Page 15 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

‘Mum would be devastated about it,’ Flora agreed. ‘He’s behaved terribly but he wasn’t in his right mind, I swear, and if you would agree to see him and let him—’

‘I will never see him again,’ he cut in, dropping his gaze back on her with a stare that brooked no argument. ‘And Benjamin is to have nothing to do with him either, is that understood?’

‘He’s my brother,’ she reminded him lowly.

His nostrils flared. ‘I’m not going to stop you from seeing him but he’s a liar and a thief and I don’t want Benjamin anywhere near him.’

For a moment, Flora eyeballed him back, but only for a moment.

This was the most momentous day of her life and she didn’t want to ruin the magic of her son’s birth for a battle she was unlikely to win. Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day.

There was a tightening in her chest to realise she’d committed herself to many days as his wife. Thousands of them. For her beautiful, precious boy’s sake, she would do her best to spend them in peace.

‘Benjamin?’ she whispered softly.

Ramos’s dark eyes narrowed in suspicion before the glare on his face melted away and he bestowed her with a smile that made her heart expand. ‘Sí.Benjamin. It’s a good name. I like it.’

She couldn’t believe how much this pleased her. ‘Then you should choose his middle name.’

‘There is one obvious choice for that.’

‘Which is...?’

‘Alejandro,’ he answered smugly.

CHAPTER FOUR

THENEXTFEWdays spent recovering in hospital passed in a blurry whirl. Ramos didn’t leave their side, going as far as to cram his tall frame into a single foldable bed provided by the hospital every night. Anything Flora wanted, he made sure she got, whether it was a cup of tea or a bowl of her favourite comfort food: macaroni cheese. He gave her an arm to lean on when she needed to walk across the room to the bathroom or wanted to sit outside with their son in the shaded pretty hospital garden. She drew the line at him helping her to bath, however, and got the ever-helpful nurse assigned to her to assist instead. Birth had stripped her of any dignity she had, but that had been an exceptional circumstance and one she had no intention of dwelling on.

The little bubble the three of them formed was never destined to last though, and on the third morning Flora was filled with sadness when she and Benjamin were discharged. She was also filled with resolve.

She and Ramos had proved they could get on. They’d proved they could be effective parents together. She would start her married life with a positive frame of mind and hope that they could make their marriage work as best it could under the circumstances of its founding. She had no illusions about the man she’d married but would take it one day at a time.

Ramos had had her dress dry-cleaned. He’d also conjured up a hairbrush for her, which was just as well as the second they stepped out of the hospital’s main door they were greeted with the blinding flash of cameras and questions being lobbed from every direction.

Instinctively, she clung to Ramos’s arm and pressed herself close to his side. He carried Benjamin in the car seat he’d had delivered to the hospital earlier that morning, and wrapped his free arm protectively around her.

Barely seconds could have passed before the jostling crowd was pushed back by four no-nonsense man mountains, but they didn’t move back far enough for Flora not to hear their shouts. Most of them were in French and Spanish but she caught a few English ones too.

‘Is the baby yours, Alejandro?’

‘Are you going to have a DNA test?’

‘Was this a trap to get him to drop the charges against your brother, Flora?’

‘How long have you two been lovers?’

‘What do you think of the footage of Aimee crying, Alejandro?’

‘Did you forget to tell Aimee you were having an affair, Alejandro?’

And then she was being ushered into the back of a huge black four-by-four with darkened windows, the doors closed and the only sound her son’s cries.

Flora soothed Benjamin as best she could while Ramos secured the car seat between them. When he was done and Benjamin was strapped in the seat, he tapped on the screen dividing them from the driver and bodyguard up front.

The car slowly crawled away.

Benjamin’s cries soon quietened. Only when she was certain that he was asleep did Flora turn her stare to Ramos.

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