Confessions Of A Pregnant Cinderella

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CHAPTER THREE (#u96a9cfeb-0c82-51a0-90e7-9d1059293d68)

SKYE HAD HAD no answer to Lazaro’s killer response. It had shut down her anger and her justification for leaving because she had done that. She had come here and created this situation and now she had to deal with it.

So she’d agreed to stay. For now.

He’d shown her into a huge bedroom and said, ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

For a while she was too afraid to move in case she left a mark on the pristine carpet, which felt like walking on a cloud, or the silk upholstery of the furniture. Everything was in tones of white and light grey. Sleek and modern lines. Elegant and classic.

She looked at the huge bed warily, but eventually the feeling of grime on her skin got to her and she realised she couldn’t risk getting the sheets dirty.

She went into the bathroom and gasped. It was almost as big as the bedroom. With a slate wet room shower and bathtub big enough for a dozen people. Two sinks. Its soft lighting was very kind to her, making her look less washed out than she felt. But she knew it was just an illusion.

She stripped off and stepped under the shower, almost groaning out loud as the powerful jets of warm water pummelled her skin. Her hair usually took an age to dry, but she couldn’t resist the urge to clean that too, massaging her scalp with the most delicious-smelling shampoo.

Afterwards she went back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her head and a voluminous terry cloth robe dwarfing her body. She was tired, but too restless to sleep after everything that had happened, so she curled up in a large armchair and looked out over the view of Madrid under a starry sky.

She wondered if Lazaro was devastated by losing his fiancée. He hadn’t seemed too upset about it. But then he’d said their marriage hadn’t been based on love. He appeared to have an aversion even to the notion of love.

And she hated to admit that a small part of her had been relieved to hear that his relationship with his fiancée hadn’t been a love match.

The night she’d spent with Lazaro had been so…cataclysmic. It had touched Skye emotionally far more than she liked to admit. The morning after she’d wanted to stay more than anything. But she’d known it would only be prolonging the inevitable. Even before she’d known the extent of who he was she had known that Lazaro Sanchez wasn’t a man who struck up a relationship with a waitress after a one-night stand. It might have gone into a two-night stand, but that would have been it.

Anxiety knotted her belly and she had to consciously breathe in and out to unravel the tension. Her mother’s voice came into her head. ‘We’re human beings, Skye, not human doings. All you can do is focus on the present moment. Nothing else exists.’

Her mother would always smile radiantly at that, and her New Age pronouncement would usually be followed by one of her customary spur-of-the moment decisions to move city/country/job. Basically, as soon as somewhere had just started to feel like home they’d moved.

But in one way she was right. Skye couldn’t do much right now but submit to Lazaro Sanchez’s decree. He was the father of her baby. Even if he didn’t believe her.

He could have thrown you out on her ear and refused to listen to you, an inner voice pointed out.

Okay, so she hadn’t exactly given him much choice, but it had been her only option. And, even though she wished there had been some more discreet way of doing things, she didn’t regret informing him that he was going to become a father.

She’d never had the chance to know her own father. It was the one thing her mother had always been uptight about—Skye’s father’s identity. She’d eventually revealed the truth that she wasn’t sure who her father was. She’d been at a party…there had been two guys…she didn’t even remember their names…

Skye’s mother had actually come from a very wealthy background, but she’d been rebellious and artistic. Her family had cut her off after news of her pregnancy had emerged, and that was when she’d taken up the life of a hippy nomad. Her pride had refused to let her contact her family again. Pride and—as Skye had realised over the years—immense hurt that she’d been rejected by them.

Family. Skye sighed deeply. She had a very jaundiced view of family, considering the way her mother’s had treated her, and yet that had never stopped her dreaming about a family of her own. A family that was rooted in one place. Secure. Stable.

When she’d found out she was pregnant, as much as the timing was seriously off, she’d felt a huge urge to nest. Put down roots. And telling Lazaro Sanchez about his child had been a part of that. She wanted to be settled when she had this baby, and to have some kind of communication with Lazaro so that her child would grow up knowing where it was from and who its parents were.

She wanted her child to see the world, as she had, but with the knowledge that he or she always had a home to return to.

Skye felt a wave of weariness steal over her. She let her head drop back into the deep cushions and closed her eyes. She’d snooze, just for a minute, and then she’d get up and sort out her few paltry belongings.

Lazaro stood looking down at the sleeping woman for a long moment. He’d wanted to check that she was okay, but she hadn’t answered his knock on the door so he’d opened it. He hadn’t seen her immediately and for a moment had thought she’d gone—back the way she’d been brought in. Through the service entrance.

He hadn’t liked the spurt of panic…

But then he’d seen her. Curled up. Dwarfed by the chair. Fast asleep.

Her head was resting on her shoulder. The towel on her head was almost falling off. He couldn’t deny how she made him feel. Hot. Aching. Even now, when she was all but covered up. He just had to imagine her naked under the shower and his body went into meltdown.

She also made him feel livid, for appearing like a genie to rob him of his moment.

Basta! He bent down and slid his arms under her legs and her back, lifting her up. She didn’t even stir, she was so deeply asleep. She was light. Fragile.

Pregnant.

When Lazaro put her down on the bed the towel slid off and her damp hair fell in a sprawl around her head, a splash of red against the white linen. She looked utterly innocent and guileless.

His conscience pricked. She had been innocent—a virgin. Would she have jumped into bed with someone else so quickly?

Everything inside him rejected the notion.

When Skye had said she’d struggled to get hold of him he’d had to concede that perhaps she was telling the truth. He recalled seeing his card in the bin of that hotel suite, and he could remember the sensation of disbelief. No woman—ever—had missed an opportunity to gain access to Lazaro’s inner circle.

But he did have a rule that no one unknown was allowed to contact him. Especially women. She would have been an unknown to everyone else but him. No one knew about that night. Because he had been in Dublin. He wasn’t on the paparazzi’s radar there.

He remembered something else from that night. When they’d sat down for a drink in his hotel bar he’d asked her why she’d decided to come.

She’d looked at him a little embarrassed, but also with something almost defiant, and said, ‘Because I’ve never met anyone like you. And you’re right. Sometimes it’s good to be a little spontaneous.’

He’d looked back at her. ‘You’re refreshingly honest.’

She’d frowned at him as if he was crazy. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? What do I have to hide?’

Something heavy settled in Lazaro’s gut. The truth was that she didn’t come from his world, where cynicism and mistrust went hand in hand. She was most likely telling the truth. But still, he’d be a fool not to confirm it for himself. And he’d be an even bigger fool to throw all caution to the wind and assume she wasn’t up to something just because of a feeling in his gut.

When Skye woke the following morning she was disorientated. She was in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in—except she couldn’t remember falling asleep in it… Because she hadn’t. She’d fallen asleep in a chair.

She came up on her elbows and felt the towel behind her on the pillow. She groaned. Her hair would be a disaster today. And how had she ended up in bed? She was under the covers, but still wearing the robe…

Her face grew hot at the thought of Lazaro carrying her to the bed. But he must have. He must have come in. And watched her sleeping. And then he’d picked her up.

Her insides knotted, and not entirely with anxiety. With awareness.

She couldn’t hear any sounds coming from outside the bedroom but the sun was up. She got up, and after a quick wash, and trying to tame her hair as much as possible, she dressed and took a deep breath before venturing out into the suite—the apartment.

She found Lazaro in the formal dining room. He was sitting at one end of a long table with breakfast laid out around him and a stack of papers. His legs were stretched out under the table and he was dressed in a blue pinstripe shirt and dark trousers. Hair damp from the shower. Jaw clean-shaven.

And she felt a tug of desire deep in her belly.

He looked up, just as a woman Skye hadn’t seen before bustled into the room, carrying what looked like a coffee jug.

She greeted Skye. ‘Buenos dias.’

Skye murmured hello back and went over to the table, feeling shy and self-conscious in the only change of clothes she’d brought with her—her habitual uniform of jeans and a loose top…sneakers. She’d always veered towards a tomboyish style, but she’d never been so aware of it than now, when she was in front of this man.

The woman—his housekeeper?—left them alone again. Lazaro put down the paper he was reading and raked her up and down with those vivid green eyes, heightening her sense of exposure.

‘No fake waitress outfit today?’

Skye blushed guiltily. ‘I wore my work clothes as I figured they might help me blend in with the staff at the hotel.’

It wasn’t as if she could have hoped to blend in with the guests!

Lazaro made a rude sound which only reminded her of the audacity of her actions and the dramatic consequences. Suddenly she felt sick.

She gripped the back of a chair. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry about how it happened.’

Lazaro frowned. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone white.’

The dreaded nausea was rising. Skye managed to garble something unintelligible before she sprinted from the room, back to her bathroom, and made the toilet just in time.

She groaned as she sensed a presence hovering nearby. ‘Leave me alone, please. It’s fine. It’s just morning sickness.’

He didn’t leave. ‘You have this every day?’ He sounded horrified.

Skye might have laughed if she’d been able to. She literally couldn’t possibly reach any lower in Lazaro Sanchez’s eyes right now, with her head inside a toilet bowl. Whatever desire he’d felt for her would be well and truly gone after this little episode.

To her relief the sickness soon dissipated and a damp facecloth came into her vision. She took it. It was warm. She wiped her face and pulled herself up, going to the sink to rinse her mouth out.

She didn’t want to see herself in the mirror, knowing just how wan she’d look.

Lazaro was standing in the doorway looking slightly shell-shocked.

‘I’m sorry about that. I’ve no control over when it comes, but it passes pretty quickly. And the doctor said it shouldn’t last into the next trimester.’

Lazaro still looked shocked, so she said, ‘It’s a perfectly normal part of pregnancy.’

‘Do you think you can eat something?’

Skye nodded. That was the thing. Not long after her morning sickness she was usually ravenous.

She followed him back into the dining room and he said something to the housekeeper, who sent Skye a sympathetic look before disappearing again.

Skye sat down and saw her passport was on the table. She picked it up and looked at Lazaro accusingly. ‘What are you doing with my passport?’

He poured himself some coffee, and her, and then looked at her, totally unrepentant. ‘Skye Blossom O’Hara?’

Skye flushed and reluctantly divulged, ‘My mother was…is…a bit of a hippy. Hence Skye and Blossom.’

‘Is she in Ireland?’

Skye shook her head and took a sip of the strong coffee, relishing its warmth soothing her insides. ‘She’s in India. In an ashram. I haven’t managed to track her down and let her know about the baby yet.’

The housekeeper returned at that moment, with a selection of breads, eggs and pastries, and Skye smiled her thanks, relieved that Lazaro hadn’t asked about her father. When she glanced at him, though, he was looking at her with an arrested expression on his face.