Page 8 of Her Spanish Scandal

“You okay?” Rina asked Kara.

“I’m fine. Really. I just didn’t expect anyone to hear about this…”

“Does Dad know?”

Their father was on the West Coast, closing a business deal, and hadn’t been able to make the wedding.

“No.”

Rina nodded. “Let’s go someplace quiet so we can talk.”

“I’m sorry, Rina, but we’re already committed to joining Christos and Ava after this dance. I’m making the wedding toast. We’ll see you later.”

“We’re available for breakfast, Rina,” Kara said.

Gui squeezed her arm in warning. He didn’t want to dine with her sister and field questions to which he had no answers.

Kara tipped her head to the side and gave him a level stare. “Querido, you said that you’d always have time for my family.”

“Of course, I did.”

He needed to get Kara alone to talk to her. Seriously. Until he laid some ground rules, she was going to run amok saying whatever she wanted to. And he was going to have to agree.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Nine?” Rina asked.

“Sounds good,” Kara said.

Gui cupped her elbow and led her off the dance floor and out of the reception ballroom. The hotel lobby was filled with gawkers who weren’t invited to the reception and who were hanging out, hoping for a glimpse of the glamorous wedding guests.

He was always relatively incognito in the States because he was a lesser royal from Spain. In Europe he would have been mobbed, but here he wasn’t.

“Where are we going?” Kara asked. She tried to slow their pace, but Gui kept his arm around her waist and forced her to keep moving forward.

“Somewhere where we can be alone, mi dulce.”

“Gui,” she said, flat-out stopping.

“Si?”

“This is getting out of hand.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. In his entire life, there’d been nothing he couldn’t manage and make work to his advantage.

He knew this “engagement” wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever gotten himself into, but he was confident he’d be able to think of something that would get the both of them out of it.

“I think it is. I’ve never been engaged before. I’m almost thirty and chubby and everyone knows that the only reason men are interested in me is the fortune I bring with me.”

Gui shook his head. “Almost thirty isn’t a curse. I’m nearly forty. You’re not chubby, and I don’t want to hear you refer to yourself that way again. You are a goddess among women⁠—”

“Don’t lie to me about my body,” she said, interrupting him. “I’ve been this size for most of my life and know I’m not a goddess.”

Gui nudged her out of the main traffic path and into a nearly deserted hallway. She spun to face him and pressed back against the wall. He put his hands on either side of her head and leaned in close, so close that he felt the exhalation of her breath against his cheek.

Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at him. There were doubts and insecurity in her eyes. He was suddenly angry at all of his sex for allowing any woman to feel unattractive because of something as silly as height and weight.

“Kara, mi dulce, I’m not a man who says things because I think they will win me favor. I do know how to be charming, I’m not going to deny that, but you should know right now that when I say something to you, I’m not lying.”

“All I know is that I’ve always been too big to be really fashionable and⁠—”