Page 7 of His Innocent for One Spanish Night

‘You tell me our relationship is over in acellar?’ she shouted.

‘I told you we were finished in December,’ he responded calmly. ‘It’s February now.’

As well as that, it was hardly a cellar.

The Romero bodega was a short walk from the gorgeous Plaza de Santiago, with its churches and cafés and gorgeous shops and fountain. They stood under spectacular wooden arches in what had once been a church. The room was beautifully lit, with the moon streaming through a small stained-glass window. The location was coveted, its contents were worth millions, the archways spectacular, the artwork stunning—but, when Mariana regaled people with the tale she would, of course, say that Alejandro Romero had dumped her in a cellar.

For good.

Not that Mariana was listening.

‘Alejandro,si significo algo para ti, por favor no hagas esto.’—‘Alejandro, if I mean anything to you, then please don’t do this now.’

‘Now?’ Alejandro demanded. ‘Mariana, what do you mean “now”? I told you that we were through before Christmas...’

‘But then we found out about your father.’ She grabbed his jacket. ‘At least wait until—’

‘When?’ he cut in. ‘It will never be a good time for our families.’

‘Your father is dying!’ she wailed, but he stood there unmoved.

Alejandro loathed drama. Yes, drama—because it wasn’t, nor had it ever been, a romance, and it was nothing to do with love.

‘You are an emotional wasteland, Alejandro.’

He shrugged.

‘Listen to me... Let him go to his grave thinking our bodegas will merge.’

‘I would expect my father has another year,’ Alejandro said. ‘If he has surgery, it could give him even more than that. And I will tell you now, I don’t intend to stay celibate that long.’

‘You’re such a bastard, Alejandro. It’s always about sex with you.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And don’t tell me you haven’t benefited from our arrangement. I don’t want marriage, Mariana. I don’t want to play these family games any longer.’ He removed her hand from his arm. ‘Tell your family, and tell your friends, that we are over—because if you don’t, I shall. I don’t love you, Mariana.’ He was blunt, but it was the truth, and nothing he hadn’t said before. ‘And you don’t love me.’

‘Which is exactly why we are perfect together.’

She ran a hand along his tense jaw and tried to push his thick black hair back from his eyes, but Alejandro removed her hand.

‘You don’t believe in love and I don’t need it...’

She had an answer for everything, and, in many ways she was right. Alejandro did not believe in love. If it did exist, then he didn’t want it. He’d seen what it had done to his father.

‘Don’t do this now,’ she warned. ‘You cannot do this to your father. It would devastate him.’

‘Mariana, we’re over.’

‘Until the next woman you date gets stars in her eyes and doesn’t know how to handle you. Until she starts wanting more. Then you’ll realise how good we had it.’

She reached for his groin and he pushed her hand away. ‘Go home,’ he told her, peeling her off him as she tried to kiss him, her red lips too much for his dark mind tonight.

She smeared his face with her lipstick and then laughed as he pulled his head back.

‘Go home,’ he said again.

‘I’ll see you when you’re lonely,’ she sneered, before flouncing off. ‘After the summer, maybe?’

‘We’re done.’

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