Brynne’s heart caught in her throat as she watched him, aware that the sun here was already darkening his skin to the same olive of his natural father, and that Michael seemed to be becoming more and more like Alejandro Santiago with each passing hour.
‘I think that’s a yes.’ Her voice was brittle as she spoke dismissively to Alejandro. ‘We’ll just change and then join you back down here,’ she added before turning to pick up her book and magazine with the intention of joining Michael upstairs.
‘I forgot to enquire yesterday evening—your parents were both well when you spoke to them yesterday?’ Alejandro asked softly.
She straightened abruptly, her expression tense. ‘As well as can be expected, in the circumstances.’
Yes, Alejandro could only imagine his own parents’ distress if anything were to happen to himself or his brother.
Or his own distress, even now, if anything should happen to Miguel…
He had only spent a few hours in the little boy’s company, but already he knew him to be strong and independent, his nature naturally cheerful in spite of his recent loss, with none of the spoilt whining that sometimes happened with children.
Miguel was a boy he recognized as being very like himself at the age of six. A boy he was already proud of.
Although no doubt Brynne Sullivan, believing him cold and heartless, would find that hard to believe!
‘It must be very difficult for them,’ Alejandro recognized.
‘Yes,’ Brynne agreed. ‘Taking Michael to see them the night before we left was—harrowing.’
Alejandro knew this was far from an ideal situation, that the discovery of his son had far-reaching consequences, not least to the couple who considered themselves his grandparents.
But there was no easy solution to this dilemma that Alejandro could see.
‘We won’t be long,’ Brynne told him shortly.
‘I am in no particular hurry.’ Alejandro shrugged, watching her walk back to the house before sitting down wearily on one of the loungers to wait for them. Allowing his head to fall back on the cushion and his eyes to close, he thought how Antonia had been particularly difficult last night, so much so that in the end he had cut the evening short and driven home much earlier than he had intended.
He accepted that the time he’d had to spend in England the last six weeks had been time spent away from Majorca, but it was a separation that Antonia had felt much more personally than he had. As her displeasure had clearly let him know last night. Even her exotic beauty did not compensate for the air of possessiveness she had started to adopt where he was concerned. A possessiveness she had no right to feel.
Why did women become so highly strung?
Well…women like the possessive Antonia and the faithless Francesca, he conceded ruefully. He somehow couldn’t see Brynne Sullivan resorting to hysterics, or tears, in order to get her own way.
He was more likely to feel the sharp edge of her tongue if—he stopped himself quickly.
What was he doing thinking of Brynne in that way, when the chances of the two of them ever indulging in an affair—which was all he had to offer any woman now—were precisely nil?
There had been many affairs since Francesca’s death five years ago, brief, transitional relationships that hadn’t even dented the air of self-preservation he had adopted after his disastrous marriage.
Alejandro gave a self-derisive shake of his head, knowing that Brynne was the one woman he need never fear he would ever become involved with. She was far too emotional, and since the complete failure of his marriage emotion was something he had avoided like the plague the last five years.
Besides, the two of them disliked each other intensely!
Coming back outside with Michael a few minutes later, Brynne hung back slightly as she took in Alejandro’s totally relaxed pose on the lounger.
His face looked younger and more classically handsome when not dominated by those fierce silver-grey eyes, and she was struck once again by how lethally attractive he was.
Or would be—if she didn’t dislike him so much!
He did look a little tired this morning though, and after witnessing his nocturnal roaming the night before, she didn’t need too many guesses as to the reason why.
He might not have a wife or a fiancée, but after his disappearance the evening before Brynne didn’t doubt that he had a ‘something’! Nor did she doubt that her own and Michael’s presence here made absolutely no difference to the continuance of that relationship.
‘I thought we were going out?’ she reminded sharply.
Alejandro drew in a deeply controlling breath before raising his eyebrows. One thing it was definitely not possible to do in this woman’s company was relax!
Especially when she was wearing a green halter-top that revealed the creamy cleft between her breasts and a pair of brief white shorts that showed the long expanse of her bare legs.
‘We are,’ he said firmly as he stood up, leaving Brynne to follow behind while he walked over to the garages with Miguel. He was annoyed with himself for even noticing Brynne’s leggy beauty, although he dared any red-blooded man not to do so!
He drove them to Deya himself, knowing from Miguel’s grinning face in the back of the Mercedes that he was enjoying driving along with the roof down, and having his dark hair blown about by the wind.
It was much more difficult to gauge Brynne’s reaction to the magnificent views they encountered on the drive, her eyes once again behind dark sunglasses, and her expression unreadable.
No doubt her thoughts were yet another criticism of himself!
Nothing he did, it seemed, found favour from her, with his every word and every action viewed with distrust or derision.
It was not a response he was used to in a woman!
Since the age of sixteen, his dark looks had enabled Alejandro to take his pick of women, and with maturity had come the added bonus of being an entrepreneurial multimillionaire. The wealth and power of such a position seemed an added aphrodisiac to many women.
But Brynne Sullivan seemed to detest him for those attributes!
‘How do you like the island so far?’ he asked, attempting conversation.
‘It’s very beautiful,’ she replied stiltedly.
‘Many artists live in Deya. Some good. Some not so good,’ he allowed dryly. ‘I am sure you will enjoy looking in the galleries there.’
‘Maybe,’ she conceded with a shrug of her bare shoulders. ‘Did you put your guards in the boot of the car?’ she enquired derisively.
Alejandro’s expression darkened at her deliberate challenge. He was trying to be pleasant, so why couldn’t this woman at least attempt to meet him halfway?
‘Raul and Rafael are in the car behind,’ he muttered softly.
Brynne glanced in the wing mirror of the Mercedes, easily spotting the dark vehicle driving thirty metres or so behind them.
‘How nice,’ she responded tartly. ‘Perhaps we can all have coffee together once we get to Deya!’
‘Why do you persist—’ Alejandro broke off his angry rebuke, his mouth thinning disapprovingly as he glanced at Miguel in the driver mirror. ‘We cannot get there soon enough for me,’ he muttered so that only Brynne Sullivan could hear him, her mocking smile his only answer.
Not surprisingly the two of them spent the rest of the journey in silence, although both of them had conversations with Michael as he asked a barrage of questions about his new surroundings.
Thank goodness for Michael, Brynne thought ruefully.
Although, without Michael, she would never have met the nerve-tinglingly handsome Alejandro Santiago in the first place…
There really weren’t too many Spanish multimillionaires roaming the streets of Cambridge, she thought wryly.
She had dated on and off over the years, other students, fellow teachers, all of them without exception nice, pleasant men whom she had enjoyed spending time with.
In the six stormy weeks she had known Alej
andro Santiago she already knew he was neither nice nor pleasant.
As for enjoying his company…how could she possibly relax enough to do that when just sitting beside him like this made her feel hot all over?
‘Deya,’ Alejandro announced with a certain amount of relief as he parked the Mercedes outside one of the village’s most prestigious hotels, intending to have lunch here with Miguel and Brynne once his business meeting was over.
Although he doubted Brynne would be impressed by the exclusive charms of the hotel, let alone the excellence of the restaurant. She seemed to find little merit to any of the luxurious lifestyle his money provided!
‘I will book lunch here for one o’clock,’ he told her as he came round to open the car door for her before tilting the seat forward so that Miguel could climb out of the back.
Her head tilted as she looked up at him through her dark shades. ‘I’m sure Raul and Rafael will ensure that we don’t get lost,’ she drawled with a mocking glance in the direction of the two men getting out of the black car parked a short distance away.
Alejandro damped down his rising anger with effort. His meeting was an important one, crucial to the delicate negotiations that brought him to the island at this time, and allowing this constant discord with Brynne Sullivan to sabotage those negotiations by going to his meeting angry and impatient was not an option.
‘I am sure that they will,’ he acknowledged tautly. ‘Take care of your aunt, Miguel,’ he added, his hand on his son’s shoulders, his expression softening as he looked down at him.
Miguel grinned up at him. ‘Aunty Bry usually looks after me.’
Alejandro gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘In Spain it is the man who takes care of the woman,’ he explained gravely.
‘Oh.’ Miguel nodded his head understandingly.
Brynne gave an irritated frown. Michael was six years old, for goodness’ sake—
‘It is as well that Miguel learns the Spanish way,’ Alejandro declared.
She raised her chin as her gaze met the challenge in his cold grey eyes. ‘I’m sure there’s a lot we can all learn from one another’s cultures,’ she said noncommittally, knowing by the way Alejandro’s gaze narrowed that the double-edge to her reply wasn’t lost on him.
He gave an impatient shrug. ‘You will need some euros—’
‘I have my own money, thank you,’ Brynne cut in sharply as Alejandro would have reached into his trouser pocket.
He raised his dark brows. ‘I was talking to Miguel.’
‘I have enough for Michael, too,’ she assured him, her anger barely contained. She might only be a lowly schoolteacher, but that didn’t mean she was going to accept money, even on Michael’s behalf, from this man! ‘Please don’t let us delay you any longer from your meeting,’ she added with saccharine sweetness.
Alejandro continued to look at her impatiently for several long seconds before giving a dismissive shake of his head. ‘One o’clock,’ he bit out tersely before turning away.
Brynne was determined to forget about Alejandro Santiago, and his arrogance for the next couple of hours as she and Michael wandered around the pretty village. The people were so friendly, with men and women alike smiling and talking to Michael in the shops and café they stopped in to have a cool drink.
They were not joined by Raul and Rafael, thank goodness, although the two men were loitering outside waiting for them when they came out of the café half an hour later.
Michael, luckily, seemed completely unaware of the men’s presence, holding her hand and skipping along happily at her side as they made their way back.
‘Alej—Father is nice, don’t you think, Aunty Bry?’ He looked up at her a little anxiously as they walked up the steps to the hotel.
‘Nice’ was the last thing Alejandro Santiago was!
But Michael’s question showed that he wasn’t as unaware of the animosity between Brynne and his father as she could have wished. Not surprisingly, really, when that antagonism surfaced every time the two of them were together. But it wasn’t good for Michael to have noticed it and so have his loyalties pulled in two different directions in this way.
‘Very nice,’ she told him brightly.
Michael frowned. ‘Did Mummy and Daddy like him, do you think?’
Brynne gave a pained frown. No doubt Joanna had ‘liked’ Alejandro Santiago seven years ago, but whether or not she would have still liked the man he was today Brynne had no idea. As for Tom, Brynne really had no idea what her brother would have made of this arrogantly assured man who was Michael’s real father!
But that wasn’t an answer she could give Michael. The little boy’s future lay with Alejandro, whether she liked it or not, and loving Michael as she did it was up to her to make this change in his life as easy as possible for him.
If only she didn’t find Alejandro so overwhelming physically!
‘I’m sure they did,’ she told Michael warmly as she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, hoping Alejandro would appreciate her efforts—against her real feelings on the matter!—on his behalf.
‘Good.’ Michael sighed his relief.
Obviously Michael, even if he still didn’t really understand how it had happened, was nevertheless getting used to the idea of having Alejandro as his father, and that had to be a good thing.
Even if Brynne couldn’t share his enthusiasm!
She was even more disconcerted, when they reached the outdoor restaurant, to find that Alejandro wasn’t sitting alone at the table they were being shown to. Instead a ravishingly beautiful woman sat beside him, her dark hair long and luxurious, her complexion as olive as his own and her exquisite features dominated by huge dark eyes and a pouting, red-painted mouth…
CHAPTER FIVE
ALEJANDRO’S mouth tightened slightly as he saw Brynne and Miguel being shown to the table where he and Antonia were sitting.
Antonia was not supposed to have been here with her father today, and Alejandro was annoyed that her unexpected presence had changed the meeting from any serious talk of business to yet another social occasion.
Deliberately or accidentally, on the part of Felipe Roig…?
It had been all too easy to flatter Antonia, the daughter of widower Felipe Roig, as a way of charming the older man. But if the way Antonia had begun to actively pursue him was any indication, it was a flattery she had begun to take all too seriously. Which could, in itself, lead to Felipe wanting a much bigger price for the land he had to sell than Alejandro was willing to pay…!
Not that Antonia wasn’t beautiful. With a voluptuous figure that indicated a passionate nature she would no doubt more than satisfy the man lucky enough to become her husband—it just wouldn’t be Alejandro!
He and Francesca had married for all the wrong reasons, and their union had been painful as well as disastrous; he did not intend repeating the mistake!
It was a problem that Alejandro had had no chance to turn his mind to as Antonia had continued to linger long after her father had departed, but he had managed to avoid inviting Antonia to stay for lunch.
Although now that Brynne and Miguel had actually arrived at the restaurant he might no longer have any other choice!
He stood up as Brynne and Miguel reached the table, his smile less warm than he would have wished. ‘Did you have an enjoyable morning?’ he enquired politely.
‘Oh, it was wonderful,’ his son was the one to answer brightly. ‘We went to all the shops, and then to a café where the man gave me a biscuit to eat with my juice, and we sat outside and watched as people filled huge water bottles from the stream that runs down from the mountains, and—’
‘Slowly, Miguel, slowly.’ Alejandro laughed as he halted his son’s excited chatter, all the time aware that Brynne was looking at him with those questioning blue eyes before she glanced at Antonia and then back again. ‘Miguel, I would like you to meet a friend of mine, Antonia Roig.’ He placed his hands on Miguel’s shoulders as he turned him to look at the woman
sitting at the table. ‘Antonia, this is—’
‘Your son,’ Antonia finished throatily, standing up as she curved her pouting red lips into a smile. ‘But of course it is.’ She nodded. ‘He very much has the look of you, Alejandro.’ Her smile warmed intimately as she looked up at him.
Brynne watched the exchange with growing trepidation. It was one thing to acknowledge that Alejandro was Michael’s father but the little boy was only just coming to that understanding—surely this arrogant Spaniard wasn’t going to introduce him to a stepmother quite so soon?
Antonia Roig was certainly beautiful enough, Brynne recognized as she looked at the tempestuous perfection of the other woman’s face. But there was just something about the woman’s eyes, a certain lack of warmth when she smiled, that indicated to Brynne that this woman might think ‘boarding-school was a good idea’ for any child that wasn’t her own.
Although with Antonia’s curvaceously alluring figure Brynne very much doubted that Alejandro’s interest had gone as high as Antonia’s eyes!
Antonia’s deep brown gaze now narrowed on Brynne. ‘How very sensible of you, Alejandro, to have brought Miguel’s nanny, too.’ She gave Brynne a politely dismissive smile before turning away. ‘Alejandro, why do we not—’
‘Oh, but Brynne isn’t my nanny!’ Michael dismissed with a laugh, totally unaware of any tension amongst the three adults. ‘She’s my aunty. My Aunty Bry,’ he added happily.
Yes, very hard eyes, Brynne decided wryly as the other woman’s deep brown orbs were turned back on her, with critical assessment this time as Antonia took in her appearance from the top of her red head to the soles of her white flip-flops, before returning to Brynne’s make-upless face with its covering of freckles.
‘Your…aunt,’ Antonia finally murmured speculatively before glancing back at Alejandro, her dark, highly arched, plucked brows raised questioningly. ‘The same aunt who…’
Obviously Alejandro hadn’t had the chance yet to tell his…this woman that he had brought Michael’s troublesome aunt back to Majorca for a visit too.
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