Page 75 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

Sebastián couldn’t help but smile at his sister.

‘Okay,’ Carmen said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

He wasn’t smiling now.

‘I’m off,’ Carmen said, and kissed her brother’s cheek. ‘Five o’clock tomorrow, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Sebastián said.

And a few hours later, when he checked his phone and saw his sister’s latest social media update, there was Carmen...but also there was Anna, in her silver dress and heels...

There was no jealousy, just the knowledge that their row had hurt her and that she must be bleeding inside.

He knew that because he was too.

But he would not be pinning this butterfly and storing her in a display case. He wanted her to spread her wings, for she deserved more than just a sliver of him. She knew her worth and she would insist on a heart that could give.

‘I got too close,’she had accused.

Too close, he quietly now agreed.

He’d come to admire her, and never more than on this night.

He raised his glass, and even smiled, because he knew how to put this a little bit right.

‘Go, Anna!’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘WHERE’SCARMEN?’JOSÉASKED.

Sebastián shrugged. ‘I told everyone four o’clock,’ he said, even though he had told Carmen five.

He tried not to look over, but even in the periphery of his vision Anna Douglas made a stunning entrance.

She wore a lilac halter-neck dress and the flat sandals she’d arrived in. Her hair was up and she had dark glasses on.

Sebastián suppressed a smile. He knew from his sister’s updates that it had been a very late night—or rather it had gone on well into the morning.

However, her eyes looked fine when she took her sunglasses off, and he watched those gorgeous green orbs sweep the gathering, feeling them linger a second on him.

He gave her a nondescript smile as she approached and left it to his brother to do the introductions ‘You’ve met Anna, of course,’ Alejandro said.

‘Of course,’ José said. ‘At the wedding. Emily’s friend. Yes?’ His English was good, but not great.

‘Yes.’ Anna smiled. ‘You must be looking forward to meeting your grandchild.’

‘Very much,’ Maria crooned. ‘We’re so excited—aren’t we, darling?’

‘You can only see her through the glass,’ Sebastián warned. ‘And only if she’s well enough.’

‘We don’t care,’ José said, squeezing Maria’s hand, ‘just so long as we get to see her.’

How it incensed him! Not his father—Maria. Inserting herself into the family as a doting grandmother, trying to gloss over the years of her absence.

‘It is good that you have been here for Emily,’ Maria said to Anna in a throaty voice. ‘She needs a friend at a time like this. Poor thing...’

‘Papá,’ Sebastián interjected. He didn’t want to hear feigned concern from his mother. ‘Can we go for a walk? I want to speak with you. With us all away from the office, things are piling up.’

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