One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West

regret it.”

      Claudie looked bewildered. To be fair, she’d insulted me for so long she’d probably forgotten it wasn’t nice.

      “But Alejandro...” Her voice had a strange begging sound I’d never heard from her. “You’ll never find someone with my breeding, my beauty, my billions. I love you....”

      “You love my title.”

      Her cheeks flushed red. “All right. But you can’t choose her over me. She’s...nothing. No one.”

      I swallowed, blinking fast.

      “Blood always tells,” she said. “She’s not good enough for you.”

      Alejandro looked quickly at my miserable face. Then he turned back to Claudie with a deliberate smile.

      “Thank you for your fascinating opinion. Now move, won’t you? I need to take Lena shopping for an engagement ring.”

      “You’re—what?” Claudie staggered back. I gasped. Miguel was crying.

      The only one who looked absolutely calm was Alejandro. Turning away from her, he sat back in the plush leather seat, and said to Dowell, “Drive on.”

      Claudie stared after us, looking stupefied on the sidewalk, and almost forlorn in her tight club dress and bedraggled mascara. Looking back at her through the car window, I felt a strange wave of sympathy.

      Because I, too, knew what it felt like to be left by Alejandro Navaro y Albra.

      “You didn’t have to be so cruel,” I whispered.

      “Cruel?” he said incredulously. “You defend her, after the way she treated you?”

      “She’s still my cousin. I feel sorry for her....”

      “Then you’re a fool,” he said harshly.

      I stroked my crying baby’s cheek. My lips creased sadly. “Love makes us all fools.”

      “She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t even know me.”

      “That’s what you said to me, too,” I said softly. I met his gaze. “I wonder if any woman will ever truly know you.”

      For an instant, I thought I saw hunger, even yearning in his dark eyes as he stared down at me. Then the expression shuttered, leaving me to decide I’d imagined it. But even then, he continued to look at me, as if he couldn’t look away.

      “What are you staring at?” I put my hand to my messy ponytail, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I must look a mess.”

      “You look...” His eyes slowly traced over my hand, up my arm, to my neck, to my lips. “You look like a woman who cares more about her baby than a fortune. Like a woman who works so hard and so well—for free—that she’s beloved by the entire household staff. You look,” he said softly, “like a woman who feels sympathy, even for the coldhearted creature who tried to destroy her.”

      “Are you—complimenting me?”

      He gave a low laugh. “If you’re not sure, I must be losing my touch.”

      I flushed. Turning away, I took a deep breath. And changed the subject. “Thank you for bringing me back to London. For these.” I motioned toward the photo albums. “And for giving me the chance to finally ask Claudie something I’ve wanted to know all my life. I always wondered why nothing I did was good enough to make her love me.” I looked out the window at the passing shops of Kensington High Street. “Now I know.”

      Silence fell.

      “Are you all right?” he asked.

      I nodded over the lump in my throat.

      “I know how it feels,” he said in a low voice, “to be alone.”

      “You?” I looked at him sharply, then gave a disbelieving snort. “No, you don’t.”

      His dark eyes were veiled. “When I was young, I was good friends with...our housekeeper’s son. We were only six months apart in age, and we studied under the same governess. Friend? He was more like a brother to me,” he said softly. “People said we looked so much alike, acted so much alike, we could have been twins.”

      “Are you still friends?”

      He blinked, focusing on me, and his jaw tightened. “He died in the same crash that took the duke, the duchess. The housekeeper. Twenty-three years ago.”

      “They all died in the same crash?” I said, horrified.

      He looked down. “I was the only one to survive.”

      I thought of a young boy being the only survivor of a car accident that took his parents, his best friend. That made him a duke at the tender age of twelve. I couldn’t even imagine the loneliness. The pain. Reaching out, I took his hand and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

      Alejandro drew away. “It was a long time ago.” I saw tension in his jaw, heard it in his voice. “But I do know how it feels.”

      I swallowed, feeling guilty, and embarrassed, too, for all my complaining when he’d suffered worse, and in silence. “What was his name? Your friend?”

      He stared at me, then his lips lifted slightly. “Miguel.”

      “Oh.” I gave a shy smile. “So that’s why you don’t mind that I named our baby Miguel—”

      “No.” He seemed to hide his own private smile. “I don’t mind at all.”

      I frowned, looking at him more closely.

      His expression shuttered, and his dark eyebrows came down into a scowl. “His surname, however...”

      I sighed. “I thought you might want to change that. But don’t worry.” I gave an awkward smile. “I won’t hold you to your marriage proposal.”

      His eyes were dark and intense. “What if I want you to hold me to it?”

      My lips parted in shock.

      “What?” I said faintly.

      His dark eyes challenged mine. “What if I want you to marry me?”

      “You don’t want to get married. You went on and on about all the women who tried to drag you to the altar. I’m not one of them!”

      “I know that now.” Leaning his arm across the baby seat, he cupped my cheek. “But for our son’s sake, I’m starting to think you and I should be...together.”

      “Why?”

      “Why not?” He gave a sensual smile. “As you said, I already broke one rule. Why not break the other?”

      “But what has changed?”

      “I’m starting to think...perhaps I can trust you.” His eyes met mine. “And I can’t forget how it felt to have you in my bed.”

      Something changed in the air between us. Something primal, dangerous. I felt the warmth of his palm against my skin and held my breath. As the limo drove through the streets of London, memories crackled through me like fire.

      I remembered the night we’d conceived Miguel, and all the other hot days of summer, when I’d surrendered to him, body and soul. I trembled, feeling him so close in the backseat of the limo, on the other side of our baby. Every inch of my skin suddenly remembered the hot stroke of Alejandro’s fingertips. My mouth was tingling, aching....

      “That’s not a good reason to marry someone. Especially for you. If I said yes, you’d regret it. You’d blame me. Claim that I’d only done it to be a rich duchess.”

      He slowly shook his head. “I think,” he said quietly, “you might be the one woman who truly doesn’t care about that. And it would be best for our son. So what is your answer?”

      My answer?

      I