Consequences of a Hot Havana Night

by Louise Fuller

  What happens next?

  The options revolved inside her head.

  She could go home—and of course a part of her obviously desperately wanted to jump on the next plane to England. But even if César agreed to help support her financially she was going to need a job at some point.

  The fog inside her brain was making it difficult to think straight.

  ‘I suppose I should probably get an appointment with a doctor,’ she said hesitantly.

  He nodded. ‘I can help you with that. And I want to help.’

  He was still holding her hand. His skin was rougher than she remembered, but his voice was soft, gentle in a way that made her throat constrict.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  His words replayed inside her head. She imagined that a lot of men—particularly wealthy, powerful men, who liked being in control of every tiny detail of their lives—would have got extremely bent out of shape, being confronted by the unplanned pregnancy of a woman they barely knew. But César seemed remarkably unfazed.

  Of course, you didn’t take charge of a small-time family business and turn it into a global brand before the age of thirty unless you could handle what life threw at you. Even so, finding out you were going to be a parent was a personal and extraordinary milestone for anybody...

  ‘You’re being very kind,’ she said quietly. ‘Very fair.’

  His gaze rested on her face. ‘What happened wasn’t just down to you, Kitty. We both got swept away.’

  For a second they stared at one another, wide-eyed, the sound of their breathing punctuating the silence of the room as they remembered.

  As Kitty stared at him she felt her heart oscillating against her ribs. The heat of his body, the swell of his muscles beneath his shirt was crowding her mind. He was so solid and male and real, and everything inside her was reaching out to him—only should she be feeling like this? Was it normal or right to feel such a strong physical need for a stranger when her heart was aching for the husband who had missed out on realising his dreams?

  ‘Yes, we did,’ she whispered.

  ‘And now we both have to work this out. And we can work it out. We can work it out together.’

  His eyes were boring into hers. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  She stared at him, mesmerised by the faint trace of stubble on his jaw and the determination in his green gaze. She knew that Lizzie and Bill, and her parents, would be falling over themselves to help her, but she knew César would make this work. She trusted him to do it because managing complex, challenging situations was what he did every day, and it would be wonderful to have his support—not just for her, but for their child.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled, and then pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll call the doctor first, and then I have a couple of contacts who can probably pull some strings...speed up the paperwork.’

  Paperwork?

  The word scraped against her skin. Presumably he was talking about some kind of financial settlement or an agreement over visiting rights, but—

  ‘Isn’t that a little premature?’ She gave him a small stiff smile. ‘I mean, the baby’s not due for seven or eight months.’

  He frowned. ‘I know—and that’s why you need to stop worrying about all this right now. Just concentrate on yourself and our baby, and let me deal with the wedding arrangements.’

  Her ears were buzzing.

  Wedding? What wedding?

  She stared at him in confusion. ‘I don’t understand...’

  His eyes dropped to her face. ‘What’s there to understand? You said you wanted to make this work.’

  He was speaking patiently, but she could feel the tautness in his body vibrating from his fingers into hers. She felt her pulse accelerate. She hardly knew César, and she certainly didn’t move in his kind of circles, but she knew enough about the world—his world—to know that making this situation ‘work’ didn’t typically include a marriage proposal.

  ‘I know I did,’ she protested, ‘and I do. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  Gone was the softness in the voice. Now he sounded as she imagined he did in the boardroom, when confronted by bad sales figures. Cool. Distant. Hostile.

  ‘Marriage is the quickest and most efficient way to tie up all the loose ends.’

  Loose ends. Was that what she and the baby were?

  ‘I just assumed that you...’ She hesitated. ‘Well, that you were talking about being involved in the baby’s life—not mine.’

  Surely he didn’t actually mean what he was saying. It must be the knee-jerk reaction of a powerful man who wanted to call the shots.

  His eyes locked on hers and instantly she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention.

  ‘Then you assumed wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘“Involved”?’ Frowning, he turned the word over in his mouth as though it tasted bad. ‘Clearly you’ve already given this some thought—so tell me, Kitty. What does “involved” actually look like?’ he said softly.

  Kitty blinked. His hand was still holding hers and, slipping her fingers free of his, she folded her arms protectively in front of her stomach. ‘I don’t know, exactly, but you travel a lot for work, so I suppose you could come and visit whenever you’re in London.’

  His green eyes fixed on her face. ‘Is that your way of telling me you’re leaving Havana?’

  Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stopped beating—and then began pounding like a drumroll.

  ‘I’m not leaving Havana. Not yet, anyway.’ She frowned. ‘Just because I’m pregnant it doesn’t mean I want to stop working.’

  ‘But you are planning on returning to England?’

  Trying to still the jittery feeling in her chest, she glanced past him at the view through the open back door. It looked so idyllic and peaceful, and it would be amazing to raise a child here in the sunshine, but Havana wasn’t her home.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  He was staring at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘So how exactly am I supposed to be “involved” in my child’s life on that basis?’

  A mix of anger and apprehension was creeping over her skin. A moment ago she had liked him, trusted him, thought that she understood him and that he understood her. How could she have got him so wrong?

  But what did she really know about this man sitting beside her on the sofa?

  She glared at him. ‘How could you be involved in our child’s life anyway? Last time you walked out of that door you told me that you didn’t spend much time in Havana. And you don’t. Seven weeks ago you disappeared off the face of the earth—’

  ‘So that gives you licence to disappear off the face of the earth with my child?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said hoarsely ‘I’m just saying that I didn’t know where you were or when you were coming back.’

  ‘We had sex once. Of course you didn’t know where I was or when I was coming back.’

  The bluntness of his words brought her to her senses. Why was she even having this conversation with him? It was crazy. But he was crazier if he thought she would suddenly agree to marry him.

  ‘I know that.’ Taking a breath, she got her voice under control. ‘And now I know how you feel about the baby, obviously I would love you to be involved on some level.’

  He was staring at her coolly.

  ‘On some level.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s very gracious of you, Kitty. Would you like cash or are you happy with a bank transfer?’

  She shook her head ‘I don’t just mean financially.’ With an effort, she tried to blank out the rapid fire of her heartbeat so that she could think. ‘Look, I’m not trying to sideline you. I’m just trying to deal with what’s real and what’s not.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘Then let me help you. What’s real is t
hat we had sex on this couch. Unprotected sex. Now you’re pregnant with my baby, and I intend to watch him or her grow up. Not make do with a couple of snatched weekends a year when I’m passing through Europe.’ He stared at her steadily. ‘I grew up in a loving, family home with two parents. I want that for my child.’

  Her heart felt as though it was breaking. She had wanted that too. But marrying César was not going to make that happen.

  ‘I want that too,’ she said slowly. ‘But that’s not an option here.’

  ‘It is if you marry me.’ His eyes were as impassive as his voice.

  She breathed in sharply. Her head was swimming. She could still remember Jimmy’s proposal, the tremble in his hand as he’d taken hers. He’d loved her, and he’d wanted to share his life with her. And he had, and it had been wonderful, and painful and beautiful, and she wasn’t going to sully the memory of her marriage with some convenient but hollow pretence.

  She shook her head slowly. ‘I’m not going to marry you, César. That isn’t going to change and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’

  ‘That’s not how this works.’

  In reply, she stood up and walked stiffly across the room. He stared after her, and his expression of disbelief would have made her laugh—only she didn’t feel like laughing.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ His eyes were narrowed and opaque, like uncut emeralds. ‘It’s pointless to make things more complicated than they are. You chose to be with me.’

  ‘No, I chose to have sex with you,’ she said shakily. ‘And, yes, it was amazing. But it doesn’t matter how good it was. Sex is not why you get married. And neither is pregnancy. Marriage is about love and loyalty, and I am not going to stand up in front of witnesses and make vows that I don’t believe. Because you shouldn’t say them if you don’t believe them. And we don’t. I don’t—I can’t—’

  Her voice snapped and she lowered her face, not wanting him to see the pain she was feeling, or the tears that were so close to falling.

  There was a short, stunned silence, and then he took a step towards her. ‘Kitty, I’m—’

  She held up her hand to stop him. ‘Please don’t. Please. Can you just go now? Just go!’

  There was another short silence, and for a moment she thought he was going to ignore her wishes, but then seconds later she heard the door shut with a click.

  Looking up, she felt a sharp stab of relief and regret as she realised that the room was empty.

  She was alone.

  * * *

  Breathing out unsteadily, César stared down at his laptop and then abruptly slammed it shut. What was the point? He’d been looking at that document for an hour now, and he hadn’t read one word of it.

  He gritted his teeth. Had it really just been an hour since he’d left Kitty’s villa—or, to be more accurate, since she’d dismissed him? It felt like a lifetime.

  After closing the door he’d walked back to the house and taken refuge in his study. There, surrounded by the familiar armour of his working life, he’d assumed that he would be able to block out those last few moments when her voice had started to shake and she’d looked close to tears.

  He’d been wrong.

  His stomach clenched. It had been a long time since he’d made a woman cry. In fact he knew the date exactly.

  Remembering his mother’s tears when he’d been forced to confess his stupidity, he felt a hot rush of shame—just as he had that day nearly ten years ago. And now he had made Kitty cry.

  He swore softly. He’d handled it so badly. He’d been relentless and insensitive. Pushing his agenda as ruthlessly as he would do in business. But what did being ruthless in business matter if he was a coward in private?

  He stood up abruptly, needing to move, wanting to distance himself physically from the truth. But of course there was no escaping what was inside his head.

  Celia had played him. Aged twenty-four, he had been emotionally open, happy-go-lucky and painfully gullible. She had lied—not just behind his back but to his face, repeatedly—and he’d believed every word that had come out of her beautiful lying mouth. Because it had been the same beautiful mouth that had kissed him and told him she loved him.

  He’d fallen for her, and in so doing he had embarrassed himself, and his parents. And he’d vowed never to let any woman have that power over him again.

  Only it crushed him to live like that. To have to live like that. And it was a necessity. He could tell himself that it was just common sense or cool, hard logic for a man in his position to keep things flexible. That women were just pieces on the chessboard of his life. But the truth that only he knew and could acknowledge was that it was fear that kept them at arm’s length. Fear of the weakness within him—that flaw in his nature that left him vulnerable to exploitation if he allowed himself to care, to feel.

  Only he did feel something for Kitty. Desire, obviously, but also something protective that—incredibly—had nothing to do with the pregnancy.

  He’d felt it out on that road when she’d looked at him, her grey eyes shining with anxiety and anger, and then again in the villa this morning, when she’d looked so stunned, so torn—

  It had scared him, feeling like that, feeling anything, and he’d been angry and frustrated with himself. So it had been easy to latch on to that frustration and turn it towards her. Not for being pregnant, but for being a soft-mouthed, smoky-eyed reminder of the mistake he’d made all those years ago and was trying so hard not to make again.

  Kitty had brought chaos and passion and emotion into his world, and marriage was the logical way to restore order, and not just for himself. He knew how much his parents longed to see him married, and if he could marry and give them a grandchild he might finally atone for the pain and distress he’d caused them.

  Only Kitty had other ideas. Hearing her talk had made him feel like an outsider—playing a bit part rather than being the central protagonist he so clearly was—but the harder he’d pushed the more she’d resisted.

  There was a knock on the door and his heart twitched with anticipation. But almost immediately his pulse slowed as a middle-aged woman with calm brown eyes appeared in the doorway: his housekeeper, Rosa.

  ‘Would you like some coffee, Señor Zayas?’

  His chest tightened. Coffee. A conference call, and then some emails. In other words, business as usual. Except that it wasn’t: everything had changed, forever.

  He shook his head. ‘No, thank you, Rosa. I have something I need to sort out.’

  Ten minutes later he was standing in front of the door to Kitty’s villa.

  The garden was well kept, and the paint on the window frames shone in the sunlight. It seemed astonishing that it should look so untouched by what had happened. Surely, given the storm of revelation and confrontation that had passed through the villa that morning, there should be some sign or evidence of that turmoil, but it all looked so serene.

  He tapped on the door and waited. After five minutes he tapped again, this time more loudly, but still there was no reply.

  Could she have gone out? His heart began to pound, worst-case scenarios flooding his head and spilling over in panicky surges. Had he driven her out of Havana? Out of Cuba?

  Pulse accelerating, he turned and walked swiftly away, circling the house towards the back door, his hand reaching for his phone. If he had to, he would send someone to the airport to stop her.

  His fingers tightened around the phone—and then his legs started to slow.

  On the back porch Kitty was standing with her back to him, watering some flowers. Her hair was loose and damp, probably from a shower, and she was wearing a simple slip dress. Briefly he allowed his eyes to roam over the long, slim legs and the viola-shaped back, and then, stepping forward, he cleared h
is throat.

  She turned, her eyes widening, her expression changing from soft to guarded in a heartbeat, and his own heart began beating fast as she lowered the watering can in front of her body like a shield.

  He held up his hands. ‘I’m not here to fight.’

  She stared at him steadily. ‘So why are you here, César?’

  She looked calmer, but there was a redness around her eyes and her already pale skin seemed almost translucent.

  ‘I wanted to apologise for before.’ He paused. ‘I truly didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just trying to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing.’

  ‘And marrying someone you don’t love is “the right thing”?’

  He winced. ‘When you put it like that, no, I suppose it isn’t. But people marry for lots of different reasons, Kitty, in lots of different cultures. And sometimes they grow into loving one another.’

  ‘And you think that could happen? To us?’

  He was about to say yes, but there was a nakedness in her eyes that made it impossible for him to lie. ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘I’ve never been married so I couldn’t say for certain. But you haven’t been married either, so you can’t say that it wouldn’t happen.’

  There was a silence. Behind her, a few petals drifted through the air like confetti.

  ‘Actually, I have been married,’ she said quietly. Her shoulders were braced but her mouth was trembling.

  He stared at her, his breath suddenly leaden in his chest. ‘Are you divorced?’

  ‘Widowed.’

  She looked exactly as she had done after the accident, her face taut with that same mix of strength and fragility that made him want to reach out and pull her against him.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

  She nodded stiffly and, watching her fight for control, he felt an ache inside his chest.

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Jimmy.’ Her face softened. ‘We weren’t married for very long. Only a year before he died. But we knew each other our whole lives.’ She blinked. ‘His whole life anyway.’