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I’ll come with you!
It will be a one-day trip, there and back. Very boring. Stay here with Miguel.
It was the nightmare I’d imagined when I’d refused to marry Alejandro. Except this was a million times worse.
Because I’d let myself love him.
“Lying to your face.” Edward came closer. “He has no shame. He thinks, in his arrogance, that he can have you, as well. He’s out enjoying himself—keeping you prisoner....”
“I’m not a prisoner,” I choked out.
He lifted a condescending eyebrow. “No?” He slowly looked around the rose garden. “I could make him pay,” he whispered. “I could make him regret.”
I gasped—not in fear, but in fury. “If you dare hurt him, I’ll...”
“Hurt him?” His blue eyes suddenly blazed. “He is the one you are worried about? Where was his concern for you when he left your heart in ashes?” He took another step toward me, his expression changing as he reached toward me almost wistfully. “Where is your love for me, for saving you...?”
I turned away, stepping back out of his reach. My voice was very cold. “I appreciated your friendship—until the moment I realized you had no time for my baby.”
“Lena, you can’t...”
“If you touch me, I’ll scream. And Alejandro will come running....”
Edward moved closer.
“He’s not here, though, is he?”
This time, the expression in his face scared me. For a moment, I stared at him, heart pounding. But as I opened my mouth to scream, like a miracle, I heard Alejandro’s voice from the other side of the garden.
“Lena? Are you out here?”
I nearly wept with relief.
“I’m here!” I shouted. “I’m here, Alejandro! In the rose garden!”
Shaking, I turned back to face Edward, but he was already gone, melted back into the forest.
“And don’t ever come back,” I whispered aloud. I prayed I’d never see him again. But I still heard his ugly words.
You know, you must know, about the woman he visits in Granada?
He was lying, I told myself. Alejandro told me he’d be loyal, that he’d been faithful for the past year, wanting only me....
But then, I remembered, he’d also told me he was a liar.
When I saw my husband’s strong, powerful body push through the trees to me, I nearly wept.
“Querida,” Alejandro murmured, kissing my forehead as he pulled me into his arms. “I came back early. I couldn’t bear to be away for...but what’s this?” He drew back, his handsome face the picture of concern. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. My teeth chattered. “M-my easel fell.”
“Ah.” He smiled at me, his dark eyes warm. “Let me take care of that.”
“Don’t look at the painting!” I cried. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. For your birthday.”
Good-naturedly covering his eyes, he handed me the canvas. “I didn’t see a thing.”
I took the painting, slightly smeared from the fall and half-finished, with Maurine and Miguel looking like ghosts. And I wished I’d covered my ears and not heard a thing when Edward had told me about the woman in Granada.
* * *
“It has occurred to me,” Alejandro murmured a week later, leaning over the sofa where I sat feeding Miguel, “that we never had a honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon?” I said, twisting my head to look back at him. I shook my head. “You mean, without Miguel?”
“Don’t worry.” He brushed the back of my neck with his fingertips, making me shiver. “I’m not thinking Tahiti. That will have to wait. But a single night, just a two-hour drive away, surely you could manage that?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know...”
“I promise you’ll enjoy it.” He stroked my hair, then gently kissed the crook of my neck, the edge between my shoulder and my neck. My shiver turned harder. “We will get a nice hotel. Go out for dinner. I’m thinking Granada....”
“Granada?” I stared at him, and the color must have drained from my cheeks, because he frowned.
“I thought you wanted to see the Alhambra.”
