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And that was obviously not what he wanted to hear, Serena thought hazily as she saw the flare of anger in those amazing eyes, the temper that fought against the strict control he imposed on it so that the beautiful mouth clamped into an uncompromisingly hard line.
In that moment it was as if she had known him for ever, so recognisable were the danger signs in his face. Whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t accustomed to being opposed by someone he obviously considered his inferior. His breath hissed in through his teeth as he prepared to speak.
But then, just as she had nerved herself for the explosion that she felt sure was about to break over the doctor’s unsuspecting head, he clearly reconsidered his position. That forceful jaw snapped shut on the angry words he had been about to utter, closing with such force that Serena actually heard the click of his teeth as they came together.
‘As you wish!’ he declared icily.
Satisfied that he was going to keep silent, at least for the moment, Dr Greene turned back to Serena.
‘Is there anyone we can contact for you? Your parents? Some other next of kin?’
‘No.’ Despondently she shook her head. ‘My parents are no longer alive. My mother died of cancer last year and my father had a fatal heart attack eighteen months before that. There’s no one.’
Once more she had to struggle against the sting of tears, blinking furiously to hold them back as the doctor leaned forward and placed a reassuring hand on hers.
‘You really must not get upset. You need to rest and take things quietly, recuperate…’
‘But how can I rest until I know what happened?’ Serena’s voice quavered weakly on the words. How could anyone expect her to relax until she had been told exactly how she had come to be here, in this hospital, and just what had happened before that?
Because she could remember nothing of what must have been an accident that had so knocked her for six that she hadn’t even been aware of having been brought to the hospital and put in this bed. And if she was in London…
‘Please!’ Reaching out, she caught hold of the doctor’s hand, clinging onto it as if it was her only lifeline, the one weak link with sanity in a world that suddenly seemed to have gone completely mad. ‘You must tell me! How did I come to be here?’
‘You had an accident.’ Dr Greene spoke with obvious reluctance. ‘You were in a car crash and you had a rather nasty bang on the head. You’ve been completely out of it for a while.’
‘A while? How long is a while?’
‘It’s almost ten days now. You were deeply unconscious at first, but just lately you’ve been drifting in and out.’
‘I have?’
Frowning hard, Serena forced herself to concentrate. If she really tried, it was just possible to recall vague moments that she had thought she had dreamed. Moments of seeming to struggle to the surface of some clouded, murky pond, reaching frantically for footholds or something to cling on to.
Then, just for a few tiny, brief seconds, she had been able to open her eyes and look around, barely managing to focus before the heavy, sticky darkness had descended once more and folded around her, cutting her off again.
‘There was someone…’
Someone had been sitting by the bed, watching and waiting for her to wake. Someone who had heard the unhappy, troubled sounds she had made as she stirred restively, struggling against the nightmares that enclosed her. Someone who had smoothed the tangled copper hair back from her hot forehead with a cool, soothing hand.
And, later, someone who had poured her water and held her as she struggled to drink, gently dissuading her from gulping as she strained to ease her parched and aching throat.
‘Someone was here…’
‘A nurse. You’ve been under strict observation.’
‘No…’
It hadn’t been a nurse. She had no idea how she knew that, but it was the one point on which she was absolutely positive. The good Samaritan, the soft voiced helper who had tended to her in the darkness of the night, at her lowest moments, had not had the coolly professional approach, the detached, impersonal restraint of a trained carer. And the voice she had heard…
The voice!
Wide and rounded with shock, her brown eyes flew to Rafael Cordoba’s face, clashing harshly with the stony golden gaze he turned on her. The beautifully carved features could have been sculpted from bronze marble, showing no response at all as he deliberately blanked out her questioning glance, stonewalling, giving away nothing at all.
‘You have had the best care that money could buy, Miss Martin,’ he said coolly, as if that was the unspoken question she had asked him.
But she didn’t really need to ask anything. She knew what she had heard, and she had heard that accent soothing her, comforting her in the darkness of the night. So why had he now turned from ministering angel into Spanish Inquisitor?
‘But…’ she began, then wearily shook her aching head. ‘I need to know…’
Her voice seemed beyond her control, fading weakly into a sigh she could not suppress.
‘You’re tired,’ Dr Greene put in gently. ‘You must be careful not to overdo things at this early stage. You know as much as you can cope with right now. You need to rest.’
Wearily Serena nodded. She was tired. Her thoughts were sliding out of focus, that fuddled, heavy feeling like cotton wool back inside her head. Lacking the strength to stay upright, she sank back against her pillows, heavy eyelids drooping.
‘I’ll be back to talk to you again soon. Everything will be all right.’
‘Everything!’ It was a harsh exclamation, slashing into the silence that had descended as Rafael moved suddenly, one hand coming up in a violent gesture. ‘Everything! Madre de Dios, what about—?’
‘Mr Cordoba!’ There was real annoyance in the doctor’s voice now. ‘I said enough! I want you to go now—to leave Miss Martin alone.’
He was tempted to rebel against her instructions, it was obvious. Once more that dangerous anger flared in his eyes, in the darkly searing glance he flung at the doctor and then, unnervingly, at Serena herself. But a couple of seconds later he drew himself up again, that strong jaw setting determinedly.
‘Very well,’ he said, each word cold and clipped and icily precise, heightening his accent strongly. ‘I’ll go. But…’
The turn of his head, the direction of his eyes, made it plain that the next thing he said was for Serena alone.
‘I’ll be back,’ he said, low and hard, and deadly. ‘I promise you that. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’
They were only words, Serena tried to tell herself as she shrank back in the bed, pulling the covers up close around her. Only words. Almost the same ones that the doctor had used just a few moments before.
But she had seen Rafael Cordoba’s eyes as he spoke, seen the dangerous gleam in them, the burn of something that made her shiver inwardly, and as a result his promise to return had had precisely the opposite effect to the reassurance that Dr Greene had given her.
He would be back; she could have no doubt about that. And the honest truth was that the prospect of coming face to face with him again was one that made her shudder in fearful apprehension.
CHAPTER TWO
‘I’VE brought someone to see you.’
‘What?’
Serena glanced up from the magazine she had been staring at listlessly, not taking in a single word, her eyes going to where the man who had spoken stood in the doorway.
Rafael Cordoba, of course. Who else would it be?
It was five days now since the disturbing, confusing moment when she had woken from unconsciousness to find herself here in this hospital and on the receiving end of Rafael’s forceful questioning. ‘I’ll be back,’ he had promised, and he had kept firmly to that promise. The very next morning he had appeared at her bedside, and every day since.
But it was obvious that Dr Greene or someone in a position of even higher authority had had a word or two with him before he had been let into the ward. The hard, aggressive tone had been muted, the curt, sharp questions silenced, temporarily at least, and even the powerful sexual awareness she had sensed in him had been ruthlessly reined in.
‘I’m sorry—what did you say?’
She prayed that he would take the unevenness in her voice, the faint quaver she couldn’t quite suppress, as the result of being taken by surprise by his unexpected arrival. The last thing she wanted him to suspect was the sheer, mind-blowing, physical effect he had on her simply by existing. Just the sight of that long, lean body, the jet-black hair and burning golden eyes made her breath catch in her throat, her heart stumbling in its natural rhythm.
And today it was even worse. On every other occasion on which she had seen him, he had been dressed in an immaculately cut suit like the one he had been wearing on that first day. But today, perhaps as a concession to the heat of the sun outside, he had thrown off that formality, opting instead for casual jeans and a short-sleeved shirt.
The tight denim hugged the firm lines of his narrow waist and hips, emphasising his masculinity in a way that was sinfully sensual, and the pure white cotton of his shirt contrasted starkly with the bronzed skin at his arms and throat, making it seem darker and warmer as a result.
Nervously Serena twitched at the peach-coloured cover on her bed, painfully aware of the amount of pale, lightly freckled skin exposed by the sleeveless vee-necked top of her cream cotton nightdress. She longed to cover up, but feared that any unwise movement would simply draw his attention to the way she was feeling.
‘I’ve brought someone with me…’
‘Another visitor? That’s a surprise. I didn’t think I knew anyone in London.’
Her memory of the accident, and the days leading up to it, had still not returned, and in a way that she found intensely frustrating neither the doctor nor Rafael was prepared to give her any information on the subject.
‘You have to be patient,’ was the response she heard every time she asked a question or fretted at her lack of recollection. ‘It’s better to let your memory come back naturally, on its own. If you’re told anything at all, then that won’t happen.’
‘So where is this friend of yours?’
‘Right here…’ Rafael told her, bronzed forearms tensing as he lifted something up and deposited it on the bed.
Totally bemused, Serena realised that she was staring at a carrycot, and inside, dressed in soft blue cotton, tiny feet bare, lay a small baby.
‘Oh! He’s gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, her full mouth breaking into a smile of delight. Automatically she leaned forward, wanting to pick him up, then froze, unsure of what Rafael’s response might be.
‘You think so?’
Rafael’s reaction was not at all what she had expected. There was a new and disturbing tension in his tone, one that jarred sharply, scraping over Serena’s nerves and setting them sharply on edge.
‘Of course I do! Wouldn’t anyone…?’
Her words faded as, alerted by the sound of her voice, the baby stirred suddenly. His legs kicked sharply, small fists waving in the air, and his closed lids lifted, wide dark eyes looking directly into hers. Her breath suddenly caught in her throat as she felt an involuntary kick of response.
‘What’s his name?’ she managed on a dry, painful croak.
A faint thatch of fine black hair fuzzed the baby’s scalp. The black hair and something about the shape of the child’s face reminded her strongly of the man beside her. The man whose image had haunted her thoughts by day, disturbed her sleep at night in heated, shockingly erotic dreams that she had woken from to find her heart still racing, her hair damp with sweat.
‘His full name is Antonio Felipe Martinez Cordoba.’
Cordoba. There it was. The confirmation she had been dreading. How had this happened to her? How could this man, whom she had known for only a few days, have such an effect on her that it mattered so much to think that he might already be in a relationship? That he had fathered a child with another woman.
‘What a mouthful.’
She concentrated her attention on the baby as she spoke, putting out a tentative finger to stroke one waving hand, a smile escaping her as she saw the way his little fist closed round it, clutching hard. And in that moment it was as if the little boy’s hand had curled around her heart as well, taking it prisoner as it was flooded with an unexpected and totally overwhelming rush of love for this small, vulnerable being.
‘A big name for such a little scrap.’
‘I call him Tonio.’
‘That suits him.’ She bent forward, smiling into the child’s wide eyes, the red-gold curtain of her hair falling round her oval face, forming a shield from Rafael’s watchful gaze. ‘He’s yours?’
His wordless murmur went unheeded as her thoughts leapt on to the next logical connection.
‘I didn’t know you were married.’
‘I’m not.’ His unexpected response brought her head round in a rush, brown eyes widening in shock. ‘Never have been, even though I came close to it once.’
‘Then Tonio. He’s a—a—love-child?’
Her heart was doing crazy things inside her chest: beating way too fast and twisting, practically turning somersaults, so that she was unable to breathe. Not married didn’t mean not committed, and after all what greater commitment was there between two people than the fact that they had a child together?
‘A love-child?’ Rafael’s beautifully shaped mouth twisted cynically on the word. ‘There are those who would call him something far less complimentary.’
‘But if you and his mother are together…’
‘No!’ It came forcefully, almost violently, and those brilliant golden eyes blazed with fierce rejection of her statement. ‘Tonio’s mother and I are not, as you so tactfully put it, “together”.’
Serena’s heart, which had started to slow down, to return to its natural rhythm, lurched painfully at the sudden change in his tone.
Somehow, without quite knowing how, she had overstepped whatever careful lines he drew around his personal life. The man she had grown accustomed to over the past few days had vanished and the person she had privately nicknamed the Spanish Inquisitor, the man who had so upset and frightened her at their first meeting, was back.
‘I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
Thoroughly unnerved, she snatched her hand away from the baby’s grasp, suddenly afraid to show her response to the child.
‘I never…’
But she got no further. Furious at having his new-found toy so abruptly snatched from him, Tonio murmured a faint protest which then developed into a full-blooded howl, his little face screwing into a furious grimace, his cheeks flushed bright red.
‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry!’ Serena’s remorse was immediate, her fear of Tonio’s father forgotten as she moved hastily to comfort the little boy.
Rafael was there before her, scooping the child out of his carrycot and gathering him close.
‘Hush, mi corazón, hush,’ he soothed huskily. ‘All is well; you’re safe.’
Serena’s heart tightened again, her nerves tying themselves into hard, painful knots at the sight of the baby held so firmly against the strength and width of the hard wall of the man’s chest. His small, vulnerable form seemed so much tinier, so delicate when contrasted with the arms that enclosed him, the long-fingered hand that curved lovingly around the delicate skull, supporting the tiny head.
Immediately all the loneliness and apprehension that had gripped her just before Rafael’s arrival flooded back with a vengeance.
This was why, in spite of her initial fear of him, she had been so glad to see Rafael when he had appeared in her room on the second day after she had regained consciousness. No one else was likely to visit. There was no one she could turn to who could help her obtain the small necessities that would make her stay in hospital that bit more comfortable.
And Rafael hadn’t needed to be asked. In fact he had arrived that first day with flowers, fruit, and a bag containing a selection of toiletries, all of the most luxurious brands, more expensive than anything she had ever been able to provide for herself. He had even thought to bring a couple of new nightdresses, guessing at her size with an accuracy that had frankly astonished and unnerved her. It spoke of an intimate knowledge of the female body that she found she didn’t want to enquire into too closely.
‘Keep them!’ he had declared dismissively when she had protested at his generosity. ‘They’re only trifles—I can easily afford them.’
But just that morning she had learned that the nightdresses and toiletries were only part of it, that his generosity went much further than she had ever imagined. And that was something she could not let go unchallenged.
‘Is it true that you have been paying all my bills?’
