Page 10 of Spanish Marriage Solution

Her instead of Emily. Not that Emily had been jealous. No, she’d been Alice’s bridesmaid at the wedding and had given the loveliest speech. Except...he’d obviously had second thoughts, hadn’t he?

But Alice couldn’t bear thinking about that particular past. It was futile. Edward was gone, and so was Emily, and all she had left was Diego.

‘Well,’ she said in a cool voice. ‘Lucia is not here now, so please don’t stay on my account.’

Sebastian’s gaze didn’t even flicker. ‘You wanted to talk about Diego.’ He made a gesture with one long-fingered hand. ‘So. Talk.’

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to sit opposite her and talk about how Diego would be better off going back to New Zealand with her. He didn’t want to talk to her at all.

But Lucia had insisted and he wasn’t so petty as to put aside the wishes of a loyal and valued employee. It was only one dinner and he could handle that and, besides, it was probably useful to get the subject of Diego over and done with now.

Then tomorrow, with any luck, Alice could leave.

‘Fine,’ she said with that irritating cool that got under his skin so badly. ‘Why do you want Diego to stay with you?’

He’d already told her his reasons, but if she wanted him to repeat them then fine, he would.

He picked up the bottle of wine on the table and leaned forward, pouring some into her glass before doing the same for himself. ‘He is my son. What other reason is there?’

‘But...he’s not actually your son, is he? He’s Emily and Edward’s.’

There was no denying that, though Sebastián preferred to keep that secret to himself. Easy enough when everyone thought Diego was his anyway. There had been some rumours, some mutterings about an affair in the elite circles he moved in after Emily had died, but he’d shut them down hard before they could gain traction.

No one was going to take Diego from him and that was final. Of course, Sebastián would tell him when he got older who his parents were and that he could find out more about them. After all, Sebastián wasn’t like Mateo, his father, who’d hidden the identity of Sebastián’s biological father from him, refusing to tell him anything about him. Sebastián would never be so cruel. But there was no other reason to give him up. Edward had no family and Emily’s parents were dead. The only problem was Alice, who seemed to think she had a better claim on him.

‘They aren’t here,’ he said with finality. ‘But I am.’

‘In case it’s escaped your notice, so am I.’ Her voice was as level and cool as her gaze. ‘Emily’s letter said that—’

‘I don’t care about Emily’s letter,’ he interrupted, his temper starting to slip the leash. ‘Diego was born here, in the hacienda. I was there. I held him. He carries my name. He is my son, my heir, and there is nothing more to be said.’

This time her gaze flickered and she looked down at her wine, picking it up and taking a sip. Faint colour stained her cheekbones. In the rose and gold of twilight, her skin looked luminous, lit from within, her hair glossy and soft. She was so different from Emily’s honey-haired fragility and he didn’t know why she appealed to him on such a gut-deep level. It didn’t make any sense.

Emily had. He’d seen her on the terrace of a hotel in Madrid, enjoying a glass of wine and laughing with a friend. She’d been so pretty and joyful, and at that point in his life, after his father had so recently died, he’d needed joy. He’d been feeling the weight of the dukedom on his shoulders and, initially, she’d been only an escape for him, a distraction.

But after he’d spent more time with her and she’d told him of her dreams of having a family and a place to put down roots, he’d decided that she would be his new duchess. She hadn’t made him feel as if he was missing something vital from his make-up, the way his father always had. She’d made him feel as if he was everything his father had always wanted, the scion of an ancient house. Proud. Strong. Honourable. As if the purest noble blood ran in his veins instead of that of the stable hand his mother had had an affair with.

The stable hand he’d had much more in common with than the man who’d brought him up.

‘Emily was my sister,’ Alice said. ‘And I’m sorry, but there is plenty more to be said.’ She reached down, brought out a piece of folded paper from the pocket of her dress, and held it out to him. ‘Read this.’

He didn’t look at the letter, only stared at her. ‘Emily’s letter, I presume?’

She nodded.

‘And what does it say?’ He tried to keep his tone even. ‘That she was afraid to leave her son with me?’

‘Read it, Sebastián.’

‘No.’ What was the point, when he knew what was in it already? ‘I don’t need to. She told you I would make a terrible father, didn’t she?’

Alice let out a breath and put the letter down in the middle of the table. Then she fussed with her napkin. ‘She said she wanted him to grow up...loved.’

Something twisted painfully inside him, but he made sure nothing showed on his face. He deserved that. They’d never spoken of the hole in the centre of their marriage. Emily had avoided any conversation about it because she hated confrontations, and since confrontations inevitably resulted in Emily weeping, so had he.

But he knew Emily had wanted more from him. She’d wanted love. He’d given her what he could, yet it hadn’t been enough. She’d known he was holding something back, and he had been.

His heart. Because the problem was that love, in his experience, was mean and petty and cruel, and he’d wanted nothing to do with it.

---