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Rafael didn’t reply. Sometimes saying nothing said more than a hot tirade, so he calmly picked rose petals from his suit and arranged them in a pattern beside the bouquet, letting her shout at him until she finally ran out of steam.
Then he lifted his head and met her furious blue gaze. ‘Have you finished?’
‘No!’
He ignored her. ‘Good, now it’s time we had a little talk.’
‘A little talk? A little talk about what?’
‘About your pregnancy,’ he said. ‘About the fact that you’ve been trying to hide it for months. Specifically about the fact that you’ve been trying to hide it fromme.’
‘You?’ she demanded, her chin lifting. ‘And why on earth would I try to hide it specifically from you?’
Rafael stared at her. She was trying to brazen it out, that much was clear.
‘Why?’ he echoed coldly. ‘Because that baby is mine, Lia. Why else?’
CHAPTER TWO
LIASATVERYstill, every part of her trembling inside with rage and fear. Rage that he’d picked her up in the middle of the cathedral in front of Matias, her father, the bishop, the entirety of Santa Castelia’s aristocracy, not to mention the rest of the country viewing the wedding via a live broadcast, and thrown her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. Then had carried her off like a...marauder.
Fear about what he would do now he knew what she’d been hiding from him for three months. What she’d felt she had no choice but to hide from him, because what else was she to do?
She’d made a terrible,terriblemistake and there had been consequences, and all of it was her fault. And even though her instinct was to keep denying it, tell him she had no idea her baby was his, she knew she couldn’t.
He knew the truth about her, he always had.
It took a tremendous amount of effort to shove down both her rage and her fear, but she’d had years of practice at keeping her wilder emotions in check and so she managed. Throwing her bouquet at him had been a stupid loss of control and she couldn’t afford another.
It didn’t help that she could still feel the imprint of his hard, muscular shoulder against her stomach, the heat of his body penetrating every layer of her bridal gown. Making her remember that night three months ago when there had been nothing between them but bare skin and raw, aching passion...
No, she couldn’t think of that. Not now. Now with his icy silver gaze on her, fury burning coldly in the depths.
‘What?’ He went on in that insultingly casual way she so hated. ‘Not going to deny it again? Perhaps you’re going to tell me that you didn’t know it was me in bed with you that night? Perhaps you thought it was a stranger, since that’s clearly preferable to sleeping with me. Come,princesa,tell me. I’m all ears.’
Her voice wouldn’t work. She wanted to wind down the window, get some of the snowy winter air into the car just so she could breathe. Because she felt as though she was choking while he just sat there and stared at her the way he’d always stared at her. As if he could see inside her, right down to her soul.
‘I have a paternity test,’ he continued when she didn’t speak. ‘If you’d like to see it.’
A paternity test. He’d done a paternity test.
‘Why?’ The word was hoarse, part of her irrationally furious at him for needing proof. Even though she hadn’t even told him about the pregnancy. Even though she’d acted as though their night together had never happened. She’d had to. They’d both had to.
He didn’t move, that terrible silver gaze glittering. ‘Because I didn’t know whether I was the only lucky recipient of your midnight visits. I had to be sure the child was mine.’
Lia had been brought up to be poised and graceful in all things. To be serene and ladylike. Well behaved and unfailingly polite. Yet in that instant the control that had been drummed into her every day of her life broke apart and shattered like delicate crystal.
All the fear and distress that had been her constant companion over the last three months, all her agony and rage suddenly rose up in a choking wave. She wanted to cry, but crying would solve nothing. And it wasn’t really him she was angry at, but herself.
She should have told him the instant her pregnancy test had come back positive. She should have found the courage to face him, to take responsibility for the mistake she’d made. And to face the consequences.
Or better yet, she should never have allowed her anger to get the better of her and gone to what she thought was Matias’s room in the first place.
But she hadn’t...
Lia couldn’t sleep. She’d been staring out of the window of her bedroom for hours, her heart nothing but a ball of barbed wire in her chest. It had been a couple of weeks since Rafael had stopped coming to those meetings in her father’s study and she missed him. She missed him as if she was missing part of herself.
He was avoiding her and she didn’t understand why. All she knew was that it hurt.
