‘Tell me about my son,’ Raul urged.
‘Could you...could you just once manage to say our son?’
‘That would be difficult.’
‘Why?’ Polly pressed.
“‘Our” suggests sharing...and right at this minute you are not sharing anything with me,’ Raul traded.
Polly paled, but she still coiled round the phone as if it was a fire on an icy night. ‘I didn’t mean...I didn’t plan to push you into a marriage you didn’t want,’ she told him unsteadily.
‘You just accidentally fell into that wedding ring, gatita? ’
Polly turned pink, scrutinising the narrow gold band where it sat in promment isolation on the coffee table, removed the same day she’d faced up to the fact that it was the symbol of a farce. ‘Where are you?’
‘In my car...you were saying?’ Raul prompted.
‘We don’t have to stay married!’ Polly rushed to make that point and redeem herself without touching on anything more intimate.
Silence greeted that leading statement.
Polly cleared her throat awkwardly in that interim. ‘I suppose you’re still very annoyed that I left the clinic...?’ Her voice rose involuntarily, turning that sentence into a nervous question.
‘It’s possible...’
‘All of a sudden I didn’t feel I could trust you, and I felt trapped...I didn’t think I had any alternative—but it was an impulsive decision—’
You’re distressingly prone to impulses, gatita,’ Raul incised with sudden bite. ‘And this dialogue is just irritating the hell out of me!’
The line went dead. With a frown, Polly shook the silent phone. Nothing. Taken aback that Raul should have cut off her call, Polly blinked and slowly straightened. The silence of the apartment enclosed her. Only one soft pool of lamplight illuminated the corner of the big lounge.
Rising, she smoothed down her satin and lace nightgown and went to check on Luis. He was sound asleep, but he was due for a feed soon. In the elegant kitchen she tidied up the remains of her supper and prepared a bottle for Luis. All the time she was doing that, she agonised over that conversation with Raul. He had sounded so strange. Strained, wary, then bitingly angry.
The doorbell went, making her jump and then as quickly relax again. Maxie was her only visitor, and Maxie had called in one other evening, when Angelos had had a business dinner. Polly hurried across the octagonal hall. Without bothering to use the intercom, she hit the release button on the security lock which barred access to the private lift in the underground car park.
Then she stilled with a frown. Why would Maxie come to see her twice in one day? Only if there was something wrong! Running an apprehensive hand through the fall of her mahogany hair, Polly waited impatiently. It seemed ages before she heard the low, distant hum of the approaching lift, then the soft ping as it reached the top floor. The doors purred back.
But it was not Maxie; it was Raul who strode out of the lift.
Polly went into startled retreat, aghast eyes pinned to his intimidatingly tall and powerfully male physique.
Scathing dark-as-night eyes flashed into hers. ‘Dios mio...you deserve a bloody good fright!’ Raul informed her wrathfully. ‘All that high tec security and you don’t even check who your visitor is before you invite him up?’
In shock, Polly felt her teeth chatter together. ‘I...I just assumed it was Maxie—’
‘Don’t you have any sense? I could’ve been a rapist, or a robber, and I bet you’re alone in this apartment!’
Swallowing hard, Polly gave a jerky nod, her attention fully locked to him. He looked spectacular in a fabulous silver-grey suit, cut to enhance every sleek, muscular angle of his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped and long-legged frame. As her shaken gaze ran over him, her stomach flipped and her mouth ran dry. His magnetic dark good looks were like a visual assault on senses starved of him.
‘How...how did you find out where I was?’ Her bewilderment was unconcealed.
Raul’s wide mouth curled with impatience. ‘Once I had your phone number, it was a piece of cake to get the address. Why do you think I kept you on the line for so long?’
Since Polly hadn’t been conscious until the end of that call that anyone but her had been controlling anything, she gulped.
‘Angelos Petronides will answer to me for this,’ Raul breathed with sudden chilling conviction, lean, strong face forbidding.
‘Angelos... Maxie’s husband? You know him?’ Polly exclaimed in surprise.