‘You’re a beauty, aren’t you?’ she whispered.
Conscious that Kruz was watching her, she stood back and let him take over. He made the horse quiver with pleasure as he groomed it with long, rhythmical strokes. She envied the connection between them.
She waited until Kruz straightened up before saying, ‘Can we talk?’
‘You’re asking me?’ he said, brushing past her to put the tack away.
His voice was still cold, and she felt as if she had blinked and opened her eyes to find the last few minutes had been a dream and now it was back to harsh reality. But her pregnancy wasn’t something she could put to one side. Now it was out in the open she had to see this through, and so she followed Kruz to the tackroom and closed the door behind them. He swung around and, leaning back against the wall, with a face that was set and unfriendly, waited for her to speak.
‘I would have told you sooner, if—’
‘If you hadn’t been climbing all over me?’ he suggested in a chilly tone.
She lifted her chin. ‘I didn’t notice you taking a back seat at the time.’
‘So when were you going to tell me that you’re pregnant?’
‘You seem more concerned about my faults than our child. There were so many times when I wanted to tell you—’
‘But your needs were just too great?’ he said, regarding her with a face she didn’t recognize—a face that was closed off to any possibility of understanding between them.
‘I remember my need being as great as yours,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to argue with you about this, Kruz. I want to discuss what has happened while we’ve got the chance. For God’s sake, Kruz—what’s wrong with you? Anyone would think you were trying to drive me away—taking your child with me.’
‘You’ll stay here until I tell you to go,’ he said, snatching hold of her arm.
‘Let me go,’ she cried furiously.
‘There’s nowhere for you to go—there’s just thousands of miles of nothing out there.’
‘I’m leaving Argentina.’
‘And then what?’ he demanded.
‘And then I’ll make a life for me and our baby—the baby you don’t care to acknowledge.’
Was that a flicker of something human in his eyes? Had she got through to him at last? His grip had relaxed on her arm.
It was a feint of which any fighter would be proud. Kruz was still hot from his ride, still unshaven and dusty, and when his mouth crashed down on hers she knew she should fight him off, but instead she battled to keep him close.
‘It’s that easy, isn’t it?’ he snarled, thrusting her away. ‘You’re that easy.’
She confronted him angrily. ‘You shouldn’t have kissed me. You shouldn’t have doubted me.’ She paused a beat and shook her head. ‘And I should have told you sooner than I did.’
‘You kissed me back,’ he said, turning for the door.
Yes, she had. And she would kiss him again, Romy realised as heat, hope and longing surged inside her. What did that make her? Deluded?
‘Where are you going?’ she demanded as Kruz opened the door. ‘We have to talk this through.’
‘I’m done talking, Romy.’
Moving ahead of him, she pressed herself against the door like a barricade. ‘I’m just as scared as you are,’ she admitted.
‘You? Scared?’ he said.
‘We didn’t plan this, Kruz, but however unready we are to become parents, we’re no different than thousands of other couples. Whether we’re ready or not, in less than a year our lives will be turned upside down by a baby.’
‘Your life, maybe,’ he snapped.
His eyes were so cold...his face was so closed off to her. ‘Kruz—’
‘I need time to think,’ he said sharply.
‘No,’ she fired back. ‘We need to talk about this now.’
Pressing against the door, she refused to move. She was going to say what she had to say and then she would leave Argentina for good.
‘There’s nothing for you to think about,’ she said firmly. ‘The baby and I don’t need you—and we certainly don’t want your money. When I get back to England I’ll speak to my lawyers and make sure you have fair access to our child. But that’s it. Don’t think for one moment that I can’t provide everything a baby needs and more.’
The blood drained from his face. He was furious, but Kruz contained his feelings, which made him seem all the more threatening. Her hands flew to cradle her stomach. She was right to feel apprehensive. She had no lawyers, while Kruz probably had a whole team waiting on him. And she had to find somewhere decent to live. For all her brave talk she was in no way ready to welcome a baby into the world yet.
‘Do you mind?’ he said coldly, staring behind her at the door.
Standing aside, she let him go. What else could she do? She had no more cards to play. If Kruz didn’t want any part in the life of his child then she wasn’t going to beg. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt to think he could just brush her off like this. She understood that he guarded his privacy fiercely, but the birth of a baby was a life-changing event for both of them.
But this was day one of her life as a single mother, so she had to get over it. With the lease about to run out on her rented house, she couldn’t afford to be downhearted. Her priority was to find somewhere to live. So what if she couldn’t afford the area she loved? She maybe never would be able to afford it. She could still find somewhere safe and respectable. She would work all hours to make that happen.
She waited in the shadowy warmth of the tackroom, breathing in the pleasant aroma of saddle soap and horse until she was sure Kruz was long gone, and then she walked out into the brilliant sunlight of the yard to find the big stallion still watching her, with his head resting over the stable door.
‘I’ve made a mess of everything, haven’t I?’ she said, tugging gently on his forelock. She smoothed the palm of her hand along his pricked ears until he tossed his head and trumpeted. She imagined he was part of the herd who were still out there somewhere on the pampas.
Biting back tears, she glanced towards the hacienda. Kruz would be showering down after his ride, she guessed. He would be washing away the dust of the day and, judging by his reaction to her news, he would be washing away all thoughts of Romy and their baby along with it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE’D SLEPT ON it, and now he knew what he was going to do. Towelling down after his shower the next morning, he could see things clearly. Romy’s news had stunned him. How could it not, considering his care where contraception was concerned? It shouldn’t have happened, but now it had happened he would take control.
Tugging on a fresh pair of jeans and a clean top, he raked his thick dark hair into some semblance of order. The future of this baby was non-negotiable. He would not be a part-time parent. He knew the effect it had had on him when his parents had been killed. It wasn’t Nacho’s fault that Kruz had run wild, but he did believe that a child needed both its parents. Romy could have her freedom, and they would live independent lives, but she must move here to Argentina.
* * *
The internet was amazing, Romy concluded as she settled into her narrow seat on the commercial jet. She’d used it to sell the images she didn’t need to keep back for the Acosta charity, or for Grace, and had then used the proceeds to book her flight home. Alessandro had insisted on driving her to the airport and carrying her luggage as far as the check-in desk. He was a lovely man, sensitive enough not to ply her with questions. Sh
e didn’t care that she wasn’t flying home in style in a private jet. The staff in the cabin were polite and helpful, and before long she would be back in London on the brink of a new life.
As soon as she had taken the last shot she needed and made plans to leave Argentina she had known there would be no going back. This was the right decision—for her and for her child. She didn’t need a man to help her raise her baby. She was strong and self-sufficient, she had her health, and she could earn enough money for both their needs. One thing was certain—she didn’t need Kruz Acosta.
Really?
She had panicked to begin with, Romy reasoned as the big, wide jet soared high into the air. But making the break from Kruz was just what she needed. It was a major kick-start to the rest of her life. He was the one losing out if he didn’t want to be part of this. She was fine with it. She could live man-free, as she had before.
Reaching for the headphones, she scrolled through the channels until she found a film she could lose herself in—or at least attempt to tune out the voice of her inner critic, who said that by turning her back on Kruz and leaving Argentina without telling him Romy had done the wrong thing yet again.
* * *
‘Señorita Romily has gone,’ Alessandro told him.
‘What the hell do you mean, she’s gone?’ he demanded as Alessandro got out of the pick-up truck.
‘She flew back to England this morning,’ his elderly friend informed him, stretching his limbs. ‘I just got back from taking her to the airport.’ Alessandro levelled a challenging look at Kruz that said, And what are you going to do about it?
They didn’t make men tame and accepting on the pampas, Kruz reflected as he met Alessandro’s unflinching stare. ‘She went back to England to that house?’ he snarled, beside himself with fury.
Alessandro’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘I don’t know where she was going, exactly. “Back home” is all she told me. She talked of a lovely area by a canal in London while we were driving to the airport. She said I would love it, and that even so close to a city like London it was possible to find quiet places that are both picturesque and safe. She told me about the waterside cafés and the English pubs, and said there are plenty of places to push a pram.’
‘She was stringing you along,’ Kruz snapped impatiently. ‘She guessed you wouldn’t take her to the airport if you knew the truth about where she lived.’ And when Alessandro flinched with concern at the thought that he might have led Romy into danger, Kruz lashed out with words as an injured wolf might howl in the night as the only way to express its agony. ‘She lives in a terrible place, Alessandro. Even with all the operatives in my employ I cannot guarantee her safety there.’
‘Then follow her,’ his wise old friend advised.
Kruz shook his head, stubborn pride still ruling him. Romy was having his baby and she had left Argentina without telling him. Twisting the knife in the wound, his old friend Alessandro had helped Romy on her way. ‘Why?’ he demanded tensely, turning a blazing stare on his old friend’s face. ‘Why have you chosen to help her?
‘I think you know why,’ Alessandro said mildly.
‘You think I’d hurt her?’ he exclaimed with affront. ‘You think because of everything that happened in the army I’m a danger to her?’
Alessandro looked sad. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘You are the only one who thinks that. I helped Señorita Winner to go home because she’s pregnant and because she needs peace now—not the anger you feel for yourself. Until you can accept that you have every right to a future, you have nothing to offer her. You have hurt her,’ Alessandro said bluntly, ‘and now it’s up to you to make the first approach.’
‘She didn’t tell me she was pregnant.’
‘Did you give her a chance?’
‘I didn’t know—’
‘You didn’t want to know. I knew,’ Alessandro said quietly.
Kruz stood rigid for a moment, and then followed Alessandro to the stable, where he found the old gaucho preparing to groom his favourite horse.
‘You drove her to the airport,’ he said, still tight with indignation. ‘Dios, Alessandro, what were you thinking?’
When Alessandro didn’t speak he was forced to master himself, and when he had done so he had to admit Alessandro was right. His old friend had done nothing wrong. This entire mess was of Kruz and Romy’s making—mostly his.
‘So she didn’t tell you she was leaving?’ Alessandro commented, still sweeping the grooming brush down his horse’s side in rhythmical strokes.
‘No, she didn’t tell me,’ he admitted. And why would she? He hadn’t listened. He hadn’t seen this coming. So the mother of his child had just upped and left the country without a word.
What now?
She wasn’t all to blame for this, but one thing was certain. Romy might have pleased herself in the past, but now she was expecting his baby she would listen to him.
* * *
‘No,’ Romy said flatly, preparing to cut the line having refused Kruz’s offer of financial help. ‘And please don’t call me at the office again.’
‘Where the hell else am I supposed to call you?’ he thundered. ‘You never pick up. You can’t keep on avoiding me, Romy.’
The irony of it, she thought. She knew they should meet to discuss the baby, but things had happened since she’d come back to England—big things—and now she was sick with loss and just didn’t think she could take any more. Her mother had died. There—it was said...thought...so it must be true. It was true. She had arrived at the nursing home too late to see her mother alive. Somehow she had always imagined she would be there when the time came. The fact that her mother had slipped away peacefully in her sleep had done nothing to help ease her sense of guilt.
And none of it was Kruz’s fault.
‘Okay, let’s meet,’ she agreed, choosing an anonymous café on an anonymous road in the heart of the bustling metropolis. The café was close by both their offices, and with Kruz back in London the last thing she wanted was for them to bump into each other on the street.
‘I could meet you at the house,’ he said, ‘if that’s easier for you.’
There was no house. The lease was up. The house had gone. She was sleeping on a girlfriend’s sofa until she found somewhere permanent.
‘This can’t be rushed, Romy,’ Kruz remarked as she was thinking things through. ‘Five minutes of your time in a crowded café won’t be enough.’
He was right. In a few months’ time they would be parents. It still seemed incredible. It made her heart ache to be talking to him about such a monumental event that should affect them both equally while knowing they would never be closer than this. ‘I’ll make it a long lunch,’ she offered.
She guessed she must have sounded patronising as Kruz repeated the address and cut the line.
Without him asking her to do so she had taken a DNA test to prove that the baby was his. She had had to do it before a solicitor would represent her. Putting everything in the hands of a stranger had felt like the final nail in the coffin containing their non-existent relationship. This meeting in the café with Kruz to sort out some of the practical aspects of parental custody was not much more.
Not much more? Did she really believe that? Just catching sight of Kruz through the steamed-up windows of the chic city centre café was enough to make her heart lurch. He’d already got a table, and was sipping coffee as he read the financial papers. He’d moved on with his life and so had she, Romy persuaded herself. She had suffered the loss of her mother while he’d been away—a fact she’d shared with no one. Kruz, of all people, would probably understand, but she wouldn’t burden him with it. They weren’t part of each other’s lives in that way.
‘Hey,’ she murmured, dropping her bag on the seat by his side. ‘Watch that for me, will you, while I get something to d
rink?’
Putting the newspaper down, he stood up. He stared at her without speaking for a moment. ‘Let me,’ he said at last, brushing past.
‘No caffeine,’ she called. ‘And just an almond croissant, please.’
Just an almond croissant? Was that a craving or lack of funds?
He should have prepared himself for seeing Romy so obviously pregnant. He knew how far on she was, after all. He should have realised that the swell of her stomach would be more pronounced because she was so slender. If he had been prepared he might be able to control this feeling of being a frustrated protector who had effectively robbed himself of the chance to do his job.
Taking Romy’s sparse lunch back to the table, he sat down. She played with the food and toyed with mint tea. I hope you’re eating properly, he thought, watching her. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked as if she wasn’t sleeping. That made two of them.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said, when she seemed lost in thought.
She glanced up and the focus of her navy blue eyes sharpened. ‘Yes, let’s get it over with,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve appointed a lawyer. I thought you’d find that easier than dealing with me directly—I know I will. I’m busy,’ she said, as if that explained it.
‘Business is good?’ he asked carefully.
‘You should know it is.’ She glanced up, but her gaze quickly flickered away. ‘Grace keeps me busy with the charity, and my work for that has led me on to all sorts of things.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
She smiled thinly.
‘Are you still living at the same place?’
‘Why do you ask?’ she said defensively.
He should have remembered how combative Romy could be. He should have taken into account the fact that pregnancy hormones would accentuate this trait. But Romy’s wellbeing and that of his child was his only concern now. He didn’t want to fight with her. ‘Just interested,’ he said with a shrug.
‘I don’t need your money,’ she said quickly. ‘With money comes control, and I’m a free agent, Kruz.’
Taming the Last AcostaItalian Boss, Proud Miss Prim Page 12