She returned to the villa shortly after five o’clock to find they had only just returned themselves. Her worries seemed completely unnecessary if Michael’s enthusiasm about the water park his father had taken him to was any indication!
Although the unlikely picture of the arrogantly aloof Alejandro Santiago in a public water park, full of tourists and children, took a little getting used to!
‘Not what you expected?’ He quirked dark, mocking brows in Brynne’s direction as Michael skipped off happily to the kitchen to ask Maria for a biscuit and some fresh orange juice.
Not exactly, Brynne inwardly acknowledged as she hesitated about joining him at the table where he sat relaxing by the pool; after all, he hadn’t wanted her company all day, so there was no reason to suppose that he would want it now, either.
Which was totally childish on her part, she instantly reproved herself impatiently. Whether Alejandro wanted her company or not, he was stuck with it for another three and a half weeks, and she had no intention of making herself scarce every time he was around!
‘I’m sure the two of you had a wonderful time,’ she said noncommittally as she pulled out one of the chairs to sit down, her legs aching slightly from the amount of walking she had done today.
Alejandro gave a slightly derisive smile. ‘I enjoyed myself watching Miguel enjoy himself,’ he drawled ruefully, his smile fading slightly as he added huskily, ‘He is a charmingly engaging little boy.’
‘Yes.’ Brynne nodded. ‘He is.’
‘And that, I know, is due to the way Joanna and your brother brought him up,’ Alejandro murmured softly. ‘No doubt, your family too.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we can take too much credit for that,’ she denied, a pleased flush to her cheeks nonetheless. ‘Joanna had pretty much helped mould him into the happy, unspoilt little boy that he is by the time we all met him.’
‘She was a good mother.’ It was a statement, not a question, Alejandro knowing just from being with Miguel that this was so.
‘The best,’ Brynne confirmed unhesitantly. ‘She seemed to find no difficulty at all in juggling her career as a very successful lawyer and her role as Migu—Michael’s mother.’
Joanna had been twenty-four when Alejandro had met her, had completed her law qualifications and had been taking a year off from her studies to travel the world before commencing her career. It pleased him to know that she had had the success of that career that she had wanted so much.
He nodded. ‘She was very determined, very positive, of what she wanted to do with her life.’ There was sadness, if not actual grief, in his thoughts that all of that bright determination had been wiped out in a single act. ‘I am glad she succeeded.’
‘Yes,’ Brynne said huskily, slightly uncomfortable with this conversation, in the circumstances.
‘You find my interest in Joanna’s life—strange?’ Alejandro guessed astutely.
She shrugged. ‘Well, yes, a little,’ she acknowledged ruefully.
Alejandro shrugged broad shoulders, obviously relaxed from his day out with Michael, their own earlier tension seeming to have been put to one side, if not forgotten. ‘She was the mother of my son. Of course I am interested in whether or not she was happy.’
‘She and Tom were very happy together,’ Brynne told him slightly defensively.
‘I am aware of that too.’ Alejandro gave an acknowledging nod. ‘Miguel has talked of “Mummy” and “Daddy” for most of the day!’
Brynne became very still. ‘He has?’
‘Yes.’ Alejandro gave her a quizzical look. ‘This surprises you?’
Yes, it did. Apart from those nights when Michael woke up having nightmares, crying for his ‘Mummy and Daddy’, he never spoke of Joanna and Tom, hadn’t openly cried for them, either. Brynne wasn’t a psychologist, but she felt it was as if by not talking about them Michael could somehow put it from his mind that they were no longer there, that he could somehow believe they would one day walk back through the door.
The finality of death was very difficult for young children to understand, and only time and a great deal of love, Brynne knew, would help to heal the little boy’s deep sense of bewilderment.
And having Alejandro Santiago as his real father …
Because, aged four when Joanna and Tom had married, Michael had obviously always known that Tom wasn’t his father.
It was good that Michael felt he could talk to Alejandro about Joanna and Tom. Maybe Michael was already starting to transfer his affection to the other man …?
‘I am a stranger, Brynne.’ Alejandro broke the silence that had stretched between them. ‘Perhaps he feels more comfortable talking of them with someone who he knows … and please do not misunderstand me, but I am someone that Michael knows will not become emotionally upset when he talks of his mother and Tom.’
That was a point.
It was also a point that Alejandro had for once forgotten to call him ‘Miguel’ …
She managed a rueful smile. ‘You’re probably right. I’m afraid my parents have been pretty well emotionally demolished by the whole thing, by Joanna’s death of course, but Tom’s especially. And I can’t claim to have been too controlled about it myself.’ She grimaced.
‘But why should you be?’ Alejandro frowned. ‘Tom was your older brother, Joanna your sister-in-law. It was—is—a tragedy.’
Brynne gave him a quizzically searching glance. ‘But without that tragedy you might never have known Michael was your son—’
‘What sort of man do you take me for, Brynne?’ he cut in frowningly. ‘Do you think I would wish Joanna dead just so that I could claim Miguel?’
Well, she had pretty much put an end to that truce, Brynne guessed with a regretful wince for her inappropriate choice of words.
‘Of course I didn’t mean that,’ she dismissed impatiently. ‘I was just pointing out—’
‘Brynne, I am very happy to know of Miguel’s existence, and I hope that if Joanna had lived I would still have learnt of it one day when he had grown up and possibly asked about his real father.’ He was consumed with anger. ‘But I certainly do not feel any pleasure in the fact that his mother is dead!’
Brynne gasped breathlessly. ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me—’
‘I do not think so!’ Alejandro stood up abruptly, his face etched into hard, aristocratic lines. ‘No matter what you may have claimed only days ago, Brynne, I am not the inhuman monster you believe me to be,’ he bit out between clenched teeth before turning sharply on his heel and striding away.
He had thought Brynne had got to know him better than that in the last few days, felt deeply the knowledge that she still thought of him in that way.
Walking away seemed to be something Alejandro did a lot around her, Brynne acknowledged achingly as she watched him stride off towards the beach, bitterly dismayed at this fresh misunderstanding between them.
She turned sharply back to the villa as she heard the sound of glass breaking, knowing by the look of horror on Michael’s white, shocked face as he stood a short distance away on the tiled patio, the broken glass of orange juice at his feet, that he had to have heard at least the tail-end of her exchange with Alejandro, if not all of it!
Brynne got noisily to her feet. ‘Michael—’ she didn’t get any farther as the little boy turned on his heel—much as his father had done seconds ago!—and ran back inside the villa.
She hurried after him, all the time cursing herself for not remembering that as a teacher she was