by Abby Green
‘Not good enough.’ He folded his arms.
Skye flushed. ‘When I read the news about your engagement announcement, I thought it would be the best opportunity to get close enough to tell you.’
He arched a brow. ‘How convenient that this opportunity also maximised your impact by ensuring you’d be splashed all over the tabloids.’
Skye frowned. ‘Tabloids?’
Lazaro’s mouth thinned. ‘Don’t pretend ignorance now, after that stunt. You knew damn well the press would be there.’
Her conscience pricked when she thought of the look of horror and shock on his fiancée’s face. ‘I thought... I made a judgement that the only way I’d get your attention would be to do...what I did.’
Lazaro was grim. ‘Well, you have my attention. You assured me after our night together that you understood “how these things go”. Were you lying?’
‘No.’ Skye choked out, but her conscience pricked.
She could recall how tempted she’d been to indulge the fantasy and stay a little longer the following morning. But the memory of her mother falling in and out of lust and love had come back to haunt her, and Skye had been too terrified to give in to the urge to linger, when everyone knew one-night stands never went anywhere.
‘I meant what I said that morning. Obviously I wasn’t aware that...that something had happened.’
Namely, a baby.
Now he sounded accusing. ‘I asked if you were protected and you said, “It’s fine”. You lied.’
Skye bit her lip. All she could remember was the desperation she’d felt in that moment for him to join their bodies. For him not to stop. She’d never been so desperate for anything in her life. But, even so, she hadn’t completely lost her mind.
She shook her head. ‘I really did think it would be okay. I thought I was at a safe place in my cycle.’
He made a dismissive noise. ‘How do I even know you’re pregnant? You don’t look pregnant.’
Skye didn’t know whether to be flattered or dismayed that her growing belly wasn’t obvious. She put her free hand there. ‘I am pregnant. I had my three-month scan last week, to confirm that everything was okay. That’s why I waited till now... Sometimes things happen...’
There was a heavy silence as he digested that, and then he said, ‘How can you be certain I’m the father?’
Skye was immediately indignant. ‘I’ve had sex once—with you. No one else.’
* * *
They’d had sex twice that night, actually. But Lazaro wasn’t about to issue that reminder, because those X-rated memories were far too vivid and recent as it was.
He saw a dull flush rise up under her pale skin and felt a corresponding jump in his pulse. His blood was running hot, but he told himself it was anger, not lust.
He looked at the small pale hand that rested over her still flat belly. It was almost impossible to accept the revelation that she was pregnant. With his child.
As someone who had been abandoned at birth by his own parents, and who had been thrown around the foster care system most of his young life, he had a jaundiced view of the bond between parents and children to say the least. And yet the thought of her having that scan without him made him feel disturbingly conflicted. As if he’d missed out on something.
He’d always vowed that if he did have children he would do his best by them and not abandon them. He would give them a better life than he had known. But he certainly hadn’t expected to have to think about it yet.
Even with Leonora he would have expected at least a few years to elapse before they talked about children.
He was still reeling from what had happened. The sudden and swift fall from grace.
Ha! sneered an inner voice. He’d come close to grace—that was all. Maybe it was something that would elude him for ever. Like the ultimate acceptance he craved.
He’d gone after Leonora but she’d disappeared, and he’d known it would be futile anyway. She’d told him it was over, and in her world that kind of public humiliation couldn’t be forgiven. It really was over. And so he’d come up here. To try and deal with the situation. With her.
Skye put her bag and coat down at her feet. She straightened up and her expression was contrite. Before he could stop himself Lazaro was struck again by her natural beauty. The scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Innocent.
She said, ‘Look, I promise I didn’t intend to tell you like this. I really believed it was the only way. I didn’t mean to upset your fiancée.’
Lazaro didn’t believe this faux sincerity for a second. ‘She’s not my fiancée any more. The engagement is over.’
Skye seemed to go even paler. ‘If she loves you then maybe you can work this out—’
Lazaro emitted an involuntary laugh and held up a hand, stopping her words. ‘Love? There is no such thing as love. We weren’t marrying for love. That’s not how this works.’
Skye looked genuinely perplexed. ‘Then what were you marrying for?’
He shrugged minutely, this line of questioning making him uncomfortable. ‘Because it made sense. Because she would have helped me to get where I need to be and I would have helped her.’
‘That sounds so...cold.’
‘I would have said efficient, myself. Marriages based on such nebulous notions as love rarely last.’
Hesitantly she asked, ‘Were you together when we...met?’
‘No. It happened...just afterwards.’
Lazaro felt even more uncomfortable when he recalled how the intensity of his experience with Skye had left him feeling hungry for more, but also very wary. He was not looking for grand passion in his life. He was looking for acceptance and respect. And he needed a woman who would help him achieve it. A woman from his father’s world and the right side of it.
Leonora Flores de la Vega had already been on his radar—he’d seen her at a few events and had always been intrigued by her aloof manner. The way she always seemed slightly apart from the crowd. It had resonated with something inside him—perhaps the part that was still ostracised despite his success.
But he had to concede now that meeting Skye had spurred him on to ask Leonora out. As if that night with Skye had spooked him. Made him realise that he had a voracious hunger inside him that he’d never acknowledged before. He’d wanted to forget that he’d acted totally out of character for a moment. Put their extraordinary chemistry down to a fluke happenstance.
But it hadn’t been a fluke because he could feel it again now. An inexorable pull to this woman. A sizzling in his blood. A growing urgency to touch her again. Damn her.
‘Oh.’
Skye looked away for a moment and the irritation he was feeling at this woman’s effect on him showed in his curt response. ‘What does that mean? Oh.’
With visible reluctance she looked at him again. ‘Well... I’m very different to her. You looked good together. I can see why you chose her to be your wife.’
It was as if she could see into his mind. His skin prickled. She was right. Skye O’Hara couldn’t be more different from the very tall and svelte Leonora. But her petite curvy body and fresh-faced prettiness had a far earthier appeal to his libido than Leonora’s cool elegance. Leonora had never connected with that part of him.
In fact Skye was like no other woman he’d ever been with, and yet she’d been the one with whom he’d connected most viscerally.
She said, ‘Well, maybe this has done her a favour. Everyone deserves to be loved.’
Inexplicably, Lazaro felt an ache deep inside him. He quashed it brutally. ‘Don’t be so ridiculously sentimental. You caused this to happen by interrupting a private and exclusive gathering.’
‘Not that private or exclusive if the press were there,’ she pointed out.
Lazaro ground his teeth. ‘We are not here to debate the issue.’
She bent down then, and picked up her bag and coat. ‘No, we’re not. I came to tell you that I’m pregnant, and now that I have I’ll leave.’
She moved as if to walk out and then stopped, looking around at the maze of doors leading off in different directions.
She turned around, sheepish. ‘Can you tell me the way out, please?’
Lazaro shook his head, as much in negation of her question as to check if he was hearing her correctly. But she looked deadly serious.
Remembering how quickly she’d slipped out of his grasp once before, he went over and caught her arm, leading her over to a sofa, saying grimly, ‘You don’t get to deliver a bombshell, wreck my engagement and then walk out the door like nothing’s happened. Sit down. You’re not going anywhere.’
* * *
Skye should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. Of course a man like Lazaro Sanchez—so important that it was impossible to get in touch with him like any normal mortal—wouldn’t just let this go. And she had to concede that this had to be a huge shock for him. As much as it had been for her, and she’d had three months to absorb it now.
As if it was paining him to ask, he said, ‘Do you want something? Tea? Coffee?’
Skye appreciated the fact that he patently didn’t want her there but was being forced to be civil. ‘Maybe a glass of water?’
She was also starving. This was usually the best time of day for her to eat, when she could keep it down, but she didn’t think Lazaro was about to order her a club sandwich and fries—her current craving.
He came back from the drinks cabinet and handed her a glass of water, which she accepted gratefully. He had a glass of something for himself that looked like brandy or whisky.
He went and stood in front of one of the windows and Skye felt awed. He really did look like a titan. Master of his universe.
‘You must have known who I was,’ he said.
Skye looked at his back. ‘Excuse me?’
He turned around. ‘You knew who I was and you targeted me.’
Skye stood up, incensed, water splashing unnoticed from her glass to the rug on the floor. ‘I beg your pardon? You walked into my restaurant and sat in my section.’
Now he flushed, and a bolt of heat went straight to Skye’s groin because it reminded her of his flushed face after they’d made love. He’d looked so...sexy.
She sat back down again. ‘You didn’t tell me your name until you gave me your card and asked me to meet you at your hotel.’ She winced inwardly. It sounded so sordid when she said it like that.
‘You would have had time to look me up then—maybe that’s why you decided to meet me...when you knew it was worth it.’
‘Maybe I didn’t look you up,’ Skye shot back. ‘Maybe I decided to go because you were the sexiest man I’d ever met and I knew if I didn’t go I’d regret it.’
She stopped and bit her lip, aghast at what had just tumbled out of her mouth.
She lifted her chin. ‘I will admit that I looked you up the following day. And then I realised that you were...someone.’
It was a ridiculously ineffectual way to describe a man who had become a self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-five after setting up his own hedge fund. He’d since become a billionaire, by diversifying into the real estate market. His signature move was buying up old decrepit buildings in up-and-coming areas and restoring them.
‘So that’s when you decided to take advantage of the situation?’
Skye stood up again. ‘Unbelievable as it might seem to you, my life plan wasn’t actually to get pregnant at the age of twenty-two.’
‘Oh? And what was it then? To become the manager of that restaurant?’
‘That’s not fair. You have no idea who I am or what I want.’
Lazaro took a step towards her and said with an infuriatingly smug tone, ‘On the contrary. I think we established pretty effectively what you wanted that night.’
Skye’s cheeks were burning now, her hand gripping the glass hard. ‘There were two of us in that room, and as I recall it any wanting was pretty mutual.’
He gritted his jaw at that. ‘Why did you really come?’
‘To tell you. Don’t you want to know that you’re going to be a father?’
He studied her for such a long moment that Skye fought not to squirm, and then he shook his head.
‘You’re not just here to impart this news out of the goodness of your heart.’
Skye struggled to hold on to her temper. ‘You are being incredibly negative. Would you really have preferred that I didn’t tell you? That you had a child out in the world that you knew nothing about?’
To her surprise he blanched slightly at that, and then his face became shuttered.
‘If you are pregnant, and if the baby is mine, then of course I want to know about it. I’ll admit it’s not something I was prepared to deal with quite yet, but no child of mine will want for the lack of a father.’
His eyes glowed with an intensity that caught at Skye inside. She realised then that she hadn’t seen anything about his parents in the information she’d found about him online, and she wondered about that now. But before she could say anything else a wave of dizziness took her by surprise and she swayed on the spot.
Instantly he was at her side, taking the glass out of her grip, a hand around her arm. ‘What is it? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
She was trembling. ‘I think I need to eat something...’
‘When was the last time you ate?’
Skye just wanted to sit down. ‘Breakfast?’
If you could call a banana and a croissant that had later made its reappearance in the airport toilet breakfast.
Lazaro made a rude sound and led Skye over to a chair to sit down. He handed her the water. ‘What do you want to eat?’
She hated being weak and vulnerable like this. She’d wanted to come and face Lazaro, give him the news and then walk away with her head held high, knowing she’d done the right thing.
‘Maybe a sandwich? And some fries?’
He went over to a phone and made a call.
When he came back Skye said, ‘Thank you. I’m sorry. I really didn’t intend to cause such an upset and I didn’t intend taking up your time like this.’
He looked at her and put his hands on his hips—which only drew Skye’s attention to that lean waist.
‘So you were going to come, drop your bombshell and then leave?’
Skye winced at his thunderous expression. ‘I just wanted to let you know. I don’t expect anything from you. Maybe once the news has died down you can repair things with your fiancée...’ She saw his expression darken even more and corrected herself. ‘Sorry, ex-fiancée.’
He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. ‘I told you—Leonora won’t have anything to do with me after this.’
In fairness, Skye had to admit she had looked like a nice person. A person who didn’t deserve to be upset in public like that.
Her insides cramped with remorse. She hadn’t handled this very well at all.
Just then a chiming sound rang through the room, and Lazaro sent her a dark look before he went to the door. He came back with a tray. On it was a plate covered with a silver dome.
‘Come into the kitchen.’
Skye dutifully followed Lazaro, trying not to notice the sexy athleticism of his stride. Or feel hurt that he was going to take her into that utilitarian kitchen to eat—probably for fear she’d drop crumbs all over his pristine suite.
He must have been staying here in order to make the announcement. Perhaps he’d even planned on spending the night here with his fiancée. Celebrating their engagement. It was certainly romantic enough, with its stunning views of Madrid laid out around it.
Then Skye stopped on the threshold of a kitchen she hadn’t seen before. It certainly wasn’t the
one she’d been led through. This one was massive, and had state-of-the-art appliances and a sleek modern finish. There was a dining table and chairs by one window. Lazaro was putting the tray down and taking off the silver dome to reveal a very fancy-looking sandwich and fries.
Her mouth watered. She went over and sat down.
‘I thought I came up through the kitchen?’
Lazaro looked slightly discomfited. ‘I asked them to bring you up that way to avoid the paparazzi.’
‘Oh.’
* * *
She said ‘oh’ a lot. Lazaro watched, half-fascinated, as Skye tucked into the sandwich and fries with little self-consciousness. Watching a woman eat, he realised, felt like a curiously intimate thing to do. Especially when most of the women he spent time with chased a lettuce leaf around their plates.
He got another glass of sparkling water and put it down on the table. She glanced at him and wiped her mouth. Her cheeks were tinged pink as she said thank you.
They’d gone pink like that when their eyes had met in that small restaurant near his hotel in Dublin. And they’d gone even pinker when he’d asked to her join him there for a nightcap when she finished work.
She’d said Oh then too.
‘Oh... Wow... I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t know you. You could be anyone.’
He’d handed her a card from his jacket pocket. A platinum-embossed card, with his name and contact details. He’d said, ‘It’s not proof I’m not a serial killer, but I can assure you I’m not. I’m just asking you to meet me for a drink at the bar...a chance to get to know one another a little better.’
She’d looked at him with those huge blue eyes that seemed to hide nothing. ‘But what’s the point?’ she’d asked.
Lazaro had surprised himself by saying, ‘Haven’t you ever done anything totally spontaneous for no good reason but just because you want to?’
He’d also surprised himself with how much he’d wanted her to say yes. He’d expected her to jump at the invitation—as most women would—but she’d seemed genuinely torn.
