Carrying The Spaniard's Child

Fear pounded through her as she turned off the engine of her truck.

With a deep breath, Belle got out of her old pickup, tossing her long brown ponytail, slamming the door with a rusty squeak.

“What are you doing in Texas?” She lifted her chin to hide the tremble in her voice. “Let me guess. Did you think up some new ways to insult me?”

He came down the rickety wooden steps toward her, his black eyes glittering. “Three nights ago, you showed up at my house with a very shocking accusation.”

“You mean I accused you of getting me pregnant?” Waving her arm, she said furiously, “Such a horrible accusation! No wonder you wanted me to get the hell out!”

Standing on the last step above her, he ground his teeth. “I was calling your bluff. It was a negotiation. I expected you to swiftly return with a demand for a specific sum of money.”

Calling her announcement of pregnancy a negotiation! He was just the worst! A lump rose in her throat. Blinking fast, she turned toward his entourage and helicopter in the field. She said evenly, “How did you find my address?”

“Easy.”

“You must have been waiting for hours.”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty! How?” She gasped. “There was no way you could know when I’d get here. Even I didn’t know exactly!”

He gave a grim smile. “That was more difficult.”

“Were you tracking my truck? Spying on me?”

“Stop changing the subject,” he said coldly. He stepped closer on the packed dirt driveway, towering a foot over her. His black eyes traced the length of her body, from her oversized T-shirt to her shorts to her flip-flops, and a flash of heat coursed through her. “You were telling the truth? The baby is mine?”

“Of course the baby’s yours!”

“How can I trust a proven liar?”

“When did I lie?” she said indignantly.

“‘I can’t get pregnant, ever,’” he mimicked. “‘It’s impossible.’”

“You are such a jerk.” Belle shivered, sweating beneath the hot Texas sun.

His voice had been low, controlled, but she felt his cold fury. He was all gorgeous on the outside, she thought, like melted chocolate with his soulful Spanish eyes and black hair and hard-muscled body. Too bad his soul was even harder than his body. He had a soul like flint. Like ice.

Just when she’d been counting her blessings that he was out of their lives, here he was, pushing back in. For what purpose?

“You made your choice,” she whispered. “You abandoned us. This baby is mine now. Mine alone.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “That’s not how paternity works.”

“It is if I say it is.”

“Then why tell me you were pregnant at all?”

“Because three days ago I was foolish enough to hope you could change. Now I know it would be better for my baby to have no father at all than a man like you.” She lifted her chin. “Now get off my land.”

Growing dangerously still, Santiago stared at her, jaw tight. Without a word, he turned to stare across the stark horizon against the wide blue sky. Against her will, her eyes traced the golden glow of the sun gleaming against his olive-colored skin, the chiseled cheekbones, the dark scruff on his jaw.

“Let me tell you what’s going to happen, Belle.” When he looked back at her, his voice was low and deep, almost a purr. “Today, you’re going to get a paternity test.”

“What? Forget it!”

“And if it’s proven that the baby’s mine,” his black eyes glittered, “you’re going to marry me.”

Was he crazy or was she?

“Marry you?” Belle gasped. “Are you out of your mind? I hate you!”

“You should be pleased. Your plan worked. Admit you purposefully got pregnant with my child to trap me into marriage. Have that much respect for me, at least.”

“I won’t, because it’s not true!”

“I’ll admit I made a mistake, trusting you. I should have known better. I should have known your innocence was a lie. I shall pay for that.” He moved closer with a gleam in his dark eyes. “But so will you.”

A shiver went through her.

“I would never marry someone I hate,” she whispered.

“You’re acting like you have a choice. You don’t.” He gave a cold smile. “You’ll do what I say. And if the baby is mine...then so are you.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ueb84b8f4-7ce5-529e-ad7c-692d4fac961b)

SANTIAGO VELAZQUEZ HAD learned the hard way that there were two types of people in the world: delusional dreamers who hid from the harsh truth of the world, and those clear-eyed few who could face it, and fight for what they wanted.

Belle Langtry was a dreamer. He’d known that the day they’d met, at their friends’ wedding last September, when she’d chirped annoyingly about the bridal couple’s “eternal love” in face of their obvious misery. Belle’s rose-colored glasses were so thick she was blind.

But then, you’d have to be blind to see anything hopeful about love or marriage. Love was a lie, and any marriage based on it would be a disaster from start to finish. It could only end in tears. He should know. His mother had been married five times, to every man in Spain except Santiago’s actual father.

But for some reason, when he’d met Belle, so feisty and sure of her own illusions, he hadn’t been irritated. He’d been charmed. Petite, curvaceous, dark-haired, with deep sultry eyes and a body clearly made for sin, she’d gotten under his skin from the beginning. And not just because of her beauty.

Belle hated him, and wasn’t afraid to show it. With one glaringly big exception, Santiago couldn’t remember any woman scorning him so thoroughly. Not since he’d grown into his full height at twenty, and especially not since he’d made his fortune. Women were always hoping to get into his bed, his wallet, or usually both. He hadn’t realized just how boring it had all become until that exact moment that Belle Langtry had insulted him to his face.

She was different from the others. She drew him like a flame in the darkness. Her tart tongue, her apparent innocence, her brazen honesty, had made him lower his defenses. Their single night together had been transcendent and joyful and raw. It had almost made him question his cynical view of the world.

Then, three nights ago, he’d discovered how wrong he’d been about her.

Belle Langtry wasn’t different. She wasn’t innocent. She’d only pretended to wear rose-colored glasses to hide the fact that she was a cold-eyed liar, just like everyone else, plotting for her personal gain. She wasn’t like his mother had been, pathetically desperate for love, deceiving herself to the end of her self-destructive life. No. Belle was like Nadia. A mercenary gold digger who would say or do anything, her eyes always on the glittering prize.

At Fairholme, in the snowy garden that cold January night, when Belle had wept in Santiago’s arms as if her heart was breaking, she’d been lying.

When he’d softly stroked her long dark hair in the moonlight and whispered that everything would be all right, and Belle had looked up, her big dark eyes anguished beneath trembling lashes, she’d been lying.

When she’d told him she could never, ever get pregnant, and lowering his head, he’d kissed her beneath the moonlight scattered with snowflakes, as he tried to distract her from her grief, she’d been lying.