Andie Brock - The Last Heir of Monterrato

‘I don’t want you to think for one minute that I am underestimating the enormity of what I am asking of you.’ His voice was very low, earnest. ‘But at the same time...’ his eyes ruthlessly scanned her face ‘...I don’t believe it is an entirely selfish request. I know what being a mother would mean to you.’

Lottie gulped back the lump in her throat, her eyes widening at his startling assumption. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I saw you, Lottie.’ His pause shimmered with raw emotion. ‘I saw the look of euphoria on your face when we found out that you were pregnant—saw the way your maternal instinct kicked in, stronger than any other bond. And then...’ He carried on, even though he looked as if he was hurting inside. ‘I saw the way you held our daughter in your arms.’

‘No. Stop!’ This was more than Lottie could bear and her hands flew to cover her ears.

‘Admit it, Lottie. It was never me that you wanted, was it?’ Relentlessly he surged on. ‘It was the baby. The baby was the only thing that mattered. The only reason you ever agreed to marry me. And our marriage was nothing more than a sham. Your final brutal declaration—everything about your behaviour, in fact—points to that one undeniable truth.’

‘I won’t listen to this any more!’ Turning away, Lottie stumbled towards the door, but he was still there—following her, beside her.

‘You can still have that dream, Lottie. Even though our marriage may be over in all but name we can still be parents—you can still be that mother.’

‘I have no idea why you are saying this.’ Blinking back the emotion that was stinging her eyes, Lottie rounded on him, drawing on every last bit of strength she possessed. ‘I can only assume you are confusing this with what you want, not me.’

‘Maybe I thought that too at first.’ Rafael positioned himself in front of the door, his towering shape blocking Lottie’s exit. ‘Until I saw the look on your face just now. I’m right, aren’t I? You want a baby every bit as much as I do.’

‘No, you are not right.’ Futilely trying to move him out of the way, Lottie grabbed hold of the door handle and tugged at it forcefully.

The door opened two inches before it slammed against Rafael.

‘Be careful what you decide, Lottie.’ He looked down at her calmly, totally ignoring the door battering against his heels as she continued to tug at it. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let your contempt for me influence your decision—get in the way of your own happiness.’

Finally he moved to one side and the door flew open, sending Lottie teetering off balance.

‘That would never do.’

* * *

Kicking off her boots, Lottie threw herself down on to the four-poster bed and stared at the tapestry drapes above her, her breath heaving unsteadily in her chest, tears now threatening to spill. How could he do this to her? Taunt her with her failed attempt at motherhood using the preciously painful memories of Seraphina. It was simply cruel.

But that was Rafael. She knew he would stop at nothing to achieve his goal—use anything at his disposal to get what he wanted. Even if it meant tearing open her heart in the process.

Like a double-edged sword, the pain cut both ways, and one slash undoubtedly revealed the truth. She had always wanted to be a mother. Not in the vague, one day it would be nice, mentally picking out cute names way that her girlfriends seemed to view motherhood, but with a deep, unfathomable yearning that was intrinsically a part of who she was.

Maybe her own dysfunctional upbringing had made her realise that being a mother was the most important job of all and, rather than putting her off having children, had instilled in her a longing do it right. There was no doubt that when she had discovered she was pregnant with Rafael’s baby it had flooded her with euphoric exhilaration. This was her chance to be the sort of mother she had always wanted, rather than the one she had had.

As the only child of a woman who, frankly, had had better things to do than pander to the whims of an annoyingly childlike child, Lottie had been largely raised by au pairs or home helps or whatever neighbour happened to be around. This had left Greta free to indulge in her real passion: travelling. Or, more specifically, cruising the world on luxury liners while Lottie had lived in a perpetual state of terror that one day there would be nobody to meet her at the school gates at all.

Funded by Lottie’s much older father, who had thoughtfully taken out a comprehensive life insurance policy before he’d dropped dead when Lottie was still only seven, Greta had become addicted to the glamour of the cruising lifestyle: the handsome stewards in their crisp white uniforms, the perma-tanned dance hosts, the dashing captains. Eventually she had ended up in dry dock with one of the latter, when she had remarried and made a new life in Argentina.

But the other slash of Rafael’s sword... Lottie screwed up her eyes against its searing pain, at the realisation that he’d got it so wrong. ‘It was never me that you wanted... The baby was the only thing that mattered.’ Was it possible that he actually believed that? That she had really done such a good job of fooling him? And, if so, why did it make her feel so hollowed out with sadness?

Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself up against the feather pillows and gazed at the room around her. It was the same bedroom she had shared with Rafael—well, half of it, at any rate. The huge double doors across the middle of the room were now firmly closed, like a metaphor for their marriage.

How different would things have been if they hadn’t lost Seraphina? If there had been no accident? If everything hadn’t gone so disastrously wrong? Their daughter would have been three now, running around this crusty old mausoleum, breathing fresh life into it, maybe even joined by a little brother or sister.

But it had happened, and the sequence of events afterwards had happened, leading to her going back to England, starting a new life in London and putting the past behind her. Even if that new life had meant studiously avoiding babies of all descriptions—babies in buggies, baby adverts on the television—and even turning away from babies smiling gummily at her over their mothers’ shoulders on the bus.

But she had never lost her yearning to have a baby, Rafael’s baby. And she had never forgotten their last remaining embryo. The tiny blob of shared cells stored in a tank of liquid nitrogen represented the last vestiges of their relationship and it was always there, locked away deep in her subconscious. Occasionally she would find herself fantasising about the sort of child it might grow into, before hurriedly pushing the thought back in its box and turning the key once more.

And now...now the embryo was being offered its chance of life. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that circumstances would bring about a possibility like this. It was a mad, crazy, ridiculous idea.

Wasn’t it?

* * *

Rafael paced up and down the length of the grand formal dining room, pausing only to check his watch once again. Where the hell was she? She knew that dinner was to be served at eight-thirty and she was now an hour late. Was she deliberately taunting him?

It was half an hour since he had gone up to find her, when the sudden, irrational fear had gripped him. He’d pounded his feet along the corridor to her room, convinced that she had gone—run away as she had before. He’d rapped sharply on the door, and the thirty seconds of silence before he had heard her moving about had seemed like an eternity.

But then the door had opened and there she’d been—all sleepy eyes and tousled hair, straight from a rumpled bed still warm from her body. And the sight of her, and that bed, had twisted a coil of lust deep inside of him.