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‘He never spoke to me again.’
‘Oh, Alejandro, that’s awful.’
Alejandro shrugged, but the empathy in Lulu’s brown eyes warmed something that had been cold inside him for a long time.
‘I took control of this place at twenty, and almost lost it. My father’s gambling debts had to be paid off. The girls were still at school and there were fees.’
‘Your mother couldn’t help?’
‘She told me she’d put up with the old man for almost two decades and she wanted her share. It wasn’t as if she could go out and resurrect her modelling career.’
‘But couldn’t she have retrained and done something else?’
Alejandro gave her an arrested look. ‘She’s nothing like you, Lulu. It would never have occurred to my mother to help herself—or anyone else.’
‘I’m so sorry that happened to you.’ Lulu was aware he’d just paid her the most enormous compliment.
She desperately wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she also didn’t want to impose when he was standing there so obviously man as an island. Men did that. She’d noticed it with her brothers when they were hurting. She would wait to have her cuddle.
‘It’s obvious you had a lot of responsibility on your shoulders from a young age.’
He lifted those thick lashes guarding his amazing amber-brown eyes. ‘From what you’ve said, Lulu, so did you.’
‘But my mother was always there to help me.’
Alejandro acknowledged this with a slight grunt.
‘My mother didn’t give a damn about her kids,’ he said in a low voice, chewing out the words, ‘and she sure as hell didn’t lift a finger to help anyone—including herself. She took her frustrations out on us. All I remember from my childhood are her threats. She’d say she wanted to leave my father—he wouldn’t let her go. She’d tell me she was going to kill herself—’ He ground to a halt, rolled his shoulders as if shaking it off. ‘She was a nightmare,’ he muttered.
‘She threatened to kill herself?’ Lulu tried to keep her voice even and not make a drama of this. ‘Did you believe her?’
‘I was a kid,’ he said without inflection. ‘Of course I believed her.’
‘She shouldn’t have put that on you. How could she do that to you and your sisters?’
‘Not the girls.’ His tone was flat. ‘Just me.’ Alejandro’s hand tightened around the beer bottle and his knuckles showed white. ‘I felt responsible for her, I guess. I was the one she turned to…confided in.’
‘But you were a child—she should have been protecting you from all that.’
Lulu stopped, her own chest filling with cold as her own sweet, frustrating mother flared into her mind. But her mother had done the best she could with what she’d had. It sounded as if Alejandro’s mother hadn’t cared at all.
‘That’s right,’ he said, meeting her eyes, ‘and that’s why I want any child of mine under my protection.’
‘From me?’ Lulu framed the words in a voice that suddenly sounded very far away.
He frowned and put down the bottle, his arms falling loose to his sides. ‘No, Lulu, that’s not what I mean.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said faintly, backing up. ‘It’s not as if I haven’t thought about it. How does a woman like me take care of a helpless baby?’
‘The same way you’ve been taking care of yourself,’ he said, his tone firm. ‘Look at you—you’re riding a horse, you’ve been in crowds, you’re here with me now.’
Lulu tried to focus on that, but all she was seeing was herself with a tiny baby, so vulnerable and needy, and being unable to care for it.
Alejandro put his hands on her shoulders and she felt his warmth and his strength.
‘You’re not alone, Lulu.’
She nodded, because she knew that was what he wanted from her, but the panic she was so familiar with was stirring like a snake in the grass and she could feel herself preparing for the worst.
