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“I’m the first woman he ever brought home?” I said faintly.
She nodded. Her gaze became shadowed as she looked at Alejandro farther down the table. “I was starting to think he’d never let any woman into his heart. That he’d never let anyone know who he truly is.” She gave me a sudden sharp look. “But you know. Don’t you?”
I furrowed my brow. Was she talking about a biblical knowing? Otherwise I didn’t really understand. “Um, yes?”
She stared at me, then releasing my hand, abruptly turned away. “How did you like the rose garden?”
I shivered in spite of myself. “It is...very beautiful,” I managed. “Like paradise. But what were you saying about Alejandro...?”
Maurine’s eyes shadowed. She bit her lip. “I can’t believe you don’t know. But if you don’t, he has to be the one to...”
“Querida,” I heard Alejandro say behind me. “It is time for bed.”
Seriously? He was announcing this in front of his grandmother and the whole table? I turned with a scowl, then saw him holding up our sleepy-eyed son. Oh. He meant Miguel. With dinner served so late in Spain, it was past our baby’s bedtime, and he was yawning in Alejandro’s arms, causing dimples in his fat little cheeks. “Right.” I held out my arms. “I need to give him a bath first....”
But Alejandro shook his head. He wasn’t letting me escape so easily. “I’ll help you. It’s time I learned to do these things as well, don’t you think?”
The gleam in his black eyes told me he knew I was scrambling to think of a way to avoid being alone with him tonight. Wondering if I could find a door with a lock. Surely there had to be one in this castle, with its choice of approximately five million rooms. I shook my head with an awkward laugh. “You don’t want to learn how to give a baby his bath and put him to bed, Your Excellency!”
He snorted at that last bit. “A man needs to know how to take care of his own son.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Such a good father,” Maurine sighed.
I narrowed my eyes, then gave him a smile. “I’ll show you how to change his diaper, too,” I said sweetly.
He gave me a crooked grin. “Excelente.”
A moment later, we were walking down the dark hallways, the noise of the happy dinner party receding behind us, beneath the thick inner walls of the castle.
“This way,” he said, placing his fingertips innocently on the base of my spine to guide me. I trembled.
Tonight, you will be in my bed.
Tonight, you will be my wife.
“Our bedroom is in the new wing....”
“New wing?”
“This castle might have been home to this family for four hundred years, but antiques are—how shall I say this?—not my style.”
Going up another flight of stairs, still holding our baby protectively with his muscled arm, he pushed open the door at the end of that hall. I followed him inside, and saw an enormous, high-ceilinged room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a balcony. Modern, masculine, stark. With only one real piece of furniture.
An enormous bed.
I stopped. “But where’s the crib?”
“I’ve had the room next door turned into a nursery.” To my relief, Alejandro didn’t even glance at the big bed, but just kept walking straight into the connecting door that led to the nursery, and its en-suite bathroom.
The bathroom connected to the nursery was as severe and cold as the master bedroom had been, all white marble and gleaming chrome. But it did have an amazing view. Wide windows overlooked the dark vistas of his estate, lit only by moonlight and distant twinkling lights on the horizon.
He stopped, frowning at the marble bathtub. “On second thought, I don’t think this is going to work,” he said tersely, looking from the enormous tub to the baby in his arms. “He’s too small. We need to get a special baby-size tub....”
It was endearing, really, to see how worried he was. “Tomorrow, if you like, we can go get one. For today, it’s no problem.” Smiling, I took Miguel in my arms. “Since he can’t sit up on his own yet, we’ll just hold him up. And be careful.” Leaning over, I turned on the water. “Having an extra pair of hands will help.”
