His Unknown Heir(36)

‘I am not stupid.’ Lauren gave him a furious look. ‘I’m feeling much better, and I don’t need help.’ She refused to admit that her legs felt dangerously unsteady, but of course they chose that minute to give way, so that she would have collapsed onto the floor of the shower if Ramon had not caught her.

‘Of course you don’t,’ he said sardonically as he swept her into his arms and strode into the bedroom. ‘But it’s one thing to cause harm to yourself with your obsessive independence, and quite another when it affects our son.’

‘I never did anything to harm Matty,’ she said sharply. ‘The day nursery he attends is excellent—the staff adore him, and he seems quite happy there.’ It was she who was miserable when she left her baby each morning, and she frequently spent the train journey to work trying to hold back her tears.

She clutched the towel to her when Ramon set her on her feet. He pulled open a drawer in the bedside cabinet and handed her a gossamer-fine peach silk nightgown that definitely did not belong to her.

‘You were so ill when we left your flat that I had to carry you down to the car, and I forgot to pack you any clothes,’ he told her. ‘I’ve ordered new things for Mateo, and a few items for you, but you’ll have to shop for more when you are feeling better.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Lauren said tensely. ‘Matty and I won’t be staying long. You can’t make us stay here,’ she cried, when Ramon’s face hardened.

‘I intend to do what is best for my son,’ he said ominously. ‘Why do you want to uproot him from his home, separate him not just from me but from his grandmother and the extended family he has already bonded with?’

‘His home is in England,’ Lauren choked.

‘But regrettably most of his waking hours are spent in daycare.’

Ramon strolled over to the window, and while his back was turned Lauren hurriedly donned the nightgown, dismayed to find that her hands were trembling. There was a comb on the dressing table and she tugged it through her hair’s wet tangles before blasting it with a hairdryer.

She jumped when Ramon came up behind her, took the dryer and began to run his fingers through her hair to aid the drying process. It was soothing, and evocatively intimate, and she had to fight the urge to close her eyes and lean back against him.

‘Does it have to be a battle?’ she pleaded. ‘We both want to do the best thing for Matty. Can’t we come to an amicable agreement on how we should care for him?’

His eyes met hers in the mirror. ‘I think that is possible—as long as we both put Mateo’s needs first.’ He swung her into his arms before she had time to protest, and carried her back over to the bed. ‘You need to rest. You’ve been very ill, and it will be a few days yet before you fully regain your strength.’

‘I want to be with Matty,’ Lauren argued. ‘Who is looking after him?’

‘My mother has taken him for a walk in the gardens.’ Ramon glanced at his watch. ‘If he follows the pattern of the last few days he will fall asleep, and then my dear madre will watch over him like a hawk until he wakes. She is utterly smitten with her new grandson,’ he added dryly.

It was ridiculous to feel jealous of this new woman in Matty’s life, Lauren told herself, but her eyes blurred with tears all the same. ‘I miss him,’ she said thickly.

‘He’s missed you too. The only way we could settle him at night was to lie him beside you in your bed. Once he was asleep I carried him to the nursery.’

Ramon’s jaw tightened. If he had needed proof that his baby son needed his mother, the sight of Mateo curled up against Lauren while his sobs gradually subsided had surely been it. The close bond between mother and son was undeniable—but Mateo needed his father too, and to Ramon’s mind there was only one logical solution that would allow his baby to be brought up by both his parents.

‘I’ll bring Mateo up to see you after his nap.’

He paused and studied Lauren, his eyes drawn to the rounded contours of her breasts and the slightly darker skin of her nipples, visible through the sheer fabric of the nightgown. She had run such a high fever while she had been ill that it had been necessary for him to strip her and sponge her naked body on several occasions. He had done so with clinical efficiency, his libido kept firmly under control. But now she was awake, watching him with her cool grey eyes, he was unbearably tempted to join her on the bed, peel the wisp of peach silk from those creamy breasts and take each rosy nipple in his mouth.

How could he still desire her when she had callously deprived him of his son for almost a year? he asked himself angrily, swinging away to stand by the window in the hope that she would not notice his powerful arousal. When he had first discovered that she had kept Mateo from him he had hated her, but during the days and nights that he had nursed her through her illness his anger had cooled, and he had forced himself to consider his own behaviour.