Page 38 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I was half way to falling in love with you the first time round, and this time round I’ve managed to complete the job. I’m head over heels in love with you, Abigail, and I think I’ve known that deep down for some time now.’
‘You’re in love with me?’ she whispered, eyes as round as saucers.
‘I buried it under the excuse of rising to the occasion and doing the right thing, but when I proposed I should have asked myself how it was that I wasn’t appalled at the change it would bring to my cherished lifestyle. I was blind and I drove you away.’
‘You drove me away because I wanted so much more than you were offering. I wanted the whole package. I wanted you to love me the way I loved you.’
She smiled at him and he returned her smile, relief mingled with satisfaction.
‘I never allowed myself to feel confident around you,’ she confessed. ‘I was too aware that we came from opposite sides of the tracks. I was scared when you got that call from Cecilia,’ she carried on, ‘because I could project and see the damage she had done being done again. When you left with her again earlier on today, I was convinced that the next time I saw you it would be to learn that you’d decided to take the road away from me, the road I’d paved for you to take. I had a lot of principles about marrying for the right reasons. I mean, I wanted my future to be completely different to my past. I wanted the whole package deal—romance and love with all the trimmings. Except I fell in love with you and there weren’t any trimmings. I felt I couldn’t walk into a union with someone for the wrong reasons and, somewhere along the line, I decided that perhaps you would start to feel the same things I felt.’
‘Will you marry me, my darling?’
Abigail nodded, stood up and moved to sit on Leandro’s lap. She curved her hands around his neck and drew him to her. ‘Of course I will. Believe it or not,’ she conceded sheepishly, ‘I was desperate for you to pop the question again because marrying you—even if you couldn’t love me—felt a whole lot better than the alternative, which was not having you in my life.’ After a pause, she said, ‘What about your sister?’
‘She won’t be back to air her views,’ Leandro said shortly. ‘I will, naturally, continue to see her when she happens to be in the country—but she overstepped the boundaries and that’s unacceptable.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Protecting my sister has become a habit over the years and it’s blinded me to some of her failings. She will continue to run my hotel in Fiji but she won’t be bothering you in the future. Now, let’s stop talking about Cecilia and let’s start talking about...us.’
EPILOGUE
ABIGAIL GAZED AT her reflection in the mirror with a smile of satisfaction because this was exactly how she had wanted to look. Not flashy, no overkill, but not so understated that she could have been going to a cocktail party.
This was the perfect wedding dress. It was straight and simple, with exquisite silvery beading against the cream background. The neckline was modestly scooped while the back dipped a little lower. It was the last time she would be able to fit into something as tight as this—she was ten weeks pregnant and she could already spot the incipient signs of an expanding tummy.
Tonight, she would tell Leandro, and she couldn’t wait to see his face when she broke the news. He had missed out on her being pregnant with Sam and she knew that he would be the most attentive husband, lover and father-to-be with the baby she had found out she was carrying only a few days ago.
That would be surprise number one.
Surprise number two would be his sister. Cecilia had been firmly put in her place and given her marching orders, to hold the fort on the other side of the world and never again to interfere in his life. Abigail knew Leandro and, whilst he was the fairest man she could ever have hoped to meet, he was not a guy who believed in beating about the bush.
When he had informed her that he had told his sister to cease and desist, Abigail had very quickly imagined a terse and unapologetic two-sentence conversation. Whatever Cecilia had done, it was fair to say that she had done so against a backdrop of issues that had made her overly dependent and fragile and therefore vulnerable to the thought of her brother no longer having time for her.
A week ago, Abigail had spoken to her on the phone. The conversation had been awkward, halting and, at least to start with, defensive on the part of Cecilia, but Abigail had persevered and two days previously, unbeknown to Leandro, Cecilia had arrived in London. They had met and Abigail had taken Sam along with her.
‘You’re his aunt,’ she had said gently, ‘and it’s important that you get to know him. Every child needs a fun aunt. I’ve seen the movies.’
Cecilia had offered a grudging smile, but after five minutes she was no longer holding Sam with outstretched arms as though he were a parcel that might contain hazardous bio-waste material.
Abigail wouldn’t go so far as to say that they had bonded at first sight, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
And, just at the moment, everything was looking pretty wonderful. Leandro had no idea that his sister would be attending the wedding. Abigail drily thought that, for a man who notoriously hated surprises, he was in for a fun-filled day and evening.
From behind, she saw Vanessa enter the room with a smile and low wolf whistle.
She grinned. ‘I think that the groom is going to be a very happy man when he sees his radiant bride.’
Abigail turned around, mirroring her friend’s smile with one of her own,
‘Let’s go,’ she said, smoothing down the fabulous dress and allowing Vanessa to put some finishing touches to the beads in her hair. The stylists and the beauticians had gone and this was going to be her last few moments as a single girl. She knew that there was no one she would rather walk down the aisle to than Leandro. ‘The rest of my life is waiting.’
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