Page 7 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

He’d been eighteen years old, gregarious and gorgeous. She’d been eleven and resentful at having to share the precious time she had with her brother, who she’d missed terribly since he’d left for university. Her resentment grew when Ramos tagged along to many more of Justin’s visits home and mushroomed at her brother’s sycophantic behaviour.

If Ramos cracked a joke, Justin would laugh as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. If Ramos gave an opinion on something, Justin would treat his words with the same respect he would an academic philosopher. Hillier and Ramos, they called each other, like something from a bad police television programme. Buddies on the university rugby pitch, drinking and pulling buddies off it. Sometimes they even remembered to study.

Resentment and jealousy turned markedly darker when she turned thirteen and went to stay with Justin for a weekend. By then, he’d moved into the six-bedroom house with its own basement games room that Ramos’s billionaire father had bought his only child. He’d promised their mum that Ramos would be spending the weekend with his father in Barcelona and that it would be just him and Flora at the Oxford house. He’d spoil her rotten, taking her around Oxford’s plentiful art shops and museums, and treating her to dinner at a posh restaurant. He’d even bought her a plethora of embroidery supplies. Even back then, Flora had a love of embroidery and a vague plan to turn her love into a career.

When she’d woken the next morning, she’d been sleepily opening her bedroom door when the door on the other side of the vast square hallway opened. She’d frozen on the spot.

Ramos had come out, laughing over his shoulder, leaned over and picked something off the floor then strode back in and closed the door behind him. He hadn’t noticed his buddy’s baby sister watching him.

He’d been naked.

The hot, sticky sensation that had flushed over and through her skin at the sight of his nude body, all muscular yet lean with a smattering of dark hair in the centre of his chest that ran down to his abdomen and tapered until it thickened at the place where his largethingwas, had confused and disturbed her, and she’d hidden under her bed covers until Justin had come in to see if she was awake.

Later, after an awkward breakfast with Justin, Ramos and a pretty blonde woman wearing a dressing gown that was far too big for her, Flora had overheard Ramos apologise to Justin.

‘Sorry, Hillier,’ he’d said. ‘Forgot your sister would be here. My father took a last-minute break to our villa in Martinique so I flew back and hooked up with Miranda. Sorry if she was too, err, vocal.’

She hadn’t heard her brother’s reply because the hot, sticky sensation had flushed through her again. She’d been growing up. She’d known exactly what Ramos had meant.

For over a decade, something about Alejandro Ramos had put her perpetually on edge and made her insides feel all swollen. Whatever those feelings were or meant, be they loathing or something more dangerous, she was now only weeks from giving birth to his child.

His smile was smug when he ended the call and strolled back to her. ‘Good news,’ he said, perching on the arm of the chair he’d been sitting on. ‘We can marry right now.’

‘You what?’ she said dumbly.

‘We can marry now... Well, in an hour. I’ve got the team drawing up the prenup for us, so we’ll need to get that signed first, and sign a declaration that we are unencumbered and don’t have other spouses hidden away, but other than that we are good to go.’

For the first time she realised he was actually being serious. ‘But...wecan’t.’

‘Monte Cleure law says we can. We both have our passports here. We will marry and then I will have all the charges dropped and your brother will be a free man.’

‘Ramos, will you slow down a minute?’ she begged. The room was starting to spin again.

‘When you are my wife, you will call me Alejandro.’

‘I’ve called you Ramos since my brother brought you home thirteen years ago.’

‘You called me Alejandro the night we conceived our child,’ he corrected silkily.

Heat filled her head to remember how she’d cried out his name when he’d brought her to her first ever climax, and she pressed her palm to her burning forehead to blot the memories away.

She sucked in a long breath. ‘Are you really prepared to drop all the charges against Justin?’

‘If you marry me, yes.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘Without me, there is no case. I will withdraw my testimony and all the evidence.’

‘The prosecutor might still go ahead with it.’

‘He won’t.’

Frustration had her raise her voice for the first time. ‘But how can you know?’

‘You will just have to trust me.’

‘Yeah, right. Get the charges dropped and then I’ll marry you.’

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