Maggie Cox - Latin Lovers - Passionate Spaniards - The Spaniard's Marriage Demand / Kept by the Spanish Billionaire / The Spanish Doctor's Convenient Bride

As well as being furious at her seeming obstruction of his desires, simmering deep inside Leandro was absolute rage that he had not received any of Isabella’s messages about her pregnancy. When he got back to Madrid, one of the first tasks he would be undertaking was to call on the film offices concerned, make a proper investigation about what had happened and then make his fury known to the people responsible. Their over-zealous protection had denied him knowledge of his son as well as the once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness the miracle of his birth, and to his mind that was not an action that would be eliciting his unconditional forgiveness any time soon …

‘Of course I can comprehend that you want to be with your son, Leandro, but sometimes it’s just not possible to have our desires instantly gratified. Sometimes a little planning and forbearance is required.’

‘Dios mio! You test my forbearance, Isabella!’

His white-hot anger cut Isabella to the quick. This was definitely not the kind of reunion she would have envisaged for them both, given the choice. Now she felt utterly miserable.

‘You have no idea what it means to me to discover I have a son …no idea at all.’ His lean jaw visibly clenched, Leandro focused his agitated gaze firmly on Isabella’s unhappy face. ‘It is punishment enough that I did not know of his existence until yesterday. Do not punish me further by keeping him from me another day.’

As she heard the anguish in his voice Isabella’s heart ached for his distress. Now she knew an instinctive need to hold him, to tell him she understood his great need to be around his child …but, fearing that he might reject such advances when the atmosphere between them was fraught with such tension, she stayed where she was, her arms down by her sides.

‘My father died.’

‘What?’ Isabella held her breath in surprise and shock. She saw Leandro lift up his hand to push it through his hair, but he stopped halfway and shook his head, as if it pained him beyond measure to even say the words. ‘When?’ she asked him. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Not long after we said goodbye in Vigo. He was mowed down by a drunken driver …It is also why I need to be with my son.’

Sensing that he did not want to go into detail, Isabella felt her heart swell with compassion. Now she understood why he was so vociferous about his demands that they go to Spain. If he had recently lost his father …and in such a brutal, shocking way …it must be even more important for him to have a close bond with his son.

‘I’m so sorry, Leandro.’ She moved towards him to touch him, to show him how moved she was by his confession, but he stepped away from her, as if he almost regretted having to share this information with her. His gaze glittered fiercely.

‘I do not need your sympathies, Isabella!’ he said savagely, and a muscle ticked at the side of his lean jaw. ‘All I need is for you to come to Spain with Raphael!’

Leandro had not wanted to tell Isabella about what had happened to his father, but the emotion of their situation had prised the information from him. He only hoped that he could trust her not to share it with anybody else. He was fiercely protective of his especially close relationship with his father, even more so since he had gone. His reasons for wanting Isabella to move to Spain with him were imperative and he was not playing games here. He wanted Raphael with him …he wanted his son. He could not go home without him now that he had seen him. He owed it to Vincente to be a good father to his grandson—the way Vincente had been a good father to Leandro. What he could not afford to do was let Isabella’s doubts cloud the issue in any way.

‘Leandro? Raphael’s happiness and well-being means everything to me and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise that. If I come to Spain with you, I need to feel that I’m doing the best thing for my son …that I won’t regret it.’

He stared at her as though it pained him to look at her. ‘Put yourself in my position—a father who did not know he was a father until yesterday, nine months after my son was born—and then you will know about regret, querida …’

And without another word he left her there alone in the kitchen, his expression an amalgam of sorrow and anger as he furiously brushed past her, leaving Isabella feeling as if she’d done him the most dreadful wrong that she might never be able to put right ….

Leandro ended the conversation with his mother and placed the receiver back on its rest. His hand shook slightly as he did so. After getting over the initial shock, Constanza Reyes had been ecstatic to learn that he had a son and that he was bringing him home with him tomorrow. She had laughed and cried for joy, as well as pledging to offer prayers to the saints, and the terrible depression that had descended upon her since his father’s death had seemed to miraculously recede. For such a blessing, Leandro knew only the most unimaginable gratitude. But strangely enough the conversation had left him a little morose instead of completely happy. He had lost a father and gained a son, but relations with the woman who was the mother of his child were under a most regrettable strain. Isabella had been on his mind almost constantly since he had left her last night—as indeed she had been on it over the past eighteen months—and he longed to know how to make relations between them more conducive.

Was he so wrong to expect her to leave her life in England and make a new life with him and Raphael in Spain? After the time they had spent together in the Port of Vigo last spring, Leandro did not think that he had imagined the powerful connection that had radiated so compellingly between them. When he had let Isabella go without even giving her his cell phone number, he had had much cause to regret his overly cautious action. And all that time after she had left she had been pregnant with his child and he had not known it …Regret and pain locked his throat when he considered how she had managed on her own and how betrayed she must have felt when the film company would not even pass on her messages to him. He should not be surprised that any vestiges of past affection had probably been obliterated under the circumstances.

Yet he could not help craving her attention like a drug he could not give up. Last night he had slept little. How could a man sleep when he was plagued by daydreams and fantasies of a woman who fulfilled every criteria of feminine perfection that Leandro could imagine? The softly provocative kisses he had received from her delectable lips in that hotel room eighteen months ago—as well as the memory of the arousing little sounds she had made in the throes of making love—were a seductive torment to him even now in the cold light of morning.

Impatiently he pushed to his feet, driving his hands into the slim pockets of his jeans as once again the hot, drugging heat that flooded his body at the thought of Isabella made it impossible to sit or relax at all. As his edgy, preoccupied gaze swept the newly tidy room that his friend’s housekeeper had restored in the early hours whilst Leandro had been working he had to console himself with the fact that at least tomorrow he would have the chance to be alone with Isabella and Raphael in his own house. And once his baby son was fed and settled for the night, then he would waste no more time in making relations between himself and his beautiful amante far sweeter and more agreeable than they were at present. And living with him and sharing some of the material and cultural advantages of his world and seeing how much that environment must benefit their son, Isabella would soon forget her worries that she might be jeopardising Raphael’s happiness and quickly agree to becoming Leandro’s wife …