Housekeeper in the Headlines

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘Bun,’ he’d said happily, before going off to investigate a pile of colourful plastic bricks.

  The nursery was at least four times the size of the box room at the cottage, where Sebastian had slept in a travel cot that had belonged to the landlord. Guilt had been like a lead weight in the pit of Betsy’s stomach as she’d acknowledged that Carlos could provide Sebastian with the kind of affluent lifestyle that would have been impossible for her to do on her income from her bar job and her paintings.

  ‘This is your room,’ Carlos had told her, and he’d opened a door from the nursery into an adjoining bedroom.

  Betsy hadn’t known whether she felt relieved or disappointed that he clearly did not expect her to sleep in his room straight away.

  She pulled her mind back to the present and added a few more brushstrokes of white paint around the muzzle on the portrait she was working on. This commission had been a welcome surprise. The owners of the Labrador she’d painted while she had been at the cottage had been delighted with the portrait, which she’d had taken to the framers just before she’d left Fraddlington with Carlos. They had recommended her to a friend of theirs, and her new client had emailed photos of his beautiful chocolate and white Springer Spaniel.

  It felt good to be painting again. Betsy had brought her brushes from England, but she’d needed more paints and canvases, and had been pleased when she’d discovered there was an art supplies shop in Toledo. She did not have a driving licence, but Carlos had arranged for his driver to take her into the city whenever she wanted to go.

  When she’d walked into the art shop for the first time she’d carried her Spanish phrasebook, but to her relief the young assistant there spoke fluent English, albeit with a distinctive Brummie accent.

  Hector’s arms were covered in artistic tattoos and he had long black hair and wore big silver earrings. He looked like one of the art students Betsy had known at university.

  ‘My dad is Spanish and I lived in Spain until I was twelve, when my parents split up and I moved to Birmingham with my mum,’ he’d explained.

  Hector was friendly—and ordinary, compared to Carlos’s friends, who were all wealthy high-fliers. Betsy had become a regular visitor to his art shop, and found Hector was the only person she could really talk to. There was Carlos, of course, but her awareness of him was stronger than ever. And her fear of making a fool of herself, like she’d done at the penthouse, meant that she avoided being alone with him whenever possible.

  With a faint sigh, she put down her brush and wiped her hands on a rag before she picked up her phone to read Carlos’s message.

  Come to my study so that we can discuss the wedding.

  She grimaced as she pictured his autocratic features and rashly messaged back.

  Yes, sir!

  Her old jeans were covered in paint stains. She quickly changed out of them and put on one of her new dresses—a pale lemon silk wrap style, with a pretty floral pattern. She pulled the elastic tie from her hair and slicked pink gloss over her lips, assuring herself that as Carlos’s future wife she couldn’t run around the house in her old jeans. She hadn’t changed her clothes in the hope of pleasing him, she told her reflection.

  She went through the door from her bedroom that led directly into the nursery. Sebastian had been having his morning nap while she painted, but when she stepped into the room he wasn’t in his cot. The nanny was there, folding some of Sebastian’s new clothes.

  Betsy had liked Ginette the moment she’d met her. English by birth, she had moved to Spain some twenty years ago, when she’d married her Spanish husband, and she spoke both languages fluently.

  ‘My husband and I were not blessed with children of our own,’ Ginette had explained at her interview. ‘But I have loved looking after the children of the families I worked for. Now that Ernesto has passed away, I’m looking for a live-in position.’

  Ginette smiled now, when she saw Betsy. ‘Sebastian woke up about ten minutes ago, and Carlos took him downstairs.’

  ‘We will need a period of adjustment.’

  Carlos’s words came back to Betsy and she acknowledged the truth of them. She had been her son’s sole carer since he was born, and she was finding it hard to share the responsibility for him.

  Her heart gave a jolt when she walked down the stairs and watched Sebastian toddling across the stone-flagged entrance hall, chasing after a plastic football. Carlos was crouched at one end of the hall and holding his arms out to his son.

  ‘Bueno, chico! Kick the ball, conejito.’

  ‘I think he might be a bit young to learn how to play football,’ Betsy said drily, trying to hide her emotional response to seeing Sebastian so happy with his father. She wanted to scoop her baby into her arms and breathe in the delicious scent of him, but it was Carlos’s arms that Sebastian ran to. She couldn’t pretend to herself that it didn’t hurt. ‘You’re already speaking to him in Spanish? Don’t you think it will be confusing for him? He doesn’t know many English words yet.’

  Carlos lifted Sebastian up and strolled over to her. ‘We agreed to bring him up to be bilingual,’ he reminded her. ‘And the best way for him to learn will be for him to hear words in both languages.’

  That was fine for Carlos, who spoke English as fluently as his native tongue. But she would have to learn to speak Spanish quickly, otherwise she would be excluded from the relationship that Carlos and Sebastian would share when they talked in Spanish.

  Maybe Carlos wanted to exclude her, Betsy brooded.

  His gaze narrowed on her face. ‘Is something the matter?’

  She wasn’t going to admit how vulnerable she felt. ‘I was just thinking that Sebastian has adapted well to living here.’

  ‘This is his home—and yours. Are you not adapting well, querida?’

  Betsy made a mental note to ask Ginette what querida meant. She bit her lip. ‘It’s just very different to the life I had in England.’

  Carlos stretched out his hand and ran his thumb lightly across her lower lip, where she had bitten the skin. ‘I realise that everything here is new for you, and I appreciate it that you have allowed me to bring Sebastian to Spain.’

  The warmth in his sherry-gold eyes curled around Betsy’s heart. She refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t given her much choice about where Sebastian would grow up. Since they had arrived in Toledo she’d gained a better understanding of how important it was to Carlos that Sebastian should bear his name. He was proud of his Spanish heritage and proud of his son. She saw it in the way his features softened every time he looked at the toddler who bore such a striking resemblance to him.

  Betsy did not doubt that Carlos loved Sebastian, and that was why she had agreed to marry him. But she still felt like a fish out of water in this new country where the language, culture and customs were so different from the way of life she was used to in England.

  Carlos seemed to have an uncanny knack of being able to read her thoughts. ‘You will feel more settled once you are my wife,’ he said softly.

  The golden glint in his eyes caused Betsy’s heart to miss a beat, and she could not look away from him. Time seemed to slow, and the air quivered with their mutual awareness. But then he blinked, and the connection she had sensed between them vanished. He looked across the hall and, following his gaze, she saw Ginette walking towards them.

  ‘I thought I’d put Sebastian in his pushchair and take him for a walk in the garden,’ Ginette said as she took him from Carlos.

  ‘He will need to wear sunscreen.’ Betsy was immediately a mother hen, determined to protect her chick. The temperature in Toledo in July was much hotter than the soggy English summer they had left behind. ‘And don’t forget to put the parasol up.’

  ‘Ginette is highly experienced in childcare and has excellent references,’ Carlos murmured when the nanny had carried Sebastian away.

  ‘I know.
But it’s a mother’s instinct to take care of her child and put his welfare above everything else.’

  An odd expression flickered on his face, but it was gone before Betsy could decipher it. He said no more as he opened the door to his study and ushered her into the room.

  ‘Have you heard from your parents?’ he asked, waving her to a chair before he walked around the desk and sat down.

  ‘I invited both of them to the wedding, as you suggested. But I warned you it would be pointless. My mother says she won’t attend if my father brings “the trollop he is married to now”, and Drake refuses to come without his third wife.’ She shrugged. ‘It was the same when I invited my parents to my graduation ceremony after university. They wanted me to choose between them, which I refused to do. The result was that neither of them came. I can’t please one without upsetting the other.’

  It was her childhood all over again, Betsy thought dismally. Her parents were the reason why she had never wanted to marry. Her chest felt tight with panic at the idea of being trapped in an unhappy relationship.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ she told Carlos.

  Once again he seemed to read her mind. ‘Our marriage won’t be like theirs.’

  ‘How do you know? We might fight all the time, and Sebastian will be caught in the middle like I was when I was a child.’

  ‘The whole reason we are marrying is to give him a family. We are putting our child’s needs first—which, from the sound of it, your parents failed to do with you.’

  Carlos stood up and walked around to where she was sitting. He leaned his hip against the desk, much too close for Betsy’s comfort. His fitted black trousers emphasised his rangy frame, and his white shirt was open at the throat, giving her a glimpse of his tanned skin and black chest hair.

  She sighed. If only he wasn’t so beautiful. She wished she could control her body’s unbidden response to his potent masculinity, but when she lifted her hand to her throat she could feel the betraying thud of her pulse.

  ‘You said that you would put Sebastian’s welfare above everything else,’ Carlos reminded her. ‘And that means marrying me.’

  She nodded. Sebastian adored his papà, and it had become increasingly clear to her that she did not have the right to separate her son from his father, nor deny Sebastian his Spanish heritage.

  ‘I do want him to be legitimate. I expect all brides have pre-wedding jitters,’ she forced herself to say lightly.

  Carlos released his breath slowly. ‘Is it important to you that your parents attend the wedding?’

  ‘I would like my father to give me away, and my mother to be at the church wearing an outrageous mother-of-the-bride hat.’ Betsy’s sigh was unconsciously wistful. ‘But it will be easier if they’re not there. At least Sarah and Mike are coming, and a few of my friends from university. Although my side of the church is going to look very empty when the three hundred guests you have invited fill the pews on the other side.’

  She dropped her gaze from Carlos’s and stared at the huge diamond sparkling like a teardrop on her finger.

  ‘Why do we have to have such a big wedding in full view of the media? It’s going to be a circus, and I’ll be the clown,’ she muttered.

  Carlos frowned. ‘Would you prefer it if we sneaked off to the local town hall and married in secret? There have been too many secrets,’ he said grimly. ‘My tennis career gave me international fame, and being a public figure allows me to promote the Segarra Foundation. It is important to me that in the eyes of the world I am seen to be doing the right thing by marrying the mother of my son. When Sebastian is old enough to understand he will know that I wanted him, and that I do not regret his birth as some of the tabloids have speculated.’

  His fiercely spoken words dispelled the last of Betsy’s doubts. Her conscience pricked. She should tell him how much she regretted the way she’d handled the situation two years ago, when she’d discovered that she was pregnant. For the first time she really tried to imagine how he must have felt when he read in a newspaper that he was a father, and his sense of betrayal when the paternity test had proved that Sebastian was his son.

  ‘Fine—we’ll do the wedding your way,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I understand that the stylist has helped you choose a bridal gown?’

  ‘Yes. I’m having a fitting later today.’

  She felt a thrill of guilty pleasure as she pictured the dress. The stylist had picked out an elegant, understated gown in ivory silk, but Betsy had been drawn to a confection of pure white tulle. Reasoning that she was only going to get married once—unlike her parents, who had so far clocked up five weddings between them—she had decided she wanted her dress to be a fairy tale even if her marriage was not.

  With a sweetheart neckline, exquisite lace detail on the bodice and a sweeping train, the wedding dress was worthy of a princess. Betsy hoped it would disguise the fact that she was an ordinary girl who had captured the attention but not the heart of the man dubbed Spain’s sexiest sporting legend.

  ‘My father wants to meet his grandson,’ Carlos told her. ‘He was discharged from hospital yesterday, and has been resting this morning, but I’ve had a message from his nurse to say that he is awake now.’

  Betsy knew that Roderigo Segarra lived in an annexe off the main house. Carlos had told her that his father was partially paralysed after he’d suffered a stroke a year ago. He had been forced to move here from his home in the centre of Toledo and to sell the bakery which had been a family business for four generations.

  ‘Why was your father in hospital?’ she asked, as Carlos opened the door and she preceded him out of the study.

  ‘He has been ill with pneumonia. His health is not good. But he hates being inactive and he misses the bakery. He started working there when he was fifteen, and took over running the business when my grandfather retired.’

  ‘Was he disappointed that you didn’t go into the family business?’

  ‘I have been a constant disappointment to my father throughout my life.’

  Carlos’s voice was devoid of emotion, and when Betsy glanced at him she saw his sculpted features were expressionless.

  ‘I bet he’s proud of you.’ She tried to lighten the atmosphere that suddenly swirled with dark undercurrents. ‘After all, you’re regarded as the finest sportsman Spain has ever produced and you’re a national hero.’

  He laughed, but it was not a happy sound, and it hurt Betsy although she couldn’t explain why.

  ‘I am no hero,’ he said harshly. ‘My father would tell you that.’

  Ginette came in from the garden with Sebastian just then, and there was no time for Betsy to ask Carlos any more questions. But she sensed his tension as he knocked on the door of his father’s private apartment. It surprised her, because Carlos always seemed in complete control of his emotions—except for that one occasion when he took you to bed and made love to you with a wild passion that spoiled you for any other man, whispered a voice in her head.

  His control had shattered when he had been thrusting inside her, and he’d cursed and told her she had cast a spell on him. And then he’d groaned and slumped on top of her, and she had gloried in her newfound power.

  Hastily banishing the erotic images from her mind, Betsy lifted Sebastian out of the pushchair and checked that his face was clean. He looked adorable, in new shorts and a tee shirt, and although she was careful to keep him out of the sun as much as possible his chubby arms and legs were golden-brown.

  A nurse came to the door and they followed her into Roderigo’s bedroom. The grey-haired man who was propped against the pillows bore little resemblance to Carlos.

  Betsy balanced Sebastian on her hip and stepped closer to the bed.

  ‘Papà, this is Betsy, and my little boy, Sebastian.’ There was fierce pride in Carlos’s voice as he introduced his son.

  The elderly man
stared at Sebastian. ‘Se parece a tu madre.’

  ‘Betsy doesn’t speak Spanish,’ Carlos told the older man. ‘My father said that Sebastian looks like my mother,’ he explained to Betsy.

  Roderigo stretched out a bony hand and picked up a framed photograph from the bedside table. ‘Carlos’s mother—my wife Marta. Dios la bendiga,’ he said thickly, and kissed the photo before he held it out to Betsy.

  The woman in the picture was strikingly beautiful, with masses of dark curling hair and sherry-gold eyes. It was easy to see which of his parents Carlos had inherited his good looks from, Betsy thought as she studied the photo.

  ‘Your wife was very pretty,’ she said.

  Tears filled Roderigo’s eyes. ‘She died before her time and did not have the chance to see her children become adults or to meet her grandchildren.’

  A heavy silence filled the room. ‘Papà...’ Carlos murmured.

  Roderigo frowned. ‘I understand that Sebastian was born over a year ago? Why has it taken you until now to acknowledge your child, Carlos? The story of your secret son is in all the newspapers. Yet again you have brought shame on our family with your playboy reputation and lack of responsibility.’

  Beside her, Betsy felt Carlos stiffen. She was startled by his father’s accusations and the animosity in Roderigo’s voice.

  An image flashed into her mind of Carlos kneeling on the stone-flagged floor with his arms wide open to catch Sebastian if he fell, and she remembered the pride in Carlos’s voice when he’d introduced his son.

  From the minute he’d realised that Sebastian was his, he had offered to support and protect both of them. His father’s criticism was unjust, and she was partly to blame, she thought guiltily. She should have told Carlos about Sebastian.

  ‘It was my fault that Carlos was unaware he had a child,’ she told Roderigo. ‘Don’t blame your son. There was a misunderstanding which led to us being apart, but now we are going to get married and we are both determined to make a family for Sebastian.’