A Scandalous Midnight In Madrid. Susan Stephens

Annalisa so happy only hours before, and Alejandro so vital and strong, she hardly dared to ask the question. ‘Are they badly hurt?’

      One of her fellow chefs was quick to reassure her. ‘They were relatively unscathed, it says in a later bulletin,’ he explained, showing her the screen on his phone. ‘It’s a miracle, some are saying, especially as Don Alegon risked his life, saving his sister from the smoke-filled car. They’re keeping them in hospital as a precautionary measure only, it says here.’

      ‘His sister would be dead if the Duke hadn’t been such a hero,’ a waiter added. ‘Apparently, he barely had time to free her before the car exploded.’

      ‘Sadie, are you okay?’ a colleague asked with concern. ‘Shall I get you a drink of water?’

      ‘It’s fortunate the Duke drank water last night, unlike the Prince and his friends,’ one of the waitresses chipped in. ‘Don Alegon drank one beer, and then he was on water for the rest of the night.’

      ‘It says so here in the report,’ Sadie confirmed as she read the screen over her fellow chef’s shoulder. ‘The police have confirmed that Don Alegon had not been drinking to excess and was in no way responsible for the crash.’

      ‘Look, here’s a picture of the party,’ one of Sadie’s colleagues exclaimed excitedly, holding up her phone. ‘There’s a picture of you, Sadie, when you came out of the kitchen and everyone applauded. What great publicity for the restaurant. Chef Sorollo will be thrilled.’

      ‘Yes,’ Sadie murmured as the phone was pushed under her nose. She blushed to see Alejandro’s black gaze fixed on her face. ‘Maybe we could send him some food from the kitchen,’ she murmured distractedly, hoping no one else had noticed Don Alegon devouring her with his eyes.

      When her colleagues chorused, ‘What a good idea,’ she progressed the thought. ‘Some delicacies,’ Sadie mused out loud, already working out a menu in her head. ‘Something to tempt the invalid.’ A voice in her head suggested Don Alegon would not be a typical invalid but would rail against his enforced confinement.

      However bad a mood he was in, he’d saved his sister, and that was good enough for Sadie. She would prepare a feast that even Alejandro at his angriest would find impossible to resist.

      * * *

      ‘What the hell is this?’ Lifting the red-and-white gingham cloth that had been so carefully arranged over the wicker basket, Alejandro lost no time in firing the contents into the bin.

      ‘You ungrateful brute!’ his sister railed at him, eyes blazing with fury. ‘How could you?’

      ‘Whoever sent this must think I’m not capable of ordering in!’

      ‘Chef Sadie sent it,’ Annalisa fired back. ‘It was a very kind thought. You should be ashamed of yourself,’ his sister finished with an angry gesture worthy of any great actress.

      Sadie had sent this? He scanned the delicacies in the bin, regretting now that he’d been so hasty. His customary good manners had utterly deserted him, thanks to this enforced stay in hospital. It didn’t help his temper one bit—having imagined himself invincible—that Annalisa had been discharged from hospital before him.

      ‘If you weren’t my brother and you hadn’t saved my life, I’d be ashamed of you,’ Annalisa now assured him. ‘I am ashamed of you. How dare you throw this kindness back in Sadie’s face? Who else would send you food?’ Shoving a stiff white card under his nose, she commanded, ‘Read this. She’s signed it and so has every member of staff at El Gato Feroz. I hope it makes you feel as bad as you should, you monster.’

      ‘Back in bed!’ The sharp voice from the doorway startled them both. It was the ward sister making her rounds. ‘You breathed in a lot of smoke, Don Alegon,’ she told him, ‘and what you need now is rest.’

      ‘What I need now is to get out of here,’ he argued tensely. ‘And what about my sister? She was in the accident too. Shouldn’t she be resting?’

      ‘I managed to keep my head out of the window,’ Annalisa piped up, ‘so I was breathing fresh air. Braving the smoke to save me forced you to breathe in a lot of smoke, so do as the ward sister says and get back into bed.’

      ‘Am I a caged beast now?’ he grumbled, only to be greeted by peals of laughter from both women.

      ‘You’re an ungrateful beast,’ Annalisa confirmed, and as the ward sister left them to continue her rounds she began to forage in the bin. ‘What if I had wanted to eat some of this?’

      Fortunately most of it was boxed and, having salvaged a container of freshly baked macarrones, Annalisa was cramming her favourites into her mouth before offering the rest to him. He refused, of course.

      ‘You don’t deserve anyone to be kind to you,’ she flashed. ‘The least you can do is write a thank-you note to Sadie for preparing all this lovely food.’

      He growled but found he couldn’t summon up any anger. Quite a different emotion was plaguing him at the thought of Sadie going to all this trouble, and it was one that ensured that as soon as he was discharged, he would thank Sadie in person.

      ‘You’re still my responsibility,’ he informed Annalisa, ‘and you’ll do as I say.’

      ‘Oh?’ she queried. ‘Am I not in the charge of my soon-to-be husband?’

      ‘That puny excuse for a man,’ he bit out, no longer able to hide his true feelings for his sister’s fiancé in his present state of mind. Annalisa wouldn’t even have been in the car accident if her fiancé had done what he was supposed to have done and taken care of her, escorting her home. ‘Tell me you sent him packing?’ Hope rose inside him when his sister hesitated before answering.

      ‘Take a note, Don Alejandro,’ Annalisa retorted, smashing his hopes into the ground. ‘I’m all grown up, and I’ll make my own decisions without consulting you first.’

      ‘Is it over?’ he pressed.

      ‘None of your business. And you can stay in bed,’ she added sharply. ‘I won’t have you towering over me and attempting to bend me to your will.’

      As if, he thought, trying not to smile. ‘Where are you going now?’ he demanded as Annalisa made for the door.

      ‘To El Gato Feroz,’ she fired back. ‘One of us has to thank Chef Sadie, if only to prove that not all the Alegons are arrogant, ungrateful brutes.’

      ‘Come back here!’

      ‘No,’ she flashed. ‘If you can’t do anything to help yourself, then it’s up to me to do something to help you.’ Leaving him with that disturbing thought, his sister stormed out.

      The spartan hospital room was unbearably quiet when Annalisa left. Was she right? Was Annalisa ready to take charge of her life, and was he guilty of interfering? Caring for his sister had been such an overwhelming force inside him for so long, he didn’t know how to let it go. The thought that Annalisa might need space from him had never occurred to him before, and would take some getting used to.

      Where better to do that than in the mountains he loved, where his lungs would soon heal? He would discharge himself. The accident had put life in perspective, proving how fragile it was, and allowing him to see that he had never examined his grief of losing his parents. There hadn’t been chance with the weight of responsibility eating up every minute of every day. Annalisa and the business had always taken priority over personal concerns, but he couldn’t carry out his duties effectively with such an unreasonably short fuse. The time had come to heal his soul as well as his body.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SADIE EXCLAIMED WITH happy surprise when Annalisa Alegon turned up at the restaurant. ‘Señorita de Alegon! How lovely to see you again, and what