About the Authors

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in Anglesey with her university lecturer husband, assorted pets who arrived as strays and never left, and sometimes one or both of her boomerang sons. When she’s not writing she loves to be outdoors gardening, or walking on one of the beaches for which the island is famous—along with being the place where Prince William and Catherine made their first home!

SUSAN STEPHENS was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon style, they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday and married three months later. Susan enjoys entertaining, travel and going to the theatre. To relax she reads, cooks and plays the piano, and when she’s had enough of relaxing she throws herself off mountains on skis or gallops through the countryside singing loudly.

Also by Kim Lawrence

One Night with Morelli

Her Nine Month Confession

One Night to Wedding Vows

Surrendering to the Italian’s Command

A Ring to Secure His Crown

The Greek’s Ultimate Conquest

A Cinderella for the Desert King

A Wedding at the Italian’s Demand

A Passionate Night with the Greek

Also by Susan Stephens

A Diamond for Del Rio’s Housekeeper

The Sicilian’s Defiant Virgin

The Secret Kept from the Greek

A Night of Royal Consequences

The Sheikh’s Shock Child

Pregnant by the Desert King

The Greek’s Virgin Temptation

Snowbound with His Forbidden Innocent

Passion in Paradise collection

A Scandalous Midnight in Madrid

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Spaniard’s Surprise Love-Child & A Bride Fit for a Prince?

Kim Lawrence and Susan Stephens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90018-2

THE SPANIARD’S SURPRISE LOVE-CHILD & A BRIDE FIT FOR A PRINCE?

The Spaniard’s Surprise Love-Child © 2020 Kim Lawrence A Bride Fit for a Prince? © 2020 Susan Stephens

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Spaniard’s Surprise Love-Child

Back Cover Text

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Bride Fit for a Prince?

Back Cover Text

Dedication

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 FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

The Spaniard’s Surprise Love-Child

Kim Lawrence

“The child…she is mine.”

A revelation under the Spanish sun!

Softhearted Gwen had always dreamed of the day tycoon Rio would discover their child. Yet the reality is astounding! Because when the brooding Spaniard sweeps back into her life, he demands their daughter—and her!

Rio will not walk away from his daughter. Even if he has to defy his number one rule, honed after years of bitter experience, and let Gwen into his billion-dollar world. Yet a place in his bed is all Rio can offer—no matter how much Gwen tempts him to offer more…

CHAPTER ONE

THE CLASSICAL MUSIC playing through the sound system—gifted by a famous old girl after her first platinum album—was almost drowned out by the combined din of young voices, the shuffle of feet and the scraping of chairs on the ancient wood floor as uniformed pupils filed into the school auditorium.

Though several of her colleagues were frowning at the noise levels, Gwen barely noticed the racket that echoed off the high rafters of the school’s Tudor hall. Her thoughts were wandering, though not far. The crèche—which had been the deal clincher when she was offered the job at Mere Grange—was not five hundred yards from where she was sitting beside the rest of the staff on the stage.

Despite a disturbed night that had made Gwen fear the worst, Ellie had seemed fine this morning. True, she had been a bit clingy when Gwen had dropped her off in the crèche earlier but her temperature had been normal. Gwen had checked it twice, but still the vague anxiety lingered. Was it maternal instincts or just guilt?

The former she’d always assumed to be an urban myth but she was now certain really did exist, and the latter, though she knew it was irrational, she had come to appreciate as a fact of life. Was it just her or perhaps single mums or maybe all mums? She couldn’t be the only mum who felt that guilty tug every time she left her child in the crèche. For some reason even knowing that Ellie was well cared for and happy there didn’t lessen the feeling.

‘She’ll be fine. Stop fretting.’

Ellie turned to her friend Cassie, the head of English, with a rueful smile. ‘How did you know I was worrying about Ellie?’

‘Love, you’re always worrying about Ellie. You make parenting look easy but it must be tough doing it all alone.’

Gwen brought her lashes down in a protective sweep that shadowed her blue eyes. She had opened up more to Cassie than anyone else, but the other woman still only knew the bare minimum—just that Ellie’s father was not English and he was not in the picture.

Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug as she pushed away the image of Ellie’s father that had slipped through the mental barriers she had erected, though, as she thought of him every single time she looked into her daughter’s beautiful eyes, it hardly seemed worth the effort.

Before she could be drawn into an internal debate on her past mistakes and awful taste in men—or at least one man—a shout emanating from just below the stage made her turn her head.

The same noise had caught Cassie’s attention.

‘I’ll have to go and help,’ Gwen said after a moment. Her classroom assistant, Ruth, was struggling to contain the energy and boredom of a class of twenty five-year-olds who, thanks to someone who hadn’t considered their lack of attention span, had been seated first in the auditorium.

‘Good luck,’ Cassie breathed, tacking on a low-voiced warning. ‘The head will notice you’re not sitting here with the rest of us and he won’t be pleased. He said “all staff”,’ she quoted, adopting the man’s distinctive clipped delivery.

‘I doubt if one less bowed head is going to stop Lady Moneybags donating the money for the library extension. Anyway, he’d notice a lot more if one of my lot escapes—now that would make a bad headline.’

Gwen reached the front row just in time to cut off an adventurous member of her class before he slipped through a fire exit.

‘This way, Max,’ she said, touching the top of his curly red hair before she firmly took his hand and led him back to his seat. ‘Oh, you’re sitting next to William…not such a good idea.’ A fact that Gwen had learnt the hard way, and in class she now had them sitting on opposite sides of the classroom. ‘Move over, Sophie. Max can sit next to you. Excellent, now don’t move,’ she admonished, before moving down the row to where Ruth was sitting. ‘You almost lost one there.’

‘Sorry, Miss Meredith,’ Ruth said, smiling her gratitude.

Gwen smiled back, though it never made her feel anything but ancient to be called Miss by the young woman who was actually a year older than her. The prestigious fee-paying school was very keen on defined roles and did not encourage use of Christian names in the professional setting or, for that matter, romantic relationships between staff, although blind eyes were turned so long as people were discreet.

Gwen wasn’t interested in being discreet; she was simply not interested at all. In the odd quiet moment she wondered if her libido was dead, but not for long. Those moments were rare and the rest of the ninety-nine per cent of the time she was too exhausted to even think about it.

Even had she trusted her own judgment with men after her experience with Ellie’s father, romance was a pretty low priority for her these days. Now sleep, and maybe finding a few more hours in a day to sit down and read a book or do her nails—these were the things she lusted after. Gwen had well and truly left physical lust behind and she didn’t miss it one bit.

‘No harm done, Ruth.’

‘Max is pulling faces at me, Miss,’ Sophie complained.

‘Max!’

Gwen’s glance moved over the red head of the culprit, who was now looking angelically innocent as she scanned the faces of her charges occupying the first two rows, waiting until she had their attention before she widened her eyes and raised a finger to her lips. The result was nothing approaching calm, but the imminent possibility of someone swinging from a chandelier or making an escape bid receded.

‘It’s a miracle!’ she heard Ruth breathe. ‘How do you do it?’

Gwen rewarded her charges with a nod of approval and, more importantly, promised them a nature walk because they were being so good. She usually found the carrot a lot more effective than the stick. But before she could make her way back to the stage, the sudden lowering of the hum of youthful voices in the room indicated that she was too late to slip unobtrusively back to her seat, so instead she sat down on the bench next to Ruth as the head walked on the stage with their VIP guest speaker.

The head had a voice that filled the auditorium without effort and silence immediately fell. Barely listening to the introduction, Gwen kept her attention on her pupils, while hoping the guest speaker didn’t turn out to be as fond of the sound of their own voice as the head. A five-year-old’s attention span was limited, especially when they were bored, but hopefully they would fall asleep rather than run amok.

‘And now I give you Mr Bardales.’

Bardales… No, surely it was the Cavendish Prize that was being given by the benefactor that the new science block was named after? Bardales was a very different name with very different connotations for Gwen.

On the surface nothing changed. Outside she was a serene swan, with only the fluttering of the long curling lashes that framed her sapphire-blue eyes and the faintest quiver of the fine muscles beneath the skin around her wide mouth betraying that under the surface she was frantically duck paddling to stay afloat, a heartbeat away from…who knew? Total panic? She’d never gone there and she never intended to—it was all a matter of control.

Breathe, Gwen, she told herself. The breath left her parted lips in a slow, uneven, near-silent hiss as, like someone who had jumped in the deep end of the pool by accident, she kicked for the surface, leaving panic behind.

She brushed her forearms hard with her hands, rubbing the rash of goosebumps that had broken out over her skin. She despised her stupid overreaction, the first in a while. It had to have been a couple of months ago the last time she had experienced the dry-throated, heart-racing sensation of stepping off a cliff in the pit of her stomach. On that occasion it had been triggered when she’d seen a dark head standing out from the crowd in the middle of the busy shopping centre, but a moment later she had realised there was no definitive arrogant angle to his jaw, no big-cat fluidity to his stride. The sensation hadn’t lasted longer than a moment before her common sense reasserted itself and was followed by the sigh of relief that left her feeling foolish and annoyed with herself for allowing her overactive imagination to take control, even for a second.

The annoyance with herself was already kicking in hard as she tipped her head back to see the cause of her flashback. She had to tip it back some more as the guest was tall, the cut of his dark suit not disguising the power of his lean muscle-packed frame.

No, it hadn’t been a flashback; this was a flashback! And pulling free of it was not an option. Nearly three years suddenly slipped away and she was back in New York.

The bar was as cool and sophisticated as its clientele and Gwen, sitting perched on a tall stool, fitted right in; she was cool, she was sleek and she belonged…or at least she looked as though she did and that was what counted, she’d discovered. She imagined there would be a time when it didn’t feel as though she were playing a part. It would come; she’d only been in New York three months and she knew it couldn’t happen overnight. She focused instead on the positives, the most positive aspect being that her five-year plan was already off to a flying start.

The first month at work she’d been finding her feet, so anxious to make a good impression that she had been unable to hide it. She did what she’d done all through university, when she had known that if her plan was to succeed she needed a good degree—some people could party and still get good results, but Gwen knew she couldn’t do that; she had to focus solely on work. So she kept her head down, sacrificing a social life to achieve what she needed. It had taken her a few weeks before she’d realised that the same method was not going to work here. Simply putting in extra hours at the office was not enough; you needed to network outside office hours too.

The first time she had accepted an invite she had stood out like a sore thumb in her office gear, but now she’d become something of an expert at making a seamless transition from day to evening and had it down to an impressive five minutes in the ladies’ room to make the necessary adjustments.

Like anything in life, it was about organisation: first make-up refreshed, lips highlighted for the evening by a bold red lipstick, then her hair, released from the sleek ponytail secured at the nape of her neck; one quick shake and it fell in glossy waves down her narrow back. All achieved while she was exchanging the discreet studs in her ears for a pair of art deco jet chandelier drops.

The tailored jacket that had seen her through the day’s meetings was removed and the stark simplicity of the little black dress it had covered was jazzed up with an oversized art deco pendant tonight. The jacket, neatly folded, was inside her capacious designer bag along with the moderate heels she had swapped for a pair of spiky ankle boots; that part took two minutes, tops.

It was amazing what you could do when you were organised and Gwen was incredibly focused. That was how she had made it this far. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted; she knew what she wanted and then figured out the quickest way to achieve her goal. People had quickly started to notice. She’d overheard a conversation in the ladies’ room once, and she had wondered, curiously, who this ruthless person was that they were discussing.

Then she’d found out it was her.

‘You’re just jealous, Trish, that Gwen has got the face and body to sleep her way to the top,’ had been one of the cruel comments she’d overheard.

Crossing one slim, shapely ankle over the other, she turned her head and laughed because everyone else was. The anger she had felt that day in the Ladies was spent now, but the memory still had the power to make the tension climb into her shoulders. She put her hand on the back of her neck and rotated her head from side to side to ease it.

In one aspect they had been right—she was determined to succeed—but the totally unfair implication that she ever would demean herself by sleeping her way to the top… It had hurt and made her want to rush out and challenge the women cattily bitching about her, but just as well the tears streaming down her face had made her reject this impulse, because it was far better to make them eat their words by simply being better than them, and proving herself.

Blurting out that actually she was a virgin would not have improved the situation; it was almost easier all round to be considered an ambitious slut with no morals.

‘You look fierce!’ Louise, who had been the new girl in the corporate finance department before Gwen had arrived, looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Do you want another drink?’

Gwen shook her head and smiled as she held her hand over her full glass. She turned and caught sight of herself in the mirror that lined the wall behind the bar. Her loose hair had a mirror gloss, but the cost, which had initially seemed enormous, of having her thick chestnut waves tamed by the hand of someone who was a superstar in the world of hairdressing had proved to be a good investment, she decided, taking a sip of her wine. She intended to make it last all evening—the buzz of being here in this city was all the stimulation she needed.

Gwen leaned in to catch what the woman beside Louise was saying.

‘Your Scots accent is just so cute, everyone thinks so.’

When they’re not thinking I’m sleeping my way to the top, Gwen thought, hiding her flash of bitterness behind a smile. As she had to virtually yell to make herself heard above the competing conversations, Gwen decided it required less effort to smile and nod rather than correct the woman’s mistake over her nationality, even though it felt as though she was betraying her Welsh roots.

Not that anyone back home would have recognised her—the once awkward, intense swot with the glasses—in this place, she thought wryly, leaning in again to catch what Louise was saying.

‘Don’t look now but he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since he came in.’ Louise’s eyes widened as she tipped her head towards the smoky glass wall that screened the bar from the street. ‘I said don’t look!’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ Gwen was not averse to the idea of romance, at the right time, but it wasn’t scheduled at this point in her life. Right now it came under the heading of a distraction she didn’t need. Still it was always good if someone appreciated the effort she had made with her appearance.

Louise took a sip of her cocktail and sighed, leaning sideways to look over Gwen’s shoulder. ‘He really is totally…oh, my God!’ she yelped, before hissing, ‘He’s coming over, don’t panic.’

Gwen heard his voice before she saw him, deep, with a light gravel underlying the velvet and an intriguing hint of an accent. It made the half-smile she was wearing in response to her friend’s antics quiver and fade as for some inexplicable reason a deep shiver that made her toes curl passed through her body.

It was that same voice that dragged Gwen away now from the New York bar and the exact moment when her five-year plan—My God, was I really that arrogant, or was I just incredibly young and naive?—had started falling apart. She was back to sitting in the school’s assembly hall where for some inexplicable reason Rio Bardales, billionaire heir to the Bardales empire, was holding his audience in the palm of his strong brown elegant hand. Gwen had a sudden unwelcome image of that hand, those tapering fingers sliding over pale skin…her skin… She gulped and blinked to clear the unwanted images dancing in her head.

Everyone was clapping, except Gwen. She couldn’t have, even if she had wanted to. What she actually wanted, what every cell in her body was screaming at her to do, was to run as far away as she could.

Her head turned fractionally from side to side in mute denial—this cannot be happening!

‘He looks like a film star.’ Ruth’s awed whisper brought the past back with a rush she had no defence against. She remembered thinking exactly the same thing that night in the stylish New York bar where they’d met. He’d been wearing a suit then too but it had looked as though he might have slept in it, yet he’d still looked absolutely gorgeous—how could he not? Even if you discounted his physical attributes—several inches over six feet tall; long-limbed without being in any way lanky; lean and muscular with broad shoulders and a natural athletic elegance—Rio’s strong-boned symmetrical features were arresting enough to be a conversation-stopper. His eyes, dark and almond-shaped, were almost black, framed by dense long lashes and set beneath strongly defined flyaway brows, his carved cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and his square chin had the hint of a cleft, but it was his beautifully cut, overtly sensual mouth that did the most damage to her nervous system.

Gwen felt dizzy as the image from the past was overlaid by one of the man standing on the stage, his words just sounds that had a physical effect on her, sending successive shivers over the surface of her suddenly too warm skin.

She felt as though everyone must see what was happening, that they were all staring at her, but crazily they were completely oblivious. Now they were laughing, an appreciative ripple of sound that wafted like a breeze through the vaulted room—Rio was being amusing, entertaining. She knew full well, though, that he could get a lot more entertaining than this, especially when there was skin-to-skin contact involved.

Jaw clenched, lips compressed over the cry trying to escape her lips, she closed her eyes and thought, Do not go there, Gwen… But too late—she was already remembering that first shock of feeling skin-to-skin contact after he had unfastened her bra for the first time and, holding her eyes, had pulled her hard against his chest…

The myriad impressions made her dizzy: the warmth of his skin, the clean salty tang she’d breathed in, the tingling of intense pleasure as her hardened nipples pressed into the barrier of his naked, muscled chest.

His eyes didn’t leave hers for one moment, the hot desire burning in them making her limbs go boneless, silencing the voice telling her she needed to explain to him that she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. It had seemed a matter of simple politeness only a few minutes ago, but now she found herself thinking in a hazy way what did it actually matter…?

Why shouldn’t her embarrassing inexperience remain on a need-to-know basis? After all, he’d not twigged yet so why should it matter? She could suddenly see all the advantages of sleeping with a stranger: you didn’t owe them anything, including explanations… Ironic, really, when this was precisely what he pointed out to her a few days later in a frigid voice filled with icy contempt she would never, ever forget…even though she had tried.

‘I owe you nothing, certainly not explanations. We had sex; we are not in a relationship.’

The brutal words carried the impact of a sledgehammer, each individual scornful syllable adding fresh layers of hurt as she clutched his shirt around her. Unable to match his marvellous unselfconscious attitude to nudity, she had pulled it on to walk to the bathroom, and it retained the scent of his skin but it didn’t give her a warm feeling of intimacy; she felt mortified and stupid and very, very cold.

She lifted her chin, struggling to salvage a tiny shred of pride. ‘I… I didn’t think we were.’ It wasn’t totally a lie; she knew that a few nights of passion did not add up to a relationship. It nearly hadn’t even made it this far after he’d found out he was her first lover and hadn’t exactly been thrilled about it, and he’d been quite clear then that this was not the start of anything; it was just casual fun he was offering.

Pride and the determination not to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she had just begun to believe that they’d developed a deeper connection made her stand her ground rather than run away. She felt stupid even imagining for a moment that when he’d told her she was the best sex he’d ever had, it meant he thought she was different and what they had was worth more than a quick fling. It was easy to see now that it had all been wishful thinking on her part.

Maybe he’d known anyway because in case she’d missed the point he drove it home with brutal honesty.

‘We are not exclusive, you and I. You do not have the right to interrogate me.’

The chill in his eyes, the hauteur in his body language, the expressive curl of his lip did not require the addition of the snap of his fingers to tell her she was being dismissed, not just from his bed or this room, but from his life.

‘Who I sleep with…and, let me tell you, it is never knowingly anyone who would rifle through my private correspondence…is none of your concern.’

She tried to defend herself, tell him that wasn’t what she’d been doing, she really did, but she failed. Basically, because the bottom line was that it was true she had read his letter, but not intentionally. She’d picked up the incriminating piece of paper off the floor along with the pile of other correspondence that had landed on the carpet when she had caught it with her elbow. She was unable to replicate the precision of the neat stack but, tongue caught between her teeth, she had been making an effort to do so when the letterhead had caught her eye. She had scanned a sentence before she had realised what she was doing and…she really should have stopped; that was why she knew the guilt had been shining in her eyes when he’d caught her in the act.

She had considered pretending she hadn’t read it, but it would have looked foolish.

As it turned out that wasn’t even an option as the awkward words just blurted out of her mouth in the face of his accusatory glare.

‘I only said, “So you have a child…” I didn’t know, that’s all. Are you and the mother together?’ She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘You’re not…not married, are you?’

He arched a brow. ‘Would it have mattered to you if I were?’

She wanted to slap him then, and she had never struck anyone in her life, she couldn’t even crush a spider, but it took all her control to keep her clenched hand at her side, refusing to rise to the insulting provocation.

‘What is his name?’ There was no reason he shouldn’t have a child, several children, in fact, and no reason either that he should have mentioned it to her…because he had made it quite clear that what they were enjoying had a shelf life. She was the one who had decided something had changed—and now it had.

He was the sort of man whose response to the news that he was a father was to demand a DNA test; he was the sort of man who, when asked his son’s name by her, replied that he couldn’t remember! The irony was that she’d learnt more in the last twenty seconds about this man than she had in three whole days…or, rather, nights.

He arched a dark brow and regarded her with frozen distaste. She had caught glimpses of the hauteur before but had never been on the blighting, chilly receiving end of it.

‘What business is it of yours if I have a child?’ His voice carried no expression but it didn’t need to as his eyes said it all.

‘None at all,’ she agreed as the paper in her fingers that outlined in black and white a DNA match fluttered to the floor. ‘So it confirms you’re a father, so what? It takes more than a piece of paper to become one of those, doesn’t it? Paternity has very little to do with being a father—that’s all about a lifetime commitment, not just donating your genes—so I really hope this kid has someone else in his life who doesn’t need proof that they’re related to him, and someone who actually remembers his name.’

With a sneer of contempt that was aimed as much at herself as at him, she gathered her dignity around her as she removed his shirt and, with a grimace of distaste, she dropped it on the floor before she walked away with her head held high.

CHAPTER TWO

RIO WAITED FOR a polite ripple of laughter to die down before he moved on. His mother, who he was standing in for, could do this sort of thing in her sleep and she’d been genuinely upset that she couldn’t attend today, which proved, he supposed, that there were some people who enjoyed their schooldays and wanted to be reminded of them. His glance slid over the young shiny faces turned to him.

Were there any lonely kids out there who cried themselves to sleep when the lights went out? Not that he’d been traumatised by being sent off at a ridiculously young age to an English boarding school, just stifled, perhaps.

The fact that he and his twin brother, Roman, were each other’s support group meant he’d never suffered the sort of isolation that had afflicted some of the other children, and there had been enough foreign students at his school to make his own accent nothing to set him apart. Despite the fact he had survived the experience relatively unscathed, sending his children to boarding school was a tradition that he intended to break, not because he was rebelling against tradition, but because he didn’t intend to have children at all.

He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate and resisted the temptation to cut the obligatory amusing anecdote short. Nothing in his delivery would make his audience suspect he had moved onto autopilot and was working out how soon he would be able to make his exit. Instead of his speech, his thoughts were on the rescue package he was putting into place for a friend. Jake was so grateful to him, which made him feel guilty. It hadn’t required much effort on his part to save Jake—the name Bardales inspired confidence and made those banks who didn’t appreciate that his friend was a techno genius a lot more likely to extend credit.

‘Again, thank you, Mr Jarvis, for asking me here to present the Cavendish Prize in my mother’s stead.’ Rio turned to look at the headmaster before he could launch into another speech. ‘My mother sends her apologies for being unable to be present herself today, as this school still holds such a special place in her heart. However, she is here in spirit and I believe her presence is still marked on several desks where she left a permanent impression. So without further ado…’ He took the crystal cup from the female teacher who held it out. ‘I present this award to this year’s recipient of the Cavendish Prize, Clarice Walker.’

Smiling, he watched a tall girl who was blushing as brightly as her auburn curls walk from the back of the room towards the stage, her progress accompanied by clapping.

He handed the girl the crystal goblet engraved with her name and the envelope that contained a more practical reward in the form of a cheque.

‘Congratulations, Clarice. My mother is looking forward to meeting you in the near future when she is more mobile.’

In the meantime, his normally very active parent was being a predictably pretty impatient patient, frustrated by the plaster cast that was her souvenir from a recent skiing trip.

He took a step back and joined in the clapping as the youngster took her place in front of the microphone. ‘Thank you, Mr Bardales. I do hope your mother is better very soon.’

His mother was fond of saying that being involved with young people kept her young, but being in this room filled with shiny idealism and even shinier faces made him feel old and not a little nostalgic for a touch of youthful rebellion—if there were any mavericks in the room, they were hiding it well.

It was hard to disguise his inner cynicism as he scanned the sea of faces staring up at the stage listening to the earnest speaker, wondering how long it would be before the real world would kill off all this youthful enthusiasm.

His thought stream was interrupted when the room suddenly erupted into sniggers at what he could only assume was an ‘in joke’ from Clarice. Rio fought an eye-roll, recognising with a jolt that he was displaying all the characteristics of a grumpy old man at only thirty-one—it did not bode well for the future.

Rio let his eyelids droop, the silky mesh of his lashes hiding the gleam of cynicism shining in the dark depths. Perhaps, he mused, I need a day off… Or a night in with someone smart and beautiful who had no interest in what made him tick, but just wanted to use this body that was actually in better condition than he deserved, considering the schedule that had left very little time for the punishing exercise regime he had once enjoyed.

His mobile mouth curled into a smile that flattened out as a movement in the periphery of his vision interrupted the pleasant fantasy before he had even begun to weave it, dragging his wandering attention to the rows of children sitting nearest the stage.

Finally a bit of rebellion! He didn’t fight off his grin as he watched one of the tiny occupants of the low bench just in front of the stage making a determined bid for freedom.

Rio silently willed him on, but inevitably he didn’t get far. The culprit was captured by someone who displayed a great deal of agility and also a really good bottom…actually, it was truly excellent, he decided, studying the curves outlined by conservative trousers that were wide-legged but pulled tight across her bottom as she stretched. The tall, leggy owner of the rich chestnut hair and excellent bottom released her hold on the kid’s arm, bending a little lower to say something that involved a wag of her finger, and, although he dragged his feet, the sulky little boy retook his seat.

He was attempting to pull his attention back to the proceedings on stage when the woman straightened up, one hand smoothing her glorious hair, the other smoothing the fabric of her trousers over long thighs. He was on the point of looking away when she lifted her head and they made eye contact.

The connection lasted seconds before she turned away, head bent to the child, but it only took a fraction of that time for his self-possession to fragment into a million pieces as recognition shuddered through him with the force of a sledgehammer blow that continued to send aftershocks throughout his body. He lowered his eyelids to shield his eyes as he nodded, mainly because everyone else was doing it in response to something the headmaster was saying.

Confusion was not normally part of Rio’s mindset, as confusion required an uncertainty, a hesitancy, an inability to cut through all the nonsense. None of these were attitudes he possessed, and he was rarely confused, but as he stood there questioning the evidence of his own eyes Rio was extremely confused.

It was the sort of confusion that came from seeing a familiar face out of context. Rio struggled to kick start his brain and think past the sense-limiting testosterone rush.

What the hell was this high-flyer doing in a school for kids of moneyed parents, wearing an outfit that made it easy for her to bend over and grab the would-be escapee kid—wide-legged trousers cinched in with a belt at her slender waist and a shirt that might have been sexy had it not been buttoned up to the neck?

If he ever thought about Welsh Gwen, he pictured her in a New York setting, dressed with immaculate City gloss, in sharp-edged fashionable tailoring that made sure people took her seriously despite the extraordinary face that was always going to set her apart from the other ambitious women aiming to shatter any glass ceilings that got in their way. And good luck to them; he liked ambitious women, just not ones who thought they could control him.

If he ever thought about her…? Who are you kidding, Rio? he mocked himself as he fought to regain control of his stupefied brain. The dressed part was a lie too; he always pictured her completely naked and lying beneath him, her stunning legs wrapped tightly around him.

It had been nearly three years since he’d last seen her, and, despite the fact he was not someone to dwell on past mistakes, his subconscious had been known to drag him back to this particularly gorgeous mistake time and time again.

His eyes slid over her rear; he was thinking of the sleek curves under the clothes and an image flashed into his head of the last time he had seen her, walking away from him stark naked, anger and pride in her slow determined strides. He remembered every detail: her lovely long legs, her slender square shoulders, the graceful curve of her spine and feminine flare of her hips from a tiny waist. Thinking about the dimple just above her taut right buttock and the endless graceful legs sent a fresh flash of hormonal heat through his body.

He had spent considerable time and effort rationalising how their short liaison had left such a lasting raw impression on him, convincing himself that it was the element of unfinished business between them, thanks to that messy conclusion. All wasted energy as it turned out, as in reality he was unable to file the episode away in some dusty mental drawer marked ‘Over’ because he had never known a woman who had made him this hungry!

Though in his defence Gwen Meredith, with her melodic lilting voice, was not a woman a man forgot. Any man with blood in his veins could not be indifferent to the memory of the electricity that had been between them, the little whimpered purr low in her throat whenever he’d slid his tongue between her plump lips… He inhaled sharply. Dios, this raw hunger was something he had not experienced before or since her; in fact, the memory had made any encounters he’d had since Gwen seem pallid and boring in comparison. He frowned and pushed away the sense-paralysing fantasies before they took hold, focusing instead on the mystery of her presence—here, where there were no glass ceilings whatsoever to shatter.

How and why the hell had she transplanted herself from New York to the English shires and a private school in leafy grounds?

He’d always enjoyed the challenge of unravelling a mystery.

It wasn’t until Max tried to twist out of her grip that Gwen realised she still had hold of his hand.

‘Sit down, Max.’

Her voice was lacking its usual note of calm authority and sounded as though it were coming from a long way off. The fact the child had ignored her did not at that moment feel like something that Gwen could deal with, when standing up was taking all her focus, and her head was still spinning.

She pressed her hand to her stomach, and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t excuse the liquid heat of desire in the pit of her belly on ignorance, she was simply stupid and weak and…

Oh, stop bleating, Gwen, and deal with it!

A tiny sigh huffed between her clenched lips as her slender shoulders lowered and her chin lifted fractionally in response to the bracing inner voice that had zero tolerance for self-pity.

It was one thing to acknowledge you had a problem, it was another entirely to find yourself staring it straight in the face. It left little room to hide from the fact, mortifying and shameful but inescapable, that when it came to Rio her hormones were utterly indiscriminate, though in her defence there couldn’t be many men who projected the aura of raw sexuality that he did.

She wasted one wistful moment wishing for a time when she had sincerely believed that respect and liking were necessary for sexual attraction, when she had believed that being paralysed with lust by an obsidian-eyed stare had anything to do with a mystical connection. No, actually she wasn’t wistful at all; it was scary to think how beneath her sophisticated facade she had been so totally vulnerable. She had had nearly three years to think about it and she had come to the conclusion that it had all been about her belated sexual awakening allied with her inexperience and timing. Yes, most importantly, it was always about the timing.

She’d told herself it could have been anyone who had sparked her desire; it had just happened to be Rio Bardales who had provided the catalyst, and the idea he wasn’t special whatsoever had been oddly comforting.

Misplaced comfort, as it happened. The second she’d seen him again she’d felt sick to her stomach and scared stiff. He had recognised her too—she had seen it in his eyes. The question was would he be curious enough to seek her out, talk to her, try and find out why she was here instead of New York? She clamped her lips tight over a snort of self-disgust for the idiot she had been. The simple fact was, she might have known a whole lot about financial forecasting, but when it came to life and men she just hadn’t had a clue.

Maybe she was paranoid after all, thinking he’d recognised her? She bore little resemblance to the sophisticated career girl on the fast track to success, with her designer clothes and strong sense of self-belief that she could achieve whatever she set her mind to.

Right now her mind was set to getting the hell out of here, as soon as humanly possible.

‘Max needs the bathroom,’ she hissed in Ruth’s ear.

Ruth started to get to her feet but responded to the pressure of Gwen’s hand on her shoulder and subsided back down.

‘I don’t want—’

Gwen smiled determinedly at the little boy. ‘Yes, you do…’

Looking slightly bewildered but not at all unwilling to leave the boring assembly, he trotted along beside Gwen as she made her dash for the side door.

Once in the cool, emotional calm of the long corridor lined with photographs of sporting achievements down the years of pupils past and present, she realised that she had really not handled that very well at all. In fact, probably the only thing she’d achieved was to draw attention to herself.

‘Miss…?’

‘Oh, yes, right.’ Her heels tapping on the floor, she led the boy to the nearest cloakroom.

‘Off you go. I’ll be waiting.’

Her excuse for escape vanished inside the boys’ cloakroom and Gwen let out a sigh as she leaned back against the wall.

This isn’t the time to panic, she told herself.

If not now, when?

She ignored the unhelpful insertion of her subconscious and reminded herself that Ellie was safely in the crèche, where it was most unlikely their VIP would be taken—the redbrick addition to the listed building was only a selling point to members of staff. No, he’d be taking the well-trodden route beginning in the photo gallery of alumni who had gone on to success and fame or, in some cases, had just had it handed to them on a plate, taking in the new state-of-the-art science block and then heading back via the restored, historically listed gardens for refreshments in the headmaster’s office.

She was safe and so, more importantly, was Ellie.

But she didn’t dare relax; people didn’t when nightmares started happening for real. Hand to her mouth, she straightened up and began to pace up and down until the trembling weakness in her legs made her stop. She placed her hands on the window sill, staring out at the quadrangle with its borders of herbs she had supervised her class planting last week.

It was going to be fine but she had to prepare for the worst, and hope…really hope for the best. Her smooth brow furrowed. The most important question was, how bad could the worst be?

This was a situation she had never anticipated happening when she had made her decision not to make contact with him after she’d discovered she was pregnant. It hadn’t been an easy choice to make or one she had ever foreseen she would have to. Having children had been something she had seen for herself, but only in the distant future when she was in a secure, loving relationship and had got far enough up the career ladder to be able to afford to step off the escalator temporarily and then afford excellent child care afterwards.

She was very conscious of the argument that morally a man had a right to know when he’d fathered a child and a child had a right to know who her father was, but what if that father had no interest in being a father? He’d demanded DNA proof of paternity once, she thought scornfully, so why would this time have been any different?

During her pregnancy there had been moments when she knew she wouldn’t ever tell him and others when she had come so close to making contact. She’d even composed emails she’d never sent. They’d generally been along the lines of I thought you should know, but don’t worry, it’s fine that you’re not going to be involved in our child’s life, but any relevant family medical history would be appreciated.

She had see-sawed back and forth as she wrestled with the difficult choice throughout her pregnancy. There had been a deep sense of relief when she had finally made her decision while looking down with a sense of wonderment at her perfect newborn daughter, experiencing a swell of protective love she had never realised existed until that moment.

Why was she worrying about the rights of an accidental father who thought parenthood was just about making a genetic contribution? Presumably he’d ask her for DNA proof too. How could a man like that, a reluctant father, be good for her daughter? After all, this was all about what was best for her baby. Holding the warm, perfect person she had given life to, the cold-bloodedness of Rio’s attitude to being a father chilled her. She decided then and there that this baby would never know she had a father who didn’t want her.

After all, Gwen knew exactly what that felt like. She might have no siblings but growing up she hadn’t been the only child in the house. Her father was a man who expected to be the centre of attention at all times. Gwen had learnt not to compete with him for her mother’s attention, but it hadn’t stopped him resenting her existence.

She didn’t know how old she had been, or even how she had found out that her serial-adulterer father had had his first affair when her mother had been pregnant with her. In his eyes that, at least, was an excuse for his behaviour. After that it seemed things had gone downhill, although to the outside world they had continued to present the image of a happy, perfect family—and it had all started with the birth of the baby he’d never wanted anyway.

And now Gwen’s decision not to tell Rio he was a father, which had seemed so right at the time, was being severely tested. She had made it assuming that their lives would never intersect again. Because what were the odds? They lived in totally different worlds. She remembered the day she had seen a missed call on her phone and recognised his number. It had been a very weak moment and if she’d picked up she might, just might, have told him. Though imagining his face if he had seen her the way she was that day, attached to a drip in a hospital ward unable to keep any fluids down, made her very glad she hadn’t. She hadn’t felt lucky at the time but now she knew that some women suffered that sort of debilitating nausea all through their pregnancy. For her it had only lasted five months, which had been more than long enough.

‘Miss… Miss…’

Gwen shook her head and turned to the little boy standing there. He’d washed his face a little too enthusiastically and his hair was wet, as was the front of his uniform shirt. She felt a tug of affection and smiled. She had fallen into teaching through a mixture of accidents and necessity, but she loved it.

‘What have you got there?’ she asked, looking at his cupped chubby hands.

‘A bee, a big, big bee! It was stuck on the window.’ He lifted his hands to his ear. ‘It’s still buzzing but he won’t sting me. He’s a nice bee.’

Gwen sincerely hoped this nice bee lived up to expectations and hastily opened the window, letting in a waft of warm scented summer air and the murmur of young voices as pupils began to file out of the hall and through the wide stone arch at the far end of the quadrangle. She picked up her damp pupil and she smiled encouragingly until he opened his hand, giving his captive freedom.

‘Ah, there she is now.’

Gwen’s smile became fixed as she froze, only the child in her arms preventing her from humiliating herself by ducking down out of sight. The headmaster didn’t appear to notice her deer-in-headlights pose, framed in the window as he looked at the man standing beside him.

‘Mrs Meredith, I was just telling Mr Bardales…’

‘Rio, please—’

The headmaster tipped his head in pleased acknowledgement. ‘How interested his mother was when I was telling her of your enthusiasm for outdoor teaching.’

‘I share her enthusiasm,’ Rio lied without a flicker and bared his white teeth in a smile that did not touch his eyes as they drifted down her body, or what he could see of it.

Self-preservation kept her expression blank as the shock, guilt and fear that paralysed her were virtually obliterated beneath a shameful hot thrum of sexual awareness that made her legs tremble. Her nerve endings were screaming out in recognition as she turned away from the window and, after taking a deep soothing breath, opened the adjacent door and stepped outside.

The headmaster beamed, blissfully oblivious of any undercurrents seething around him. ‘Excellent…well, we have the expert here to explain.’ He gave an impatient little shake of his head. ‘Come along, Mrs Meredith.’ He paused and lifted a hand. ‘Ah, here is your class now.’

She huffed out a sigh of relief, saved by the bell—or at least by the scuffle of twenty pairs of small feet as the reception class, with Ruth bringing up the rear, came filing out of the hall into the archway.

All she had to do now was to walk past Rio and she was home free. She clenched her jaw and with determined optimism told herself that this could still turn out all right.

‘There you go.’ She put down the child still in her arms, took his hand and led him towards the arch, where, the moment he saw his classmates, he took off, ignoring the headmaster’s bellow of ‘No running!’ as he pounded across the gravel to join his friends, the tiny stones scattering in his enthusiasm.

It was an enthusiasm to get away that Gwen shared.

Careful not to make eye contact with Rio, her heart pumping frantically beneath her pale blue cotton blouse as she struggled to channel calm indifference, she nodded towards the head and made to join her class.

‘No, Mrs Meredith.’

She stopped and sighed, her eyes following her class as she thought wistfully, So near and yet so far, before squaring her shoulders and turning back, an expression of polite enquiry painted on her face.

‘Come and explain to our guest about your initiative. I admit I had my doubts initially but I have been won over,’ he said graciously. ‘We have even included it in our new prospectus and the parents are most enthusiastic…but now I’ll allow our expert to explain,’ he added to Rio as Gwen joined them, struggling to hide her reluctance. ‘I will leave you in her very capable hands.’

‘My class—’ Gwen protested, clutching at straws.

‘If you could bring our guest to my office at two-thirty, the governors are joining us there for coffee.’

‘I shall look forward to that,’ Rio, who up to this point had been fully intending to find himself regretfully having to leave long before any convivial chat over coffee, assured with plausible sincerity.

Gwen pulled in a breath and, thinking it was now or never, forced herself to meet his stare head-on. She had chosen to forget about the skin-tingling effect of his proximity, because, until you were actually feeling it, the aura of raw masculinity he exuded was hard to quantify.

She struggled to think past it and waited.

His expression was one of unstudied cool, a calmness contradicted by his hands, which were clenched into fists at his side. ‘So, Mrs Meredith, this is a surprise.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, relieved and slightly amazed that she sounded so calm. Now all she had to do was string two words together in the right order and make an excuse to leave, after finding someone else to dump him on. That shouldn’t be too difficult, as she was certain she wasn’t the only female who couldn’t see past the packaging.

She allowed her eyes to sweep up scornfully from his toes to his face, but midway through their journey the scorn got lost. All right, in her defence, it was very pretty packaging.

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO, YOU’RE MARRIED?’ She had not adopted her husband’s surname, but that was not unusual these days. The thought that she was married lay in a tight knot in his belly, his own reaction surprising him. Or maybe like his own mother she was divorced and now went by her maiden name?

A speculative crease appeared in his brow as she looked at him like a cornered animal and said nothing…which suggested that perhaps things were not all smooth sailing on the marriage front.

‘Does your husband work at the school too?’ he asked, instinctively disliking with a vengeance this unknown sexist jerk who had asked her to give up her dreams for him, leave her high-flying career and bury herself here…in sensible clothes.

His nostrils flared in outraged contempt as his glance slid to the flare of her hips below the cinched-in waist. The undeniable fact was she would look desirable in a sack. He didn’t probe too deeply into the question of why the idea of her falling in love with some guy deeply enough to give up everything she’d worked so hard for made him so angry, then decided that it was the waste of talent. It was her choice, obviously, but she’d probably end up resenting the man at some point in future.

You didn’t want her but you don’t want anyone else to have her, suggested the sly voice in his head.

‘It’s been lovely to catch up,’ she said brightly.

He laughed. ‘Is that the conversational version of fake news?’

Gwen’s polite mask slipped. What did he want her to say?

The truth was a luxury she didn’t have, which narrowed her conversational options. Veiling the animosity she knew he had to be seeing in her eyes, she lowered her lashes to half mast and continued doggedly as though she hadn’t heard his sarcastic insertion.

‘But I really should get back to my class. They’ll be running riot, and—’

‘I thought you were going to explain to me about your outdoor teaching scheme.’

‘Because you’re so interested.’ And she was so in trouble, if the head overheard her talking to the guest of honour that way. She saw the flare of interest in the glitter of his dark-framed eyes…the lush eyelashes his daughter had inherited…and wished the words unsaid.

‘Absolutely,’ he came back, not missing a beat.

She tightened her lips and this time didn’t react to the provocation. ‘Fine.’

‘Outdoor learning sounds a bit New Age and out there for a place like this.’ His eyes swept across the black and white Tudor building behind her.

His sneering attitude really riled her, despite the fact she knew full well that his interest was feigned. She could only assume he was enjoying making her feel uncomfortable. She snorted. As if he weren’t born to a life of privilege.

‘Because you went to an inner-city school, of course.’ The words popped out before she could stop them. Flustered, she slid her eyes from his, her cheeks burning with embarrassment that she’d lost her cool.

‘Did you?’

Surprise brought her eyes back to his. Dizzied by the direct eye-to-eye connection, she brought her lashes down in a protective shield that cast shadows across the curve of her high, smooth cheekbones. She gave her head the tiniest of shakes.

‘No, I was brought up in a smallish market town in mid Wales.’

The primary school had been overcrowded after several large estates had mushroomed around the town. After that, she had taken the bus with everyone else to the red-brick comprehensive in the nearest large town.

He had asked the question, she had answered, and he felt…?

What?

They had been as intimate as two people could be, he had explored every inch of her body and she had shown an endless fascination for his, and yet, other than conversations that involved work, he knew virtually nothing about her. But then this shouldn’t be so surprising; intimacy outside the bedroom was not something Rio did.

It was a choice, and he didn’t feel as though he was missing out on anything. If there were occasions in the cooling aftermath of satisfying sex that made him conscious of a nebulous feeling of something that could be called emptiness, he considered it a price worth paying to avoid drifting into a relationship where he’d be expected to profess feelings he didn’t believe existed, or, even worse, might convince himself did. His own father had never stopped believing he loved someone, even when it had nearly destroyed the person he’d claimed to love.

She saw a flicker of awareness move across the dark surface of his eyes before he lowered his gaze, frustrating her curiosity.

And why was she acting as if that were a bad thing? Gwen told herself she didn’t want to know what made this man tick. She wanted him and his disruptive aura the hell out of her life.

‘So tell me about outdoor teaching.’

Her shoulders lifted in a fractional shrug and she began by hoping to bore him but then, despite herself, warming to the subject until she heard herself talking about key-stage attainment and came to an abrupt halt. There was boring and then there was being an anorak.

‘So you’re basically telling me that kids are more engaged when learning outdoors?’

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t come across the sceptical response before, and was usually tolerant of it, but in this instance her chin came up. ‘Quite definitely,’ she said confidently. ‘Learning through direct experience gives a greater understanding and research shows it raises academic attainment and—’

‘It’s fun,’ he cut in with a quirky smile that made her heart flip. He thrust one hand in the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a vibrating phone. Silencing the low purr, he replaced it without even glancing at the screen. ‘Relax.’

Gwen almost laughed at the advice, and so would he if he knew about Ellie. No, he probably wouldn’t be laughing at all, but what he would be doing remained something of a question mark, and she was quite happy for it to remain that way.

‘I’m all for anything that doesn’t involve falling asleep in a stuffy classroom, although it might be tough to do in a city. But here—’ his glance took in the parkland that surrounded the school buildings ‘—you have the advantage in that you don’t have to go far to find a green space.’

‘It’s very lovely,’ she agreed gravely. Who would have known when she got up this morning that in just a few short hours she’d be discussing the countryside with the father of her child? How long would it be before they got onto the topic of the weather?

‘But not a cheap place to set up home?’ he asked, clearly digging for information on what job her so-called husband did.

‘We live in a cottage in the grounds.’ Now, if he chose to assume that the we she referred to was a husband, that was his business. She hadn’t lied; not that she wouldn’t if she had to in order to protect Ellie. The problem was she wasn’t very good at it. For once she was thoroughly glad of the outdated tradition in the school—so far unchallenged—which meant that every female teacher, regardless of her marital status, was referred to as Mrs.

The muscles along Rio’s jaw clenched and he had a sour taste in his mouth as her words conjured an image of bucolic domesticity. He had never craved for domesticity, bucolic or otherwise.

Being bound to your soul mate for life might be some people’s dream, but it definitely wasn’t his. Leaving aside the fact that soul mates occupied the same space in his brain as unicorns, to him the marriage contract was not a cause for celebration and certainly not one he ever planned to put his name to.

He was ready to concede that it was possible not all marriages were toxic—perhaps even his parents’ marriage had had a honeymoon period—but why take the chance? He’d often been called a risk-taker in business, but his risks were calculated and based more on facts than speculation. Marriage was just a risk too far for him.

The sound of a child crying behind him provided a distracting respite from his thoughts, but, respite or not, the wail had a nerve-shredding intensity and brought an expression of pained irritation to his face. However, the irritation turned to speculation when he saw the expression on Gwen’s face. She was frozen with fear, but this was the first time he had seen it. The only movement was provided by her long lashes fluttering like some exotic butterfly’s wings against her bone-white skin and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts under the blue cotton shirt that looked like a paler version of her striking cobalt eyes. She looked so dreadful he was convinced she was about to pass out and he tensed, ready to catch her before she hit the ground.

Then, as he watched, she unfroze like a statue coming to slow life, her eyes swivelling from a point beyond his shoulder to his face. A tiny amount of colour seeped back into her skin, robbing it of its marble appearance, and her expression was now almost…resigned? The furrow between his darkly etched straight brows deepened, but before he could ask what was wrong an older woman dressed in a floral-print dress that looked as if she’d fashioned it out of the curtains of a small bungalow rushed past, barging him with her elbow as she struggled to soothe the child she was carrying. He was no expert but this tiny dark-haired bundle did not look anywhere near school age, although she did look as though she might be rather a handful.

‘Gwen, I’m so sorry,’ the crèche assistant gasped. ‘We simply couldn’t pacify her; she just wants you, I’m afraid.’

‘Has she been like this for—?’

‘No, it’s only been the last half-hour.’

‘Don’t worry, that’s fine.’ Gwen held out her arms, and Ellie, still sobbing, wrapped her arms and legs limpet-wise around her. Hot and sticky, the heat of her small body penetrated through Gwen’s shirt and made her think of that first moment when Ellie had been laid on her chest, so warm and heavy. ‘Hush, sweetheart, I know…’ She smiled at the other woman feeling oddly calm now the worst was actually happening and she had no other option than to just deal with it. ‘Thanks and don’t worry.’

‘Poor sweetheart…’ The motherly woman stroked the child’s dark hair before turning away. ‘I have to get back, Gwen.’

‘Of course and thanks again. I had a feeling she wasn’t right this morning and I wish I’d kept her home now.’ She had time owing in lieu of the sixth-form economics after-school club she had filled in for last month. It was a role she’d originally arrived at the school to take up, covering maternity leave. She’d had nothing to go to afterwards and the offer of a six-month stint in the reception class had seemed like a gift.

At the end of the six months she had been offered a permanent contract and she had found her niche in a place it would never have occurred to her to look. The days when she imagined that monetary rewards and kudos would make her happy seemed a long time ago.

Rio found himself rooted to the spot as the cogs in his brain clicked incredibly slowly. He considered the facts in front of him, but, despite a reality that was literally staring him in the face, it still took him a few seconds for comprehension to dawn. He waited until the pretty floral woman moved outside hearing distance before he spoke.

‘She’s yours.’ He ignored the twisting sensation in his chest; the problem was all in his head, where Gwen had remained frozen in time as the incredibly desirable, ambitious young executive who had seemed so sweet, so open and honest, that he’d started to feel guilty, among other things, that their affair was only temporary, until he’d caught her reading his correspondence. It had instantly resurrected toxic memories of watching his father read his mother’s mail, take her phone and check her messages, delete numbers he felt she didn’t need. Dios, he’d only just got his head around Gwen being married and now it seemed she was a mother too.

‘Yes…now, if you’ll excuse us…’

‘Hold on!’ He bent down.

She ran her tongue across her dry lips and tightened her grip on the child, who now lay limp in her arms. It looked as if the crying had tired her out; she was almost asleep.

Rio straightened up and held out the dog-eared stuffed rabbit that the little girl had dropped.

‘Is this yours?’

He waited as the child’s head lifted from her mother’s shoulder. She regarded him with deep suspicious eyes like velvety brown pansies before she snatched the toy from his hand and buried her face back in her mother’s neck.

Several feet of air separated them but Gwen could still literally feel his big body clench and still. His intimidating concentrated maleness was even more pronounced than normal as the tension stretched the skin tight against his incredible bone structure. His eyes swivelled from her hand cradling the back of Ellie’s head to her face.

It felt like years before he spoke but it was probably only seconds, his voice low and soft. He seemed unaware that he was speaking Spanish and, while she only had a schoolgirl smattering of the language, Gwen didn’t need a dictionary to translate the stream of hoarse words.

He knew—of course he knew!

You’d have to be wilfully blind or stupid not to see what had drained the vibrant colour from his olive-toned face and dissolved his habitual aura of cool command.

He was seeing the same thing she had the moment she’d looked into her newborn baby’s face. Previous to that day she had gone along with loving new parents who said their baby was the spitting image of one or other parent, while in her experience the soft infant features all looked alike.

But Ellie’s baby face had borne a startling likeness to Rio from day one. She’d tried to tell herself that the likeness would lessen as the little girl got older, but seeing them together now dispelled that vain hope. If anything, being able to study their faces side by side made the likeness between father and daughter all the more striking.

He wouldn’t need a DNA test to confirm his fatherhood this time, she thought bitterly. It was practically like looking in a mirror for him. It was all in the bones, the angle of the jaw, the hairline, the shape of Ellie’s forehead and, most of all, her eyes, fringed by a double row of sooty eyelashes.

‘The child…she is mine.’ He sounded as shocked as he looked for a man who’d presumably been there and done this before. But maybe it was easier to deal with the facts on paper rather than be confronted with a real-life person. For all she knew he might never have even seen his son.

Or he might be with, or even have married, the mother of his firstborn. Both were equally possible, she realised with a rush of shock.

Strangely she found the latter possibility more disturbing and her feelings could not be totally explained away by her natural sadness for the things his firstborn would have that Ellie wouldn’t—like the love of his father.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the muscle clenching and unclenching in his concave cheek. It didn’t even cross her mind to lie—what would be the point now?

‘Yes, she is yours. Her name is Ellie and she’s just two.’

She could see he was struggling to string a sentence together and waited, stomach clenched, for what he might say next.

‘Does your husband know the truth or does he think she is his?’

Her delicate jaw clenched as she eyed him with disdain. If she’d had a free hand she might have forgotten she was a committed pacifist—again!—and slapped his face! The question of why something about this man had bypassed a few thousand years of evolution and made her feel primal was for another time.

‘Your opinion of me is so flattering, as always.’ So not only was she the woman who went through his private correspondence, now she was the woman who pretended another man’s child was her husband’s. ‘But I don’t actually have a husband. All female staff here are referred to as Mrs, regardless of marital status.’

He dismissed the explanation with an impatient shake of his dark head. ‘But you said—’

Her chin lifted to a challenging angle. ‘Actually,’ she countered, ‘I didn’t say anything, you just assumed. Hush, Ellie, darling,’ she murmured, and brushed a strand of dark hair back from her daughter’s flushed forehead as the sharp voices made her start to cry again.

‘You allowed me to think—’

‘I don’t owe you any explanations,’ she hissed back quietly between clenched teeth for the sake of her fretful, feverish daughter. She really didn’t have the time or energy to deal with his indignation or anger right now.

His eyes were on the poorly child who had settled a little now, and the expression in those dark depths was almost hungry. Gwen experienced a spasm of gut-clenching fear. Suddenly, for the very first time she encountered the possibility that he might want Ellie. He might actually want to take Ellie away from her.

‘I think explanations are the least you owe me,’ he intoned grimly, equally quietly.

She closed her eyes and gave her head a tiny shake of disbelief, the anger spilling through her pushing away the last vestiges of guilt. ‘I owe you nothing and you owe me nothing. We are simply two people who…who…collided.’

Rio’s eyes lifted to hers. ‘Several times,’ he murmured, the brief wicked gleam in his eyes fading as he struggled to clear the sound of a child crying that was still echoing in his head. It was disconcerting as the echo was playing in sync with the real thing.

The child…his child—and would that ever seem real to him?—had begun to sob and squirm in her mother’s arms. As his focus widened beyond his own private drama involving the three of them, he became aware for the first time that they were beginning to attract attention. Some of the pupils and staff filing out of the hall had slowed to stare at them curiously.

‘I can’t believe that we are having this conversation.’

‘What did you think would happen?’ he bit out.

Colour stinging her cheeks, Gwen rebutted, ‘What I mean is this was not supposed to happen.’

‘What, getting pregnant, or me finding out I had a child?’

‘Both,’ she admitted removing a hank of her hair from his daughter’s—Ellie’s—tenacious grip.

‘I’m no expert, but shouldn’t you be taking her to the hospital?’ He knew nothing about children but this one was…his daughter. He gave his dark head a shake, but, no, he was actually awake and this was really happening. It wasn’t a dream. The shock he was experiencing was momentarily blanked out by a fresh wave of anger as he thought of all the moments he had missed with his child that he would never get back.

‘That’s right, you’re not an expert,’ Gwen pointed out. When had he last had a sleepless night? she thought, her contempt almost immediately vanishing to be replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she recalled some of the things Rio usually thought preferable to sleep.

It was a measure of how completely he took over her mind that this thought led seamlessly into an image imprinted and preserved in her head in perfect detail, the moment captured for ever, along with the nameless ache she had felt deep inside as she’d stared at him lying asleep on his back early one morning, one arm above his head, his face in repose. The lines that might one day be permanent had been ironed out, looking, not softer, exactly, but younger beneath the piratical stubble that emphasised the angles of his jaw and the hollow of his carved cheeks.

In the soft dappled early morning light that had filtered through the blinds on the open window, his skin had shone like dull gold against the crumpled white sheet that was bunched across his narrow hips, the shadows emphasising the muscular definition of his chest and ridged belly.

She remembered desperately wanting to touch him and so she had, her fingers moving along the line of dark hair that ran down his belly until her hand was caught and she found herself staring into black, wickedly gleaming and not at all sleepy eyes that were still looking at her as he pulled her down on top of him.

Breaking free of the vivid memories drew a tiny grunt of effort from her parted lips.

‘This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation,’ she said, a shade of desperation creeping into her voice because there was no time and no place where she wanted to have this conversation.

He glanced towards their growing audience. Clearly, it was the first thing they had agreed on. ‘So where, and when?’

She looked at him in horror, the recognition dawning in her brain that there was going to be no escape route, no secret door, no alternative to them having a face-to-face discussion.

She tipped her head in acknowledgement and defeat. ‘All right, my cottage.’

‘Cottage?’ His slightly confused expression cleared. ‘The one in the grounds you mentioned? Right, I will find it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we say five o’clock?’

Gwen shook her head. ‘No, six.’ By that time she ought to have been able to pacify Ellie and if not he’d just have to wait. She lifted her chin. Her daughter would always come first with her and the sooner he caught onto that fact, the better. The world might work around Rio Bardales’s schedule but she had moved on.

CHAPTER FOUR

GWEN NOTICED ABSENTLY that her hand was shaking as she tried to coax her daughter to take the temperature-lowering medicine. When the toddler turned her head away for the fourth time and it spilled down her front Gwen felt the tears she’d so far held back begin to spill down her cheeks.

Taking a deep breath, she squeezed her eyes tight shut and told herself, Self-pity, Gwen, is really not attractive.

A moment later as she choked back a sob and forced a smile, perhaps her change of attitude communicated itself to her child, who stopped crying to watch her mother with big eyes.

Gwen took advantage of the moment of calm to spoon the mixture between her lips. ‘Excellent, good girl…’

She sat back with a sigh as a wave of love so strong that it made her breathless washed over her. Before Ellie had been born she had worried about bonding with her, not able to imagine this swell of instinctive parental love. Suddenly, an image of Rio’s face, the shock of recognition in his eyes when he’d seen Ellie, surfaced in her head.

What would it feel like to be hit by the reality you were a father that way? The truth was she could not imagine that scenario any more than she could imagine how he was feeling now he’d had time to take it on board.

Or maybe he was wondering how to break the news to the mother of his son—his partner…his wife? Her life had moved on and it was only reasonable to assume that his had too.

Which Rio would arrive? Would he be angry? Cold? Businesslike?

Would he even arrive?

Another image flashed in front of her, of the expression in his dark eyes as he had stared at Ellie, and she shivered. It was definitely not the look of a man who had any intention of walking away.

Trying to shake the feeling of impending doom that weighed her down, she told herself her time would be better spent preparing a plan of action for a scenario that was never meant to happen.

She tried to reawaken the feeling of optimism, of liberation almost, that she’d felt the day Ellie was born and she had come to her decision not to tell Rio, a decision that had nothing to do with the months of arguing with herself and playing devil’s advocate. The decision had been made because it felt right, and she could finally move on as a mother. It was a new, exciting and scary chapter in her life, but she could do it. Alone.

She didn’t need Rio’s help, and she was not going to beg or humiliate herself by submitting to DNA testing. She had mentally wiped him out of her life. Well, to be completely truthful, it had been a work in progress but she’d been getting there.

Sadly he didn’t get the same memo!

With Ellie on her shoulder, she began to pace up and down the small cosy living room humming softly, and after a few grumpy kicks and moans Ellie settled, soothed by the rhythmic motion. Gwen carried on humming, glancing at the clock on the mantle occasionally until she felt the toddler go limp in her arms and the baby breaths become deep and even.

She pushed open the only bedroom door with her foot. The lack of a second bedroom was one of those problems that she had left for the future, as for the moment the cot at the bottom of her bed worked and there was room for a small bed later on.

Pulling back the sheet, she laid her sleeping daughter down. Her cheeks were rosy but no longer feverish as the medicine was doing its job. Switching on the baby monitor even though there wasn’t anywhere in the tiny cottage where she wouldn’t hear her cry, Gwen drew the curtains and crept from the room, leaving the door ajar behind her.

Back in the living room, she glanced at the clock again, silently counting the minutes until Rio would appear. It was hard to rehearse what she was going to say when she didn’t have a clue what he was going to ask, or demand or… She sighed and began to chew her plump bottom lip distractedly, fighting her way free of another wave of despair.

‘For goodness’ sake, Gwen, stop feeling sorry for yourself!’

Her eyes narrowed with determination as she began to whisk around the room, plumping the odd cushion, picking up a toy and lobbing it in the toy box beside the window. Yesterday she had been wishing she had the space for a playroom; today she loved everything exactly the way it was. Perhaps you had to have your little world threatened to appreciate a worn carpet or a shower that was only a frustrating trickle.

It was a struggle to visualise Rio in these surroundings; it really was not his natural environment. He was sleek and exclusive and—she released a quivering sigh—just the thought of him being here had the power to make her insides quiver. Shameful though it was, it hardly seemed worth the energy it cost pretending she wasn’t still as vulnerable as she had ever been to his lethal sexuality.

It just proved that sexual chemistry was utterly indiscriminate. Ignoring the butterfly kicks still making their presence known in her stomach, she walked into her diminutive galley kitchen to get a glass of water to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.

It was the uncertainty, she told herself, that was really testing her. If Rio had gone into denial mode she could have dealt with it, or at least dealt with it more easily. Of course, he might still go that way once he had got over the initial shock.

He might just want confirmation that she was not going to make any future demands on him. Well, she could happily give him that—she’d sign anything if it meant he’d leave them in peace.

Gwen tiptoed back into the bedroom, checked on Ellie, who was sleeping peacefully still, and jumped at the sound of a rose branch scratching the window as the freshening breeze caught it.

You need to relax, Gwennie girl, she told herself, before grinning at the sheer impossibility of this. Absently fishing a lip gloss from her pocket, she smeared it over her lips before closing the door behind her.

By the time she had sat down and then jumped up again she had chewed the strawberry moisture off.

Would he be on time?

Should she have contacted a lawyer?

As if she had one on speed dial! She gave a small snort of self-mocking laughter and tried not to think of the access to top legal experts that Rio had.

Discovering a stray brightly coloured building block behind a cushion that had escaped her whirlwind round of frenzied tidying, she headed for the overflowing toy box when the knock on the door made her leap like a startled deer.

She took a deep breath and schooled her features into neutrality, or as close as she was going to get to that, and opened the door. Her eyes travelled upwards as she took a half-step outside, her elbow brushing the roses around the door.

His jacket had gone and the fabric of his tailored shirt was fine enough to suggest the drifts of body hair on his torso. Or maybe she was just seeing them because she knew they were there. Her cheeks heated guiltily at the thought.

‘You live here?’

She didn’t pause to think of a sarcastic response, just nodded.

He didn’t respond to the social cue so, after an awkward pause, she added, ‘It’s convenient.’ Less convenient was noticing for the first time the coiled tension in his lean body. It wasn’t just his masculinity that sent a fresh shudder through her body, it was the predator barely disguised by the perfect tailoring.

One dark brow lifted but he still didn’t say anything. Gwen tried to ignore the grab of some emotion that felt like a hand in her chest as their eyes finally connected, the moment she had been avoiding.

She wanted to look away but the moment dragged, hampered by the mind-fogging hormonal flare she felt. She resorted to stiff formality as she finally managed to slide her eyes to some point over his left shoulder. Sexual chemistry had no place here; she owed it to Ellie to keep a clear head. She had learnt from her mistakes and it was more important than ever not to repeat them.

Chance would be a fine thing!

Ignoring the shame-inducing reaction of her inner voice, she gave a faint smile. ‘Come in.’ She stood to one side and, after an equally stilted and blank-faced pause, he stepped past her directly into her sitting room.

In the confined space his sheer physicality took on an extra resonance, as did the predatory undercurrents that had made her hormones leap.

Rio discovered that the cottage, which looked like a chocolate box outside, was more like a doll’s house inside. He supposed it was charming if you liked low beams and leaded windows, but he didn’t; he preferred light and space. His eyes moved over the toys spilling out of a box in the corner and they darkened. He was still desperately struggling to assimilate the knowledge he was a father, but the emotions were so complex and intertwined that the anger kept colliding with the shock and the sheer gut-wrenching wonder of it all.

It was a situation that he’d not asked for but one he was certainly responsible for, which equated to this combined anger and guilt. Being a father was one thing, but having the fact hidden from him, leaving him an outsider in a process he had been so intimately involved with, left him feeling…what, exactly?

Of course, the irony and the massive degree of hypocrisy his reaction generated was impossible to duck. How could he blame Gwen when he had done the very same thing to his brother? His twin, his other half, who still didn’t know he had fathered a son… The guilt Rio had lived with every day since he’d agreed to the deception hadn’t gone away, but it had been easier to bear because he had been so sure that he’d made the right decision.

Today’s events made him feel far less secure about that. Had Gwen thought she’d made the right decision too?

Had she thought his daughter was better off not knowing her father? And could he really blame her? This degree of reluctant understanding of her possible motives didn’t lessen his determination to be an ongoing part of this child’s life, to be the best father he could, but the next step was convincing Gwen of this. Of course, his advantage in all this was that he suspected she had a strongly developed sense of fair play whereas he was quite flexible about such things, especially when the stakes were this high.

He had no intention of taking no for an answer.

He looked around the room again and glanced at her, wondering if she thought he considered it to be shabby and cramped. She was clearly bracing her shoulders in a defensive attitude and when he suddenly turned, she jumped, taking a nervy involuntary step backwards. She bit down, her white teeth sinking into her plump lower lip, distracting him for a moment. Then she cleared her throat loudly, and he wondered if she’d noticed.

Rio frowned. He could see that the blue-veined pulse at the base of her slender throat was throbbing nervously, and the possibility that she was scared of him made him feel like a monster.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked when she lowered her hand from her mouth.

She nodded. ‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ she offered.

‘It sounds like you need a drink,’ he said, wondering if that would relax her a little.

She shook her head.

‘I’m okay, thanks.’

‘Is she… Ellie…?’ He paused after pushing out her name slowly as if he was still trying it out for fit. ‘Is she feeling better now?’ he asked, grimacing faintly as he heard the accusatory note edge into his tone. He could tell by the stiffening of her posture that Gwen had too.

She nodded.

‘Can I see her?’ His jaw clenched, the fine muscles quivering, as the request brought home just how wrong this situation was. He was asking permission to see his own child.

The look of alarm that flickered across her face as she desperately tried to think of an excuse to say no only added to the feeling of wrongness.

‘I’m not going to snatch her, you know,’ he said with impatient irony.

He saw a guilty flush rise up her neck until her face looked as if it were burning. ‘I never thought you were,’ she protested defensively.

His expressive mouth twisted. ‘But you are now.’ She was as easy to read as a neon headline.

‘She’s sleeping.’

For a guilty moment he acknowledged a flash of relief. How did you talk to a person who was little more than a baby? What did you say to your own child? But the hunger to see her again remained stronger than his self-doubt.

It made him think again of Roman, his twin, who had a child he would never know, and the guilt he lived with every day tightened as he promised huskily, ‘I won’t wake her.’

For a split second he thought she was going to refuse and the hell of it was there was not a thing he could do about it. He had fathered a child and yet he had no rights… His taut jaw clenched, dragging the skin tight across his slashing cheekbones at the prospect of having to beg to see his own child.

Gwen kick-started her brain, ashamed that for a few vital moments she had allowed herself to get sidetracked by the small jagged scar she had noticed on his forehead, white against his golden-toned skin.

‘Fine,’ she mumbled, except of course it wasn’t. ‘This way.’

She didn’t look at him but she was very conscious of his physical presence as he followed her through the door she pushed open. She wondered where she drew the line—when did she say no? There had to be guidelines, limits…didn’t there?

Gwen turned and saw straight away that his attention was almost immediately riveted by the cot that stood at the foot of the small old-fashioned brass double bed in the bright-yellow-painted room. She wondered if he could feel the quivering tension coming off her but she said nothing, just stood to one side as he walked towards the cot cautiously.

Gwen hung back, hands clenched, not wanting him here and particularly not wanting to see the conflict in his face as he looked down into the cot. Yet it was the wonder that flickered into his eyes, and something close to longing there too, that she really didn’t want to see the most.

She looked away. She couldn’t let this situation be all about him and his feelings. This was about her and Ellie; they were a unit of two. Rio had to stay on the outside of that unit—she’d be fair but firm and if necessary selfish in order to protect Ellie.

‘I’ll be just through there.’ She nodded her head to indicate the other room and left, but she didn’t think he noticed.

It was five minutes before he joined her. Gwen was staring out of the window blindly and didn’t hear his soft-footed approach. It was only the prickling on the back of her neck that alerted her to his presence.

She turned and saw him standing just inside the doorway, but his expression told her nothing. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear—’

‘I didn’t wake her…’ he said at the same time, and hesitated. Then, as she stayed silent, he added, ‘Is she well?’ He dragged a hand through his dark hair and moved further into the room. ‘What did the doctor say?’

‘She hasn’t seen a doctor.’ Before he could express the outrage she could see tauten his face she quickly explained, ‘The next appointment the surgery has is not for several days.’

Rio snarled out his opinion of this situation in a flood of blistering angry Spanish.

‘Do you mind translating that?’ she asked, bewildered.

His jaw clenched. ‘That’s outrageous!’

She accepted the more polite, shortened version, noticing with a shiver that he suddenly seemed even taller and more physically intimidating in the small room.

‘What’s the doctor’s number?’

Her eyes flew wide in alarm. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He flashed her a look as he pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘What do you think? Should I call him out? Or, better still, I’ll tell him you need a second opinion—except you haven’t even had a first—’

Feeling her temper spurt at the implied criticism, she cut him off, her voice cold but controlled. ‘For the record he is a she and this isn’t your call to make in any sense of the word.’

She could see him almost literally bite back a sharp retort as her words sank in. Instead he threw her a look that simply seethed with frustration.

She struggled not to empathise with how he must be feeling, but she couldn’t afford to allow herself to soften towards him or show him any weakness, or very soon it could be Rio telling her when she could see her daughter.

This horrifying image hardened her resolve.

Rio already had a child, she just had Ellie.

‘You may have been a parent longer than me.’ She saw his blank expression and tacked on sarcastically, ‘Or had you already forgotten?’

He didn’t respond verbally to that barb, but at least she’d got some reaction. She supposed it was something that he could clearly feel guilt, always supposing she wasn’t misreading the reason for the dark bands of colour across his high cheekbones.

‘But I’ve been doing this for two years now,’ she added with quiet dignity. No point explaining that sometimes she still didn’t feel as though she knew what she was doing. She was not about to tell him about her insecurities; it would feel a lot like handing more ammunition to someone who already had a gun aimed at your head.

A frown flickered across her face at the over-dramatic analogy—she really had to lower the levels of paranoia. On the other hand she really couldn’t see a downside to Rio thinking she was an expert in child-rearing.

The seething silence lengthened while their eyes clashed, black on iridescent blue. The dark bands of colour scoring his cheekbones deepened and his eyes dropped as he finally slid the phone slowly back into his pocket, tacitly admitting a defeat she could see was alien to his nature and life experience.

‘And that is my fault, I suppose,’ he said bitterly.

Gwen recognised that this could easily escalate into some sort of war of attrition. One of them had to keep their temper, so she took hers tightly in hand and shook her head. If she lost it she might say things that she would undoubtedly later regret.

‘I didn’t say that. I’m simply saying that being a mum is a learning process and this isn’t the first time Ellie has been unwell. Babies do sometimes become unwell and they can’t exactly tell you what’s wrong!’ Belatedly aware that her voice had climbed shrilly and started to wobble, she took a deep, calming breath.

He didn’t need to know about her doubts, about the nights she longed for someone to share the responsibility that came with being the parent of a baby, but there hadn’t been anyone so she had made the unilateral decision that she no longer needed any help.

‘Her temperature has already come back down. She had a cold last week and it’s left her a little stuffed up. She’s been pulling at her ear…she seems a bit prone to ear problems.’ She pushed out the information quickly before explaining something no new parent, or indeed anyone who had never been ill, would know. ‘They are reluctant to give antibiotics these days for something that is probably viral, and sitting in a crowded waiting room was not going to make her feel any better. They’d just tell me to take her home and do what I am already doing.’

‘Which is?’

He listened in silence as she explained that she’d given Ellie medicine to lower her temperature and made sure she had plenty of fluids.

‘And sleep,’ she added, ‘is really good, though she’s likely to be a bit grumpy when she wakes up.’ She really hoped this would be sorted and he’d be gone by the time Ellie woke up, but, being a realist, she could see that this might be optimistic, so it was best to prepare him for the worst. ‘Or then again, she might be chirpy. It’s not an exact science…’

‘But in general she is a healthy child?’

Gwen was relieved he sounded calmer. ‘She’s fine and, yes, she’s had no health problems beyond the usual.’

He nodded and she could see from the blank look on his face that he didn’t have a clue what the usual was. Perhaps he didn’t have much to do with his son?

‘Right, then, is there anything else you’d like to know?’ She paused, wondering if she should tell him straight off that she wasn’t going to make any financial demands on him. Just cut the polite and painfully awkward chit-chat and get to the point?

‘This must have been a shock for you,’ she said, remembering how much of a shock it had been to her to discover she was pregnant.

She’d run home—that had been her first mistake.

Ironic really that her parents, who had never really believed in her five-year plan and her career, had suddenly been absolutely emphatic that she not give it up. Her father, they’d said, had already told everyone at the golf club about her success, and they were impressed—as if this clinched the argument. Except she wasn’t arguing, she was just letting them talk at her, feeling her heart freeze over as she listened to them in increasing horror.

‘So you want me to “get rid of it”?’ She remembered hearing her father’s hiss of exasperation as she sketched sarcastic inverted commas in the air and finished, ‘Just so that you can continue to have bragging rights at the golf club?’

‘Well, you’ve finally done something for us to be proud of.’

Ironically, once her parents’ pride in her would have mattered so much; it was what she’d been striving for all her life.

‘Gwen, dear, you must see your life will be ruined. All your plans will come to nothing—and what will people say?’

‘And that’s what really matters, isn’t it? What people think! The only thing that matters to you is appearances. There is no disgrace, no shame involved, in having a baby alone these days, Mam.’ Gwen’s glance flickered towards the towering presence of disapproval that was her father. ‘But there is plenty of shame in living a lie.’

Unable to meet her eyes, her mother looked away and whispered, ‘I only want what’s best for you, cariad.’

‘I know, Mam, but—’

‘How dare you talk to your mother like that? And don’t call her Mam—it’s common!’

As he planted a beefy arm around his wife’s shoulders Gwen found herself wondering when she’d last seen any display of physical affection between them.

‘If you keep it, we want nothing to do with you.’

Gwen looked at her mother, who just shook her head and looked away.

It was the exact point when Gwen knew she was totally on her own.

Her mum looked small, like someone who’d had the life sucked out of her. Gwen knew that at one time her mother would have been strong enough to resist her father’s demands that Gwen get rid of her baby…and her mother was probably paying a silent price ever since for not standing up to him, but she’d had no more fight left.

Gwen shook off the heavy empty feeling that came with the unhappy memories and forced a smile.

‘Do you want to sit down? Oh, not that one,’ she added quickly, gesturing at the overstuffed armchair he was standing next to. ‘The legs are a bit wobbly.’

He probably thought the whole place was a bit wobbly. After all, he had just been escorted on a tour around the school, including state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, where no expense had been spared. Despite this, the employees lived in accommodation that could only be called basic.

He shook his head and walked across to the second armchair but, instead of sitting, stood behind it and placed his hands on the back rest. ‘I’m fine.’

Gwen assumed his dark brooding scowl was directed at his surroundings and lifted her chin. Ah, well, it would do him good to slum it, she decided, struggling to hold onto her angry contempt as an image of his cottage on the Cape Cod island off Martha’s Vineyard flashed into her head. When he’d first asked her to dinner, she’d assumed he was staying in a hotel, but she had learnt that it was never a good idea to assume with Rio.

His version of a cottage was the incredible sprawling seafront property set in the middle of lush, beautifully tended acres. The fact they had arrived in a private plane that he’d piloted himself should have been a clue to how ridiculously wealthy he was, but the sight of his house—or, more correctly, his estate—had brought it home to her for the first time that she was dealing with someone who lived in a completely different world.

A world where wonky had no place, just as she’d had no place in his.

She absently smoothed a throw that she had positioned to hide the worn patch on the arm of a chair. This was her world, hers and Ellie’s, and she was not ashamed of it, she was proud of what she had achieved with no help from anyone and she wouldn’t allow him to make her feel any different about it.

For years she’d watched her father blame her mother, or even sometimes her, every time he’d strayed—which had been often. But it had always been their fault for not understanding him, for not being enough for him.

The moment Ellie was born Gwen had vowed that she’d be a good role model. That her daughter would never have to feel ashamed of her the way Gwen had eventually become ashamed of her mother, who had been unable to break free of the cycle of emotional abuse doled out by her father.

Ellie would never feel that she was not enough!

CHAPTER FIVE

RIO WATCHED GWEN STRAIGHTEN, the cushion she had picked up still pressed to her chest protectively, her expression distant but wary as she focused on him. The idea that she felt she needed to protect herself from him made the muscles along his jaw quiver.

He admired the way she’d made this small house into a home, despite its worn appearance. He thought less of the school’s headmaster, not Gwen. The employer in him considered this bad working practice. Loyalty was a two-way street; you treated staff well and they in turn were willing to go the extra mile.

The newly discovered father in him found the idea of his child not enjoying the luxuries that he took for granted felt wrong on so many levels. His child, but except for today’s chance encounter he might have walked past her in the street and not known her!

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Gwen?’

Thrown by the directness of the question, she blinked. ‘It was my decision to go ahead with the pregnancy, my body, my baby,’ she intoned solemnly. ‘What would have been the point telling you? What were you going to do, after, of course, I’d submitted to a lie detector and the prescribed range of DNA tests? Marry me?’

He winced but she didn’t notice.

‘People marry for less,’ he observed carefully.

‘Love, you mean?’

‘You think a transitory chemical attraction is more important than having a child together?’

‘You make love sound like a selfish indulgence,’ she said.

He arched a strongly delineated brow. ‘I wasn’t talking about maternal love.’

‘You asked what I think, well, I think that Ellie and what is best for her are the most important things to me,’ she told him fiercely.

‘Until you meet a man?’ His broad shoulders tensed as a flash freeze image formed in his head of a faceless male in Gwen’s bed and being a father to his child. The constant tug of sexual attraction he was fighting paled beside this raw and primal response to what was only an imaginary scenario.

She released a scornful laugh. ‘Because I feel incomplete without a man in my life? Hardly! I have Ellie, and my work, so I already have everything I need.’

But did she have enough money? he wondered.

‘I suppose that contacting you to keep you in the loop was an option, but not one that filled me with joy and positivity after our affair ended the way it did. And quite honestly I was too busy throwing up for several months to worry about it that much.’

He felt a kick of guilt that was totally irrational because he hadn’t known she’d suffered that badly, but, as they said in every courtroom drama, ignorance was no defence. Something twisted inside him at the thought of her being alone and suffering.

But she wouldn’t have been alone, he realised with a sense of relief. Not all families were as dysfunctional as his.

‘You went home?’ As his glance drifted over her sinuous curves, it was hard for him to imagine her heavily pregnant.

Gwen’s eyes lowered. ‘For a time,’ she said, moistening her lips. ‘I had some savings.’

‘You packed in your job right off? I’m sure they had a very generous healthcare plan.’

‘I was living in America and I was still on a probationary period, so there was no way they were going to give me a permanent contract if I was pregnant.’

He cleared his throat and gave a thoughtful nod. ‘So not good timing, then.’

She gave a sudden laugh. ‘There’s never a good time to have a baby and yet people still do.’

He would have found this conversation more comfortable if he’d been the target of her resentment and anger, but she appeared remarkably calm about having her life thrown upside down. ‘This was hardly a planned pregnancy.’

‘The statistics on that make interesting reading—fewer than you’d think are planned.’

‘At least you had a support network back home.’

Gwen said nothing. The less said about her support network, the better. She smoothed back her hair and gave a casual shrug.

‘I have friends and I like to be independent. Also, as luck would have it, I had a small win on a premium bond my late godmother bought me years ago, so money wasn’t a problem.’ It was important to her not to come across as a victim—not of anything. ‘Look, I’m sure you’re not really interested in my finances, so let’s just get to the real reason you’re here.’

Something flickered at the backs of his eyes as he arched a sardonic brow. ‘And that would be?’ he prompted with a display of gentle interest, though there was nothing anyone would describe as gentle in the headlight stare that she found uncomfortably intent.

‘I am not going to make any demands on you. I don’t expect any involvement from you at all.’

A nerve in Rio’s cheek clenched. She said it as though he needed reassurance, while her attitude strongly suggested that the news that she didn’t expect him to be any part of his own child’s life was meant to make him happy! Dios! He would have been the first to concede that he might have given her reason to think he was not exactly a saint, but did she really think he was such a rat as to walk away from his own child?

‘What sort of demands are we talking?’ He kept his face locked in a mask of polite indifference that became increasingly hard to maintain as an image of her making some very pleasant demands of him floated through his head, her soft, husky laugh, her long, extremely flexible legs, her lips. His gaze sank to her mouth, which he assumed was about to say something far less pleasing than, Again, please, Rio!

His indolent drawl had nothing to do with the flames flickering in his mesmeric eyes, and for a moment Gwen lost her verbal footing as waves of distracting heat thrummed through her body.

She stammered out, ‘I-I’ll put it in writing if you want…? I expect you have lawyers on speed dial?’ She faltered, her voice drying up as she encountered his furious glare. She could literally feel the anger vibrating off him.

‘You think that’s why I’m here? To have you sign some sort of nondisclosure agreement and pay you off!’

‘I don’t want your money. I don’t want anything from you!’ she exclaimed in horror, pushing aside a small voice in the back of her head that asked if she was allowing her pride to get in the way of Ellie’s best interests.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Rio hadn’t offered her anything yet, with strings or otherwise.

He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes flicking to the half-closed bedroom door. ‘It appears as if you’re coping.’

As he gave the grudging concession—perhaps it was even a compliment?—her shocked, widened eyes flew to his face. But the expression in his own hooded gaze as he continued talking had her quickly back-pedalling on the compliment idea.

‘But why should my daughter have to just cope? I realise it can’t have been easy for you.’

Not even slightly mollified by the acknowledgement, Gwen ground her even white teeth. ‘I’m not a victim.’

‘I didn’t mean to suggest that you are.’

She looked at him sideways and thought, Yeah, not much?

‘I have a job I love, a daughter I adore—I consider myself extremely lucky.’

Rio’s slender grip on diplomacy slipped through his fingers as he ground out a frustrated imprecation. This woman really was the most aggravating and touchy female he had ever encountered.

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, because you’re too damned stubborn and independent to admit you needed help, even if your life depended on it, but this isn’t just your life, is it? It’s Ellie’s, my daughter’s…’ He caught the flare in her eyes but ignored a stab of guilt for his below-the-belt blow. He still had a point to make. ‘Our daughter does not even have a room of her own and she is left in the care of those who, although I am sure they are admirable, are little more than strangers…’

‘Not to me!’ she countered. ‘And sometimes a child is better off with a stranger than a real parent.’

‘You think my daughter would be better off with a stranger than me,’ Rio said flatly.

Her blue eyes flew wide. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She heaved out a sigh and lifted her hands, palm up, as she admitted, ‘I didn’t have the best relationship with my father.’

His clenched air of tension relaxed somewhat at her admission. ‘And now?’

‘There is no relationship at all.’

He tipped his head but to her obvious relief didn’t push it, instead murmuring a soft, expressionless, ‘It happens.’

‘Look, this could get very complicated. You already have a child and—’ Something flashed in his eyes and she stumbled to a halt. ‘Obviously your relationships are none of my business, and if you wanted to put something to one side for Ellie when she’s older, for her university education, that might be a nice gesture.’

His head reared back, his high cheekbones standing out on a face that was rigid with offence, which she clearly found bewildering if the confused look on her face was anything to go by.

‘You think I make a habit of impregnating women and walking away?’ And why shouldn’t she? he thought bitterly. After all, that was exactly what he had done, even if he’d only done it the once, rather than twice, as she believed.

Rio was not a person who had ever felt the need for the good opinion of others and he rarely, if ever, explained himself to anyone. Some people called him arrogant and he was fine with that—people took him at his word or they didn’t, and it was not something he ever lost sleep over.

So it came as a shock to have to fight the impulse to tell Gwen the truth about his brother’s child, but it was not his secret to share and he had given his word to Marisa. It was a promise he couldn’t break, even if he had regretted making it many times.

He sometimes wondered if the agreement with Marisa and his guilt over that had been partly responsible for the intangible distance that had grown between him and his twin. There was no question in his mind that, despite the kick in the gut that it had been at the time, he still hadn’t accepted his brother’s out-of-the-blue decision to walk away from the responsibilities they’d shared controlling the Bardales empire.

‘I have no idea what sort of arrangement you have with—’

Rio cut across her, choosing his words with care. ‘That child you speak of is not in my life.’

‘I suppose fatherhood is not for everyone,’ she muttered, looking at her feet.

‘Your efforts to be non-judgemental could do with some work,’ he said drily.

Her eyes flew to his face. ‘I’m not judgemental,’ she said huffily.

His eyes narrowed on her flushed, angry and quite heart-stoppingly beautiful face and he felt his blood heat with inconvenient but inevitable lust. ‘I’m sure you’re the epitome of tact and political correctness.’

‘Things nobody is going to accuse you of!’ she fired back.

His sensual lips twisted into a smile. ‘Well, at least we’ve stopped being painfully polite to one another.’

‘I am polite.’

‘I’m starting to get the idea that you’d be happier if I wanted to escape my responsibilities.’

‘I…we are not anyone’s responsibility—’ She stopped mid angry flow, her eyes widening to their fullest extent as she stared at him in dawning horror. ‘You mean you’re not?’

‘What do you think I’ve been trying to say?’

‘I won’t know until you say it.’

‘I want to co-parent Ellie. I want to be fully involved in her life.’

‘Co-parent?’ she parroted as though the word made no sense to her. ‘You want to be involved?’

‘Why are you so shocked? I may not have given birth to her, but half that child’s make-up is mine.’

Gwen’s bubble of laughter was half a sob. ‘That’s hard to miss.’ She shook her head. ‘But you have said that you don’t have contact with your son so I assumed—’

‘You mean you hoped?’ he said cynically.

Her eyes slid away from his.

‘Look, I’m not going to force you into anything. I just want to get to know my daughter and I think you owe me that at least.’

Any brownie points his placatory manner might have won was clearly cancelled out by that owe and he could see Gwen’s temper fizz. ‘Owe? So are you keeping some sort of score card? You know, you might think I’m dim, but I can’t for the life of me think what I could possibly owe you!’

‘Ellie’s first steps?’

He watched an arrested expression steal across her face. She was so easy to read that he wondered how she’d got this far without someone taking advantage of her.

She hadn’t. Because you did.

‘First smile,’ he ground out, pushing away the guilt. ‘First word… In fact, you owe me for all the things I have already missed, all the milestone moments that I will never experience!’

The emotion that thickened his normally slight Spanish accent obviously shocked her deeply.

‘I didn’t think you’d want to experience them.’ Honesty rang out in her voice.

‘I have told you I want to be a part of her life. I meant it.’

Rio paused, tilting his head to shield the expression that flashed into his dark eyes as the dark irony struck home. He was fighting for a role that he had colluded with another to deprive his twin of.

He tensed, ready to quash the guilt and nagging doubts that inevitably accompanied the acknowledgement of his role in the deception, given an added knife twist now that he had discovered he was a secret father too.

But the two situations were different, he reasoned. Roman’s relationship with the mother of his child had been over long before she had come to Rio asking for his help.

You never had a relationship with Gwen, though, the voice in his head contributed unhelpfully. You just had sex.

His jaw clenched. He did not need reminding about the sex. He remembered every touch, every gasp, every soft sigh… With an effort he dragged his thoughts away from the warm distractions filling it and focused on the facts that had influenced his decision.

The mother of his brother’s child had approached Rio at a time when every media outlet had been delivering a new image of Roman, a now famous bestselling author who was as daring and handsome as his fictional hero on an almost daily basis. In every image the same woman was with him, frequently gazing lovingly up at him. His twin was happy, or appeared to be, with another woman. His life had clearly moved on.

Had Rio’s own ever really moved on from the short torrid affair with Gwen?

The furrow between his ebony brows deepened as he closed down the inner dialogue. Not being in a relationship didn’t meant that he hadn’t moved on from Gwen; not being in a relationship meant he was doing something right. Living his life the way he always did.

A fleeting image of his brother’s ex-lover floated into his head. Despite his initial natural inclination to side with his twin, Marisa’s story and her genuine desperation had touched him, and brought home how far he and his twin had grown apart. There had been a time when they discussed everything.

He asked himself what would be achieved by telling Roman now. At the time, he couldn’t for the life of him see anything positive in doing so. But his eyes drifted to the half-open door behind which his own child lay asleep and he realised that now his reaction might have been very different. But that had been then, he told himself, once more squashing down his guilt. Marisa’s child had got the bone marrow he’d so desperately needed to save his life and that was what mattered the most.

‘And every child deserves a father?’

He arched a brow, wondering if he had imagined the tense undercurrent in her question. ‘You don’t think so?’

‘It depends on the father. If I think that you’re not good for Ellie, I will cut off all access and I don’t care if you have a tribe of lawyers throwing money at it.’ Her eyes shot blue warning fire at him.

His lips twitched at her ferocious tigress act, except of course it wasn’t an act. He was pretty sure she’d make anyone who hurt her child regret living. ‘That seems reasonable.’

Suspicious of Rio’s sudden, easy capitulation, Gwen folded her arms across her heaving breasts. ‘So how do you envisage this working?’ She was pleased she sounded calm and businesslike, and glad he couldn’t hear the panicked thud of her heart. Although maybe he could—it was pretty much all she could hear.

Gwen couldn’t help wondering if Rio was secretly regretting having no contact with his son and whether Ellie was going to be some sort of consolation prize. But as much as she hated the idea, Gwen knew that he was right to ask for the opportunity to get to know his daughter. She owed him a chance, at least, to establish some sort of paternal relationship with Ellie.

‘I understand there is a week left of term and then you have a long summer vacation?’

She nodded cautiously. Even the most devoted staff were counting down the days.

‘You have any plans?’

Gwen was not fooled for a moment by the seeming casualness of the question. ‘I thought we might take a few trips to the beach. I might even buy a tent when Ellie is a bit older and try camping.’ She had always wanted to camp when she was a child but her father had been too busy for family holidays and her mother came out in a rash at the idea of being that close to nature.

‘That sounds enjoyable, but I have another idea, although I’m afraid it does not involve canvas. Come to Spain with me. I have a place with a private beach where you can relax and I can get to know my…our daughter,’ he swiftly corrected in response to the warning flash from her eyes. ‘And you can get used to me being part of your life.’

‘You can’t be a part of my life!’ she snapped.

He arched a brow. ‘Isn’t that inevitable when we have a child together? Don’t make me fight you on this, Gwen.’

She found the absence of anything in his expression or voice more intimidating than if he’d yelled at her.

She swallowed, but her chin stayed lifted to a defiant angle. ‘Are you threatening me?’

He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. I am simply telling you that I intend to be part of my child’s life.’

‘Our child’s life.’

He smiled, all silky confidence and even white teeth. ‘Exactly the point I have been trying to make.’

‘I could send you reports…photos or—’ Under the relentless unblinking gaze of his deep-set eyes her voice trailed off as she felt like a drowning man going under for the last time. ‘Spain in the summer might be a little hot for Ellie and she can be quite fussy about her food.’ The former was a relevant concern; the latter was a downright lie. Ellie happily munched through everything that was set in front of her.

‘We have air conditioning and adequate sunscreen, plus she appears to have inherited my colouring…’

Her attention was immediately drawn to the vibrant deep gold of his skin. She shrugged while her treacherous hormones went wild as she struggled to dispel the image that seemed imprinted on her retinas of him standing in front of her naked, the formation of long bone and deep muscle giving him the look of a classic statue brought to warm, rampant life.

‘It’s hard to tell at this stage,’ she mumbled.

‘I have read that introducing children to new tastes early on influences healthy food preferences later on in life.’

Gwen wasn’t sure that was completely true but it certainly sounded plausible, and while she was thinking about it, he added smoothly, ‘So I will make the necessary arrangements and pick you both up on the last day of term. I’ll be in touch soon to let you know what time.’

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