A Price Worth Paying(58)

Oh God. And she had just told him that she loved him. ‘You were there?’

‘Of course I was there. The nurses called me—told me it was close. And I heard you. You told Felipe you were pregnant, that we were having a child. You told him you were going to call it Felipe. I heard you!’

‘Alesander …’ she swallowed ‘… you have to understand—’

He spun out of his chair, strode away across the room, raking the fingers of one hand through his hair, his other on his hip. ‘Damn it, you said it. Why the hell would you do that if it wasn’t true?’

‘Because it’s what Felipe wanted to hear. It’s what he needed to hear!’

‘Felipe could barely hear you let alone understand that!’

‘No, listen to me, that day in the vineyard, the day he fell—he told me that day that it was his greatest wish that there be news of a child before he died. He wanted to know his family would go on after he died.’

‘But that was the day—’

‘I know.’

‘We had unprotected sex that day. And you said nothing since. And when you told Felipe that you were having a baby, I thought … I thought.’

‘I’m sorry. My period came last week. I didn’t tell you. We were barely talking and I didn’t think you cared.’

No baby.

He strode aimlessly to the windows and stared blankly out of them.

She’d got her period.

She wasn’t pregnant.

She’d thought he didn’t care.

Why did he?

He’d tried not to. For the best part of a month he’d pretended he didn’t care, but when he’d heard her tell Felipe that she was pregnant and realised that meant she would have to stay, he’d learned that he did care, more than he’d thought possible.

But no baby.

No child.

No son.

And that last grated more than the rest. He spun around. ‘Do you ever tell the truth?’

‘Alesander,’ she appealed, ‘please—’

‘You’ve been spinning lies from the moment you arrived.’

‘Yes, I’ve lied! All the time I’ve been here, I’ve been lying to Felipe and I hated myself for it, but there was a reason why I lied—good reason. Felipe was able to die happy because of those lies.’

‘You probably don’t even know how to tell the truth.’

‘I told you the truth.’

‘I don’t think you’re capable of it.’

‘Alesander,’ she said more firmly. ‘I told you the truth.’

‘But you said—’

‘I said I love you.’

His eyes shuttered closed, his mind reeling back through their conversation. And she had said that, but he’d been blindsided by the words she hadn’t said, by the words he’d been expecting, the words he’d grown used to since he’d first heard her utter them.

He hadn’t had time to process these new ones.

‘It was the truth. It is the truth. I’m only sorry it wasn’t the truth you were wanting to hear.’

And they weren’t the words he’d been expecting to hear, true.

But there was something in them, something that didn’t bother him as much as he might have thought.

Something that resonated with him.

He didn’t want her to go. He’d thought a baby would keep her here. He’d been devastated to know she wasn’t pregnant, that she’d lied for Felipe when he’d wanted her words to be true.

There was no baby, but if she loved him, maybe there was a chance she still might stay.

‘Do you have to go home to Australia?’

‘What?’

‘I know you have your studies to return to, but do you have to go? We have universities in Spain, after all. You could study here, finish your studies, improve your Spanish at the same time.’

Her heart leapt. What was he saying? She bit her lip, trying desperately not to read too much into his questions. There had been too many misunderstandings between them, too many times they had misunderstood each other and let each other down. ‘Alesander?’

‘Because if you do not need to leave, perhaps you could stay here, with me.’

‘Even though I’m not pregnant?’

‘Who says you’re not? We had unprotected sex last night. I didn’t think I needed to bother with a condom, under the circumstances. Only now I find the circumstances have changed and that perhaps you might be pregnant after all.’