The Spaniard's Love-Child

by Kim Lawrence

  She held her breath as he reached down, imagining he was going to rouse the sleeping children, but instead he pulled the quilt Antonio had half kicked off up to the sleeping boy’s chin; his hand hovered above the child’s flushed cheek but he didn’t touch him. The tenderness in the unexpected action caught Nell totally unawares. She turned abruptly and left the room alarmed by the swell of emotion that made her chest tight.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. One thing was obvious—he did care about the children, he just didn’t have the faintest idea how to show it. When she opened them she found he had joined her.

  ‘Why didn’t you simply tell me they were asleep?’ he demanded, raking her with an accusing glare.

  Nell released an incredulous gasp. ‘What do you think I was trying to do? I had assumed,’ she continued sarcastically, ‘that by the time you’d got here you’d have realised it was totally impractical, not to mention cruel, to drag them across London at this time of night.’

  His expression did not alter as their combative glances locked, but there were faint dark bands of colour across the slashing contours of his cheekbones that suggested her words had found their mark.

  ‘Almost as cruel as to encourage them to stage this dangerous stunt in the first case, perhaps?’

  ‘Not that again!’ she exclaimed with an exasperated groan.

  The muscles in his jaw clenched. ‘Did they tell you they couldn’t talk to me?’

  Nell guessed the question had cost him a lot in the pride department. This was probably as close to humble as he got. It really was the height of foolishness to start feeling sorry for him, she remonstrated with herself angrily. ‘You could try listening to what they say once in a while.’

  He visibly bit back an indignant response. Lean features rigid, he turned his back on her. Nell watched from under the sweep of her lashes as he rolled his head, flexing the powerful muscles of his neck and shoulders to relieve the tension there. Her stomach muscles quivered. When her knees showed an alarming tendency to shake she perched on the edge of the sofa arm.

  ‘They were unhappy enough to run away.’ It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. ‘Did they tell you why?’

  ‘I don’t think Antonio is unhappy.’

  He responded to her attempt to be tactful by slinging her a look of simmering impatience over his shoulder before presenting her once more with his broad back. ‘But Katerina is?’

  ‘She’s worried that you’re going to send Antonio away to school,’ Nell admitted. ‘She feels responsible for him.’

  Raul turned back to face her, his hand still massaging the back of his neck. ‘She’s too young to feel responsible for anyone.’

  Nell sighed and shook her head in agreement. ‘Do you have to separate them?’

  ‘Everything is arranged; it is a very good school. I went there myself.’ There was an ironic twist to his lips as his dark eyes scanned her face. ‘I realise that that might not be much of a recommendation as far as you’re concerned…as it helped make me the man I am today.’

  An unwilling laugh was drawn from Nell. ‘I doubt you were ever that malleable.’

  Despite her words an image of small, solitary figure packed off to boarding-school in a foreign country entered her head. It was hard to visualise this strong, confident man ever suffering the traumas of growing up. Raul was one of those people you couldn’t imagine ever being a child—despite this, the image of the lonely boy lingered in her head.

  ‘I’m sure you had an excellent education and it made you self-sufficient and all that stuff, but were you happy? Did you actually enjoy your time there?’

  ‘Their father went there also, though by the time I arrived he had left. However,’ Raul added drily, ‘his reputation remained.’

  Javier had been a legend: a popular head boy and a talented sportsman whose captaincy of the school teams had filled the trophy cabinets. It had been made clear to Raul within minutes of his arrival at the prestigious school that great things had been expected of him.

  Raul had been a great disappointment to those who had been hoping for him to step into his brother’s shoes.

  Ironically, considering that it had been Javier who had later opted out of the path people had expected him to follow, it had been the younger brother who had been unable to accept authority while at school. His dangerously seditious tendencies had been noted and deplored. He had been quickly labelled a loner, and, even worse in the British public school system, not a team player! His total indifference to the approval of his peers or authority had quickly set him apart. If it had not been for his undisputed academic brilliance Raul would have been considered a failure by the system.

  Head on one side, Nell regarded the tall, enigmatic figure with narrow-eyed speculation. He had avoided answering her question—was that significant? She decided there was nothing to be lost from pressing the point.

  ‘You pulled strings to get Antonio into this school?’ Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. ‘Couldn’t you pull some more and unarrange it? Or at least delay making any final decisions just yet?’ she suggested tentatively.

  He exhaled noisily and folded his rangy frame into her overstuffed chintz-covered armchair. The action bore the same hallmarks of unstudied elegance that typified even his simplest action. Nell, whose feet were drawn to stray banana skins, watched enviously. He couldn’t have been clumsy even if he tried, she thought.

  ‘You think that I should give in to a stunt like this?’ He leaned forward, extracted a cushion from behind his back and dropped it on the floor with an expression of masculine distaste before settling himself back again. ‘What sort of message will that send out?’ he demanded.

  Nell responded to this reasonable question with a shake of her head.

  Raul pressed his point. ‘If I cave in this time, the next time I make a decision that Katerina doesn’t like she’ll think all she has to do is run off. I’m not going to be held to ransom by a teenager.’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? She is a teenager. This isn’t a terrorist gang you’re dealing with, it’s children. Confused, frightened children. Saying this family doesn’t negotiate isn’t a solution.’

  Raul ran a hand over the stubble along his jaw-line and fixed her with an unfriendly stare. ‘Then what is the solution?’ he demanded in a clipped tone.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Well, you’re the one with all the answers. The sweet voice of reason.’

  His sardonic tone brought a flush of angry colour to her cheeks.

  ‘Well, someone has to be,’ she bit back. ‘And to tell you the truth I’m just about sick of it. You’re as bad as Katerina!’ she condemned angrily. ‘But at least she has got the excuse of being fifteen and the victim of rioting hormones. I warn you, if you lock yourself in the bathroom and start bawling I shan’t be offering you a shoulder to cry on. I didn’t ask to be piggy-in-the-middle, you know,’ she finished on a note of breathless indignation.

  Raul’s glance dropped from her stormy, flushed face to her heaving bosom, then back. Holding her eyes, he stretched his long, long legs in front of him and dug his hands into his pockets. Nothing could have been more languid than his body language, but Nell wasn’t fooled; Raul wasn’t the sort of man who would tolerate anyone berating him lying down.

  The silence between them stretched, punctuated only by her audible respiration as she fought to catch her breath.

  ‘I have hormones…’ His voice had a seductively abrasive quality.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  His dark lashes swept upwards from the high curve of his sculpted cheeks. ‘But none of them are urging me to lock myself in your bathroom.’

  Her heart skipped several beats. Nell definitely didn’t want him to tell her what his hormones were urging him to do.

  ‘Shall we leave your hormones out of this?’ she suggested with a grimace of distaste. The problem was that the distaste was feigned. Actually she was excited—deeply, disastrou
sly excited.

  ‘Certainly. If they make you uncomfortable?’

  She longed to wipe that complacent smirk off his face. ‘Wasn’t that the idea?’ she challenged. ‘Listen, I’m perfectly prepared to admit you’re a very attractive man, but you’re simply not my type.’

  As he angled a look at her flushed face his disbelief was palpable and predictable; Raul Carreras had probably never been knocked back in his life.

  ‘Then what is your type?’

  ‘My type?’ she parroted vaguely. His dark eyes had a dangerously hypnotic quality; looking into those silver-shot depths she felt a little light-headed and hot—very hot. Nell’s response was inspired by a combination of desperation and instinct.

  ‘Javier.’

  It worked.

  In the blink of an eye all expression was wiped clear of Raul’s face. ‘How could I have forgotten?’ he drawled icily.

  ‘Compromise isn’t a dirty word, you know,’ she rushed on huskily. ‘There are no easy solutions, but it might help if you actually asked the children what they want. What’s so funny?’ she demanded as his white teeth were revealed in a cynical grin.

  ‘I was trying to imagine my father asking me what I wanted.’

  ‘The idea is to learn from our parents’ mistakes, not emulate them.’

  Raul was on his feet in one lithe, fluid motion. ‘And you feel qualified to comment on my parents because…?’ He sounded deceptively soft, but his true feelings were revealed by the expression of hard disdain etched on his lean features as he glared down at her from his full, threatening height.

  Nell coloured, but remained composed beneath his crushing contempt. It wasn’t easy. ‘Your father never met his grandchildren.’

  Her perceptive observation made him freeze. The smile that thinned his sensual lips was ironic. ‘Touché.’

  Nell lowered her gaze. There was something addictive about watching him, the way he moved, his facial expressions, even the angle of his head. They all held an unhealthy fascination for her.

  ‘However, I am not my father.’ His lean body quivered with an invisible tension.

  Oh, God! She’d only just resolved to keep her involvement with Raul Carreras to the bare minimum. She’d offer advice in an objective and unemotional way. There would be no more emotional outbursts, personal comments or waves of uncontrollable burning lust—especially no lust! Despite this resolution she couldn’t keep her curiosity in check as she looked at the tall figure glaring at her.

  So things hadn’t been easy between Raul and his father.

  ‘I wish you’d sit down; you’re very intimidating towering over me like that.’

  To her relief the hauteur faded from Raul’s face as he glared down at her. He released a short, bitter laugh. ‘You’re not intimidated by me,’ he accused.

  Nell, who was more than happy for him to carry on thinking that way, smiled. ‘Do you want me to be?’

  He ground his teeth audibly in frustration. ‘I want—! I want you to…’ I want you. ‘Dios mío!’

  ‘There’s no need to raise your voice.’ There was something alarming about his rigid posture. ‘Are you all right?’

  Raul dragged a hand through his dark glossy hair before turning his head. His expression was cloaked as their eyes met. He gave a tight smile.

  ‘It would seem you have won. I will allow the children to sleep.’

  ‘It wasn’t a contest.’

  ‘No?’ He shrugged. ‘Either way I think I should be going.’ He consulted the metal-banded watch on his wrist and his brows rose when he saw the hour. ‘What time shall I pick up the children?’

  Despite the cold formality of his question, Nell felt irrationally protective as he dragged his hair back from his face with his hand—the gesture was so incredibly weary.

  Feeling protective of Raul Carreras? Well, I can’t blame that on my frustrated maternal instincts, she thought as her greedy glance made a surreptitious survey of his lean, powerfully developed body. It was probably the air of vigour that was an intrinsic part of him that had made her miss the tell-tale signs of exhaustion in his face earlier.

  Faint shadows beneath his deep-set eyes, a pallor underlying the natural healthy glow of his dark-toned skin and lines of tension bracketing his mouth all suggested it had been some time since he’d seen his bed—his own, anyway.

  Don’t go there, Nell, she silently warned herself.

  Well, even if his debauched lifestyle was responsible for his fatigue it didn’t alter the fact it would be foolish to let him needlessly drive across the city.

  ‘By the time you get home it will almost be time for you to come back,’ she observed.

  He looked at her sharply. A furrow appeared between his dark brows. ‘Are you suggesting I don’t go?’ he asked softly.

  His tone made her flush; she swallowed. ‘I’m saying that if you would prefer to use my sofa you’re welcome.’

  He looked around her small, cramped sitting room. ‘And where will you sleep?’

  ‘Not with you.’

  ‘I always think it’s wiser to wait until you’re asked.’

  Under his mocking stare the pinkness of her face deepened to a bright crimson, which she knew clashed with her hair. ‘I’m trying to be nice to you, despite the fact you’ve been perfectly horrid to me since the moment you arrived,’ she choked. ‘And all you can do is make fun of me. The fact is you look terrible.’ In a beautiful and darkly devastating sort of way. ‘You’ll probably drive into a lamp post and kill yourself. I don’t want to feel responsible for that.’

  He regarded her as though she were a strange species he had never come across before.

  ‘If I thought I was unsafe I would not drive.’

  Nell gave a bitter laugh. ‘The majority of men who drink and drive actually think that alcohol improves their skills.’

  The muscles along his jaw tightened. ‘You accuse me! Por Dios. I do not drink and drive!’ Raul breathed, pinning her with an outraged stare.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you did. The point I was trying to make is what you think you’re capable of and what you actually are capable of may not be the same thing.’

  Raul did not look mollified by her hasty explanation. ‘These men who drink alcohol and get behind the wheel also probably think a few pints also improves their performance in bed,’ he observed scornfully. ‘I find it offensive to be compared with such men.’

  ‘I think,’ she replied drily, ‘that you’ve established that. I was simply suggesting you might be more tired than you think and just offering you a bed for what is left of the night,’ she said, wishing she’d not bothered. ‘I’m not suggesting you don’t know your limits in bed or out!’ She closed her eyes. Oh, God, did I really say that?

  ‘There are occasions when I surprise even myself.’

  Oh, yes, I really did say it!

  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, all her efforts concentrated on not letting her mind go back to the place where it was imagining what Raul was capable of in bed.

  ‘Look,’ she snapped, meeting his eyes defiantly. ‘Do you want to stay or not?’

  ‘Stay.’

  Her stomach lurched somewhere below her knees. Well, you asked him, she told herself unsympathetically. ‘Right.’ She slowly counted to ten. ‘No problem. I’ll get a blanket and pillow.’

  ‘No need. I’ll take the chair.’ He nodded towards the chintzy number. ‘You have the sofa.’

  ‘That’s stupid, you’re too tall.’ She eyed his six-feet-five frame with as much objectivity as she was capable of.

  ‘We could share?’ he suggested.

  ‘If you’re going to be facetious…’ she croaked as a wave of debilitating heat washed over her body.

  There was no humour in the look he sent back. ‘I appreciate a frank exchange of views as much as anyone, but do you have to turn everything into an argument?’

  ‘That’s rich coming from…’ She stopped as he began to shrug off his jacket. His actions foll
owed by her disbelieving eyes, he then proceeded to slip the top button of his shirt before responding in a tone that did not invite discussion.

  ‘I’ll take the chair.’

  The subject of where they should sleep no longer seemed so vitally important to Nell. Her tense glance kept flickering from his face to the section of bare, lean golden torso—a section that was getting larger and larger with each passing second.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m taking off my clothes.’

  ‘I can see that!’ His skin was an even golden all over—at least everywhere she could see. There was a light dusting of dark hair across his chest, which was broad. There was not an ounce of excess flesh to hide the well-defined but non-bulky musculature of his upper body. Perfect was an overused term but in this case it seemed frankly inadequate to describe how better than good his body was.

  If he was aware of her scrutiny it didn’t seem to bother him. ‘Then why did you ask?’

  Nell opened her mouth to reply, saw him unfasten the belt around his trim, lean belly and changed her mind. She literally ran to the airing cupboard in the bathroom, yanked out all the spare blankets she had, ran back into the room, threw half of them at him and switched off the light. She climbed into her own makeshift bed fully clothed.

  It was a little while before the sounds of Raul settling down stopped.

  ‘Sleep well, Nell Rose.’

  The amusement in his deep voice made her bring her teeth together in jarring impact. Of course he knew she wouldn’t sleep. He knew she would lie there in the dark, a bundle of lustful longing.

  In the darkness she scrunched up her face in a mortified grimace. How could you be so obvious? Acting like a scared idiot who had never seen a man semi-clothed before.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she replied coolly.

  The other side of the room Raul heard the moment her breathing changed and became deep and regular. He didn’t sleep.