Carrying the Spaniard's Child Page 15

  With a final friendly pat to Belle’s shoulder, Nadia rose to her feet with a beaming smile to greet the duke and Santiago, who was pushing his father’s wheelchair.

  “Are you boys finally done? Because we are due at the museum.” She added teasingly, with her violet-blue eyes flashing between the duke and Santiago, “You men always like to talk and talk...”

  Numbly, Belle pushed herself up from the chair. No one was paying attention to her. The three others were talking in Spanish as they walked ahead of her out of the lawyer’s office.

  In the limo, she sat silently beside Santiago as they traveled through the sun-drenched streets of Madrid. He gave her a curious glance.

  But this time, she was the one avoiding his gaze.

  “He’s loved me since we were teenagers. He’s ached for me. Hungered for me. We belong together.”

  Belle swallowed over the ache in her throat as she watched the passing city through the car window. She’d only met Santiago a year ago. He’d never loved her. And what did they even have in common, when she barely knew the name of her great-grandparents, compared with Santiago, who had an aristocratic bloodline that went back to the Middle Ages?

  “After we are wed I will give him another baby. He will forget yours.”

  Belle knew Santiago’s determination to uphold his honor and give their unborn daughter a better childhood than he himself had had. He would not abandon his promise to marry Belle.

  She shivered as they traveled in luxury, in a limousine through the streets of Madrid.

  The real question was, could she actually let him keep his word, and marry her, trapping them both forever in a cold marriage without love?

  CHAPTER TEN

  SANTIAGO GLANCED AT the duke as they drove through Madrid. His father had actually thanked him for helping deal with some legal business at the lawyer’s office, some contracts that Otilio hadn’t signed properly.

  His father. It was strange thinking of the old man that way. For the first time, he had a real, flesh-and-blood father.

  The old man wasn’t affectionate, or even kind. He was arrogant and controlling, and seemed to think that he could boss Santiago around, using his inheritance as bait. Just look at his ridiculous demand that Santiago betray his promise to wed Belle...

  He glanced at her now, sitting quietly beside him in the backseat, biting her lip as she stared out at the city streets. She’d been strangely quiet since they’d left the lawyer’s office. It wasn’t like her to be so quiet. Usually she couldn’t wait to tell him exactly what she was thinking, particularly when it insulted him.

  No, Santiago suddenly realized. That wasn’t true anymore. She didn’t insult him anymore, not like she used to. Now, she treated him with encouragement. With...love?

  The limo bounced over a bump in the road, and his shoe hit the stiletto across from him. He looked up at Nadia, who was sitting across from him, beside his father. She lifted her dark lashes and smiled.

  His father obviously wasn’t the only one who believed he could get power over Santiago.

  It made him incredulous. How could Nadia not realize he had nothing but contempt for her?

  Both she and his father were trying to buy him. They offered him a dukedom like a prize, and thought they could use words like honor and fate, and welcome him into the castle, and Santiago would be grateful. They thought he’d never grown up from the childhood dream he’d had as a lonely, fatherless boy. They thought that all they had to do was offer and Santiago, a self-made independent billionaire, would instantly become an obedient son to the father who’d abandoned him, a grateful husband to the woman who’d betrayed him.

  But Santiago Velazquez was no man’s pawn—or woman’s. His jaw tightened as he looked from Nadia to Belle, who was still staring out the window as if her life depended on it. He was just grateful that she had no idea what his father had proposed. He didn’t want her hurt. Especially since...

  As his gaze traced over her full rosy lips and the plump curves of her body, something twisted in his heart.

  Belle was a woman like no other. Her loyalty and courage and honesty didn’t just inspire respect, but reverence. She drew him in. He wanted to let her love him.

  He wanted to love her back.

  His heart was suddenly pounding.

  No.

  He couldn’t be that stupid.

  No one could be as honest, or loyal, or good as he thought Belle was. However she might seem. If he let her inside his heart, he would regret it.

  When they reached the famous art museum in the heart of Madrid, he got out quickly, opening his passenger door before the driver could. Belle, too, stepped out quickly, as if she were afraid he might offer his hand to help her out.

  At least they were in agreement on one thing right now, he thought grimly. Avoiding each other.

  They were parked on the quiet side of the museum, far from the long queues of tourists. He pushed his father’s wheelchair toward the side door, which led to the museum’s administrative offices. Nadia walked beside the duke, chattering to him charmingly in Spanish. Belle walked silently behind, with the bodyguards and his father’s nurse, as if she preferred to be with the staff, rather than with the aristocrats.

  She probably did, Santiago thought.

  Castilian-accented Spanish whirled around him as they were escorted into the lobby and whisked into the director’s office, where they were offered champagne or coffee. Through it all, Belle held herself back from the others, looking miserable and wan and as if her feet hurt.

  Becoming a duchess in Spain, traveling with the jet-set, would require more rules that Belle wouldn’t like, Santiago thought. He would have to live by new rules as well, but at least he spoke Spanish. At least he was of Spanish blood. Belle wasn’t.

  Plus, she’d have to temper her honest, enthusiastic, joyful nature to be cool and calm, to know how to smile pleasantly while speaking cutting words, to maneuver the hard merciless edges of the highest of European high society—a world of not just mere money, but hundreds of years of history and breeding, of jostling for position.

  Santiago knew he could win in that world, if he chose, because of both his heritage and his personal ruthlessness. He’d spent twenty years fighting in business, tearing other men’s companies apart. He knew how to battle. He wasn’t afraid of war. He had a thick skin and sharp weapons.

  Belle was different. She wasn’t a gold digger; she wasn’t a social climber. She’d barely seemed to tolerate New York City. He suspected she’d be happier just tending flowers in their garden, baking for their children, volunteering at their school and caring for her neighbors. She would be happy to be with a man who appreciated her every day when he hugged his family in a warm, loving home. A man who would fix things around the house. Who’d sit on the floor with their young daughter and patiently have a tea party with her dolls.

  Belle didn’t want to marry a powerful billionaire, or a sexy playboy, or a famous duke. What she really wanted—what she needed—was a good man who would love her.

  His father’s hoarse words came back to haunt him.

  “Do you really think she could ever be happy here, in this world? It would be cruel to her. And the child. Let her go.”

  * * *

  Belle climbed wearily up the last flight of stairs to her bedroom in the top tower of the castle, then fell exhausted into her small bed.

  After the day she’d had, watching Santiago and Nadia and the Duque de Sangovia be fêted and honored in Spanish while she was shunted and ignored, she felt weary to the bone. To the heart.

  They’d finally arrived back at the castle, and the others had gone for a drink in the salon. She’d come upstairs for a nap. She barely felt the late afternoon sunlight from the tiny round window warm her skin, and she fell asleep.

  When she woke, the
room was shadowy and gray, and she saw Santiago’s handsome face above her, his jaw tight, his eyes hard.

  “This is your bedroom? This—closet?”

  She was startled, still half lost in the sensual, heartbreaking dream she’d been having about him. “What are you doing up here? What’s wrong?”

  “I came to get you for dinner. Nadia never sends anyone to tell you, does she?”

  “No,” she said frankly. “She wants you for herself.”

  His startled eyes met hers. “You know?”

  “Of course I know. But she can’t have you.” Belle put her hand on his sculpted cheek, rough with a five-o’clock shadow. Something suddenly gave her courage. Maybe it was this moment of intimacy, of honesty. Maybe it was because, just a moment ago, she’d been dreaming of him making love to her. But looking him straight in the eye, she whispered, “Because I love you, Santiago...”

  For a moment, she trembled with terror that she’d admitted it. She couldn’t meet his eyes, so leaning up, she kissed him, full on the mouth. It was the first time she’d ever initiated a kiss, and she embraced him with all her pent-up hunger and desperate love.

  And in the tiny single bed, tucked by the attic window, a miracle happened—Santiago gripped her shoulders tightly and kissed her back even more desperately than she’d kissed him. He held her as if he were drowning, and Belle was his only chance of saving himself. Exhilaration flooded through her body. She pulled away.

  “I love you,” she repeated joyfully, searching his dark gaze. “Could you ever love me?”

  But when he looked down at her, his handsome face was suddenly cold.

  “I never asked for your love, Belle. I never wanted it.”

  She sucked in her breath, annihilated by pain. How could he kiss her so desperately one moment, then push her away so coldly the next?

  Then suddenly it all made sense.

  The coldness. The distance. It had all started weeks ago.

  He wasn’t a fool. He must have realized she was falling in love with him, probably before she even realized it herself. So he’d started pulling away, acting cold. He must have started regretting his decision to propose. When he’d first heard the news of his brother’s death—that was why he’d seemed almost relieved to have the excuse to cancel their wedding.

  He didn’t want her love.

  Her shoulders fell. “You told me from the beginning that you’d never love me.” Her voice was low. “But I fell for you anyway. For the man you are and the man you could be. I couldn’t stop myself from loving you...”

  Santiago gripped her shoulders. “Stop saying that.” Taking her hand, he pulled her from the bed. “We’ll discuss this later. We should go down to dinner. They’re waiting for us.”

  He didn’t look at her as they went down the twisting wooden staircase, and all the stairs after that, to the great hall.

  Belle’s throat ached with unshed tears as they reached the enormous room, two stories high, with paintings that looked hundreds of years old. At the center of the room was a long table that could have easily fit thirty people, but tonight had only two at the end: the elderly duke, who as usual didn’t acknowledge Belle’s existence, and Nadia, who as usual looked wickedly sexy and beautiful.

  Behind her on the wall was an old portrait of a beautiful woman in a black mantilla and elaborate gown, with expressive eyes and a hard smile. Just like Nadia’s.

  Who was the obviously correct consort for Santiago now? Belle, with her average looks and former job as a waitress, a regular girl from small-town Texas? Or Nadia, an international movie star, the most beautiful woman in the world, who knew how to smile sweetly as she cut you to the heart—the woman Santiago had once loved so much that he’d literally earned a billion dollars to try to win her?

  The duke muttered something in Spanish beneath his breath.

  Looking up, Nadia said to Belle, “Late again? Honestly, you don’t look like the kind of girl who’s always late to meals.”

  Belle growled under her breath, but to her surprise, Santiago answered for her. “Thanks to you.”

  Nadia tilted her head innocently. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know perfectly well. Sticking Belle up in the tower. You’ve been doing your best to sabotage her. Stop it,” he said sharply, then his voice turned gentle as he said to Belle, “Sit here. Beside me.”

  A moment later, Belle was eating dinner without much appetite, and drinking water as the others drank red wine and spoke in Spanish. She’d just told her future husband she loved him, and nothing had happened. Wasn’t courage supposed to be rewarded in life?

  But she didn’t think it would be.

  She ate numbly, then rose to her feet to escape the dreary, formal table. Santiago stopped her with a glance and four quiet words.

  “We need to talk.”

  And looking at him, Belle was suddenly afraid.

  He led her outside, to the Moorish garden behind the castle courtyard. She could see the lights of the castle above and the village below. A few lampposts dotted through the palm trees and fountains of the dark-shadowed garden. Moonlight silvered the dark valley.

  Folding his arms, Santiago stood over her, handsome as a fierce medieval king. “Take back your words.”

  “I can’t.” She felt like she was going to faint. It was one thing for her to think of leaving him, but something different if he told her to go. Much more final.

  His forehead furrowed as he came closer. He was dressed in a sleek suit, his dark hair cut short. She missed the rougher man she remembered in New York. The one who could laugh, whose hair was a little more wild, especially when he raked it impatiently with his hands. “You don’t even like it here.”

  “Because I don’t belong here,” she said quietly. “But neither do you.”

  For a long moment, he looked at her. She saw the clench of his jaw in the moonlight. When he spoke, his voice was hard.

  “I’m sending you back to New York.”

  “You’re staying?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re glad.” She choked out a laugh, wiping tears that burned her. “Right. I get it. Let’s face it, I was always your second-choice bride. You never really wanted to marry me. You just wanted to do the right thing for our baby.”

  “I still do,” he said quietly. “But as I told you from the beginning, love was never supposed to be part of it.”

  Her honesty had ruined any chance they had, she realized. When she’d told him she loved him—that had been the thing that had made him finally decide to end this.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  She tried to smile, but couldn’t. Her cheeks wouldn’t lift. She turned away.

  Suddenly, she just wanted this to be over as soon as possible. She pulled off her diamond ring, tugging it hard to get it off her pregnancy-swollen finger. Afraid to touch him—afraid if she did, she would cling to him, sob, slide down his body to the ground and grip his leg as she begged him never to let her go—she held it out. “Here.”

  He stared at the ring without moving to take it. Why was he trying to make her suffer? Why wouldn’t he just take it? She slid it into his jacket pocket. She again tried to smile, and again failed. “The ring was never really mine, anyway. You bought it for her.”

  Santiago stared at her. “She told you?”

  “At the lawyer’s office.” With a choked laugh, Belle looked up at the castle towers overhead. “You know, every time I hear the tap-tap-tap of her stiletto heels, I’ve started to feel like a swimmer seeing a shark fin in the water.” Lifting her gaze to his, she took a deep breath and forced herself to say simply, “But she’s like you. You’ve known her half your life. I can see why you love her.”

  “Love her?” He sounded shocked. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s my broth
er’s widow. He’s not even cold in his grave.”

  Why was he trying to deny what was so plain, even to her? “And now she’s free. The only woman you ever loved. The woman you spent years trying to deserve, like a knight on a charger, determined to slay dragons for her. Just like in a fairy tale.” She looked up. “And now you’ll be duke and duchess. You’ll live in a castle in Spain.” She looked up at the moonlit castle in wonder, then down at herself as she stood in the garden, heavily pregnant and with ill-fitting, wrinkled clothes, and whispered, “I’m no man’s prize.”

  Reaching out, he cupped her cheek. “It’s better for you, Belle,” he said quietly. “I can’t give you the love you deserve. Now, you’ll have a chance at real happiness.”

  She felt frozen, heartsick. “And our baby?”

  “We will do as you suggested in Texas, and share custody. Neither you nor our daughter will ever want for anything. You will always have more money than you can spend. I will buy you a house in New York. Any house you desire.”

  A lump rose in her throat. “There’s only one house I want,” she whispered. “Our house. The one I decorated, with our baby’s first nursery. With Anna and Dinah. Our house, Santiago.”

  He looked down at her. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked down at her bare left hand. Once she left him, she thought, all his childhood dreams could come true. He would be a true Zoya. He’d have his father. His position as heir. The woman he’d once loved.

  Life was short. Love was all that mattered.

  She had to accept it. To set him free, and herself free as well.

  Weak with grief, Belle looked up at him. And with a deep breath, she forced herself to say the words that betrayed her very soul. “I’ll leave you, then. Tomorrow.”

  “Tonight would be better. I’ll call my pilot and order the plane ready.”

  Santiago’s voice was so matter-of-fact, so cold. As if he didn’t care at all. While her own heart was in agony. She wanted to cry. Her voice trembled. “You’re in such a rush to get rid of me?”