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‘Hello,’ she greeted him softly, holding the collar of her coat tightly together with one pale slim hand—her protective action and pinked cheeks reminding Leandro just how severely the temperatures had dropped since the morning.
‘Isabella …Come in.’
Moving aside, he suddenly detected something different about her that he hadn’t noticed before. What it was he did not know, because she was, in his eyes, lovelier than ever. As she passed him Leandro was aware of so many things about her that aroused him all at once. From the scent of the sharp cold air that clung to her clothing, to the deep sexy sheen of her blue-black hair beneath the hall light and her delicate, yet almost defiant jaw. A jaw that declared the señorita had claws beneath that deceptively sweet demeanour and should not be underestimated. Had he not had a glimpse of her temper in the library earlier?
Idly wondering how soon it would take him to turn that ignited passion to his own advantage should it arise again, Leandro could not help smiling in secret delectation at the libidinous nature of his thoughts. In the past eighteen months he had been around several lovely feminine creatures—mostly in the arena of his work—and none of them had had such a startling effect on his libido as this woman. In fact as Isabella brushed by him in the small compact hallway the heady pleasure that had mesmerised Leandro on immediate sight returned twice as vehemently. He cleared his throat as he shut the door behind them both, silently advising himself to rein in the trail of lust she unwittingly left in her wake.
‘Turn to your left,’ he instructed a little hoarsely. ‘There is a fire in there to warm you.’
Surveying her with almost jealous possession as she went and stood near the fireplace and stretched out her hands towards the bright dancing flames, Leandro realised it was a supreme test of strength to tear his hungry gaze away for even a moment. It would have been entirely natural to perhaps assume that the time they had been apart had diluted the fierce attraction that Leandro had experienced towards Isabella practically on sight—but he was discovering to his immense satisfaction, that the reverse was true.
‘You have no need of your coat now that you are inside. Here, let me take it.’
Before Isabella could properly compose her nerves, he was at her side, distracting her intensely with his disturbing presence. Her senses were immediately enraptured by the alluring warmth from his body and the disarming masculinity that electrified the air and seemed to be able to make her thoughts focus on not much else but sex. Her knees trembled as he dutifully waited for her to unbutton her coat and pass it to him. When she did, his returning, distinctly flirtatious glance kept her feet rooted to the floor. It was a wonder that smoke hadn’t appeared! Now as she stood before him in the outfit she had so carefully selected to wear this evening to tell him her momentous news she worried that the plain black long-sleeved dress that skimmed her narrow waist and fell in fluid, easy lines to her knees was a little too severe. A little too staid and ‘old maid-ish.’ Well, it was too late now to do anything about it. All Isabella had been mindful of was dressing appropriately in deference to the gravity of what she had to reveal to Leandro.
When he returned from the hallway where he had briefly disappeared to take care of her coat, Isabella glanced quickly away from those ‘heat-inducing’ eyes of his with a jolt. The truth was, it was hard to rest her gaze for long on Leandro Reyes without feeling herself coming apart. He was so ruggedly handsome with his disreputably mussed dark hair and disturbing quicksilver gaze that a girl would have to have zero sex-drive and be deprived of all her senses not to be turned on by just the sight of him. The things an ordinary pair of softly faded denim jeans and a loose white shirt could do to that mouth-wateringly fit body of his, Isabella could wax lyrical about from here until the next millennium, given the opportunity! It was easy to see why she had succumbed so easily to his seduction last spring. Being in Northern Spain and experiencing the magic and allure of all that ancient land had to offer on the Santiago de Compostela trail had definitely helped. But, if she was entirely honest with herself, Isabella knew that Leandro Reyes would have been pretty much impossible to resist wherever she had met him. It was why she had fallen for him so hard and so fast …
‘Why don’t you sit and make yourself at home? What can I get you to drink?’ There was an element of disconcerting amusement in his steady, intense regard and Isabella felt her cheeks shade helplessly scarlet in embarrassment. With his hands on his hips, he drew her very interested attention to that enviably easy way he carried himself and in the next moment she bypassed her self-consciousness to just simply gaze back at all that reined-in muscle and honest-to-God masculine beauty, with unconstrained appreciation. Then, guiltily tearing her gaze away, she glanced quickly round at the high-backed armchair beside the fire with its matching footstool. Her brows knit slightly as Leandro reached ahead of her and swiftly retrieved the sheaf of paper that was lying on the seat so that she could sit down.
‘I have been working,’ he explained, his expression serious as he laid the papers down on a cherrywood sideboard instead.
‘I haven’t disturbed you?’ Isabella responded with concern.
‘Of course not.’ He shrugged those wide shoulders of his with dismissive ease. ‘I have been waiting impatiently for you to arrive.’
‘And you are in London because of your work?’
‘Not just because of my work,’ he replied, ‘although I have taken advantage of being here to meet with some people in my industry.’ There was another conversation going on besides the one that traded actual words back and forth, Leandro considered as heat tightened his groin. They could hardly take their eyes away from each other. His skin felt hot …as though it were burning, and all he could really think about, focus on, was the arrestingly beautiful body beneath that funereal black dress she wore and how soon he might divest her of it to make love to her.
‘But I do not want to discuss my work with you tonight, Isabella,’ he told her out loud, his tone almost grave. ‘As I already told you, that was not the main reason I came to the UK.’
‘It wasn’t?’ In the armchair, Isabella carefully folded her pale hands together in her lap, like a young girl about to solemnly take her first Holy Communion.
‘I wanted to see you again. I should have contacted you before but there has been so much going on in my life in the past few months …’ He shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture to denote both inevitability and futility. ‘I live a crazy life sometimes.’
‘I realise that you must be a very busy man. But if you want to know the truth, it’s a bit of a shock to have you make contact after this long.’ Why had he come to find her at the library? Isabella fretted not for the first time. Was he hoping for a repeat performance perhaps of what they had shared in Spain? Her heart sank. As much as she cared for Leandro, she did not want to be used like that.
‘But not an unpleasant shock, I hope?’
Was that doubt she saw briefly reflected in his hypnotic grey eyes? How could seeing him again be remotely unpleasant when she had dreamed of such a wonderful occurrence too many times to recall? Especially when their night together had produced her son? Which brought Isabella quite terrifyingly to the thing she most needed to discuss …the thing that was making her feel as if she were about to face a firing squad.
‘No. Leandro …there’s something that I must—’
‘It was remiss of me not to give you my phone number,’ he asserted firmly, ‘but in my position it is not always easy to trust that people will have integrity and not abuse my trust. Do you understand?’
Isabella did. One could say that they had very similar ‘issues’ regarding trust and protecting their own privacy. ‘Yes …’ her gaze locked with his for terrifyingly long seconds ‘ …I understand.’
‘Now …before we go any further, naturally I want to know if you have been seeing anybody else since we last met? If not, then you must also tell me how it is that a beautiful, desirable woman like you has managed to stay unattached for so long?’
Her heart ached with gratitude that Leandro still thought her beautiful and desirable, but almost instantly Isabella returned to the most important part of his question, knowing she couldn’t put off the answer for ever and wondering if his complimentary opinion of her might change when he heard the truth.
‘No, I haven’t been seeing anybody else. And there is a very good reason.’
Silence deepened the tension that was already holding Isabella’s heart in a vice.
‘And that reason is, Isabella?’ Leandro prompted when she seemed not to be going to answer him at all.
‘It’s …’ For goodness’ sake, Isabella, just say it! ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Then enlighten me, por favor?’
‘All right …it’s because I have a child to take care of.’
There …she’d said it and everything in the room looked just the same—even though everything had changed. Undoubtedly shocked, Leandro swept her with a blunt accusatory stare.
‘You did not tell me when we met in Spain that you were a mother.’
Withdrawing his hand from his jeans pocket, he reached out to lean it on the marble mantelpiece instead. He was more than a little stunned by Isabella’s admission. He had of course known that she had previously been engaged because she had told him that she had cancelled her wedding—but he had not suspected for one moment that she might have had a child from that union! He wondered who had taken care of her or him whilst she had gone to Spain to walk the Santiago de Compostela. Was it the child’s father? Five weeks was a long time for a child to be without its mother, in his considered opinion …
Her dark eyes troubled, Isabella released a long slow breath before getting to her feet. ‘I wasn’t a mother then,’ she explained, folding her arms protectively across her chest. Absently she fingered the delicate gold crucifix that was attached to the slim chain she wore around her neck. She raised her chin a little at his frankly puzzled frown and pressed determinedly on. ‘I had my baby nine months ago, Leandro …a little boy. His name is Raphael.’
‘So you did meet someone else after we parted?’ Barely registering that she had given her son a Spanish name, Leandro could not quell the sudden disturbing rush of fury inside his chest. Since that night he had spent with Isabella in her hotel, he had not slept with another woman. For a man with such a passionate nature, abstinence had been pure torture at times, but when opportunities had come his way he had rejected them—pure and simple—still too aroused by the memory of Isabella to do anything else. And yet, she had returned home to not only be with another man, but to have his baby as well!
‘I …well, I—’
‘So you and the child’s father are no longer together?’ he demanded, his throat dry as dust as he saw to his disappointment that she was finding it almost impossible to meet his eyes, an action that suggested that she was not being entirely honest. ‘I distinctly recall you just telling me that you have not been seeing anybody else?’
‘Leandro …’ He saw her reach up and nervously smooth down her hair. He noticed her long ringless fingers and the indisputable elegance of her slim, pale hands. The same soft hands that had touched him and aroused his senses to a veritable inferno that long, hot, sultry Mediterranean night eighteen months ago …’I told you the truth. I’m not seeing anyone else and I haven’t been with anybody else since we were last together in Vigo! There’s no other way I can put this to make it any less shocking but …the baby is yours, Leandro …You’re his father.’
Hearing the words, Leandro had the strangest sensation that they were snatched up and thrown away by a great sandstorm that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and had muffled his senses in the ensuing uproar. There was a lengthy stunned ellipsis in his thinking processes before he was able to assimilate their meaning fully into his consciousness. So preposterous was the mere suggestion that he could be the father of Isabella’s baby that he sensed a mantle of ice engulf him, regarding her coldly as though she were suddenly an insignificant stranger to him. It might have been eighteen months ago since they had slept together, but Leandro knew without a doubt that he had used protection. He felt quite ill at the idea she was maybe using the opportunity of seeing him again to extract money or support from him for another man’s child—particularly because he was wealthy.
‘Impossible!’ His dangerous grey eyes surveyed her with daggers so sharp that Isabella’s heart was immediately pierced by his disbelief. Automatically her arms went back across her chest as if to fend off the rage that he directed her way. ‘Do you take me for some ill-educated idiot? I could not possibly have made you pregnant, Isabella! You cannot be so forgetful as to remember that I used protection. What are you trying to do? Blackmail me in some way?’
‘No!’ Her dark eyes swam with vivid sparkling tears and inside Leandro felt as if he’d just been viciously winded by a hard punch. His hand was shaking as he tunnelled his fingers through his hair in justified frustration, refusing to be swayed by consideration of her hurt feelings when she clearly did not give a damn about his.
‘I’m not lying to you, Leandro,’ she insisted, rubbing at the moisture that glistened on her cheeks. ‘I’ll take any test you want me to take, but you are definitely the father of my child! And as for blackmail …well, that’s a pretty hurtful accusation under the circumstances. I didn’t have to come here …I could have stayed away and you would have been none the wiser about the baby. But when you turned up at the library like that and demanded that we talk, I had to tell you the truth, that’s all. I naturally thought that you would want to know.’
‘And how did we make a baby together when I used contraception, Isabella? Or was it an immaculate conception?’
‘Please, Leandro,’ she pleaded through her tears. ‘I’m telling you the truth, I swear it! It happened during the night …you—you reached out to me and I thought I was dreaming.’ She dipped her head as a soft crimson stain crept into her cheeks. ‘You obviously thought you were dreaming too. That’s when it happened.’
An astounding, almost unbelievable memory flooded into Leandro’s brain. For a moment it was hard to breathe. Isabella was not lying. Now that he’d been forced to remember the event in detail, he did recall reaching out to her at one point during that deliciously erotic night after they had both drifted into sleep. He even remembered thinking what an unbelievably realistic dream it was he was having because it was so real …He’d felt everything …her soft, full breasts, her smooth, flat stomach and, most of all, the searing hot wetness between her thighs as he’d so urgently plunged inside her …Now she was telling him that he’d fathered a child during that amazing night together …a boy …a boy called Raphael. All the moisture seemed to absent itself from Leandro’s mouth at once.
‘Why did you not try to get in touch with me when you found out that you were pregnant?’ he asked hoarsely, his expression a vivid depiction of shock and pain.
‘I did.’ She met his gaze steadily for the first time in a couple of minutes without glancing away again. ‘If you only knew how hard I tried! I tried every avenue I could think of …but the people who work for your film company clearly thought I was some kind of obsessive fan or something because they wouldn’t even take a message, let alone give me a number to ring so that I could speak to you! I’m sorry, Leandro …I never wanted you to find out like this …to come face to face with the truth when I’d already had the baby and he was nine months old.’
‘Why Raphael?’ He moved across to the other side of the room and back, the tension in him reaching out to Isabella like icy tentacles wrapping themselves around her heart. ‘Why did you call him that?’
‘After my grandfather. His name was Raphael …Raphael Morentes. I told you he was Spanish?’
She had. But Leandro had scarcely given her an opportunity to tell him much about herself or her family that night. He had been concerned with one thing and one thing only: to fulfil the powerful lust she had ignited in him with her depthless black eyes and alluring body—not to mention revel in her exquisite sensitivity and unconstrained delight at his stories about the Camino …Now he’d learned that bedding Isabella had not only allowed him to fulfil his lustful attraction, but it had also produced a child …his child! It was an altogether incredible idea. He thought about his father Vincente and how long he had wanted Leandro to become a father too—to produce a grandchild for him to shower love upon. And for the past nine months, unknowingly to Leandro, he had become a father. Only Vincente had not lived long enough to see his grandchild.
For a moment, Leandro’s heart cramped with searing emotion inside his chest. He had not even seen his own son yet …What did he look like? he wondered, dazedly glancing at Isabella again. Did he favour his mother or would he instantly see traits of his own familiar features? But before he met his son for the first time, Leandro needed some time to think about the momentous revelation of his existence. The most incredible thing had happened to him. He needed to sit down and think seriously about all the implications and about what steps to take next and he could not do that with the too-taunting distraction of Isabella. She would have to go.
‘You will have to give me your address.’ Diverting his glance, Leandro paced to a nearby table laden with books and papers. Picking up a pen and a sheet of paper, he returned to Isabella and handed them both to her. ‘Write it down on there …your telephone number too …including your mobile, if you have one.’
Isabella was so upset by the coolly dispassionate glance he delivered her way that she saw her hand shake as she accepted the pen and paper. Did he think she was trying to ruin his life with her news of Raphael? That was the last thing she wanted! She had to make him see that she didn’t blame him for getting her pregnant, that she loved her child with all her heart and would continue to take the very best care of him until he was grown—with or without his father’s acknowledgment or presence in his life. But Isabella was hurt too …hurt that he seemed to be blaming her for getting pregnant when he was equally responsible. Carefully writing down her address and telephone numbers with a hand that could not cease its shaking, she handed the paper back to him in silence. He folded it in two and sighed deeply.
‘Gracias. Now you should go.’
Stunned but not entirely surprised, Isabella smoothed her hands anxiously down the soft folds of her dress. Raising her eyes to his, she ventured softly, ‘This isn’t the end of your world, you know. You can carry on as normal if you like …you don’t even have to stay in touch. I for one am so glad that I have Raphael and nothing will change my feelings on that score.’
He cursed. Out loud and in voluble Spanish. Isabella took a step back from the fury in his handsome face.
‘You seriously believe that I am capable of calmly walking away from my own son when I have only just learned of his existence? Well, listen to this, Isabella, and listen well. It is impossible that I would even consider such a thing! Have you not heard of the word “honour” in your country? What kind of men are you used to seeing? Clearly the kind who know nothing of that word!’ He took a deep despising breath and drove his hand with force through his already tousled hair. ‘I will come and visit Raphael tomorrow at five o’clock when my business in town is concluded. Unfortunately I cannot put it off at this short notice even if I would like to, which I assure you I would.’
‘You’ll have to make it around six-thirty, not five,’ Isabella said breathlessly, apprehensive of a further display of hot Latin temper. ‘Raphael is at nursery until a quarter to six when I pick him up after work.’
‘You have our nine-month-old son in a nursery?’
‘I have to work, Leandro. How else do you think I support us?’
‘He is clearly too young to be farmed out to strangers! What about your parents? Can they not take care of him while you are out at work?’
‘No.’ Swallowing hard, Isabella wondered how to explain to Leandro that, although her parents clearly did love their grandchild, they very much valued their own independence and would certainly not even remotely consider helping out with child-minding on a regular basis! ‘I’m afraid they are not the kind of supportive parents that would do that.’
Leandro’s expression was almost frighteningly forbidding. ‘That is too bad,’ he commented. ‘We will clearly have to come to some far better arrangements for the future.’
She felt a bolt of alarm shoot through her at his ominous-sounding words, and Isabella’s dark eyes cleaved anxiously to his resolute and steely glance.
‘What do you mean by that exactly?’ she demanded.
‘We will discuss everything tomorrow,’ he said firmly, absolutely refusing to be drawn.
Around six-fifteen the following evening, Isabella let herself hurriedly into her neat terraced house, flicked on the lights, raced straight through to the living room with her son fast asleep in her arms and laid him carefully down on the plump old-fashioned sofa with its loose floral cover. Stripping off her coat, she left it on a mismatched armchair bedecked with a maroon fringed shawl, then rushed back out into the hallway to turn on the central heating. The house was far too cold for comfort this evening. Or was that only because the blood in her veins kept turning to ice at the thought of what Leandro might be going to propose for their future? Hers and Raphael’s?
The heating on, Isabella made her way into the kitchen, filled the kettle, found some cups and saucers, got the milk from the fridge, then returned to the living room to check on her infant. Raphael lay peacefully asleep, his plump, round cheeks rosy with health and his curly black hair made even more fetchingly tousled by his nap. Glancing across at the fringed shawl beneath her discarded coat, she stripped it off the chair and arranged it tenderly around her son. Softly, ever so gently so as not to wake him, Isabella touched her lips to his small downy cheek. Her heart squeezed with love. She would fight off rampaging lions with her bare hands to protect this child if it came to it.
Isabella didn’t know what conclusions Leandro had reached about the situation now that he’d had time to consider it further, but whatever he’d decided, she consoled herself, he would have to consider her needs and wishes first. She might have identified him as the child’s father when she’d registered Raphael’s birth details with the authorities, but that still did not give him inalienable rights to dictate his son’s future. They would have to discuss things in a calm, civilised manner and come to the best solution for all of them.
Determinedly dragging her thoughts away from possible disasters, she sighed, allowing her imagination to contemplate once again the full extraordinary reality of seeing Leandro yesterday. Coming face to face with him once more had been wonderful as well as nerve-racking because of what she had to tell him. Last night, sleep had mostly evaded her because her thoughts had been full of the memory of how good he had looked …how tanned and fit and gorgeous—that unusually light-coloured gaze of his sending hot sparks of delight and awareness to every corner of Isabella’s being. And at least he had wanted to see Raphael …He hadn’t rejected his existence outright as she’d secretly feared he might.
The ringing doorbell had her dashing out into the hallway and quickly checking her appearance in the mirror there as she passed. Grimacing that she hadn’t even had a moment to pull a brush through her hair, she adjusted her sweater more smoothly over her breasts, absently ran her hands across her hips in smart black jeans, and just before she opened the door sent up a swift passionate prayer for courage and guidance. She had to tread carefully but firmly and make Leandro see that her main concern was her son’s well being and not just her own. She would do nothing that would threaten his security in any way. It was vital that he recognised that. Now as Isabella saw him make a swift yet intense examination of her appearance as she opened the door—before greeting her with a very serious ‘hola’—answering heat assailed her body in a tumultuous rush. As well as stirring desire she didn’t want to feel, it frustrated her like mad that she felt pretty damn defence-less when he looked at her like that—as though he was mentally stripping her naked. And not just her body—because it was as though all the contents of her heart and mind were helplessly exposed to him too.
She wondered how on earth the actresses in the films he directed managed to remember their lines when Leandro gazed at them like that. Then she tried to quell the hot flare of jealousy that exploded in her stomach at the mere thought …Today he was wearing a clearly expensive yet well-worn brown leather jacket opened over a black cotton shirt with dark blue denim jeans. With his dark hair edging onto his shoulders and his jaw unshaven, his raffish appearance was more suggestive of adventure and danger than ‘ordinary’ life as lived by most people.
Isabella found herself wondering what her grandfather would have made of him. Would he have thought Leandro a ‘suitable’ man to have a relationship with his granddaughter and be the father of her baby? A stab of sadness throbbed through her at the memory of the man she had loved even more than the stepfather who had helped raise her. The man who had even bequeathed her his house so that she would never be without a home of her own …Raphael Morentes was the kindest-hearted, most loving man she had ever known. But Isabella also reminded herself that a proper relationship with Leandro was not really on the cards. They had slept together, yes, and made a baby—but that did not mean that a fully committed relationship naturally followed. Now she was going to acquaint him with his son and that fraught, no doubt emotive introduction was going to take every ounce of her composure to help her get through it.
‘You found us all right, then?’
She was papering over the cracks of her trepidation with inconsequential small talk and was not surprised when Leandro did not immediately answer. Stopping at the door of the living room, she gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Shall we have a drink first? The weather is still so cold. You could probably do with a drink to—’
‘I would like to see my son, Isabella,’ he interceded clearly, his glance into her startled eyes unremittingly and disturbingly focused …
CHAPTER SIX
LEANDRO gazed down at his sleeping baby son with a fierce swell of pride, apprehension and love pouring through his chest all at the same time. The sensation rocked him so hard that the ground beneath his feet suddenly felt like the deck of a ship upon a wild, precarious ocean instead of the firm foundation he knew it was in reality. Tears stung his eyes as he dropped down onto his haunches, carefully smoothed back a rogue curl from the baby’s velvet-smooth cheek and experienced the exquisite flutter of his gentle breath against his hand.
At thirty-six years of age, Leandro’s life was not bereft of memorable moments, but this was one that would be recorded in the deepest annals of his heart, mind and soul for ever. Even with Raphael asleep, he had straight away recognised the similarity between his child and himself as an infant. Remembering his parents’ photographs, he recalled that he had had the same black curly hair and the same plump features as the little boy before him. His mother would be undone by this news of a grandchild. Leandro could already imagine her weeping with joy. The baby’s existence would help towards healing the great hurt done her when her beloved husband had lost his life so cruelly and without warning.
All at once he was galvanised by a tremendous sense of overwhelming purpose. The plans for the future that he had vaguely turned over in his mind last night after Isabella had left now became almost urgently reinstated at the sight of his child. He found that his thinking on the subject was so much more focused than it had been.
Surging to his feet, Leandro just about contained the sense of urgency that was gripping him to regard Isabella with deceptive calmness. She stood with her arms down by her sides, her face pale with anxiety, her dark eyes locking onto his as if she were a prisoner awaiting sentence and he the judge and jailer who held the key to her freedom or incarceration …
Attacked on all sides by a myriad conflicting emotions, Leandro clenched his jaw and drew determinedly upon his characteristic resolve to overcome the feelings that threatened to swamp him. Self-control was paramount now if he was going to achieve the outcome he suddenly knew with great clarity that he desired and he could not afford to be swayed by emotion alone. There were important things to be conveyed to Isabella …the mother of his son. Things that he had no time in which to consider how she would react to them, or whether they pleased or displeased her.
‘I can see that he is my child …of that there is no doubt.’ Moving his head slowly from side to side, Leandro took a moment to let the astounding realisation properly sink in. ‘Last night, his existence was merely the most impossible, incredible idea. But now today, seeing him in the flesh …it is …’ Dropping his hands to his hips, he looked nothing less than stunned. ‘How can I explain? There are not the words to say.’ As he considered Isabella his penetrating glance grew doubly resolute. ‘But now that I have seen him …it is clear to me that you will both have to return to Madrid with me,’ he declared, as though he were the authoritative captain of a ship announcing to his passengers that the crew had to make an unavoidable detour on their voyage …a detour that was not open to argument.
‘What?’ Now it was Isabella’s turn to look stunned.
‘I am due to start directing a new film in three days’ time and I want you and our son with me when I return …I do not have time to contest this with you, Isabella; it simply must be. I have a house a little way from the old part of the town and fortunately I will be working close by because I am shooting on location there. There is no need to worry about bringing everything. Just pack essentials for you and the child for now. Anything else you want to bring I can arrange to have transported over later.’
Her mouth agape, Isabella closed it again as she strove to assimilate the sensation of being dragged along by a runaway train by her coat tails. Indignation helpfully shook her out of her temporary stupor. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He wanted her and Raphael to move back to Spain with him in just a couple of days? As she considered the determined glitter in those incredible eyes of his, along with the indisputably dictatorial stance he was taking, Isabella inwardly took umbrage. ‘Now wait a minute here! You can’t just say, “It must be,” and expect me to meekly agree as if there was no question that I should come with you! This is our home! My friends and my family live here …My life is here!’
‘In Spain you told me that you wanted to live a different life. You said that things for you had become predictable …that you longed to change that. To me that would suggest that you might welcome the notion of living in another country—not be totally against the idea. Surely walking the Camino helped you to have less fixed and rigid views, Isabella?’
He had a point, of course. Feeling acutely discomfited by his solemn-faced cynosure as well as the wisdom in his words, Isabella sighed and ran her hand across her brow. ‘My views aren’t rigid or fixed!’ she protested, glancing down at her slumbering baby. She had never sought to deny him knowledge or influence of his father—on the contrary, she had tried every which way she could to contact him—but at the same time Leandro could not just wade in and take charge of everything now that he was here. If only she could think more clearly for a minute! But that was easier said than done when the strongly magnetic pull for this man kept interfering—like some pirate radio station infiltrating the airwaves. ‘But if you seriously expect me to consider your suggestion, then I need more than three days to think it over.’
‘No,’ he snapped back with a dangerously warning glance, ‘that is not possible! I want my son with me when I return to Spain and I am not prepared to wait while you make up your mind about whether it is a good idea or not! How do I know that when I leave the country you would not flee somewhere else with Raphael and leave no forwarding address?’
Isabella blanched in indignation. ‘I would never do that to you!’ As she struggled to calm herself she could see the genuine fear in Leandro’s expression that she might do just that and her heart turned over with sorrow. She would never deprive him of contact with his son or Raphael contact with his father. ‘Look …this is an impossible situation. I know that. We both have to be reasonable if we’re going to make the right decision …don’t you agree?’
‘The “right” decision?’ For a moment Leandro appeared scornful. ‘The right decision is that we simply have to do what is best for Raphael! And, in my opinion, living with both parents in a comfortable home and not lacking for anything is surely something to be desired and not rejected? Even if it is not in the country he was born in. I want to be in my son’s life on a daily basis—I am not interested in a long-distance “weekend father” kind of relationship! The only way we can accomplish that is for both of you to come and live with me. I say again, Isabella …it is Raphael’s welfare that must take precedence over any other considerations. And I have already been deprived of nine months of his life and do not intend to be deprived of any more!’
At the sound of the raised male voice, Raphael stirred where he lay on the sofa beneath the pretty fringed shawl, opened his startling grey eyes and whimpered softly as he looked up at Leandro.
‘Increíble …’
Lapsing into awed Spanish, Leandro gazed down into the glistening mirror of his infant son’s eyes, his expression rapt. Any vestige of doubt that they were father and son was annihilated into dust in that amazing moment. He let his breath out slowly.
Automatically moving past him to pick up her infant, Isabella felt her own body tremble violently with emotion. She felt for both of them. For her baby son who, did he but know it, was looking upon the face of his father for the very first time …and for Leandro, meeting the child he hadn’t even known existed until yesterday …
I have already been deprived of nine months of his life and do not intend to be deprived of any more!
The ache inside her throat burned intolerably as Leandro’s passionate words echoed hurtfully round her brain. She had tried so hard to contact him when she’d found out that she was pregnant, but every avenue, every door to reaching him, had been absolutely shut in her face. It would have been easier to try and make contact with the Pope! What was she supposed to have done under the circumstances but decide to raise her child on her own?
Frustration and guilt gripping her, Isabella tried to stay calm for her son’s sake. Carefully lifting Raphael up into her arms, she cradled him tenderly as he laid his head on her shoulder and proceeded to suck his thumb—all the while regarding Leandro from beneath his sable lashes with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
