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CHAPTER FIVE
‘SORRYTOINTERRUPT, ALEJANDRO.’
His assistant Maria’s voice was clipped and efficient as always. He paused, midway through changing out of his suit and into running gear, clicking the desk phone into speaker mode.
‘Sí?’
He unbuttoned his shirt and discarded it over the back of his chair.
‘There’s a woman here to see you.’
Bored impatience settled in his gut. ‘I’m heading out.’
‘I’m aware of the time.’ Maria’s response brought a tight smile to his lips. They’d worked together six years—other than Luca, she was the person who knew him best in the world.
‘I don’t take unsolicited appointments.’
‘Again, I am aware of how you operate.’
‘Then why are you putting through this call?’
He heard Maria sigh and let out a silent laugh. They badgered one another like this for sport.
He stepped out of his trousers, casting them over the back of the seat before reaching for his shorts.
‘She says it’s important.’
He arched a brow. ‘Who, exactly?’
‘Sienna Thor—’
He reached for the phone, snapping it out of the cradle before his assistant had finished speaking Sienna’s full name.
‘She’s here?’
His gut twisted as his future suddenly changed shape, and he imagined the sole reason she could have for showing up in his office like this.
She was pregnant.
‘Shall I ask her to make an appointment?’
Ashen, he stared at the wall. Alejandro had known two things about himself for as long as he could remember. He would never be a man who lied to women, who promised them more than he wanted to give. And he would never be a man who turned his back on responsibilities. Not as his own father had. If Sienna had conceived as a result of their one time together, then there was nothing for it. They would marry. And Luca would never speak to him again. That would be a grave price in his life, but one he would pay in a heartbeat if the alternative was shirking his paternal duty.
‘No. Send her in. Immediatament.’
He clicked the phone back into place, not taking his eyes off the wall opposite. His office, a space that was familiar to him by virtue of the fact he spent long, long hours here each day, and had done for years, changed into a different and unfamiliar shape. The whole world looked different. Everything seemed to grind to a halt. He turned to face the door, a ringing in his ears, as he prepared for all the ways in which his life was about to change.
Which meant he spent precisely zero time preparing for the fact Sienna—the object of some seriously dirty dreams of Alejandro’s—was about to walk into his office.
But when she did, it was like being shocked with high-voltage electricity.
The colours that had seeped away from his walls were suddenly back, brighter almost than he could bear. As she walked, everything seemed to shimmer. What was it about her that radiated warmth? She was her own source of energy. Her red hair had been swept up into a loose, chaotic bun, and despite the untidiness all he really noticed was the way it drew attention to her cheekbones, her freckles, and those enormous green eyes, her pouting lips begging...
But, no.
That wasn’t why she was here, and it sure as hell wasn’t a thought process he could engage in, for a thousand reasons.
‘Sienna.’ He tried to keep his voice businesslike, and he maintained distance between them, because he needed that.
