The Spaniard's Pregnant Bride Read online

  “I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” she said, her tone flat.

  “Perhaps if I were wearing a mask?”

  “Then I wouldn’t be able to kiss your mouth.”

  “I could offer up other suggestions.”

  She drew back, her eyes round, glittering. He knew, as well as she did, that while she was angry, that was not the only emotion she felt. He was tempting her. Just as he was tempting himself.

  “Just a nap,” she said, “thanks. I’m a little bit too tired to be kissing adventurous places on your body.”

  “Perhaps when you’re feeling a bit more rested?”

  “No.” She turned away from him, heading toward the stairs. Then she stopped, and whirled back around to face him. “And you don’t even want me to. You just want to push me. I don’t understand why. Why can’t we have a few companionable moments? Why do you have to be a constant ogre?”

  Then, the beast didn’t just rattle the cage. He broke through it completely. Cristian crossed the space between them, backing her up against the wall, his hands bracketing either side of her face. “Is that what you think? You think I don’t want you? You think that I’m simply playing a game? Tell me, Allegra, have I ever struck you as the sort of man who plays games?”

  His actions seemed to have struck her mute. She shook her head, wide, dark eyes never leaving his.

  “Then why, querida, do you think I am playing a game with you? I don’t say things I don’t mean. I don’t make empty promises.”

  “And yet you promised me that our marriage would remain chaste. So I’m forced to believe that either you’re a liar, or you’re playing a game.”

  “What is logical and preferable, and what I want are two different things.”

  “And what do you want?” she asked, her voice husky.

  The air changed between them, got thicker, filled with all of the tension that was pulsing between them like a living thing.

  “Right now?” He leaned in close, her scent rising up, filling him, enticing him. “Right now, I wish to push your dress up and bury myself inside of your tight body. I can remember, so clearly what that was like. There is no man on earth who wouldn’t jump at the chance to have you again. Myself included. I consider myself a man with superior control. A man who is not controlled by baser urges. And yet, with you, I feel I am entirely comprised of baser urges.”

  “You don’t like me,” she said, her words helpless.

  “Perhaps that is why. Perhaps it’s exciting.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Maybe. But you like it too.” He raised his hand and skimmed his thumb across the pounding pulse at the base of her neck.

  “I just want a nap.” She ducked beneath his arms, beating a hasty retreat for the stairs, taking them two at a time on her way to her room.

  His body relaxed slowly as she moved farther and farther away. He swore, turning away from the stairs and walking outside, staring at the ocean. Normally, he found the view calming. That was not the case now.

  He had to get a handle on himself. There was no point in playing these games. No point in feeding the attraction that he felt for her.

  Perhaps he did need to go out and find another woman. After this stay here, he would do just that.

  One thing was certain, he would not lose his control again.

  * * *

  Allegra felt much like she was getting ready to approach a panther in its lair. But then, why wouldn’t she? The last time she had been face-to-face with Cristian he had looked very much like he might want to eat her.

  Again, much to her chagrin, she was not as disgusted by that as she would like to be. In fact, she felt... She was more than intrigued. She was...enticed. Attracted. Aroused.

  She gritted her teeth as she walked through the house keeping an eye out for said panther as she went. She looked out the large windows that provided a view of the ocean and saw flames.

  She walked through the door that led out to the sand, only to see Cristian sitting by a bonfire. The orange light illuminated the planes of his face, throwing the hollows of his cheekbones, the square line of his jaw, into sharper relief.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I thought you might appreciate a dinner by the water.”

  He stood, and she noticed the table set behind him. “I do,” she said, taking a step forward, feeling a little bit shocked. She didn’t know how to reconcile these moments where he seemed like he might know her, with the other moments. The ones that were filled with intensity, anger. Desire. Anger at the desire.

  “It isn’t seafood. I remember that you don’t like fish.”

  His words hit her with the force of a blow. “I don’t. You’re right. I mean, thank you. For remembering.”

  “I have a good memory,” he said, as if he could make the actions weightless with that careless statement.

  She nodded, moving toward the table. “Of course you do.”

  “I do not wish to make you miserable,” he said.

  “Well, if my happiness were entirely dictated by being well-fed you would have me set for life.”

  “Can it not be so simple?”

  She took a seat, marveling at the very nicely cooked chicken and vegetables. “Sadly, not. Otherwise, I really would have chosen to marry Raphael. I’m not sure you can top a palace chef.”

  “I cooked this myself. So, you’re right there. The quality may be suspect.”

  “You...you made this?” It was difficult to imagine Cristian cooking.

  “I value my solitude, so I don’t like to have staff around all the time. And I have spent the past few years as a single man.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do not look like that every time Sylvia comes up.”

  She looked up. “Like what?”

  “Like you’re on the verge of weeping.”

  “It’s just... It was very sad. She always seemed... She seemed lovely.” Allegra had met his late wife on only a few occasions, but the beautiful blonde had appeared to be sweet. An interesting match for a strong and rather gruff man like Cristian, but they had been married for a couple of years and had always seemed happy enough.

  “She was. Effortlessly. A sweet woman who, when things were well, added a sense of tranquility to her surroundings.”

  There was a strange note to his voice when he said those words, and Allegra could not guess at why.

  “How long was she sick?”

  His expression changed. “She was not sick in quite the way you might think. Sylvia struggled with mental illness.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “Her parents did not wish to disclose the issues. I have always respected their wishes.”

  “But I assumed... I assumed that it was a physical illness. I thought that was how she...”

  “It is,” he said, his tone hard.

  His words settled over her, a slow horror creeping over her skin. “She didn’t...”

  He nodded slowly. “She killed herself, Allegra. And I do understand why her parents didn’t want that to become public knowledge. So there was much vague noise made about illness and her fragility. Still...sometimes I question covering up the truth. Her truth. As though it was some flaw in her. I never blamed her. I fear they do.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Everyone is. I most of all.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” she said.

  “I’m the one who brought it up. I’m more comfortable with it than most other people are. As comfortable as one can be with loss. She was my wife. I will not pretend she didn’t exist.”

  “Of course. And I won’t either.”

  “It is as you say, though,” he said. “When you live life in the public eye everyone will have an opinion. Likely, comparisons will be made between yourself and Sylvia.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me now. Maybe it would be different if I...if we...if I felt like
I was competing with her for your...feelings.”

  “I see. And, as you are not, you have no concerns about the comparison?”

  “It seems a little bit small and petty to be envious of a dead woman.”

  “Still, some would be.”

  “I’m not one of them. I don’t know what happened to make you hold me in such low esteem, Cristian, but I’m not a terrible person.”

  “You always seemed unhappy. In your home, which to me is the most shining example of a functional family, you never seemed very pleased with your position.”

  “That’s why you don’t like me? Because you don’t think I’m grateful enough for what I have?”

  He nodded. “Exactly that.”

  “Appearances. It all comes down to appearances. No, my parents aren’t evil, but they care a lot more about me having a life that looks a certain way, than me having a life worth living. It’s never been about what I wanted.”

  He frowned. “Everything they do is to try and ensure that you have a stable future. I understand that you have a romantic idea that you want more freedom, but believe me when I tell you that you only have good options in your life.”

  “You would say that. You have freedom.”

  “And more than my share of tragedy. The ability to do whatever you want doesn’t guarantee any kind of happiness. The fact that you have a family that cares, that loves you, is a bigger gift than I think you realize.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Maybe. But I do think the fact that I did...what I did with you at the ball proves that I could never have lived that life. And I wasn’t brave enough to take the step forward, to say that it wasn’t what I wanted. I had to go about it in the wrong way. I should have taken a stand. That’s the only thing I regret. The only place I really see a maturity. Going along with it while I resented it all.”

  “Was Raphael so bad?” he asked.

  “No. He wasn’t. But he was...exacting. He definitely had an idea of what he wanted. He expected me to fall into line with that. He was also more impenetrable than you are, if such a thing is possible.”

  “He is marrying her, by the way. There was a press conference.”

  Allegra smiled slightly. “I’m happy for them. If he can thaw himself out for her, then she’s welcome to him.”

  “You had issues with his distance?” Cristian asked, lifting a brow.

  “Yes,” she said sardonically. “I found him impossible to read. And entirely too full of himself.”

  “And you exchange him for me?”

  “Out of the frying pan and into the bonfire,” she said, her tone dry. “I have never quite seen myself fulfilling the position that my parents wish I would. Obviously, I’m not the woman that you wish I’d be either. I wanted to try. I wanted to do the best that I could. But I made a mistake because I don’t think I was ever intended to be a princess. It was definitely self-sabotage on my part.”

  “I do make a fairly effective sabotage, if I say so myself.”

  She wasn’t sure whether or not she should apologize, or whether she should say she didn’t exactly mean it that way. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “Did you truly not?”

  Her stomach twisted. “Of course I didn’t. What do you think? I was harboring some sort of secret crush on you?” As soon as she said that images of him sitting at her family dinner table over the years flashed through her mind. Him as a young man, as a grieving widower and again looking more like himself.

  And then she saw those images cut together with a memory of him in his mask, descending the stairs, and that sensation that had overtaken her that had been a lot like discomfort. A lot like the kind of unsettled adrenaline that often filtered through her body when she found out that Cristian would be at dinner that night.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t know.”

  She hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t. To imagine that something in her subconscious had picked up on it was simply ridiculous. And attributing far too much intelligence to her passive mind. Or rather, stupidity. Because if she would have known it was Cristian, of course she never would have...

  That train of thought trailed off as she looked at his face, half of it shrouded in shadow, the other blazing in the firelight.

  Whatever she had thought, whatever she had felt, it was much more difficult to grasp it now. Because she simply couldn’t divorce what she felt for Cristian now from what she had felt then. Now that she had been with him. Now that she had kissed him. Ever since he had pressed her up against the wall for the first time, then again in this house earlier.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think of me,” she continued, more for herself than for him. “And it’s somewhat ironic that you were my path to freedom. Seeing as you don’t think I deserve freedom.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t think you deserve freedom, Allegra. It’s simply that I think freedom might be a different thing than what you mean. Do you imagine it’s the ability to do whatever you want?”

  “I suppose I imagine it’s the ability to marry a man that I love. You act as though I want the entire world. As though I’m selfish for wanting to be able to choose the person that I spend the rest of my life with.”

  “I think you misunderstand the way the world works. You could have married a perfectly decent man and been in a position to do some good in the world. He would have treated you well, and you likely could have come to love him. Instead, you threw your virginity away with a stranger in a darkened corridor, got yourself pregnant with his baby... And now, here you are.”

  “You present yourself as the worst choice now? I thought you were an upgrade. Due to Spain’s size.”

  “I grant you,” he said, his tone dark, “Spain’s size is rather impressive. However, you would have been much better off with your prince, Allegra.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Prince Raphael seems to be a nice man. I am not a nice man.”

  “Well, I could’ve been the first person to tell you that.”

  “But you don’t know the half of it.”

  “I’ll never have to know the whole of it either. Especially not since we’ll only be married for a couple of years. It won’t matter. We’re never going to... We’re never going to touch again.”

  For some reason, those words sent her stomach plummeting down into her toes. Disappointment. That’s what it felt like. But it couldn’t be that. There was no way on earth she could possibly be disappointed at the thought of never touching Cristian again.

  “Good for you. Though, it was certainly enough time for Sylvia to destruct.”

  “Sylvia was ill. You said so yourself.”

  “Yes. I’m sure that being married to me didn’t put her under any undue stress.”

  “Do you really think that? Do you think that you somehow...”

  He reached across the table, pressing his hand down firmly over hers, his dark eyes blazing with black fire. “We will not have this discussion.” His hold on her was firm, hot. She wanted desperately to pull away, to put distance between them. And at the same time, she wanted him to hold on to her forever. Wanted to be caught in this intensity for as long as it could possibly go on, even if it singed her from the inside out.

  “You should go back inside,” he continued. “Get away from me.”

  “We were fighting.”

  “You think it matters?”

  “It should,” she said, her voice sounding thin, strained.

  “Of course it should matter. But it hasn’t so far, has it? It didn’t even matter when you didn’t know who I was. It exists. With another man’s engagement ring on your finger, with a mask over your face and when the mask is ripped from mine. It exists. This thing between us. So go back inside. Go back inside and perhaps I won’t touch you again.”

  She thought about it. She thought of extricating herself from his hold and fleeing for her life. For her sanity. Instead, she sat, unmoving, her hand still benea
th his.

  “And what happens if I stay?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE SHOULD TURN her away. That much was obvious. He wasn’t going to, and that was equally obvious.

  Cristian wondered—in the moment before he sprang into action—when he had lost this war. Was it when he’d brought her out to the beach? When he’d brought her here in the first place?

  Or was it on that night in Venice, when he’d approached a beautiful stranger with glossy, dark curls that cascaded over honey-gold shoulders in a teasing manner that reminded him of sunshine and warmth. Heat and a kind of restless energy that had only ever made him think of one woman.

  It didn’t matter when, only that he had. And now that he was facing it, he had no desire to go back and undo it.

  He tightened his hold on her, pulling her forward. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. Her lips were shaped in a soft, perfect O, and he couldn’t help but think of that moment in the ballroom when he’d taken her hand.

  And then, he leaned in, prepared to take what he had been unable to claim when the iron mask had covered his face. When they had both been concealed, from each other, and from the world.

  Could she ever really hide from you?

  He looked into her dark, glittering eyes. Eyes he had seen on fire for him weeks ago.

  He turned his attention back to her mouth, wrenching his thoughts away from that particular path. There was no point in dwelling on any of it. No point in second-guessing his decisions. Both those that had occurred more than a month ago, and the one he had made here and now.

  He stood from the chair, tugging her up to her feet, and bringing her against his body. She clung to his forearms for balance and he wrapped his arms around her waist, closing the distance between them and capturing her lips with his.

  It was there in her kiss. Warmth. Sunshine. And all that shimmering, reckless heat he’d taken a dislike to from the moment he’d first met her. That spark inside her that found itself burrowing beneath his skin and crackling along his veins.

  He traced the line of her lips with the tip of his tongue before taking it deep again, claiming her with everything he had in him. She was his. Only his. No other man had ever touched her before, and that was a novel experience. He’d never been a woman’s first, and there was something intensely wrong and exciting about the fact that he had been Allegra’s.