One Night: Latin Heat: Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret / One Night With The Enemy / One Night with Morelli

“Right now. Choose.” His expression had hardened. “A priest. Or a lawyer.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Call it what you want.”

I licked my lips, then tried, “Edward would help me. He has money and power to match even yours....”

“Ah.” Alejandro came closer, softly tucking back a long tendril of hair that had escaped when he’d crushed me a few moments ago in his passionate embrace. “I wondered how long it would be before Mr. St. Cyr’s name made an appearance. That was even quicker than I expected.”

My cheeks went hot, but I lifted my chin. “He would still help me if I asked.”

“Oh, I’m sure he would,” he said softly. “But are you willing to accept the cost of his help?”

I swallowed.

“And the price to Miguel. Think of it.” He tilted his head. “A custody war, when each side has infinite resources to pay lawyers for years, decades, to come.” He gave a brief, humorless smile. “Miguel’s first words after mamá and papá might be restraining order.”

I sucked in my breath.

“And the scandal... The press will have a field day.” Pressing his advantage, he stroked my cheek almost tenderly. “Miguel will grow so accustomed to paparazzi he’ll start to think of them as members of his family. With good reason, for he’ll see them more frequently than he sees either of us.” He dropped his hand. His voice became harsh. “Is that really what you want?”

“Why are you doing this, Alejandro?” I choked out.

“I won’t risk having Edward St. Cyr as my son’s future stepfather.”

I shook my head. “It will never happen!”

“I’m supposed to believe that? A few minutes ago, you promised you’d never see him again. Now you’re threatening to use his wealth and power in a custody battle against me.”

He looked at me with scorn, and I didn’t blame him. I wiped my eyes. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that—but you’re forcing my back against the wall! I have no choice!”

“Neither do I.” His sensual lips curved downward. “You think you can control him. You cannot. He’s selfish. Ruthless. Dangerous.”

I flashed him a glare full of hate. “Are you talking about him,” I said bitterly, “or yourself?”

“Yes, I could be dangerous,” he said softly. “If anyone tried to hurt someone I cared about. I would die—or kill—to protect someone I loved.”

“But you don’t love anyone!”

“You’re wrong.” His voice was low. His lips pressed together in a thin line. “So will it be marriage between us—or war?”

“I hate you!”

“Is that your final answer?”

Tears of hopeless rage filled my eyes, but I’d told Edward the truth. Alejandro had owned me from the moment I’d become pregnant with his child. I would give anything, sacrifice any part of myself, for my son. My heart. My dreams. My soul. What were those, compared with Miguel’s heart, his dreams, his soul?

My baby would not spend his childhood in and out of divorce courts, surrounded by pushy paparazzi, bewildered by the internecine battles of his parents. Instead, he would be safe and warm and surrounded by love. He would be happy.

It was all I had to cling to. All I had to live for.

My shoulders fell.

“No,” I whispered. “You win. I will marry you.”

“Now.”

“Fine! I hate you!”

He looked down at me, his expression sardonic. “Hate me, then. At least that I can believe. Far more than your so-called love. But you will be my wife. In every way.”

Yanking me into his arms, he kissed me, hard. But this time, there was nothing of tenderness, or even passion. Just a ruthless act of possession, showing me he owned me, a savage kiss hard enough to bruise.

Pulling me out of the cloakroom and outside into the warm Spanish night, he called for his driver. The paparazzi were long gone, and the street was quiet, even lonely.

Alejandro took me to the house of a local official, where with a quiet word a certificate of permission to marry was produced in record time. Then to a priest, in a large, empty church, so old and full of shadows it seemed half-haunted with the lost dreams of the dead.

And so Alejandro and I were wed, in that wan, barren church, with only flickers of candlelight and ghostly moonlight from the upper windows lighting the cold, pale marble. My pink ball gown of silk and embroidered flowers, which once seemed so beautiful, now hung on me like a shroud.

There was no wedding dress. No cake. No flowers. And no one, except the priest and his assistant called as witness, to wish us happiness.

Which was just as well, because as I looked at the savage face of my new husband as we left the church into the dark of night, I knew happiness was the one thing we’d never have.

* * *

Alejandro looked across the front seat of the car. “You’re going to have to talk to me at some point.”

I looked out the window at the passing scenery as we drove south into Andalucía. “No, I don’t, actually.”

“So you intend to ignore me forever?” he said drily.

I shrugged, still not looking at him. “Lots of married couples stop talking eventually. We might as well start now.”

We’d been alone in the car together for hours, but it felt like days. Alejandro was driving the expensive sports sedan, with Miguel in the baby seat behind us, cooing and batting at plush dangling toys. Three bodyguards and his usual driver were in the SUV following us. “I want some private time with my new bride,” Alejandro had told them with a wink, and they’d grinned.

But the reason he’d desired privacy wasn’t exactly the usual one for newlyweds. I’d given Alejandro the silent treatment since our ghastly wedding ceremony last night. Seething. It wasn’t natural for me to bite my tongue. I think he was waiting for me to explode.

He’d gotten me home by midnight as promised. The instant we returned to his Madrid penthouse I’d stalked into the bedroom where my baby slept, and though I couldn’t slam the door—too noisy—I’d locked it solidly behind me. Very childish, but I’d been afraid that once Mrs. Gutierrez left, he might demand his rights of the wedding night. Pulling on flannel pajamas, I’d stared at the door, just daring him to try.

But he hadn’t. About three in the morning, feeling foolish, I’d unlocked the door. But he never came, not even to apologize for his brutish behavior. There was no way I would have let him seduce me...but my nose was slightly out of joint that he hadn’t even bothered to try. Our marriage was only a few hours old, and he was already ignoring me?

I didn’t see him until this morning, when he was coming out of the guest bathroom next door, looking well rested and obviously straight out of the shower. His dark hair was wet, a low-slung towel wrapped around his bare hips and another towel hanging over his broad, naked shoulders.

I’d stopped flat in the hallway, unable to look away from the muscular planes of his bare chest, laced with dark hair, or the powerful lines of his body, to the slim hips barely covered by the clinging white terry cloth.

Alejandro had greeted me with a sensual smile. “Good morning, querida,” he’d purred, then lifting a wicked eyebrow as if he already knew the answer, he’d inquired, “I trust you slept well?”

But I was starting to get my revenge. His lips were now set in an annoyed line as he kept his eyes on the road, pressing on the gas of his very expensive, very fast sedan. “We are husband and wife now, Lena. You must accept that.”