‘Oh dear, you’re not leaving, are you?’ the younger woman enquired in a saccharine tone.
‘I’m going to visit my father…for a few days,’ Grace muttered, refusing to admit that she had no intention of coming back.
‘Oh, really?’ Lucita’s black eyes suddenly gleamed. ‘With you out of the way, I’ll have a chance to patch things up with Javier.’ She threw back her head so that her luscious curls flew around her shoulders. ‘Do me a favour, and don’t rush back.’
Clinging to her dignity, Grace took out her keys and marched out of the castle, but as she ran down the steps tears blinded her eyes. Desperate to get away before Javier returned, she slid behind the wheel of the fancy sports car he had bought her and started the engine.
The snow that covered the mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada never fell at this level, but the driving rain obscured her vision, despite the windscreen wipers working at double speed. Within minutes of leaving the castle she was desperately trying to negotiate the steep, winding road, and she gripped the wheel, remembering the first time she had driven to El Castillo de Leon.
Had she known then that she would lose her heart to the stern-faced Duque, would she have come? she wondered as tears streamed down her face. The answer was an unequivocal yes. She had been prepared to do anything to help her father—but now she had to protect her baby.
As she rounded the next bend she saw a car coming towards her, and to her utter shock she realised that it was Javier behind the wheel. Panic stricken, she hit the accelerator and the powerful sportscar surged forwards. The wheels spun on the wet ground and suddenly she was hurtling towards the trees that were all that stood between the road and the sheer drop over the side of the mountain.
She was going too fast—she couldn’t stop—and she screamed before she plunged into blackness.
‘Grace, open your eyes.’
The strangely disembodied voice sounded again, and with an effort Grace forced open her eyelids to stare up at an unfamiliar face. ‘Who…?’ Her whisper was a tiny breath of sound and the stranger smiled gently.
‘You’ve been in an accident, but everything’s going to be okay. You’re husband’s here.’
Grace barely heard the doctor’s words. Vague, broken images flashed into her mind—trees racing towards her at an incredible speed, the sound of the windscreen shattering, and she was filled with a feeling of utter dread. ‘My baby…?’
She was aware of a ragged groan from the other side of the bed, but all her attention was focused on the doctor as he slowly shook his head.
‘I’m sorry. You were in the early stages of pregnancy, but I’m afraid there was nothing we could do. I realise it’s no consolation right now, but your injuries are relatively minor and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have another baby in the future.’ The doctor patted her awkwardly and stood up. ‘I’ll leave you alone now,’ he murmured to Javier. ‘Your wife was incredibly lucky that the trees acted as a barrier and prevented her car from crashing down the mountainside. Her cuts and bruises will heal, but losing your child must be devastating for both of you.’
Grace closed her eyes and tears seeped from beneath her lashes. Her heart felt as though it had been scraped raw, and she just wanted to be left alone to cry in private.
Had Javier gone? She opened her eyes again and met his dark, unfathomable gaze. His face looked as though it had been sculpted from granite and as she stared at him she noted the nerve that jumped in his cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, although she didn’t know why. It was herself she felt sorry for, and her baby who she had let down so terribly.
More tears fell and Javier watched them, no flicker of emotion on his face. ‘You weren’t going to tell me about the baby, were you?’ he said, his voice rasping in his throat.
‘How could I?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘When I’d just learned from Lucita that you had deliberately planned for me to conceive your child and intended to take him…or her…from me after our divorce.’ Her voice faltered but she forced herself to go on. ‘I know about the final clause in your grandfather’s will.’
‘Dios, there is no final clause,’ Javier growled, making an effort to keep his voice down. ‘What you heard, and chose to believe, was the spiteful, overactive imagination of a spoiled girl who had become more obsessed with me than I realised.’
Grace stared at him wildly, unable to take in what he was telling her. ‘But Lucita…’
‘Told you a pack of lies. I never told her the reason for our marriage, but her father and my grandfather were old friends and she overheard Carlos telling Miguel about the marriage stipulation he had added to his will. The rest she made up.’