Chapter Five
Beatrix
I’m walking out of the hacienda’s kitchen at the Veracruz estate, when I hear the rhythmic sound of helicopter rotors.
I stop dead, listening as it gets louder and louder, my pulse ramping up.
The only person I know who’d use a helicopter to get anywhere died four months ago, which means it’s obviously not Antonio.
So who else could it be? And why would they be flying to this remote spot in Castile?
We don’t get visitors, since I’ve yet to make friends with anyone in Spain.
I had none in England, either, or not close friends, but that was because it was easier not to have any.
I wanted a home first, a place where I was going to stay permanently—making friends when you’re constantly moving around is difficult.
Another lesson from my numerous foster homes.
I move quickly along the hacienda’s wide, whitewashed hallways to the central courtyard, then make my way down the colonnade to the rear of the house.
There’s a big salon there that runs the width of the hacienda, with windows that look out over the rolling lawns and gardens, and as I reach those windows a black helicopter comes in to land directly on the lawn.
There’s a logo on the doors and, while I’m too far away to see what it is, a sudden premonition grips me.
You know exactly who this is.
Cold pours through my veins, icy as snow melt, because of course I know.
It’s Santiago Veracruz. Who else could it possibly be?
He called me out of the blue yesterday, telling me he knew about the pregnancy, and, though he didn’t answer my question when, struggling to conceal my shock, I asked him who’d told him, I knew all the same.
Sofia, the housekeeper who’s worked for the Veracruz family for years and doesn’t like me, must have passed it on.
Not that I’ve done anything to her, but she’s been deeply suspicious of me since I married Antonio and has remained so.
I don’t blame her, considering all the rumours about me—gold digger taking advantage of a poor old man et cetera.
But she didn’t know the truth about Antonio and me, that we had an agreement and one that Antonio didn’t want known.
Like most Spanish men, he wanted everyone to think that he was virile enough to snare a pretty, young woman, and, since I needed his money, I went along with it.
But I’m tired of the constant stream of hate that flows in my direction, and the last few weeks I’ve been feeling so sick that I don’t have the emotional energy to confront her about it. I don’t have the energy to confront Santiago, either, and that’s no one’s fault but my own.
If I were a better liar he’d have believed me when I told him the baby was Antonio’s. If I were a better liar I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. I’d have shoved him away that day in the church before he could get any closer to me, but…
I didn’t. Antonio never managed to perform in bed—Santiago was right about that—so of course the baby isn’t his.
And here I am, pregnant with Santiago’s child and that’s my fault.
What I was afraid of happening, did happen.
He overwhelmed my self-control so completely I didn’t even think about stopping him, or about protection either.
So when I first started feeling sick in the mornings and more tired than usual, a pregnancy didn’t even occur to me.
Soon, though, it became clear that it wasn’t the flu, that it was more than that, and an appointment with the village doctor soon proved it.
The timing is terrible and the father being who he is makes things even worse, but even so, as soon as I found out, I knew I’d be keeping the baby.
There was never going to be any other decision for me.
My birth mother died having me and my birth father put me into foster care almost as soon as I was born, so I have no family.
But this baby is my blood, the only blood I have, and I want it with every breath in me.
We’ll be a family together, and now I have a home, we’ll also have a place to belong.
The Veracruz estate, with its orange groves, whitewashed hacienda, rolling lawns, and village just down the road, will be that place.
No cheap, mouldy, mildewed flats or bedsits too small to even turn around in.
No couches of casual acquaintances when the rent money runs out, or food banks when the food money runs out too.
My child will have this beautiful house to call home, and they’ll be brought up speaking Spanish, and they’ll make friends with all the kids in the village. They’ll never be alone the way I was alone
I don’t want Santiago to be part of that, though, which isn’t very sympathetic of me, and I know that.
But I’m sure that if he ever finds out that the child is his, he’ll take it away from me.
Which is why I can’t take that paternity test he demanded, because the results will make it very clear he’s the father.
And I can’t let him find out. This child is mine and I’m keeping it.
When the child is older, I’ll tell him or her who their father is, but not until later. Much, much later.
Out on the lawn, the helicopter settles on the grass, then the door opens, and a very tall man leaps out.
He strides across the lawn in the direction of the hacienda, and yes, there’s no mistaking him.
It’s Santiago and he’s no doubt here to demand that paternity test he mentioned on the phone yesterday.
I suppose he has a right to ask for one, but I have no idea why he’d even care if the child is his or not.
Family’s clearly not that important to him or else he and Antonio would have made up long ago—not that Antonio gave me any real details about why he seemed to hate his son so much.
He only ever said that that Santiago was cold, heartless, and a terrible son, and that he would never forgive him for ‘what he did’.
Whatever that was. I didn’t press, since it seemed to be a sensitive topic, and I didn’t want to get involved anyway.
Certainly, Antonio was right about one thing: Santiago is cold and heartless, and I’m dreading seeing him again.
I take a steadying breath, and try to find my usual icy mask.
My heartbeat is racing, but I ignore it as I sit myself down on one of the salon’s deep, comfortable sofas.
Pulling a magazine from the coffee table in front of me into my lap, I leaf through it as if I’ve been sitting here for hours peacefully reading.
So when the doors open and Santiago strides in, I’m more than calm. More than ready to deal with him.
Except then I look up, and I realise that I’m not ready to deal with him at all, because he’s in a suit of midnight blue, his shirt black, his tie a splash of crimson, and the room is full of the force of his electric presence.
His black eyes pin me to the sofa cushions, and for a moment all I can think about are those desperate minutes four months earlier in the church.
When his hand gripped my throat as he pushed inside me, his hot mouth devouring me even as I tried to devour him.
All that heat and hunger overwhelming us both.
He’s thinking the same thing, too, I can tell, because his dark gaze loses its chill, turning into a blaze of heat that sears me all the way through.
Antonio wasn’t right. He’s not cold at all.
‘Miss Morgan,’ he says with icy formality, his voice betraying none of the heat in his gaze.
‘Mr Veracruz,’ I reply in the same tone, trying to ignore the thunder of my heart and the flames in his eyes. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘You know why I’m here. Let’s not play this game.’
I glance down at the magazine in my lap and turn the page slowly, taking my time so my hands don’t shake. ‘I presume this has something to do with the conversation we had yesterday?’
‘Yes.’ The word is sharply bitten off.
I turn another page. ‘And I suppose you want—’
Except I don’t get to finish as the magazine is abruptly jerked from my fingers. ‘Excuse me?’ I demand in outrage, looking up at him and forgetting that I’m supposed to be cool and calm. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Santiago throws the magazine back onto the coffee table and folds his arms across his broad chest. He’s standing right in front of me now, towering over me the way he likes to do, and I realise I made a mistake in sitting down. ‘The paternity test,’ he snaps. ‘I want it done.’
I swallow and fold my hands in my lap, trying not to let him get to me. ‘If you recall,’ I say coolly, ‘I told you to go to hell.’
‘That is not an option.’ His expression is like granite, no give in it whatsoever. ‘If there is the slightest chance that the baby is mine, I want to know about it.’
A thread of panic winds through me and I have to grip my hands together hard, fighting it. ‘There is no chance of the baby being yours.’ I keep my voice calm and absolutely certain. ‘Antonio is the father.’
Santiago’s inky gaze bores a hole through me and I try not to flinch away. One little slip and he’ll know I’m lying through my teeth.
‘Liar,’ he says, and instantly my brain returns to the church again, his finger stroking me, finding me wet as he knew I would be. Liar, he’d said then, too.
His eyes glitter. He’s remembering that same moment, the moment I betrayed myself, and now the air between us is getting hot, taut, electric. Closing around me, stealing my breath, and making my skin tighten.
‘Why do you keep lying?’ he murmurs in that dark, caressing tone he used yesterday on the phone when he accused me of the same thing. ‘When you know I can tell?’
I take a breath, hoping it isn’t as audible as I’m afraid it is, then say, icily, ‘I’m not lying. Why do you care if the baby is yours anyway?’
Something I can’t read flickers across his handsome face, then it’s gone. ‘Because I, unlike some people, take responsibility for my mistakes.’
A hot burst of anger floods through me all of a sudden, and before I know what I’m doing I shove myself up off the couch so I’m standing in front of him. ‘My baby is not a mistake,’ I say fiercely. ‘And I won’t have you saying it is.’
The flames in his eyes leap higher and I realise all at once that I’m standing too close to him.
That we’re bare inches apart and I can smell the delicious scent of his aftershave, feel the warmth of his body, and the desperate, needy thing inside me, the part of me that’s never sated, quivers with anticipation.
I’m not giving in to it, not again, so I try to go past him, to put some distance between us, but he puts out a hand, stopping me in my tracks. ‘Don’t you dare walk away,’ he says in a low, hard voice. ‘This is a conversation we are going to have whether you want to have it or not.’
I can’t look him in the eye—I’m too afraid of what he’ll see and I’ve already betrayed myself enough as it is—so I stare at the hand blocking my path instead. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. You want a paternity test and I have refused. End of conversation.’
His hand moves and somehow I know what he’s going to do, and that I could move if I wanted to avoid it.
But I don’t move. The needy part of me makes me stand still as he takes my jaw in that big hand of his, forcing me to look up at him.
His fingers are warm on my skin and I can feel his strength.
He could snap my neck with a simple twist of his hand, yet his hold is surprisingly gentle.
His gaze roves over my face, but what he’s trying to find I don’t know. Perhaps evidence of my lies, which, of course, he’ll discover, because, as it turns out, I’m a terrible liar, especially when it comes to him.
‘What are you so afraid of?’ he asks, the hard note in his voice softening slightly. ‘Finding out that the child is actually mine?’
I hate that I’ve given myself away yet again, that he’s seen the panic I’ve been trying to hide.
I’m desperate to tell him that I’m afraid of nothing and that he needs to stop putting his hands on me, but my voice won’t work.
The needy part of me wants more of that note of softness, as if it matters to him that I’m afraid, and it wants more of his touch, craves the heat of it, the feeling of being desired.
But I can’t surrender to that part of myself.
It’s too desperate, and because it has no defences it’s far too vulnerable.
What it wants it can never have and never will.
I won’t allow it. I gave in to it once before, when I was thirteen and I was placed with a truly wonderful foster family.
I wanted to stay with them so badly, and I really believed they were going to end up adopting me, but they didn’t.
They adopted another girl instead, and I never knew why they wanted her instead of me.
It took me years to recover from the hurt, and I’ll never let it happen again.
I’ll never let myself want anything too much, and I’ll never let anyone in only for them to turn around and devastate me.
So I harden my heart and force my cravings away. ‘Why would I be afraid?’ I arch a brow. ‘The child isn’t yours.’
But his sharp gaze is relentless. ‘We could argue about this all day, I’m sure, but I haven’t got the time. I’m due in Paris for a meeting first thing in the morning, and, since I’m not leaving without an answer, if you don’t give me one you’ll be coming with me.’
Shock echoes through me. ‘But you can’t—’
‘Oh, I assure you that I can, Miss Morgan. And I will.’ His hand on me tightens minutely and my breath catches hard.
I want to pull away from him, jerk myself out of his grip, slap his face for his audacity, but my body simply won’t obey.
Instead I stand there, staring up at him, captured by the darkness of his eyes and the bright, hot electricity that fills the air around us.
‘That will involve kidnapping,’ I say, my voice gone husky. ‘And I’m sure the police will have something to say about that.’
‘I don’t need to kidnap you.’ A soft roughness has entered the words, as if he’s as affected by our chemistry as I am. ‘You’ll come willingly enough.’
‘Oh, will I?’ I swallow against his palm, my mouth dry. ‘Give me one good reason.’
‘You’re a passionate woman, Miss Morgan.’ His black gaze stares into mine, hypnotic as a snake charmer’s. ‘I know exactly how passionate. And four months is a long time to go without a man. In which case, I’m prepared to offer you my services in bed, in return for agreeing to the paternity test.’