Page 54 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

‘Okay,’ Flora agreed, then returned to her call with Camila. ‘What’s on the gossip sites I should know about?’

‘I am sure it doesn’t mean anything.’ Her friend sounded genuinely distressed.

‘What?’

‘Alejandro.’

‘What about him?’

‘He was photographed going into Aimee’s apartment last night.’

Flora paced her bedroom.

She’d tried calling Alejandro again a number of times but with the same result.

Her phone vibrated in her hand. She swiped and stuck it to her ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Flora, it’s Eloise Jameson from theDaily—’

Flora swiped again and threw the phone on the floor as if it had scalded her.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and fought back tears. She felt under siege. And alone. Very alone. As if she were in the midst of a horror story. Or a nightmare.

She took a deep breath to try to calm herself before picking her phone up. There was a nice new hairline crack on the screen but it seemed to be working fine. It rang in her hand and she just managed to stop herself from dropping it. Not recognising the number, she refused the call, then diverted all calls to voicemail and fired a message to Alejandro asking him to message her. Only then did she finally pluck up the courage to do a search of his name.

The first thing that came up on her feed was a salacious headline. Swallowing hard to keep the bile at bay, she clicked on the link and was confronted with a set of pictures of her husband. The first had him looking over his shoulder as he approached a doorway. The second had him unlocking the door with his own key. The third had him stepping over the threshold. The fourth was an older picture of Alejandro and Aimee leaving through that door together, used as a comparison to show the reader it was the same apartment building.

Alejandro’s beard gave no room for doubt that the first three pictures were recent, taken after they’d become lovers again.

She couldn’t hold it back any longer. Running to the bathroom, she vomited until her stomach was empty.

Benjamin was finally asleep. The day had unsettled him enormously and he’d been as fractious as when he was teething. For now, though, Flora’s beautiful boy was calm and hopefully dreaming lovely thoughts in the cot she’d bought for him when she’d been six months pregnant and expecting to raise him alone in London.

Closing the bedroom door softly behind her, she sank slowly to the floor, put the baby monitor on the carpet, and hugged her knees to her chest.

Once she’d emptied her stomach of all its contents, the only thing she could think of was escape. Luck had shined on her. She’d managed to book herself and Benjamin onto the next flight to London.

Ignoring Madeline’s protests and the ashen faces of the other household staff, she’d ordered her driver to take her and Benjamin to the airport and within two hours of booking the return flight had been in the air.

Barely twelve hours had passed since the villa’s gates had opened and her world had imploded.

She’d spent the day fighting to keep her demons at bay for Benjamin’s sake and it had exhausted her. She felt so hollow, as if her heart had been carved out of her.

The stairs creaked. Justin appeared at the top of them and sat beside her.

After a long period of silence he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘He’ll go mad when he knows you’ve brought his son here.’

Flora had already explained everything that had happened these last two days. Justin had listened without speaking, taking it all in.

‘I know, but where else could I go?’ Who else could she turn to but the rock who’d always been there for her?

There was another long silence before he said, ‘Let’s hope he sees it like that. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe he’d cheat on you.’

‘Really?’

He nodded.

‘I want to believe that too,’ she whispered.

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