“Lo siento, mi amor. I’m sorry,” he added grimly when Robert translated for G.G., his low voice a distracting murmur from the end of the room. Continuing in English now, he said, “I never meant to. I had planned never to touch you until you were older and ready. But that night—” He shook his head. “Let me start at the beginning.”
When he paused, waiting, she gave a slight nod. The beginning was always a good place to start.
“I first saw you in my daughter’s kitchen,” Juan said quietly. “I had come to visit Ana, but she was still above stairs. Dressing, the maid said. She suggested I wait in the salon and she would let her know I was there. I started into the salon, but the sound of laughter caught my ear. It was like the angels singing. So clear and beautiful, without the artifice other women employ to try to sound enticing. This was a laugh of true delight, so lovely and musical. I could not help but follow the sound down the hall to the kitchen. There I paused in the door and watched you with your abuela. She was teaching you to make Pasteles en Hoja. Do you remember that?” he asked eagerly.
“I remember Abuela teaching me to make them, si,” she admitted slowly. “But not you being there.”
“I never went into the kitchen. I never even spoke,” he told her quietly. “I stood there and watched like a child at the window of a sweet shop. You were so beautiful to me. I was enchanted.”
Ildaria heard G.G. growl from the end of the room and his mother shush him, but didn’t glance that way for fear Lucian would make him leave if she drew attention to him.
“I admit, I wanted you,” Juan continued. “And I even decided to have you as my mistress.” He shook his head with a chagrined expression. “Even though I had not been interested in taking a lover since the death of my beloved life mate, Xochitl, three hundred years earlier, I did not yet recognize that you were another chance, another life mate. I only knew that I wanted you. But,” he said unhappily, “you looked extremely young; little more than a child, and I would never take a child as a mistress.”
“No, you just rape them,” G.G. snarled from the other end of the room, earning a warning look from Lucian.
Juan’s mouth had tightened at G.G.’s words, but otherwise he ignored him and said, “I wished to know just how young you were, so I tried to slip into your mind to find your age, but”—he met her gaze gravely—“I could not read you, mi amor.”
Juan paused briefly, but when Ildaria didn’t say anything, he continued, “It was only then that I realized you were my life mate, and the knowledge was shocking to me. I was still trying to accept my good fortune when I heard someone on the stairs. I glanced around to see Ana descending. I didn’t want to leave you, but I needed to know about you and could not read you, so I left without you or your grandmother ever knowing I was there and went into the salon.
“I did not tell Ana that you were my life mate, and I tried to make my questions sound casual as I asked about you. I wanted to keep the knowledge that I had found a new life mate for myself for a while. You were so precious, I . . . I just wanted to keep you to myself,” he repeated helplessly, and then sighed and said, “I did not find out much from my daughter. Ana did not know much. I learned that from reading her mind. She knew only that you were her cook’s granddaughter and that you were thirteen years old.”
“Fourteen,” she corrected.
“Thirteen,” he said firmly. “You did not turn fourteen until three weeks after you disappeared.”
Ildaria blinked in surprise and sat back. He was right. Her fourteenth birthday had passed weeks later, unnoticed. She’d been alone, struggling to hide and feed and avoid the hunters and only realized her birthday had passed a month or so after the day. Even then, she hadn’t much cared. She was too busy trying to survive.
“I visited with Ana until I heard you leave,” Juan continued when she remained silent. “And then I made my excuses and left as well, promising to return for that evening’s party. It was to introduce Ana to her