‘I’m no expert, but shouldn’t you be taking her to the hospital?’ He knew nothing about children but this one was...his daughter. He gave his dark head a shake, but, no, he was actually awake and this was really happening. It wasn’t a dream. The shock he was experiencing was momentarily blanked out by a fresh wave of anger as he thought of all the moments he had missed with his child that he would never get back.
‘That’s right, you’renotan expert,’ Gwen pointed out. When had he last had a sleepless night? she thought, her contempt almost immediately vanishing to be replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she recalled some of the things Rio usually thought preferable to sleep.
It was a measure of how completely he took over her mind that this thought led seamlessly into an image imprinted and preserved in her head in perfect detail, the moment captured for ever, along with the nameless ache she had felt deep inside as she’d stared at him lying asleep on his back early one morning, one arm above his head, his face in repose. The lines that might one day be permanent had been ironed out, looking, not softer, exactly, but younger beneath the piratical stubble that emphasised the angles of his jaw and the hollow of his carved cheeks.
In the soft dappled early morning light that had filtered through the blinds on the open window, his skin had shone like dull gold against the crumpled white sheet that was bunched across his narrow hips, the shadows emphasising the muscular definition of his chest and ridged belly.
She remembered desperately wanting to touch him and so she had, her fingers moving along the line of dark hair that ran down his belly until her hand was caught and she found herself staring into black, wickedly gleaming and not at all sleepy eyes that were still looking at her as he pulled her down on top of him.
Breaking free of the vivid memories drew a tiny grunt of effort from her parted lips.
‘This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation,’ she said, a shade of desperation creeping into her voice because there was no time and no place where she wanted to have this conversation.
He glanced towards their growing audience. Clearly, it was the first thing they had agreed on. ‘So where, and when?’
She looked at him in horror, the recognition dawning in her brain that there was going to be no escape route, no secret door, no alternative to them having a face-to-face discussion.
She tipped her head in acknowledgement and defeat. ‘All right, my cottage.’
‘Cottage?’ His slightly confused expression cleared. ‘The one in the grounds you mentioned? Right, I will find it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we say five o’clock?’
Gwen shook her head. ‘No, six.’ By that time she ought to have been able to pacify Ellie and if not he’d just have to wait. She lifted her chin. Her daughter would always come first with her and the sooner he caught onto that fact, the better. The world might work around Rio Bardales’s schedule but she had moved on.
CHAPTER FOUR
GWENNOTICEDABSENTLYthat her hand was shaking as she tried to coax her daughter to take the temperature-lowering medicine. When the toddler turned her head away for the fourth time and it spilled down her front Gwen felt the tears she’d so far held back begin to spill down her cheeks.
Taking a deep breath, she squeezed her eyes tight shut and told herself,Self-pity, Gwen, is really not attractive.
A moment later as she choked back a sob and forced a smile, perhaps her change of attitude communicated itself to her child, who stopped crying to watch her mother with big eyes.
Gwen took advantage of the moment of calm to spoon the mixture between her lips. ‘Excellent, good girl...’
She sat back with a sigh as a wave of love so strong that it made her breathless washed over her. Before Ellie had been born she had worried about bonding with her, not able to imagine this swell of instinctive parental love. Suddenly, an image of Rio’s face, the shock of recognition in his eyes when he’d seen Ellie, surfaced in her head.
What would it feel like to be hit by the reality you were a father that way? The truth was she could not imagine that scenario any more than she could imagine how he was feeling now he’d had time to take it on board.
Or maybe he was wondering how to break the news to the mother of his son—his partner...his wife? Her life had moved on and it was only reasonable to assume that his had too.
WhichRio would arrive? Would he be angry? Cold? Businesslike?
Would he even arrive?
Another image flashed in front of her, of the expression in his dark eyes as he had stared at Ellie, and she shivered. It was definitely not the look of a man who had any intention of walking away.
Trying to shake the feeling of impending doom that weighed her down, she told herself her time would be better spent preparing a plan of action for a scenario that was never meant to happen.
She tried to reawaken the feeling of optimism, of liberation almost, that she’d felt the day Ellie was born and she had come to her decision not to tell Rio, a decision that had nothing to do with the months of arguing with herself and playing devil’s advocate. The decision had been made because it felt right, and she could finally move on as a mother. It was a new, exciting and scary chapter in her life, but she could do it. Alone.
She didn’t need Rio’s help, and she was not going to beg or humiliate herself by submitting to DNA testing. She had mentally wiped him out of her life. Well, to be completely truthful, it had been a work in progress but she’d been getting there.
Sadly he didn’t get the same memo!
With Ellie on her shoulder, she began to pace up and down the small cosy living room humming softly, and after a few grumpy kicks and moans Ellie settled, soothed by the rhythmic motion. Gwen carried on humming, glancing at the clock on the mantle occasionally until she felt the toddler go limp in her arms and the baby breaths become deep and even.
She pushed open the only bedroom door with her foot. The lack of a second bedroom was one of those problems that she had left for the future, as for the moment the cot at the bottom of her bed worked and there was room for a small bed later on.
Pulling back the sheet, she laid her sleeping daughter down. Her cheeks were rosy but no longer feverish as the medicine was doing its job. Switching on the baby monitor even though there wasn’t anywhere in the tiny cottage where she wouldn’t hear her cry, Gwen drew the curtains and crept from the room, leaving the door ajar behind her.