Page 52 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

It came to Gabrielle in a flash that he was serious, and as that penetrated she was transported back to the palace when she’d been dancing in his arms, terrified of the feelings sweeping through her, telling herself that she should run.

Shehadrun... But she’d run in the wrong direction. She should have run all the way out of the palace.

She’d run only far enough for him to catch her.

Scrambling to her feet, all the dread and fear she’d been carrying inside her leapt up her throat as a loud,‘No.’

For the beat of a moment Andrés thought he’d misheard her. ‘No?’

‘No.I don’t want to marry you. I’m grateful—so grateful—for what you’ve done freeing us from that man, but I can’t marry you.’

He looked at her carefully, taking in the wildness of her stare.

A pulse throbbed in the side of his head. None of this was going at all as he’d envisaged.

Andrés had returned to Monte Cleure with the same lightness in his chest being with Gabrielle had induced at the palace. The future he’d seen so clearly in Seville had only brightened, the certainty that he was taking the right path, the certainty not just of his feelings but of hers too.

The passion. The tenderness. The emotions he’d glimpsed when she’d looked at him before she could blink them away.

What he hadn’t paid attention to was the duller tone of her voice in all their calls since Seville. If he’d not been so intent on his quest to free her from the English monster, he would have paid better attention to it.

And if he’d not been so intent on giving her the document that had freed her, he’d have paid better attention to her closed-off body language when she’d entered his apartment, and her failure to bring Lucas.

‘Why not?’

He detected movement in the doorway. Michael bringing their dinner to them.

‘Leave us,’ he commanded, not taking his eyes off Gabrielle.

The door closed.

Those few seconds of distraction had given her time to compose herself for her tone was a fraction calmer. ‘Marriage is unnecessary. We both know that. I appreciate that Lucas has accepted you and that we can move in together, but I think it best we abide by the original agreement and live as individuals with separate living accommodation raising our baby as one. I’m glad you recognise your parents’ marriage isn’t as toxic as you’ve always thought but that—’

‘Oh, it is,’ he interrupted, holding tightly onto the emotions rising like a cobra in his chest. ‘Incredibly toxic, and not the kind of marriage I would wish for any child to suffer, but it is their marriage and for whatever reason it works for them. My epiphany, if you can call it that, is understanding that it istheirmarriage. Not mine. Not one you and I would have. We were already committing our lives together as parents but things have—’

Now Gabrielle was the one to interrupt, the panic clawing at her chest scratching deeper with each passing second. ‘I’m abiding by our agreement—it’s you who’s trying to change it. I don’t want to get married, so please respect that and let’s put an end to this conversation. In fact, I think it best I go home and we discuss all the other issues another time.’

She’d moved only two paces from the table when he said, ‘You still haven’t given me a reason.’

She closed her eyes and fought for breath. ‘I don’t have to give you a reason.’

‘Agreed, but it would be courteous seeing as you’re throwing my proposal back in my face. Your silence about me adopting Lucas is very telling too.’

Something inside her snapped and she spun back around to face him. ‘Why are youbeinglike this? We had everything arranged and now all this? You don’t evenwantto marry me.’

His face darkened. Arms slowly folding across his chest, he said in a silky tone, ‘Making assumptions again? You did that when you told me of the pregnancy. You assumed I either wouldn’t want you to keep it—you can have no idea how offensive I found that assumption—and assumed I would force DNA tests.’

‘Can you blame me for that?’ she cried.

‘I was honest with you about the circumstances with Susi and they were nothing like our circumstances.’ His tone hardened. ‘You assumed the worst of me then and you’re assuming the worst of me now.’

She took a deep breath, trying her hardest to fight her insides from unravelling. ‘Andrés, if it wasn’t for the baby, you wouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of marriage.’

‘Only because without the baby there would be no you and I, but thereisa baby, and there is a you and I, and there is a little boy crying out for a father.’

Andrés watched the anger ignite in her eyes. ‘Don’t bring Lucas into this,’ she said fiercely.

‘Why not when you’ve spent years hiding behind him?’ he sneered.

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