AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After the ceremony, they were whisked into the waiting limousine, which had been altered for his father’s wheelchair. They were to be taken to the funeral reception at the Zoya palacio, a mile away from the cathedral. But as he was led to the limousine behind his father and Nadia, Santiago paused, looking around with a frown.
“Where is Belle?”
“Family only,” Nadia told him firmly. He ignored her.
Striding back into the cathedral, he found Belle. “Come with me.”
“Where?” She looked uncertain, ill at ease.
“The palace.” This time, he wasn’t going to let her slip away. Holding her hand tightly, he pulled her into the back of the stretch limousine, where Nadia and his father were already seated.
Belle sat beside him in silence, looking awkward and uncomfortable and very pregnant, as they faced Nadia and his father, seated opposite. He saw Nadia and the duke both look at the swell of Belle’s pregnancy, then look away, as if her condition were a personal affront.
Deafening silence filled the limousine as the driver took them from the cathedral to the Calle de la Princesa. In the middle of Madrid, surrounded by high-rise buildings, was the duke’s city residence, the Palacio de las Palmas, with acres of lush greenery behind tall wrought-iron walls and a guarded gate. The same gate from which Santiago had been bloodily barred as an orphaned fourteen-year-old.
They drove past the wide open gate and past the luxurious gardens with the exotic palms for which the neoclassical palace was named. The limo stopped. Santiago’s eyes were wide as he saw the nineteenth-century palace for the first time.
But as Santiago started to get out, the duke reached out a shaking claw to his shoulder.
“I thank God you’ve come to me, boy,” he rasped in Spanish. “You are all I have left.” He looked at him intently with his hooded gaze. “Truth be told, mi hijo, you are the only one who can save this family now.”
* * *
It had been a very long day, Belle thought wearily. One thing after another. Her interrupted wedding. A private flight across the Atlantic. An elaborate funeral. A palace in Madrid. And oh, yeah, discovering that Santiago’s ex was Nadia Cruz.
Now this.
Belle felt exhausted and overwhelmed as she looked up at the five-hundred-year-old castle. After the funeral reception had ended in Madrid, they’d traveled ninety minutes to the village of Sangovia
, nestled in a valley beneath the castle on the crag, heart of Zoya history and power.
She nearly stumbled over the cobblestones, still slippery with rain in the darkness. Santiago grabbed her arm, steadying her.
He frowned, looking at her. “Are you all right?”
Belle tried to smile encouragingly. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. Not at all. She hadn’t been fine since Santiago had canceled their wedding yesterday.
She’d slept fitfully on the private jet over the Atlantic, tossing and turning. Then at the funeral she’d discovered it was even worse than she’d feared.
Santiago’s ex, the widowed marquesa, was a famous movie star—famous, beautiful, powerful...everything that she, Belle, was not. And his father, the elderly Duque de Sangovia, had yet to acknowledge Belle’s existence, even when he’d been sitting inches away, facing her in the limousine.
After the funeral, at the reception in the Palacio de las Palmas in the center of Madrid, she’d watched as Santiago stood beside his father and Nadia to gravely thank each of the illustrious, powerful guests—prime ministers, presidents, royalty—for coming to honor the late marqués.
Belle stood back, near the tables of food, feeling awkward and alone. The reception lasted for hours, until her belly felt heavy and tight and her feet throbbed with pain. She did not belong here, surrounded by all these wealthy, powerful people, in the gilded palace.
How could she compete with this—any of it?
She’d been intimidated by Santiago’s mansion in Manhattan, but the Palacio de las Palmas, with its classical architecture and Greek columns, was an actual palace. There were layers of wealth on every wall, paintings and frescoes on the ceiling and sweeping staircases that led to more gilded rooms with yet more paintings of more illustrious Zoya ancestors.
When the reception finally ended, Belle had breathed a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that Santiago would shake hands with his father and Nadia—or better yet, just wave to the woman from a distance—and he and Belle could get back on a plane for New York.
Instead, Santiago had informed her that he would be remaining in Spain, staying at the castle of Sangovia with his father and Nadia.
“Just until Otilio’s will is dealt with.”
“Do we have to?”
