As they joined the stream of motorway traffic heading for London, a long-suffering sigh escaped her and Pascual’s head immediately snapped round.
‘What is wrong?’ he demanded.
Ruefully shrugging her shoulders, she stole a brief glance sideways at him. ‘Do you want a list?’
‘If you expect me to apologise for what happened last night, then—’
‘I don’t,’ she cut in, grimacing, ‘I hurt you by not telling you about Adán, and whether you believe me or not I’m truly sorry. I also want you to know that when we get home I’ll be telling him who you really are … that you’re his father and not … not my friend.’
‘Good. I see no reason in denying him the truth any longer.’
‘And as for going back to Buenos Aires …’ She ensed his brooding gaze suddenly cleave even more intensely to her profile—as she kept her eyes firmly on the road ahead. ‘I’ll agree to go back with you for a while at least, to give us time to come to some arrangement about the future. But I can’t stay away too long because I’ve had a court summons regarding my business debt and I’ll be in serious trouble if I’m not there to answer it.’
‘That is nothing to worry about.’
‘To you it might not be, but it certainly is something to worry about as far as I’m concerned!’
‘I mean that I will pay the debt on your behalf. Since I am to be your husband, then naturally I will take responsibility for it.’
‘Now, wait a minute I—’
‘Watch the road!’
In the blink of an eye Briana suddenly found that they were far too close to the rear bumper of the car in front of her. Guiltily, her stomach turning over in fright, she eased down on her speed. ‘Sorry.’
‘As I said …’ Pascual continued, without so much as a hint of warmth or conciliation in his accented voice. ‘I will pay this debt for you and then you can forget about your business.’
‘Do you think what I do is so unimportant I can just cast it aside as if it was nothing? Besides … I can hardly forget about it when I have an employee to think of. What will Tina do if she doesn’t work for me?’
‘This was the only job you’ve had on your books for some time, so I gather?’
‘What are you saying? How did you—?’ Her shoulders hunching in resignation, Briana sighed. ‘Tina. I should have guessed.’
‘She has already told me that she temps from time to time in between jobs. She seems a resourceful girl to me … she will be okay. And you will have other important occupations to think of when we go back to Argentina.’
‘All right … That aside … if you pay this debt for me—and I will only agree to let you do so because of Adán—then you know I will have to insist on paying you back, Pascual?’
‘Now you are being foolish.’
‘I won’t accept your help unless you agree to let me pay you back. I mean it!’
Sighing, as if she was taxing him to the very limits of his patience, the man beside her reluctantly nodded. ‘Okay, okay! Just concentrate on the road, will you? Or we will find ourselves in the hospital instead of at your house!’
‘My driving’s not that bad!’
To Briana’s complete disconcertion he chuckled, and her skin broke out into tingling gooseflesh at the sound. ‘Not as bad as some I know, I will agree.’
‘I suppose you’re referring to women in particular?’ Unable to prevent the sharp slash of jealousy that ripped through her at the thought of Pascual with another beautiful model like Claudia, or worse Claudia herself, her mood grew even more despondent.
‘Are you jealous, carina?’ he drawled softly.
‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’
‘So … today we will put your business affairs in order, and tomorrow I will organise our travel arrangements. I will also ring home and instruct Sofia to make ready a room near us for Adán.’
‘Sofia is still with you?’
The older Spanish woman who was Pascual’s housekeeper had always been so sweet to Briana, and she had never forgotten her kindness. Of all the people she had met when she’d stayed in Palermo, she was the one who had truly accepted her for herself and had never given her the slightest inkling that she disparaged where she came from. She’d been totally happy with Briana because Pascual—whom she revered—loved her.
‘Of course!’
For a moment Pascual sounded nonplussed, as if he could hardly fathom why anyone he employed would even think of leaving him to work for someone else. And of course he was right. As far as Briana had been able to observe he was a fair and generous employer, and Sofia clearly idolised him.
‘And you, of course,’ he continued, his magnetic voice lowering, ‘will not need a room of your own—because you will be sharing my quarters.’
The possessive intent with which he shared this last piece of information made her hair bristle, but she held onto her indignation … just.
‘Perhaps in the light of what happened yesterday, it might be best if we kept our relationship purely platonic?’ she ventured.
‘I was mad at you yesterday … but my anger at you will not interfere with the physical side of our relationship in future, I promise you.’
‘Well, I—’
‘There is one thing I assure you our marriage will not be, Briana, and that is platonic!’
‘Even though I leave you cold?’ The small nugget of hurt inside her chest was like a sharp stone as she remembered the insult. She sensed his glance intensify again.
‘I did not say your body left me cold … far from it!’
‘But—’
‘Call me arrogant, if you will … but I know that my body does not leave you cold either. If nothing else we can at least take consolation in our mutual desire for each other and in being good parents.’
Biting her lip on a despondent retort, Briana concentrated all her attention on the road ahead for the rest of the trip. The only time she allowed her thoughts to wander was when she tried to imagine how Adán was going to receive the news that the man she had introduced to him yesterday as a friend was really his father …
‘Do you really think this is the right thing to do, Briana?’
Standing in her daughter’s kitchen, Frances Douglas cupped her hands round her recently made mug of coffee and frowned in concern.
‘I honestly don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out, won’t we? I feel so torn, Mum. It was very wrong of me to keep Adán from Pascual … I know that now. And I owe it to him to at least give this marriage he’s suggesting a try. Can you imagine how he’s feeling right now, learning that he’s been a father for the past four years and didn’t even know it?’
Pushing her hair away from her eyes, Briana leant back against the kitchen worktop and folded her arms.
‘He’s in the living room with Adán, down on the floor playing cars, and already they look like they’re crazy about each other! Adán was so pleased to learn Pascual was his dad … His little face lit up as if he could hardly believe it. I didn’t expect that. You know how reticent he can be about meeting new people, don’t you? It’s as though the natural bond between them was just waiting for the chance to be forged. Okay, so there’s the not so small matter of Pascual living in Argentina, but it’s only natural that he wants his son to be with him there. Adán can have a good life there, and we won’t have to struggle any more. There are lots of pluses.’
‘Adán can have a good life, you said? What about you, Briana?’ her mother asked thoughtfully. ‘Can you live with a man you’ve already told me can’t possibly love you, who bears resentment towards you because you kept his son from him?’
‘Pascual’s not like Dad, Mum. I don’t mean to upset you, but he wouldn’t be deliberately cruel to me … I know that.’
Frances’s light grey eyes—so like her daughter’s—narrowed. ‘Withholding love from someone has got to be about the cruellest thing there is in my book,’ she said softly, and Briana shivered as th
ough someone had just walked over her grave …
Buenos Aires … three days later
The heat was like a sultry tropical kiss as soon as they stepped out of the plane. Even though they were only in the airport terminal, the sense that they were somewhere much more exotic and different from home was palpable immediately. Breathing in the myriad scents and the atmosphere of being back in the city that she had embraced with such excitement and hope when she’d first arrived there five years ago, for a beguiling moment Briana felt her fears and doubts replaced by unexpected optimism.
A short time later, in the chauffeur-driven Mercedes that had been waiting to pick them up, she had a chance to view their location more closely through discreetly tinted windows, her hands in her lap and her gaze soaking up everything she saw just like a child … just as if she were seeing it all for the very first time. Someone had described the city as the ‘Paris of South America’, and with its sweeping boulevards and grand architecture, she could easily understand why. But Briana also knew that every barrio or district had its own distinct features that reflected the multiplicity of cultures that resided there. Some were not grand at all, but intimate, lively and colourful.
Next to her, Adán had fallen asleep, his curly dark head against Pascual’s suited shoulder, the child’s sweeping long lashes and hair the same intense sable of his father’s. Glancing at them both, she felt her breath catch. That bond they seemed to have instantly forged on sight was growing ever stronger, she intuited, and would continue to deepen the more time they spent together.
‘How are you feeling?’ His disturbing gaze touching hers, Pascual raised an enquiring brow.
‘Fine. Hardly tired at all after the journey.’
Having imagined that the trip to Argentina would raise all kinds of challenges and concerns—not least because of the tension between herself and Pascual—Briana had figured without the effortless reassurance of first-class luxury travel. Her husband-to-be had only to click his fingers, it seemed, and the attentive flight staff would bring them anything they desired … from a four-course gourmet meal to champagne on ice.
Taking Pascual at his word when he had urged her to ‘rest and relax’ while he chatted to their son, to her complete surprise Briana had soon found herself dozing comfortably in her luxurious seat in the blissfully quiet first-class cabin, and in no time at all it seemed they had arrived in Argentina.
‘I meant how do you feel about being back in Buenos Aires?’
Nervous, apprehensive, scared you’ll keep on punishing me and I won’t be able to stand it … Clutching her slender hands tighter in her lap, Briana bravely met Pascual’s penetrating unsmiling glance, then sighed. ‘I can’t tell you that yet. It’s a bit like a dream right now.’
‘Not a nightmare?’
For a startling moment Briana saw a flash of what she thought was genuine apprehension on Pascual’s arresting face, but he seemed to recover quickly and revert to complete control of his emotions—as though that possible moment of doubt and fear had never transpired.
‘Not a nightmare … no. I—’
‘I have been in touch with Marisa and Diego … remember them?’ he cut in, his tone lighter.
‘Of course I remember them!’ A burst of warmth infiltrated Briana’s tense insides as she recalled the affluent couple she had worked for once upon a time—the couple in whose house she had first met Pascual.
‘Sabrina … their little girl … she must be—what? Nearly six now?’
‘That’s right. They are looking forward to seeing you again—and to meeting Adán of course.’
‘You told them—you told them about Adán?’
She saw his jaw briefly harden. ‘Did you think I would not tell my closest friends about the fact that I have a son?’
Putting her hands briefly up to her face, Briana shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I was … I suppose I’m just a bit nervous about meeting people who knew me before. People who knew me when I was with you.’
‘Because you fear their judgement? Marisa and Diego have too much innate good sense and class to be influenced by what others say.’
This announcement hardly reassured Briana. She was too busy wondering what kind of reception she would receive from Pascual’s family when she finally met them again, and fearing the encounter would merely confirm their worst thoughts about her. That she had proved to them she wasn’t worthy of marrying Pascual five years ago, and she was even less worthy now!
CHAPTER EIGHT
HEADING north, they soon arrived in Palermo, where Pascual’s impossibly grand and palatial house was situated. Remembering the first time she had seen it, having already been bowled over by the size and beauty of Marisa and Diego’s spectacular residence, just a few lanes away, Briana could still recall her jaw dropping at her first glimpse of the dazzling white mansion with its secluded drive lined with acacia and tipuana trees.
It looked no less beautiful and imposing now, resplendent in the late-afternoon sunshine, and not for the first time she was seized with nerves at seriously contemplating living there for good. The parallels with her experience of living two weekends out of four with her father in his large house in Dorset—far less grand than this—still hovered painfully in her mind. She hadn’t ever fitted in there, nor been made welcome, and she wondered how she would fare now in Pascual’s palatial home. Trepidation was gathering inside her at the prospect of seeing his family again … especially his mother Paloma, who had disliked Briana on sight.
Drawing her attention firmly back to the present, Adán stirred, suddenly wide awake and alert. His big eyes wide, he sat up and stared curiously through the tinted windows of the car at the huge mansion looming up in front of them. He had never travelled on a plane before, nor been abroad, so this was a day of firsts he would probably always remember.
Affectionately, Briana gave his small shoulders a squeeze. ‘We’re here, darling.’ She smiled.
‘You mean this is Daddy’s house?’ he asked, dark eyes round as saucers.
‘Sí, hijo … This is my house—and yours too.’ The small boy between them was not the only one who had excitement and pride reflected in his gaze. In fact, if Briana wasn’t mistaken, there was a definite glint of moisture in Pascual’s eyes as well. This was a momentous occasion for him, she realized—and not just because his son had just referred to him as ‘Daddy’ for the first time. He was a proud man—proud of his family, his country and his lineage. To bring his son home at last meant everything to him.
‘And what about Mummy?’ Adán demanded, a momentary frown on his clear smooth brow. ‘Is it her house too?’
Her heart racing, she found herself under Pascual’s disturbing intense scrutiny once again. Briana swore she could hear the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins.
‘Sí, Adán … This will be your mother’s home as well from now on. We will all live here together.’
Their glances met and held, and a frisson of electricity buzzed through her whole system, radiating from deep inside her womb and making her more intimately aware of him than was frankly comfortable or desirable, given the circumstances.
How did she do that? Pascual wondered, feeling dazed. Look at him with such a relatively innocent glance and make him immediately long to be alone with her, so that he could tear off her clothing with barely restrained urgency and join his aching needy body to hers … so that he could breathe her breath and taste her beguiling flavours until he was intoxicated—drunk on sensuality and desire so that he barely knew his own name any more. No woman before or since had ever made him feel like that. How he had walked out on her the other night he did not know. Except that fury and pain had overcome him and he had not been able to contain it. That would not happen the next time he found himself in bed with her! he vowed.
As the car drew up in front of the wide gleaming steps that led to the double-doored entrance, Pascual forced himself to attend to the present as his chauffeur smartly came round to ope
n the car doors. Taking Adán with him as he left the vehicle, he scooped the little boy up high into his arms against his chest. Waiting a moment or two for Briana to join them, and admiring the tantalising glimpse of slender thigh as her blue silk skirt revealingly rode up as she left the passenger seat, he even managed a smile in her direction before leading the way into the house.
And if at that moment he felt proud, possessive and protective of his newly acquired family—then let no man dare to question or blame him! Right then he did not even want to question his own need to include Briana as family.
‘Señor Dominguez!’
Sofia—brimming with happiness and comfortingly familiar in gleaming white blouse and black-tiered skirt—greeted him as he stepped inside onto the black and white marble floor, Adán in his arms and Briana hanging back a little as though shy. Totally spontaneously he reached for her hand and pulled her to his side, pleasure exploding inside him like a firecracker at the impossibly soft touch of her skin.
‘Holà, Sofia!’ Grinning at the barely contained joy that radiated from the older woman’s face, noting her eager glance dart from Adán to himself and then Briana, as if all her Christmases and birthdays had come at once, he wasn’t surprised when she got out a lacy white handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
‘I am so, so happy to see you all back safe!’ she declared, in clear, well-spoken English. ‘And to see the little one … your son … I can hardly believe it!’ Jamming the dainty white square back into the fulsome pocket of her skirt, she slid her hands round Adán’s startled face and proceeded to kiss him soundly on both cheeks. ‘Holà, Adán … I am Sofia, and I am honoured to meet you.’
‘He is a little shy,’ Pascual said tenderly as he set Adán on his feet and slid a reassuring arm round his shoulders. Glancing round at Briana, he gripped her hand more tightly for a moment, surprised to feel her tremble. ‘And you remember Briana, Sofia?’
‘Sí … of course I remember her!’
Without preamble, the housekeeper pulled Briana towards her for an enthusiastic hug, and after observing the younger woman’s initial stiffness in the other woman’s arms Pascual sensed his own breath ease out when he saw her slender shoulders drop a little. She hugged Sofia back.
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