Isandro had to admit to feeling slightly flummoxed. He’d never been accused of being a bully before, and it didn’t sit well with him. Bullies acted without intelligence, on frightened instinct, and he had to concede now that he was frightened. Frightened of what she could do to his son. Frightened of a lot more than he cared to name at the moment.
‘He’s my son. I carried him for almost nine months. I gave birth to him. You can’t take that away from me. You can’t—’
Isandro crushed the surprise he felt as she stood up to him so calmly. ‘And yet despite all that you were able to walk away without even a backward glance.’
Rowan’s throat closed over again. She’d put her son first. If she had looked back then she’d never have left, and that would have meant…
She stopped her painful thoughts with effort and controlled herself. ‘I don’t care about your money. I just want to know my son.’
Who was she kidding? He had to stop himself from laughing out loud. This was a woman who had married him to get her hands on her inheritance and had got pregnant in a calculated bid to extract as much money as she could from him. And here was the evidence. Right in front of him. She was wily and canny. He’d give her that. She knew exactly what she was doing by returning just before two years was up. It meant that any claim he made of desertion would be called into question, might be investigated. And even though he had the note she’d left as evidence, he knew that if she were conniving enough she could turn it around to work for her.
The sheer evidence of her premeditation stunned him anew. This wasn’t the meek, shy wallflower he thought he’d married. She’d been a virgin on their wedding night! The ultimate in innocence and purity. She’d even maintained the façade right through her pregnancy—He halted his thoughts with effort and dug his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, tightening the material across his groin. His shirt, open at the neck, hinted at the dark olive skin underneath, with crisp whorls of hair just visible.
For a second Isandro’s physical presence hit Rowan hard between the eyes, and out of nowhere came a vivid memory of herself underneath him, his naked body pushing down over hers, chest to chest. She remembered taking him into her on a single breath, he’d thrust so deeply that she’d truly believed in that moment that he’d touched her heart.
She shook her head faintly, feeling acutely warm and breathless. The room—it must be the room. It was too hot, she told herself.
Isandro was speaking again. ‘You leave me no option, then.’
‘No option…?’ she repeated stupidly fighting an urge to open her own shirt at the neck and let some air get to her skin. She was feeling constricted.
It utterly galled Isandro that even though she’d behaved reprehensibly as Zac’s mother she could swan back onto the scene like this and have rights. Any court in the world would see the importance of a child being allowed to bond with its mother. His own lawyer had advocated that he should not be seen to stand in the way of reasonable access; it would only damage him down the line. As much as he wanted to turn around, walk away, forget she existed, he couldn’t.
He didn’t know why she wasn’t taking the small fortune he was offering, but thought it could only be because she believed she’d get even more with this charade of belated concern. He had to be seen to give her a chance. But if he was going to do it then it would be on his terms, on his turf. He couldn’t trust that if he left her behind now she wouldn’t try and do something dramatic, using Zac in order to wage a public campaign for custody—and ultimately for the millions she no doubt craved.
‘If you mean what you say about being here purely to see and get to know Zac, then you will return to Seville with us within the hour.’
His words cut through her body’s inexplicable response. She focused on the clear blue of his eyes and felt as if they were impaling her. ‘Go on.’
‘You will come and live in my house for a sufficient amount of time to prove your…good intentions towards Zac. You will be allowed a certain amount of supervised access—’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. These are my terms, Rowan, and you’re not in a position to argue.’
Rowan swallowed as she acknowledged her weak position. ‘I told you—my only concern is being with Zac as much as I possibly can.’
‘Well, then, you can’t possibly have a problem with this.’
Living with him in his house…in such close proximity… her every move watched and monitored…
Rowan looked up at him. ‘I…don’t—I just…couldn’t I stay somewhere nearby?’
Isandro waved an impatient hand. ‘That is not practical. If you are serious about getting to know Zac it’s best to see him in his own environment. I won’t have you coming along, disrupting his routine, taking him out of his home. No way.’
Rowan wrung her hands. ‘Of course I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t mean that, I just…’
‘This is it, Rowan. Take it or leave it. You’re hardly in a position to negotiate.’
He watched the turmoil in her eyes. No wonder she was balking at his suggestion. It proved how false her intentions really were. To go from two years of hedonistic freedom to being holed up in his home in a small town outside Seville—she’d be climbing the walls within weeks, if not days. Not to mention spending time with a small toddler who had the smile of an angel but who would test the patience of a saint.
‘I’ll give you five minutes to think about it.’
Rowan watched, still slightly dumbstruck, as he turned and left the room. The door shut softly behind him, the sound incongruous in a room heavy-laden with atmosphere and tension.
Rowan paced up and down. She had to think fast. Isandro was not used to having to wait for anything or anyone. She knew what she should do was stay in London, meet her solicitor and see what her options were. But that would be next week now. In the meantime this tenuous connection would be broken. Isandro would be back in Spain with Zac. And with his obvious determination to divorce, who knew how hard he’d prove to be to contact once the matter was in his legal team’s hands? It could be months, even longer before she got to see Zac again. She had no doubt that Isandro would do whatever it took to make her look as bad as possible, and she had to concede that wouldn’t be hard at all… How would it look if it emerged that she’d turned down an offer to go and live with her son?
Perhaps that was what he was hoping? That she would shoot herself in the foot…
She had to put aside her feelings for Isandro. Her one priority was Zac. When she’d seen him, touched him yesterday, she’d known him—incredibly. That primal recognition and joy struck her again.
This was the moment she had to let go of the fantasy. The wish that somehow something of before could be salvaged. She’d irretrievably damaged everything. Fate and circumstance had led her down a difficult path. And she had to remind herself that no matter what she’d led herself to believe, to hope for in their marriage, she’d been living in a fantasy all along anyway.
She firmed her mouth. Now was not the time to indulge in old memories. Once she’d unwittingly overheard that conversation with his sister well into her pregnancy she’d known exactly where she stood, how he felt. Their marriage obviously hadn’t become for him what it had become for her, no matter what she’d thought at the time. Or hoped… She’d berated herself for her fanciful notions—what had she known, after all? She’d been a virgin when they’d first slept together. And he… She flushed hotly. Well, he certainly hadn’t. She pressed cool hands against her cheeks to try and stem the heat.
Zac was here. She’d seen him. There was no way she could walk away again. She didn’t have it in her. She didn’t want to be miles away, not