One Night In Collection

by Various Authors

  ‘What?’

  Isobel pulled her hand down again and stared at the picture with disbelieving eyes.

  The smiling face that looked back at her was amazingly like Emma’s: dancing eyes, baby-soft cheeks, dimples, and a generous mouth. But, although the child’s hair was the same colour as Emma’s, it was much longer, glossy ringlets framing the small face.

  Isobel caught her breath.

  He was right. It wasn’t Emma. If she’d paid more attention to the picture before jumping in with both feet, she’d have noticed this. And the fact that Emma didn’t have the kind of dress Caterina was wearing.

  Indeed, Emma was a tomboy. She could usually be found in dungarees and a tee-shirt, small boots on her feet as she helped Aunt Olivia clean out the horses’ stalls.

  Of course, she wore a dress sometimes. But nothing as elaborate as this. If Isobel wasn’t mistaken, Caterina’s dress was silk. Not the kind of thing she would dress her daughter in at all.

  She looked up and found Alejandro was still watching her. With burning cheeks, she said, ‘All right. It’s not a picture of Emma. I was mistaken.’ She paused. ‘But don’t pretend you didn’t do that on purpose.’

  ‘Do what on purpose?’

  He was all innocence, and Isobel was infuriated.

  ‘Drop the picture so I would see it,’ she retorted, thrusting it onto the arm of his chair. ‘You’re not a clumsy man, Alejandro. You wanted me to see it. You wanted me to jump to the obvious conclusion.’

  ‘Was it obvious?’ Alejandro regarded her for another long, disturbing moment. Then he picked up the small photograph and slotted it back into his wallet. ‘Contudo,’ he added. ‘Nevertheless, I think it proves my point, do you not think so?’

  Isobel blew out a weary breath. ‘Okay, okay,’ she said, deciding there was nothing to be gained from arguing with him. ‘You are Emma’s father.’ Her nails dug into her palms. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘You ask me that?’ Alejandro’s voice was harsh with anger now. ‘Meu Deus, Isobel, did you not think I had a right to know?’

  ‘To know what?’ Isobel was trembling, but she refused to be intimidated. ‘That you’d accidently impregnated a woman you had sex with while you were in London?’

  Alejandro swore now. ‘It was not like that and you know it.’

  ‘What was it like, then? You tell me.’ Isobel was on a roll now and she wasn’t ready to back down. ‘You seduced me, Alejandro. Oh, I admit, I didn’t put up much opposition. I was reckless, I know that. But don’t pretend it was some lasting affair and you were the innocent party.’

  Alejandro scowled. ‘You do not know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Isobel got to her feet again, gazing down at him with accusing eyes. ‘Don’t you remember what you said, Alejandro? You promised you’d come back to England. You insisted it wasn’t just a one-night stand. But—hello—it’s been over three years, and until you brought me here I hadn’t heard a word from you.’

  ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Can you?’ Isobel didn’t want to hear his excuses, didn’t want to hear anything that might make her regret her outburst. ‘I actually believed you, Alejandro. I did think I’d see you again. But now I find that you got married as soon as you got back to Brazil.’

  ‘Not as soon as I got back to Brazil,’ Alejandro contradicted her harshly, pushing himself to his feet now so that he had the height advantage, not her. ‘When I said you did not know what you were talking about, I meant the accident. While you were hating my guts, no doubt, I was in the hospital in Rio, in no fit state to contact you or anyone else.’

  Isobel took a deep breath. So, she thought, he had an excuse after all. There was nothing she could say now that could counter that.

  Still, she consoled herself defensively, it wasn’t her fault he’d had an accident. And he’d had plenty of time since then to get in touch with her. Just because he’d suddenly—what? Remembered her? Got a conscience? Why had he sought her out after all this time?

  Backing up a bit, not wanting him to suspect how his nearness affected her, Isobel lifted her shoulders in a dismissive gesture. ‘So—I’m sorry. But I don’t see what you expect me to do now.’

  Alejandro uttered a disbelieving oath. ‘You do not see?’ he echoed hoarsely, taking a step towards her. ‘You think that by admitting Emma is my daughter you have absolved yourself of all responsibility for what happens in the future?’

  ‘No.’ Isobel forced herself not to back away again. ‘But you can’t pretend that you feel something for a child you’ve never even seen!’

  ‘Oh, I have seen her,’ retorted Alejandro, his hot breath lifting the hair against her forehead, and Isobel gasped.

  ‘You came to England?’

  ‘Not to see her, no,'Alejandro said, admitting he had been in London. He remembered how poignant his memories of the city and Isobel had seemed at that time. He sighed now. ‘But the Internet is a wonderful thing. And photographs transfer so well.’

  Isobel gazed up at him, aghast. ‘But you said—’

  ‘Sim? What did I say?’

  ‘You let me think you didn’t have any pictures of Emma.’

  ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘You know you did.’ Isobel struggled to sort her confused thoughts into some semblance of order. ‘Are you telling me you have been stalking me after all?’

  Alejandro groaned. He’d been afraid she might see it like this. ‘For your information, the Cabral company employs a firm of trouble-shooters to police our European operation. They work out of the London office, and I asked one of them—a friend of mine called Andrew Hardy—to check up on you.’

  Isobel gasped. ‘I don’t believe it. Why would you do a thing like that?’

  Alejandro shrugged now. ‘Why not?’ His lips twisted as he remembered the heart-searching he’d indulged in before giving Andrew the go-ahead. ‘Perhaps I was curious about you. After all, we did share something which I, at least, considered worthy of revisiting.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Isobel stepped back from him now and he saw the look of contempt in her eyes. ‘Don’t pretend you ever cared about me.’ She shook her head. ‘Alejandro, you married someone else. After we had been together. Please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending our relationship meant anything to you. Not then and not now.’

  Alejandro’s jaw tightened. ‘Not now, I agree,'he said bitterly, and Isobel caught her breath. ‘I am not a complete fool.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I think you know, cara.’ His tone was scornful. ‘I see the way you look at me, the way you back off every time I invade your space.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Isobel couldn’t let him go on thinking such a thing. ‘It’s just—it’s just—’

  She stumbled to a halt, incapable of voicing something she was unwilling to admit even to herself.

  How could she tell him what she was really feeling? Trapped in the emotion of the moment, it would be so easy to destroy the promises she’d made to herself, to put not just her own but Emma’s future at risk.

  ‘You see?’ he said harshly, totally misunderstanding her hesitation. ‘I knew it yesterday morning when I held you in my arms. You can deny it if you wish, but you cannot deny that as soon as I let you go you could not wait to get away.’

  ‘Senhora Silveira was there,’ protested Isobel, but Alejandro was unconvinced.

  ‘So?’ he mocked. ‘I do not repulse you, querida?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Of course not!’ He mimicked her words, dragging the heel of his hand over the diagonal ridge that scarred his face. ‘You are attracted to a man such as me?’ And, when he saw her shaking her head, he muttered grimly. ‘I thought not.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I understand only too well,’ he said, crowding her against the vine-covered trellis behind her, and it took every scrap of determination Isobel had to stand her ground.

  ‘Alejandro.’
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  But, before she could say any more, she was silenced by the savage pressure of his mouth covering hers.

  There was no tenderness in his kiss. He didn’t hold her with any of the warmth and sensitivity he’d shown the previous day. Indeed, he made no attempt to hold her at all, though the hard strength of his body enveloped her in his heat.

  The kiss was intended to punish her, and when he forced her lips to part she tasted blood on her tongue. He couldn’t fail to taste it too, she thought, and the muffled oath he uttered seemed to confirm this.

  Yet it didn’t halt his fierce assault or the hungry possession of his mouth. With every thrust of his tongue, he was proving that he wanted her, and she was fairly sure that hadn’t been his intention at all.

  ‘Raios o partam!’ he groaned. ‘Damn you!’ He spoke against her lips, and her lungs inhaled his breath, his scent. Then almost angrily he reached for her, gripping her hips and forcing her into even closer contact with his aroused body.

  ‘I want you,’ he said roughly. ‘I want to be inside you.’ He drew back to look down at her, his expression harsh with loathing. ‘And how crazy is that?’

  ‘Alejandro…’

  But someone was coming, with heavier footsteps than the maid who had brought the tray of fruit juice. Alejandro turned to face the newcomer with what he told himself was a feeling of relief.

  ‘Carlos,’ he said tightly as the older man appeared in the doorway. ‘You are just in time. I think our guest is ready for your tour.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘YOU enjoyed your outing to Alex’s estancia?’

  It was the following afternoon. Despite the fact that Isobel had returned to the Villa Mimosa in plenty of time to spend the previous afternoon with Anita, the older woman had not been available.

  According to Ricardo, she’d been suffering another of her migraines. But Isobel couldn’t help wondering if the frequency of these attacks was due more to her presence than to any innate weakness on Anita’s part.

  Now, with Anita watching her with shrewd, assessing eyes, Isobel felt the colour flooding into her throat and rising irresistibly into her face. ‘Um, yes, senhora. Very much,’ she said uneasily, wondering whether Alejandro had spoken to his mother-in-law since her return. Carlos had brought her back to the villa, but Alejandro could have phoned.

  Or visited, come to that. How would she have known?

  ‘You did not think it was a little remote, being so far from the city?’ Anita persisted.

  ‘I—no.’ Isobel didn’t know what Anita was getting at. ‘I just thought it was very beautiful.’

  Anita clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘You use that word a lot, do you not, Ms Jameson? You think my home is—’ she made quotation marks with her fingers ‘—beautiful, or so you said. And now you think Alex’s estancia is—’ once again she snapped her fingers together ‘—beautiful also.’ She snorted. ‘I trust this article you are hoping to write will not be filled with euphemisms too.’

  ‘They’re not euphemisms, senhora.’ Isobel was defensive.

  ‘No?'Anita was sceptical. ‘Perhaps you say what you think your listener wants to hear?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘How well did you and Alex know one another when he was in London? Tell me, did you only come here to see him?’

  Isobel was shocked at the change of topic. ‘No,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Perhaps you have changed your mind since you got here?’ Anita suggested coldly. ‘The Alex you knew in London must have been much different from the man you see today.’

  Isobel caught her breath. ‘I had no idea Alejandro was your son-in-law,’ she protested, wondering what he had said to arouse such a response.

  ‘But that does not really answer my question, does it, senhora?'Anita retorted sharply. ‘Does his appearance offend you? You were evidently unaware he had had an accident or that his injuries were so acute.’

  Isobel shook her head. ‘Really, senhora, I’d prefer it if we concentrated on less personal matters.’

  ‘So why are you trying to insinuate yourself into this family?’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘I would have thought that, as a mother yourself, you would have been eager to get back to your little girl.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How old is your daughter, Ms Jameson? She cannot be much more than a baby. Am I not right?’

  Isobel stiffened. ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked, without giving herself time to think it through.

  Anita’s lips thinned. ‘Why, because as far as I am aware, you were not married when my son-in-law first knew you, Ms Jameson. Portanto, therefore, that was only—que?—three years ago, nao?’

  Isobel expelled an uneven breath. ‘Emma’s nearly three,’ she said, not altogether truthfully. ‘Now.’ She paused. ‘Do you think we could return to the matter in hand?’

  ‘But this is the matter in hand,’ Anita contradicted her pleasantly. ‘I want to know all about you, Ms Jameson. Before I bare my soul to you, I need to be sure you are—how shall I say?—sympathetic, nao?’

  Isobel straightened her spine. They were sitting in the library today, where Ricardo had told her Anita did most of her work. A large room, with walls lined with leather-bound volumes, it was a little oppressive, like the rest of the house.

  There was a square mahogany desk in the middle of the floor, and Anita was seated in the leather chair behind it. Isobel had been confined to a stiff-backed dining chair, intended to put her in her place, she was sure.

  ‘I’m sure my life hasn’t been half as eventful as yours, senhora,’ she said now, hoping to distract the woman. ‘Can we talk about your first book? I’ve read that you wrote it while you were recovering from the birth of your daughter, Miranda.’

  ‘Actually, the birth you are referring to was of my son, Miguel,’ retorted Anita shortly. ‘He died when he was only a few weeks old. I was recovering from his death, not Miranda’s birth.’

  ‘Oh.’ Isobel hadn’t known that. Indeed, in all the publicity she’d read about Anita, there’d been no mention of a son. But it might explain the tone of the book, which was distinctly sombre. ‘I apologise, senhora. I had no wish to intrude.’

  ‘But is that not what you are doing?’ asked Anita, arching dark brows interrogatively.

  ‘Only as far as your books are concerned,’ Isobel assured her firmly. She was sure Sam was expecting some personal details too, but she had no intention of writing an exposé.

  She bit her lip. ‘Returning to your first book, senhora—is the hero of the story based on anyone in history? It has been suggested that you’ve used Shakespeare’s interpretation of Richard the Third as a source for your character, Alonzo.’

  ‘When did you get married, Ms Jameson?’

  Once again, Isobel was taken aback. But clearly Anita had no intention of continuing with the interview until she was satisfied with Isobel’s answers.

  ‘Um, when I was twenty-one,’ she replied truthfully, and then realised that wasn’t the answer Anita had been looking for.

  ‘Twenty-one?’ she echoed in some surprise. ‘So you were married when you met Alex.’ Her lips pursed consideringly. ‘Does he know this?’

  Isobel sighed. ‘I was divorced two years later,’ she said resignedly. ‘My marriage to David was not a success. As a matter of fact, he was killed in an earthquake in Indonesia just a year after we separated.’

  ‘But you married again?'Anita insisted. ‘Emma cannot be your late husband’s child.’

  ‘No.’ Isobel didn’t know where this was leading, but she didn’t like it. ‘I’ve been single for about six years.’

  ‘Ah.’ Anita’s tongue circled her lips as if in satisfaction. ‘So your daughter is illegitimate, is she not?’

  Isobel gasped. She could hardly speak, she was so angry. ‘I think that’s my business, senhora,’ she got out at last. ‘And, if you’re going to waste time discussing my private life, I think we should abandon the interview, don’t you?’


  ‘Oh, Ms Jameson!’ Anita’s expression was contrite now. ‘I did not mean to offend you.’ Although Isobel was sure she had. ‘Forgive me, senhora. I am a writer, and naturally I am interested in the lives of everyone I come into contact with.’ Her smile was penitent. ‘Please do not upset yourself. How you choose to live your life is your concern, of course.’

  Yes, it is, thought Isobel furiously.

  She badly wanted to walk out then. Despite Anita’s facile plea for forgiveness, she didn’t trust her an inch. But her uncle was depending on her, and she’d dealt with more awkward interviews. If only she knew what Alejandro’s intentions might be…

  Alejandro turned into the drive of the Villa Mimosa and parked the Lexus some distance from the house. He didn’t want to encounter Anita unless he had to. It was Isobel—and Isobel alone—he’d come to see.

  It was three days since he’d seen her, three days since he’d asked Carlos to drive her back to the villa. Three days, during part of which time he’d immersed himself in savage physical activity; anything to help him come to terms with the fact that his feelings for Isobel were not something he could control.

  It was so frustrating.

  He’d thought about her a lot over the years, though he doubted she would believe that. Particularly when he’d been lying in a hospital bed, having to accept the fact that he was never going to be the man he’d been before the accident.

  By then, his injuries had no longer been life-threatening, but the torn ligaments in his thigh meant that he would never walk normally again. And the plastic surgeons had had to concede that even a series of operations would not save the right side of his face from being permanently scarred.

  He’d been bitter then. He’d felt like a gargoyle, a monster; he’d felt sure no woman would look at him without either loathing or pity—and the idea of returning to London and laying himself open to Isobel’s revulsion had not been on the cards.

  Of course, over time, things had improved. He’d realised, with some amazement, that there were women who actually found his injuries appealing. They regarded him as some latter-day Prometheus, who’d fought off pain and injury and won through. Or perhaps, he’d decided in his more cynical moments, his fabulous wealth could overcome a multitude of sins.