Page 92 of His Innocent for One Spanish Night

Sated.

The closest they had been.

And yet she averted her eyes as he stared down at her, unsure as to his reaction when she told him her news, not wanting this moment to change.

He kissed her, then slowly stood and tidied himself. And as Emily sat up she watched him walk over to the record player and select the album she had bought for him.

She didn’t want him being romantic when she had something so important to tell him, and yet it wasn’t her words that changed the moment... It was Alejandro who rocked her world.

‘Marry me?’

‘Marry you?’ She started visibly, and hauled her mind from babies to weddings.

‘Yes, will you marry me? Emily, I know you have your career, and I swear I won’t be like my father and hold you back. I’ve told Sebastián that I’m willing to pull out of the company if he tries to mess with me again. We could start our own bodega with my share of the land...’

‘Stop!’ She had a sudden image of her and Alejandro in a little hacienda, surrounded by vines, but then she shook her head, because she would never keep him from his family.

‘I can’t stop,’ Alejandro said. ‘Because I cannot stop loving you. So, whatever it takes...’

‘Alejandro, please...’ She made herself say it. ‘I’m pregnant.’

She looked to him for a reaction, but he gave none.

‘Iamon the pill, but I must have messed up the times, or not been careful enough. I only used it to be regular in my periods...’

‘Shh,’ he said. ‘We were both there.’

‘And I know you don’t want children—’

‘It’s more that I’ve never considered it a possibility for me...’ He looked at her. ‘Is that why you came back? Is that what you wanted to discuss with me?’

‘Yes.’

She saw the dart of doubt in his eyes, as if he thought the only reason she had fought to see him was because of the baby, and it dawned on her that the very experienced Alejandro was as new to love and babies as she herself was. Maybe it was time to simply tell the truth and share this journey together.

‘No. I came back because I didn’t think we were ready to end just yet.’

He stared back at her.

‘I came back because I wanted to tell you to your face that I’m...’ she took a breath ‘...I’m not ready to give up on us.’ She admitted her truth, although she covered her eyes as she did it. ‘I love you. I have since the night we met. I’ve been lying all along.’

He smiled, unseen, and looked at the shyest, yet somehow the bravest woman he knew, and could only guess how hard it must have been for her.

Not just facing Sebastián and Mariana, but finding out she was pregnant in a foreign country, by a man who... Well, he wasn’t exactly husband material. Or rather he hadn’t been husband material until he’d lain there on a lonely New York City night wanting simply to come home.

‘Thank you,’ he said, removing her hand from her eyes. ‘For not giving up on us.’

He was too used to a mother who had angrily packed her cases at the first sign of a row, who had put her art and her career first, before everything, as well as a father and brother who always put business first.

‘I know it’s all too soon...’ she said.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s quick, and yet I love the thought of having a baby with you.’

And then he smiled a slow smile and answered the question he hadn’t before. ‘Romero Jacobs.’

‘Sorry?’

He told her how her baby—their baby—would be named. ‘It will be called Baby Romero Jacobs.’

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