The Paternity Claim

Suddenly she wondered why she was tolerating that clipped, flat command. She lifted her chin in a defiant thrust. ‘You can’t make me, Paulo!’

‘I agree that it might not be wise to be seen carrying a heavily pregnant woman out to my car—though I am quite prepared to, if that’s what it takes,’ he told her, a soft threat underpinning his words. ‘You can fight me every inch of the way if you want, Isabella, but I hope it won’t come to that. Because whatever happens, I will win. I always do.’

‘And if I refuse?’

Her eyes asked him a question, a question he had no desire to answer—but maybe it was the only way to make her see that he was deadly serious.

‘Then I could threaten to tell your father the truth about why you left Brazil. But the truth might set in motion all kinds of repercussions which you may prefer not to have to deal with at the moment. Am I right?’

‘You wouldn’t do that?’ she breathed.

‘Oh, yes. Be assured that I would!’

She stared back at him with helpless rage. ‘Bastard!’ she hissed.

‘Please do not use that particular term as an insult!’ he snapped. ‘It is entirely inappropriate, given your current condition.’ His eyes flickered coldly over her bare fingers. ‘Unless you have an undisclosed wedding to add to your list of secrets?’ He read her answer in the proud tremble of her lips. ‘No? Well, then my dear Isabella—that leaves you little option other than to come away with me, doesn’t it?’

It was far too easy. Far too tempting. But what use would it serve? Could she bear to grow used to that cold judgement which had hardened his face so that he didn’t look like Paulo any more, but some dark and disapproving stranger? ‘I can’t just leave without notice! What will the boys do?’

He refrained from telling her that her priorities were in shockingly bad order. ‘They have their mother, don’t they? And she will just have to look after them for a change. Does she work?’

Isabella shook her head. ‘Not outside the home,’ she answered automatically, as her employer had taught her to. In fact, Mrs Stafford had made leisure into an Olympic sport. She shopped. She had coffee. She lunched. And very occasionally she lay in bed all day, making telephone calls to her friends…

‘Run upstairs—’

She turned on him then, moving her bulky body awkwardly as the emotion of having borne her secret alone for so long finally took its toll. She blinked back the tears which welled up saltily in her eyes. ‘I can’t run anywhere at the moment!’ She swallowed.

He resisted the urge to draw her into his arms and to give her the physical comfort he suspected that she badly needed. It was not his place to give it. Not now and certainly not here. ‘I know you can’t—that’s why I’m offering to help you. If you go and pack, I will deal with your employer for you.’

‘Shouldn’t I tell her myself?’

He thought how naive and innocent she could look and sound—despite the very physical evidence to the contrary. He shook his head impatiently. ‘She’s going to be angry, isn’t she?’

Isabella pushed a dark strand of hair away from her face with the back of her hand. ‘Furious.’

‘Well, then—you can do without her fury. Let her take it out on me instead. Go on, querida. Go now.’

The familiar word made her heart clench and she had to put her hand onto the back of a chair to steady herself. She had not heard her mother-tongue spoken for months, and it penetrated a chink in the protective armour she had attempted to build around herself. She nodded, then did as he asked, lumbering up to her room at the top of the house with as much speed as she could manage.

She did not have many things to pack. She’d brought few clothes with her to England, and what few she had no longer fitted her. Instead, she’d bought garments which were suitable for this cold, new climate and the ungainly new shape of her body.

Big, sloppy jumpers, two dresses and a couple of pairs of trousers with huge, elasticated waists which she was currently stretching to just about as far as they could go.

She had been forced to buy new underwear, too—and had felt like an outcast in the shop. As if everyone knew she was all alone with her pregnancy. And that no man would ever feast his eyes with love and pride on the huge, pendulous breasts which strained against the functional bra she’d been forced to purchase.

She swept the clothes and her few toiletries into the suitcase and located her passport. On the windowsill stood a wedding-day photo of her parents and, with a heavy heart, she added it to the rest of her possessions.

And then, with a final glance round at the box-room which had been her home for the last five months, she quietly shut the door behind her.

At the foot of the stairs, a deputation was awaiting her. Towering over the small group was Paulo, his hair as black as ebony, when viewed from above. Next to him stood Rosemary Stafford, her fury almost palpable as she attempted to control the two boys.

‘Will you keep still?’ she was yelling, but they were taking no notice of her.

Charlie and Richie were buzzing around the hallway like demented flies—whipped up by the unexpected excitement of what was happening, and yet looking vaguely uncertain. As if they could anticipate that changes would shortly be made to their young lives. And correctly guessing that they would not like those changes at all.

Isabella reached the bottom of the stairs and Paulo took the suitcase from her hand. ‘I’ll put this in the car for you.’

She felt like calling after him, Please don’t leave me! but that would be weak and cowardly. Instead, she turned to Rosemary Stafford and forced herself to remember just how many times she had helped the older woman out. All the occasions when she had agreed to babysit with little more than a moment’s notice. And never complained. Not once. ‘I’m sorry to have to leave so suddenly—’

‘Oh, spare me your lies!’ hissed Rosemary Stafford venomously.

‘But they’re not lies!’ Isabella protested. ‘It isn’t practical to carry on like this. Honestly. The truth is that I have been getting awfully tired—’

‘Oh? And what about other, earlier so-called “truths”?’ Rosemary Stafford’s glossy pink lips gaped uglily. ‘Like your assurance that the father of your baby wasn’t going to turn up out of the blue and start creating havoc with my routine?’

Isabella was about to explain that Paulo was not the father of her baby—but what was the point? What could she say? The boys were standing there, wide-eyed and listening to every word. Trying to make two seven-year-old boys understand the reality of the whole bizarre situation was more than she felt prepared to take on right then.

Instead, she reached out an unsteady hand and ruffled Richie’s blond hair. Of the two boys, he’d been the one who had crept the furthest into her heart, and she didn’t want to hurt him. ‘I’ll write,’ she began uncertainly.

‘Take your hands away from him, and don’t be so stupid!’ spat out Mrs Stafford. ‘What will you write to a seven-year-old boy about? The birth? Or the conception?’

Isabella shuddered, wondering how Mrs Stafford could possibly say things like that in front of her children.

‘It’s time to leave, Isabella,’ came a low voice from behind them, and Isabella turned to see Paulo framed in the neo-Georgian doorway. His face was shadowed, the features so still that they might have been carved from some rare, pitch-dark marble. Only the eyes glittered—hard and black and icy-cold.

She wondered how long he had been standing there, listening, whether he had heard Mrs Stafford’s assumption that he was the father of her baby.

And her own refusal to deny it.

‘Isabella,’ prompted Paulo softly. ‘Come.’

Impulsively she bent and briefly put her arms round both boys. Richie was crying, and it took every bit of Isabella’s willpower not to join in with his tears, knowing that it would be self-indulgent to break down and confuse them even more. Instead, she contented herself with a swift and fierce kiss on the top of each sweet, blond head.

‘I will write!’ she reaffirmed in an urgent whisper, as Paulo took her elbow like an invalid, and guided her out to the car.