Kept at the Argentine's Command

He couldn’t blot out the image of her huddling behind the desk. Hiding. He thought of the story she’d told him of being attacked and wondered if this was the fallout from that. He wanted to take that fear away, and yet he’d given up taking responsibility for other people’s happiness years ago, when he knew he couldn’t fit the bill.

More to the point, how the hell was he going to handle a baby?

Not that there was a baby. Even if Lulu was pregnant she might very well not want to go through with it, which just opened up all kinds of conflicting feelings inside him. He’d always supported a woman’s right to choose, but he discovered he had strong feelings when it came to his own potential child.

Was this how his father had felt about the various children he’d fathered on the women who had become a big part of the decline of the estancia? Six kids who’d had to be fed, clothed and educated—along with himself and his two sisters—and the alimony for his mother had been its own drain.

But this wasn’t the same at all.

He wasn’t his father, following every twitching skirt.

True, he didn’t ignore his healthy sex drive and live like a monk, tied to the estancia. Women were part of his life on the circuit. But they didn’t interfere with his passion, which was for horses and winning and seeing his patrimony stand strong, as it had for several generations before his father had almost scuppered it with his extra-marital affairs and illegitimate children.

Illegitimate children. He wasn’t having that either.

Alejandro steeled his resolve.

He knew deep down that he wasn’t cut out to be a protector of anyone. Every time he’d tried to help his mother as a child she’d pushed him away. His brief marriage when he was barely out of his teens had hit a wall as soon as it had begun. As a grown man he’d erected a barrier to protect himself and push others away.

But he couldn’t push a baby away. He couldn’t ignore his own child.

He’d been raised by people who did that, and he knew how heavy a burden it was to carry the knowledge that your own parents didn’t love you through life.

But at least it clarified what he had to do now. He’d solve all this by taking Lulu with him to Buenos Aires for the next few weeks. He’d put her up in a nice hotel, look after her with the best money could buy, do the test with her at the scheduled start of her period and if she was pregnant they’d work it out from there.

But he knew one thing. If Lulu was pregnant, he’d marry her and take the consequences.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MOST OF THE guests had departed last night, after the newly married couple had left for the Seychelles, but the rest of the wedding party was still there and he found Lulu among the other bridesmaids and some late-leaving guests in the room off the main hall, saying their farewells and organising their transport back to where they’d come from.

Madeline was long gone, with one of the groomsmen she’d been entwined with the last time he’d seen her, having a very nice time. She’d waved him off when he’d gone over to apologise for his long absence and mouthed, I’ll find my own way home, which had freed him to focus entirely on the issue at hand: Lulu.

While everyone else was in jeans, country casual, Lulu was dressed to the nines, wearing another vintage outfit—a raspberry-red fitted dress this time, with long sleeves—and she had a bow around her neck to modestly cover the scooped bodice that made her look as if she should be in a nineteen-forties film.

It was Lulu’s little waist and neatly rounded hips, rising at the back to her nicely constructed behind, that made her so damn sexy. On her feet she had clumpy black high heels from the same era, and they made her legs look ridiculously slender and long.

Her hair had been teased into a sleek up-do that had his fingers itching to muss it up. Clips glittered like fireflies in the shiny dark mass.

But when she turned around he could see she was wearing sunglasses. Indoors. In Scotland. Now there was a statement.

Alejandro knew he was currently standing in a trench called bastard, and that he’d dug it for himself.

He couldn’t go any deeper, and was tempted just to haul her over his shoulder and carry her out. It did have a precedent. But drawing attention to their situation was hardly the optimum solution at the moment.

He took her aside.

‘I’ve been doing some research. You can take a reliable test on the first day your period’s due—which, according to you, puts us three weeks from today.’

He couldn’t see her eyes—those bloody glasses—but the tightening of her rosebud mouth said everything.

‘I want you to come to Buenos Aires with me. When the time comes we’ll take the test and settle the question. Together.’

Her lips parted.

‘We’ll take the test, will we? I think it will be me peeing on a stick.’

Alejandro recognised that Lulu had clearly done some self-defence training overnight and knew this wasn’t going to be easy.