A Price Worth Paying(59)

‘Oh.’ Her heart sank. She’d been right not to get too excited. ‘Oh, and you want me to wait. In case this time there’s a baby.’

‘Yes, of course I want any child of mine. But I want you too. I did not know that at first. I was determined to keep you here and when I heard that you were pregnant, it gave me a reason to make you stay. Because I want you here with me. Because I love you, Simone …’

She blinked.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I love you. And I want you to stay. And we’ll have unprotected sex as many times as it takes if it means you will.’

‘Alesander …’

‘I know I have not been easy to live with. I know I have treated you badly and that I have no right to ask for your love.’

Her heart was beating so fast it was all but tripping over itself, her smile was so wide it hurt and still she couldn’t stop. ‘You always told me not to make the mistake of thinking you were nice.’

‘I am not nice. I am the first to admit it. But I will also admit that I am in love with you. Will you stay here in Spain with me, Simone? Will you stay and be my real wife and be the mother of my children? Will you stay and bear a son named Felipe and honour the memory of your grandfather? What do you say?’

‘Oh yes,’ she cried, her heart bursting with happiness. ‘I say yes. I love you, Alesander, I love you so very much.’

And he smiled and took her into his arms and kissed her until she was giddy with joy.

‘I love you too. I will always love you.’





EPILOGUE



SIMONE ESQUIVEL WENT into labour nine months later, on a warm autumn night where the vine leaves rustled on the breeze up the trellised slopes and where the wine grapes grew fat on the view over the spectacular coastline.

It was exactly one year since the day she’d arrived on Alesander’s doorstep and delivered her crazy proposal, a year that had changed like the seasons, and been filled with despair and loss, and hope and renewal.

And like the vines themselves, ancient and strong and with roots eighty feet deep, love had featured through it all.

Alesander was more nervous than Simone, fussing and fretting as he tried to manoeuvre her into first the car, and then into the hospital, as if he were trying to herd the sheep that grazed between the vines.

And when Simone refused to be herded and told him to calm down, he tried to herd the staff instead, barking out orders and demands so that nobody was in any doubt that the Esquivel baby was arriving tonight.

He held her hand while she laboured and fretted, and barked orders some more. He sponged her brow and moistened her lips and rubbed her back when she needed him to. And when their baby was born he watched in wonder and awe at this strong woman who he loved deliver him a son.

‘You didn’t lie to him,’ he said later, as he sat by her side, his finger given over to the clutches of their tiny child, clearly besotted by their new son.

She must have looked as if she didn’t understand.

‘To Felipe. That last time you spoke to him before he died. You told him the truth. You told him you were having a baby and that you would have a son and we would name him Felipe.

‘Don’t you see,’ he said, ‘our baby was conceived that night. You spoke the truth.’

She smiled at him, this man who was her husband, who she had married to make an old man happy but who had given her his heart and this child and who now was giving her yet another precious gift.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Did I ever tell you I loved you, Alesander Esquivel?’

‘You did,’ he told her, ‘but I didn’t believe you then.’ He leaned over the child they had made and kissed her ever so preciously on the lips.

‘But I’ll never doubt you again.’