JENNIE LUCAS - One Night - Latin Heat - Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret / One Night With The Enemy / One Night with Morelli

I snorted. “What are you talking about? He’s the son of a duke. It doesn’t get more noble than that.”

Maurine abruptly focused her gaze on me. “Of course. That’s what I meant. He’s noble by birth.”

Was she confused, or was she just confusing me? “Did people give you a hard time because of your background? I mean—” I shook my head awkwardly “—Alejandro said you grew up in the U.S., the daughter of sheep ranchers...”

“Shepherds, actually,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Exactly. You were a regular girl—then you married a duke.” I paused, trying to form the right words. “Did all the other aristocrats treat you badly? Did they call you a gold digger?”

“Me? No.” She blinked, and her expression abruptly changed. “Oh, my dear. Is that what’s been happening to you?”

I felt the color drain from my cheeks. “No, I...”

“Oh, you poor child.” Her plump, wrinkled face was sympathetic, her blue eyes kind. She reached over and patted my hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll triumph over all the ugly, silly words that people can say. Alejandro loves you. And you love him. That’s what matters.”

Now my cheeks went hot. “Uh...”

“And I’m so happy you’re part of our family.” She gave my hand a little squeeze, then chuckled. “I was a little worried. You should have seen the women he dated before you. He didn’t bring a single one home. For good reason. He knew I’d skewer them.”

“I’m the first woman he ever brought home?” I said faintly.

She nodded. Her gaze became shadowed as she looked at Alejandro farther down the table. “I was starting to think he’d never let any woman into his heart. That he’d never let anyone know who he truly is.” She gave me a sudden sharp look. “But you know. Don’t you?”

I furrowed my brow. Was she talking about a biblical knowing? Otherwise I didn’t really understand. “Um, yes?”

She stared at me, then releasing my hand, abruptly turned away. “How did you like the rose garden?”

I shivered in spite of myself. “It is...very beautiful,” I managed. “Like paradise. But what were you saying about Alejandro...?”

Maurine’s eyes shadowed. She bit her lip. “I can’t believe you don’t know. But if you don’t, he has to be the one to...”

“Querida,” I heard Alejandro say behind me. “It is time for bed.”

Seriously? He was announcing this in front of his grandmother and the whole table? I turned with a scowl, then saw him holding up our sleepy-eyed son. Oh. He meant Miguel. With dinner served so late in Spain, it was past our baby’s bedtime, and he was yawning in Alejandro’s arms, causing dimples in his fat little cheeks. “Right.” I held out my arms. “I need to give him a bath first....”

But Alejandro shook his head. He wasn’t letting me escape so easily. “I’ll help you. It’s time I learned to do these things as well, don’t you think?”

The gleam in his black eyes told me he knew I was scrambling to think of a way to avoid being alone with him tonight. Wondering if I could find a door with a lock. Surely there had to be one in this castle, with its choice of approximately five million rooms. I shook my head with an awkward laugh. “You don’t want to learn how to give a baby his bath and put him to bed, Your Excellency!”

He snorted at that last bit. “A man needs to know how to take care of his own son.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” I grumbled.

“Such a good father,” Maurine sighed.

I narrowed my eyes, then gave him a smile. “I’ll show you how to change his diaper, too,” I said sweetly.

He gave me a crooked grin. “Excelente.”

A moment later, we were walking down the dark hallways, the noise of the happy dinner party receding behind us, beneath the thick inner walls of the castle.

“This way,” he said, placing his fingertips innocently on the base of my spine to guide me. I trembled.

Tonight, you will be in my bed.

Tonight, you will be my wife.

“Our bedroom is in the new wing....”

“New wing?”

“This castle might have been home to this family for four hundred years, but antiques are—how shall I say this?—not my style.”

Going up another flight of stairs, still holding our baby protectively with his muscled arm, he pushed open the door at the end of that hall. I followed him inside, and saw an enormous, high-ceilinged room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a balcony. Modern, masculine, stark. With only one real piece of furniture.

An enormous bed.

I stopped. “But where’s the crib?”

“I’ve had the room next door turned into a nursery.” To my relief, Alejandro didn’t even glance at the big bed, but just kept walking straight into the connecting door that led to the nursery, and its en-suite bathroom.

The bathroom connected to the nursery was as severe and cold as the master bedroom had been, all white marble and gleaming chrome. But it did have an amazing view. Wide windows overlooked the dark vistas of his estate, lit only by moonlight and distant twinkling lights on the horizon.

He stopped, frowning at the marble bathtub. “On second thought, I don’t think this is going to work,” he said tersely, looking from the enormous tub to the baby in his arms. “He’s too small. We need to get a special baby-size tub....”

It was endearing, really, to see how worried he was. “Tomorrow, if you like, we can go get one. For today, it’s no problem.” Smiling, I took Miguel in my arms. “Since he can’t sit up on his own yet, we’ll just hold him up. And be careful.” Leaning over, I turned on the water. “Having an extra pair of hands will help.”

His eyes met mine. “So you don’t...mind that I’m helping you?”

“No,” I said softly, “I’m glad.”

His expression changed. He started to speak, then turned away, sticking his hand in the water. When the temperature was Goldilocks-acceptable—neither too hot nor too cold—he plugged the drain so the bathtub could fill.

Sitting the baby on the marble counter, I started to pull off his clothes and the clean diaper beneath. “Can you grab his baby shampoo? It’s in my bag. Oh.” I turned. “It’s still in the car—”

With a grin, Alejandro held up the baby shampoo from a nearby drawer, along with a white, fluffy towel. “You mean this?”

“Oh,” I said. My cheeks went hot. “It was nice of your staff to unpack everything for me, but...”

“But?”

“It’s just strange to have someone going through my stuff.”

“You’ll get used to it. You’ll never have to lift a finger again, unless you want to. Especially with Abuela to oversee everything. She enjoys cooking, cleaning, shopping...” He paused, suddenly looking uncertain. “That is, if you wish that.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “If I?”

Alejandro came closer to me.

“You are the duchess now,” he said. “As far as the castillo is concerned, your rule is now law.”

My cheeks went hot. I licked my lips, tried to laugh as I sat on the edge of the bathtub and checked the water with my elbow. “So you mean I could fire everyone, throw out your tenants, buy Maurine a condo in Barcelona, get rid of all the furniture and paint the walls pink?”

But he didn’t laugh.

“If you like,” he said in a low voice. “Though I’d prefer we keep the staff and tenants. If you decided otherwise, I would need to take care of them some other way.”

“Give them all houses and jobs in Madrid?”

“Something like that.”

This kind of thinking surprised me. Most of the high-powered CEO types I’d seen in New York and London seemed to constantly need to resole their expensive shoes, due to the wear caused by stepping on all the little people. I looked at Alejandro curiously. “You really feel responsible for them, don’t you?”