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‘Yeah.’ Luis turned grateful eyes to the older man again. ‘Chris’s been great. He hasn’t even moaned about me wrecking the Porsche.’
‘That’s not to say I won’t,’ put in Christian drily.
‘Especially if it turns out you were driving stoned out of your skull. I think you need a safer motor. I’m thinking about buying you a bug next time.’
‘If I ever drive again,’ muttered Luis, tears suddenly forming at the corners of his eyes, and Olivia made a sound of impatience as she gripped the boy’s hand with both of hers.
‘Of course you’ll drive again,’ she said, using her thumb to smear his tears away. She gave Christian another speaking appraisal. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Sure.’ Christian agreed with her. He brushed a hand across the boy’s shoulder and gave him a rueful smile. ‘So long as you do what you’re told and don’t give the doctors any grief,’ he added gently. ‘I know you feel pretty desperate now, kid, but it’s amazing what a few weeks’ bed-rest can achieve.’
‘You think?’
Luis sniffed and Christian was half relieved when he heard the door open behind him and a white-clad nurse entered the room. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to leave now,’ she said, softening her words with a warm smile for her patient. ‘It’s time for Luis’s evaluation. Dr Hoffman is waiting for him. I’m going to wheel him along to the examination suite, okay?’
Olivia got immediately to her feet and Christian was instantly made aware of how tall and slender she was. Her hair, which was a shade between honey and silver, was secured at her nape with a leather thong, and the gold loops in her ears drew his attention to the delicate curve of her neck.
But he also noticed that although she was wearing a cream, ruched silk shirt, that complemented her slight tan and was only loosely tucked into her waistband, she was wearing it with low-waisted jeans and not one of the designer suits he was used to seeing. A small change, perhaps, but a significant one, and he wondered if her attitude towards him was all part of some determined desire to show she could look after herself.
Whatever, she looked coolly elegant and Christian wished she weren’t regarding him with such an expression of contempt. All right, he knew he’d made a mistake; a big one. But if she hadn’t been so willing, he would never have let it go so far.
A grimness tugged at the corner of his mouth and it was a struggle to smile at Luis as if nothing were wrong. ‘See you later, kid,’ he said as an orderly came to assist the nurse in moving the boy’s bed. ‘And I’ll get something organised, like I promised. You’re not going to have to stay in here any longer than is absolutely necessary, right?’
‘Right,’ murmured Luis, but his face was despondent, and Olivia moved forward to take his hand again.
‘Just know I’m here for you,’ she said, bending to bestow a butterfly kiss on his temple. ‘Don’t worry, darling. You’re going to be okay.’
Olivia followed Luis’s bed out into the corridor and stood watching as the nursing staff wheeled it away. Then, as if realising she couldn’t ignore him indefinitely, she cast a brief look at Christian and said, ‘Excuse me. I’m going to go and get a coffee.’
Christian jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, resisting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and hold her where she was. Did she honestly think she could get away with what she’d done so lightly? Had she any conception of how bloody angry he was?
Controlling his temper, he said, ‘I’ll join you,’ and although he was sure she wanted to object, a slight shrug of her shoulders was all the response he got.
She made for the bank of lifts and Christian had to stifle his frustration and stay with her. And, even though an influx of staff and visitors and patients made the downward trip an ordeal, they eventually reached the basement and the hospital cafeteria.
Thankfully, it wasn’t busy. Nor was there any sign of Mike Delano, which was a relief. At this hour of the afternoon, the lunch crowd had gone and the evening rush hadn’t started. Nevertheless, the smells emanating from the kitchens reminded Christian that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Deciding he owed Olivia no favours, he ordered a cheeseburger and fries to go with his coffee.
‘What can I get you?’ he asked, beating her to the self-service counter, and she gave him a frosty look.
‘Just coffee,’ she said, clearly wishing she didn’t have to accept his hospitality, and Christian nodded his acknowledgement as she went to find a table.
By the time he carried his tray across to where she was waiting, Olivia’s impatience was obvious in the way she was shifting restlessly in her seat. She’d chosen a table in the centre of the room, probably to deter him from thinking this was in any way a friendly encounter, but her expression changed when she saw what was on the tray.
Christian wasn’t sure, but he thought she paled slightly, and her breathing quickened, drawing his attention to the dusky hollow visible in the open neckline of her shirt. Silken ties hung loose and she clutched them with nervous fingers. Pale fabric lay against her golden skin, a sensuous invitation he couldn’t ignore.
‘Is something wrong?’ he queried, taking the chair opposite so she couldn’t accuse him of crowding her. He unloaded the plate containing the burger and fries onto the table. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?’
‘No.’
She waved a hand in front of her face and he got the impression she was trying to waft the smell of the food away. Well, it wasn’t his fault if she felt sick with hunger, he assured himself. She probably hadn’t had any lunch, either, and there was no sense in starving herself to spite him.
Shrugging, he picked up his burger and took a generous bite. It was years since he’d lived on junk food but the juicy flavour of the meat reminded him irresistibly of his student days. And of the first time he’d seen his cousin’s wife…
Realising she was not about to speak to him—indeed, had half turned away from him, as if watching him eat his food was actually distasteful to her—Christian emptied his mouth.
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you rejected the use of the helicopter,’ he said mildly. ‘Or if not that, then at least explain why you couldn’t have called and saved the pilot a useless trip.’
Olivia blew out a breath and, without looking at him, she said, ‘I knew you wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ She swallowed a little convulsively and then added faintly, ‘I’d already tried to tell you I didn’t need your help.’
Christian felt angry enough to swear in his own language. It annoyed him like hell that Olivia could make him lose his temper like this. ‘The helicopter is not mine. It belongs to the Mora Corporation. You are just as entitled to use it as me.’
‘Does it matter?’
Once again, Olivia wafted her hand across her face and Christian noticed the film of sweat on her upper lip. She hadn’t even touched her coffee. For pity’s sake, he thought irritably, couldn’t they even have a civil conversation?
‘It matters,’ he said now, pushing the burger aside, suddenly as uninterested in the food as she was.
‘Look, are we going to have to spend the next God knows how many years fencing around what’s really going on here? You don’t like me, Olivia. Well, here’s a newsflash, I’m not madly keen on you, either. But we’ve got to work together. Can’t we at least call a truce?’
Olivia’s gaze turned to him, but where he’d expected to see hostility he glimpsed only panic. ‘Where are the rest rooms?’ she choked, a hand over her mouth almost making her words indistinguishable, and as he cast around for an answer she left the table and rushed headlong out of the restaurant.
He followed her, of course, but he was too late to be of any help. By the time he reached the corridor, she was disappearing through the door marked ‘Women’. He expelled a frustrated sigh and was forced to kick his heels outside until she came out.
It seemed an age before she reappeared again, although he guessed it had only been a few minutes. She emerged looking even paler, her eyes pink-rimmed and a visible redness around her mouth.
She’d been sick. That much was obvious to him. Dammit, he hadn’t realised Luis’s accident would upset her so much. He straightened away from the wall where he’d been lounging and regarded her with some concern. ‘Are you all right?’
Clearly, she wasn’t, but she made a brave effort to pretend she was. ‘It must have been something I ate,’ she said, making no attempt to disguise what had happened. ‘And seeing Luis.’ She rubbed her lips again with the tissue she’d brought out of the rest room with her. ‘I suppose I didn’t expect all that bracing around his neck.’
‘I’m told they have to immobilise the neck to prevent further injury,’ said Christian gently. ‘It’s just a cervical collar. As I told you, his spine isn’t injured.’
‘All the same—’
‘Olivia, he’s not paralysed. He feels bad, I grant you. I dare say his hip isn’t very comfortable right now. But he will get better.’ He grimaced. ‘The doctors in San Francisco were very thorough. They seemed to think he’d been very lucky.’
Olivia bit her lip. ‘He says he doesn’t have a lot of pain,’ she murmured and Christian nodded.
‘And he hasn’t needed any surgery at all.’
‘Any surgery?’
She was staring at him with wide eyes and Christian cursed himself for mentioning it. ‘There can be internal injuries after a car crash,’ he told her unwillingly. ‘But Luis has no internal bleeding at all.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Indeed. A few weeks’ rest and he’ll be back on his feet, as good as new.’
‘You think so?’
Christian nodded. ‘I do.’
She shook her head. ‘Dear God, what if—?’
‘Olivia, we can all torture ourselves with “what-ifs”,’ he declared flatly. ‘What if he hadn’t been driving so fast? What if he hadn’t been on that particular stretch of highway at all? He did, he was, and this has happened. It’s up to us to make it as easy as possible for him to get over it. Right?’
She sniffed and then said stiffly, ‘Us?’
‘Yeah.’ Christian glanced back into the cafeteria. ‘Look, why don’t we go and sit down again?’
‘Not in there.’ Her response was urgent, and she turned her face away from the restaurant. ‘I—perhaps we should go back upstairs. Luis may be back from his examination by now.’
‘And he may not,’ retorted Christian shortly.
‘Come on, Olivia. We’ve got to talk about this so it might as well be now.’ He chewed on his lip for a moment, and then added, ‘Why don’t we go and find a lounge? There are bound to be waiting rooms for visitors somewhere.’
She hesitated for a moment and he thought she was going to balk again, but she didn’t. ‘All right,’ she agreed at last. ‘You can tell me how the accident happened, and how you came to be the one they got in touch with.’
Christian’s mouth flattened. Yeah, right, he thought grimly. That was the most important thing as far as she was concerned. What had happened months before the accident and how they were going to deal with that in the future was not in question. She was only talking to him at all because she really didn’t have a choice.
They took the stairs instead of using the elevator. Evidently, Olivia had no desire to be confined in an airless cubicle where the smell of antiseptic and medication were all-pervading. In her present state, she would have probably preferred to walk outdoors, but that wasn’t possible. Even without the rain, the streets beyond the parking lot that surrounded the hospital wouldn’t offer them the privacy they sought.
They found a visitors’ lounge on the second floor, just down the corridor from Luis’s room. To Christian’s relief, it was empty, though he guessed Olivia didn’t share his enthusiasm as she surveyed the deserted chairs and sofas.
But there was a coffee machine in one corner and Christian got them both plastic cups of the steaming beverage before he sat down. Olivia, he saw, had chosen an armchair and he took the sofa opposite. He deposited the cups on the table nearby before spreading his legs and letting his hands hang loosely between his thighs.
He couldn’t help but notice that she avoided looking at him. But she gave him a brief nod of thanks for the coffee before concentrating on the contents of the cup. With it cradled between her palms, she was successfully shutting him off from whatever thoughts she was entertaining. He guessed she wasn’t only thinking about her stepson.
But he couldn’t ask her that now. ‘Okay,’ he said instead, forcing her to listen to him. ‘The first thing we have to decide is where Luis is going to convalesce when he leaves the hospital.’
That got her attention. The pinkness had left her lids now and long, silvery-grey eyes set between thick curling lashes focussed on his face. ‘Where he’s going to convalesce?’ she echoed. ‘Isn’t that a little premature? We still don’t know how long he’s going to be in the hospital.’
‘Not long,’ said Christian, taking a mouthful of his own coffee. He found it palatable, if a little weak.
‘It’s my experience that patients who are not in need of any surgery are discharged fairly quickly. They’re encouraged to continue their recovery at home.’
‘At home?’ Once again she repeated his words.
‘But—Luis’s apartment is at Berkeley. There’s no one to care for him there.’
‘I know that.’ Christian put down his cup and regarded her intently. ‘How would you feel about opening up the house in Bal Harbour and caring for him there? After all, it was Luis’s home as well until he left for the west coast. I know you chose to leave Miami, but I don’t suppose that’s written in stone.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u5ccbf294-071a-50b0-8e96-e6eb75406ecd)
IT IS.
Olivia’s lips parted in dismay. She’d suspected what was coming, of course, but she still wasn’t prepared for the shock she got when he voiced the words. He expected her to look after Luis. To go on being the mother she had been for the past fifteen years. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t come back to live in Bal Harbour. Not with Christian just a few miles away, able to come and go as often as he pleased.
And what about Luis himself? She’d hoped to have had the baby before she saw him again. It had been a faint hope, she knew, but since he’d gone to college Luis had become much less dependent on her. As she’d assumed no one knew where she was, it hadn’t seemed such a stretch.
‘I—can’t,’ she said now, before sympathy for her stepson and her own thwarted maternal instincts kicked in. She put her coffee cup down before she dropped it. ‘I’d like to help Luis, but—well, coming back to Florida isn’t on my agenda.’
Christian’s dark face showed his angry reaction. Although he was not a handsome man, his strong features did possess a sensual appeal. A sexual appeal, she admitted, trying to avoid that conclusion and failing miserably. But at this moment any sensuality—or sexuality—was absent.
‘What is on your agenda?’ he demanded, and although she was tempted to tell him to mind his own business, she guarded her tongue.
‘I have plans,’ she said vaguely. Plans that did not include spending the next few months evading Christian’s suspicions.
‘What plans?’ he asked at once, as she’d known he would, and she wondered if he realised how arrogant his question was.
Probably, she decided, giving his dark intense features a covert appraisal. Christian always knew exactly what he was doing. From the moment Tony had brought his cousin’s orphaned son into the business, Christian had known precisely where he was going. He’d always intended to be Tony’s successor, and now he was. But he had no right to push family obligations into her face.
A faint twinge of guilt rippled over her. Who was she to talk about family obligations when she had no intention of telling him she was expecting his child? She knew what he’d do if he ever found out about the baby and that was what scared her. He’d expect to play a prominent role in its life.
But the last thing she wanted was another marriage like the one she’d had with Tony. Okay, maybe she’d been naïve in thinking Tony had married her because he loved her, but she had expected some loyalty from him. Instead of which within weeks of her wedding she’d discovered he was still seeing the woman he’d been having an affair with before he’d asked Olivia to marry him. Tony had had no intention of changing his way of life. He’d enjoyed the excitement of the chase too much.
And Christian was like his cousin. He’d no doubt expect his wife to be as pure as the driven snow while he slept with whomever he chose. Olivia had already lost count of the number of girlfriends he’d had since he came to work for Tony. He seemed to have as little respect for her sex as Tony had himself.
Of course, she was flattering herself by thinking that Christian might ask her to marry him. Heavens, she was at least six years older than he was and that was a lot. Just because she was having his baby she should not think he’d consider giving up his freedom for her. Yet, like his cousin, he cared about family. He might be willing to sacrifice his freedom to give his child a name.
Oh, God, if only it had been anyone other than Christian who had brought her the news about Tony. Even now, she found it hard to believe that she’d behaved as she had. She’d been a reckless fool and now she had to deal with it. Which meant, if she wanted to maintain her independence, keeping him from finding out she was having his child.
Realising he was waiting for her answer, she decided to tell him part of the truth and risk his derision. ‘I—I want to write and illustrate children’s books,’ she said quickly, resenting the need to bare her soul to him. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but—well, I’ve never had the time before.’
‘No?’ Christian’s dark brows arched quizzically and he gave her a disbelieving look.
‘No.’ She disliked his attitude. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘I see.’ His lips twisted into a mocking smirk. ‘And you’ve been busy doing—what, exactly?’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she retorted, refusing to try and explain her reasons to him.
‘Anyway, those are my plans.’
‘And all these years you’ve been married to Tony, you’ve never found the time to put pen to paper before?’
Olivia’s mouth tightened. ‘Not seriously, no.’
Christian picked up his cup again and took another mouthful of the cooling coffee. But his eyes continued to survey her across the rim of his cup. She felt her pulse quicken, her palms grow damp with apprehension. He was no fool, she thought uneasily, and he must be wondering where she should have suddenly acquired this desire to write.
Nevertheless, while Tony was alive such an activity would have been unthinkable. Despite his own shortcomings, Tony had never allowed her to forget that she was his wife, his possession. He’d given her total freedom with his son, but in all other respects she’d been expected to comply with his wishes. And, for Luis’s sake, she’d stifled her own ambitions, contenting herself with making up stories for the boy and illustrating them in his drawing books.
Christian put down his cup with a measured deliberation and Olivia stiffened instinctively. What now? she wondered, watching as he smoothed long brown fingers over the fine woollen cloth that lovingly encased his thigh. He was wearing one of the Italian-designed suits he generally favoured, its charcoal fabric complementing and enhancing his virile appeal.
His dark features were potently male, too, and she was not unaware of it. Nor was she unaware that the hands that were presently employed in such an apparently innocent activity had once caressed her skin. She remembered how it had felt when he’d peeled her nightgown from her, how hotly sensual his skin had felt against her bare flesh…
‘Lo que sea,’ he said, with a shrug, but she knew it was a measure of his frustration that he’d spoken in his own language. He’d spoken Spanish when he was making love to her, she remembered, the unwilling memory of his hands pushing into her hair, of his mouth playing with hers, of the awareness that had started deep within her abdomen and spread to every tingling nerve in her body, causing her to press her hot palms against her suddenly burning cheeks.
But Christian hadn’t made love to her, she corrected herself fiercely. What they’d shared had been hot and carnal, but love had had nothing to do with it. They’d had sex, pure and simple. Good sex, perhaps; great sex, she admitted honestly. Not that she was any expert. Tony had been the first and only man she’d slept with.
