Page 6 of Stolen For My Spanish Scandal

Which was good. Emotional distance was important and I needed to maintain that, since I had too much of my father in me for safety.

Except my feelings for Jenny had never been distant ones, and marrying her would be a risk, but she was carrying my heir and that had decided me.

She would be my wife, yes, but in name only.

It would have to be that way.

She lifted her head then, her face drawn and pale, her big brown eyes huge and dark. There were black circles beneath them.

Protectiveness shifted inside me again. But feelings were the enemy and they had been for years, and I couldn’t fall prey to them now. So I only stared back, cold and hard and detached. Giving her nothing.

Normally, the first thing Jenny did when she saw me was smile, and I’d lived for those smiles once. Small gifts she gave me...little glimmers of light in the darkness.

But there was no warm smile for me today. Her rounded chin jutted, and an expression of extreme determination hardened her soft features, stealing all her light.

You took that from her.

I shoved the thought away, along with the biting guilt that came with it. I couldn’t afford it—or the disappointment that gripped me at the loss of her smile.

I’d never seen this particular expression on her face before, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said she was angry.

Are you surprised? After what you said to her that night?

The guilt bit deeper.

‘Well,’ she said crisply. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant, and now you know. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going. I’m sorry for Domingo’s passing, and you have my condolences, but apart from that I have nothing more to say to you.’

Jenny had always been a joyful little girl, and she’d grown up into a joyful woman. A bright, optimistic woman who always saw the good in people. A soft, compassionate woman.

And, looking at all that softness, it was easy to think that she was soft through and through.

But she was not. I’d caught glimpses of the steel at the heart of her over the years, of a stubbornness that had always been there. Yet she’d never directed it at me before, nor any of the hostility currently bristling in my direction.

Which I deserved.

I remembered that night more clearly than I wanted to. Her in my arms, her face flushed and shining. She’d told me she loved me, and then I’d realised what I’d done, and my anger had escaped no matter how hard I tried to stop it.

I’d been cruel to her. I’d hurt her. Deliberately. I hadn’t regretted it then, and while part of me regretted it now, another part didn’t. Because it had been for her own good. To get her as far away as possible from me.

Yes, and look how well that worked?

I wasn’t a man who made mistakes. But I had three months ago and now the only way forward was to fix it.

‘You might not have anything to say to me,’ I said. ‘However, I have a few things to say to you.’

Her chin rose a fraction higher. ‘Is that a fact? And what makes you think I’d be interested in listening to a single thing you have to say?’

Something flickered through me, a spark of an emotion I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Curiosity. This wasn’t just one of the flashes of spirit she’d shown in the past, this was something more, a glimpse of a strong will that perhaps more than matched my own.

She’d never fought me on anything before, never set her will against mine.

Dangerous.

Yes. Very dangerous. Especially when the beast in me liked a challenge.

On cue, an electric thrill darted down my spine and I had to crush it immediately. I couldn’t afford any more temptations, not around her. Not when she’d already undone me so completely three months earlier.

I had to be hard when it came to her. I couldn’t allow anything to get through.

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