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CHAPTER 32
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2024-10-29 19:42:56“You want to talk? Okay… I’ll say it all for you,” Jacqueline told him jerkily.
“Why didn’t I think of that? I really should take you into the office with me…”
“Stop making jokes about this!”
All of a sudden, she was finding it impossible to maintain her act of indifference.
“You know we only got married because you believed Azura was your niece.”
“No, I don’t know that,” Diego responded infuriatingly.
Jacqueline fixed strained eyes on him, her heart-shaped face tight with tension and very pale.
“Stop… This is not the time to make fun. You thought you had to be a father to Azura and you felt sorry for me because of what Sandra told you about me…”
Die
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“But why didn’t Alyssa tell us last year that she had given birth to Jaime’s child?” Diego Francisco Martinez del Río, Duque de Altamira (Spanish for ‘Duke of Altamira’), demanded of his grandmother, lingering astonishment etched in the hard set of his sculpted cheekbones, his lean, darkly handsome face grim.“We barely got to know Alyssa while your brother was alive.” Doña Jacintha’s fine-boned features reflected her regret about the way things went.“How could we expect her to turn to us for help after Jaime had abandoned her?”“Abuela (Spanish for ‘Grandmother’), I tried several times to set up a meeting with Alyssa. She always came up with excuses after excuses,” Diego reminded the older woman. “In the end, she insisted that she didn’t need our hel
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While trying to change Azura’s t-shirt, Jacqueline couldn’t resist the temptation and blew a raspberry on her niece’s tummy. Convulsing with chuckles, Azura held up her arms to be lifted, her little face below her soft brown curls lit by a sunny smile. “Looking at you two, I really have to say that I don’t know which one of you is the bigger kid!” Sandra Fanning teased them while her stocky, well-built son, Steve, set the old highchair out beside the pine kitchen table. Tiny in stature and slender as a ribbon, Jacqueline thrust her own curls back off her eyebrow in a rueful gesture and resisted the urge to admit that grief, stress, and a heavy workload were combining to make her feel more like a hundred years old. Staying financially afloat was a constant strugg
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Jacqueline hurried over to the door that led back into the reception area where an alarming amount of activity could be noticed. The reticent receptionist who received her so impassively was standing to attention with a megawatt smile of appreciation and a well-dressed older man was greeting Diego with a horrendous amount of bowing and scraping.“Your Excellency,” the man murmured dutifully. As though some sixth sense warned him of her presence, Diego turned his proud dark head. Eyes as rich as gold ingots in sunlight encountered hers. Her stomach flipped, her mouth ran dry and her heartbeat escalated as though she was trying to run up a hill. It was like being hit by a truck and she reacted with panic.“What the hell are you doing here?” Jacqueline asked belligerently. Though taken a
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Hewas disturbed but not that surprised by those revelations. He felt it would be insensitive to point out that, even before Alyssa had wed his brother, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to warn Jacqueline’s sibling of her future husband’s essential unreliability when it came to money.“If that’s the truth, well, I’m so very sorry for it. Had I been made aware of those facts, I would’ve granted Alyssa all the help that it was within my power to give.” Jacqueline snatched in a jagged breath.“Is this all you’ve got to say about this matter?” Diego had a low tolerance threshold for such personal attacks. In his blood ran the hot pure-bred pride of the Spanish and Mexican nobility and a long line of ancestors to whom honor had been a chivalrous, engr
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“I guess…” Jacqueline muttered, biting her lower lip while all the while studying him from below her lashes and feeling horribly shy. She had an inborn disbelief of handsome men and the man in front of her was absolutely dazzling. She was also noticing the subtle signs of expensive designer elegance in his clothing and started looking for a way out of the room. After all, she promised her sister she wouldn’t talk to anyone.“Excuse me… I must go… I shouldn’t be in here.”“Why not? Are you not a friend of the bride?” Alyssa’s warning came to her mind once again, so all she did was nodding in a reluctant agreement.“And your name?” Diego prompted, strolling silently closer.“Jackie… Uh… Jacq
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As Diego spoke in that patronizing tone, every atom of color slowly drained from Jacqueline’s shattered face.“We don’t live in appalling poverty…”“Well, after giving a look around, I’m afraid that you do. I don’t want to offend you but I must speak the truth.”“Yet, you did offend me. And you can’t take her away from me… You can't take her to Mexico,” Jacqueline breathed shakily, feeling so sick at that threat she could hardly squeeze out a sound. The very idea of losing Azura hit her as hard as a punch in the stomach, winding her, driving her mind blank with gut-wrenching fear.“Why not, Jacqueline?” Diego quirked an ebony eyebrow. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t take this baby away and give her a life free of poverty, worries
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Waiting for the jet to take off, she kept thinking about this whole situation. Jacqueline felt so ashamed of her sister’s behavior. Alyssa’s will had got them into a disastrous marriage and unfortunately, Azura would suffer the most from the fallout. Jacqueline couldn’t accept that Diego could still genuinely care about Azura now that he knew she wasn’t his real niece. ‘He can’t love a baby that isn’t a part of his illustrious family…’ After a night spent half on a bathroom floor and half in her bed, tossing and turning, Jacqueline decided to sleep a little, just to be mentally prepared for what was coming her way. This was also a way to stop gazing at Diego’s stunning but tired face. She had slept for most of the flight. Diego wa
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For hours and hours, she sat on the cold mosaic tiled floor and hugged her knees, and stared into space. Her heart was broken beyond repair. It was all over. Her crazy romantic hopes, her living for today and not worrying about tomorrow, their marriage. All over. Suddenly, Diego was willing to believe that she was a lying cheat, a greedy, money-grabbing gold-digger. She knew he wasn’t and never going to be in love with her, but she had had no idea just how fragile their understanding was. And now their relationship already seemed as imaginary and flimsy as a child’s soap bubble and she felt terrified as if she were waking up in a living nightmare. In the shortest instant possible, Diego had taken her love and her pride and even her faith in him and destroyed the whole lot. As if it meant nothing… As if she w
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Nervously, Jacqueline played with the glittering diamond pendant in the shape of a flower at her throat. He had given it to her while they were abroad. Even if she said no, Diego had also bought her a pair of exquisite diamond stud earrings. Knowing Diego, she had no doubt that she would receive something even more expensive and precious to mark her birthday. Diego had bought her and Azura a host of other little gifts as well. He was very generous. Ought she just to have bought him something? No, she decided, when a guy could buy himself anything, a woman had to go that extra mile to make an impression. When the door opened, Jacqueline swallowed hard. “Diego? Close your eyes before you come in! Please…” she asked him.&n
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Diego dug his cellphone back into his pocket. He felt slightly nauseous. Was it his Abuela? Doña Jacintha had been pronounced fighting fit at a recent examination. But a couple of weeks earlier, Diego had allowed Alejandro to run a full battery of tests, including DNA, on his little niece. What the hell was happening that his friend couldn’t tell him on the phone? Maybe the tests showed something wrong with Azura? Was she ill? But why had it taken so long for Alejandro to approach him with the result? Jacqueline didn’t even know about half those tests. Having arranged to take Azura to Alejandro for a vaccination that had been overdue, Jacqueline had come down with a twenty-four-hour virus that had confined her to bed and it had been Diego who had taken the baby instead.
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She shot him a shocked look.“Of course, not… I’ve been behaving myself too!” Diego breathed again.“I should’ve flown back and sorted this out more than a week ago.”“There’s a right time for everything. Maybe, at that time, you weren’t ready.” He was still not sure that he was ready for the enormous complexity that had disrupted his once smooth and calm existence. He hadn’t chosen the situation, but now at least, he felt in control of it again. With a sly grin on his lips, Diego surveyed Jacqueline with unashamed masculine possessiveness. He couldn’t comprehend how he had ever dismissed her as only very pretty.&nbs
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A sense of humiliation stormed through her anger and brought hot tears to her eyes.“That’s what I mean about you, Diego… You’re impossible! You are Mexican and you’re correcting my English!”“Jackie, it was thoughtless,” he acknowledged.“No, Diego, it wasn’t. You think about everything, you always know exactly what you’re doing…”“I didn’t know exactly what I was doing when I married you. I didn’t look for the bigger picture. I must’ve been insane. I was certainly guilty of poor judgment,” Diego countered grimly. “I didn’t even foresee the complications that would come out from the consummation of our marriage. But from that night, our wedding night, preciosa, my desire for freedom disappeared.” A poundi
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Diego put a powerful arm to Jacqueline’s spine to urge her in the direction of the exit. She was almost there before it occurred to her that she could hardly leave without telling his cousin, Lilia. Although the two women hadn’t known each other long, they got on so well that Jacqueline already thought of Lilia as a close friend. “I have to tell Lilia that I’m going…” “Absolutely. You can call my cousin from the limo. I’m positive she’ll understand.” “No, that wouldn’t be right. She has been so good to me. Just give me two minutes, Diego. Please,” Jacqueline pleaded. She freed herself from his grip and hurried back to the table where Lilia was seated. “Sorry, but I have to go…” “I thought so. I saw Diego arriving,” the elegant brunette acknowledged wryly. Jacqueline gave her a relieved smile,
