Confessions of a Pregnant Cinderella

Skye shut that thought down. ‘I could say the same about you.’

Lazaro didn’t look happy about the fact, but he said, ‘Nevertheless, if you do an Internet search on me plenty of information will appear.’

This was said with a complete lack of hubris. He was just stating the facts.

Skye said, ‘Are you accusing me of setting you up by getting pregnant? I thought we’d been through this.’

Lazaro folded his arms. ‘You’ve said you’re not motivated by money but, let’s face it, no matter what, if that child is mine, you’ve hit the jackpot.’

Skye held the folder over her belly, as if to stop the baby hearing him. ‘He or she is your child—and that is a horrible thing to suggest.’

Lazaro shrugged. ‘It’s true.’

The depth of his cynicism rubbed Skye raw—especially after what they’d shared that afternoon. She stood up, emotions bubbling over. ‘You could have just asked me, you know. I don’t have anything to hide, and I’m not here to extort money out of this situation.’

He gave her that hard look again. ‘Everything tells me not to believe you, but I actually think you might be telling the truth.’

‘You mean your cynical nature tells you not to believe me,’ she pointed out.

Lazaro spoke in Spanish. ‘You understood me when I said bruja. And I’ve heard you speaking Spanish with Almudena. Where did you learn to speak it so fluently?’

Skye felt ridiculously and irrationally guilty. ‘My mother and I had a somewhat nomadic existence. We lived all over Europe and

the Middle East at one point or another. I found it easy to pick up and retain languages...probably a survival technique. If I ever did enrol in a school it was never long before we moved again. I taught myself the basics of everything and picked up stuff along the way. That’s probably why you couldn’t find me listed anywhere.’

‘Why did you move so much?’

Skye shrugged one shoulder, desperately wanting to avoid Lazaro’s penetrating gaze, but not wanting to show him any vulnerability.

‘My mother was always enticed by the new and the shiny—whether it was the promise of a job or a new lover.’ She saw something on Lazaro’s face and said fiercely, ‘She was a good mother. I knew I was loved and I was always secure, no matter how much we moved around. She made sure of that. But I don’t want that lifestyle for my child. One of the things I wanted most when I was growing up was a home...one place. Somewhere I knew was mine, that I could come back to.’

* * *

Lazaro stayed silent.

He wasn’t used to feeling a sense of affinity with anyone, but Skye’s words had struck a chord deep inside him. When he was younger he’d used to stand outside the palatial properties belonging to his mother and his father and his half-siblings, envying the very solid roots that they took for granted. That envy had nurtured his ambition to be successful. To be accepted.

The fact that Skye had been through a very different yet somehow similar experience was disconcerting. She hadn’t had it much easier than he had, and yet she appeared to hold no grievance, just a wish to do things differently. She also appeared not to have a cynical bone in her body.

At that moment Almudena knocked on the door to tell them dinner was ready.

Lazaro’s focus came back. He couldn’t let a fleeting sense of affinity derail his ultimate ambition.

He gestured to the door. ‘Shall we?’

CHAPTER SIX

SKYE COULDN’T DENY she was relieved at the interruption. She didn’t enjoy being under the spotlight of Lazaro’s exacting questions.

She walked out to the terrace, where the table was set. Candles flickered and silverware shone against a pristine white tablecloth. It was an undeniably romantic setting and yet, despite what had happened between them that afternoon, Skye couldn’t imagine that Lazaro appreciated the effort. He didn’t strike her as the romantic type.

It made her wonder how he’d been with his fiancée.

Skye felt a pang of conscience and impulsively asked, as Lazaro took his seat opposite her, ‘Have you talked to Leonora?’

Something fleeting crossed Lazaro’s face, but it was gone so fast Skye couldn’t decipher what it meant.

‘No, I haven’t spoken to her. Why do you ask?’