Lynne Graham- Contract Baby

by Contract Baby (lit)

  Swallowing hard, Polly gave a jerky nod, her attention fully locked to him. He looked spectacular in a fabulous silver-grey suit, cut to enhance every sleek, muscular angle of his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped and long-legged frame. As her shaken gaze ran over him, her stomach flipped and her mouth ran dry. His magnetic dark good looks were like a visual assault on senses starved of him.

  ‘How…how did you find out where I was?’ Her bewil­derment was unconcealed.

  Raul’s wide mouth curled with impatience. ‘Once I had your phone number, it was a piece of cake to get the ad­dress. Why do you think I kept you on the line for so long?’

  Since Polly hadn’t been conscious until the end of that call that anyone but her had been controlling anything, she gulped.

  ‘Angelos Petronides will answer to me for this,’ Raul breathed with sudden chilling conviction, lean, strong face forbidding.

  ‘Angelos… Maxie’s husband? You know him?’ Polly ex­claimed in surprise.

  ‘Of course I know him, and he owns this building. Here you are on Petronides ground. I thought better of Angelos.I didn’t think he’d get involved in hiding my wife from me, but now that he has—’

  ‘No, he hasn’t!’ Polly protested vehemently. ‘I’ve never even met Maxie’s husband! I asked her to help me find somewhere to stay and she brought me here—said they needed someone to look after the place. Maxie’s certainly not aware that you know Angelos. And, as I asked her to be discreet, she’s only told Angelos that she has an old friend staying here for a while…’

  As her voice faltered to a halt, she experienced the feel­ing that she had already lost Raul’s full attention. As his dark golden gaze roamed over her scantily clad figure, Polly suddenly became intensely conscious of the revealing nature of her nightgown, the delicate straps which exposed her bare shoulders, the sheer lace covering her breasts, the light, clinging fabric which outlined her once-again-slim hips and slender thighs for his appraisal.

  As the silence which had seemed to come out of nowhere pulsed, Polly felt her breasts swell with languorous heavi­ness. Her nipples pinched tight, as if a current of fire had touched them. As she folded her arms over herself in mor­tified discomfiture, she snapped, ‘Has anybody ever told you that it’s very rude to stare?’

  The silence lay still and impenetrable as glass.

  And then Raul flung his darkly handsome head back and laughed with a rich spontaneity that shook Polly. Laughter put to flight his gravity, throwing his innate charisma to the fore. Her heart lurched. She tried to give him a reproving look, needing him to show her a mood she recognised and stay in it long enough for her to respond accordingly. But at that moment she was like a novice actress without a script and unable to improvise.

  ‘You’ve gone from voluptuously ripe and enticing to sin­fully, sexily slender,’ Raul murmured with husky amuse­ment. ‘And you think it’s rude that I should stare at my own wife?’

  A deep flush lit Polly’s fair skin. She didn’t know whereto look, but was pretty sure she was not going to look back at him while he was saying things like that. Sinfully, sexily slender? Now she knew what Maxie had meant when she had criticised Raul for giving her conflicting messages. An impersonal and detached relationship had to have firm boundaries. Raul had been both impersonal and detached after their wedding, politely concerned that she should be comfortable and content, but nothing more. He had made no attempt to behave like a normal husband who had a relationship with the mother of his child.

  And then Polly called herself an idiot. Here she was, wondering why Raul was behaving so strangely! But wouldn’t most men react differently to a woman standing around half-naked in front of them? Hot colour flooded her cheeks at that obvious explanation.

  ‘I’ll go and put something on and then we can talk,’ Polly muttered in a rush.

  ‘Let me see Luis first,’ Raul countered, moving closer to catch her hand and check her before she could move.

  ‘You’re not still annoyed with Maxie’s husband, are you?’ Polly asked anxiously as she took him down the cor­ridor.

  ‘I have a certain tolerance for a man plunged unsuspect­ing into an embarrassing situation by his bride,’ Raul im­parted wryly. ‘Angelos is Greek, traditional as they come. He’d come down on his wife like a ton of bricks if he realised that she’d been helping to hide my wife and child from me!’

  ‘It wasn’t like that—’

  ‘Only violence or abuse on my part would justify such interference between a man and his wife.’

  Was that the third or the fourth time that Raul had re­ferred to her as his wife in as many minutes? Polly thought abstractedly. After three weeks of telling herself that their marriage was a pathetic charade, it seemed so odd to haw Raul referring to her in such terms.

  ‘Raul…I really needed some time and space to think,’ she murmured tautly.

  Raul released her hand. ‘You’ve had months to think without me around.’

  But their relationship had changed radically in recent weeks, Polly wanted to protest in frustration as she watched him fluidly cross the elegant guest room to where Luis lay in his cradle. Their marriage had been one of reckless haste, entered into without proper consideration or adequate dis­cussion.

  She hadn’t simply taken umbrage and run away; she had known that ultimately she would have to face Raul again and deal with the situation.

  But in her distress and turmoil she had been in no fit state to confront a male who had a naturally domineering and powerful personality—and, worst of all, a male who had everything to gain from putting pressure on her to still accompany him to Venezuela. She had known she had to have time to think away from Raul before she decided what to do next

  Raul sent her a cool, assessing glance. ‘I’ve known Digby all my life. What you heard was a private conver­sation with a friend. I imagine you and your friend Maxie have been less than charitable about me on at least one recent occasion…’

  Unprepared for that embarrassingly accurate stab, Polly was betrayed by the burning wave of colour which swept up her throat

  ‘Exactly,’ Raul purred with rich satisfaction, removing his attention from her to study his infant son, who was squirming into wakefulness. ‘Do you see me getting all worked up about a fact of life? Could you see me writing three vitriolic pages and vanishing into thin air on such slender proof of intent as the mood of a moment?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘There is no “but”,’ Raul broke in with derision. ‘Only women behave like that. Rod thought it might be the baby blues, or some such thing! I knew better.’

  ‘I was in the wrong…I should’ve confronted you,’ Polly conceded tightly, heart-shaped face fixed in a mutinous ex­pression, revealing the struggle it was to voice those words of contrition.

  ‘Instead of throwing a tantrum on paper,’ Raul empha­sised, subjecting her to a hard, steady appraisal. ‘Because I warn you now, I will never, ever allow you to be in a position again where you can use our son as a weapon against me.’

  At that opportune moment, Luis mustered his lungs into a cross little cry for attention. Pale and taut now, in receipt of that menacing warning, Polly was grateful for the op­portunity to turn away. But Raul reached his son first, sweeping him up with complete confidence. Smiling down at Luis, he talked to him in soft, soothing Spanish.

  In the blink of an eye Raul had gone from that chilling threat to an unashamed display of tenderness with their son, Polly registered. That was the most intimidating thing to watch—the speed and ease with which he could switch emotional channels. Although there had been nothing emo­tional about his determination to tell her how he felt about her flight from the clinic. Cool, scornful, cutting.

  ‘I’ll get his bottle,’ Polly muttered.

  She skidded down to the bedroom to pull on a fluttering silk wrap first. When she returned to the dimly lit bedroom, Raul rose from the armchair to let her take a seat. He settled Luis into her arms and then hunkered lithely down to watch
his son greedily satisfy his hunger.

  ‘Dios mio! No wonder he’s grown so much!’

  Polly cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘I want you to know that I would never use Luis as a weapon—’

  ‘You already have,’ Raul told her without hesitation, smoothing an astonishingly gentle hand over Luis’s little head before vaulting upright again. ‘In disputes between couples, the child is often a weapon. You should understand that as well as I do. When your parents’ marriage broke up, your father kept you and your mother apart. Why? He was punishing her for leaving him for another man.’

  Polly was astonished that he should still recall that much information about her background. ‘I suppose he was,’ she conceded as she got up to change Luis.

  ‘Love turns to hatred so easily. It never lasts,’ Raul mur­mured with supreme cynicism.

  ‘It lasts for a lot of people,’ Polly argued abstractedly, down on her knees and busily engaged in dealing with her son’s needs. But she gathered courage from not being forced to meet Raul’s often unsettling gaze. ‘You know what I said on the phone earlier…about us not having to stay married?’

  Having expected an immediate response to that reminder, Polly looked up in the resounding silence which followed.

  Raul was staring back at her with penetrating and grim eyes. ‘I do.’

  ‘Look, why don’t you wait in the lounge while I settle Luis?’ Polly suggested uncomfortably.

  A few minutes later, Luis was back in the cradle, snug and comfy and sleepy.

  ‘I love you, you precious baby,’ Polly whispered feel­ingly, not looking forward to the discussion she was about to open but convinced that Raul would be extremely re­lieved when she suggested that they have their marriage annulled.

  As she entered the lounge, Raul swung round from the fireplace. ‘I don’t like this room. It’s claustrophobic with mat conservatory built over the windows,’ he said with flat distaste. ‘It’s insane to close out such magnificent views!’

  ‘Maxie’s terrified of heights. That’s why it’s like that…’ Polly hovered awkwardly. ‘Raul—?’

  ‘I’m not giving you a divorce,’ Raul delivered before she could say another word.

  Was he thinking angrily about the prospect of having to offer a divorce settlement? Did he imagine she was planning to make some greedy, gold-digging claim on his leg­endary wealth?

  Polly reddened with annoyance at that suspicion. ‘We don’t need to go for a divorce. We can apply for an an­nulment and everything will be put right It will be like this wretched marriage of ours never happened.’

  Raul had gone very still, dark eyes narrowing into watch­ful and wary arrows of light in his dark, devastating face. ‘An annulment?’ he breathed, very low, that possibility evi­dently not having occurred to him.

  ‘Well, why not?’ Polly asked him tautly. ‘It’s the easiest way out’

  ‘Let me get this straight…’ Raul spread two lean brown hands with silent fluency to express apparent astonishment ‘Just one short month ago you married me, and now, with­out living a single day with me, you have changed your mind?’

  ‘You’re making me sound really weird,’ Polly muttered in reproach. ‘I was wrong to let you marry me, knowing that you didn’t want that option. Now I’m admitting it—’

  ‘But too late…you’re admitting it too late,’ Raul de­clared.

  ‘But it’s not too late…’ Polly’s brow furrowed with con­fusion, because the discussion was not going in the direc­tion she had expected. ‘It’s not as if we’ve lived to­gether… or anything like that Why are you looking at me like I’m crazy? You don’t want to be married to me.’

  As he listened to that stumbling reminder, dark colour flared over Raul’s slashing cheekbones and his stunning dark eyes suddenly blazed gold. ‘But I have come to terms with the fact that I am married to you!’

  ‘I think we both deserve a bit more man that out of marriage,’ Polly opined in growing discomfiture. ‘We rushed into it—’

  ‘I didn’t rush,’ Raul interrupted. ‘I just wanted to get it over with!’

  ‘Yes, well…doesn’t it strike you that that isn’t a promising basis for any marriage?’ Polly framed carefully, alarmingly awake to the angry tension emanating from his tall, commanding figure. ‘I thought you’d be pleased at the idea of having your freedom back.’

  ‘Freedom is a state of mind. I now see no reason why marriage should make the slightest difference to my life,’ Raul returned with grating assurance.

  Polly was momentarily silenced by that sweeping state­ment.

  ‘You’re my wife, and the mother of my son. I suggest you get used to those facts of life,’ Raul completed, study­ing her in angry, intimidating challenge.

  A bemused look now sat on Polly’s face. Her lashes flut­tered. The tip of her tongue crept out to nervously moisten the taut fullness of her lower Up. ‘I don’t understand…’

  Hooded eyes of gleaming gold dropped to ringer on the ripe pink contours of her mouth. ‘Sometimes you talk too much, gatita…’

  ‘What does that mean…that word you keep on using?’ Polly whispered, because the very atmosphere seemed to sizzle, warning her of the rise in tension. Suddenly she was finding it very difficult to breathe.

  ‘Gatita?’ Raul laughed as he closed the distance between them in one easy stride. ‘It means “kitten”. The shape of your face, those big blue eyes…you remind me of a little fluffy cat, cute and soft with unexpected claws.’

  Having spent a lifetime fighting the downside of being smaller than most other people, Polly was not best pleased to be linked with any image described by words like ‘little’, ‘fluffy’ or ‘cute’.

  ‘What do you think I am? Some kind of novelty?’ she demanded, fighting not to be intimidated by his proximity and towering height.

  ‘If I knew what it was that attracts me to you, the attraction probably would have died by now,’ Raul said cynically. Polly stilled, feathery brows drawing together. ‘But you’re not attracted to me…’

  Raul dealt her a rampantly amused appraisal. ‘I may have controlled my baser urges, but I’ve lost count of the times I almost succumbed to the temptation of hauling you into my arms in Vermont,’ he admitted frankly. “Then I believed your appeal was related to the simple fact that I knew you were carrying my child

  ‘Yes?’ Polly conceded breathlessly, with the aspect of a woman struggling to take a serious academic interest in a confession that had flung her brain into wild confusion. Her heart was now thumping like a manic hammer below her breastbone.

  ‘But now I’ve finally worked out what got us into this in the first place,’ Raul confided, and, without giving her a hint of his intentions, he lifted his hands and slowly tipped the wrap from her taut shoulders. ‘Subconsciously I picked you to be Luis’s mother because you appealed to my hor­mones… Once I’d reached that conclusion, suddenly every­thing that’s gone wrong between us started making sense!’

  In her complete bemusement at that declaration, Polly was standing so still the garment simply slid down her arms and pooled on the carpet. ‘What…what?’ she began with a nervous start.

  Bending, Raul closed his strong arms round her and al­most casually swept her up off her feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Polly shrieked in sheer shock.

  Raul dealt her a slashing smile of unashamed satisfac­tion. ‘Husbands don’t need to control their baser urges.’

  ‘Put me down—’

  But Raul silenced that angry command by bringing his hungry mouth crashing down on hers without further ado.

  Polly saw stars. Stars inside her head, stars exploding like hot sunbursts in all sorts of embarrassing places inside her. It wasn’t like the only other kiss they had shared—a slow burner, cut off before it reached its height. Raul’s devouring demand had an instant urgency this time, inten­sifying her own shaken response. He probed her mouth with tiny little darting stabs of his tongue. The raw sexu­ality of that intim
ate assault was shockingly effective. It set up a chain reaction right through her whole body, filling her with a wild, wanton need for more.

  Polly uttered a strangled moan low in her throat, hands sweeping up to dig possessively into his luxuriant black hair and hold him to her. Without warning, Raul broke free to raise his head, dark golden eyes intent on her hectically flushed face as he strode out into the hall and started down the corridor. lDios.. .1 could make love to you all night, but I know you’re not ready for that yet,’ he groaned in frank frustration.

  Surfacing in turmoil from that predatory kiss, Polly gasped, ‘Where on earth do you think you’re taking me?’

  Unerringly finding the master bedroom, opposite the guest room in which Luis slept, Raul shouldered wide the door, strode across the carpet and deposited her with almost exaggerated gentleness on the vast divan bed. He hit the light switch by the bed, dimly illuminating the room. Then he straightened with an indolent smile.

  Polly reared up, bracing herself on her hands, her hair tumbling round her pink cheeks, her eyes very blue as she studied him in shaken disbelief. ‘Do you honestly think I’m about to go to bed with you?’

  It didn’t take Raul two seconds to respond to that ques­tion. Surveying her steadily, he jerked loose his silk tie. ‘Si…you’re my wife.’

  ‘This is not a normal marriage!’ Polly argued, still gazing at him with very wide and incredulous eyes.

  ‘That’s been our biggest problem. The sooner this mar­riage becomes “normal” the better,’ Raul delivered, dis­carding his tie and sliding fluidly out of his jacket to pitch it on a nearby chair. ‘It’s time to forget how we started out—’

  ‘But we didn’t start anything!’ Polly slung back, watching him unbutton his tailored silk shirt with the transfixed aspect of a woman unable to credit that he was actually undressing in front of her. ‘I was pregnant before we even met!’

  ‘Stop complicating things. You were pregnant with my baby. That created a special intimacy from the outset Naturally that made a difference to how I reacted to you—’

  ‘In Vermont?’ Polly threw in helplessly. ‘When you dropped in out of the blue whenever it suited you?’