Page 44 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

She sighed. ‘But I still miss him. I bet Alejandro does too.’

Flora would bet on it too.

‘And it is good that he is here tonight. We have all missed him.’

‘Sorry.’ She had no idea why she was apologising. ‘We’ve been a bit busy with Benjamin.’

‘It has been much longer than that since he stopped seeing his friends.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A year? Longer, I think. A little after we learned Justin had stolen all that money from him.’

Around the time of Benjamin’s conception, then?

Coincidence?

‘What are you two gossiping about?’ a deep voice asked from behind them.

‘You, of course,’ Camila answered with a cackle while Flora hastily downed the rest of her champagne.

Alejandro noticed and raised an eyebrow.

Flora shrugged in a ‘no, I don’t know why I did that’ manner.

He smirked before turning his attention to Camila. ‘I hope you haven’t been telling my wife too many horror stories about me.’

‘I haven’t had the time, so if you could leave us alone a bit longer...’

‘No.’

‘It’s okay,’ Flora piped up. ‘I’ve already heard most of them.’

Camila cackled even louder, and said something to Alejandro in Spanish before heading back, still laughing, to the other revellers.

‘What did she say?’ Flora asked.

‘That she likes you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush to him. ‘Tell me the horror stories you have heard about me.’

‘I didn’t hearaboutthem. Iheardthem.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you used to stay at our house, you and Justin would often go out for the night.’ Whenever Justin brought Ramos home for a weekend they would be inundated with party invitations from Justin’s old school friends. ‘I would listen out for you to get home and then sneak out of my bedroom and sit at the top of the stairs listening to you discuss how the night had gone.’

He winced. ‘Really?’ he asked doubtfully.

She hooked her arms around his neck. ‘Sometimes when I was feelingreallybrave, I would sneak down the stairs and hide behind doors.’

‘Even when you were young?’

‘I was thirteen when I started eavesdropping on you.’

A faint look of alarm flickered over his face. ‘So I would have been twenty?’

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