Maid for Montero(57)

Zoe shook her head and didn’t let go of his finger. The thought of letting go permanently left a great aching hole in her chest.

Would it ever go away?

‘It’s nothing.’

‘The thought of you with another man makes me…’ Their eyes connected.

‘How could you think there’s another man, Isandro?’

‘I didn’t…I don’t. I’m just…’ He stopped, let go of her hand and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘You can’t go, Zoe.’

‘Why can’t I go?’

‘I need you…I love you.’ He blinked and looked like a man waking up from a dream. ‘Dios, of course I do. I love you!’ he yelled.

She hitched a startled breath and stared up at him. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’ she asked him shakily.

‘Anything but, querida,’ he retorted throatily.

‘Are you saying this to get me into bed?’

His head reared back as though she had struck him. ‘I suppose I deserve that for being so bloody stupid,’ he admitted quietly. ‘I have been a fool. I was so busy not being a loser like my father that I almost became a loser like me…the biggest loser in the world if I let you walk away from me.’

‘You love me?’ It still didn’t seem real.

‘Is that so hard to believe? I can barely stand to have you out of my sight for two seconds. The thought of losing you sent me into a blind panic. I just couldn’t admit it, couldn’t admit that my fate was no longer in my hands, but that I had put it in yours.’ It had taken the prospect of losing her to make him wake up to himself and see what he strongly suspected everyone else already had.

Everyone but Zoe.

He captured her small hands and lifted them to his lips, looking deep into her eyes with an expression that brought tears of joy to them.

‘I love you, Isandro.’

‘I sort of guessed that.’

She gave a laugh. ‘And I thought I was being so subtle.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her, a hard, passionate kiss full of promise and love.

‘Say it again, Isandro?’ she begged huskily.

‘I love you, querida.’ The words that he had been afraid of now came easily; the problem now might be not saying them every second of the day.

‘Shall we get married at the hall? Or would you prefer—?’

She drew back her eyes wide. ‘Married?’

‘Well, how else can I face this headmaster and sort things out for Harry? A boyfriend is not going to have the same pull as a fiancé.’

She blinked, unable to believe this was commitment-phobic Isandro talking. ‘You’d do that? Take on the twins?’

‘I think the question is more whether they will take me on.’

‘Oh, I think they might be OK with it.’

‘And you, my love—are you OK with it?’

She smiled and flew into his arms. ‘So OK with it, Isandro, so very OK.’

Two months later they attended the wedding of Isandro’s father, Raul, in Seville.

It was a lovely wedding, though not, to Zoe’s way of thinking, a patch on her own the previous month.

It really pleased her to see Isandro and his father on such good terms. Their little family was growing and soon it would be even bigger.

She had kept the secret to herself two whole days and as the organist struck up the ‘Wedding March’ she could hold it in no longer. She leaned across and whispered in Isandro’s ear.

He frowned at her and mouthed, ‘What?’

She whispered again with the same result. Rolling her eyes, she leaned in and yelled, ‘I’m pregnant!’

Of course, it coincided with the music stopping and her announcement echoed off the rafters of the church.

‘Why do these things keep happening to me? What is wrong with my timing?’

Isandro, his eyes gleaming, bent towards her. ‘Your timing is perfect and as far as I’m concerned you can shout it from the rafters every day…I want the world to know I’m the luckiest man alive.’

Zoe, who had never cried at a wedding before, cried at the second one in two months…tears of pure joy.