“What are you even doing here?” Alejandro’s face hardened. “I don’t recall sending you an invitation.”
Setting his empty glass down on a nearby tray, Edward looked over the ballroom with a small smile. “I have plenty of friends. One was happy to bring me along.”
“Who?”
“The Bulgarian ambassador.” Edward turned back with lifted eyebrows and said mildly, “Surely you’re not going to throw us out and risk an international incident?”
Alejandro looked at a gray-haired, distinguished-looking man across the ballroom, who appeared deep in conversation with someone I recognized from newspaper photos, who’d recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. He turned back with gritted teeth. “What do you want, St. Cyr?”
“I want Lena, since she’s asked for me,” he said softly. He turned to me, holding out his arm. “Shall we go, love?”
I heard a low, almost barbaric growl, and suddenly Alejandro was in front of me, blocking me from Edward’s outstretched arm.
“So it’s like that, is it?” Edward said. “She’s your prisoner?”
“She’s here with me of her own free will.”
“Free will.” Edward’s lips pulled back, revealing white, sharp teeth. “Meaning you probably blackmailed her over that baby. You have no real claim on her.”
“I have every claim.”
“Because she had your child?” He snorted, jerking his chin. “Keep it,” he said derisively. “If I’m the man she wants, I will give her more.”
I gasped aloud at his cold reference to Miguel. It?
Edward couldn’t have referred to my precious baby as “it.” He couldn’t have implied that he could get me pregnant and replace Miguel in my arms, in my life, as easily as someone might replace a new shoe.
Could he?
The black slash of Alejandro’s eyebrows lowered. Every line of his hard-muscled body was taut, as if he were barely holding back from attack. He reminded me of a lion, or a wolf, coiled to spring, with only a thin veneer of civilized reason holding him in check—but not for much longer.
The two of them were about to start a brawl. Right here, in this elegant gilded ballroom, surrounded by the glitterati of Spain and all the world. The crowd around us was already growing, and so were the whispers. I wished I’d never started this by trying to contact Edward. Desperately, I yanked on his sleeve. “Please. Don’t...”
Edward looked down at me condescendingly. “It’s all right, Lena. I’m here now. I won’t let him bully you.” His eyes were hard, and his broad shoulders were square, like a rugby player’s. And the condescending smile he gave me, after the cold, contemptuous stare he’d just given Alejandro, made me wish he was a million miles away. “You’re safe. I’ll take over.”
“Take over?” I repeated incredulously.
Just yesterday, I’d wished so ardently for Edward’s help. I’d remembered only that a year ago, when I’d needed to escape London, when I’d felt desperate and terrified and alone, I’d been grateful for his strength. But now...
I’d forgotten what Edward was really like.
Forgotten the times he’d visited his house in Mexico after Miguel was born, when he’d seemed irritated by Miguel’s cries when my son’s tummy hurt or he was unable to sleep. Edward had made several dark hints about adoption, or sending the baby back to Claudie and Alejandro. I’d thought Edward’s jokes were in poor taste, but I’d let it go, because I owed him so much.
But now—
Edward was no longer even looking at me. He was smiling at Alejandro, utterly confident—like a dog who couldn’t wait to test out his slashing claws and snarling teeth, to prove who was the stronger, meaner dog, in the pretext for a brawl of fighting over a bone—me.
Alejandro’s dark eyes met mine. For a moment, they held. Something changed in his expression. He seemed to relax slightly. He drew himself up, looking almost amused.
“Yes, Lena is the mother of my child,” he drawled. “And because of that I have a claim on her that you never will. But that’s not the only claim. I have one deeper even than that.” He glanced at me. “We intended to keep it private for a few days more, as a family matter, but we might as well let everyone know, shall we not, querida?”
“Um, yes?” I said, as mystified as everyone else.
Still smiling that pleasant smile, Alejandro turned and grabbed a crystal flute and solid silver knife off a waiter’s passing tray. For a moment I froze in fear. Even with a butter knife—heck, even with his bare hands—I knew Alejandro could be dangerous. Boxing and mixed martial arts were hobbies in his downtime, the way he kept in shape and worked out the tension from a hard day making billion-dollar deals.