The Argentinian's Baby 0f Scandall (One Night With Consequences)
Page 14
‘I tell you, they’re not worth it, Tara! Not a single one of them!’
But, outwardly at least, Tara was determined to present a positive face to the world. She made sure she looked after herself—exercising sensibly, eating regularly and faithfully keeping all her appointments at the hospital, who pronounced themselves delighted with her progress. She even continued to dress in the new style which had been shown to her so comprehensively in New York. She liked the way the new clothes made her feel. She liked the soft whisper of silk and cashmere against her skin and she liked wearing trousers which actually fitted her, rather than flapping around her legs. If she’d learnt one thing it was that her body was nothing to be ashamed of and that there was nothing wrong with wanting to take care of her appearance.
It was only at night, under the forgiving cloak of darkness, that she cried big salty tears which rolled down her cheeks and fell silently into her sodden pillow. That she ached to feel Lucas beside her again, even though in her heart she knew that was never going to happen. And each morning she awoke to sombre grey Dublin skies, which seemed to echo the bleakness of her mood.
But she was strong and she was resilient, and, once she’d adjusted to her new life, things began to improve. Or rather, once she’d accepted that Lucas wasn’t going to suddenly turn up and sweep her off her feet—that was the turning point. She knew then she had to embrace the future, not keep wishing for something which was never going to happen. There was to be no fairy-tale ending. Lucas wasn’t going to suddenly appear on the doorstep, his face obscured by a bouquet of flowers with a diamond ring hidden in his pocket. He’d told her he would be back for the birth—which was still four whole months away—which gave her plenty of time to erase him from her aching heart.
Aware that his Dalkey house held too many poignant memories, she began to bombard local employment agencies with her CV and quickly found a job—though not, as originally planned, in a big, noisy family. With a baby of her own on the way, she decided it was better to keep focussed on that. Her new position was as housekeeper to a couple of academics, in their big house overlooking Caragh Lake, in beautiful County Kerry. Dana and Jim Doyle had both sat in on her interview, where Tara had been completely upfront about her situation.
‘I’m pregnant and no longer with the father of my child. I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem for you,’ she’d blurted out, ‘but he is providing generous financial support for us both.’
‘So do you really need to work?’ Dana had asked gently.
‘No, but I’ve always worked.’ Tara’s reply had been simple. She was unable to imagine the long days stretching ahead without some kind of structure to them, terrified of all those hours which could be devoted to pining for a man who didn’t want her.
How long before she stopped feeling this way? Before her body stopped craving his touch and her lips his kiss?
She emailed Lucas her new address and he sent an instant response, asking if she had everything she needed. The answer to that was obviously no and yet, for some reason, the question infuriated her. Why did people keep asking her what she needed when she had a warm bed, a roof over her head, and a secure job, which was a lot more than many people had? Her needs weren’t the problem but her wants were.
She stared into the mirror.
She still wanted Lucas—wasn’t that the most agonising thing of all?
Her hand moving down to her growing bump, she told herself that these feelings would fade. They had to fade—because everything did eventually. The bullying at school—once unendurable—had leached from her consciousness once she’d left Ballykenna. Even the reason for that bullying—all the shame surrounding her ancestry—had receded, so that she hardly thought about it any more. And that had come about because she’d made a determined effort to erase it from her mind.
So do that now, with Lucas, or you’ll spend the rest of your life as a ghost of a person, longing for something which can never be yours.
Tara bit her lip.
He was the father of her child. Nothing else.
Her mouth firmed.
Nothing.
* * *
As he was driven through the sweeping Argentinian landscape, Lucas felt the pounding of his heart. It was pounding like an out-of-control speed train. As he got out of the car he became aware that his mouth was dry and recognised that this was the closest he’d ever come to fear. Or maybe it was just apprehension. Glancing up at the big sign which read Sabato School of Polo, he took a moment to realise that someone must have heard the sound of his car and a man was walking towards him.
The man’s build was much like his own—long-legged, strong and muscular—though the thick tumble of dark hair was distinctly longer. He wore casual riding clothes and leather boots which were dull with dust—an outfit which was in marked contrast to Lucas’s own bespoke linen suit. But as he grew closer, Lucas found himself staring into a pair of dark-lashed and slanting green eyes, so unnervingly like his, as were the chiselled jaw and high slash of cheekbones.
And now the pounding of his heart became deafening as he acknowledged who it was who stood before him. His older brother. He swallowed. His only brother. For a moment neither man said anything, just stared long and hard, their faces set and serious. Two powerful tycoons confronted by the bitter reality of their past, which had somehow merged into the present.
‘Alejandro,’ said Lucas eventually.
The man nodded. ‘I’ve spent a long time trying to find you, Lucas,’ he breathed slowly.
And that was the main difference between them, Lucas acknowledged. That his brother’s deep voice was accented, its lilting cadence emphasising the Spanish of his mother tongue. Lucas felt his heart clench, realising that his brother had known their real mother, while he had not, and he felt a bitter pang he hadn’t expected before replying to his brother’s statement. ‘I changed my name,’ he said, at last.
Alej nodded and then smiled, expelling a long sigh of something which sounded like relief. ‘Want to tell me about it? Over a beer maybe, or even a ride? I don’t even know if you ride—how crazy is that?’
For the first time Lucas smiled as he chose the latter option, even though he hadn’t been on a horse in a while and even though his brother was an ex-world-champion polo player who could outride most people. But for once, he wasn’t feeling competitive and he didn’t care if Alej outshone him in the saddle. He wanted clarity in which to confront the past—not alcohol clouding or distorting the things which needed to be said. He wanted to hear the facts as they were, no matter how much they might hurt.
And they did hurt. No two ways about it. He had thought he was prepared for the pain which might be awaiting him when he heard the full story of how he came to be adopted, but afterwards wondered if perhaps he’d been naïve. Because was anyone ever really prepared for pain? Intellectually you might think you knew what to expect, but on a visceral level it always hit you with a force which could leave you breathless.
Hacking out over the lush green pastures, they rode for a long time, sometimes talking, sometimes lapsing into thoughtful silences, until the sinking sun had begun to splash the landscape with coral and Alej turned to him.
‘You must be thirsty by now. Think it’s time for that beer?’
Lucas nodded. ‘Sure do.’
As if by unspoken consent, they urged their mounts into a fierce gallop as they headed back towards the stables and Lucas was glad for the sudden rush of adrenalin which surged through his veins. Glad too that the rush of air dried the tears he could feel on his cheeks.
His brother’s car was waiting to take them to Alej’s estancia, where his wife Emily was waiting with their baby Luis, and Lucas stepped into the warm family home and felt a rush of something he’d never experienced before. Was it envy or regret? he wondered. Because as Alej lifted the squealing Luis high in the air and the beautiful Emily stirred somethin
g in a pot which smelt delicious, Lucas realised that he too could have had this. A home and a family. With Tara. The woman who had encouraged him to come here. Who had made him dare raise the curtain on his past and look directly into the face of his brother and his troubled ancestry.
He swallowed as Emily handed him a frosted bottle of beer.
He could have had all this.
And he had blown it.
He didn’t sleep well that night, even though the bed was supremely comfortable and the steak which Alej cooked for dinner the best he’d ever eaten, especially as it had been served with Emily’s delicious spicy vegetables. But in the days which followed, he was given a tantalising taste of the country of his birth. He grew to understand it a little and to like it enormously so that by the time it came to leave, he experienced a distinct pang as he dropped a kiss on the baby’s downy head and hugged Emily goodbye. He didn’t say much as Alej drove him to the airport. He didn’t need to. He knew that something powerful had been forged between the two of them during the past week, a bond which had been severed so many years ago but which had somehow, miraculously, endured.
At the airport the two men embraced. Then Lucas took one last look at the sweeping mountains he could see in the distance and, somewhere in his heart, knew he’d be back. ‘You know, you and the family must visit me in Ireland.’
‘Por supuesto.’
Once again their gazes clashed with the sense of something unspoken. And then he was in the aircraft and clipping his seat belt before the private jet barrelled along the runway and soared up into the cloudless sky. For a while Lucas stared down at the retreating rooftops of Buenos Aires, before settling back in his seat.
It was a long flight but for once he couldn’t concentrate on work matters—even though he was able to communicate with his assistant on the ground. And somewhat predictably, when the plane touched down in Dublin, it was to a grey and blustery day. He thought how tiny Ireland seemed in comparison to the sweeping landscape of the country he’d just left. A pulse was beating at his temple as he stared down at the email his assistant had sent him earlier and, slowly, he gave his driver the address. All during the car journey to Caragh Lake, Lucas was aware of the racing of his heart and sudden clamminess of his palms—as if his body were trying to keep him focussed on what his mind was trying so hard to resist. But the dark thoughts kept flapping back, like insistent crows.
What if he couldn’t do this?
What if she didn’t want him? Could he blame her if she didn’t? His mouth hardened. And mightn’t that be best? Wouldn’t that guarantee her some kind of peace, even if peace was a concept he couldn’t ever imagine finding for himself? Not now, anyway.
Despite its size, the big house wasn’t easy to find, tucked away in a leafy lane and overlooking a beautiful lake. As Lucas lifted the heavy door knocker he could hear it echoing through the large house and it seemed to take for ever before he heard the approach of oddly familiar footsteps, and when the door opened he saw Tara standing there. His heart leapt. The new Tara. The one with the feathery soft hair which made her look so sleek.
She was blinking at him in disbelief. ‘Lucas?’
He heard the strangled note in her voice but of far more concern was the sudden blanching of her skin and the way her eyes had widened. Because there was no welcome in their amber depths and no smile on her soft lips. And her next words compounded his thumping fears.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’ve come here to see you.’
‘And now you have. See? And I’m fine.’
She went to push the door shut again but he held up the palm of his hand.
‘Tara.’ His voice softened. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
Her face had lost none of its suspicion. ‘You didn’t warn me you were coming.’
‘I thought unannounced was better.’
‘Better? Better for who? Yourself, of course—because that’s the only person you ever think about, isn’t it?’ Her voice rose. ‘Are you crazy, Lucas? Didn’t you think it mightn’t be suitable for you to just come barging in like this? I might have been cooking lunch for Mr and Mrs Doyle.’
He didn’t feel it prudent to point out that he’d had one of his assistants find out when her bosses were attending a conference on marine science in Sweden, and had timed his flight to Ireland accordingly. ‘And are you allowed no life of your own?’ he questioned archly.
The corners of her unsmiling mouth lifted but not with a smile—more like a rueful acknowledgement of some grim fact. ‘You’re probably better qualified than anyone to answer that question, Lucas. But that’s beside the point. Why are you here?’ She sucked in a deep breath, her hand leaning on the door jamb. ‘Why are you here when you told me that you’d be back in time for the birth and that’s still sixteen weeks away, by Dr Foley’s reckoning.’
For the first time Lucas allowed his gaze to move from her face to her body and he was unprepared for the savage jolting of his heart. She looked...
His throat grew dry. He’d never really understood the description ‘blooming’ when applied to a pregnant woman, mainly because such a field was outside his area of interest. But he understood it now. She was wearing an apron covering a woollen dress of apple-green, and he could see that her slender frame had filled out. There was more flesh on her bones and her cheeks were fuller and, if he ignored the faint hostility in her gaze—which wasn’t easy—he could see a radiance about her which seemed to make her glow from within. But it was the curve of her belly which made his heart begin to race.
Hesitation was something unfamiliar to him but he could sense he needed to be careful about what he said next—more careful than he’d ever been in his life—because she was still prickling with hostility. ‘I’m here because I need to speak to you. To tell you things that perhaps you need to hear.’
Tara flinched, trying to put a lid on the rush of emotion which was flowing through her body. Because this wasn’t fair. He’d told her he would see her for the birth, which was months away—precious months when she was supposed to be practising immunity when it came to looking into his beautiful face, that shadowed jaw and those emerald-bright eyes.
But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? If she hinted that she couldn’t cope with an unexpected visit from him, then wouldn’t that make her appear weak?
She had no idea what he was about to say since she hadn’t heard very much from him since she’d left America. For all she knew he might be about to announce that he’d finally met the love of his life, despite having vowed that he didn’t do love. But stranger things had happened and some gorgeous New Yorker might have possessed just the right combination of beauty and dynamism to capture the billionaire’s elusive heart.
And if that were the case, then wasn’t it better to get it over with?
‘You’d better come in,’ she said grudgingly.
She was achingly aware of his presence as he followed her into the hallway, wishing her thoughts didn’t keep going back to that first night, when it had all started. If only you could rewrite the past. If, say, she hadn’t let Charlotte in that day, then none of this might ever have happened. But you couldn’t rewrite the past and, anyway, would she really want to go back to the Tara she’d been back then? The unfulfilled misfit of a woman who’d never known real pleasure? And yes, the flip side to pleasure was emotional pain—unbearable pain for quite a while now—but you learnt through such experiences, didn’t you? You learnt to cope and you became stronger—strong enough to handle an unscheduled visit from the man whose child you carried.
‘Would you like coffee?’ she questioned, expecting him to say no.
But Lucas never did what you expected him to do.
‘Actually, I would. I’ve missed your coffee, Tara.’
‘I don’t want any of your old flannel.’
She blinked. ‘Argentina?’
‘Why don’t you make the coffee first?’ he said gently. ‘And then we’ll talk.’
Her instinctive fury at his reversion to the dominant role was supplanted by a natural curiosity but, grateful for the chance to get away from the distraction of that piercing green gaze, Tara hurried from the room. She returned minutes later, hating herself for having first checked her appearance in the kitchen mirror, because it wasn’t as if she wanted to impress him, was it?
He was standing with his back to her, looking down over the sweeping emerald lawn and, beyond that, the darker green of the trees, through which you could see the silver glimmer of the lake and, fringing those, the gentle hills of Ireland. Something poignant shafted at Tara’s heart but she forced herself to suppress it, because she needed to keep calm.
He turned to face her and she could feel an annoying shiver of awareness but she quashed it. With a hostess-like air, she indicated that he should sit down and watched as he lowered his powerful frame into one of the worn velvet seats which the non-materialistic Dana Doyle had told her they’d had for years. And when she’d given him his coffee, just the way he liked it, Tara perched on a more upright chair opposite, not quite trusting her trembling fingers to hold the water she’d poured for herself.
‘So,’ she said, with a tight smile. ‘What is it that you want to speak to me about, Lucas?’
She was unprepared for the sudden darkness which crossed his rugged features, like a black cloud suddenly obscuring the face of the moon. And for a look of something she’d never seen in his eyes before, something which on anyone else she might have described as desolation. But Lucas didn’t do desolation and she wasn’t here to analyse his moods or to try to get inside his head. This was a matter-of-fact meeting and he probably wanted to discuss financial support for her and the baby.