Page 51 of Her Spanish Scandal

He stepped a few feet away and Kara opened the envelope. A flat box with a green ribbon tied around it came out. She removed the ribbon and opened the box. There was an embossed card on top of the tissue paper. She lifted it out and saw a note from Gui.

Her heart leapt and started beating so fast she was sure she was going to have a heart attack on the spot.

I was a fool to say I didn’t need you. You mean more to me than I can say. Please join me for dinner tonight at eight.

Yours,

Guillermo

She looked around. Gui was here? But she didn’t see him anywhere.

She turned Gui’s note over and wrote her response across the back accepting his invitation. “Please take this back to the Count.”

“Yes, ma’am. A car will be waiting in front of your hotel at seven-thirty.”

She nodded. She finished her drink and looked back at the box. It wasn’t that large, so she ruled out clothing, and it was too big for jewelry.

She pushed the tissue paper aside and saw that it was a book. She lifted it out of the box and stared down at the cover. It looked like an illuminated manuscript from medieval times. On the cover was a knight in shining armor on a horse. The knight was looking up at a castle, and in the tower was a woman who looked at lot like her. She had long, black curly hair like Kara’s. And her eyes were gray, just like hers.

She lifted the book up, looking more closely at the knight, and noticed this time that he looked like Gui.

She opened the book and saw that it was the story of Gui and Kara. The book was written just like a fairy tale. Starting with Once Upon A Time…

She flipped the pages to see what happened in the story, reading along. The book was exquisitely made and on each page were hand-painted drawings that depicted another scene of the knight and his princess. Gui must have paid a fortune to have it made so quickly.

But the story ended abruptly when the princess disappeared. The knight was looking for her—and then there was nothing but blank pages. She closed the book and put it back in the box. She wasn’t too sure what Gui had in mind for this evening, but it was clear to her that he had come for her.

And that meant the world. She wished she knew where he was, because she didn’t want to waste another second without him by her side.

She paid her tab and left the restaurant, walking up the avenue to her hotel.

Leaving Madrid felt like a hundred years ago. She had no idea what had happened after she left. She felt ashamed that she hadn’t followed Juan’s funeral in the news. But now she had hope bubbling up inside her. That same hope that she’d felt the first moment she’d realized that she loved Gui.

And there was nothing to stop it. She had never believed she was the kind of woman who would have a great love in her life. It just didn’t seem like something that would happen to someone as practical as she was. But Gui had found her, and she had fallen in love with him. And now she was beginning to believe that he loved her, too.

Gui watched Kara from the shadows as she read the book he’d had made. He knew he’d made the right choice when he saw her face light up the second she saw the book and realized that it was their story.

It had taken him three days to get the book made and to get everything in place to come and woo her back into his arms.

He had been a jerk the day of the accident, and a part of him knew that Kara would cut him a certain amount of slack for some of the things he’d said, but when it got down to it, he’d let her go. He’d pushed her away because he’d been afraid of acknowledging that he had deep emotions for her.

Hell, he loved the woman and he was still afraid to say it. Even to himself. Damn, what would he do if he couldn’t convince her to come back into his life and marry him?

He followed her into the lobby of her hotel, making sure she was safely inside and on the elevator up to her room before he went to the house he’d rented. He gave Vincent orders to make sure that everything was perfectly prepared for the evening.

At six o’clock their friends and family started to arrive. Kate, Emily and Courtney were friendly to him, a marked difference from two days ago when they’d barely spoken to him. Rina still wasn’t sure that she believed he could fix the hurt he’d delivered to her sister.

Christos and Tristan gave him a clap on the back and wished him luck, and Ava and Sheri kissed his cheek approvingly.

He went in the car to pick her up, and when he arrived at her hotel and saw her in the lobby, his breath caught in his chest.

“Kara.”

“Gui.”

“You look gorgeous tonight, bebe.”

“Thank you. You look very nice as well.”