His Unknown Heir(29)

‘So it’s true—you have a child.’ His voice was so harsh it was almost unrecognisable, his accent very pronounced. Silence stretched between them once more, shredding Lauren’s nerves, before he spoke again. ‘He is my son.’

It was a statement, not a question. The resemblance between Ramon and Matty was startling. Lauren could not have denied the truth even if she had wanted to, and she gave a tiny nod.

He swore violently, and Lauren flinched. ‘You kept my son a secret from me,’ he said hoarsely, disbelievingly. He stared at the baby and saw his own features in miniature. There was no doubt that Lauren was holding his child in her arms, but his brain was struggling to comprehend what his eyes were telling him.

And not just his eyes, he thought as he walked jerkily across the room, moving without his usual lithe grace. His heart, his soul recognised his own flesh and blood. He did not understand how it had happened, but that was immaterial now. Lauren had given birth to his son—and had never told him.

For the second time in his life Ramon tasted the rancid bile of betrayal in his throat. The only other occasion he had felt like this was when he had been eighteen, standing in the doorway of a hotel bedroom, fixated by the sight of the woman he loved lying naked on the bed with another man.

‘Now do you see why you cannot marry this trollop?’ his father asked from behind him. ‘Catalina Cortez was never in love with you, my son. It was all a trick, devised with her lover, to seduce you into marriage so that she could claim a vast divorce settlement. You have been taken for a fool, Ramon,’ Estevan Velaquez had told him harshly. ‘But fortunately no damage has been done—except to your pride, perhaps,’ the Duque had added perceptively.

The disappointment in his father’s eyes had intensified Ramon’s humiliation, and as he had stared at Catalina he had vowed never to trust another woman again. Over the years that decision had served him well, for he had found most women to be untrustworthy. But Lauren had been different. One of the qualities he had most admired about her had been her honesty. He had spent his life surrounded by people who fawned on him and told him what they thought he wanted to hear, and he had found Lauren’s tendency to speak her mind a refreshing change.

Now he knew that she no more deserved his trust than Catalina had, Ramon thought bitterly. Lauren had not cheated on him with another man, but she had cheated him out of the first months of his son’s life, and he would never forgive her for her duplicity.

‘How old is he?’ he ground out, forcing the words past a peculiar constriction in his throat.

‘Ten months.’

Lauren bit her lip. Ramon looked shell-shocked, almost haggard, and the terrible realisation was dawning inside her that she had been wrong to keep his son a secret from him. He was a playboy Spanish duque, who had freely admitted that he viewed marriage as an unwelcome duty necessary to begat the next Velaquez heir, she tried to reassure herself. But the look of devastation in his eyes tore at her conscience.

‘Ten months?’ he repeated harshly. ‘You have kept my son from me for almost a year.’ He did a quick mental calculation. ‘You knew you were pregnant the night you ended our affair, didn’t you? Dios!’ He closed his eyes briefly, trying to take it in. ‘Why, Lauren?’

‘Lauren—what’s going on?’ Frances interrupted in a shocked voice. ‘Who is this man?’ She stared warily at the formidable stranger dressed in black jeans, sweater and a leather jacket. ‘Shall I call the police?’

‘No. It’s all right, Mum.’ Lauren took a shaky breath. ‘Ramon is Matty’s father. I…I need to talk to him, and you need to go. I think your taxi is here now. Please don’t worry,’ she begged her mother, who looked as though she was going to argue. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’

If only she could believe that, she thought a few minutes later, as she gave Frances a wave and shut the front door. Her headache had developed into an excruciating pain, as if someone was drilling through her skull. She longed to take some painkillers and lie down on her bed for a few minutes, but instead she took a deep breath and walked back into the sitting room.

Ramon was standing by the mantelpiece, studying a photo of Mateo taken when he had been a few days old. He speared her with a savage glare. ‘I don’t even know his name,’ he said, in a low tone that could not disguise his tightly leashed anger.

‘It’s Mateo.’

‘Mateo.’ Ramon spoke his son’s name with a sense of wonder. His son—his son. He still couldn’t take it in. Until now he had viewed fatherhood simply as a duty he would have to fulfil at some point in the future. He had never actually envisaged what it would be like to have a child. But now he was faced with his son, whose features so resembled his own that it was like looking at a miniature version of himself, and he felt awed that this perfect, beautiful child was his.