Page 7 of Her Spanish Scandal

“Do you like the water, querida?”

He was calling her darling again. She told herself it was probably an affectation, something he did with every woman, but it didn’t stop the little thrill from going through her each time he said it.

“I love it,” she said. In the water it didn’t matter that she was taller and bigger than everyone else. She felt svelte and slim.

“Do you sail?” he asked.

“Yes. I just ordered a new yacht,” she said. “I’m picking it up in Monte Negro soon.”

“I love Monte Negro,” Gui said, stroking one finger down the side of her face. “Why there?”

“One of my cousins took a job there. I am going to Italy in a few weeks with a group of inner-city teenagers who are interested in fashion design.”

“Fashion?”

She pulled away. “I know I might not seem like the right woman to guide them⁠—”

“I wasn’t questioning your fashion sense. You’re incredibly beautiful in this dress. It’s just not often that I hear about fashion design programs for the underprivileged.”

“That’s precisely why I did it. I have a program for plus-sized girls, too. I hate the way that fashion magazines and the fashion industry just focus on skinny women.”

She put her hand over her mouth. That comment was way too revealing. Why were they talking about her? She should be demanding to know why he’d said she was his fiancée.

“We need to talk, Gui.”

“I know, querida.”

“Please call me Kara. I don’t like being called by a generic endearment.”

“Querida isn’t generic when it’s applied to you,” he said.

But he must use it for Elvira. Because she’d called him querido, which was the masculine version of that endearment. “All the same.”

“You aren’t what I expected.”

“Why would I be?” she asked. “You don’t know me at all.”

“Well, mi dulce, I think that’s going to change rather quickly.”

“Why do you think that? Because we’re ‘engaged’?” she asked.

She heard a gasp and turned around to look down into the face of her sister, Rina.

“You’re engaged to Count Guillermo?”

Gui hadn’t thought through his rash words to Elvira. His only thought had been to change the dynamic that had existed between the two of them for more than a decade. She’d had all the power. He was insanely jealous and, because of his own views on infidelity, powerless to change anything.

But saying that Kara was his fiancée had given him a glimpse of change. Elvira’s eyes had narrowed and he knew that he’d finally jarred her from that safe position she’d held over him for years.

Of course, he didn’t intend to marry a woman he hardly knew. But seeing the blood drain from Kara’s face as her sister asked if they were engaged…well, he couldn’t just walk away from her. His father was big on personal responsibility, and walking away from a woman in a situation like this wasn’t something he could do.

He wrapped his arm around Kara and drew her more fully against the side of his body. Rina was a beautiful woman and, seeing the way she regarded him now, he realized Christos had been right when he’d said that she was very protective of her little sister.

“Well, it’s been a secret until now, Rina. We didn’t want to steal any of Sheri and Tristan’s day,” Gui said.

Kara looked up at him and he could see the panic rising in her. He was used to managing people and taking control of situations and he did exactly that now. “Right, Kara?”

She nodded and tried to smile but failed miserably.