Filthy Rich Revenge: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book - Lynn Raye Harris Page 0,80

with you.”

Tears pricked her eyes. Still, she wouldn’t crumble just because he’d said those words. They meant nothing to her when they were five years in the past. It was what she’d wanted back then, more than anything. To be loved in return by the only man she had ever lost her heart to. But now? He was five years too late with those words.

“How does this affect us now, Alejandro? Because I’m still not hearing anything that makes me think there’s any hope for a future together. I have to think about my health, and about this baby. I can’t deal with your moods, your suspicions, or your unwillingness to trust me. It’s not how I want to live my life. We can work something out. I won’t keep you from your child.” Hot emotion clogged her throat. She forced the words out anyway. “I couldn’t do that.”

His eyes glittered. “Then we are lost, sí? There is nothing I can do to change your mind?”

Rebecca huffed a breath. “You haven’t attempted to change my mind at all, Alejandro. You told me you loved me five years ago. You didn’t say anything about how you feel now.”

He blinked. “You don’t know?”

“How could I?”

“I love you, though I have tried not to. I am terrified of this love.”

Her heart went out to him. So many emotions spun inside her. “Why are you terrified? Wait, don’t answer that. I know why.”

He tilted his head. “You do?”

She nodded. “I do. You’re terrified because you don’t have control over it.”

For him, the loss of control would be devastating.

“Sí,” he replied simply. He was looking at her with such tenderness she thought her knees would buckle if she weren’t already sitting down.

“I’m not sure what to say.” But her pulse raced, and her body hummed with renewed energy. Was it possible? Could they be happy? All she had to do was leap….

“Say you love me too.”

She couldn’t deny it. She had no wish to. Leap.

“I never stopped.”

“Madre de Dios, gracias,” Alejandro offered skyward. “Does this mean you will forgive me, Rebecca?”

It was all happening so fast. She’d been pushed to the brink and now she didn’t know if she could trust her emotions. She’d leapt, but she was still terrified. “I’m working on it. I need time.”

He looked disappointed but resigned. “You will tell me when?”

She nodded. Neither of them said anything for a long moment. He simply watched her. Waiting.

His shoulders slumped. “I should leave you to think. I’ll be at home, waiting for you to return.”

Her throat was tight. Was he really giving her space? “And if I don’t come back tonight?”

“I’ll still be waiting. As long as it takes. Buenas noches, mi amor.” He tipped his head and walked out without looking back.

Alejandro hoped she would stop him from leaving, but he really didn’t expect her to. He took the elevator down to the ground level, then walked outside. He waited while the valet got his car, all the while hoping she would come.

She did not.

Had he really expected her forgiveness so quickly?

Of course he had not. He’d wanted it. Craved it. But if he were to truly earn it, he had to walk away and let her think. She’d said she loved him, and that was something. He would hold onto that hope tightly.

Rebecca would return to him. He had to believe it, or he would go mad.

What a thing it was to love someone so much that your happiness depended upon them. And what a thing it was not to recognize that about yourself until it was almost too late.

He’d said abominable things. Done abominable things. If she returned to New York, it would be nothing less than he deserved.

“No,” he muttered to himself as he settled behind the wheel of his sports car.

It was not too late. There was hope. Rebecca would come home.

He zipped through the streets, his heart aching harder the farther he drove from the Villa de Música. When he reached his estate, he drove through the gates and around to the garage where he left the car. Then he went inside, hands in pockets and head down, heart throbbing with the kind of pain he hadn’t felt in years.

Señora Flores was waiting when he walked in. Her gaze strayed past him hopefully, and then snapped back to his face. He had no strength to endure her censure right now.

But what he saw there was not censure. It was sympathy. What must be written on his