‘Of course that was impossible.’ Her huge brown eyes were bitter. ‘I asked at that hotel you were supposed to be working at and they had never heard of a Lucio, never mind a Lucio with no surname. Hardly surprising since Lucio had never existed. I tried describing you, but naturally they would never have put two and two together and come up with the big shot owner of the hotel.’
Guilt found its way through his iron-clad defence system. ‘No one could have anticipated this situation,’ he said grimly.
‘We should have been more diligent with the contraception. More careful.’ The Pill had not agreed with her. Instead, they had relied on barrier protection and there had been times when spontaneity had got in the way of common sense. Like a complete idiot, she had airily imagined that there would be no consequences. Her periods had always been irregular. She had vaguely concluded that pregnancy would therefore be less likely than in someone with a tip-top menstrual cycle.
‘There is no point going down the what if road…’ But another stab of guilt penetrated his austerity. At the time, he had told himself that walking away from her had been in her best interests. She had been young, only just out of school, as he had discovered along the way. Definitely not experienced enough to take on or even need any sort of committed relationship, especially with a guy like him. A guy she didn’t even really know. She was a free spirit, about to begin her journey through life. He was already marching upwards, an only child programmed to adhere to unspoken expectations.
But, with malign treachery, the image in his head of her, young and frightened, had wormed its way in and was refusing to budge.
‘If it is any consolation, I put my hands up and admit that my little white lies may not have been one hundred per cent justifiable.’
‘Oh, well, thanks very much for that belated apology.’ Alex’s voice was laced with sarcasm. She had never been the sarcastic sort. Funny how experience had a way of changing a person.
‘My family were very good. I hid out there for a while but in the end I knew that I had to follow the jobs and London was the most likely place for me to get one so I moved in with a friend and then got this place.’ She was pleased at how this dispassionate rattling off of the past few traumatic years of her life managed to sound so ordered when in fact she had lived in a semi-permanent state of stress and exhaustion.
‘And then you happened to run into me.’ He was making a determined effort to stay away from the emotive topic of his son being in a house that was barely big enough for one person. This was not going to do. But he would bide his time for the present.
‘It was a shock.’ She glanced across at him warily. ‘You seem to be taking all this very well,’ she ventured hesitantly. ‘I thought you’d be furious.’
‘What would be the point of that?’ Gabriel questioned with chilling self-control. ‘Would it change anything? My son would still be upstairs sleeping and life as I know it would still have ceased to exist.’
If at any point in time she had daydreamed about a happy-ever-after ending, some surprise meeting which might have concluded with joyous exclamations of love, then those words conclusively put any such fantasy to rest.
For Gabriel, the knowledge that he was a father meant that life as he knew it would cease to exist, and since his life had been very happy indeed without either her or their son in it, then he was looking at a bleak future and that hurt. Even after all these years.
‘Tell me something,’ he said in the same ultra-controlled voice. ‘Having quit your job, presumably because running away was the only solution you could come up with, having the dilemma of seeing me again, would you have made any effort to let me know that I was a father if I hadn’t sought you out? Or would you have disappeared off the face of the earth and watched my son grow up without my input in his life?’
Alex felt the colour rise to her cheeks. Would she have said anything? She would have years ago, when she had first discovered that she was carrying his child. And she really wanted to think that she was an honest enough person to have done the same now, but he was engaged. In love with another woman. On the brink of settling down and starting a family with Cristobel. She might have grown up over the past few years, but that much?
‘I see,’ Gabriel said softly, reading into her silence.
‘You don’t understand!’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘We…we’re in different places,’ she began weakly. No nod of agreement greeted this remark. She wished his eyes weren’t boring into her head. It was disconcerting because, underneath the ice, she could glimpse the seething, passionate core and just thinking about that did strange things to her body. ‘I…I’ve moved on since we knew each other…’
‘Moved on how?’ Instantly Gabriel was on red alert. Moving on was a phrase with which he was well acquainted and it usually indicated from one person to someone else. All of a sudden he was questioning his easy assumption that the person in her life, the person to whom she had vaguely referred before this whole bomb had detonated, was Luke. All of a sudden the notion that she might really have met someone else slammed into him with the force of a freight train. ‘Is there some guy in your life?’ he demanded, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
‘No!’
‘Good.’ He relaxed fractionally.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that, now I am aware of the situation, a boyfriend on the scene would be entirely inappropriate.’
Alex felt a red mist of anger envelop her like a cloud, smothering all her good intentions to keep things cool, composed and adult. If she had had something heavy and breakable to hand, she would have flung it at his deceitful, arrogant head and hang the good intentions.
‘Would you mind repeating that?’ she asked in a tight, unnaturally high voice.
‘No man on the scene.’
‘No. Man. On. The. Scene. And yet it’s all right for you to have a fiancée on the scene, is it?
What were his expectations here? she wondered. Carry on with his life, get married and lock her up in a state of permanent celibacy because he didn’t want another man around his son? She was trembling with anger.
‘You’re overreacting.’
‘I am not overreacting!’
‘I am being honest. Isn’t that what you would want? The truth? And the truth is that I would not welcome anyone else having an influence over my son. What’s so difficult to understand about that?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Alex said tightly. ‘I don’t want to get into an argument with you. Now that you know about Luke, we can try and sort out…the practical stuff…’
‘Does he know who I am?’
‘No. I haven’t told him yet.’
The enormity of their situation struck Gabriel forcibly at that bald statement. He had an instant picture in his head of his son, all black curly hair and big drowsy eyes, and from nowhere sprang a crazy, confused feeling of time wasted.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alex said quietly, at which his expression became shuttered once again.
‘When do you intend to tell him?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘Try again.’
‘Okay! Tomorrow! I’ll tell him tomorrow! He’s very inquisitive, anyway. He’ll probably wake up with a hundred questions about you.’ Her eyes skittered from Gabriel to the window behind him to the mantelpiece, on which sat a row of pictures of Luke at various stages of his young life. Gabriel followed her eyes and he slowly stood up and moved across to the mantelpiece, where he proceeded to hold and examine all of the pictures. All seven of them. From infancy to the one she had taken last month.
While he had been blithely pursuing his goals with the relentless drive that came so naturally to him, while he had been adding to his fortune, building his empire and congratulating himself on his well run, well oiled, no-unpleasant-surprises-life, his own flesh and blood had been growing up without him around. Frustration rocked him because it wasn’t as though he
could blame her. Of course, she might have been lying. She might have never bothered trying to find his whereabouts, but he seriously doubted that. He would have been an instant and permanent meal ticket. Why would she have turned that down? He replaced the last of the photos and turned slowly round to look at her.
‘When are you going to…tell the people that you know? Your family? Your fiancée?’ she said awkwardly, to cover the silence.
‘Immediately.’
She breathed a little sigh of relief. Once that hurdle was over, once the shock was absorbed and the situation accepted by the people who mattered to him, they would be able to discuss arrangements for him to see his son. She wondered how Cristobel would receive the news. Not well, she anticipated, but it was hardly as though he had been unfaithful.
‘Then, maybe, when you’ve done that…well, and I will have told Luke about you, of course…we can try and sort stuff out…’
‘Sort stuff out…?’
‘Yes. You know. Visiting rights. I’m really happy for you to see Luke whenever you want to…’ She had stood up in preparation to seeing him to the door but now her voice trailed off because he wasn’t saying anything. And he was looking at her as though she had a screw missing. And neither of those things added up to a man on the verge of departure, having settled matters.
‘Visiting rights?’
Alex detected the odour of a trick question and she looked at him warily. ‘Yes? Visiting rights? You come to see Luke and take him somewhere for an afternoon?’
‘You don’t really think that that’s going to work, do you Alex?’
‘Not going to work?’ Alex repeated in dumb founded confusion. ‘Why wouldn’t it work? It’s what everyone else does when their relationship falls apart and there’s a child involved. Not that we ever had a relationship.’
‘Since when am I everyone else?’
She was struggling to get the gist of what he was saying but her mind wasn’t obliging. Had she misread all the signs and signals? Was he implying that his intention was to stroll out through her front door and disappear over the horizon without a backward glance at his son? Since that seemed highly implausible, she settled on the other, more likely option. He was engaged, he had his life in order. He didn’t need a murky, unwanted past misadventure rising up to wreak havoc with his perfect life and so he would keep it a secret.
‘I don’t intend Luke to be hidden away!’ She sprang to her feet, shaking, her hands on her hips. ‘He deserves better than that! So, if that’s the road you’re going down, then you’d better clear off! I can’t believe this. I really, can’t, Lucio! Gabriel!’
‘Sit down!’
‘Stop giving me orders when you’re in my house!’
‘Then stop behaving like a child!’ Gabriel had no idea what she was talking about and he recognised that she was in a pretty hysterical frame of mind. She thought he was a louse and, while he was prepared to concede some mistakes made on his part, they were mistakes only in retrospect and only in view of the current extraordinary circumstances. While he was, once again, dealing with the unique temptation to lose his temper, he noticed that she was no longer shouting. Like a burst balloon, she seemed to have suddenly deflated. Her shoulders were slumped and, as he stood up and approached her, he could see tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
She wasn’t a crier. She’d once told him that crying was for small, dainty girls, that tears just didn’t suit her. Even when he had walked away from her for the best possible reasons, she had been distraught and her eyes had filled up and her lips had wobbled but she had managed to hang on to her self-control. So to see her so utterly crushed did something to him.
‘Why are you so good at making me feel so bad?’ he murmured half to himself, reaching into his pocket and extracting a pristine white handkerchief. He didn’t think she had heard him but once the words were out of his mouth, he realised that no truer ones had ever been spoken because, lurking just below the surface, just beyond the reach of consciousness, there had always been the unpleasant suspicion that he had not behaved properly towards her. Seeing her again had brought all those hidden feelings rushing to the top.
He pushed the handkerchief into her hands and then, still working on automatic, he put his arms around her. It was electrifying. His mind cleared of everything but the sensation of her against him. It was hauntingly familiar, from the length of her to the slenderness of her boyish frame. Her breasts, small and rounded and soft, pressed against his chest and he was overwhelmed by a suffocating desire to shove up her top and slide his hands underneath her bra so that he could caress her. The swiftness of his response, almost as though his body had been waiting for just this moment for a very long time, galvanized him into action and he released her abruptly and turned away.
Alex sniffed into the handkerchief, missing the sudden lack of warmth while cursing herself for having disintegrated like a fool in front of him.
‘What sort of man do you think I am?’ Gabriel demanded, sinking into the chair, half conscious of his inappropriate arousal. ‘What would give you the idea that I intend to keep my own son out of sight?’
‘You’re not interested in visiting rights.’ Alex blew her nose and subsided back into her chair. For once, she wished that she was blessed with long hair so that she could let it fall against her face like a silky curtain, blocking out her weepy, puffy eyes and blotchy skin. ‘Which means that you’re not committed to seeing Luke. I realise that all this must be a terrible shock for you, but…’
‘Stop trying to second guess me. I intend to take my responsibilities head on. I won’t be abandoning my own son because he doesn’t happen to fit in with my lifestyle. But you’re right. It’s a great shock and it will be an enormous upheaval.’ He sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair.
‘It’s not as bad for you as it could be,’ Alex said with a stab at optimism.
‘Run that by me?’
Her eyes tangled with his dark, piercing gaze and she felt her bones turn to water. This was precisely the sort of out-of-control feeling that she had to stop.
‘I’m sure Cristobel would understand. I mean, it was something that happened before you met her! In fact, chances are that she’ll feel sorry for you.’
‘Really? I’m not seeing it.’
Frankly, nor could Alex but, before she could plough on with her upbeat approach, he raised his hand to silence her.
‘I will naturally have to announce this situation to the world,’ he said heavily. ‘Starting with my parents.’ He imagined their disappointed faces. They had both seen it as their mission to marry him off and the upcoming wedding had been planned meticulously for months. He had distanced himself from as much of the tedious detail as he could get away with, but he still knew that his parents were like a couple of kids on Christmas Eve with their excited preparations and never ending lists of people to invite.
‘Then there is Cristobel. There is no question that the wedding will have to be called off.’
For a few seconds, Alex wondered whether she had heard correctly and she stared at him with a blank, uncomprehending face.
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked in genuine bewilderment.
Gabriel wondered whether she could really be that naive. Hadn’t she already clocked that, by detonating her little hand grenade, she was, in passing, doing herself a massive financial favour? A quick glance around him was enough to confirm that hers was a life devoid of any luxury.
‘You don’t think that I would really agree to have my son brought up in these conditions, do you?’
‘These conditions? There’s nothing wrong with where we live! Have you any idea how hard I’ve worked to be able to afford this place? Even with Mum and Dad having to help out now and again?’
‘Yes, and here’s where I come in. You can start relaxing.’
Having digressed, Alex brought the conversation back to its origin and again asked him what he meant by having to call off his wedding.
/> ‘I have a child and no child of mine will be raised illegitimate. Connect the dots, Alex.’
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’
‘I don’t see all that many choices staring me in the face, do you?’
Alex felt the weight of pain settle in her chest like a rock. Five years ago, she could have thought of nothing better than to receive a marriage proposal from this man. She would have abandoned all thoughts of a university career without a backward glance. Now here he was, years down the road, proposing marriage because he could think of no other choice, given the situation in which he had found himself dragged. Did he expect her to feel grateful? She sincerely hoped not because gratitude was way down the list of things she was currently feeling.
‘Okay. So let me get this straight. You would break off your engagement to Cristobel, dump all your wedding plans to marry me because I happen to be the mother of a son you never knew you had.’
‘Like I said. Not too many options staring me in the face.’ Gabriel was surprised to find that he felt a lot less disturbed at this eventuality than he would have expected. Why was that?
Never given to the pointless luxury of introspection, it crossed his mind that his choice to marry Cristobel had perhaps been the result of silent pressure from his parents and a general logical awareness that marriage was the next step. Cristobel ticked all the boxes and she had been more than eager to oblige. On paper, it had had everything going for it. Until now. On paper, this arrangement he was proposing not only made more sense but was, in fact, a necessity.
‘We’ll have to get it done sooner rather than later,’ he mused, thinking of his parents and bracing himself for the inevitable ugly fallout. ‘My parents will doubtless be disappointed at the turn of events but knowing that we have married and given my son the Cruz surname should go a little way to easing the situation.’ He thought that Cristobel would be a rather different matter. And then there were all those wedding arrangements to un-arrange. And the further hassle of press intrusion. Like it or not, his was a public face. He would have to act swiftly to avoid even the merest whiff of a scandal.
A Spanish Birthright aka The Secret Spanish Love-Child Page 5
