“Alejandro, wait,” Claudie gasped, but I was the only one left to hear. “You.” Her face as she turned to look at me really did look like a snake’s. Or maybe a dragon’s—I could almost see the smoke coming out of her nostrils as her blue, reptilian eyes hardened. “You did this!”
For the past decade, I’d dreamed of what I would say to her if given the chance, after all my lonely years, crying alone in my attic. All the subtle and not so subtle ways she’d insulted me, used me, made me feel worthless and invisible for the past ten years. But in this moment, all those things fled from my mind. Instead, the real question came from my heart.
“Why did you hate me, Claudie?” I whispered, lifting my tearful gaze to hers. “I loved you. You were my only family. Why couldn’t you love me? Why wouldn’t you let me love you?”
My cousin drew herself up, all thin gorgeousness.
“Why?” She lit her cigarette with shaking hands. “Because you’re not my real family.” Taking a long draw on her cigarette, she said in a low, venomous hiss, “And you’re not good enough for Alejandro. Blood always tells. Sooner or later, he will be embarrassed by you, just as I was. He’ll take your child and toss you in the gutter, like you deserve.”
My mouth fell open as her poisoned dart hit me, square in the heart.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” I choked out, and I turned and fled, still holding my photo albums against my chest, like a shield.
Outside, a sliver of sun had split through the dark clouds, through the rain. Stopping on the sidewalk, I turned back and looked up at the Carlisle mansion for one last time.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
Then I climbed into the limo, where the driver waited with my door open, and he closed it behind me.
“Enjoy a tender farewell?” Alejandro was already in the backseat, on the other side of Miguel, who had woken and was starting to whimper.
“Something like that,” I muttered, trying to surreptitiously wipe my tears.
“I was surprised. It’s not like you to let me walk off with—” His voice cut off as he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. Turning to my baby, I pressed his favorite blanket against his cheek and tried to comfort him. Tried to comfort myself. My baby’s tears quieted and so did his quivering little body, as he felt the hum and vibration of the car’s engine beneath him. His eyelids started to grow heavy again.
“What did she say?” Alejandro said. Frowning, he looked closer at my face. “Did she...”
There was a sudden hard knock on his window. Miguel’s little body jerked back awake, and his whimpers turned to full-on crying. Alejandro turned with a growl.
Claudie stood by the limo, her eyes like fire. “Open this window!” she yelled through the glass.
Alejandro’s expression was like ice as he rolled it down a grudging two inches. She leaned forward, her face raw with emotion.
“We could have ruled the world together, Alejandro, and you’re throwing it all away—for that little whore and her brat!”
Alejandro said softly, his face dangerous, “If you ever insult either my son or his mother again, you will regret it.”
Claudie looked bewildered. To be fair, she’d insulted me for so long she’d probably forgotten it wasn’t nice.
“But Alejandro...” Her voice had a strange begging sound I’d never heard from her. “You’ll never find someone with my breeding, my beauty, my billions. I love you....”
“You love my title.”
Her cheeks flushed red. “All right. But you can’t choose her over me. She’s...nothing. No one.”
I swallowed, blinking fast.
“Blood always tells,” she said. “She’s not good enough for you.”
Alejandro looked quickly at my miserable face. Then he turned back to Claudie with a deliberate smile.
“Thank you for your fascinating opinion. Now move, won’t you? I need to take Lena shopping for an engagement ring.”
“You’re—what?” Claudie staggered back. I gasped. Miguel was crying.
The only one who looked absolutely calm was Alejandro. Turning away from her, he sat back in the plush leather seat, and said to Dowell, “Drive on.”
Claudie stared after us, looking stupefied on the sidewalk, and almost forlorn in her tight club dress and bedraggled mascara. Looking back at her through the car window, I felt a strange wave of sympathy.
Because I, too, knew what it felt like to be left by Alejandro Navaro y Albra.
“You didn’t have to be so cruel,” I whispered.
“Cruel?” he said incredulously. “You defend her, after the way she treated you?”
“She’s still my cousin. I feel sorry for her....”
“Then you’re a fool,” he said harshly.
I stroked my crying baby’s cheek. My lips creased sadly. “Love makes us all fools.”
“She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t even know me.”
“That’s what you said to me, too,” I said softly. I met his gaze. “I wonder if any woman will ever truly know you.”
For an instant, I thought I saw hunger, even yearning in his dark eyes as he stared down at me. Then the expression shuttered, leaving me to decide I’d imagined it. But even then, he continued to look at me, as if he couldn’t look away.
“What are you staring at?” I put my hand to my messy ponytail, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I must look a mess.”
“You look...” His eyes slowly traced over my hand, up my arm, to my neck, to my lips. “You look like a woman who cares more about her baby than a fortune. Like a woman who works so hard and so well—for free—that she’s beloved by the entire household staff. You look,” he said softly, “like a woman who feels sympathy, even for the coldhearted creature who tried to destroy her.”
“Are you—complimenting me?”
He gave a low laugh. “If you’re not sure, I must be losing my touch.”
I flushed. Turning away, I took a deep breath. And changed the subject. “Thank you for bringing me back to London. For these.” I motioned toward the photo albums. “And for giving me the chance to finally ask Claudie something I’ve wanted to know all my life. I always wondered why nothing I did was good enough to make her love me.” I looked out the window at the passing shops of Kensington High Street. “Now I know.”
Silence fell.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded over the lump in my throat.
“I know how it feels,” he said in a low voice, “to be alone.”
“You?” I looked at him sharply, then gave a disbelieving snort. “No, you don’t.”
His dark eyes were veiled. “When I was young, I was good friends with...our housekeeper’s son. We were only six months apart in age, and we studied under the same governess. Friend? He was more like a brother to me,” he said softly. “People said we looked so much alike, acted so much alike, we could have