Seduced by the Spare Heir Page 13

  “I’m so sorry, Gabriel. I didn’t—”

  “Just stop!” he shouted more forcefully than he intended. The anger that had simmered inside him was approaching a full boil now that he was face-to-face with her again. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know about this, because I know that’s a lie.” He gestured to the white sheet of paper on the table in front of him. “I found the schedule you gave me back in Miami for this week. This event was on there. Patrick Rowling said you actually suggested it. You knew all this time what we were building up to.”

  Serafia crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture. “In Miami, I didn’t know anything about your abduction. Yes, it was my suggestion because I thought it would be an interesting activity for you. When we reviewed your schedule for the visit, I mentioned it and you said nothing. You just tuned me out half the time. I’m surprised you even had the schedule anymore.”

  “And after you knew about what happened to me in Venezuela? After the incident at the vineyard? Did it not occur to you then that these plans for the visit to the oil platform might be a bad idea?”

  “I’d forgotten,” she said, tears forming in her eyes again. “With everything that has happened over the past week, I forgot all about the submarine. It slipped my mind and by the time I remembered, it was too late. We were separated by the crowd and I couldn’t warn you without making a scene. I was trying to warn you before they got to that part of the tour.”

  Gabriel stood up, his dark gaze searching her face for signs of the treachery he knew was there. Hector had helped him cast her under a shadow of suspicion he couldn’t shake. She’d been hiding her secret agenda beneath a disguise of coy smiles and stiff, respectable suits, but it was there nonetheless. And he’d fallen for it.

  “And you showed up to warn me at the perfect time,” he replied with bitterness in his voice. “Late enough for me to embarrass myself and undermine my future as king, but not so late as to convince me that it was deliberate just in case the ploy didn’t work and you might still end up queen.”

  A strange combination of emotions danced across Serafia’s face, ending in a look of exasperation. “I don’t want to be queen. I never have and you know why!”

  If she really didn’t want to be queen, that only left one option. “Just wanting to stay close enough to ruin me and my family, then?”

  Serafia threw her arms up, spinning in a circle before facing him with her index finger held up. “One incident. One. And suddenly those newspaper accusations you dismissed are gospel? Do you have no faith in me at all?”

  “I did. For some stupid reason, I pushed aside all my suspicions and allowed myself to trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone in years. Even when that article came out, I dismissed it as nasty gossip or old news from another time and place. I couldn’t believe that you could be using me to get to the throne.”

  “Because I’m not,” she insisted.

  Gabriel just shook his head sadly. “You’re just as bad as the Gomez family. You know what? You’re even worse. At least they’re transparent about their ambitions. You and your family just sidle up to us like friends, then pervert the entire relationship to suit your own purposes.”

  “Gabriel, you said yourself that that story was nonsense. I didn’t get planted with you. You hired me.”

  That was the detail that had bothered him, but the longer he sat on the patio, the more he’d begun to wonder if that was really true. “What were you doing in Miami, Serafia? I hadn’t seen you in years, and then all of a sudden, you fly all the way to Miami from Barcelona for my going-away party? You could’ve just waited to see me in Alma if you were that interested in congratulating me, and saved yourself a fortune in time and money.”

  Serafia stiffened, her eyebrows drawing together into a frown. “I was in the States for another project and my father asked me to attend on behalf of the family.”

  “What project?” he pressed. “Who were you working for?”

  Serafia started to stutter over her words, as though she was failing to come up with an adequate lie when she was put on the spot. “I—it w-was for a confidential client. I can’t tell you who it was.”

  “A confidential client? Of course it was.” Gabriel tried not to take it personally that she thought he was so stupid. “You may not have been a plant, but you were a tempting little worm dangling on a hook right in front of me. I snatched you up just as surely as you’d weaseled your way into my inner circle on your own. You pretended to help me be a better king, building up my confidence in and out of bed, while slowly undermining every inch of progress I’ve made along the way.”

  Serafia looked at him with hurt reflecting in her dark eyes. “Is that all you think of the two of us? Of what we have together?”

  “I didn’t at first, but now I see how wrong I was. I can see it must have been really difficult for you.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him, her tears fading. “What must be?”

  Gabriel swallowed hard and spat out the words he’d been holding in all day. “Trying to screw me in two different ways at once.”

  Serafia gasped and raised her hand to cover her mouth. She stumbled back on her heels until her back collided with the doorframe. “You’re a bastard, Gabriel.”

  “Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “But it’s people like you who made me this way.”

  “I quit!” she shouted, disappearing into the house.

  “Fine. Quit!” he yelled back at her. “I was just going to fire you, anyway.”

  He heard her bedroom door slam shut down the hallway. With her gone, the anger that had boiled over suddenly drained out of him. He slumped back into his chair and dropped his head into his hands.

  It didn’t matter whether she quit or he fired her. In the end, the damage was done and she would soon be gone.

  Eleven

  Harder. Faster. Keep pushing.

  It didn’t matter if Serafia’s lungs were burning or that her leg muscles felt as if they could rip from her bones at any second. She had to keep going.

  Just when she hit the point where she couldn’t take any more, she reached out for the console and dropped the speed on the treadmill by half a mile. Giving herself only a minute or two to recover, she then increased it by a whole mile. Her sneakers pounded hard against the rotating belt, which was reaching speeds she could barely maintain in the past.

  But she had to now. She had to keep running or everything would catch up with her. It wasn’t until she could feel her heart pounding like Thor’s hammer against her breast that she realized she’d taken this too far. She reached out and pounded the emergency stop button, slamming into the console and draping her broken body over it. The air rushing from her lungs blazed like fire, her heart feeling as if it was about to burst. She’d run for miles today. Hours. Longer and harder than her doctor-appointed forty-five-minute daily limit.

  And yet the moment she looked up, the world around her was just the same. The same heartache. The same confusion. The same anger at herself and at Gabriel. All she’d managed to do was pull a hamstring and sweat through her clothes.

  She gripped her bottle of water and stepped down onto the tile floor with gelatinous, quivering legs. Unable to go much farther, she opened the door to her garden courtyard. The cold water and ocean breeze weren’t enough to soothe her overheated body, so she set down her bottle and approached her swimming pool. Without stopping to take off her shoes, she stepped off the edge, plunging herself into the cool turquoise depths.

  Rising to the surface, she pushed her hair out of her face and took a deep breath. She felt a million times better. Her heart slowed and her body temperature was jerked back from the point of disaster.

  And yet she was still at a loss over what to do with herself. She had returned home to Barcelona in disgrace. Her last-minute flight had delivered her home late in the night; she hadn’t even told her family or staff that she was returning. All she knew was that she had to get out of Alma that instant. She would work the rest
out later.

  Once she’d escaped...she didn’t know what to do. She had no jobs lined up for several weeks. She’d cleared her calendar when she took the Montoro job because she wasn’t sure how long it would truly take. The first few days in Miami had been excruciating and she’d wondered if two weeks would be enough.

  Two weeks were more than enough, at least for her. And while she was relieved to be home, returned to the sanctuary she’d built for herself here, something felt off. She’d wandered through the empty halls, sat on the balcony overlooking the sea, lay in bed staring at the ceiling...the thought of Gabriel crept into everything she did.

  Serafia swam to the edge of the pool and crossed her arms along the stone, lifting her torso up out of the water. She dropped her head onto her forearms and fought the tears that had taunted her the last few days. As hard as she’d resisted falling for the rebellious prince, it had happened, anyway. Even with the threat of returning to the spotlight, the potential for becoming queen and all the responsibilities that held, she couldn’t help herself.

  And then he turned on her. How could he think she would do something like that on purpose? The minute she realized where they were headed, the panic had been nearly overwhelming. And then when he’d looked at her with the betrayal reflecting in his eyes, she felt her heart break. He was so used to people using and abusing his trust that he refused to see that wasn’t what she was doing.

  Perhaps she should have stayed in Alma and fought to clear her name. Running away made her look guilty, but she just couldn’t stay there. Her family might have been from Alma decades ago, but she was born and raised in Spain and that was where she needed to be.

  She just needed to get her life back on track. The dramas of Alma would fade, Gabriel would choose his queen and she would go on with her life, such as it was.

  At least that was what she told herself.

  The French doors to the courtyard opened behind her, and Serafia’s housekeeper stepped out with a tray. “I have your lunch ready, señorita.”

  Serafia swam back to the shallow end of the pool to greet her. She wasn’t remotely interested in food with the way she felt, but it would hurt her housekeeper’s feelings if she didn’t pretend otherwise. “Thank you, Esperanza. Please leave it on the patio table.”

  Esperanza did as she asked, hesitating a moment by the edge of the pool with a towel in her hands. She seemed worried, her wrinkled face pinched into an expression of concern. “Are you going to eat it?”

  Serafia frowned and climbed up the steps. “What do you mean?”

  “You barely touched your breakfast, just picking at the fruit. I found most of last night’s dinner plate scraped into the trash so I wouldn’t see it. I have all your favorite snacks and drinks in the house since your return and I haven’t had to restock a single thing.”

  Serafia snatched the towel from the housekeeper’s hands, the past anxiety of being caught in the act rushing back to her. “That’s none of your business. I pay you to cook my meals, not monitor them like my mother.”

  The hurt expression on the older woman’s face made her feel instantly guilty for snapping at her. Esperanza was the sweetest woman she knew and she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me.” Serafia slipped down into the patio chair and buried her face in her towel.

  “It’s nothing. When I don’t eat, I get grumpy, too,” Esperanza offered with a small smile. She was a plump older woman with a perpetually pleasant disposition. Probably because she got to eat and wasn’t eternally stressing out about how she looked. “But I worry about you, señorita, and so do your parents.”

  Serafia’s head snapped up. “They’ve called?”

  “Sí, but you were out walking on the beach. They asked me not to tell you. They seemed very interested in your eating habits, which is why I noticed the change. They said if you started visibly losing weight, I should call them straightaway.”

  Great. Her parents were having her own employee spy on her. They must really be concerned. Serafia sighed and sat back in her chair. They probably were right to be. In the last few days since returning from Alma, she’d already lost five pounds that she shouldn’t have. She was at the low end of the range her doctors had provided her. If she got back into the red zone, she risked another round of inpatient treatment, and she didn’t want to do that.

  Damn it.

  “Thank you for caring about me, Esperanza.” Serafia eyed the tray of food she brought her. There was a large green salad with diced chicken, a platter with a hard-boiled egg, slices of cheese and bread and a carafe of vinaigrette. Ever hopeful, Esperanza had even included two of her famous cinnamon-sugar cookies. All in all, it was a healthy, balanced lunch with plenty of vegetables, proteins and whole grains. The kind Serafia asked her to make most days.

  And yet she had a hard time stopping her brain from mentally obsessing over how many calories were sitting there. If she only ate the greens and the chicken with no dressing, it wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe one piece of cheese, but definitely no bread. They were the same compulsive thoughts that she’d once allowed to take over her life. She’d battled this demon for a long time. A part of her had hoped that she’d beaten it for good, but one emotional blow had sent her spiraling back into her old bad habits.

  Habits that had almost killed her.

  “It looks wonderful,” she said. “I promise to eat every bite. Are there any more cookies?”

  “There are!” Esperanza said, her face brightening.

  “I’ll take some of those this afternoon after my siesta.”

  “Muy bíen!” Esperanza shuffled back into the house, leaving Serafia alone on the patio.

  She knew she should change out of her wet workout clothes, but she didn’t care. She knew that she needed to eat. Now. Voices in her head be damned.

  She started with one of the cookies for good measure. It dropped into her empty stomach like lead, reminding her to take it slow. Her doctors had warned her about starving herself, then binging. That was another, all new, dangerous path she was determined not to take.

  Nibbling on the cheese and bread, she started to feel better. She knew that her body paid a high toll for her anorexia. As she was driven to exercise and ignore all the food she could, it made her feel terrible. Even this small amount of food made the difference. Picking up her fork and pouring some of the vinaigrette over the salad, she speared a bite and chewed it thoughtfully.

  All this was in marked contrast to the way she’d felt in Alma. For some reason, her past worries had slipped away as she focused on preparing Gabriel to be king. Perhaps it was because he thought she was so beautiful, even with the extra pounds she resented. He worshipped every inch of her body in bed, never once stopping to criticize or comment on her flaws. That made her feel beautiful. When they ate together, it was a fun, enjoyable experience. She was too distracted by the good food and even better company to worry about the calories. There were a few days in Alma where she’d even forgotten to exercise. Before that, she hadn’t missed a day of exercise in years. When she was with Gabriel, she’d been able to stop fighting with her disease and simply live.

  She had been doing so well, and the minute it was yanked away from her, the negative thoughts came rushing back in. She couldn’t do this. If there was one thing she’d learned in the years since her heart attack, it was that she loved herself too much to keep hurting herself.

  Reaching for a slice of bread with cheese, she took a large bite, then another, and another, until her lunch was very nearly gone.

  She couldn’t allow loving Gabriel to undo all the progress she’d made.

  * * *

  The report on Gabriel’s lap told him what he already knew in his heart, but somehow, seeing the words in black-and-white made him feel that much more like the ass he was.

  Hector had done as he’d asked. His people in the press office had reached out to the author of the scathing article on the Espinas. It hadn’t taken
much pressure for him to reveal that he’d been approached by Felicia Gomez. He admitted that while the historical portions of the article were researched and fact-checked, the insinuations of Serafia’s nefarious intentions were purely speculation based on Felicia’s suggestions. It didn’t mean that her family didn’t help overthrow the Montoros, but in the end, that really didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that Serafia was innocent of all those charges.

  He knew it. He knew it when he’d read the article the first time and he knew it when he’d thrown accusations at Serafia and watched her heart break right before his eyes. He’d been humiliated. Angry. He’d lashed out at her because he’d allowed his own fears to rule his life and publically embarrass him. It was easier to blame her in the moment than face the fact that he’d done this to himself.

  Gabriel felt awful about the whole thing. Serafia had been the only person in his life he thought he could trust, and yet he’d turned around and abused her trust of him at the first provocation. It made him feel sick.

  He needed to do something to fix this. Right now.

  Looking up from his report, he spied Luca walking down the hallway past his office. “Luca, can you find out if the Montoro jet is still in Alma?”

  Luca nodded and disappeared down the hallway.

  Gabriel took a deep breath and resolved himself to his sudden decision. He didn’t entirely have his plan together, but he knew he needed to get out of Alma to make this happen. That meant getting on a plane. Serafia had returned to Barcelona. He was certain she wouldn’t answer his calls if he tried, and anyway, he knew in his heart that they needed to have a conversation in person. The only catch would be whether or not the jet was here. His father had sent for Bella to come to Alma. Gabriel wasn’t sure what day that was happening, but if the jet was with her in Miami, he’d have to find another way to get to Serafia. Could a prince fly coach?