Page 7 of Spanish Marriage Solution

No one had called her anything but Alice, not even Edward.

Shaking out her still damp hair, Alice smoothed down the dress, then went to the door and opened it. She stepped into the hallway beyond and went down it to the big, dark wooden staircase that led downstairs.

Still thinking about what she was going to say to Sebastián, she didn’t notice the man standing at the bottom of the stairs until it was too late.

He had his arms crossed over his muscular chest and he was watching her with hard golden eyes. ‘What are you still doing here, Alice?’

At first all Sebastián could think about was how beautiful the red linen dress looked against her olive skin. How beautiful she looked, with her black hair loose and hanging in a glossy midnight tumble over her shoulders.

The dress was designed for comfort, not sex appeal and yet somehow, with her glorious height and Amazonian lines, Alice made it look effortlessly elegant.

He resented that. He resented the fact that she was still here at all.

Lucia had told him that Alice was staying in the way Lucia often did, as if this were her house and he had no say in the matter. And considering how long Lucia had been the housekeeper here, that was partially true. He’d never felt the need to argue with her before, but he did now and he resented that as well.

He didn’t like having to pull the duke card with his staff and he wasn’t about to start now, especially not when the problem was his sister-in-law.

Who apparently hadn’t gone as he’d told her to.

She stopped halfway down the stairs and gave him an imperious look. ‘What do you mean, what am I doing here? I presume Lucia told you?’

‘She said you were staying. Which was not what I told you to do.’

‘No, because I don’t take kindly to being ordered around. Especially not after forty-eight hours of travel.’

Anger threaded through him. He didn’t want her here. She was too much of a reminder of all the things he’d sacrificed for the past five years, all the things he’d lost. His marriage, his wife, his future.

In Emily he’d thought he’d found the perfect bride. A woman who’d loved him, who’d needed him, who’d appealed to the protector in him and who’d wanted children eventually. And then he’d met Alice and realised he’d been mistaken in his choice. But divorcing Emily hadn’t been possible, not for the honour of his family, and so he’d put all thoughts of Alice aside and concentrated on loving his wife instead.

At least, he’d tried. In fact, he’d thought he’d succeeded, until a business associate in Paris had told him he’d seen Emily out and about with her brother-in-law. Not that the signs hadn’t been there before that, he’d just chosen to ignore them.

Regardless, Alice’s presence brought all of that back and he wasn’t having it.

‘In that case,’ he said curtly, ‘you can stay the night. But in the morning, you need to leave.’

She was silent a moment, her guarded dark gaze expressionless. Then she said, ‘No.’ And folded her arms, mirroring his stance.

The thread of anger pulled tighter. ‘What do you mean no?’

‘Exactly what I said. I’m here for Diego, Sebastián, I told you that. And I’m not leaving without him.’

‘And I told you that—’

‘You will let me see him at least,’ she interrupted, and there it was, deep in her eyes, that flicker of fire that had drawn him so strongly the moment they’d met. ‘He’s my nephew, Sebastián. He’s the only family I’ve got.’

You can’t deny her that.

He wanted to. He wanted to very badly. The longer she was here, the more her presence grated, and he didn’t need that, not so soon after Emily’s death. His life had already been upended once and he didn’t need it happening again.

Then again, family was important, as Mateo, his father, had never ceased to tell him, though apparently that applied only to the Castellanos. And Sebastián was not a Castellano, which was another thing that Mateo never ceased to remind him of.

Still, it would be cruel to deny Alice the chance to meet her nephew, not to mention exceedingly petty. Emily had called him cruel once, and he supposed, to her, he had been. It was too late to make any recompense for that now, but he could allow Alice a day at least.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may have tomorrow. I expect you to leave the morning after.’

But instead of being satisfied with this as she should have been, Alice’s black brows descended. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What does it matter to you how long I stay?’

Good question. Pity he had no answer to give her, or at least not one that wouldn’t betray exactly how much it mattered to him.

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