Diana Hamilton - In Name Only

‘You’ve got problems?’ Molly had said, taking the sturdy, towel-wrapped baby on her knee while Cathy had disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee. ‘So tell me about them. Slowly. Don’t gabble as you did down the phone last night.’

So over their drinks Cathy had told her, guiltily missing out the fact that she had lied, had allowed Javier Campuzano to believe she was Johnny’s mother. She didn’t feel easy about what she had done, but that erroneous belief had to strengthen her case where he was concerned. If he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out on him he would leave nothing undone—not a single thing—until he had legal and total control over his nephew.

‘You and Senor Campuzano are both related to Johnny in the same degree,’ Molly said, her neat head tipped on one side. ‘Naturally, he could apply for an order to give him the right to see the child regularly, to exercise some control over his future upbringing and welfare.’

Which was precisely what Campuzano had said, but Cathy knew, she just knew, he wanted complete and total control. And she had no doubt at all that he would move heaven and earth to get it if he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out, preferring the glamour and excitement of a modelling career to the hard work of bringing up a child. So, ‘And if the baby were still with his real mother?’ Cathy asked, hoping she didn’t look as hot and guilty as she felt. ‘Would his father’s family still have rights?’

‘Well, I have warned you,’ Molly answered, her smile sympathetic, ‘that the adoption order might not go through, despite the natural mother saying she wanted nothing more to do with the child. The courts could take the view that, following the birth, she is suffering some kind of hormonal imbalance and could change her mind at a later stage. Only time will tell, of course, and, in the interim, you could be given a residence order with parental responsibility.’ She was taking the question at face value, in view of the warnings she’d already given, and that made Cathy feel more devious than ever, her long hair falling forward, hiding her uncomfortable face as she dressed the baby. And Molly was telling her, ‘And yes, the father’s family would still have rights; a child needs the care and love of all its family.’ Which was not at all what Cathy had wanted to hear.

And because of that she had had to back down, to agree to come to Spain. All she had to do now was convince the not-to-be-convinced that she was a responsible, loving mother.

She was in her own thoughts. Her mouth took a grim line and, made aware that he was looking at her, saying something, she shrugged half-heartedly. ‘Sorry?’

‘We are almost there. You can see the house from here.’ The emphatic patience of his tone told her he was repeating himself. And then, with an edge of steel, ‘I would have thought you would be eager to see where your child will be spending most of his boyhood.’

Unforgivable. Untrue. He was trying to make her believe that Johnny’s future was already settled. She refused to dignify his taunt by making any comment. Casting a dismissive glance at the low white building perched on top of a rounded hill overlooking the vineyards, the rows of newly leafing vines curving around the hillsides in perfect symmetry, Cathy hunched one shoulder in a negligent shrug. She utterly refused to be impressed.

Johnny didn’t need vineyards, or anything else Campuzano could give him. He needed love, and cherishing, and she could give him that in abundance. Unfortunately, the Spaniard seemed to be offering just that. The sternly arrogant features were relaxed, irradiated with intensely tender pleasure as he bounced the squealing baby on his knee.

Jealousy, white and piercing and utterly unpleasant, darkened her eyes, and her voice was thin and sharp as she instinctively reached for the child.

‘Do you want to make him sick?’ she asked, and was immediately, humiliatingly ashamed of herself, hardly able to contain her relief when the Mercedes swept through a wide arch in a long white wall and came to a well-bred halt in a courtyard that billowed with scarlet geraniums in huge terracotta pots.

However, for all her shame, she refused to hand Johnny over as Campuzano held the car door open, managing with unsteady defiance to lever herself to her feet, feeling the heat of the sun-baked cobbles burn through the soles of her sensible low-heeled shoes.

Seen at close quarters, the house was impressive: low and sprawling with thick, white-painted walls and a sturdy double-storey square tower at one end. The arcaded front elevation seemed to offer a cool refuge from the sun, with the harsh contrasts of the white walls, the deep blue of the sky, the vibrant, living colour of the purple bougainvillaea, all those spicescented scarlet geraniums.

Cathy closed her eyes on a wave of homesickness, overpowered as much by the personality, the lithe strength, the sheer untamed grace of the Spaniard as by the almost bludgeoning vitality of his native Andalusia.

Transplanted from the soft greens and greys and blues of a reluctant English spring, she felt suddenly that the enormity of having to do battle with Javier Campuzano on his own territory was beyond her.

But, despite her quiet temperament, she was a fighter, she reminded herself. She would not simply give in, as the Spaniard was so obviously convinced she would. Straightening her drooping shoulders, she produced a hopefully imperious tone.

‘Show me where I can feed and change the baby. He needs to be out of this sun.’ Out of her need to hold her own she had managed to make it sound as though the vibrant energy of the Andalusian heat were in some obscure way obscene, and the eyes that challenged him were glinting with a purple spark of defiance.

‘Of course.’ He was clearly unimpressed by her attitude, and the lowering black bar of his brows put an edge on the courtesy of his smooth reply. He said something rapid in Spanish to Tomás, who was already extracting the luggage from the car. And the hand that gripped her elbow, steering her over the cobbles, wasn’t gentle at all and she tugged distractedly away, shocked by the electrifying sensation produced by the hard pads of his lean fingers against her skin.

‘Ahhh! El niño!’

A short, amazingly stout woman emerged from the arcaded shadows at a trot, black-clad arms extended, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles, her attention all for the wide-eyed Johnny, the merest dip of her still glossy dark head for Cathy herself.

Admiring baby-talk had a universal language all of its own, Cathy learned as Johnny’s chubby solemn face quickly dissolved in a smile of heart-wrenching brilliance, little arms held out to the newest member of his fan club. And before Cathy could catch her breath the baby was expertly whisked out of her arms and was carried away, chortling perfidiously, into the cool shade of the house.

‘He will be perfectly safe,’ Campuzano said with a taunting smile that set her teeth on edge. ‘I’m sorry Paquita didn’t stay long enough to be introduced, but you must excuse her lapse of manners—the Spaniard’s love of children is legendary.’

‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ Cathy sniped. How could she get through to him, make him understand that she wouldn’t be taken over, and, more importantly, wouldn’t allow her baby to be, either?

He had moved infinitesimally closer and the harsh light of the sun illuminated the grainy texture of his tanned skin, the darker shadowing of his hard jawline, the golden tips of the black fan of the lashes that lowered in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the gleam of satisfaction in the smoky depths of his eyes.

Cathy’s breath caught in her throat, an unborn sob, half frustration, half something else entirely—something she couldn’t put a name to—choking her. And she looked away quickly, her soft lips drawn back against her teeth as she reiterated edgily, ‘I told you—he needs to be fed and changed. He’s not a plaything; he’s—’