AN: This chapter is rated T for some allusive behaviour and language. It shoudl be fine for age 10 and over, however.

ZZZ

The lake to which Diego had taken Victoria was not very large but it was quite secluded, surrounded by trees and wild flowers, and the taverness realized she had never before been there. A small waterfall fed it from the north and a stream was guiding the water surplus south, towards the nearby fields and, from there, to the Porciuncula River.

"It's one of my favorite places." Diego told her as he was helping her climb down from her mount.

"It's very beautiful!" She replied, enchanted by the view and scanning the horizon for a black-clad man with whom she had been promised to spend Christmas that year. It was already four in the afternoon and he was nowhere to be seen. "Diego…" she decided to ask as her thoughts returned to the man in front of her "have you ever seen Zorro?"

The caballero was surprised by the question but managed to answer truthfully "Of course I have." In the mirror, each time I put on the mask. His mind added silently.

"When?" She continued.

"Ah…" He hesitated trying to think of a moment to indicate. "Recently, you mean?"

"Not necessarily. Just tell me when you saw him." She insisted.

"The time that detective came to Los Angeles. When Ignacio arrested me together with other dons so that we could be interrogated." Diego replied, knowing that Victoria had seen him on the terrace while Felipe, dressed as Zorro, was making his escape from the pueblo.*

"Yes. You are right… but…"

"But what?" He asked in return.

Victoria stared at him for a few moments. "Why did you want to bring me here?" She asked and Diego was relieved she had dropped the subject of Zorro. Then he unknowingly made his biggest mistake.

"Well… I confess that, when Uncle Rodrigo started talking about his grandchildren, I felt the need to escape. And, I thought I might take the chance and show you one of my favorite spots. I hope you don't mind spending the day with me. Have you already been here before?"

"Spend the day with you?" Was what she focused on, ignoring his questions. She looked around once more with a puzzled expression, as if her mind was trying to come to terms with a new and incredible idea. From where they were standing, she could see for several miles around and nowhere in sight was there any trace of a black-clad, masked man. But that woman… she didn't say Zorro would spend the day with her but that the man who was Zorro already planned to do that. "Diego" she gathered her courage to ask, hoping she was not being silly "if I ask you a question, can you promise you will tell me the truth? I just need a 'yes' or a 'no'."

The caballero braced himself, thinking she might have realized he was in love with her. He couldn't constantly hide his love, he knew that much. The discussion during lunch and her figuring out that there was a connection between the timing of her almost-marriage and his to Zafira, must have been clues enough. "I will." He promised, hoping he was wrong. He was.

"That woman you're in love with but loves another man… does she really love another man or are you also the other one?" Victoria asked, and his expression answered for him before he had the chance to turn away and measure his words. "Dios! You are Zorro!" She concluded based only on the flabbergasted look he gave her.

Diego tried to chuckle at the idea, but the laughter came out false, then his face became quite serious.

"Why would you believe such a thing?" He tried to have her reconsider as he turned his back at her. "I am nothing like Zorro."

"Yes, you are! You are tall, black-haired, blue-eyed and in love with me, just like Zorro. Don't even try to deny it! And you promised to answer me." She struggled with her discovery, which almost brought her to the brink of tears, her voice already shaking. Was it possible that the man she longed for had been right in front of her all this time? The one she was to spend the day with, anyway, as she did every Christmas, which was why that wish was easy to fulfil? Had she been blind all those years to not see him for who he truly was?

Diego turned back and gazed into her eyes. "Do you understand the consequences of me answering your question?" He asked despite being quite certain that it was pointless. Victoria already knew.

"Yes" She replied.

He looked at the ground for a few seconds, then returned to look at her, cupped her face with his right hand, and leaned down to kiss her. It was all the answer she needed as words were unnecessary at that point.

"Why have you never told me?" She inquired in a whispered voice, looking at him with wide-opened, confused eyes as they parted.

"I wanted to protect you. I live a dangerous life, Victoria. If I'm ever captured, should you not show surprise at my unmasking, you will be in danger, as well. I don't want that for you."

"You will not be captured!" She protested.

"That's always a possibility. As getting injured is also a possibility… How would you have reacted if you'd seen me getting harmed, knowing who I was? Would you have waited for me to send you news or would you have stormed towards the hacienda as soon as Tornado rode out of the pueblo? Or at seeing someone taking aim at me? Would you have shouted Zorro or Diego? I kept my secret because it was the safest thing to do… for the both of us and for my father. Not to mention that, while you may be in love with Zorro, you don't really feel the same way about Diego."

"But I agreed to marry you! I did that without even knowing it was you under the mask. I told you that I love the man! The only man brave enough to stand up for the people! For me! For… For everyone!" Victoria argued her point, feeling her temper rising but striving to control it. "You… you tricked me into saying those things I said… I thought you were a different man than you truly are! And you never allowed me to think any differently! You never told me the truth!"

"I didn't trick you…" Diego protested raising his voice but instantly regretting it. "I played a role, Victoria. For you, for my father and for the whole pueblo. I needed… I need to play it so that I can stay alive. It's the only way. As you said, I look like Zorro and there are not many men who also fit his physical description. The deception was meant to make any association between us unconceivable and I was lucky it worked. I was lucky Luis Ramone was more willing to believe me a weakling, than he was to realize I was his nemesis. I was lucky De Soto has not seen the truth… at least, thus far. I was not a good swordsman when we first met, but I was already taking classes with Sir Edmund. If he had come across that information… if he still comes across the information that I was his student, he might just put two and two together and come to the obvious conclusion. And I doubt he'll be so unwilling to believe it, as my father was when I tried to tell him."

"Your father? He doesn't know… Nobody knows?"

"Only Felipe. He's always helped me, taken care of me… He risked his own life several times to save mine."

"Felipe? But he was only a boy when Zorro rode for the first time. He was…"

"Twelve." Diego confirmed. "I didn't exactly know then that this fight would last for so long, Victoria… or I would have never gotten him involved. It's why I postponed adopting him for all those years. God knows I had considered doing that since I returned from Spain!"

"So… what now?" Victoria wondered.

"Now?"

"Now that I know… can we finally be together? Get married? Start a family?"

"You still want that?"

"Of course, I want that! I didn't waste eight years of my life to change my mind at finding out the man I love is also my best friend! What am I talking about? Eight? I waited eight years for Zorro and four more for Diego before that!" She told him.

"You did?"

"Why do you think I wasn't married when you came back? I promised I would wait, didn't I?"

"Yes, but… You waited… for me? To return home from Spain?"

"Well… I had a bit of a crush on you at the time you left… You must have known that!" She uttered, rolling her eyes.

"I suspected it, but wasn't sure. I had more than a little crush on you, as well, at the time. Had you been at least two years older, I wouldn't have left without marrying you first and taking you with me."

"Really?"

"Victoria, I don't even remember a time when I didn't love you. True… it was a different kind of love in the beginning, not the all-consuming, passionate kind I feel now... but it was still love."

"That's how you're feeling? Passionate?"

"You have no idea about the amount of self-control I need to stop myself from taking you into my arms and kiss you every time I see you… But I know that if I'd do that, I'd land us both on the gallows."

"Only if others see you! Us…" Victoria remarked, teasingly. "There's no one to see us here, though? Is there?"

"No…" Diego conceded, realizing with more than little amazement what she was actually saying. "But I don't think it would be wise. In the cave, however… I could kiss you all I wanted…"

"Lead the way, then!" Victoria ordered.

"Are you sure?"

"Aren't you?"

"No… I'm pretty sure I want nothing more than to spend the rest of the day holding you in my arms."

"Good then!"

"Good!" He answered and guided her back to her horse, which he then guided to the cave's back entrance.

"We have to leave the horses outside." Diego told Victoria as he stopped the mounts a few yards from the hidden entrance to Zorro's lair.

A few minutes later, he was pressing the wooden board activating the opening mechanism from the outside and guided her to the main room, where Tornado was munching on some hay.

"This is just behind the hacienda?" She asked.

"Yes. And through there" he indicated, pointing towards the stairs "you get to the library. There's a hidden entrance through the fireplace."

Victoria took the time to wander around the cave, stopped in front of the spy hole for a few moments, smiling at seeing Don Alejandro reading in an armchair, then returned to Diego, who had taken a seat at the desk.

"So…" she teased, sitting sideways in his lap "you said something about spending the afternoon holding? Add kissing me, and I might be agreeable to that!"

"Really?" He teased back as she lowered her head and reached to kiss him.

"Alejandro!" They heard Diego's uncle call about half an hour later, just as what started as kissing was about to become much more. "Where are Diego and Senorita Escalante?"

"Still on their ride, I suppose. Why do you ask?" Don Alejandro wondered.

"See for yourself!" He replied but the people in the cave had no idea what he was talking about.

"Dios!" Don Alejandro answered. "We need to go after them!"

Diego stopped kissing Victoria at that moment, and the sound of a thunder reverberating through the cave's walls told him exactly what his father was referring to.

"There's another storm coming!" He told her. "We need to return with the horses to the hacienda."

"Now?" She asked, disappointment clear in her voice.

"I'm afraid so, Victoria!" He replied. "I… Perhaps it's for the best." He continued. "I don't think I would have stopped otherwise and it is not yet the right time for us to get married. I want you to be my wife, not my lover, mi amor!"

Victoria smiled sadly and agreed "That's what I also want, Diego! More than anything!"

The tall caballero sighed, looking at her beautiful face. "I promise to find a way. But now we need to go!" He urged her, and she reluctantly got off of him and followed Diego back to the horses. They arrived at the main entrance of the hacienda just as it started raining, and Don Alejandro and Don Rodrigo were preparing to go look for them.

Asking Victoria to go straight into the house, by the time her fiancé finished stabling the horses he was soaked, and had to go get changed lest he'd catch a cold. In the meantime, Don Alejandro made the fire in the library and invited the taverness to join him and his other guests, playing a game of cards in the dining room. It was not what she thought she would be doing at that time, but she had to reluctantly agree and be contented with spending the rest of the afternoon teasing Diego about the senorita his father and uncle thought to pair him with. In reply, he teased her about Zorro and took every opportunity to be naughty and caress her leg when nobody was paying any attention. He was lucky to get away with it, but nobody seemed to notice anything unusual about their behavior.

Around 10:30 in the evening, about an hour after the rain stopped, but only ten minutes after they had noticed it, Diego offered to accompany Victoria to the tavern, hoping it would rain again as soon as they got there. It was as good an excuse as any other to remain in the pueblo, close to the woman he loved, and no one would think twice about his true reasons for doing it.

Don Alejandro had insisted that she remain at the hacienda, but Victoria pointed out that she needed to get up very early the following morning, since she was to open her business. So, after Don Alejandro reluctantly agreed, and even advised Diego to take his night clothes with him, just in case he'd have to spend the night in town, the two made their way to the pueblo on horseback.

"He really doesn't suspect anything, does he?" Victoria asked, referring to Don Alejandro, as soon as they were far enough away from the hacienda.

"He just took me aside to ask me to stay in the tavern because he didn't like the idea of you spending the night alone. So… no, I doubt he suspects anything." The caballero replied and took her hand in his.

They reached the pueblo in about twenty minutes and parted hands as they entered it, even if it was mostly engulfed in darkness, and, by then, almost everyone was, quite probably, already asleep. Diego gallantly helped her dismount in front of the tavern and stabled the horses. After that, noticing Corporal Sepulveda and Private Sanchez were on guard, he headed for the cuartel and had a little chat with them about the afternoon visit to the orphanage, casually mentioning his annoyance with his father's request to spend the night in Victoria's establishment "as if she couldn't take care of herself!" He endured a dismissive comment by Sepulveda, who pointed out that she might be able to take care of him, as well, then took his goodnight and headed for the tavern, where Victoria had already made the fire in the taproom to warm up the place.

"I'll leave my things in the usual room?" He asked.

She nodded with a sly smile and watched him climb the stairs with new insight. How could she have been so blind as not to notice who was right in front of her? Not to realize how he made her feel, with just one look?

"What do you want to do?" She asked when he returned, her arms folded around her waist, suddenly feeling quite shy around him.

"I'd like to get back to what we were doing before we were interrupted." He told her. "But just the kissing… It wouldn't be wise to do anything more than that."

Victoria smiled and headed towards him, caressed his face, and looked lovingly in his eyes. Diego descended on her lips as if that was the last kiss they were ever to share. The deeper his exploration of her mouth became, the stronger his embrace. They parted only several minutes later for a breath of air, then returned to their kissing. A few more minutes passed, and Diego felt himself pushed into the bar. He reacted by turning around and pushing Victoria into a nearby wall where she felt imprisoned between the cold adobe wall and his warm body, but relished the feeling, capitulating before the man she loved.

When it became clear that they either stop right then or go all the way, rules and traditions be damned, Diego made an effort to cease his attack on her inviting lips and took a few steps back.

"Perhaps we should go to sleep." He suggested, avoiding her eyes, lest they'd betray a very different message.

The taverness took a moment to recover. She thought about how to answer him. Of course, he was right. The gentleman in him told him quite clearly that the path on which they were embarking was a dangerous and immoral one. But, for some reason, now that she knew him, the real him, Victoria no longer cared for conventions. In fact, she knew that she would get little if any sleep that night since thoughts and fantasies of him threatened to occupy her mind. But why settle for fantasies when she could very easily have them come true? Life is short and they had already wasted too much time. She was there, he was there, and the tavern was completely empty. More so, she realized, the rain had restarted, so they could be as noisy as they wanted, since no one would hear anyway.

Except there was one problem. She wasn't dealing with a man like any other. Her man was a caballero in the truest sense of the word. He believed in respecting women and had an amazing control over his own urges. Yes, he was, quite obviously, passionate about her. But he was also in love with her, willing to do anything for her, including using all his self-control to avoid them going down the path they were tempted to take.

Victoria didn't care much for self-control at the moment.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep after… after what we did.. knowing that you are but one room away." She confessed.

"I doubt I'll get any sleep either," he agreed "but I have no intention of ruining your reputation now, Victoria. I want to make love to you, but I don't want something that's supposed to be beautiful to be a sin in anyone's eyes. I want to do this right."

She sighed. The man did have strong opinions. "Have you ever… I mean, have you ever been with a woman, Diego?"

"I have." He confessed, turning his back at her. "I am not proud of that, though."

"Can you… tell me how that felt like? I am not exactly knowledgeable in that area." She asked.

"I'm not sure I should…"

"If we're both going to spend the night awake, what's the point of tossing and turning in a bed? Let's have a glass of wine and talk. And… I guess a bit of education never hurt anyone!" She stated, doing her best to offer him an innocent smile, yet already concocting a much more devious plan for her night. After all, how much tolerance for alcohol could a man who didn't drink have?

Diego, on the other way, considered that some wine might get him to sleep. As long as he didn't repeat the mistake he did in Madrid, drink too much and end up in her bed, instead. But that was not going to happen.

"I have a nice bottle of Claret I've just found this morning, while I was organizing my cellar. I'll be right back!" She told him and, taking a candle to light the way, hurried to descend the stairs leading there.

"I'll get the glasses!" He told her, and headed for the kitchen.

Victoria's candle got her almost all the way down but a draft blew it out just before she reached the bottom. "Don't forget!" She heard a voice out of thin air. "The wish can only last until midnight, and then it will all be undone!" The taverness panicked at hearing it, and, hesitating a little in the dark, she bumped into the shelf, then fell on the floor, next to the table. Having crashed into one of the table's legs as she fell, Victoria caused the bottle of wine she had come to get to roll over and hit her in the head, leaving her unconscious on the floor.

At the same time, Diego, who had heard the commotion and was about to head towards the cellar, turned a bit too fast on his feet, missed the oily stains on the floor in the place where Victoria's morning visitor had eaten her meal, and tumbled, face first into the wall, then on the floor, hitting his head a second time as he fell on his back.

The taverness was the first to wake up and, after a few moments of panic at not realizing where she was, she saw the faint light coming from the taproom and ascended the stairs while massaging her head. Happy that the fire she had made should have enough wood to keep the tavern warm until morning, the taverness then climbed the stairs to her room, where she allowed herself to fall on her bed, and go to sleep.

Diego woke up a little while after the woman he loved was already asleep in her bedroom, took in his surroundings, and checked his clothes, relieved they were blue-and-white instead of black. After taking a few moments to try and failed to remember what had happened, he headed for the room he had occupied the previous night, changed his clothes for the nightclothes he found in his saddlebags, wondering at their presence there, then fell asleep as soon as his hurting head touched the pillow.

The two met for breakfast the following morning, both finding it rather strained to talk due to the residual pain in their heads, both with no memory of the previous day, but both somehow smiling at each other for reasons they no longer remembered.

*This is a reference to a scene in my story The Hound, in which Diego and Zorro are seen together at the same time, Felipe being the one under the mask on that occasion.

ZZZZZZZZZZ

AN: If you were expecting some M-rated scenes…sorry, this is not one of those stories :P. Did you expect the romance to progress further? For Victoria to find out the truth? It is one of those stories but I am having too much fun imitating the spirit of the show, so not yet… not permanently, at least!

But she will find out. Many times in the next chapters, which are part of Diego's GrowndFox Day. Those of you who have already read that story, though, should not worry too much: I will not really repeat it. Just the conclusion… Almost everything before that is new material.

Liked it so far? Let me know! I love reading reviews and it takes far less time to write them than it takes me to write this story