His angry disclaimer had cut no ice with Sophia. He was used to his volatile sister’s cutting ripostes, but this one had stuck in his mind.
‘Your one-night stands may last six months, a year, even, but, believe me, Antonio, they’re not relationships. A relationship requires that you give something of yourself and you don’t even know how.’
‘So did you love her?’
There was a silence.
Antonio watched Tamara’s thin frame stiffen as though anticipating a blow.
An image formed in Antonio’s head: flawless skin, full lips painted red, and eyes that could radiate an innocence their owner had not possessed. It was a lovely face. A face inextricably linked with deceit and humiliation. The deceit had been hers, the humiliation his. And when you were nineteen and in love humiliation could be pretty devastating.
Falling in love with Miranda had been a life-shaping experience for Antonio. She had taught him an important lesson. You could allow your passions to rule you or you could rule them.
Antonio had made his choice.
Where his emotions were concerned he had taught himself to step back, to be objective. Having the women in his life complain that he gave nothing of himself seemed infinitely preferable to Antonio than the alternative.
But there was now a female in his life whom he could not step back from—one he could not be objective about.
He knew exactly what he had to say.
‘I was very much in love with your mother.’
The girl studied his face suspiciously. ‘You were…?’
‘I was, and I can honestly say I have never loved a woman since.’ Loving required trust and Antonio had no intention of trusting a woman again.
For no reason at all he found himself thinking about Fleur, those big, innocent eyes, and he felt tender feelings stir.
Then he thought about her mouth and was instantly locked into a steamy fantasy.
It was only when an attractive nurse in a crisp white uniform bustled in and said something he didn’t hear that Antonio managed to drag his thoughts away from the erotic images dancing in his mind.
Fleur hadn’t stuck around to see how the girl responded to his confession.
As she limped down the corridor her emotions were in turmoil. Antonio the man with the playboy reputation, she could deal with…sort of. Antonio the man who had only ever loved one woman, and lost her…now that was a very different prospect.
She hated this shift of feelings that was taking place inside her. But then maybe, she mused darkly, she was only getting what she deserved. Eavesdropping was a contemptible thing.
She had decided to despise Antonio Rochas before she’d even met him. Now she was presented with the possibility that underneath the cynicism and macho posturing there was a man capable of deep feeling. A one-woman man…
Did he compare all women with the one he had lost…?
Had he been thinking about his tragic lost love when he’d kissed her? Then, recalling the glazed heat in his glittering eyes, she decided not. It seemed unlikely that his brain had been involved at all during that brief passionate exchange!
And as her own brain had flat-lined the moment he had touched her, Fleur didn’t feel she was in a position to sneer.
Two nurses were emerging from the room next door when Fleur limped past, they looked startled to see her. Fleur just smiled and tried to look as though she were somewhere she was meant to be, which undoubtedly she wasn’t.
The helpful nurse had been wrong. She didn’t have to wait thirty minutes—it was nearly an hour before she received her painkillers. With time on her hands her imagination went into overdrive.
Had they argued over something trivial? Had both been too proud and stubborn to be the first one to say they were wrong?
She supposed that she was never going to know the real story.
Antonio stayed for a while after Tamara had fallen asleep. Sometimes she seemed so adult, but in repose, the defiance and belligerence absent from her face, his daughter looked like the child she actually was.
Her vulnerability touched him, aroused a fierce protectiveness in him.
Was this the way fathers felt? He wouldn’t know because the blonde had been right—there was more to fatherhood than matching DNA.
It suddenly hit him all the things he had missed. What had she been like as a baby, a toddler…? He would never know. The sense of loss hit him with a force so strong that it felt like a blade sliding between his ribs.
He felt a volatile mixture of emotions as he looked at this child who was a part of him. He suddenly realised the enormity of having the responsibility for another life. He found himself admiring single parents who raised their children alone.
Fleur had made it through the glass turnstile exit of Casualty when she saw Antonio.
He looked so alone.
He was standing, his hands dug deep in his pockets, his back set to the wind. He wasn’t looking in her direction and even if he had been she wasn’t sure he would have noticed her. His expression in profile suggested he was a man with a lot on his mind. Vulnerable…mentally she deleted the word that flashed into her head.
Do not even think about feeling sorry for him, she lectured herself sternly. If ever there was a man who could look after himself, it was Antonio Rochas.
Just walk past, Fleur…walk past and keep walking.
It was sound advice.
She nearly made it, very nearly. She had almost readied the rank of taxis when her conscience proved stronger than her instincts for self-preservation.
‘You’re an idiot, Fleur,’ she muttered to herself as she hurried back up the rain-slick path.
She stopped just a little out of his line of vision and studied him, trying to figure out what it was, beside the obvious, which made her react to him differently from the way she ever had to any other man.
It defied logic.
‘You’re still here…?’
Antonio turned his head and levered his broad shoulders from the wall. ‘I came out here for some fresh air while I waited.’
‘For what?’
‘You.’
‘Why?’
‘When I arrive with a lady I like to see that she gets safely to her destination.’
‘How sweet and gallant.’ She lifted her eyes to his and sketched a smile. ‘Though less sweet and gallant when you take into account your bed is usually her destination. So I suppose you have a vested interest in making sure she gets there.’
Antonio released a startled hissing gasp through his clenched teeth. Then to her dismay grinned. His blue eyes danced with mockery as he asked, ‘Is that where you are expecting to end up…?’
Wondering when she was going to stop blurting out the first thing that came into her head, Fleur willed her fiery cheeks to stop burning.
‘I would prefer to spend the night in this place—’ she tipped her head in the direction of the big building behind them ‘—and you know how much I love hospitals.’
Antonio didn’t dispute her angry claim. ‘They tell me they are letting you go home?’ His grin faded as