Page 22 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

Sebastián met her eyes then, and for reasons he couldn’t fathom right now realised he’d possibly have preferred to be her illicit lover. He understood that she might have hidden the fact she had a partner, but as he looked at the rumpled bed and her body he realised that, for all they had shared over the past day or so, she hadn’t once hinted that she was a mother.

He felt lied to.

‘You never said.’

He thought of how he had taken care of his baby sister and younger brother when Maria went on her endless tours, and how conveniently she’d forgotten she had three children at home...

There was a cheap shot, forming in the dark corners of his mind: ‘Out of sight, out of mind, is it?’

Yes, a very cheap shot, but he said it anyway.

Anna felt as if she had been turned to stone. It wasn’t just the words—it was the malice with which they’d been said.

‘I wasn’t aware we were trading life stories.’

She awkwardly pulled on her dress and picked up her shoes, not even attempting to strap them on for her walk of shame back to her hotel room.

She seethed in silence, but turned back to him as she opened the door. ‘If I were a man it wouldn’t be an issue.’

He stared back at her but said nothing.

‘Chauvinist p—!’

Anna halted abruptly. She’d been about to saypig, but she never used language like that and wasn’t about to do it now.

‘Thanks for a great night,’ she said dryly, and walked out.

Breakfast was hell.

The Romeros and the De Lucas and all their guests attacked the food with relish. Anna merely drank strong coffee and nibbled a pastry and felt shaken inside.

Sebastián’s sense of duty was clearly over, because he declared himself too hungover to drive Anna to the airport and quickly arranged for a driver to take her instead.

‘Thank you, my dearest friend.’ Emily hugged her goodbye. ‘I wish you could stay longer.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’ Anna smiled. ‘You’ve got a honeymoon to get to...and we’ll get together soon.’

She kissed Alejandro on the cheek and waved to the other guests.

Sebastián didn’t so much as look up.

She bristled at the feeling of having had her commitment to motherhood challenged by Sebastián—and then felt guilty as hell on the plane ride home.

Despite what her parents thought about Willow’s conception, she had never had a one-night stand in her life. Willow’s father had been a visiting professor during Anna’s final year at university and, unused to male attention, Anna had thought for a time it might be love.

Unable to believe how immature she had been back then, Anna snorted, and the man sitting next to her jumped.

She turned and looked out of the plane window at the grey clouds forming and amended that thought: how inexperienced she had beenuntil last night. Oh, all her feelings for her ex had long since been severed, but until last night he’d been her one and only lover.

When she arrived back home, and was sitting in the kitchen of the vicarage where she’d grown up, she put on a bland face and ate a rather stale scone. But inside she felt reckless and wild, unable to believe that last night she’d slept with a man she barely knew... And she felt gullible too, because she’d honestly thought they’d connected on a deeper level...that her friend was wrong in her opinion of him.

Yet it would seem that Emily had been right. His sudden contempt had made her feel abandoned and rejected, like she had with her ex. Discarded.

And the most confusing part...

The hardest part...

Her one night with Sebastián had been the most exciting night of her life.

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