‘I have to be in the States at the end of next week,’ he told Lulu when she asked if his days were always this packed.
They were driving back to Luna Plateada, with the late-afternoon sun glaring off the windscreen.
‘It means time away from the estancia, which requires me to do all I can now.’
The end of next week. They should know about her condition then. It brought Lulu up cold. She wondered if she should worry that they never talked about it. Was Alejandro avoiding the topic because he was so set against it? She wasn’t exactly over the moon about the prospect of unwed motherhood at twenty-three either! Surely they should be talking about it…
‘What if I’m pregnant?’ she blurted out.
Alejandro lost speed.
Oui, Lulu, start this conversation when he’s driving a high-powered four-wheel drive. You’ll both be killed and the problem will be most horribly solved.
And that was when her hand slipped protectively to her belly and she realised she wasn’t exactly feeling like a woman who wouldn’t be going through with an unplanned pregnancy.
Alejandro changed gear, looked over at her and said calmly, ‘I’ll marry you.’
*
‘You can’t just say you’ll marry me and leave it at that.’
Alejandro turned the steaks over, telling himself it was just a conversation.
Although he could imagine the look on the faces of quite a few of his past girlfriends on hearing this. Sheer disbelief for one thing.
‘I don’t want a shotgun marriage,’ she said firmly.
‘No one is pointing a gun at me, querida.’
Lulu worried at her bottom lip and said, ‘Actually—’
He looked up. She was curled on one of the outdoor sofas with a lemonade, and she wore a little frown.
She was wearing some sort of print dress with a white collar that made her look as if she’d stepped out of a nineteen-thirties film. She’d tied her curls back in bunches, which was so adorable he couldn’t stop looking at her.
He was yet to see her in a pair of jeans, or in anything you could call casual or unisex.
‘Should I expect one of your brothers to come bursting through the door?’
‘Georg and Max? No, they wouldn’t care,’ she said, sounding affectionate. ‘They’re busy with their own lives.’
Alejandro frowned. ‘They should care. You’re their sister. You’re their responsibility.’
Lulu wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the term ‘responsibility’, but she liked it that he cared. ‘Is that how you are with your sisters?’
He made a grunting sound and Lulu climbed to her feet and went over to him, because this was a side of him she hadn’t seen before. The growly big brother.
‘I don’t want any kid of mine growing up where I can’t see him or her every day. Children need two parents.’
She couldn’t argue with him. ‘What were yours like?’
‘Not great. My father was a gambler—and not a clever one. He spent most of his inheritance on the gaming tables, or on women who weren’t my mother.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lulu. ‘That can’t have been fun for you or your sisters.’
He leaned back, folding his arms, a bottle of beer in one hand. ‘I always said I’d do better by my own kids.’