Page 6 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

Justin’s message—his phone was the one thing the Monte Cleure prison authorities had allowed him to keep—had been a form of gallows humour she now remembered. He’d thought her mission to beg for Ramos’s mercy a fool’s errand.

Despair had her throw her arms in the air. ‘Ineverexpected what happened between us to happen. I came to you not knowing if you’d even open the door for me.’

‘But I did open the door to you,’ he said, unmoved. ‘Andyoumade the first move...you, who had always treated me with such disdain.’ His nostrils flared, the anger that had slipped back beneath the handsome mask showing itself again. ‘Whether you intended it to go as far as it did...’ He inhaled deeply then shrugged, his large body relaxing. ‘Play with fire, expect to be burned.’

‘So that’s why you ghosted me?’ She was hardly able to form the words over the dizziness in her head.

She’d assumed it was because their night had either meant nothing to him or his hatred of her brother overrode any feelings he might have developed for her or because she’d been such a boring lover that he’d rather fire all his staff than see her again. Or a combination of all the above.

She’d been wrong on all counts. Ramos had ghosted her because he thoughtshehad usedhim.

He hooked an ankle over a thigh, his voice returning to its normal velvety timbre. ‘You tried to play me for a fool, what else did you expect?’

A fresh swell of pain in her lower back struck and all she could give in the way of denial was a hissed, ‘Ididn’t.’

He raised another sceptical eyebrow and studied her with that intense scrutinising look that burned through her skin. She could practically feel him thinking what his next move would be, and when his handsome features loosened into a sardonic smile and he folded his arms across his chest, fearful anticipation of what came next had her holding her breath.

‘It no longer matters,’ he dismissed decisively. ‘You came to me for your brother’s freedom—I am sure this is not the way you thought you would gain it, not back then, but it has worked. Congratulations. I am willing to drop the charges against him...’

His words hanging between them, his smile widened. ‘But to get that freedom for him, you will have to marry me.’

The room spun around her so quickly and so suddenly that Flora had to grip hard on the arm of the sofa to spot herself back into place.

Her vocal cords were paralysed.

Ramos laughed. A less bitter laugh but one that still landed like nails on a chalkboard. ‘I see that I have shocked you into silence—that must be a first. But that’s okay. You can thank me later.’

That unfroze her vocal cords! ‘Thankyou?’

‘Your brother gets his freedom and, as my wife, you will have access to more money than you could have dreamed of. I will have a prenuptial agreement drawn up, of course, but you will be very well provided for.’ He flashed his teeth at her. ‘See? I can be generous. Be nice to me and I can beverygenerous.’

She shook her head, utterly dumbfounded. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.’

He shrugged as if he didn’t care. ‘If you want your brother to be freed you will.’

‘But why, when you hate me so much?’

‘I like to think of it as self-preservation.’ His dark eyes glittered. ‘Sometimes it is wise to keep your enemy close.’

‘But...why marriage? Why something so drastic?’

Rising to his feet and removing his phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he smiled as if she were a simpleton. ‘Because, my littlebombón, I know how much you hate me. I want you where I can keep an eye on you and make it impossible for you to keep our child from me and poison them against me. Now excuse me one moment. I need to update my legal team.’

With that, he strode to the other side of the room, turning his back on her at the same moment a sudden tightening down low in her abdomen sucked the air from her lungs.

Breathing hard until the cramping pain subsided, Flora tried her hardest to find her zen and kill the panic that was hitting her from all directions.

The abdominal pain she’d experienced was only a Braxton Hicks, she assured herself. She’d had a number of them in recent weeks. It was her body’s way of preparing itself for the birth.

And Ramos was just playing with her. Punishing her some more for the crime he believed she’d committed of sleeping with him as a ruse to soften him to her brother’s cause.

It devastated her to know he believed that of her, but it explained so much. If she had learned anything about Alejandro Ramos over the years it was that he held no forgiveness. He’d been cutting people—friends—who he considered to have abused his trust from his life without mercy and without hearing their defence long before Justin’s betrayal.

In a minute he would tell her it had all been one big jest and then he would sweep out of the room and continue his destruction of the man who’d been his closest friend.

She could scarcely believe this was the same man who’d made love to her with such intense passion and awoken such intense passion inher.

Flora’s feelings for Ramos had always been intense, from the minute he’d first walked into her childhood home with the swagger of someone who’d been a regular visitor his entire life.

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