‘So you did meet someone else after we parted?’ Barely registering that she had given her son a Spanish name, Leandro could not quell the sudden disturbing rush of fury inside his chest. Since that night he had spent with Isabella in her hotel, he had not slept with another woman. For a man with such a passionate nature, abstinence had been pure torture at times, but when opportunities had come his way he had rejected them—pure and simple—still too aroused by the memory of Isabella to do anything else. And yet, she had returned home to not only be with another man, but to have his baby as well!
‘I …well, I—’
‘So you and the child’s father are no longer together?’ he demanded, his throat dry as dust as he saw to his disappointment that she was finding it almost impossible to meet his eyes, an action that suggested that she was not being entirely honest. ‘I distinctly recall you just telling me that you have not been seeing anybody else?’
‘Leandro …’ He saw her reach up and nervously smooth down her hair. He noticed her long ringless fingers and the indisputable elegance of her slim, pale hands. The same soft hands that had touched him and aroused his senses to a veritable inferno that long, hot, sultry Mediterranean night eighteen months ago …’I told you the truth. I’m not seeing anyone else and I haven’t been with anybody else since we were last together in Vigo! There’s no other way I can put this to make it any less shocking but …the baby is yours, Leandro …You’re his father.’
Hearing the words, Leandro had the strangest sensation that they were snatched up and thrown away by a great sandstorm that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and had muffled his senses in the ensuing uproar. There was a lengthy stunned ellipsis in his thinking processes before he was able to assimilate their meaning fully into his consciousness. So preposterous was the mere suggestion that he could be the father of Isabella’s baby that he sensed a mantle of ice engulf him, regarding her coldly as though she were suddenly an insignificant stranger to him. It might have been eighteen months ago since they had slept together, but Leandro knew without a doubt that he had used protection. He felt quite ill at the idea she was maybe using the opportunity of seeing him again to extract money or support from him for another man’s child—particularly because he was wealthy.
‘Impossible!’ His dangerous grey eyes surveyed her with daggers so sharp that Isabella’s heart was immediately pierced by his disbelief. Automatically her arms went back across her chest as if to fend off the rage that he directed her way. ‘Do you take me for some ill-educated idiot? I could not possibly have made you pregnant, Isabella! You cannot be so forgetful as to remember that I used protection. What are you trying to do? Blackmail me in some way?’
‘No!’ Her dark eyes swam with vivid sparkling tears and inside Leandro felt as if he’d just been viciously winded by a hard punch. His hand was shaking as he tunnelled his fingers through his hair in justified frustration, refusing to be swayed by consideration of her hurt feelings when she clearly did not give a damn about his.
‘I’m not lying to you, Leandro,’ she insisted, rubbing at the moisture that glistened on her cheeks. ‘I’ll take any test you want me to take, but you are definitely the father of my child! And as for blackmail …well, that’s a pretty hurtful accusation under the circumstances. I didn’t have to come here …I could have stayed away and you would have been none the wiser about the baby. But when you turned up at the library like that and demanded that we talk, I had to tell you the truth, that’s all. I naturally thought that you would want to know.’
‘And how did we make a baby together when I used contraception, Isabella? Or was it an immaculate conception?’
‘Please, Leandro,’ she pleaded through her tears. ‘I’m telling you the truth, I swear it! It happened during the night …you—you reached out to me and I thought I was dreaming.’ She dipped her head as a soft crimson stain crept into her cheeks. ‘You obviously thought you were dreaming too. That’s when it happened.’
An astounding, almost unbelievable memory flooded into Leandro’s brain. For a moment it was hard to breathe. Isabella was not lying. Now that he’d been forced to remember the event in detail, he did recall reaching out to her at one point during that deliciously erotic night after they had both drifted into sleep. He even remembered thinking what an unbelievably realistic dream it was he was having because it was so real …He’d felt everything …her soft, full breasts, her smooth, flat stomach and, most of all, the searing hot wetness between her thighs as he’d so urgently plunged inside her …Now she was telling him that he’d fathered a child during that amazing night together …a boy …a boy called Raphael. All the moisture seemed to absent itself from Leandro’s mouth at once.
‘Why did you not try to get in touch with me when you found out that you were pregnant?’ he asked hoarsely, his expression a vivid depiction of shock and pain.
‘I did.’ She met his gaze steadily for the first time in a couple of minutes without glancing away again. ‘If you only knew how hard I tried! I tried every avenue I could think of …but the people who work for your film company clearly thought I was some kind of obsessive fan or something because they wouldn’t even take a message, let alone give me a number to ring so that I could speak to you! I’m sorry, Leandro …I never wanted you to find out like this …to come face to face with the truth when I’d already had the baby and he was nine months old.’
‘Why Raphael?’ He moved across to the other side of the room and back, the tension in him reaching out to Isabella like icy tentacles wrapping themselves around her heart. ‘Why did you call him that?’
‘After my grandfather. His name was Raphael …Raphael Morentes. I told you he was Spanish?’
She had. But Leandro had scarcely given her an opportunity to tell him much about herself or her family that night. He had been concerned with one thing and one thing only: to fulfil the powerful lust she had ignited in him with her depthless black eyes and alluring body—not to mention revel in her exquisite sensitivity and unconstrained delight at his stories about the Camino …Now he’d learned that bedding Isabella had not only allowed him to fulfil his lustful attraction, but it had also produced a child …his child! It was an altogether incredible idea. He thought about his father Vincente and how long he had wanted Leandro to become a father too—to produce a grandchild for him to shower love upon. And for the past nine months, unknowingly to Leandro, he had become a father. Only Vincente had not lived long enough to see his grandchild.
For a moment, Leandro’s heart cramped with searing emotion inside his chest. He had not even seen his own son yet …What did he look like? he wondered, dazedly glancing at Isabella again. Did he favour his mother or would he instantly see traits of his own familiar features? But before he met his son for the first time, Leandro needed some time to think about the momentous revelation of his existence. The most incredible thing had happened to him. He needed to sit down and think seriously about all the implications and about what steps to take next and he could not do that with the too-taunting distraction of Isabella. She would have to go.
‘You will have to give me your address.’ Diverting his glance, Leandro paced to a nearby table laden with books and papers. Picking up a pen and a sheet of paper, he returned to Isabella and handed them both to her. ‘Write it down on there …your telephone number too …including your mobile, if you have one.’
Isabella was so upset by the coolly dispassionate glance he delivered her way that she saw her hand shake as she accepted the pen and paper. Did he think she was trying to ruin his life with her news of Raphael? That was the last thing she wanted! She had to make him see that she didn’t blame him for getting her pregnant, that she loved her child with all her heart