“Ready to leave in five, Monsieur Cabrera.”
She turned away and walked up the stairs with measured steps. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see how much his touch, his words, had unsettled her.
She entered the plane, trying to ignore the mahogany wood floors, beige leather seats and computer screens installed in the back of each chair. A dim memory of flying in a similar plane when she was eight surfaced, her mother sitting limply toward the front and her father in back behind a curtain. When she’d sneaked out of her seat and peeked behind the curtain, it had been to see her father with his hands buried in the gold curls of the flight attendant as he’d kissed her.
Nausea rolled in her stomach. She quickened her pace, determined to get to her seat before she made a fool of herself.
And then stopped at the sight of the robin’s egg–blue package tied up with silver string sitting in one of the seats.
She glanced over her shoulder. “For me?”
Alejandro dropped into a chair and propped his feet up on the seat of another across the aisle. A casual move, but one that made her feel trapped. No last mad dash to the exit before they closed the doors.
“Perhaps.”
She rolled her eyes and leaned down to read the gift tag attached to the outrageous bow.
A mi bebe.
Her throat tightened. Her heart followed suit.For my baby.The passion Alejandro had displayed yesterday, his desire to be involved in their child’s life, this... He’d shown more interest in the little one growing inside her in the last twenty-four hours than her father ever had in his own children.
Swallowing her emotions, she picked up the box and turned. “Should I save it for the baby to open?”
Alejandro grinned. “I dare you to wait that long.”
With a shake of her head, she undid the bow and lifted the lid. Nestled inside among white and blue wrapping paper lay a chestnut-colored teddy bear with blue paws that matched the gift box and a silver heart around its neck.
The simple gift touched her. She hadn’t bought the baby any toys. Her fingers glided over the soft fur as she lifted it out of the box, then rested on the silver script on one of the bear’s feet.
Recognizing the luxury brand, she looked back at Alejandro. “These cost almost a thousand dollars.”
He shrugged. “I’m rich. I want our child to have the best.”
Her heart sank. He wasn’t her father, no. But he still rated things by how much they cost, placed value on the price tag instead of the intrinsic value. If her child were anything like Johanna, the teddy bear would be covered in sand and dampened by the ocean air in no time. The baby wouldn’t care if the teddy bear had cost five dollars or five thousand.
“What’s wrong?” Alejandro asked as she sat.
“Nothing.”
She didn’t like that he could read her so easily. Sometimes Aunt Norine and even Johanna had trouble discerning her moods. She’d liked it that way. Smooth, unreadable, unflappable. Less room for mistakes, for heartache, when you kept yourself locked up so tight no one could penetrate.
“Something’s stirring behind those daggers in your eyes.” He nodded at the bear. “Not expensive enough?”
She sat, the bear cradled carefully on her lap, as another possibility crept in, ugly and insidious. The limo, the fancy jet, the expensive gift...he’d said he wasn’t going to buy access to their child. But his actions said otherwise.
A flight attendant came by and set a drink on her table, green and frothy with a sprig of mint perched across the rim of the glass.
“Oh, I can’t—”
“It’s a virgin mojito, Mademoiselle Smythe,” she said with a smile. “Monsieur Cabrera provided us with your dietary restrictions and preferences this morning. But please let us know if there’s anything else you require.”
Calandra glanced at her watch as the flight attendant waltzed down the length of the plane, keeping her gaze on Alejandro out of the corner of her eye. To his credit, he didn’t even glance at the woman’s hips swaying beneath her tight skirt.
“Cocktails before noon?” she asked as the flight attendant returned and set before him a highball glass with thin ribbon of amber liquid at the bottom.
“Ten thirty here is three thirty in the morning in New York.” He shot her a heated smile. “I recall both of us having a refreshing beverage around that time.”
Oh, yes.He’d ordered champagne after their first bout of lovemaking. They’d sipped it in bed as he demanded she share something she’d never told anyone else. Her quip that she’d already given him her virginity had made him smile, but he hadn’t relented, pressing until she’d revealed her early-morning walks on the beach and the collection of shells beneath her bed. Silly, but a ritual she’d developed her first summer living with Aunt Norine.