Page 42 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

She saw no hate in his eyes now. ‘Do you believe me now?’ she whispered. ‘About our night together?’

His mouth formed a tight line before loosening. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead lightly to hers and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Yes,querida. I believe you.’

The relief at this was overwhelming and, for the second time in as many minutes, she had to swallow back tears.

Flora hadn’t realised how much it had eaten at her that Alejandro had convinced himself that she’d only slept with him for her brother’s freedom.

When she was certain she’d contained the emotion bubbling inside her, she softly said, ‘What you said about not wanting Benjamin to be on his own like you were...did you want a sibling?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you a lonely child?’

‘Sometimes. Because my father travelled so much with his work and we travelled everywhere with him, I didn’t go to school until I was ten.’

‘That was because of your mother’s death, wasn’t it?’ she asked, and had to swallow back another swell of emotion.

Was this what it was like for all women after sex? Did it send their emotions all over the place too? Or was it just the effect Alejandro had on her?

He nodded. ‘I had nannies and an English tutor until then.’

‘That must have been a hard adjustment to make. Going to school, I mean.’

His face creased with surprise. ‘Not at all. I was glad to go. It is hard for a child to make friends when they are never in the same place for longer than a week.’

‘But if you’d never been to school before, that would have been a brand-new environment for you. That would have frightened the hell out of me at ten.’

His voice was steady but she thought she heard an edge to it. ‘I watched my mother’s coffin be buried in the ground two weeks before I started school. I told you before, nothing has frightened or hurt me since and nothing ever will.’

She stared at his face, noting the underlying hardness that had just formed in his expression. It was similar to the hardness she saw whenever her brother’s name was mentioned.

Palming the side of his neck, she brushed her thumb over his smooth skin and wished she could dive into his heart and smooth out the suffering he’d lived through.

For the first time she understood him. Truly understood him.

Alejandro had lived through a child’s worst nightmare and survived it, but it had damaged a core part of him. He was like those deep-sea squids she’d read about who, when feeling threatened, attacked the predator and then pulled away breaking off the tip of their own arm. Except, in Alejandro’s case, it wasn’t predators he attacked, it was people who hurt him, his attack a defence mechanism crucial to his survival.

He’d ruthlessly severed Justin from his life without seeking or wanting an explanation for his out-of-character behaviour, just turned his back on thirteen years of close friendship and gone full steam ahead on the attack. Whatever Alejandro said to the contrary, Flora was certain that on some fundamental level Justin’s theft—more likely the situation that had led up to it—had hurt him.

What had the cost of severing his closest friend been to himself?

He’d cut Flora from his life too. Made love to her with such tenderness and then, believing she’d used him, deliberately and remorselessly dropped her from a great height.

She’d heard other stories of his hard-heartedness too, like the one of the good friend for whom Alejandro had been best man at his wedding, who had been suspected of tipping off the press about minor stories of him and cut from his circle and discarded without afterthought for it.

When Ramos cut someone from his life, there was no way back. Flora was the only exception to this severing and that was only because of Benjamin.

When emotionally threatened, he was ruthless. And remorseless. She must never forget that.

The hardness in his stare softened. ‘You are beautiful, did you know that?’

She tried to smile.

He inched his face closer to hers. ‘Very beautiful. I remember seeing you at your twenty-first birthday...’ He brushed his lips to hers. ‘Hillier’s annoying little sister all grown up.’ He kissed her again. ‘You took my breath away.’

‘I did?’

‘You still do.’ Tongue sweeping into her mouth, he rolled back on top of her and sent her back to the stars.

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