ABBY GREEN - The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain

Panic coursed through Rowan. She stepped forward jerkily. ‘But I have a right to see my child, no matter what’s happened. You can’t stop me.’ To her utter chagrin her throat tightened with tears. She fought to control herself. She couldn’t fall apart—not here, like this. She needed to be strong.

‘I can and I will.’ Isandro was icy and controlled. She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut in ruthlessly. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d forgotten till today that it was a boy you had, you left so fast.’

Rowan’s mouth closed, and the pain that lanced through her was raw and overwhelming. Her voice sounded thready to her ears. ‘I… Of course I knew he was a boy. I’ve thought of nothing else but him every day since—’

Isandro took two quick strides and gripped Rowan’s arm painfully. ‘Enough!’

She took a sharp breath to disguise the pain. This was far worse than she had anticipated. She couldn’t afford to forget that this man wielded a power that was on a par with the world’s most prominent politicians. Would telling him what had really happened make him see…make him understand? She’d hoped it would, with the cushion of distance between them. The lingering rawness made her feel as though a layer of skin had been stripped from her body. The truth would lay her bare completely, but right now, having met her son when she’d truly believed she’d never see him again, shock was making her reckless.

‘Isandro. Please, I can tell you what happened. Maybe then you’ll understand—’

He cut her off harshly. ‘Understand? Understand? ’

His face was so close that she could see the fine lines spreading from the corners of his eyes, could see his skin, golden and taut over those high cheekbones. She held herself rigid, would not give in to her body’s demand to allow herself to really acknowledge what his proximity was doing to her. How could she when he was looking at her with such unbridled hatred, making her feel confused and inarticulate?

Scorn dripped from every syllable of his every word. ‘I know what happened. You left a note…remember? There is not one thing, not one word, not one lame story you could dream up to excuse what you did that day. You took away an innocent baby’s most important source of nourishment and love. Security. There is no one and nothing on the planet that could absolve you of that crime. You gave up your right to be a mother to him when you walked away, just hours after he was born.’

And you gave up the right to be my wife …

The words, unspoken, hung heavy in the air.

Rowan’s inarticulate explanation died on her lips. His stark, cruel words resounded in her head. For a short, blissfully deceptive moment she felt no reaction to them, was numbed, and then like poison-tipped arrows they joined with the ever-present debilitating guilt and sank deep, deep into her heart, robbing her of words, of any explanation she might give.

He was right. She couldn’t say a word. Not right now anyway. How could she expect him to understand that which she had barely come to terms with herself? That which she’d only just very painfully started to forgive herself for? She had walked away from her own newborn baby. Had she really thought that telling him her reasons might absolve her? She didn’t deserve that.

Her control was close to breaking, but she knew she couldn’t afford to crumble now. She had to face the consequences of her actions, not seek absolution. She dredged up some much needed strength and pulled away from his iron grip jerkily.

Isandro watched her dispassionately. She backed away farther, her hand going to rub her arm where he had gripped it. His anger was cooling to a contained icy rage. She turned away for a moment, offering him her back, and his eyes flicked down. In her smart suit and high-necked blouse he could see for the first time that she was slimmer than she had been. The short jacket and straight skirt didn’t hide much. Desire burned low and insistent in his belly, even though everything in him rebelled at his unwanted response. She’d always been slim, but there was an unmistakable fragility to the lines of her body now that hadn’t been there before.

He hated to think it, and quashed it almost immediately, but was there also a vulnerability ? Her Titian hair had been long before, down her back, but now it was much shorter, exposing the line of her elegant neck. She still had that quintessential upper class deportment that couldn’t be faked. She’d been his access into a world notoriously hard to break into for outsiders: the upper echelons of the English banking system, an ancient and tightly guarded group of the super-wealthy elite.

With what had been an extremely uncharacteristic failing to read another person, she had been the first person ever he’d so badly misjudged. Monumentally. Catastrophically.

She turned around to face him again and her eyes were flashing, taking him by surprise. But then his resolve hardened. This was the real woman he had married. But unaccountably, even as he thought that, his eye was involuntarily drawn to the crest of her breasts, pushing against the fine silk of the blouse. He felt his body tighten even more in response to their fullness, felt sensual tension flooding his veins. His reaction was so unwarranted that it momentarily stunned him. And then she spoke, cutting through the haze in his brain. He told himself it had to be shock.

‘Whether you like it or not, I have rights. Any court in the world will recognise that. Whatever I did, I will be allowed to see my son. Eventually.’ Her voice was clipped, her breeding coming through with every well-enunciated syllable, taking Isandro’s mind off the unpalatable reactions in his body.

Rowan watched his reaction warily. He mustn’t know what it was costing her to stand here and speak to him like this. She felt as if she was back in elocution class. But it was the only way she was clinging onto that flimsy control.

Isandro’s face was a stony mask of non-reaction as he took her by surprise, starting to walk away. ‘You will remain in this room for now. If you attempt to leave there is a bodyguard outside this door who will bring you back inside.’ All he knew was that he had to put some distance between them, take stock of what had just happened.

Rowan watched incredulously as his long powerful strides took him towards the door. Belatedly she went after him, stumbling a little. ‘Wait—where are you going? We haven’t finished discussing this.’

He turned at the door and the cold force of his gaze stopped her in her tracks. ‘Oh, yes—we have. For now. Just remember this: you deserted your son and left him with me. I can make this easy or very, very hard. It’s up to you.’

When he opened the door, Rowan saw the great big hulking shape of a bodyguard just outside and heard a small voice chatter excitedly. ‘Papa—Papa!’

The door closed and she felt the bed at the back of her legs behind her. Hearing that small voice was too much. Her legs crumpled and she slid to the ground. For a long time she sat like that, with her legs tucked under her, stunned by everything. It was only after a few minutes that she realised her cheeks were wet with tears, and she held a fist to her chest as if she could soothe the pain in her heart.

Eventually Rowan got up and went into the bathroom, where she splashed some water on her face. Towelling herself dry, she studied her reflection. Her face was white, her eyes huge. She looked and felt like a deer caught in the headlights. She needed to look in control, not half shocked out of her wits and terrified. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed her bag on the bed. Isandro must have picked it up from where it had fallen when she’d fainted. She wished she had some makeup, but she didn’t have a thing—makeup had been the last thing on her mind for a long time.