Page 58 of His Innocent for One Spanish Night

It didn’t intimidate her now.

CHAPTER NINE

EMILYWASFALLINGin love.

But determinedly not with Alejandro.

She would not allow herself to do that because it wasn’t a part of their deal, so instead she told herself that it was the city and its surroundings that so deeply appealed.

She was falling in love with the food and the buzzing atmosphere, the spontaneous singing and dancing that broke out not just in thepeñas, but as people walked in the street.

And as well as all that there were her dance lessons.

‘Alfojar!’Eva would repeatedly tell her.Relax,loosen...

And over and over she was told to smile. She was told to be sexy, told to be angry. Eva would pat herself under her own chin and Emily would raise her head higher. Or Eva would draw a swift semi-circle near her own lips and that would tell Emily to smile.

‘Chin up!’ Eva said. ‘And smile. Show how you are feeling. You are happy, yes...?’

‘Yes!’ she answered instantly.

Two weeks with Alejandro and she was the happiest she had ever been. She felt adored, wanted and, yes...happy.

‘Then show it,’ Eva said. ‘We have just two weeks left.’

Her smile faltered then, but Emily quickly snapped it back, determined to keep to her side of the deal. A holiday romance was what she had wanted. Breaking up didn’t have to be complicated, Alejandro had said, and she’d told him with certainty that she could handle a short-term relationship.

‘You are confident,’ Eva said.

‘Yes...’ Emily said, and she heard the waver in her voice.

‘Emily?’ Eva checked, and made a gesture with her hand beneath her own chin, which told Emily to raise hers even higher. ‘Better,’ Eva said. ‘You are confident, yes?’

‘Yes,’ she responded more firmly, and raised her chin a fraction higher.

And, indeed, she did feel more confident.

Flamenco was such an expressive dance, and somehow it made her more able to show her emotions, to examine her own feelings, even when she was away from the dance studio.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ she asked Alejandro that very night, as they lay in his gorgeous bed. ‘Without you thinking I’m being all needy. I’m just curious, honestly...’

‘Ask.’

‘Why are you so closed off to relationships?’

‘I don’t want to rely on any one person.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think you can ever really rely on another person. You might think you can, but...’ He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her. ‘Look at you and your fiancé.’

‘That was never love.’ It was odd, but with Alejandro she could be honest—even with herself. ‘I can see now that Gordon never loved me.’

‘Did you love him?’

He asked the question lightly, in a way that said she didn’t have to answer, but for Emily it brought a moment of self-examination as she thought back to their early days.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t know it, of course, but looking back I think I was so cooped up with caring for my dad that I just longed for the weekend and our nights out. I thought I loved Gordon when he was there for me after my father died, but...’ She took a breath. ‘No, I didn’t love him.’

‘Yet you stayed?’

‘I did.’ Emily nodded, scarcely able to believe that she’d set the bar to her happiness so low. ‘It sounds weak, but after losing my parents I felt lost. He was always kind...’

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