A Price Worth Paying(55)

It was done.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN



SHE WAS PREGNANT.

Alesander reeled from the room, needing air, blindsided by Simone’s confession to a dying man. She was pregnant and she hadn’t even bothered to tell him—the child’s father—first.

He should be angry.

How long had she known? A few days? A week?

No, not just angry. He should be furious.

This was exactly what he had feared all along, and it was really happening. Their temporary arrangement had suddenly got a whole lot more complicated.

And she hadn’t even bothered to tell him.

He turned his face to the sky, into air now as crisp and cool as the Txakolina wine produced from the grapes in these vineyards, searching for answers.

So why wasn’t he furious?

Instead he felt almost … relieved.

He breathed out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

Because she couldn’t go home now.

Strange how that idea suddenly seemed so right. He would not let her go. She was bearing their child.

She would have to stay now.

Felipe was dead.

Strange, how it still took so long to sink in, even when you knew it was true.

Desolate, exhausted, she gently placed her grandfather’s hand over his chest and rose from her chair, kissing his snowy whiskered cheeks one final time. ‘Goodbye, Abuelo,’ she said. ‘Sleep tight.’

Numb and bone-weary, she left the bedside chair that had been her home for the last three days. Her back ached, her head hurt and there was a hole where her heart had once been.

Abuelo was dead.

There was nothing for her here now.

Soon she would pack her things and return home. But not even that thought brought her comfort.

‘Simone?’

She looked up to see Alesander standing in the doorway and he looked so familiar and strong that for a moment her heart kicked over, as if there was life left in it after all. And then she remembered that he was supposed to mean nothing to her and it died again.

‘He’s gone,’ she said, finally accepting it, and with acceptance came a torrent of tears.

She would have fallen if he hadn’t been there to catch her. ‘I know,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest and he felt both a friend and a stranger. How long since he had held her in his arms like this?

And he felt so good, so solid and warm. He smelled so good. She drank in his scent in greedy heaving gasps, relishing the masculine scent of him while she could, knowing she would miss it when she was gone. He stroked her back until the crying jag finished. ‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’

Home.

Where was that?

Once upon a time she had been desperate to leave Spain and get back to Melbourne.

But now?

Now she’d fallen in love with a craggy coastline and cerulean sea and with vines that tangled above her head and gave the grapes a view of the sea.

Now she’d fallen in love with a man she had to say goodbye to.

Now she wasn’t sure where home really was.

He led her to the car, drove her back to the apartment as day turned to night. He didn’t talk while the lift carried them upstairs, he just stood with his arm around her shoulders and never before had she appreciated anyone’s silence or support more.

She let him lead her through the darkened apartment to the bedroom with its big wide bed and strip her down to her underwear. There was nothing sexual about the way he touched her. It was like a parent undressing a child before putting them to bed. Gentle. Caring. But with purpose.

She clambered in, almost crying out in pleasure at the bed’s welcoming embrace. She’d imagined he’d leave her then to sleep, but a moment later he surprised her by joining her, pulling her into his arms and just holding her close to him. She wasn’t worried, he hadn’t touched her for the best part of a month.

She felt him press his lips to her head.

She felt … safe.

Empty and numb, but safe in this man’s embrace. And right now, that meant more than anything.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered against his chest, the wiry hairs of his chest tickling her lips.

‘What for?’ he said, his mouth in her hair.

‘For just being here.’

He lifted her chin with one hand. In the darkened room she sensed rather than saw his eyes on her, she felt the fan of his breath on her cheek, before he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.