Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 65

IT WAS getting on for nine o’clock when Paulo drew up in the quiet, tree-lined crescent. It was a cold, clear night and moonlight washed over the tall town houses, making them silvery-pale and ghost-like.

‘Will Eduardo be asleep?’ whispered Isabella, sleepy herself after the meal which she had surprised herself—and him—by almost finishing.

‘You obviously have idealistic views on children’s bedtime,’ he answered drily as he put his key in the lock. ‘He’ll be playing on his computer, I imagine.’ He opened the front door and ushered her inside, dumping Isabella’s bag on the floor just inside the hall. ‘Hello!’ he called softly.

There was the sound of dishes being stacked somewhere, and then a woman of about fifty appeared, wiping her damp hands down the sides of her trousers. She had short, curly red hair which was flecked with grey and a freckled face which was completely bare of make-up. Her navy trousers and navy polo-shirt were so neat and well-pressed that they looked like a uniform. She gave Isabella’s suitcase a brief, curious look before smiling at Paulo.

‘Ah, good! You’re back just in time to read your son a story!’

‘But he says he’s too old for stories,’ objected Paulo, with a smile.

‘Yes, I know he does—unless his Papa is telling them. You’re the exception who proves the rule, Paulo! As always.’ Her gaze moved back to Isabella and she gave her a friendly smile. ‘Hello!’

‘Jessie, I’d like you to meet Isabella Fernandes—who is a very old family friend.’

‘Yes, I know—Eddie’s talked about you a lot,’ said Jessie, still smiling.

‘And, Isabella—this is Jessie Taylor, who’s so much more than a housekeeper! How would you describe yourself Jessie?’

‘As your willing slave, Paulo, how else? Nice to meet you, Isabella.’ Jessie held her hand out. ‘Your father owns that amazing cattle ranch, doesn’t he?’

‘The very same.’ Isabella nodded.

‘Don’t you miss Brazil terribly?’

‘Only in the winter!’ Isabella pulled her raincoat closer and gave a mock-shiver, grateful for Jessie’s tact in not drawing attention to the baby.

‘Isabella is going to be staying here with us for the time being,’ said Paulo.

‘Oh. Right.’ Jessie nodded. ‘That’s in the spare room, is it?’ she questioned delicately.

Paulo’s eyes narrowed. Did Jessie honestly think that he’d brought a woman back here in the latter stages of her pregnancy for nights of mad, passionate sex?

He stared at Isabella’s pink cheeks and guessed that she’d picked up on it, too.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said deliberately. ‘In the spare room. Is the bed made up?’

‘No,’ said Jessie briskly. ‘But I can do that now, before I go.’

‘Oh, please don’t worry,’ said Isabella quickly. ‘I’m not helpless—I can do it myself. Really!’

But Jessie shook her head. ‘Good heavens, no—I wouldn’t dream of letting you! You look dead on your feet. Why don’t you sit down, my dear?’

Isabella hesitated.

‘Go on, sit down,’ ordered Paulo softly. ‘Make yourself at home.’

She was too tired to argue with him, thinking how easy and how pleasurable it was to have Paulo make the decisions.

She sank down onto one of the two vast sofas which dominated the room, and gingerly removed the shoes from her swollen feet. She glanced up to find him watching her, his brow criss-crossed with little lines of concern, and she produced a faint smile. ‘You did tell me to make myself at home.’

‘So I did. I guess I was just expecting you to argue back,’ he observed drily. ‘I had no idea you could be quite so stubborn.’

‘And I had no idea you could be quite so domineering!’

‘Didn’t you?’ he mocked softly and, when she didn’t answer, he smiled. ‘Stay there—I’m going in to say goodnight to Eddie.’

He found his son tucked up underneath the duvet, his eyes heavy with sleep.

‘Hello, Papa,’ Eddie yawned.

‘Hello, son,’ smiled Paulo softly. ‘Did you get my note?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Eddie jammed a fist in his eye and rubbed it, giving another yawn. ‘How’s Bella?’

‘She’s…tired. And she’s going to be staying with us.’

The child’s face lit up. ‘Is she? That’s fantastic! How long for?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ Paulo paused as he tried to work out how to explain the complications of a very adult situation to a ten-year-old. But children dealt with simple truth best. ‘She’s going to have a baby, you see.’

Eddie removed the fist and blinked up at his father. ‘Wow! When?’

Paulo smiled. ‘Soon. Very soon.’

Eddie sat bolt upright in bed. ‘And will the baby come and live here, too?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Paulo gently. ‘They’ll probably go back home to Brazil once it’s been born.’

‘Oh,’ said Eddie disappointedly, and snuggled back down under the duvet. ‘Judy rang.’

‘Did she?’ Paulo frowned. He had always been completely straight with the women in his life. From the start he told them that he wasn’t looking for love, or a life-partner, or a substitute mother for his son. Judy had assured him that she could accept that—but time had proved otherwise and her behaviour over Isabella had only confirmed his suspicions. But Judy was tenacious and Paulo too much of a gentleman to curtail the occasional maudlin phone-call.

‘Did she want anything in particular?’ he asked carefully.

Eddie pulled a face. ‘Just the usual thing. She wanted to know where you were and I told her. But she went all quiet when I mentioned Bella.’

‘Oh, did she?’ questioned Paulo evenly.

‘Mmm.’ Eddie yawned. ‘Papa—do I have to go to school tomorrow?’

Paulo frowned. ‘Of course you do. It’s term-time.’

‘Yes, I know, but…’ Eddie bit his lip. ‘But I want to see Bella—and she went rushing off last time.’

‘She won’t be rushing anywhere,’ said Paulo, but he could see from the expression in his son’s eyes that Eddie remained unconvinced. And then he thought, What the hell? What was one day out if it helped a ten-year-old accommodate this brand-new and unusual situation? ‘Maybe,’ he said as he picked up the wizard book which was wedged down the side of the bunk-bed. ‘I said maybe!’ His eyes crinkled. ‘Want me to finish reading this?’

‘Yes, please!’

‘Where had we got to?’

‘The bit where he turns his father into a toad by mistake!’

‘Wishful thinking is that, Eddie?’ asked Paulo drily as he found the place in the book and began to read.

But Eddie was fast asleep by the end of the second page, and Paulo turned off the light and tiptoed out of the room to find Isabella in a similar state, stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep, her hands clasped with Madonna-like serenity over her swollen belly.

It was the first time he had seen the tension leave her face, and he stood looking down at her for a long moment, realising how much she must have had to endure in that soulless house—pregnant and frightened and very, very alone. Her hair spilled with gleaming abandon over the velvet cushion which was improvising as a pillow and her thick dark lashes fanned her cheeks. She’d loosened the top couple of buttons of her dress, so that her skin above her breasts looked unbelievably fine and translucent—as if it were made of marble instead of flesh and blood. He could see the line of a vein as it formed a faint blue tracery above her heart, could see the rapid beating of the pulse beneath.

He heard a sound and looked up to find Jessie standing on the other side of the room, her face very thoughtful as she watched him studying the pregnant woman. She looked as though she was dying to fire at least one question at him, but her remark was innocuous enough.

‘The spare room is all ready,’ she said, and waited.

‘Thanks.’ He turned away from where Isabella slept, and walked into the dining room to pour himself a whisky while he pondered on what he should do.

Jessie had been working for him ever since Elizabeth had died. Sometimes he’d thought that she must have been sent to him by angels instead of an employment agency. She’d been widowed herself, and knew that practical help was better than all the weeping and wailing in the world. She was young enough to be good fun for Eddie, but not so young that she felt she was missing out on life by looking after a child who was not her own.

He also knew that she was expecting some kind of explanation now, and knew that he owed her one.

And yet he did not want to gossip about Isabella while she lay sleeping. He took a sip of his whisky and raised dark, troubled eyes to where Jessie stood.

‘I’ll be off now,’ she said. ‘There’s a salad in the fridge, if you’re hungry.’

‘We ate on the way home.’ He nodded at the tray of crystal bottles. ‘Stay for a drink?’

Jessie shook her head. ‘No, thanks—I’ve got a date.’

‘A date?’

Her smile was faintly reproving. ‘Don’t sound so shocked, Paulo—I know I’m on the wrong side of forty, but I’m still capable of having a relationship!’

It occurred to him that Jessie might fall in love. Might even leave him. And, oddly enough, the idea alarmed him far less than he would have imagined. ‘Is it…serious?’

‘Not yet,’ she said quietly. ‘But I think it’s getting there.’

‘Whoa! And there was me thinking you were in love with your work!’

‘In your dreams!’

He drew a breath and followed her out to the front door, where he helped her into her coat and handed her her gloves. ‘Listen, Jessie—’

She turned to look up at him. ‘I’m listening.’

‘About Isabella—’

She shook her head firmly. ‘No, honestly. You don’t have to tell me anything—and I won’t ask you anything.’ She screwed her face up uncomfortably. ‘Well, maybe just one thing—but then you probably know what that is, already.’

His gaze was nothing more than curious. ‘What?’

‘Are you the father?’

He very nearly spat his whisky out, and it took him several seconds before he was ready to answer. ‘Jessie—that’s so outrageous, it’s almost funny! Almost,’ he added warningly and his dark eyes glittered with indignant question. ‘You don’t honestly think that, do you? That I would suddenly produce a child-to-be? That I would have been having a relationship with Judy, when all the time I had made another woman pregnant?’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ Jessie shrugged and sighed. ‘When you put it like that, I suppose the very idea is crazy. But isn’t that what everyone else is going to think?’

‘Why would they think that?’ he growled. ‘She’s only twenty!’

‘And you’re only just thirty!’ Jessie retorted. ‘It’s not exactly the age-gap from hell!’

‘And I’ve known her since she was a child,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Well, she’s certainly no child now!’ retorted Jessie.

After she’d gone, he walked back into the sitting room to stand over the sleeping woman on the sofa once more, mesmerised by the soft movement of her breathing. No, Jessie was right. Isabella was certainly no child.

She’d relaxed into her sleep even more. Her arms were stretched above her head and a smile played around her lips—the first really decent smile he’d seen all day. Though maybe that wasn’t so surprising, in the circumstances. Maybe sleep offered her the only true refuge at the moment. And he realised with a pang just how much he had missed that easy, soft smile.

Overwhelmed by a sense of deep compassion, he leaned over her and put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.

‘Isabella?’ he said quietly.

She didn’t respond—not verbally, anyway. She murmured something incomprehensible underneath her breath, and wriggled deeper into the sofa, and the movement made the fabric of her maternity dress cling to her thighs.

Paulo swallowed.

Pushing against the sheen of the material, the bump of the baby could be seen in its true magnitude. She should have looked ungainly, but she looked nothing of the sort—she looked quite lovely, and he felt his body battling with his conscience as he gently shook her shoulder again, but she continued to writhe softly.

He felt desire shoot through him like an arrow—all the more piercing for its unexpectedness and its inappropriateness. And he must have made a small sound, because her eyelids fluttered half-open to stare at him.

And in the unreal world between waking and sleeping, it seemed perfectly natural for Paulo’s darkly implacable face to be bent so close to her that for a moment it seemed as though he might kiss her. It was a lifetime’s fantasy come true and she stretched her arms above her head in unconscious invitation.

‘Paulo?’ she whispered dreamily. ‘What is it?’

He shook his head, telling himself that she had aroused in him feelings of protectiveness, nothing more. Nature was cunning like that—it made a woman who was ripe with child look oddly beautiful so that men would want to protect her. ‘It’s bedtime,’ he responded sternly, but the trusting tremble of her lashes stabbed him in the heart, and made him ache in the most unexpected of places. ‘You look like you need it. If you want, I can carry you.’

‘Heavens, no—I’ll walk,’ she protested, wide awake now. ‘I’m much too heavy to carry.’

‘No, you’re not—I bet you’re as light as a little bird. Want to test me it out?’

‘No,’ she lied, and struggled up into a sitting position.

He helped her to her feet and put his hand in the small of her back to support her, just the way he had once done with Elizabeth.

Except that Elizabeth had been almost as tall as him—while Isabella seemed such a tiny little thing beside him. Why, she barely came up to his shoulder. And yet looks could be deceptive—he knew how tough she could be. You only had to see her astride an excitable horse, expertly subduing it into submission, to realise how strong she could be. He had never imagined that she could look almost frail.

‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Lean against me.’

Too sleepy to refuse, she allowed him to guide her upstairs and into a bedroom, where there was a large bed with a duvet lying invitingly folded back.

‘Get undressed now,’ he whispered, as she flopped down on the mattress and sighed.

‘Nnnng!’ She pillowed her head on her hands, and closed her eyes.

‘Isabella!’ he said sternly. ‘Get yourself ready for bed, unless you want me to do it for you!’

Her eyes snapped open. This was no dream. Paulo was here. Right here. And he was threatening to undress her! ‘I can manage. Really.’

He gave her a narrow-eyed look of assessment, only really believing her when she unclipped her gold wristwatch and slid it down over the narrow wrist.

‘Goodnight,’ he said abruptly.

‘Goodnight, Paulo.’

He left the door slightly ajar, so that the light from the corridor would penetrate the room if she woke. She would not flounder around frightened in the middle of the night in unfamiliar darkness.

But he was restless. Too restless for newspapers or the stack of paperwork he kept in the study, and which always needed attention. He drank some coffee and showered, and then slipped naked into bed, the cool sheets lying like silk against his bare skin while he lay and thought about the woman in the next room and who had made her pregnant. And how she could be persuaded to return to her own country—because surely that was the only rational option open to her.

He scowled up into the blackness, wondering why the idea of that should disturb him so.

In the end he gave up on sleep and decided that maybe he would tackle that paperwork after all. He pulled on a pair of jeans and shrugged a black T-shirt over his head, and on his way downstairs he paused briefly to look in on Isabella.

She was curled up on her side, facing the door, and from this angle the curve of her belly hardly showed at all. With the light from the corridor falling across the sculpted contours of her face and her lips slightly parted in sleep, it was easy to forget why she was here. Easy to imagine her being in a bed in his house for another reason entirely…

Paulo swiftly turned away and went downstairs.

He went through his papers on autopilot, gradually reducing the pile to a few sheets which his secretary could deal with tomorrow. He glanced down at his watch and yawned. Today, he should say. Better get to bed.

But he switched his computer on and began playing Solitaire.

He must have been dozing because he didn’t hear the front door opening or clicking to a close. Nor did he hear soft footsteps approaching his study. In fact, the first indication that he had a visitor came from the sound of laboured breathing from just outside the door.

His eyes snapped open, his senses immediately on full alert, as he acknowledged that something had aroused him. He willed the aching fullness to subside.

‘Bella?’ he called softly. ‘Is that you?’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ came an acid female reply. ‘It’s only me.’

He sat up straight as a tall, slim figure walked into the room and frowned at her in disbelief. ‘Judy?’

‘Yes, Judy!’ came the sarcastic reply. ‘Why, did you think it was your little Brazilian firecracker?’

He reached out to click a further light on, his eyes briefly protesting against the bright glare as he stared at the woman standing uninvited before him.

The artificial light emphasised her pale-haired beauty—her long, willowy limbs and the pellucid blue eyes set in an alabaster skin. She wore jeans and an expensive-looking sheepskin jacket. And an expression he recognised instantly as a potent cocktail of lust and jealousy. He kept his face completely neutral.

‘Hello, Judy,’ he said softly, carefully. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

She raised her eyebrows and laughed. ‘You made that obvious enough.’

He kept his voice steady. ‘I didn’t realise you still had a key.’

‘That’s what keeps life so interesting, isn’t it, Paulo? These little surprises.’

He sighed. ‘Judy, I don’t want a scene.’

‘No. It’s pretty obvious from your greeting just what you do want!’

‘Meaning?’

‘Is that woman is staying here? She is, isn’t she?’

‘You mean Isabella?’ he asked coldly.

Judy scowled, ignoring the warning note in his voice. ‘You know damned well I do! You thought I was her when I came in, didn’t you? “Bella”! Well, I’m so sorry to disappoint you, Paulo! How long is she planning on staying for?’

Paulo didn’t react. The only movement in his face was the dark warning which glittered from his eyes. ‘I don’t think that this is a good time to have this conversation,’ he said carefully. ‘Apart from which, it’s really none of your business.’

For a moment her face looked almost ugly as different emotions worked their way across it.

‘She’s the reason you dumped me, isn’t she?’ she demanded. ‘You were never the same after she came here to see you. I could see it in your eyes that day. You were really hot for her, weren’t you, Paulo? In a way you never were for me. Not once.’

His mouth hardened as he realised that she had no idea that Isabella was pregnant. And he had no intention of telling her. He carried on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m actually very tired, so if you don’t mind…’

Judy stiffened as she read the rejection in his features. ‘What’s she got that I haven’t, Paulo?’ she pleaded. ‘Just tell me that.’

He shook his head. ‘Go home,’ he whispered. ‘Go home now, before it’s too late.’

Her eyes lit up as she completely misinterpreted his words. ‘For what? Too late to resist me, you mean? Well, maybe I don’t want you to resist me. Maybe I want what you’re trying to resist, just as badly as you do. What does it matter? I won’t tell.’ She moved towards the desk and the overpowering scent of her perfume invaded his senses and deadened them. ‘Come on, Paulo—what do you say? For old times’ sake.’

He shook his head, felt distaste whipping up his spine like a ragged fingernail. ‘No.’

‘No?’ She flicked her pale hair back. ‘Sure?’

This really was astonishing, thought Paulo. A beautiful blonde begging him for sex. It was most red-blooded men’s ideal fantasy and yet all he could think of was that she was going to wake the pregnant woman who lay sleeping upstairs.

‘Quite sure. Keep your voice down.’ He flattened his voice as the needs of his body fought with the demands of his mind. ‘And I think it’s better if you go right now.’

‘And what if I stay and do…this…?’ Her hand swooped towards him and he knew immediately just where she intended to touch him.

‘I don’t want you to.’ With razor-sharp reflexes, he snapped his fingers around her wrist to stop her. ‘I don’t want you to,’ he repeated deliberately. ‘Ever again. Got that?’

She stared into his eyes, like a woman who had never encountered rejection before and snatched her hand back. ‘Why not?’ she sneered. ‘You want to do it with Bella, I suppose?’

He didn’t have to tell her to get out; the look in his eyes must have done that effectively enough. He just heard her running down the hallway and slamming the front door so loudly that it echoed through the house like gunfire.

He waited until the automatic response of his body had died away completely, and he felt an ugly kind of taste in his mouth. Quietly, he turned the computer off and went to find himself a drink.

Barefooted, he went silently along to the kitchen where he poured himself a glass of water and stood drinking it, looking out of the window into the night sky. Outside, silver-white stars pin-pricked the darkened night and he found himself picturing Isabella’s father’s ranch in Vitória da Conquista. Where the stars were as big as lollipops—so bright and so close that you felt you could lean out and pluck them from the sky.

He pressed the empty water glass to his hot cheek as he anticipated the fireworks to come. What the hell was Isabella’s father going to say when he discovered that his beloved daughter was going to have a baby? By a man she was refusing to name! He was going to be absolutely furious.

He was just thinking about going back to bed when he turned to see Isabella standing in the doorway, silently watching him.

She had changed into a big, white nightshirt and a pair of bedsocks and had plaited her hair, so that two thick, dark ropes hung down either side of her face. She looked impossibly sweet and innocent, making the swollen belly seem indecent in comparison.

‘Did I wake you?’ he asked. He saw the way she grimaced, then tried to turn it into a smile and he pulled a face himself. ‘Obviously, I did.’

‘I heard…er…noises. Then the door slammed.’

‘And did it startle you?’

‘Only for as long as it took me to realise where I was. But I probably would have woken at some point, in any case. Indigestion,’ she said, in answer to the query in his eyes. ‘It’s the bane of late pregnancy.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he said slowly. He stared again at her bulging stomach. ‘Would a glass of milk help?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Sit down, then, and I’ll fetch it for you.’

She pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table and negotiated herself into it, wriggling her toes around inside the roomy bedsocks.

Paulo reached into the fridge and poured her a big, creamy tumblerful, then leaned against the draining board and watched while she drank it. He found himself fascinated by the white moustache she left behind, and by the tiny pink tongue-tip which snaked out to lick it away. Who would ever have thought that a heavily pregnant woman could look so damned sexy? he wondered.

His wife had been sick for a lot of her pregnancy. The doctors had told him she was ‘delicate’. Like a piece of Dresden china that he dared not touch for fear of breaking her. And yet Isabella looked real and very, very touchable.

Isabella could feel him watching her, and she tried to drink her milk unselfconsciously, but it was difficult. And she could feel the baby moving around at the same time as her breasts began to sting uncomfortably in a way she was certain had nothing to do with the pregnancy. What conflicting and confusing messages her body was sending out!

She put the half-empty glass down on the table with a clunk. ‘Did…did Elizabeth have an easy pregnancy?’

Paulo frowned. ‘No, not really. It didn’t agree with her. She was very sick for the first five months or more.’

Her expectant look didn’t waver. Here in the quietness of the night, it was easier to ask questions which had always seemed inappropriate before. ‘You must miss her.’

He didn’t answer for a moment. ‘I did. Terribly, at first. But it was such a long time ago,’ he said slowly. ‘That sometimes it seems to have happened to another person. We were together for two years, and Lizzie’s been dead for ten.’

‘Doesn’t Eduardo ever ask?’

‘Sometimes.’

Isabella studied him. ‘And does he have any contact with his mother’s family?’

‘A little,’ he began, then suddenly his temper flared. ‘What is this, Isabella?’ he demanded, suddenly impatient. ‘Truth or dare?’ Women did not ask him about his wife—in fact, they did the very opposite. Ignored the few photographs which existed of Elizabeth with her infant son. Never asked the child any questions about his mother, as though they could not bear to acknowledge that he had loved a woman and had a child by her.

‘You want to squeeze every painful fact out of me?’ he grated. ‘Yet obstinately refuse to disclose the identity of your baby’s father?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’ he snapped.

‘Because there’s no point in your knowing,’ she said stiffly. ‘I told you. It’s over.’

‘So why this sudden interrogation? Is this one rule for you and another for me? Is that it?’

She shook her head. ‘If I thought that telling you would do any good, then I would.’

‘But you don’t trust me not to use the information?’ he probed softly.

‘No, I don’t,’ she admitted.

For some inexplicable reason, he smiled. ‘Then you are wise, querida,’ he murmured. ‘Very wise indeed.’

He saw the way that one plait moved like a silken rope over her breast when she lifted her head to meet his gaze head-on like that. ‘Now go to bed, Bella,’ he said roughly. ‘You need your sleep.’ And I need my sanity.

She paused by the door. He had warned her off prying, but there were some things she really did need to know. And if Paulo was in the habit of having late-night visits…‘Did I hear you talking to someone earlier?’

‘I had an…unexpected visitor.’ He gave a grim kind of smile. And anyway, what was the big secret supposed to be? ‘It was Judy.’

‘But I thought you said that it was over?’ She’d blurted the indignant words out before she could consider their impact. Or the fact that she had no right to say them.

He knew it was a loaded question. Knew it and was surprised by it. No, maybe not completely surprised. ‘It is.’ He gave her a brief, hard look. ‘She won’t be coming back again.’

‘Oh.’ She kept her voice as expressionless as possible and hoped that her face did the same. ‘Was it serious between the two of you? I suppose it must have been if she had a key.’

He gave a faint frown, tempted to dodge the question, knowing instinctively that the truth would hurt her. ‘I don’t do “serious” any more, Bella,’ he told her quietly.

She felt her heart plummet. ‘No. Right. Well, I guess it’s time I went back to bed.’

Paulo’s eyes narrowed with interest as he watched the interplay of emotions on her face. Maybe Judy had been more astute than he had given her credit for.

‘I guess it is,’ he agreed blandly. ‘Goodnight, Isabella.’