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‘I was never allowed to be angry with my mother,’ he told her, his mouth at her ear. ‘That’s why I know how you feel. And because of that I almost lost you. That morning when you told me you didn’t want to see me again I was reacting to old anger, Lulu. And if we hadn’t gone to the castle…if I’d flown off in the other direction…’
‘But you didn’t.’ She framed his face with her hands. ‘You stuck around. You made me face you. You made me faces my fears.’
‘You don’t have to be afraid any more, little Lulu,’ he said, with infinite understanding.
And Lulu let herself unravel some more, and when he put her in a taxi with him and tucked her against him she began to feel maybe she didn’t.
*
He took her back to her flat but they didn’t stay there. He had understood she would want her little dog Coco with her—her toutou—and he was all they collected.
The staff at the Paris Ritz didn’t blink an eye as Lulu, still in her cocktail dress, carried her small bichon in her arms across the lobby like a queen. Because this was Paris, and they understood the importance of companion animals, and Alejandro du Crozier was a rich and famous guest and he could do what he liked.
In his bedroom she turned in his arms and kissed him, stroked him with a fervour she had never shown before, and he wanted her so badly his body felt on fire.
Lying in his arms, Lulu just looked at him, with those big brown eyes full of all the sweetness and stubbornness, hopes and fears her heart harboured. And Alejandro saw himself reflected in them, and he knew then it really had been love at first sight.
He’d walked down that aisle, on that fateful flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh, and all she’d had to do was lift those big eyes.
Sí, definitely hooked.
‘I love you,’ she said simply. ‘You know I do.’
He did. He swallowed hard, because it seemed he’d waited his whole life to hear those words from this woman.
‘I want a ring,’ she said seriously. ‘I’m not just moving in with you.’
‘Naturally.’
And then he gathered her up in his arms and just held her, and a great peace came over him because she loved him.
Neither of them was trapped. It was the lack of love that made you feel trapped.
They loved one another enough to defeat anything that might stand in the way of them being together.
‘And, Alejandro…?’ Lulu said, hugging him back.
‘Yes, my love?’
‘I’m planning on a big fairytale wedding. We might need a castle too…’
*
