by Kim Lawrence
What if history repeated itself with this other man and Roman couldn’t see past the happiness and contentment so he couldn’t protect her just as he hadn’t been able to protect her as a child?
‘Why did you ask me to marry you?’ Marisa asked, sounding as though she simply had to know.
His gaze slowly moved to her face.
‘Do you expect me to say I was in love with you?’
He had thought it back then, but he wasn’t about to admit to her something that even now he struggled to admit to himself.
His lip curled in self-contempt as he remembered thinking he had finally found his soulmate and the idea of losing her, of not spending every possible minute of the rest of his life with her, had seemed like an insanity.
She had had him at a golden glance, and he had run with reckless haste to claim the very thing he had spent his life avoiding, with consequences that only proved how right he had always been to avoid it.
‘No, I...’
‘Love can, I have heard tell, survive the cruel light of day. But what we shared was not love, it was likely just a...temporary insanity brought about by our seething hormones. We wanted to get naked a lot, so it’s perfectly understandable.’
Why it should hurt so much to hear him reduce what they had shared to a basic animal lust, Marisa didn’t know, but it did.
‘People get married all the time when they know they shouldn’t... How many people have you heard say, “I wish I’d never married you”?’
‘We didn’t get married,’ she said quietly.
‘Then you could call us lucky.’
A whoop of delight as Jamie’s tower toppled, scattering bricks across the wooden floor, broke the spell of Roman’s brooding stare, and she smiled at her little boy.
‘He seems to take some delight in destruction,’ Roman commented with amusement.
‘Yes, he is your average little boy, but so kind, as well. Last week his nursery visited a petting zoo and he was so gentle with the chicks and...’ She stopped, her reminiscent smile fading as she felt a self-conscious flush run up under her skin. ‘Sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I can get a bit boring when I talk about Jamie.’
‘Mothers are meant to think their children are perfect and I am not bored.’
‘Does your mother know about—’ She glanced at Jamie.
Roman shook his head. ‘I haven’t told her.’ He supposed it was possible that Rio had told her as his twin seemed to have been taking a lot onto himself of late. ‘I’ll wait until she’s out of hospital again.’ Always supposing the damned boyfriend ever left her side, he brooded, thinking of the tender hand-holding scene he had walked in on when he’d last seen her.
‘She must have been glad to see you,’ Marisa said.
‘Not so that you’d notice,’ he admitted, his lips twitching into a wry smile as he recalled her exasperated, ‘I do not need a guard dog, Roman.’
He saw Marisa’s startled expression and tacked on, ‘She is not the world’s best patient, because she isn’t—patient, that is. And you can’t really blame her as this thing has dragged on long enough already. She had the initial surgery in Switzerland after a skiing accident, where she broke her leg.’
Marisa winced at the explanation.
‘It was a bad break. They pinned it, but there was a problem with the pin, so she’s needed further surgery.’
Marisa made a soft sound of sympathy before her features suddenly froze in an expression of dawning surprise. ‘Jamie has a grandmother.’
‘Jamie has a father too,’ he countered grimly.
Marisa sighed. She was getting tired of ducking the guilt and she really hadn’t seen that one coming.
‘I’ll tell her about us when she is discharged.’
Marisa’s chin went up. ‘There is no us,’ she said and immediately wished she hadn’t; it sounded so petty and she knew he hadn’t meant that sort of us.
‘We are connected through Jamie whether you like it or not—and on that subject, I have a proposition.’
Marisa lowered her eyes, hearing the word proposition and remembering his proposal. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind and her expression. ‘Well, let’s hear it, then.’
‘Beyond me being his father, Jamie has a Spanish heritage that he knows nothing about and he should have access to that heritage.’
‘Jamie is British.’
‘He can be both; he can have two parents. He has two parents.’
Marisa sat there tensely waiting, wondering where this was going.
‘I would like him to come to Spain.’ She immediately recoiled and he tacked on sardonically, ‘I am not about to snatch him from you—obviously you will come too.’
‘Obviously,’ she said coolly, not willing to own up to her moment of panic. ‘Look, I can’t just drop everything.’ Her lips tightened at his assumption that she could rearrange her life at a moment’s notice for his convenience. ‘I have a very busy schedule, and I think it would be far better if you visited him here to begin with. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. You could take him out or—’ She was running out of alternative suggestions when he cut across her.
‘You do realise that this situation won’t stay just between us for long?’
She looked at him blankly and shook her head as if she didn’t understand what he meant, but she did—she just didn’t want to think about it.
‘It will not stay a secret, Marisa. My face and name are well known, and if I walk down the street with a child who looks like me—’
She shook her head, holding up her hand to silence him and thought, Too much detail! It was too late, though, her imagination was already conjuring up the tabloid headlines, and the effect of those on her own and, more importantly, Jamie’s life.
‘All right, I get it, but is it actually so inevitable? If we—’
‘It’s inevitable,’ he bit back, scorn edging his softly spoken words. ‘Unless you want me to visit my son under the cover of darkness?’
His sarcasm sailed over her head as dread congealed in an icy cold lump inside her stomach.
‘Of course not!’ she exclaimed.
‘It will be easier if we manage the story ourselves.’
The words brought her eyes back to his face, to see that his eyes were narrowed in concentration. He sounded as if he were discussing a hostile takeover rather than their son... Her eyes widened. Their son, she registered, shaken to her core. It was only one word but it represented a massive mental shift in her way of thinking, a shift that she had not been conscious of.
‘Manage!’ she echoed. ‘How do you manage something like this?’
‘We control the flow of information,’ he explained, sounding a lot more boardroom than bestselling author. It made her wonder if he’d ever go back to work at the family company, and what had happened that had made him change direction so drastically.
‘Which will be difficult if we are outed by some enterprising paparazzo with a long lens or a passer-by with a phone snaps me wheeling a pushchair.’
‘He’s four and a half. His push chair is an absolute last resort. He hates it.’
He arched a brow. ‘I think you know what I’m saying, but it’s true I know zero about children and even less about being a father, so it’s just as well I have you to guide me, isn’t it?’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ she said, in no mood for some sort of conversational ping-pong match. ‘There is no parenting handbook. It’s more an on-the-job learning experience. I’m still learning too.’ Her eyes brushed the figure of their child engrossed in his game. ‘And making mistakes,’ she finished wearily.
She fought against the sense of helplessness she felt tightening its grip. The picture he painted of their immediate future was not one that gave her a lot to look forward to.
Roman frowned as she lifted a hand to her head, but as if she felt his scrutiny her eyes lifted. As their glances met the pulse of sexual tension that connected them seemed to flare like a streak of flame.
Marisa broke the connection and sat back in her seat, avoiding his eyes as she picked up a china teacup and lifted it to her lips, not seeming to notice it was empty.
‘So this managing of the flow of information,’ she said in a flat little voice. ‘Do you have anything specific in mind or are you still working out the details?’
‘I have something very specific in mind.’
Her enquiring golden gaze fluttered to his face.
‘Well, I think it would be perfect if we had access to somewhere which is totally secure, where privacy is guaranteed and there are no prying eyes, like say a Spanish estate?’
‘Or a prison?’ she suggested bitterly, not hiding her displeasure at being played.
Something flashed across his face. ‘I have heard it called that before, but there are no locks.’
‘So much for security,’ she muttered darkly.
His lips twitched appreciatively. ‘I did not mean it literally. Look, why don’t we call it a holiday? Let me get to know my son away from prying eyes, allow me to introduce him to his roots. We all need to know where we come from.’
She looked at him, the internal conflict she was fighting shining in her amber eyes.
‘I think under the circumstances you owe me that much,’ he said, with no qualms about pressing home an advantage when he sensed it looming on the horizon.
Her slender shoulders drooped as if she were carrying something too heavy to bear, and he watched as she ran the tip of her tongue across her dry lips. ‘Three weeks.’
‘I’ll take that.’ His eyes narrowed and it was clear to Marisa that he’d gone up a mental gear. He had already moved on, his sharp mind turning to the next sequence of events.
‘I’ll arrange the flight and let you know the details. I have a few things I need to sort out, but if you could be ready for around...ten a.m. tomorrow, I’ll send a car—’
‘No.’
His eyes landed on her face with an almost physical sensation. She smiled back with determined serenity and was rewarded by his frustrated frown.
‘Don’t bother with the car. I’ll make my own way there and let you know what flight we get and when we land. If someone could get us from the airport that would be good.’
‘Someone?’
She watched his features rearrange themselves, moving in a cycle that took mere seconds from astonishment to clenched-jawed annoyance, finally settling into cynical amusement.
The latter bothered Marisa the most and brought her chin up to a defiant, some might have suggested childish, angle.
‘Are you sure about this, Marisa? You could land at a private airport, with no crowds, queues, delays...?’
It was her turn to channel superior amusement as he dangled that carrot in front of her nose. ‘Sounds lovely but I prefer not to be tied down to someone else’s schedule.’
He tipped his head in acknowledgment and slowly, elegantly unfolded his long frame from the sofa. ‘Jamie is a good flier, then?’
Anxious to reduce the extra height advantage he held over her, she sprang to her feet, dusting invisible specks from her sleeve as she dodged his gaze. ‘Excellent,’ she said smoothly, thinking wryly that there was a fifty-fifty chance she was right.
Their eyes moved in unison to the area where Jamie was playing, only to discover he was now curled up in a ball, thumb in his mouth, fast asleep.
‘I’ve only ever seen a puppy do that,’ Roman whispered.
‘You don’t have to whisper. He won’t wake up.’ She moved across the room and, despite her assurance, lowered her own voice as she posed over her shoulder, ‘Do you mind seeing yourself out? I’ll just take him to his room.’
She missed the flicker of expression on his face as he watched her scoop up the sleeping child into her arms with a smoothness that spoke of practice, the slender back she presented to him as much as her actions effectively shutting him out.
He slanted a last look at them before he turned and moved silently towards the door, struggling to combat a feeling that was utterly alien to him. It was such a weird reversal; he had spent his life avoiding women who were needy and now he found himself in a moment of weakness wanting a woman, a stiff-necked woman full of stubborn pride, to need him.
His hand was on the handle when a soft voice halted him.
He turned around, his breath catching in his throat. She was oblivious, he knew, to the image she presented standing there, the sleeping child cradled tightly against her body, his head tucked on her shoulder. Her face-framing silvery hair blazed with the sunshine that shone in through the window, and his hungry gaze roamed across her delicate features that didn’t need anything cosmetic added to enhance their delicate cut-crystal beauty.
The sheer loveliness of her tentative smile hit him like a kick in the belly, releasing a flood of hot longing that he couldn’t suppress.
For a long moment they stood there staring at one another, unspoken emotions zinging between them, until Roman found himself speaking, the words falling from his lips involuntarily, coming as much of a surprise to him as they seemed to be to her.
‘I have a son.’ He stared at Jamie’s flushed sleeping face before shifting back to Marisa’s. ‘I cannot say yet if I will be a good father, but perhaps the best any of us can do is simply hope we do no harm.’
‘You know, Roman, if I thought for one micro moment that you would be bad for Jamie,’ she told him fiercely, ‘in any way whatsoever, I would fight you tooth and nail to keep you out of his life.’
As her flashing amber eyes locked on his Roman felt a spark of unwilling admiration.
‘So you don’t think I would be bad for him?’ He wished that he shared her confidence. He found himself fervently hoping that his son had inherited his mother’s generosity of spirit.
‘The jury is still out at the moment.’ Her beautiful smile took the sting out of the warning and the defensive stiffness from his spine. ‘Don’t overthink it; just love him—that should be enough.’
If only he shared her belief in the power of love, but Roman knew all about its destructive power. His father’s love for his mother had definitely not been enough; it had been far too much!
‘I will send a car.’
Still wondering if she had imagined the shadow moving across his face, Marisa gave a sigh. Did he think if she conceded on one point she was ready to devolve all her decisions to him?
‘I already said that I prefer to make my own way to Spain.’ She stood still, hugging Jamie’s warm body to her, enduring the forensic searching scrutiny of Roman’s dark stare.
‘Are you trying to make a point?’
‘No, I’m just not comfortable being organised.’
He lifted his hands in an acquiescent gesture and took a step back. ‘Fair enough.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOW MANY TIMES had he visited the Bardales family estate in Spain since he and Rio had inherited it from their father? Three or four occasions and on only one of those had he extended his stay overnight. This might have explained the shock displayed by the staff on his unexpected arrival. Even the undemonstrative estate manager who had walked in as Roman was giving instructions concerning the guests they were to expect had looked shaken. In fact, the other man had been so thrown by Roman’s presence that his handshake had turned into an affectionate bear hug for the man he had known since he was a boy.
He wasn’t the only member of staff to seem pleased to see him, but Roman felt it wasn’t an affection he deserved considering how long he had avoided the place that came burdened with too many memories.
Roman rarely slept late, but he had finally fallen asleep around five a.m. and by the time he cl
awed his way out of his restless slumber he glanced at his phone, saw the time and groaned.
He fell out of bed and into the car, the heavy traffic he had to negotiate on his way to the airport not improving the tension that had climbed into his shoulders. He was reluctant to admit even to himself that he was nervous, but this was definitely not your average day at the office. Even clinging to a rock face by a fingertip above a drop of several thousand feet would have been infinitely more relaxing.
He wasn’t late, but he wasn’t early either, and his efforts to check out the situation were frustrated by the arrivals board, which seemed to have gone totally blank.
He was making his way through the crowded concourse to the information desk when an overheard snippet of conversation made him stop. He tapped the man who had been speaking on his shoulder.
‘London plane? You said they had lost contact with the London plane?’
The man nodded. ‘You have someone on it?’
‘My family.’ Roman felt as if an icy fist had reached into his chest and grasped his heart. Then he shook his head, stubbornly refusing to accept that they could have...
‘Which flight are they on...the one from Heathrow or Gatwick?’
Roman just stared at him blankly. His brain had stopped working and the suffocating black coldness was pressing in on him.
‘Here you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’
Roman spun around. Marisa was standing there looking tired, cranky and quite incredibly beautiful as she expertly jiggled a pushchair in which Jamie lay fast asleep.
She didn’t have a clue what was about to happen as he reached out for her, one hand curving around the nape of her neck the other one framing her face. Her eyes flew wide in comprehension a second before his mouth came down hard on hers in a long plundering, sensually explosive kiss that went on and on.
When it ended she was leaning into him, her knees shaking as she gasped for breath. He set her back on her feet a little way away from him.