Since her teens Malou had struggled with her weight but for the first time in her life she was glad for her plump figure: no one guessed that she was pregnant.

About two weeks after Malou had informed Joseph about her pregnancy, her father Pedro returned to Spain after visiting a cousin in New Zealand. Malou's huge earrings and yellow jeans were meant to draw attention away from her stomach just in case but Pedro had not seen his daughter in over three months. After observing her for a while he burst out: ´You're pregnant!´

Malou felt her eyes become moist as her beet-red father fired one after the other question at her: How dare she? Who was he? Was she getting married? What would her mother have said?

Recalling Pilar's words, Malou found her tongue: ´Mama would have loved to be a grandparent and she would have liked Joseph.´

´So that's his name huh? Joseph who? What does he do for a living? Does he make enough money to support a family? How old is he?´

´He's older than I am.´

Pedro made a throw away gesture. ´When will he marry you?´

´I don't need to get married just because - ´

´Just because? Do you mean you wanna be a single mother? Hell you won't!´

Pedro spoke in the booming voice that had frightened his children when they were young. Influenced by her pregnancy hormones Malou started to cry and babble. She said that she loved the baby's father but that she'd only seen him for a few days and that she wasn't sure of his feelings for her.

´You didn't know that and yet you slept with him?´ Pedro yelled. He spat on the floor and left, violently closing the door behind him.

OoOoOoO

Pedro returned in the evening. Raquel, who was in her own room trying to decide which necklace she would wear on her wedding day, couldn't help but overhear the conversation. Everything that was said was new to her, including several curses Pedro fired at her friend. In retrospective she remembered that Malou hadn't drunk coffee in a while and she blamed herself for not having paid attention to her poor friend. After the door had slammed close, she went to comfort Malou. Afterwards she called her future mother-in-law. Her purpose was two-fold. She wanted another friend of Malou's to know what was going on so she could support her too. She also wanted to question that friend. Pedro had shouted: ´This Joseph of yours gets until the end of the week to ask for your hand in marriage. I'll break his legs if he won't!´ Recalling the easy footing between her friend and Carlos's uncle Raquel longed to know if Pilar thought that "this Joseph" was "uncle Joseph". She would be very pleased if he were.

OoOoOoO

So far Pilar had not even told her husband about Malou's secret. The day after her shopping trip to Madrid she'd called Malou to check whether she had told Joseph and when her friend had replied affirmatively, Pilar had waited for Joseph to call her and inform her about the good news. She had waited in vain and she'd made up all sorts of excuses for Joseph. He and Malou wanted to wait with their announcement until after the risky months of the pregnancy. Joseph needed to prepare his second-in-command to take over and then he'd bring Malou home. He and Malou wouldn't tell anyone about their wedding plans until after Carlos and Raquel had got married so they wouldn't steal their glory.

After Raquel's call Pilar, without bothering to check Queen Clarisse's schedule, contacted Joseph.

OoOoOoO

Joseph was not used at Pilar speaking to him in an angry tone of voice. He had convinced himself that Malou didn't want him in her life. She would have her own future and he would blissfully spend his life with his darling Clarisse.

´No no, you are mistaken Pilar. I told Malou that I would assist her financially. She never spoke of raising the child together.´

´Oh you men!´ Pilar replied.

Joseph sensed that she was warming to him again.

´Malou wanted to have a child. For that she needed a man. I was available. That's it.´

´Oh Joseph. Don't do this to yourself!´

´She is a nice woman, I don't mind.´

Several ideas flashed through Pilar's mind. Joseph might be swallowing his pride by speaking the way he did, but what if he really didn't think of Malou as more than a nice woman? Pilar respected her brother-in-law and she wanted to continue doing so. She believed that a union between Joseph and Malou would be honourable and she was convinced that it would be happy too.

´It's so wonderful that you are going to be a husband and a father!´ she said excitedly.

Joseph cleared his throat.

´It is a miracle to be a parent Joseph. I'm so grateful that you will experience that too.´

Joseph didn't want to be told about soul mates and how moving it was to hold the next generation in the palm of your hand but Pilar was chatting along and it was impossible to interrupt her.

´Ah, when Carlos was seven, Luis took him fishing for the first time, remember? And you said that if you had children, you would teach them how to fish too and you would make them a tree-house.´

Joseph remembered the ache he'd felt at seeing Luis play with his children. But hadn't he, by the time he had become smitten with his Queen, already reconciled himself with a future without offspring? He adored Clarisse.

´Pilar…´ he started.

´Malou may have given you the impression that she can handle things on her own, but she's in love with you! Today her father came to see her and he immediately saw that she was pregnant. I bet that poor girl hadn't told anyone. Pedro, that's her father, was furious at her. And at you too.´

Pilar refrained from saying that Pedro didn't know which Joseph was responsible for his daughter's condition.

´He yelled and called her names! He said that a daughter of his would not become a single mother! Unless she's getting married he wants her to give up the baby for adoption.´

OoOoOoO

Raquel had not been able to make her mother-in-law agree that "this Joseph" might be their Joseph. She contacted her fiancé who liked the idea of uncle Joseph becoming a father as much as she did. Carlos immediately questioned his father and then the two of them questioned Pilar who had just got off the phone with Joseph. Pilar was glad that she was made to talk. She called for a family meeting.

Luis at first felt deceived by his brother, for Carlos's sake more than for his own. He had always pictured his son to inherit the mansion. To his surprise Carlos wasn't upset at all. He said that some time ago a friend had offered him a job in his firm in Barcelona, but he and Raquel, knowing that his parents looked forward to having them live in the mansion, had not had the heart to accept yet.

´Uncle Joseph will have an heir and in time I will build my own mansion in our village,´ Carlos concluded with a big smile.

Elena seized the opportunity and mentioned that the local dentist was finally going to retire and that she wanted to buy his practice so she wouldn't have to travel anymore. Pilar was swift to understand that the practice came along with a house. She congratulated Carlos and Elena with their plans and before her husband could think things over she returned to the subject of Joseph becoming a father.

´Do you think they will live in his apartment?´ she asked her eldest son.

´I think so,´ said Carlos. ´With Elena moving, uncle Joseph can use her place too. When I designed it I made sure that the apartments could be combined.´

Luis rather liked the idea of Joseph not moving into the house and he felt that a modern father should allow his single thirty-something daughter to live by herself. After saying that Malou was a lucky woman to have found Joseph he immediately wanted to call his brother but Pilar made him and everyone agree to wait for Joseph's announcement.

OoOoOoO

Carlos and Raquel's had picked their wedding day after consulting uncle Joseph, who would be one of the bridegroom's witnesses. After the invitations had been sent a visit from the Queen to Finland had been re-scheduled and it now happened to overlap the marriage. The Head of Security always accompanied Her Majesty when she went abroad but Clarisse had told Joseph that he could attend his nephew's wedding: she didn't want to deprive the Romeros, whom she thought of as family, of his presence.

While the two of them were watching The pink panther Joseph said that she only had to say the word and he would accompany her to Finland. Clarisse was moved because of the sacrifice Joseph was willing to make and oblivious of the fact that he wasn't looking forward to the wedding. Joseph whispered in her ear what bedroom sport he had in mind to warm them during the Finnish nights. It took Clarisse all her strength not to change her mind.

Joseph prepared himself to disappoint his family for the first time in his life.