Buch lesen: «Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Extract

Endpages

Copyright

PROLOGUE

HE SEDUCED ME EASILY. He broke down my defenses as if they were paper. You wouldn’t have been able to resist, either, believe me.

After so many years of feeling like a ghost in my own home, invisible, unloved, I think I would have fallen into his arms for one dark glance—one husky word. But Alejandro gave me so much more than that. He looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman on earth. Listened to me as if every word on my lips was poetry. He pulled me into his arms, made me burst into flame, kissed my grief and cares away. After so many years of living in a cold gray world, my life exploded into color—because of him.

There was no reason why the Duque de Alzacar, one of the richest men in Spain, would want someone like me—plain, poor—rather than my beautiful, wealthy cousin. I thought it was a miracle.

It was only later that I realized why Alejandro had chosen me. He hadn’t seduced me out of love—or even lust. It was many months before I realized the selfish reason that had caused him to overwhelm me with his charm, to dazzle me, to make me love him.

But by then, it was too late.

CHAPTER ONE

THE GRAY, LOWERING sky was falling like a shroud across the old colonial city of San Miguel de Allende when I heard the words I’d feared in nightmares for the past year.

“A man was here looking for you, Señora Lena.”

Looking up at my neighbor, I staggered back, clutching my five-month-old son in my arms. “What?”

The woman smiled, reaching out to chuck the cooing baby’s pudgy chin. “Gracias for letting me watch Miguelito for an hour. Such a pleasure...”

“But the man?” I croaked, my mouth dry. “What did he look like?”

“Muy guapo,” she sighed. “So handsome. Dark-haired and tall.”

It could be anyone, I told myself desperately. The old silver mining town in central Mexico was filled with American expatriates who’d moved here to enjoy the lovely architecture and take classes at the famous Instituto. Many single women had come here to start new lives, pursuing new businesses as artists and sculptors and jewelry makers.

Like me. A year ago, I’d arrived pregnant and full of grief, but I’d still managed to start a wonderful new life. Perhaps this dark stranger was looking for a portrait of his sweetheart, nothing more.

But I didn’t believe it. Fear was cold inside me. “Did he give his name?”

Dolores shook her head. “The baby was fussing in my arms when I answered the door. But the man was well dressed, with a Rolls-Royce. A chauffeur. Bodyguards, even.” Her smile spread to a grin. “Do you have a rich new boyfriend, Lena?”

My knees went weak.

“No,” I whispered.

It could be only one man. Alejandro Guillermo Valentín Navaro y Albra, the powerful Duke of Alzacar. The man I’d once loved with all my innocent heart. The man who’d seduced and betrayed me.

No. It was worse than that.

“He’s not your boyfriend, eh?” My neighbor’s voice was regretful. “Pity. Such a handsome man. Why did he come looking for you, then? Do you know him?”

Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. “When was he here?”

She shrugged, looking bemused. “A half hour ago. Maybe more.”

“Did you say anything about—about Miguel being my son?”

Dolores shook her head. “He didn’t give me the chance. He just asked if you lived in the house two doors down. I said yes. He pulled out his wallet and asked me not to mention his visit, because he wanted to surprise you. Can you imagine?” She flourished some bills from her apron pocket in delight. “He paid me a thousand pesos for my silence!”

Yes. I could imagine. I briefly closed my eyes. “But you told me anyway,” I whispered. “Bless you.”

She snorted. “Men always want to arrive with a flourish of trumpets. I thought it better for you to be prepared.” She looked at my shapeless white sundress and plain sandals with a moue of disapproval, then at my long, casual ponytail and makeup-free face. She sighed. “You have a good figure, but in that dress you look like a marshmallow. You don’t make the most of yourself. It’s almost like you don’t want to be noticed!” She shook her head. “But tonight you must be at your most irresistible, your most sexy, sí? You want him to want you!”

No. I really didn’t. Not that he would want me anyway, now his evil plan had succeeded. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“So picky!” She made a tsk sound. “You don’t want this billionaire, you don’t want that one—I tell you, wealthy, handsome men are not so thick upon the ground as you seem to think!” Dolores glared at me. “Your son needs a father. You need a husband. Both of you deserve every happiness.” Her expression turned suddenly sly. “And the man at my door looked like he would bring a lot of happiness to a wife. Every night.”

“No doubt,” I said over the razor blade in my throat. It was true. Alejandro had brought me intense joy for one summer. And a lifetime’s worth of anguish since. “I should go.”

“Sí. It’s almost Miguel’s nap time, isn’t it, pequeño?” she crooned.

My baby yawned, his fat cheeks vying with his sleepy dark eyes for cuteness. Those eyes just like his father’s.

I exhaled, running a hand over my forehead. I’d allowed myself to think we were safe. That Alejandro had given up looking for me. I should have known. I should have known better than to start sleeping at night, to start making friends, to start making a real home for myself and my son. I should have known they would someday find me....

“Lena?” My neighbor frowned. “Is something wrong? You do not seem happy.”

“Did you tell him when I’d be back?”

“I wasn’t sure when you’d be done, so to be safe I said four o’clock.”

I glanced at the clock in her brightly painted front room. It was only three. I had one hour. “Thank you.” In a burst of emotion, I hugged her, knowing that she’d been kind to me—to both of us—but I would never see her again after today. “Gracias, Dolores.”

She patted my back. “I know you’ve had a hard year, but that’s in the past. Your life is about to change for the better. I can always feel these things.”

Better? I choked back a laugh, then turned away before she could see my face. “Adios....”

“He’ll be your boyfriend, just wait and see,” she called after me gleefully. “He’ll be your husband someday!”

My husband. A bitter thought. I wasn’t the one Alejandro had wished to marry. He wanted my wealthy, beautiful cousin, Claudie. It was the whole reason he’d seduced me, the poor relation living in the shadows of Claudie’s London mansion. If he and Claudie wed, together they’d have everything: a dukedom, half of Andalucía, political connections across the world, billions in the bank. They’d have almost limitless power.

There was just one thing they could never have.

My eyes fell on my baby’s dark, downy head. I clutched Miguel tightly against me, and he gave an indignant cry. Loosening my grip, I smoothed back his soft hair.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” I choked out, and I didn’t know whether I was begging my son’s forgiveness for holding him too tightly, for tearing him away from his home or for choosing his father so poorly.

How could I have been so stupid? How?

Hurrying down the small street, I glanced up at the heavy gray sky. August was the rainy season, and a downpour was threatening. Cuddling Miguel against my hip, I punched in the security-alarm code and pushed open the heavy oak door of my brightly painted home.

The rooms inside were dark. I’d fallen in love with this old colonial house, with its tall ceilings, its privacy, its scarcity of windows on the street. I could not have afforded the rent in a million years, but I’d been helped by a friend who’d allowed me to live here rent-free. Well—I thought of Edward St. Cyr as a friend. Until a week ago, when he’d—

But no. I wouldn’t think of that now, or how betrayed I’d felt when the friendship I’d come to rely upon had been revealed for what it was.

I’m tired of waiting for you to forget that Spanish bastard. It’s time for you to belong to me.

I shuddered at the memory. My answer had sent Edward scowling from this house, back on his private jet to London. There was no way I could remain in this house, living rent-free, after that, so for the past week, I’d looked for a cheaper place to live. But it was hard to find any place cheap enough for the income of a new, self-employed artist. Even here.

San Miguel de Allende had become my home. I would miss the city’s cobblestoned streets, growing flowers in my garden and selling portraits in the open-air mercados. I’d miss the friends I’d made, Mexicans and expats who’d welcomed an unmarried, heartbroken woman and her baby, who’d taped me up and put me back together.

Now I took a deep breath, trying to steady my shaking nerves. “I can do this,” I whispered aloud, trying to make myself believe it. I knew how to grab passports, money and clothes and be out of here in five minutes. I’d done it before, in Tokyo, Berlin, Istanbul, São Paulo and Mumbai.

But then, I’d had Edward to help me. Now I had no one.

Don’t think about it, I ordered myself, wiping my eyes. I’d go on foot and hail a taxi on the street. Once at the station, my baby and I would take the next bus to Mexico City. I’d use the emergency credit card Edward had left and fly to the United States, where I was born. I’d head west. Disappear. Once I found a job, I’d pay back Edward every penny.

I’d raise my child in peace, in some small town in Arizona or Alaska, and this time, I’d make sure Alejandro would never, ever find me....

A lamp flicked on in the foyer.

Alejandro was sitting in a chair across the room, staring at me with eyes that burned like fire.

I halted, choking out a gasp.

“Lena Carlisle,” he said in a low voice. “At last.”

“Alejandro,” I breathed as terror racked through me. My hands instinctively tightened on my baby in my arms. “What are you— How did you...”

“How did I find you?” He rose to his feet, tall and broad-shouldered. “Or how did I get in to your house?” His voice was low and husky, with only the slightest accent, blurred from growing up in Spain, followed by years of running a billion-dollar business conglomerate from New York and London. “Do you really think any security system, no matter how expensive, could keep me from being where I wanted to be?”

He was even more handsome than I remembered. Seeing him in the flesh, after a year of being tormented by sensual dreams, made my knees tremble. I clutched Miguel closer, willing myself not to faint.

Alejandro’s cold eyes never left mine as he walked toward me. He was dressed in black from his well-cut coat to his glossy Italian shoes, draped in power.

“What do you want?” I choked out.

He looked from me to my yawning, drowsy-eyed baby.

“Is it true?” His voice was deadly quiet, but the words burned through my heart. His face was grim. “Is this my baby?”

His baby. Oh, God. Please, no. I stumbled back in blind panic.

“My men are outside. You won’t even make it to the street....”

I ignored him. Grabbing the wrought-iron handle, I pulled open the heavy, weathered oak door and started to run. I stopped.

Six hulking bodyguards stood outside my house, in a semicircle, in front of the expensive sedan and black SUV now jamming the slender residential lane.

“Did you think,” Alejandro said softly behind me, “that when I finally found you, I would leave anything to chance?”

He stood close behind me, so close I caught the scent of his cologne. So close I could feel the heat emanating from his powerful body. Briefly closing my eyes, I shivered at being so close to the man who had once possessed me, body and soul.

Unwillingly, I turned back to face the ghost who still haunted my heart. His hot black gaze held mine, and in the dark embers of that fire, I was lashed by memories I’d tried so hard to forget. I’d loved him hopelessly from the moment he’d first come to call on my beautiful, wealthy cousin. I’d watched from hallways, made them tea, organized their dinner parties. I’d done it all with a smile, any and all work my cousin required, ignoring the ache of my heart when she bragged after he left that she was going to catch the uncatchable Spanish duke. “He’s nearly in my grasp!” Claudie had crowed. “I’ll be a duchess before the year is out!”

Then, to everyone’s shock, he’d suddenly jilted her.

For me.

He was the first man who’d ever noticed me—really noticed me—and I’d fallen like a stone beneath the sensual onslaught of his power and glamour and dangerous, sexy charm. For six reckless, miraculous weeks in London last summer, Alejandro had held me in his arms, and I felt as if I owned the world.

Memories of the hopes I’d had, the naive girl I’d been, ripped through me now like a torrent of blows. Alejandro’s expression was stark, but I could remember his playful smile. The intensity of his dark gaze. The sound of his husky voice whispering sweet words in the night. I could remember hot kisses, and the feel of our naked bodies intertwined in his London hotel suite. In the back of his limo. And once, against the wall in the back stairs of the Carlisle mansion.

Our affair had seemed as infinite as the stars in the sky. But on that bright summer day when I finally gathered the courage to tell him I was in love with him, his smiling face had changed in front of my eyes.

“Love me?” Alejandro had repeated scornfully. “You do not even know me.”

Two minutes later, he was gone, leaving me bereft and bewildered. But the broken, truly broken, came later...

Now, Alejandro took my hand, glancing up and down the quiet Mexican street.

“Come back inside, Lena. We have much to talk about.”

Feeling the electricity of his hand wrapped around mine, I looked up with an intake of breath.

He was so close now. Touching me. My lips parted. He was somehow even more devastatingly handsome than I’d remembered. He had the kind of face that could break a woman’s heart into a million pieces, to little shimmering fragments of gray dust, leaving you too dazed with his power and beauty to feel anything but gratitude as he lazily destroyed you.

Without my notice, he led me back into the foyer. Reaching over my head, he towered over me, his arm brushing against my hair, his body pressing against mine. I shivered, clutching my baby close. But he merely closed the heavy door with a sonorous bang behind me.

The hard-edged billionaire duke, in his sharply tailored clothes, stood out starkly against my comfortable, bohemian home, with its warm tile floors and walls I’d decorated with homemade paper flowers and my own paintings, one of the Parroquia de San Miguel, but the rest of my baby, the first from when he was just six days old.

Looking down at me, Alejandro said softly, “Is what Claudie told me true? This baby in your arms—it is mine?”

Trembling, I pulled away. Gathering my wits, I glared at him. “Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“It’s an easy enough question. There are only two possible answers.” Reaching out, he stroked my cheek, but there was no tenderness in his gaze. “Yes. Or no.”

“You’d be a horrible father! I won’t let my sweet boy be turned into a heartless bastard like—”

“Like me?” His voice was dangerously low. His dark eyes gleamed in the shadowy foyer. “Is that what you really think of me—after all we once shared?”

Caught in his gaze, I trembled. Once, I might have believed so differently. I’d managed to convince myself that beneath his wealth and power and aristocratic title, Alejandro was decent and good. Like generations of women before me, I had seen what I wanted to see. I’d been blind to the truth, until, against my will, the blindfold had been torn from my eyes.

“Yes. That’s what I think of you.”

A strange expression flickered across the chiseled planes of his face, an emotion I couldn’t identify before it swiftly disappeared. He gave me a sardonic smile.

“You are right, of course. I care for nothing and no one. Least of all you, especially after you and your cousin have gone to such lengths to blackmail me over this child.”

“Blackmail you?” I gasped. “You’re the one who deliberately seduced me, and got me pregnant, intending to steal my baby away so you could raise him with Claudie!”

He grew very still.

“What are you talking about?” he ground out.

My body was shaking with emotion. “You think I didn’t know? When I found out I was pregnant, you’d already left me and gone back to Spain. You wouldn’t return my calls. But fool that I was, I was still desperate to share the news, because I hoped you might care! So I begged Claudie for enough money to fly to Madrid. I was scared to tell her why I needed the money. She’d planned so long to marry you. But when I told her I was pregnant, she did something I never imagined.”

“What?”

I took a deep breath.

“She laughed,” I whispered. “She laughed and laughed. Then she told me to wait. She went into the hallway, but she left the door open and I heard her call you. I heard her congratulate you on your brilliant plan! Thanking you, even! How brilliant you were, how clever, to seduce her lowly cousin, the poor relation, to provide the heir you knew she could never give you! Now the two of you could get married immediately.” My voice turned acid. “Just as soon as her lawyer forced me to sign papers terminating all my parental rights.”

“Yes. She called me.” His eyes narrowed. “But I never...”

“‘Don’t worry, I’ll get Lena to sign her baby away,’ she said!” My voice trembled as I remembered the terror I’d felt that day. “She asked you to send over a few security guards from your London office, just in case I tried to fight!” My voice choked and I looked away. “So I ran. Before either of you could lock me away somewhere for the duration of my pregnancy and try to steal my child!”

Silence fell. His eyes narrowed.

“From the day, from the hour Claudie told me you were pregnant, I’ve had investigators trying to track you down, chasing you around the world. Yes, she had some crazy idea that it was her inability to have children that kept me from marrying her. She was wrong.” He came closer. “I raced to London, but you were already gone. And ever since, you’ve always managed to disappear in a puff of smoke whenever I got close. That, querida, is expensive. And so is this.” He motioned at the high ceilings of the two-hundred-year-old colonial house. “This house is owned by a shell company run out of the Caymans. My investigators checked. So why don’t you just admit who’s helping you? Admit the truth!”

Something told me not to mention Edward St. Cyr. “And what’s that?”

“Once you found out you were pregnant, you knew I would never marry you.” His voice softened, his dark eyes almost caressing me. “So you came up with a different plan to cash in, didn’t you? You struck a deal...with your cousin.”

Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t that. I stared at him. “Are you crazy? Why would Claudie help me? She wants to marry you!”

“I know. After you disappeared, Claudie told me she knew exactly where you were, but that you refused to let me see the child until we could guarantee a stable home. Until I married her.”

My lips parted in shock. “But I haven’t spoken to Claudie for a year. She has no idea where I am!” I shook my head. “Did she really try to blackmail you into marriage?”

“Women always want to marry me,” he said grimly. “They think nothing of stealing or cheating or lying for it.”

I snorted. “Your ego is incredible!”

“It’s not ego. Every woman wants to be the wife of a billionaire duke. It’s not personal.”

Of course it is, I thought unwillingly, my heart twisting in my chest. How could any woman not fall in love with Alejandro, and not want him for her own?

“But what I want to know is...” His voice became dangerously low. “Is this baby in your arms truly mine? Or is it just part of some elaborate plot you’ve set up with Claudie?”

My head snapped back. “Are you asking me if my son is some kind of stunt baby?”

“You would be surprised,” he said tightly, “how often in life someone pretends to be something they are not.”

“You think I’d lie about this—for money?”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps for some other reason.” He paused. “If you were not working for Claudie, perhaps you were working for yourself.”

“Meaning what?”

“You hoped that playing hard to get, disappearing with my child, would make me want to pin you down. To marry you.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Not a bad calculation.”

My mouth had fallen open. Then I glared at him. “I would never want to be your wife!”

“Right.”

His single small word was like a grenade of sarcasm exploding all over me. For an instant my pride made me blind with anger. Then I remembered the dreams I’d once had and my throat went tight. I took a deep, miserable breath.

“Maybe that was what I wanted once,” I whispered. “But that was long ago. Before I found out you’d coldheartedly seduced me so you could marry Claudie and steal my baby.”

“You must know now that was never true.”

“How can I be sure?”

He shook his head. “I never intended to marry Claudie or anyone.”

“Yes, you said that. You also told me once that you never intended to have children. And yet here you are, fighting for a DNA test for Miguel!”

“I do not have a choice.” His expression changed as he said sharply, “You named the baby Miguel?”

“So?”

“Why?” he demanded, staring at me with a sudden suspicious glitter in his eyes that I did not understand.

“After the beautiful city that took me in—San Miguel became our home!”

He relaxed imperceptibly. “Ah.”

Now I was the one to frown. His reaction to our baby’s name had been so fierce, almost violent. Had he wondered if I’d named him after another man? “Why do you care so much?”

“I don’t,” he said coldly.

My baby whimpered in my arms. Fiercely, I shook my head as I hugged him close, breathing in Miguel’s sweet baby scent, feeling his tiny warm body against me. I nuzzled his head and saw tears fall onto his soft dark hair. “If you didn’t get me pregnant on purpose, if it happened by accident and you don’t want a child...just let us go!”

His jaw tightened. “I have an obligation....”

“Obligation!” I cried. “To you, he’s just someone to carry on your title and name. To me, he’s everything. I carried him for nine months, felt him kick inside me, heard his first cry when he was born. He’s my baby, my precious child, my only reason for living.” I was crying openly now, and so was my baby, either in sympathy or in alarm or just because it was past his nap time and all the adults arguing wouldn’t let him sleep. Miguel’s chubby cheeks were red, his eyes swimming with piteous tears. I tried to comfort him as I wept.

Alejandro’s expression was stone. “If he’s my son, I will bring both of you to live with me in Spain. Neither of you will ever want for anything, ever again. You will live in my castle.”

“I’d never marry you, not for any price!”

“Marriage? Who said anything about that?” His lips twisted. “Though we both know you’d marry me in a second if I asked.”

Stung, I shook my head furiously. “What could you offer me, Alejandro? Money? A castle? A title? I don’t need those things!”

He moved closer to me, his eyes dark.

“Don’t forget sex,” he said softly. “Hot, deep, incredible sex.”

In the shadowy hacienda, Alejandro looked at me over the downy head of the baby that we had created. My breasts suddenly felt heavy, my nipples tightening. My body felt taut and liquid at once.

“I know you remember what it was like between us,” he said in a low voice. “Just as I do.”

I lifted my gaze to his.

“Yes,” I whispered. “But what use are any of those things really, Alejandro? Without love, it’s empty.” I shook my head. “You must know this. Because the money, the palaces, the title—and yes, even the sex... Have those things ever made you happy?”

He stared at me. For a long moment, there was only the soft patter of the rain against the roof, our baby’s low whimper, and the loud beat of my aching heart.

Then abruptly, for the first time, Alejandro looked, really looked, at our son. Reaching out, he stroked Miguel’s soft dark hair gently with a large, powerful hand.

As if by magic, our baby’s crying abruptly subsided. Big-eyed, Miguel hiccupped his last tears away as father and son took measure of each other, each with the same frown, the same eyes, the same expression. It would have been enough to make me grin, if my heart hadn’t been hurting so much.

Suddenly our baby flopped out a tiny, unsteady hand against Alejandro’s nose. Looking down at him in surprise, Alejandro snorted a laugh. He seemed to catch his breath, looking at Miguel with amazement, even wonder.

Then he straightened, giving me a cold glare.

“There will be a DNA test. Immediately.”

“You expect me to allow a doctor to prick my baby’s skin for a blood test, to prove something I don’t want to be proved? Forget it! Either believe he’s your son, or—better yet—don’t! And leave us in peace!”

Alejandro’s face looked cold and ruthless. “Enough.”

He must have pressed a button or something—or else he had some freaky bodyguard alert, like a dog whistle I couldn’t hear—because suddenly two bodyguards came in through the front door. Without even looking at me, they kept walking through the foyer, headed across the courtyard toward the bedroom I shared with Miguel.

I whirled on Alejandro. “Where are they going?”