Kitabı oku: «The Mills & Boon Stars Collection», sayfa 46
He imagined her leaving with her baby, and instead of a sense of reprieve he was aware of a great yawning idea of emptiness.
When Elizabeth had died he had decided to live his life in the best way he could for their son, completely forgetting that life never remained static. That life was change. He frowned as he switched on the computer.
Isabella prowled the house like a thief, restless without knowing why and looking for something to do. She sat down and wrote a long and chatty letter to Charlie and Richie, as promised—and hoped that Mrs Stafford would be adult enough to pass the letter on to her two young sons.
When she had stamped the envelope, she found a feather duster and wandered from room to room, polishing flecks of dust from all the mirrors. Next she cleaned the two sinks in the downstairs cloakroom, even though they were spotless and gleaming. After she had rearranged all the spices in the store-cupboard, she rang the local Portuguese delicatessen and placed an order for a delivery.
‘I’d like rib and shoulder and breast of pork, please. Sausage. Linguica. Green cabbage. Oh, and beans.’
‘And when would you like this delivered, madam?’
She frowned at herself in the mirror, thinking that she looked especially enormous today. ‘Any chance of tomorrow morning?’
There was no hesitation whatsoever—probably because of the delivery address, Isabella decided.
‘That shouldn’t be a problem, madam.’
When Eddie got in from school the next day, he came straight into the kitchen as he always did, to find Isabella up to her elbows in cooking utensils. He strolled over to the work-surface, where she was chopping onion as if her life depended on it.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked with interest.
‘Jessie isn’t here, so I’m making feijoada for our supper.’ She smiled.
‘What’s that?’
‘Come on, Eddie,’ she chided. ‘You remember? It’s Brazil’s national dish. With lots of meats and different sausages—’
Eddie looked down at all the different pots which were cluttering the work-surface. ‘Looks difficult to make.’
‘Not difficult. Fiddly. Lots of different things all added to one big pot at different times. See?’
‘Can I help?’
‘Of course you can help. Wash your hands first and then you can prepare this garlic for me. See this clever little machine? Now—’ she leaned over his shoulder ‘—put each bulb in here—and it will crush it up for you.’
That was where Paulo discovered them when he arrived home from work. Unknotting his tie, he wandered into the kitchen to find Isabella removing a large piece of meat from the pot with Eddie standing glued to her side.
Paulo smiled—as much at the sight of their obvious companionship as the warm, homely smell which triggered off snatches of boyhood memories. ‘Mmm. Feijoada.’ He sniffed, as he walked into the kitchen. ‘What’s brought all this on?’
‘You don’t like it?’ she asked him anxiously.
He smiled conspiratorially at his son. ‘Show me the man who doesn’t like feijoada—and I’ll show you a man who doesn’t deserve to eat! No, I was just thinking that it’s a pretty adventurous thing to cook, if you’re feeling tired.’
‘But I’m not feeling in the least bit tired!’ She energetically threw a handful of bay leaves in the pot, as if to demonstrate.
Jet eyes lanced through her. ‘So I see,’ he agreed slowly. ‘And wasn’t that polish I could smell in the hallway?’
‘Oh, it’s Jessie’s day off and I was just waving a duster in the air,’ she explained airily. ‘More for something to do than anything else.’
He nodded. ‘Eddie—want to go and get changed out of your school uniform, now?’
‘Sure, Papa.’
He stood looking at the image she made once Eddie had gone. Her stomach was so big that she should have looked ungainly as she moved towards the cooker—but she didn’t at all. She just seemed perfectly ripe and extremely beautiful—even though her cheeks were all flushed from bending over a hot pan.
‘You’re nesting,’ he said suddenly.
She turned round, wooden spoon in hand. ‘Mmm?’
‘It’s called nesting. That’s why you’re doing all this.’ He waved a hand around. ‘Cleaning and polishing and chopping and cooking. You’re getting ready to have your baby.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘Yes, I can. Elizabeth did it, too—it’s nature telling you to make your home ready for the new arrival.’
She searched his face for signs of sadness. ‘Does having me here like this bring it all back?’ she asked softly.
He didn’t look away. ‘A little.’ He saw the look of contrition on her face and shook his head. ‘It’s not a problem, Bella—I came to terms with what happened to Elizabeth a long time ago. I had to—for Eddie’s sake. But—’ and he narrowed his eyes into a searchlight stare as he saw her face grow pale ‘—it does give me the upper hand when it comes to knowing what I’m talking about. And that was another one, wasn’t it?’
‘Another what?’
‘Contraction,’ he elaborated roughly.
Suddenly an intimation of what was about to happen to her whispered fingertips of fear over her skin. She shook her head and gave the beans a stir. ‘It can’t be,’ she said, a slight edge of desperation in her voice. ‘The baby isn’t due until next week.’
‘And babies never come when they’re supposed to.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really,’ he agreed calmly, when he saw her attempt to turn a grimace into a smile. ‘And for goodness’ sake, will you stop pretending that you’re not getting contractions, when it’s pretty obvious to me that you are?’ he exploded.
So she wasn’t fooling him at all! At least his words gave her licence to drop the wooden spoon with a clutter and to bend over and clutch at her abdomen as she had been dying to do for ages.
And it took a moment or two for her to realise that he was standing in front of her, his face a shifting complex of shadows looking for all the world like some dark guardian angel sent to protect her. Her eyes were big and fearful as she stared up at him. ‘Ow,’ she moaned softly. ‘Ow!’
‘What is it?’ he demanded, his hands spanning her expanded waist and feeling her tense beneath his touch. ‘Another contraction?’
She nodded her head. His hands felt strong and real and supportive, but wasn’t all that an illusion? In fact, wasn’t everything just an illusion compared to the razor-sharp lash of pain she had just experienced? You spent nine months imagining that something couldn’t possibly be happening, and then all of a sudden, it was. And there wasn’t a thing you could do to stop it. ‘Paulo—I’m scared.’
He lifted one hand from her waist to soothe softly at her head, the shiny curls clinging like vines to his fingers. ‘I know you are, querida, but you’ve just got to take it easy, remember? Slow and easy. This is what you’ve been preparing for, Bella. You know what to do. Remember your breathing. And the relaxation—all that stuff you did in your childbirth classes—I know it too, don’t forget. I’ve done it before. I’ll be there to help you.’ He paused. ‘If you want me there.’
A few minutes later, she choked out a gasp at a new, sharper pain. ‘Another one!’
Paulo glanced down at his watch. ‘That’s ten minutes,’ he observed, as calmly as possible.
‘Is that OK?’ she whispered, because everything she had been taught seemed to have flown clean out of her head.
He frowned. This all seemed to be happening far more rapidly than it was supposed to. ‘I’d better ring Jessie and get her in to come and look after Eddie,’ he said, watching her body tense up again. ‘I think it’s time I took you to hospital.’
This time the contraction almost swamped her, and the sweat ran down in rivulets from her forehead. And if this was just a taste of things to come…
Isabella gripped Paulo’s hand, not feeling the sticky moistness from where her nails dug into and broke the skin to make him bleed.
‘Don’t leave me, Paulo,’ she moaned softly. ‘Please don’t leave me.’
That vulnerable little plea smashed its way right through his defences, and he was filled with an overwhelming need to protect her.
‘I won’t leave you,’ he promised, as he reached for the telephone.
CHAPTER NINE
THE whirling blue light of the ambulance cast strange neon flashes over both their faces and the sound of the siren screamed in their ears as they sped towards the hospital.
Through a daze, Isabella gripped onto Paulo’s hand, squirming around to try and get comfortable—but no position seemed to help.
Paulo was trying to stay calm, but it was harder than he had anticipated. He had tried paging Dr Cordosa, but the obstetrician had been sailing and was currently making his way back up the motorway. Paulo glanced down at Isabella, thinking that if her labour continued at this alarmingly fast rate, then Dr Cordosa would miss it anyway.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Hot!’ Sweat beaded her forehead. ‘Will Eddie be OK?’
‘Stop worrying about Eddie—he’ll be fine. Jessie is there with him.’
‘What about the feijoada? It’s only half-cooked!’
‘Bella!’ he said warningly.
At the hospital they were rushed straight into the Emergency Department, where Bella was put, protesting, onto one of the trolleys. Paulo held her hand all the way up to the labour ward and when the midwife arrived to examine her she continued to grip onto it as tightly as a drowning woman.
The midwife gently pushed him aside, speaking to him as if he was a child himself.
‘Can we have the father on the other side of the bed, please?’
He was about to say that he wasn’t sure that he’d be around for the main part of the action, when he felt Bella’s fingernails digging into the palm of his hand again. He looked down at her, the question in his eyes being answered by the beseeching look in hers. His heart pounded. When she had begged him not to leave her, she had meant it, he realised with something approaching shock.
‘Sure,’ he said, but he delicately kept his eyes on her face while the midwife conducted her intimate examination, and for the first time in his life he actually felt shy.
What Paulo wanted for Isabella more than anything was a straightforward birth, but he knew the instant that the midwife raised an expressive eyebrow at her runner across the delivery room and the runner hurriedly left the room that maybe this birth was not going to be straightforward at all.
He could tell that the team was trying to play any drama down, but he knew when two other doctors entered the room that things weren’t going according to plan. He quickly read their name badges. One was an obstetrician and the other was a paediatrician. So didn’t that mean that both mother and baby were in danger?
His heart made a painful acceleration, and he found himself praying for the first time in years. Dear God—he had already lost one woman in his life—surely fate would not be so merciless as to take the other one?
But he must not let his fear communicate itself to Bella. Not when she was being so brave. He watched the look of grim determination on her face as she conquered the rising tide of each contraction and he was reminded of her fundamental fearlessness. He gritted his teeth, frustrated at his inability to help her when she most needed him.
For Isabella nothing existed, save the powerful demands of her body—everything else faded into complete insignificance. She refused the drugs they offered her, but gulped down the gas and air, which helped. And so did Paulo, just by being there. She gripped onto his hand when the contractions grew so strong that she did not think she could bear to go through another one. Whenever she unclenched her eyes, his face swam into her line of vision and she could read the encouragement there.
And something else, too—a kind of pride and admiration which filled her with a powerful new energy.
People had started telling her to push, but she didn’t need them to tell her anything, because by then the urge to get her baby into the outside world had become too strong to resist.
‘Here’s your baby!’ called someone.
‘Come and see your baby being born, Paulo,’ urged one of the midwives.
Paulo couldn’t have refused the midwife’s request, even if he had wanted to. And he didn’t. He knew that it was important for Bella to have someone witness an event which was as miraculous for her as for any other woman—even if the circumstances surrounding it were unconventional.
He let go of her hand and walked down the room to see the dark, downy head beginning to emerge and his heart gathered speed as a shoulder quickly followed. He was aware of furious activity executed with an unnatural calm, and then the baby slithered out, but made no sound as precious seconds ticked by. There was more activity, and then, quietly and dramatically, the first tenuous wail of life which hit him like a punch to the guts.
‘It’s a girl!’ said the paediatrician, bending over the baby and cleaning the tiny nose and mouth.
Paulo walked over to Isabella and looked down at her pale face and the hair which was matted to her brow and cheeks. He bent down and brushed a damp curl away, so tempted to kiss her. ‘Congratulations, querida,’ he whispered instead. ‘You have a beautiful daughter.’
A great wave of relief washed over her, leaving her shaky and exhausted in its wake. ‘Can I hold her?’
‘Just for a moment,’ said the paediatrician, as he carefully placed the tiny bundle in her arms. ‘Her heartbeat was a little low during the delivery and she was a little slow to breathe—so we’re going to take her off to Special Care for her first night, just to keep an eye on her. Does she have a name yet?’
Bella stared down at the impossibly small head. The peep of dark curls through the swaddled blanket. And all the dark, frightened thoughts which had driven her half-crazy at the time she’d become pregnant—dissolved like magic. Because this baby was magic. A sense of love flooded her. ‘She’s called Estella,’ she said, the overwhelming emotion making her breath catch in her throat. ‘It means “star”.’
‘No, you’re the star,’ said Paulo softly, but he spoke in Portuguese, so that only Bella understood.
She looked up into his face and saw that his eyes were bright—the warmth and care in them surely too strong to be imagined? As proud as if he really were the father. Her lips began to tremble and she looked down and kissed her baby’s head.
Bella opened her eyes in the middle of the night and wondered what was different. She sat bolt upright and looked around her. After the delivery she had submerged herself in the most delicious bath and had then fallen asleep, with Paulo sitting like some dark, beautiful guard beside her.
But now Paulo had gone and the crib by the bed remained empty. Fear clutched erratically at her heart as she reached out and rang the bell by her side and the nurse came hurrying into the room.
‘Yes, dear—what is it?’
‘Where’s my baby, please?’
‘She’s still in Special Care—but not for very much longer. I spoke to them a little while ago, and she’s doing just fine.’
‘I want to see her.’
‘And you can. But why don’t you rest for the time being, and wait until the morning?’
‘I want to see her,’ said Bella with a stubborn new resolve in her voice she didn’t recognise.
The nurse insisted on taking her up to the Special Care Unit in a wheelchair and as they drew up in front of the cubicle, Bella felt tears of relief pricking the back of her eyes as she watched the tableau being played out in front of them.
Behind the bright glass screen stood Paulo, and he was cradling the tiny baby in his arms, his lips moving as he spoke softly to her.
And Bella made a broken little sound. A primitive sound which seemed to be torn from some place deep within her.
The nurse looked down at her. ‘Are you all right?’
Bella nodded. I love him. I’ve always loved him.
The nurse beamed. ‘You new mothers! Of course you love him—you’ve just had his baby, haven’t you?’
Isabella hadn’t even realised that she had spoken the words out loud, but suddenly she didn’t care. And maybe Paulo realised that he was being watched or spoken about, because he suddenly looked up, and his brilliant smile told her that the baby was going to be fine.
‘I’m going in,’ she said to the nurse.
‘Let me wheel you—’
‘No. I want to walk. Honestly.’
Paulo stood and watched while she climbed carefully out of the wheelchair, watched the proud way she refused the nurse’s arm and held herself erect, before walking stiffly into the cubicle and over to where he held Estella.
She looked into the black brilliance dancing in his eyes—eyes as dark as Estella’s—thinking that he could easily be mistaken for her baby’s father. But he wasn’t. And he never would be. ‘You’ve got my baby,’ she whispered.
‘I know. Can’t resist her. Do you want her back? I thought so. Here—’ And he held her out to Bella with a soft smile. ‘Go to Mummy.’
Very gently, he placed Estella into her arms. The baby instinctively began rooting for her mother’s breast and Isabella felt a tug of love so powerful that she stared down at the shivering little head with an indescribable sense of wonder.
And Paulo stood outside the magic circle, watched the first tentative explorings between mother and child, appalled by the dark feelings of exclusion which ran through him.
He wanted her, he realised. Just hours after she’d had another man’s baby and he wanted her so badly that it hurt. Now what kind of person had he become?
He glanced up at the ward clock which was ticking the seconds away. It was four in the morning. ‘I’d better get back home. I want to be there for Eddie waking up. I’ll bring him to visit tomorrow. Goodbye, Isabella—sweet dreams.’
Suddenly he was gone, and Isabella and the nurse stared after his dark figure as he strode off down the hospital corridor without once looking back.
The nurse turned to Isabella and gave her a confused kind of smile. ‘Why, the naughty man didn’t even kiss you goodbye!’ she clucked.
Isabella dropped a tired kiss on the top of Estella’s head. ‘I think the excitement of the delivery must have got to him,’ she said. Far better to think that than to imagine that he hadn’t kissed her because he simply hadn’t wanted to…
CHAPTER TEN
THE following morning, Paulo arrived on the ward before the night-staff had gone home, bearing a bottle of champagne tied with a pink ribbon.
Three staff midwives looked up as he appeared at the office door and their mouths collectively fell open at the sight of the tall, dark-haired vision in a deep blue suit and an amber tie of pure silk.
‘I know I’m early.’ He smiled. ‘But I wanted to see Bella before I went to work.’
The trio all sprang to their feet, smoothing down crisp white aprons. ‘Let me show you where she is,’ they said in unison.
Paulo’s black eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘I know where she is,’ he said softly. ‘I asked one of the nursing assistants. And I’d like to surprise her, if I may.’
Bella was busy feeding Estella, the baby nestled into the crook of Bella’s arm while she tugged enthusiastically at her mother’s breast. It was the strangest and most amazing sensation, Bella decided, her mouth curving into a slow smile of satisfaction.
Paulo stood outside her cubicle and watched her, marvelling at how easily and how naturally she had taken to feeding her child.
Breast-feeding had not been quite so popular when Eddie had been born and, in any case, Elizabeth’s postnatal blues had meant that he had been able to take on most of the bottle-feeding so that she could rest.
He thought how the bearing of Isabella’s breast, though intimate, was not especially erotic. Then he saw her remove one elongated and rosy nipple and wondered just who he had been trying to kid.
Bella looked up to find herself caught in the intense dazzle of his black eyes and she felt the tremble of her lips as she gazed across the room at him.
And any idea that she might feel differently after the birth or that her words of love yesterday had been the hormone-fuelled fantasies of a post-partum woman were instantly banished. Because just the sight of his dear, handsome face was enough to engulf her with an unbearable sense of yearning.
He came in and put the champagne down on the locker. ‘Hi,’ he murmured.
‘Hi,’ she said back, feeling almost shy—but maybe that wasn’t so very surprising. He had seen her at her most exposed—body and emotions stripped bare as she had brought new life into the world.
‘I thought I’d pop in on my way in to work.’
And play havoc with her blood pressure in that beautifully cut dark suit. She smiled. ‘I’m glad you did.’
He looked down at the baby who had now flopped into an instant, contented sleep. Had Eddie ever been that tiny? he wondered in bemusement. ‘How is she?’
‘Beautiful.’
Like her mother, he thought. ‘Can I take her—or would that disturb her?’
She shook her head. ‘Take away,’ she said huskily.
He bent to pluck the swaddled bundle from her arms, surprised at the pleasure it gave him to hold Estella again. She smelt of milk—and of Bella—and he felt compelled by a powerful need to drop a kiss on top of the tiny head.
Isabella watched while he cradled and kissed Estella, and in that moment she loved him even more for his warmth and his generosity. I wish he would hold me like that, she thought with fierce longing.
‘I phoned your father,’ he said.
Her heart thudded a little. ‘And?’
‘He’s puffed up with pride—I never imagined that he could go a full minute without saying anything!’
No need to tell her that he had then uncomfortably submitted to Luis’s congratulations and endured the inevitable questions about who the child most resembled—Paulo or Bella. ‘It’s difficult to say,’ he had replied smoothly, without stopping to question why the evasion had slipped so easily from his lips.
‘How’s Eddie?’ she asked.
He stroked the downy head with the tip of his nose. ‘Excited. More than excited—even the computer doesn’t have an edge on this baby. I’ll bring him in with me tonight.’
Paulo visited her morning and evening until she and the baby were discharged a week later, and he had an air of anticipation about him as he led her outside to where a large and shining family car awaited them.
With her arms full of blanket-swathed baby, Isabella blinked at the gleaming motor in surprise. ‘What’s this—a new car?’
‘That’s right.’ He opened the door for her. ‘Like it?’’
‘It’s lovely, but what happened to the old one?’
‘Nothing. It’s in the garage—this is an extra. We need a bigger car now that there’s four of us.’
He doesn’t mean it the way it sounded, she told herself fiercely, as she bent to strap Estella into the newly installed car-seat.
Eddie was standing on the doorstep waiting to greet them, and he was hopping up and down with excitement. His father had taken him most days to visit them in hospital, leaving Paulo and Isabella feeling distinctly invisible! All Eddie’s attention had been fixed on the tiny infant who clung so tightly to his finger with one little fist.
Paulo had found the experience strangely moving, noticing the interaction between his son and the new baby with something approaching remorse. He had always been so certain that Eddie should be the exclusive child in his life—always steeling himself against committing to a relationship again and the possibility of more children. Not that it had ever been a hardship. No woman had remotely tempted him to do otherwise.
But it was sobering to see how his son behaved with the baby—as if someone had just turned a light on inside him. As baby paraphernalia began to be delivered to the house, Paulo found himself wondering whether an immaculate house with a working father and a housekeeper was not vastly inferior to the noise and mess and love which this new addition seemed to have brought with her.
Isabella brought the baby into the house, walking with exaggerated care and still feeling slightly disorientated. She had only been away for a few days and yet she was returning as a different person. As a mother. With all the responsibilities which went with that role. Yet the sense of unreality which had descended on her since the birth had not completely left her, even though Estella was real and beautiful enough.
It was hard to believe now that Paulo had actually held her hand throughout. He had seen her stripped of all dignity—moaning and writhing with pain. He had wiped her brow just before she pushed the baby out and he had even watched her do that. But he had not touched her, nor kissed her and somehow she had thought—no, hoped—that he would. Maybe he was the one who had changed his mind.
But her troubled thoughts disappeared the moment she looked around her. The hallway was festooned with balloons and a lavish arrangement of scented pink flowers was standing next to the telephone. From the direction of the kitchen drifted a sweet, familiar smell.
‘It’s the feijoada,’ explained Paulo as he saw her sniff the air and frown. ‘We froze the meal you were making when you went into labour. Eddie said it would be perfect as a welcome-home feast.’
‘Eddie’s right—it’s the very best,’ said Isabella, looking at a silver and pink balloon saying ‘It’s a Girl!’, which was floating up the stairs. ‘And this all looks wonderful, too.’ Her voice softened. ‘You must have worked very hard.’
Jessie came out of the kitchen, a wide smile of welcome on her face. ‘Welcome home!’ she said, and hugged her.
‘Thank you, Jessie!’
‘Can I have a little peep?’
Isabella pulled the cashmere blanket away from the miniature face and sighed. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?”
Paulo found himself looking at the mother instead of the baby. There was no doubt that she looked absolutely breathtaking—her figure seemed to have gone from bulk to newly slender almost overnight. The nurse had said that because she was so young and fit her body had just sprung back into shape straight away.
She was wearing a pair of saffron-yellow jeans and a scarlet shirt stretched tight over her milk-full breasts. The abundance of copper-brown curls were tied back from her face with a black ribbon and her unmade-up face looked dewy and radiant.
So what was the matter with her?
She seemed so distant, he thought. Detached. Her movements jerky and self-conscious—her only true warmth appearing when she was relating to the baby. Or to Eddie. But certainly not to him.
‘Come upstairs and see what we’ve done for Estella,’ he said softly.
‘Can I hold the baby for a bit?’ said Jessie eagerly. ‘Give you a bit of a break?’
‘Of course you can!’ smiled Isabella but, with the infant out of her arms, she felt curiously bereft.
‘Let me see her too, Jessie!’ said Eddie.
Isabella’s heart was in her mouth as Paulo followed her up the stairs. ‘Where exactly are we going?’ she asked him.
‘The room right next door to yours,’ he said, a faint frown appearing as he heard the unmistakable note of wariness in her voice.
But Isabella’s nerves were temporarily forgotten when she opened the door and looked inside and saw what a lot of effort he must have gone to. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she sighed. ‘How on earth have you managed to do all this?’
It was the cutest baby’s room imaginable.
One wall was dominated by a mural of Alice in Wonderland—complete with white rabbit and grinning Cheshire cat—while the rest of the walls were the exact colour of cherryade. An old-fashioned crib stood next to the wall, with flounces of lace nestling delicately amidst the pink gingham, while a rag-doll sat with several of her sisters on the gleaming, newly painted window ledge.
She found herself thinking that he had gone to an awful lot of trouble for a stay which might only be temporary and her heart gave a sudden great lurch of hope.
‘Like it?’ he asked.
She turned to him. ‘Like it? Oh, Paulo—who in their right mind could not help loving it?’
‘And are you in your right mind?’ he asked her softly.
Something in his tone made the hope die an uncertain death. ‘I…think so. Why do you ask?’
He smiled, but there was a cold edge to his voice. ‘You are wearing the kind of expression which I imagine the early Christians might have adopted just before being fed to the lions,’ he said drily. ‘What’s the matter, Isabella—did you think I was planning to drag you up here to make love to you already?’
From the look on his face, the idea clearly appalled him. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said woodenly. She trusted him not to hurt her, to respect her and not to leap on her before she was ready—yet he was hurting her far more by standing on the opposite side of the room like some dark, remote stranger.
He frowned at the reproachful look in her amber eyes. ‘Bella, you’re tired. And you’ve just had a baby. What kind of a monster do you think I am?’
‘You’re not a monster at all,’ she said. ‘I’m just grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone to—’
Damn it—he didn’t want her gratitude, just some sign, some indication that she still wanted him. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he put in coolly.
Rather desperately, she said, ‘But it must have cost a lot of money?’
The light went out in his eyes. ‘Please don’t mention it again, Bella. Let’s just call it a small repayment for the kindness shown to me by your father all these years.’
And wasn’t that a bit like saying that the debt was now repaid? She wondered?
She wanted to touch him, to run her fingertips along the hard, proud outline of his jaw, but inside she was scared.
She had just had a baby and she also had a poor track record where men were concerned. If she started a relationship with Paulo, she had to be very sure that she was doing the right thing. And while in her heart there wasn’t a single doubt, she needed him to know that she wasn’t acting on a whim when they made love.
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