The Spaniard's Pregnant Bride Read online

  “How many other women have you presented this necklace to? For that matter, who else has worn my ring?”

  He paused. “No one,” he said, continuing his movements as soon as he gave her the answer, clasping the necklace, and letting it rest heavily on her.

  “No one?”

  “I have been married before, Allegra, you know that. We spent a great deal of time discussing my late wife. If you’re going to decide that you have an issue with the fact that you’re not the first woman to share my name and my title, then you’re going to have a very frustrating tantrum. I cannot change the past.” He paused. “I would. Make no mistake I would. But I cannot.”

  “You wouldn’t have married her?”

  “For her sake. Not mine. But she never wore the jewelry. If that bothers you so much.”

  “Why didn’t you give it to her? Why are you giving it to me?” She hoped, desperately, tragically, that it meant something that he was giving it to her. That she was the only woman he had offered this piece of his family history to.

  “Sylvia liked modern things. She had no desire to have a piece of jewelry that was so outmoded. But these remind me of you. Of your mask. Let’s face it, our entire relationship is somewhat old-fashioned.”

  “If you forget the part where we had sex as strangers.”

  “You don’t think people did that back when these pieces were forged? I guarantee you they did. It’s just that when pregnancy occurred, they had to make it right. Which is exactly what we’re doing now.”

  Yes, this was the way that he mentioned the pregnancy. When he was reminding her that it was the reason they were together.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  “It suits you,” he said, meaning the necklace.

  “Thank you,” she said, reaching up and touching the center stone. “Really, thank you.”

  “My mother never wore them either. My father didn’t give them to her. He didn’t see her as deserving of them. That’s another reason I want you to have them,” he continued. “Because my father got my mother pregnant, but he considered her a whore. Never worthy of the title. He behaved as though he had to marry her because of her sins, since that had nothing to do with him. And I was an extension of that. She was not the sort of woman he would have chosen, you see.”

  “Neither am I,” she said, her throat suddenly tight.

  “No, you are not the woman I would’ve chosen. But that is not a reflection on you,” he said.

  “It reflects on you,” she said. “And I imagine, given your vaguely self-loathing narrative that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  He turned her so that she was facing him. “Yes,” he said, his dark eyes fathomless.

  “Well, it doesn’t. I don’t feel any better knowing that you wouldn’t have chosen me, just because you think your choice would be suspect. No woman wants to marry a man who didn’t choose her.”

  “You don’t have to stay married to me, Allegra. We had this discussion already. From the beginning. You’re the one who seems to think that we should try and make something permanent out of this. And I think you’re going to find in the end that it isn’t a good idea.”

  “Yes, because of dark mutterings. I know.”

  “I’ve made it very clear what I came from. What I’ve been through. I’m not the kind of man who can give you what you want.”

  “You know what I want?”

  “I imagine you would like a man who can...feel things.”

  “You feel things,” she said, taking a step forward, pressing her palm against his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath her palm.

  “It’s like there’s a wall inside of me. Holding everything back. I can’t seem to break through it. And, even if I could, I’m not sure I would want to. That kind of uncontrolled emotion produces ugly things. Dangerous things. The only moment that I have ever let go was with you.”

  His dark gaze clashed with hers, and she felt the impact low and hard in her stomach. “And you still wouldn’t have chosen me?”

  “It’s the very reason why,” he said, his voice hard.

  The words sent something shooting down her spine, like an electric shock. And from that, came a sense that something was blooming in her stomach. Hope. Why anything he had said just now should make her feel hopeful, she couldn’t be sure. Except... Except that she frightened him. This man who might as well be made out of stone. This man who was so very like the castillo he hated so much.

  Imperious, but vulnerable. Hollowed out by flame and reduced to rubble inside, while the undamaged parts of him did their very best to stand proud and firm.

  He would not have chosen her because she challenged him. Because that terrified him. He said that the wall could never fall, but she knew that it could. She knew that she was perilously close to testing it, to cracking it. Destroying it. And that was why he would have rejected her.

  “Did you know it was me?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, his tone fierce.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You said you had no idea it was me. That if you’d had any inkling I was the one who had extended his hand to you that night you would have turned away.”

  “I’m a liar. But I didn’t lie half as cleverly to you as I did to myself. I believed it. I believed that I didn’t know who it was. But of course it was you. You descended the stairs that night and my world stopped turning. Cristian, it could only have ever been you.”

  “Why?” he asked, his voice frayed, shredded.

  “Because you’re the only one who ever made me feel that way. Why do you think you irritated me so much? Because you made me feel things. Things I wasn’t ready to feel. I was a girl, and you were older. And then, you were married. You can’t imagine the indignity of that,” she said, laughing. “Hating you and wanting you, knowing that someone else had you. It was a teenage fantasy in many ways. To be so tortured. There are gothic literary heroines who are more well-adjusted than I was.”

  “You didn’t know it was me,” he said, his tone hard.

  “I did. I know I did. How could it have been anyone else? I was a virgin, Cristian. Do you truly think I would have given myself away to a stranger?”

  It was those words that softened his face, that brought the first evidence of doubt into his dark eyes.

  “I wouldn’t have,” she continued, “you know I wouldn’t have. I was so afraid of losing my parents. And I was afraid of marrying Raphael, but more afraid of scandal, of losing my security. I wasn’t afraid of living my life without passion, because if that worried me, I would have left long ago. It was never about that. It was never about gaining experience. The thing that scared me most of all was going through life without knowing what it was like to be touched by you. Without being kissed by you.”

  “You may have convinced yourself now that you knew it was me, but I guarantee you, Allegra, nothing in me knew it was you.”

  “You didn’t know,” she said, her tone faintly mocking. “You didn’t know that the woman standing by the cream puffs, who took your hand without hesitation, who looked to you like you were her salvation, was the girl that you sat across from at dinner so often for more than a decade?”

  “No,” he said.

  She lifted her arms, curving her hands around his neck, lacing her fingers through his hair, forcing him to meet her gaze. Then, she pressed her lips to his.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WITH EVERY KISS, every sweep of her tongue against his, every scrape of her teeth against his lips, she called him a liar. He was, she knew it. He had to be. Just as she was. She had been protecting herself for far too long, and she knew that it was the same with him.

  She was so confident in it that she held nothing back as she continued to pour out her emotion on him, into him.

  She wanted him. So much. More than just his body, more than just a marriage. She wanted all of him. Every broken, jagged piece, even if it might cut into her. Even if he might leave her wounded, marked. S
he wanted it all the same. And she was angry. Angry that she had come to this place where she was ready to hide nothing, to show every last piece of herself, and he still insisted there was nothing more for him to give. That he didn’t know who she was that night. That she meant nothing special. That nothing in him had recognized her.

  Maybe it’s true, a voice inside of her whispered. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe you were never special.

  She growled, rebelling against that voice as she kissed him deeper, tightened her hold on him. And he was powerless to resist the pull between them. He wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to his hard body, reversing the power structure of the kiss, claiming her, decimating her.

  She was reduced. Reduced to nothing more than a quivering, needing thing in his arms. Her entire body crying out for all that he would give. Even if it wasn’t enough. Even if it would leave her in a constant state of starving for more. She would take what he would give. Oh, in this moment, she would take whatever little thing he would give to satisfy her.

  He pulled her top off over her head, exposing her braless state. He growled, raising his hands to cup her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples.

  How she loved this. How she loved him. With every piece of herself. She didn’t want to remain quiet. Didn’t want to be appropriate or demure. Didn’t want to behave. And so, she vocalized her pleasure. Thinking nothing of embarrassment, nothing much of shame. Because there was nothing to be ashamed of. Not in this moment. Not with him.

  He called to the deepest, most secret parts of her, and brought them out into the light. Made her delight in them. Made her want to embrace them. United the pieces within her. How could he think that he would leave her broken? How had she ever feared this? That she would shatter her life, shatter herself by following her passion. No, this was being remade. This was finally being whole. And it was because of him. Because of this.

  He lowered his head, drawing a tightened bud deep inside of his mouth, and she grasped hold of him, holding him to her, arching against him, relishing each and every moment of pleasure. Then he dropped to his knees, shoving her pants down her legs, leaving her completely bare to him, the light in his eyes starving, feral as he gazed upon her. He slid his hands up the backs of her legs, her tender thighs, moving them to cup her butt, drawing her up against his face as he lavished pleasure upon that aching, needy place with his wicked tongue and lips.

  Cristian brought her pleasure she hadn’t known possible. Made her want things, fantasize about things she had never thought to fantasize about before. He satisfied her and made her needier all at the same time. He had sprinkled dark magic upon her soul, and she knew that she would never again be the same. She didn’t want to be.

  Before she had been pale, she had been fashioned in the image that other people had created her in.

  But now she was Allegra. Fashioned entirely from her passion for this man, for a desire, a love, that so deftly cast out fear it left nothing false behind.

  She moved her hips in time with his ministrations, losing herself completely in the arousal that overtook her. She felt no embarrassment. There was no cause for embarrassment. Because this was safe. The place where they could express themselves without fear. After this, there would be words, and that was where the risk would come. But for whatever reason, Cristian seemed to be able to cast aside all of his reservations in these moments. With his body, he found honesty with hers. And so, she would be nothing less in return.

  Each pass of his tongue over that tightened bundle of nerves sent her higher, further, her pleasure wrenched so tight, so intense down low inside of her that she thought it would shatter her. But when it did finally break, when her release washed over her like a wave, she found herself again, not broken, but brilliantly, perfectly her.

  He wrapped his arms around her, brought her down to the floor, positioned himself between her legs. And then he thrust deeply inside her, arching his hips so that he went deep. So that he was fully seated within her, filling her, stretching her.

  He was all around her. Above her, in her. His scent, the hard, heavy weight of him, the deep, intense burning in his eyes, threatened to overwhelm her.

  He was everything to her in that moment. The very air that she breathed.

  He reached down, cupping her face, kissing her as though it would never end. With such a deep, devastating tenderness that she ached.

  The kiss that they were not able to have that night. Not without exposing themselves. That was what he gave her now. That kiss full of promise, full of need. That kiss, the meeting of mouths, that was somehow as intimate as his hard length inside of her.

  When he began to move it was wild, with no restraint. And that was good. She didn’t want his control. She wanted him undone, as she was. Wanted him to splinter and crack so that he would finally be free of that wall inside him. If she needed to be made whole, then he certainly did too. He needed to stop dividing up the pieces of himself. Holding back his very best in order to protect what had once been wounded nearly beyond repair.

  She wrapped her legs around his lean hips, arching against him, urging him on. And she could feel him begin to lose himself. Could feel when he was brought straight to the brink, and when his hold on his control slipped.

  He went over the edge, his big body shuddering as he found his release, and that, the sight of this man, this immovable man, completely undone by her, was enough to send her over too. They clung to each other, battered by the storm of their pleasure, rocked by it. She clung to him until it subsided, until she could breathe again. Until she could think.

  And then, as the mist receded, as everything became brilliantly, abundantly clear, she spoke.

  “I love you, Cristian.”

  * * *

  Allegra’s words hit him like a bullet straight to the chest. It was his greatest desire, his greatest fear, all playing out in front of him while he lay naked on the floor of his bedroom. He had been unable to get them to the bed that was only a few steps away. What did that make him? Who was he with her? What had this little witch done to him?

  It was a question he had been asking himself from the moment he had looked at her and seen a woman, not a child. A question that had kept his tongue sharp in her presence, had kept his brain looking her over, trying to find anything he might be able to criticize. Something that might keep him from getting to the truth. That there was nothing to criticize. Because she was perfection to him.

  The kind of perfection that could slip beneath his defenses and ruin everything he had built for himself.

  “No,” he said, pushing her away from him, moving to a standing position.

  “Are you...telling me no? As though you have some control over my feelings?”

  “You do not love me, Allegra.”

  “That isn’t for you to decide.”

  “You don’t,” he said, “you don’t know better. You are a child. A spoiled brat who didn’t think marriage to a prince was enough to make a life. And so, you constructed some sort of fantasy out of making love with a stranger. And now, have continued on in that fantasy. As though your mistake, your transgression, is somehow the very thing that will rebuild your life. Don’t you see? That is the imagining of a child.” He spoke the words frantically, desperately trying to get himself to believe them as well. It made sense. Why would she want to believe that she had ruined her life by tying herself to him? She wouldn’t. So of course she would tell herself it was love. She was young. Only in her early twenties. She knew nothing of the world. Nothing of the way things really were.

  She certainly knew nothing of him. Not really.

  “That’s a fascinating story, Cristian. If being a duke doesn’t work out, perhaps you should go into creative writing.”

  “I know, no child wants to hear how young they are, but in this instance, I think it would be valuable for you to listen to me.”

  “For what purpose? So you can try to make me feel like I’m crazy? Like the last few weeks haven’t happened? But eve
n if you did, Cristian, it does not erase the realizations that I’ve had.”

  “Convenient realizations, I imagine.”

  “I knew it was you,” she said, her tone hushed.

  Those words, they were like an obscenity spoken in the church. Shocking, grating. He could not accept them.

  “You didn’t know it was me. Again, you weave very interesting stories for yourself when you find yourself in a situation that you can’t control, one that you cannot change. Because you’re trying to turn this into a fairy tale, and you’re trying to give yourself a happy ending, but Allegra, with me there is no happy ending.”

  “You’re so convinced of that?”

  “I have seen it play out. How many endings do I need to see before you will believe I know the truth? My parents’ marriage ended in nothing but tragedy and turmoil. My father drinking himself to death, my mother losing sight of herself completely. Taking off to party her way around Europe just to try and forget the sound of her son’s bones shattering at the hands of her husband. And Sylvia? Ask about Sylvia’s happy ending, Allegra. A fragile woman given to a man who knows only how to break beautiful, fragile things. Was there ever any other ending to be had? She wanted what I couldn’t give her, and in the end that’s what killed her.”

  “No,” Allegra said, her tone soft. “You said yourself, she struggled with a variety of mental health issues...”

  “And plenty of people go on to live lives in spite of those issues. But my wife is dead. Why do you think that is? Because I wasn’t the support system that she needed.”

  “It suits you to be a martyr, I see that. Because it allows you to keep people at a distance.”

  “Are you accusing me of having a convenient martyr complex? I was not aware there was such a thing.”

  “Of course there is. You are so convinced that you poison everything you touch, and it allows you to keep everyone away from you. So they won’t see you. So they won’t see that all you are is a hurt, terrified little boy.” Her expression softened. “But of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be?”