Seeing the two of them together like this made Brynne achingly aware of exactly why Alejandro had been so sure Michael was his son. Both were dark-haired and grey-eyed, and even Michael’s baby face was starting to show some of the harder angles of his father’s features. The fact that Michael was also tall for his age indicated that he would probably eventually attain his father’s considerable height too.
‘I do not believe I have ever given you cause to think that I will be—a strict father to Miguel,’ Alejandro said tersely as he saw Brynne’s tearful gaze rest indulgently on Miguel as he ran from one side of the terrace to the other in order to look at the amazing views over the valley and sparkling blue sea.
She turned to look at him, her eyes appearing bluer and larger than ever, with tears balanced precariously on the edge of her long, dark lashes. ‘So far you haven’t given me reason to think you will be any sort of father to him!’ she replied tartly.
Perhaps because he still found it difficult to believe he was Miguel’s father!
Not that he questioned it for a moment; he knew from the medical tests that there could be no doubt. But it had been a very short journey from having suspicions on seeing Miguel’s photograph in the newspapers to having them confirmed so positively. A journey that had been dogged by Brynne’s stubborn refusal to relinquish Miguel to his custody.
His mouth tightened. ‘I have asked that drinks be served on the terrace beside the pool when you have freshened yourself from the journey.’ Turning to open the bedroom door, he called, ‘Miguel?’
Like ordering a puppy to heel, Brynne thought resentfully as Michael scampered happily out of the room with the man who was now his father. As expected, her own presence here did seem to be making it much easier for the little boy to accept his change of circumstances.
She sat down heavily on Michael’s bed, momentarily burying her face in her hands as the tears that had threatened earlier now fell hotly down her pale cheeks.
Tears that had been long overdue.
Too shocked after the car accident that had killed Joanna and Tom to do more than try to keep herself emotionally together for her grieving parents and the stunned Michael, Brynne hadn’t had the opportunity to release her own grief. But now, in the middle of all the luxury that Alejandro Santiago would be able to give to Michael as his son, seemed as good a time as any.
‘I came back for—Why are you crying?’ Alejandro rasped harshly as he came to a halt in the bedroom doorway.
Brynne looked up at him, unable not to notice how strong and handsome he looked, despite how she was feeling. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you think?’ she snapped, resentful that this man, a man who made her pulse race in spite of herself, should witness the grief she was no longer able to contain.
His chin firmed squarely. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘No.’ She straightened, her moment of weakness over as if she had been dowsed in icy-cold water. ‘You wouldn’t,’ she scorned. ‘What did you come back for?’ she prompted quickly, wiping all trace of tears from her cheeks as she stood up to face him.
She had courage, this young woman, Alejandro acknowledged even as he felt discomforted by her crying.
She was very young, of course, ten years younger than his own thirty-five years, and in challenging him she had not chosen her fight wisely; once Alejandro was sure of Miguel’s paternity, there had never been any doubt that he would claim the boy as his own.
Nevertheless, he was not completely unmoved by her tears, or the fact that her sadness gave her an air of fragile beauty, with her eyes now almost navy in colour against the pallor of her cheeks. Her red hair was lifted and secured off the long, creamy expanse of her neck to give her an air of vulnerability that had been evident in none of their previous encounters.
His mouth firmed. ‘You are upset.’ He stated the obvious. ‘You perhaps wish for me to arrange for your immediate return to England?’
Her chin rose defiantly. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you?’
His nostrils flared impatiently. ‘I would like to put an end to these—disagreements, yes.’
‘I’ll just bet you would!’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘No can do, sorry,’ she added derisively. ‘I intend staying on here for the duration!’
‘Dios mío!’ Alejandro bit out his frustration with her stubbornness, and his hands clenched at his sides. ‘Do not try me too far, Brynne,’ he warned harshly. ‘I make a much better friend than I do an enemy!’
‘Friend’? The word echoed incredulously in Brynne’s head while she acknowledged that he had used her given name for the first time in their acquaintance. That familiarity aside, there was no way she and this man could ever be friends!
None of her male friends had ever set her senses singing in the way just being in this man’s company did.
‘I think you’ll find, Alejandro, that so do I,’ she came back smoothly, her blue eyes dark with challenge as she deliberately made use of his own first name in return.
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘You are here on sufferance only—’
‘I don’t appear to be the one who’s suffering, Alejandro,’ she taunted mockingly.
His grey eyes narrowed icily as he drew himself up to his full six feet three inches in height. ‘Miguel has expressed a wish to swim in the pool. Perhaps you will be so good as to give me his bathing things?’
Michael …
Her anger left her as suddenly as it had erupted as she thought of the only reason she was here. And much as she enjoyed baiting Alejandro Santiago, that wasn’t it!
‘Of course,’ she muttered, moving to unzip the case that contained the clothes she had packed so lovingly late last night when she and Michael had returned from visiting her parents. Several other boxes containing Michael’s toys had been put aboard the jet earlier this morning, too, waiting to eventually be forwarded to Alejandro’s home in mainland Spain.
In fact, everything that Michael possessed had been brought aboard that plane earlier today …
‘Here,’ she said as she held out Michael’s brightly coloured swimming trunks, tears once again blurring her vision, although she was determined she wouldn’t cry in front of Alejandro again. The man obviously only saw it as a weakness he could take advantage of if his offer to have her flown home immediately was anything to go by!
Was she going to cry again? Alejandro wondered, thinking how he never had known how to deal with a woman’s tears, not even Francesca’s during their brief but wholly unhappy marriage. With Brynne Sullivan he definitely found her anger the easier emotion to respond to.
His impatient gaze remained on Brynne’s face as he reached out to take the swimming trunks, slightly missing his objective as his hand brushed lightly against hers.
And instantly received the equivalent of an electric shock up into his fingers and along the length of his arm!
He snatched the swimming trunks before moving his hand back abruptly, his lids half-lowered over his steel-grey eyes as he looked down his nose at her.
He found this woman intensely infuriating.
Irritating.
A nuisance he longed to be rid of.
And yet for that one split second he knew that he had been totally aware of her too, of the pale delicacy of her skin, of the blood flowing so smoothly beneath its surface, of the heat and inner throb of her very being, so much so that he could almost feel that blood pulsing through her veins.
Idiot!
He