would make a difference, would make her own life of more value and maybe give her some kind of comfort for the tiny life that had been lost.

  Miguel was looking at her with love burning in his eyes. Love she could choose to dismiss…or recognize. “I missed you even when I was telling you it was over between us. I have never regretted anything in my life as much as I regretted letting you believe I was putting you out of my life.”

  Hiding from her feelings had only brought more pain, dangerous consequences she never wanted to revisit. “But you never really let me go…in your heart.” That’s what he’d claimed and she finally believed him.

  “Never. I could not and cannot let you go. Ever.”

  “Even after the baby?”

  “I will grieve its loss for my entire life.” His words so like her own thoughts, made her eyes burn with healing tears.

  He swallowed, as if trying to control his own emotions. “But if I lose you as well, I will never have another child.”

  She bel
ieved him. She had no choice, because she knew it was the same for her. If not Miguel…then no one. She’d known that since practically the first and that’s why his breaking off with her had hurt so much. She knew she wouldn’t just go on to another relationship, but he hadn’t been able to, either, and he had not even realized then that he loved her.

  She thought of the tiny life gone too soon and thought she could offer the tribute of forgiveness, both to herself and to Miguel to her baby’s memory. She would never unwittingly hurt another because she was hiding from love, or the consequences of it.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Eastern Europe,” she said quietly, emotions choking her and yet filling her with a joy she had not expected to feel again. Not ever.

  He stared. “What?”

  “But if I get pregnant again…” She stopped, savoring how right the words felt. And that surprised her, but she would not reject the gift of them, either. “I want to have my baby here…with my mom and my sister close.”

  He was out of the chair so fast, she barely saw him move and then he was leaning at her feet, his hands clasping hers. “You will marry me? You love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “I will marry you.”

  His hands tightened on hers almost painfully. “And the other.”

  “I love you. I have since the afternoon we made love.”

  He groaned and took her mouth in a searing kiss. Minutes…hours…maybe even only seconds later, he lifted his head and smiled with a happiness that pierced her heart. “I love you.”

  “Always.”

  “Completely.”

  “Without limits.”

  “In every circumstance.”

  “Whatever life has to offer.”

  “You will have my love.”

  “And you will have mine.”

  They sealed their vows with a kiss as beautiful as a sunrise over the ocean.

  EPILOGUE

  AMBER looked out over the yacht rail. Miguel had insisted on taking her on a cruise to celebrate their second anniversary. They’d brought along the nanny for their twin boys. At her request, they’d also brought along her father and mother, now married. Ellie and Sandor and their little daughter. As well as Miguel’s mother and father.