Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret

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.