Rafael's Love-Child

Totally bemused, Serena realized 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. “What’s his name?”

“I call him Tonio.”

“He’s yours? I didn’t know you were married.”

“I’m not.”

“Then Tonio…. He’s a—a—love-child?”

“A love-child?” Rafael’s 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 out forcefully. “Tonio’s mother and I are not together.”

He’s a man of cool sophistication.

He’s got pride, power and wealth.

At the top of his corporate ladder, he’s a ruthless businessman—an expert lover

His life runs like a well-oiled machine….

Until now.

Because suddenly he’s responsible for a BABY!

His Baby

A miniseries from Harlequin Presents®.

He’s sexy, successful…and he’s facing up to fatherhood!

There’ll be another HIS BABY title out soon.

Rafael’s Love-Child

Kate Walker

For Doctor Cathy

With thanks for all the information and advice

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘DO YOU know who you are?’

The question came sharply, making Serena blink in confusion as she struggled to focus on her surroundings. Her mind seemed clogged and hazy, her thoughts strangely fuzzy round the edges.

‘What a silly question—of course I know who I am! My name is Serena Martin. And…’

Frowning slightly, brown eyes narrowed in concentration, she ran a disturbed hand through the bright auburn of her hair as she looked round her, taking in the pastel-toned room, the soft peach and cream curtains that matched the cover on the bed in which she lay. In spite of obvious attempts to make it look attractive, the bedroom still had an impersonal, institutional feel. And the dark-haired woman who sat beside her bed, her grey eyes fixed on Serena’s face, wore a tailored white coat that told its own story.

‘…and I presume this is a hospital of some kind?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And do you know what happened?’

Two voices sounded this time, chiming together so that it was almost impossible to tell them apart. But it was enough to make Serena realise that that the woman in the white coat—the doctor—was the one who had reassured her, not the one asking all the questions.

They were coming from the man on the opposite side of the room. The man whose powerful frame filled the doorway in which he stood, strong back ramrod-straight, broad shoulders squared.

He was tall, dark, definitely imposing—frighteningly so.

Frighteningly? The word brought Serena up sharp. She was sure she had never seen this man in her life before, so where had that description come from? She couldn’t say, only knew that it seemed disturbingly appropriate.

‘Do you?’ he insisted now, the intriguing accent that she had caught so briefly a moment before deepening with the emphasis of his tone. ‘Can you tell me how you came to be here?’

That was much more difficult. If she hunted in her mind for the answer to his question, all she found was confusion, tangled, clouded thoughts and vague memories. There were muddled impressions of noise and panic, a sickening crash and someone screaming in fear.

Was that someone herself?

‘I—I presume there must have been some sort of accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’

For all that he hadn’t moved from his position at the door, the way that the man spoke made Serena feel as if he had actually stepped further into the room, coming dangerously close to her and seeming to pin her against the wall.

‘I—I don’t know!’ For the first time she faced him head-on, turning defiant brown eyes on his dark face. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

Who was he? Another doctor? He wasn’t wearing the regulation white coat that revealed the occupation of the woman who still sat at her bedside. Instead, his lean frame was encased in the sort of dark suit whose exquisite fabric and perfect tailoring screamed the sort of perfection only a great deal of money could buy.

But perhaps he was of some higher rank than the friendly woman—a surgeon, or a consultant. Wasn’t it the case that they didn’t wear white coats, just as they were addressed as ‘Mr’ and not ‘Doctor’?

Whoever he was, he was stunning, impossibly handsome. Looking at him was like looking into the brightness of the sun, the effect on every one of her senses was so devastating.

That impressive height was combined with jet-black hair, sleek and heavy, brushed back from his face in a way that emphasised his superbly carved cheekbones. Dazedly Serena became aware of a straight, jutting nose, determined chin and surprisingly sensual mouth, but it was the eyes that she noticed most. Fringed by impossibly thick, luxuriantly black lashes, they were deep gold, almost the colour of flame and blazing just as brightly.

And the rich tan that bronzed this man’s skin was not the result of some two-week Mediterranean holiday. Instead it was obviously his natural colouring, the year-round tone that came from an ancestry that was definitely not English.

Unconsciously, Serena shifted slightly in the bed, feeling suddenly too warm, too restless to stay still. There was a new, pagan wildness in her blood, one that drove her heart faster, pushing hot colour into her cheeks, making her sharply aware of the fact that under the bedclothes she was only wearing a short, regulation hospital nightdress.

And the truly disturbing thing was that she could see her own feelings reflected in this man’s eyes, in the black, enlarged pupils, the intensity of his gaze, even though his expression never altered but stayed as coolly assessing as before. The contrast between that apparently calm control and the blaze of something very different and very primitive in his gaze dried her mouth and throat so that she had to swallow hard to relieve them.

‘What makes you think I can tell you anything?’ he flung at her now, his accent deepening on the words in a way that confirmed her suspicions about his ancestry.

‘Mr Cordoba…’ the doctor put in quietly, warningly, but both Serena and her inquisitor ignored the interjection, their attention focused solely on each other.

‘Well, I presume I’m supposed to know you.’

‘Not at all!’

An arrogant little flick of his long-fingered hand dismissed her comment as nonsense.

‘On the contrary, you have never seen me before in your life.’

Well, that was a relief. She was sure that if she had come up against this man at any time in her past she would remember him—with bells on! She didn’t know how she had come to be here, in this hospital, had no idea what had happened to her, but she definitely felt easier knowing that this—what had the doctor called him?—this Mr Cordoba had played no part in her life before.

‘Then who are you?’

‘My name is Rafael Cordoba.’

Clearly he expected that that would mean something to her. Serena could only wish that it did. Right now she would be grateful for anything that would explain this Rafael Cordoba’s presence in her room. Anything to get him off her back, stop this unnerving string of questions.

No, if she was honest, what she really wanted was to be free of this restless, unsettled feeling that he created in her. Never before had she felt so intensely physically aware of anyone, and the decidedly carnal nature of the thoughts he sparked off in her brain was making it so very difficult to concentrate on anything else.

‘And you…?’ Serena turned to the woman at her bedside, a friendly, sympathetic face in the middle of this confusion and uncertainty.

‘I’m Dr Greene.’ To her relief the other woman stepped into the breach, answering the mute appeal of her patient’s deep brown eyes. ‘Do you feel up to answering some questions?’

‘I’ll try.’

It was a struggle to ignore Cordoba. Even though she forced herself to concentrate on the doctor, she could still see him out of the corner of her eye. His presence in the doorway was like a bruise at the back of her mind, dark and ominous.

‘Your name is Serena Martin?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you are how old?’

‘Twenty-three.’

Slowly Serena started to relax. This was easier. Dr Greene’s quiet questions posed no problems, carried no threats. And the confusion in her thoughts that had so disturbed her at first was gradually starting to clear. She couldn’t have suffered any real ill-effects if her answers came as quickly and easily as this.

‘Can you tell me your address?’

‘Thirty-five Alban Road, Ryeton… What is it?’ Serena questioned sharply as the pen which had been writing busily suddenly stopped and the doctor turned surprised eyes on her face.

‘Ryeton in Yorkshire?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what are you doing in London?’

It was that voice again. The one with the accent that lifted all the little hairs at the back of her neck, sent shivers skittering down her spine. She should have known that Cordoba couldn’t bring himself to stay quiet for long.

‘L-London? I—is that where we are?’

‘Where this hospital is,’ he put in curtly, ignoring the reproving glance Dr Greene turned in his direction. ‘Where you are, where the accident took place, where—’

‘That’s enough, Mr Cordoba!’

But Rafael Cordoba was clearly not at all concerned by the doctor’s intervention, his dark head coming up arrogantly, golden eyes flashing rejection of her reproof as he took a couple of swift, forceful strides into the room.

‘So what were you doing here, if you live in—?’

‘I don’t know!’ Serena had reached the end of her tether. Her head was aching and she felt exhausted, wrung out, as if she had just run a marathon. Frantically she shook her head, tears of weakness filling her eyes, blurring the sight of his darkly intent face. ‘Perhaps I’m on holiday. Perhaps…’

‘I said enough!’ Dr Greene was clearly not in any way over-awed or cowed. But then she continued on a softer, more conciliatory note, one that revealed she was far from under-impressed by this man’s forceful presence, ‘I have my patient to think of. Miss Martin is easily tired. She has been through something of an ordeal, the sort of thing that would set anyone back, let alone someone who was already rather rundown. She needs rest, and I must insist that she gets it.’

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.