Page 50 of Her Spanish Scandal

Tristan spit his coffee out and started laughing. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is, because I have no idea what to do. How to get her back. And I’ve just realized that I don’t think I can live without her.”

“That’s love. You know, the bigger you screwed up the bigger the gesture has to be.”

“I told her I didn’t believe in romantic love.”

“You’re screwed. She’s not going to believe you’ve changed your mind.”

“Unless I do something that proves it beyond a doubt to her.”

“Unless you do that,” Christos said. “So what do you have in mind?”

He had no idea. Kara was a generous person and she gave so much of herself to everyone around her. He needed to give something to her. Something that she’d never ask for or expect. He needed to prove to her—and to himself—that she was the woman he loved. The woman he wanted to be the center of his world.

And there was only one way to do it, he thought. Only one way to make her believe it. He was going to have to make a big public gesture. And it couldn’t just be a gesture, because Kara would sense that and reject him.

He had to really believe in what he did. He had to act from the heart and convince her that she was the woman he loved. The woman he needed in his life. Not just for now, because it was convenient for them to marry, but because she was the only woman he could picture his future with.

How was he going to do that? he wondered.

Kara should have been relaxed after a few days vacationing in Monte Negro, but the island beauty was lost on her. She saw couples honeymooning and lovers everywhere, and it just underscored to her the loss she felt at not having Gui by her side.

One thing she had noticed while she’d been in the seaside town—men were paying attention to her. When she left Gui, she’d taken with her a new confidence in herself. By not staying with a man who didn’t love her, she’d realized that she had her own power and her own beauty.

Of course, that realization had taken a few days, but it hadn’t been hard to work out. She didn’t have to take whatever scraps Gui handed her. She deserved real love. She wasn’t the fat sister anymore. She was a beautiful woman who deserved Gui’s love.

She wondered if she’d been too hasty in leaving. So what if he’d said he didn’t need her? He’d sort of reached out to her again that night. Leaving was a cowardly thing to do. But staying while Gui comforted Elvira wasn’t something that she would have been able to live with. Not when he wasn’t committed to her completely.

She shook her head. Asking her to marry him wasn’t enough. Gui had to love her, too. They could have a once-in-a-lifetime love. At least, as far as she was concerned. So letting him go was the stupidest thing she’d ever done.

But going back…She had no idea how she could go back to the way things were. It would give him license to treat her poorly for the rest of their lives together. It would be like saying to him, I love you, so you can walk all over me.

And there was no way she could live with herself if she did that. So here she was, spending her days in a luxury hotel, sunbathing, eating gourmet meals and pretending she was okay when in reality she wasn’t.

In reality, she was heartbroken. Wounded from loving the wrong man. And she couldn’t even comfort herself by pretending she no longer loved him. She did.

And maybe he wasn’t the wrong man, she thought.

Every day, she woke up and hoped that he’d come for her. Which was stupid, because he wasn’t going to make that kind of gesture. She wasn’t the kind of girl men like Gui chased after. He’d expect her to come back to him. Especially after the way he’d come back for Elvira and she’d moved on. She knew she was waiting for nothing.

She was giving herself time to recover from loving him so much. How did that happen? How had she let herself fall for him when she’d decided to be smart?

She still hadn’t found the answers she’d been seeking when she left Madrid. She’d run away, and that was the plain truth of the matter. For the first time in her life, she’d done something irresponsible, and she was struggling with it. She was needed back at her job, and she knew she owed Gui an explanation, but the truth of the matter was she just couldn’t face anyone right now.

She had to figure out for herself where her life was heading and why she had fallen in love with a man who couldn’t—or rather, wouldn’t—love her. It was hard to take. Hard to believe that, for a smart woman, she’d made such a stupid mistake.

Leaving had been stupid. Rina had been right. If she wanted Gui, she should be willing to fight for him. She needed to get herself back to Madrid and let him know what was acceptable and what wasn’t. She needed him to be her man. And he’d asked—no, he’d told—her to marry him, so he needed to step up and love her as well.

“Ms. deMontaine?”

She glanced at the short man standing next to her table. She’d stopped for lunch at one of the seaside cafés. It was a nice spring day in a paradise, she thought, in this A-grade resort town for the rich and famous. And forlorn.

“Yes, I’m Kara deMontaine.”

“I was asked to give you this.”

He handed her a large padded mailing envelope. She reached for her handbag to tip him, but he shook his head. “I’ll be over there, waiting for your response.”