Innocent's Secret Baby(24)

Lydia heard the low buzz of a helicopter and looked to the sky.

It was a familiar sound in these parts—the well-heeled left for London in the morning and returned in the evening, but usually later than now.

Occasionally there was an air ambulance or a tourist.

Except this helicopter hovered over the castle and the buzzing sound grew louder.

She could see the grass in the meadow moving in the swirl the rotors created.

It was Raul who was descending, Lydia knew.

Not for her.

He’d had weeks and months to find her.

No, she had dropped the baby bombshell and he had responded immediately.

He was here about their child.

Her breath quickened as he climbed out. He was wearing a dark suit and tie and shades. He looked completely together as he strode across the land with purpose and she watched him.

There was no instinct to hide.

If anything her instinct was to descend the stairs and run towards him, but that would show just how much she had missed him.

Raul didn’t need to know that.

And neither would she tell him that she knew about his long-running feud with Bastiano.

Yes, Lydia was far from innocent now.

Knowledge was power, and she would use it wisely.

And she would never reveal how deeply she had loved.

So she did not check her reflection, nor bother to don lip gloss. Instead she descended the circular stairs of the turret and walked through to the main entrance.

Neither did she go through the palaver of making him knock.

The door was heavy, but she opened it with practised ease. The days of having staff to attend to such things were long since gone.

‘Raul...’ She hesitated, because unlike her earlier summation she saw he wasn’t quite so together. There was a grey pallor to his face and his jaw was tense. His eyes remained hidden behind dark shades. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘Then you don’t know me.’

Those words sent a shiver of warning down her spine.

No, she didn’t know him—but those words told her the news she had so recently broken to him was being taken very seriously indeed.

‘Were you already in England?’

‘No.’

Raul had been walking away from the cemetery when he had heard her message.

‘Oh...’ The speed of his arrival was rapid, but then she had only been privy to his casual use of his private jet but once.

‘I’m sorry for the shock.’

‘Nobody has died, Lydia.’

Raul was right. It was a pregnancy they were dealing with, after all, not a sudden death, and yet it was surely a shock to a man like him—a confirmed bachelor, a reprobate playboy.

Or maybe not, Lydia mused.

Perhaps he had illegitimate children dotted all over the world, for certainly he seemed to be taking rapid control.

‘We need to talk.’

‘Of course we do,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s why I called. Come through and I’ll make some tea.’

She would take him to the receiving room, Lydia decided. It was a little faded and empty, but it was certainly the smartest room. There she would ask him to take a seat, and then go and make some tea, and then they could calmly discuss...

Fool.

‘I don’t drink tea, Lydia.’

As she went to walk away his hand closed around the top of her arm, and Lydia actually kicked herself for thinking she could so easily dictate this.

‘Coffee, then?’

She received a black smile in response.

‘The helicopter is waiting to take us to my jet—we shall discuss this in Venice.’

‘Venice?’ She shook her head, her attempt to deal with him calmly, disintegrating. ‘Absolutely not. We can talk here. My mother is at her sister’s and Maurice is gone.’

His features did not soften.

‘We can go out for tea if you prefer. If that makes you feel...’

She did not get to finish.

‘You think we are going to sit in some quaint café and discuss the future of our child?’

‘We could!’

‘And what time does this café close?’ He watched her jaw clench and then continued. ‘We have a lot to sort out, dear Lydia.’ The term was without endearment. ‘Did you really think you could drop a message like that on my phone and expect us to go out for afternoon tea?’

‘I thought we could calmly discuss—’

‘I am calm.’

He didn’t sound it to Lydia.

Oh, his words were calm, but there was an undercurrent, an energy that danced in the grand entrance hall and not even these ancient walls could contain it.

‘We shall speak at my home.’

‘No!’

‘Okay, we’ll talk at my office.’

‘In Venice?’

‘Of course.’

‘No.’

‘Lydia, what time to you have to be at work tomorrow?’ Raul asked, guessing she probably hadn’t bothered to get a job.

‘That wasn’t kind.’

‘I’m not here to be kind.’

She glimpsed again his power and knew this man did not fight fair.

He proved it now.

‘I thought you said you were leaving home and getting a job...’ He gave a black laugh as he looked around. ‘But you’re still here, and of course you don’t need to work now.’

‘Raul...’ She wanted to take back that gold-digger comment, but it was way, way too late. ‘Please listen—it was an accident.’

‘Of course it was!’

She could almost taste his sarcasm.

‘Lydia, unlike you, I do have to work—however, I have set aside an hour tomorrow at eleven for us to start to go through things. If you don’t want to fly with me, fine, but can you get yourself there, at least?’

‘I’m not going to be there, Raul.’

‘Then we do this through lawyers. Text me the name of yours.’

He was done.

Raul was not going to stand there and plead.

His head was throbbing.

The events of today—Bastiano, the revelations about his mother, his father, if Gino had even been his father, and now the fact that he himself was going to be a father...

Hell, Raul wanted a drink.

He did not want to be standing in some draughty old castle, rowing with a woman he wanted—even after the way she had left—to have all over again.

Lydia turned him on.

And, titled or not, he turned her on too.

Raul could feel it.

This day might end not in bed but on the floor, two minutes from now.

But sex had got them into this hot mess and it was time for him to get out.

‘Lawyer up!’ he said, and turned and left.

He was leaving, Lydia knew.

Leaving their baby in the hands of lawyers.

She ran out and grabbed his arm.

‘I’ll talk to you.’

He looked down at her hand and shook it off, because even minimal contact he could not keep to for long.

‘Then go and pack,’ Raul told her. ‘If you’re not ready in five minutes we leave it to the professionals to sort out.’

She packed—though five minutes didn’t give her much time. Especially when she wasted two of them by sitting on her bed and wondering what she should do.

She could not bear to go back to Venice.

Yet Lydia knew she had to.

Somehow she had to get past the raw hurt and sort out the future of their child.

He had hurt her so deeply, though.

And he didn’t even know.

Just like the jagged wound that ran down Raul’s back, just like the savage scar on Bastiano’s cheek, her pain ran deep.

She had been used for revenge.

It was a wound that could never properly heal.

And yet Lydia knew she had to be adult and somehow work out terms with this difficult and complex man.

There was the baby to focus on, and she would not be weakened by his undeniably seductive charms. The sexual energy between them had unnerved her—Lydia was still aware of her palm where she had grabbed his arm.

But she dusted her hands together and brushed it off.

No way!

Worried that her mother might return and sell the statue, Lydia wrapped it in a thick jumper and packed it. Trying as she did so to not remember the night when it had been the two of them melded and heated. She swore she would not allow herself to lose her head to him again.

No, she would not weaken.

Lydia walked down the steps and he didn’t rush to relieve her of her case. Instead he stood impatient at the door.

‘Hold on,’ she said, and bent down. ‘I forgot to lock it.’

‘For God’s sake!’ he said, and went over and took it. ‘Come on.’

‘Raul...’ Lydia stalled. She wanted to make things very clear. ‘I’m going to Venice only to discuss the baby.’

‘What else would I be bringing you there for?’ he asked. ‘Lydia, you’ve had what you wanted from me in the bedroom department.’

‘I just want to make it perfectly clear. I don’t want—’

‘Lydia, let me stop you there,’ Raul interrupted her. ‘This isn’t about your wants—we’re going to be discussing our child.’

‘Well, let’s keep things civil.’

‘Civil?’ Raul checked. ‘I thought you didn’t consider me capable.’

‘I meant businesslike.’

‘That,’ Raul responded as they walked to the waiting helicopter, ‘I can clearly be.’

‘Good.’

He might just as well have painted her gold and handed her a spade as he stalked ahead with her case.

And the last word was his.

‘But then, you knew that right from the start.’




CHAPTER FIFTEEN