The Spaniard's Pregnant Bride Read online

But, as surely as she had known, so had he.

  It had always been her. Always. From the moment he had first recognized that she was a woman, it had been Allegra.

  His entire being had cried out for her, for those things that he told himself he despised. Her innocence, her youth, her passion. He had told himself he hated it, because the only other option was that he loved it. And he could not allow himself such a thing.

  The realization brought him to his knees now. Pain lanced him, stabbing him clean through. Of course he loved her. Of course he did. He always had. And only now, when it was too late, was he brave enough to call it what it was. Now that it had slipped through his fingers forever.

  He loved this woman, this woman who carried his child, who was supposed to be his wife. This woman who he had broken, as he had broken everyone else he had ever cared about.

  There was no fixing this. No fixing him. And in that moment the only place he wanted to be, was the place that had broken him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE DRIVE TO the castillo was more familiar than he would like it to be. He would prefer that those childhood memories were not so indelibly burned into his consciousness. But they were.

  As was the growing sense of dread he felt when the stone fortress came into view. A strange thing, to see it half-crumbled. To see its power reduced. He was here, because he wanted answers.

  This was the place that had created him. This was the site that had formed him. He had decided, last he left, that it had no more answers for him, that it had no more power. But clearly, he was still allowing it to dictate his choices, so that was a lie. He parked the car, getting out and making his way toward the abandoned grounds.

  There was nothing here. He knew that. Still, he wrenched off his suit jacket, and pushed his sleeves up past his elbows. Still, he walked toward the part of the place that was lying in a ruin.

  Still, he dropped to his knees and began digging through the stones, digging as though he would find something. Something that meant anything.

  There was nothing. He told himself that over and over again as he continued to dig.

  He dug until his hands bled, until his heart felt raw and bloody, and hemorrhaging more with each beat.

  And he found nothing. Because his cleaning crew was thorough. But still, he dug. Until finally, he found the edge of a piece of paper, sticking up from beneath the stone. Impossible, because it should be burned. He reached for it, shoving his hand through the rubble carelessly in his haste to grab hold of it.

  A shard of scorched glass cut into his hand, slicing him deep. But the pain in his hand didn’t match the pain in his heart or his head. So he ignored it. He tugged the paper out.

  It was a picture.

  The edges were burned and curling in on themselves. But the focus of the photo remained.

  A little boy. About five years old, with dark hair and eyes, and a bruise on his cheek.

  A bruise likely left there by his father. Cristian’s heart seized tight.

  A photograph of himself. He could not recall if he had ever seen one. He didn’t go looking for these things, and he certainly hadn’t ever sat down with his absent mother to pore over a past both of them wanted to forget.

  He didn’t go looking for pieces of the past. Never.

  But there he was. The boy who had supposedly turned his father from the life of the party into a monster. The boy who had supposedly ruined his mother’s life. Who had grown up to ruin his first wife. This boy whom his father had seemed to think deserved to be beaten because of his very existence.

  Cristian was surprised to look into his eyes and find that he was only a boy. A child. A child that had been beaten with closed fists, who had been broken by a grown man. He could not fathom it. Staring at that little boy all he could see was innocence. An innocence he had never been able to attribute to himself before. It was a revelation. Stark and painful.

  He let out a low, tortured sound.

  It sounded more like a wounded animal than a man, but then, in that moment he felt more like a wounded animal than a man.

  This was like looking at the truth for the very first time. Seeing something fully, being forced to face reality. If this boy wasn’t a monster, then perhaps the man wasn’t either.

  There was innocence in this picture. Innocence abused. And he could truly look upon the boy he’d been and see the truth of it. See what he had been, and who the monster really was.

  Looking at that little boy made him think of the child he would have. Of what he would see when he looked into those eyes.

  He felt like someone had reached into his chest, grabbed hold of his heart and squeezed it tight.

  He was having a child. A child that he had been planning on punishing for the sins of his own father. He would never have hurt his child physically. But he had been planning on depriving his child of his father because of the pain that Cristian had in his own past.

  Yes, he was a coward. And he had been fully intending on making his child, making Allegra suffer for it. It had been easy for him to believe that because he despised himself so much, that because his opinion of himself was so low, that removing his presence from both Allegra’s and his child’s lives was a kindness. But he was hurting them.

  On the heels of that realization, on the fresh pain it caused, came the first glimmer of hope he’d experienced in more years than he could count.

  They would both need him. They would both want him. Allegra had made it clear that she wanted him.

  She wanted him. Both the broken boy he had been and the broken man he’d become.

  He had been foolish enough to turn her away. Had been cowardly enough to say no. To try to convince both of them that his love and his desire to be loved were dead.

  That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, he wanted it more than most. Not less. He had been starved of it, always. Had married a woman he couldn’t love, and who couldn’t love him in return. Had never pursued a connection with the one woman he had wanted. Until fate had taken charge. Until the perfect moment, the most convenient excuse, had presented itself and he had taken advantage.

  He brushed his bleeding thumb over the picture, leaving a smear of red behind.

  The monster had never been inside of him. He had just tried to make himself think so. Had, as a boy, been forced to fashion a beast inside him that was more terrifying than the one always lurking outside his bedroom door.

  Had tried to force himself to believe it even as an adult. That something inside of him caused the devastation in his life, because the alternative meant bad things simply happened and he couldn’t control them. That he was as helpless now to stop bad things, to stop Sylvia from taking her own life, as he had been as a boy. And he had despised that helplessness so much it had been more comforting to blame himself than to acknowledge he could not have stopped it.

  But the very best protection the beast he had created provided him was keeping people far away, so that they couldn’t hurt him.

  But he had to let it go now. He needed Allegra more than he needed protection.

  And as he acknowledged that, that wall inside of him, that wall that seemed to keep all of his emotion back, even when he wanted to let it free, crumbled effortlessly. Pain flooded him. Pain and need, fear and love. He might not be able to win her back now. It might be too late.

  But he would give everything. He would lay himself bare for her.

  He was ready, finally, to take off his mask.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EVERYTHING HURT AND she was sick. It was as inglorious a situation as she had ever found herself in. She was hiding again, at the apartment in Rome. Because a girl had to take cover when she had broken an engagement to a prince, gotten pregnant with her brother’s friend’s baby, then jilted said friend at the altar, all in the space of a couple of months. She was of far too much interest to the paparazzi at this point. And most especially since she was tangled up in all of the happenings in Raphael’s country at the moment.

/>   He was marrying his commoner princess, who was visibly pregnant with his child, and it was all a little bit of a three-ring circus. Their sex scandals were inextricably linked. She, pregnant by another man, he, having impregnated another woman.

  If only the world knew how desperately they did not care about each other. It might all be a little bit less interesting. But, then again, maybe not. Had all of this been happening to some famous reality TV family, she probably would have been reading about it with just as much interest. But it was her life. So, she found very little about it interesting or amusing. She just found it awful.

  Additionally, she currently felt as though someone had shattered a glass and ground the pieces into her chest.

  Heartbreak was terrible. So much worse than she had ever imagined. She had been smart to try to insulate herself from pain, really. Except, she hadn’t even known how much something could hurt. Not really. She clearly had some sort of self-protective instinct that had been operating on an intelligent level, but, it hadn’t truly known what it was trying to protect her from.

  This was terrible. It hurt so bad she could barely breathe. Leaving Cristian was anything but simple. It might have been smart, it might have been right, but it felt like removing a limb, not just walking away from another person. Cristian was a part of her in a profound and deep way she wasn’t sure she had truly appreciated until she had left him.

  She was lonely. All the time. During the day, but especially at night, when she missed being held in his strong arms. Missed listening to him breathe. Missed feeling his heartbeat beneath her palm.

  She loved that man. Even having left him, even knowing that he didn’t love her back, she loved that man with everything in her.

  It was terrible. And wonderful. Because even though she didn’t have him, she still had all of the strength that being with him had given her. It was sort of magical, how loving him both destroyed and built her up, but, there it was.

  “None of this feels magical,” she grumbled, standing up from the couch and stretching. She walked across the room, checking her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing a white, loose-fitting top and a pair of stretch pants. Her pregnancy was beginning to show, and it was one of the very few things that made her smile today. Seeing the evidence of Cristian’s and her passion beginning to become visible.

  She would probably feel differently about it later. Would probably fully realize what a struggle it would be to be a single mother. To know that Cristian was out there, but wanted nothing to do with the baby.

  But right now, seeing the evidence of her pregnancy made her feel warm. It was her hope in the middle of all this darkness. She would take it, because she desperately needed some hope.

  She heard a vague noise out in the hall, then the front door to her apartment burst open. She jumped backward, ready to defend herself against an armed intruder, or worse, an armed paparazzo.

  But when she oriented, and focused, she saw that it was Cristian standing there. He was wearing a white shirt, the collar unbuttoned, the whole thing rumpled. There was blood on the sleeve, and on the bottom. His hair was a mess, as though he had run his hands through it a few too many times, and the black slacks he was wearing had certainly seen better days.

  If she didn’t know better, she would assume that he was still wearing the same clothes from the wedding-that-wasn’t two days ago.

  She looked at his hand and saw that it was bandaged, and that his knuckles were bruised and the skin on them broken.

  “Cristian. What are you doing here? And what did you do to yourself?” Even now, she was concerned for his well-being. Even now, she didn’t want him to be in pain.

  “What?” He looked down at his hand, as though he had forgotten it was bandaged. “I cut myself,” he said.

  “Are you all right? Have you been drinking?”

  “No. And also no.”

  “You’re not drunk, but you’re also not okay?”

  “No,” he said, his voice rough, fierce. He crossed the space between them, coming to stand right in front of her. The lines on his face seemed somehow more pronounced, the expression in his eyes wounded. Wild. “I am not okay. I have not been okay since the moment you left me standing there at the altar.”

  She cringed inwardly. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you...”

  “Who cares about my embarrassment? Damn my embarrassment. Damn my insufferable ego. I don’t care about any of it. You could’ve jilted me in front of the world, in fact, you did, and I still wouldn’t care for that. But you... I lost you. And that I cannot endure.”

  Traitorous, treacherous hope washed over her. “Cristian? What exactly are you saying?”

  “I was a fool. Allegra, I was a fool. Of course I knew it was you. How could I not?” dpgroup

  “I...but you...”

  “I know what you like to eat. And I know where you dream of vacationing. I know the slight curve of your lips when you’re trying not to show that you’re pouting on the inside.”

  “I don’t pout,” she whispered, her throat feeling tight, her chest heavy.

  “You do,” he said. “And you do it beautifully. Just as you’re beautiful when you’re holding in a laugh, or a smile. Or even better, when you don’t hold them back at all. Of course it was you,” he repeated. “How else do you think I could write whole menus for you, consisting only of what you liked. How else could I choose a gown for you that first night at dinner, when I claimed to be putting on a show for the media?”

  She blinked, trying to stave off her tears, fully overwhelmed by this. By this brilliant, glorious evidence being set out before her, that he knew her. That he had always known her. Even when she was silent.

  “When I walked down that staircase in that Venetian ballroom and I saw you,” Cristian said, “facing away from me... The reaction that it created inside of me... It could only have ever been you. But I could not face that. Because I am everything you said I am. I am a coward. I have been afraid to embrace the feelings inside of me, and so I told myself they didn’t exist.”

  “Cristian...”

  “Allegra, why else do you think I threw Raphael in your path?” he asked, his voice low, rough. “Why else would I be so desperate to see you married to him? Why else did I pick at any behavior I thought might threaten that?”

  “I just thought you... I don’t know, because you like my parents so much...”

  “Your parents mean a great deal to me, but it was never about them. It was always about you. I wanted you married off. Safe, and away from me because...because something in me always knew that I would lose myself and touch you when I had no right to do that.”

  “I used to stare at your ring and feel ill,” Allegra confessed, her voice hushed. “Because you belonged to someone else and not to me.” She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. “Oh, Cristian, I always wanted you. I wanted to belong to you. It was never anyone else for me.”

  “I told myself I was protecting you,” he continued, “with Raphael. And I do think that I believed it. But the only person I was really protecting was myself.”

  “What changed?” she asked, looking at the battered man standing before her, vulnerable, unmasked.

  “I went back to the castillo. Looking for more answers. Answers I had told myself I wouldn’t find. But I found them, Allegra. I found them.”

  “What did you find?”

  “A picture of myself. When I was a boy. And I...” His voice broke. “I was not a monster. I was never a monster. I was just a child. And looking at my face, at the bruise where my father had hit me, I knew that I didn’t cause any of that. I knew that it was him. It made me question everything. I told you that I had to become brave to withstand it, and that was the truth. I had to pretend that there was something dangerous in me, so that I felt I could fight back. So that I felt I could withstand. And later, I told myself it was all in me when the world fell apart and I couldn’t control it. But I don’t need those excuses anymore. Realizing that you loved me, en
ough that not being with me might hurt you? Realizing that you loved me enough that my withholding my love harmed you... How can I continue to see myself as worthless, Allegra? When someone such as yourself loves me? I may have destroyed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had. I hurt you badly enough that you left me at the altar. But if you could still love me... If you could find it in yourself to try and give me another chance, then I would be... I would be humbled. I would be honored.”

  All of Allegra’s breath rushed out of her. “Cristian, you idiot.”

  “Am I?” he asked, his dark eyes searching hers.

  “Yes. I never stopped loving you. Ever. I didn’t leave you because you destroyed my love. I left you because I love you too much to be married to you and have you not touch me. Cristian, there was no way that I could be near you every day and never have you. I couldn’t do that to myself. I could no longer live my life that way. With everything stuffed down deep. I want to live loud. I want to live with my whole heart out in the open. I want to show my love for you, not just to you, but to the rest of the world. I just couldn’t face going back into hiding. Not when you showed me how wonderful it is to live with passion.”

  “Allegra,” he said, his tone rough, fierce. He pulled her into his arms, cupping her chin and tilting her face up. “I always saw your passion. I always saw your fire.”

  “You hated it.”

  “I feared it. Because I knew it would consume me. But now I want nothing more. To be caught up in you, in this. I love you,” he said, “I love you with everything in me. And I feel it,” he said, pressing his hand against his chest, “I feel it like I have felt nothing else since I was a child. And it hurts. It hurts so badly I can barely breathe. This need that I have for you. It goes so deep I cannot see the end of it.”

  “Oh, Cristian,” she said, pressing a kiss to his lips. “It’s the same for me too.”

  “Be my wife. Not because you must, not because it makes sense, or because it will give our child a title. But because I love you, and you love me.”

  Allegra looked up at this man, the man she had once thought of as Death come to collect her soul, and she saw life. The rest of her life, shining brilliantly and beautifully before her. Then she smiled. “Yes, Cristian,” she said, “I will marry you. For no other reason than that I love you. With all of my heart and soul.”