Page 10 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

It looked like love—not that Anna had much to go on when it came to judging.

Had she just been jealous? Or was she right to have been worried by this whirlwind romance?

Here she was, standing in a gorgeous old church, watching her best friend get married. Her eyes came to rest on Sebastián. He was looking fixedly ahead, allowing Anna a quiet moment to observe his serious beauty.

It felt odd to register attraction.

To notice how his perfectly cut suit adorned broad shoulders and to try not to wonder whether or not they would dance later.

Odd to be so fascinated by the back of his head and to notice that his hair had been trimmed since yesterday, those thick black strands growing into a V at the back of his olive-skinned neck.

Just bizarre to stand in a church in front of two hundred or so people and for the first time in years feel her heart trip like a schoolgirl’s.

Or, to blush like a naïve university student when a good-looking visiting professor smiled.

She quashed down that memory and got back to focussing on Sebastián.

No, it didn’t just feel odd to be so drawn to another—it felt unfamiliar and new. Anna had never been so violently attracted to anyone.

But this was a physical reaction.

Purely physical.

Because, from everything she’d seen and heard so far, she didn’t like Sebastián Romero very much at all.

Yet her lips betrayed her...because they seemed to smile or laugh at his bidding.

And her heart seemed detached from her logical mind whenever he was near and it beat more rapidly.

She watched as he was prompted to hand over the rings.

He reached into the pocket of his immaculate dark suit. Was it just her or was there a slight hesitation as he held them over the bible and then dropped them onto the pages? Anna found that her lips were attempting to betray her again, because she had to pinch an incoming smile at his truculence. He continued his vigil, staring fixedly ahead, but as the vows were exchanged and the babies started wailing again he arched his tense neck and looked up at the magnificent roof.

He was, Anna knew, hating every second of this.

Still, he was supremely polite when they went through to the vestry for the signings.

‘Did I mess up the vows?’ Emily asked.

She had made hers in Spanish, and Alejandro had given his in English.

‘You were wonderful,’ Anna said, smiling. ‘Not that I speak Spanish, but it all—’

‘Ladies,’ Sebastián interrupted, ‘the photographer wants a picture of the four of us with the priest.’

‘Of course,’ Emily said, and made her way over to the large table and took a seat as the photographer said something in Spanish to Anna.

She didn’t understand. ‘I’m sorry?’ she said.

‘He wants you to stand behind the bride,’ Sebastián translated. ‘Next to me.’

‘Okay.’ She took her place by his side and felt a frisson of awareness, as if the heat from her body had met the heat from his, even though they stood apart from each other.

Sebastián took her arm to guide her closer.

Don’t react, she told herself.You shouldn’t even notice.

The photographer was moving them like chess pieces, but Sebastián’s light touch had her fizzing with awareness.

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