‘Plans that will prove to you we can bring our child up together. Offer it all neither of us had. You gave me until New Year’s Eve to prove that our child will be better off brought up by married parents and not divorced parents and that is precisely what I will do.’
* * *
Lisa swallowed down the bitterness of the truth of what he’d said. Max was right. They needed to find common ground, find a way to remain married and bring up their child, but the little girl who’d watched her own father leave, only to see her mother replace him with a new one, then others as the years went by, didn’t want to muddle through her marriage and parenthood. She wanted to be a happy, loving parent with Max, create the solid foundations for the kind of life she’d never had. The other option was to raise her child alone—completely—unlike her mother who even now couldn’t face life alone, constantly searching for the next man to live with for a year or so.
As far as she was concerned, Max would either be a full-time father or a permanently absent one. For her there were no halfway measures, not when she knew the effects of being brought up like that. She knew only too well what it was like to be that child, to blame yourself for your father leaving, to wonder what you’d done, never thinking it had been something totally unconnected with her. She also knew what it was like to have a stepfather who bullied her into submission. Not that he’d ever laid a hand on her, but there was more than one way to bully someone.
‘Can you do that, Max?’ she challenged him, all thought of Christmas and New Year evaporating. ‘Can you be in your child’s life all the time when, judging by your reaction to the news, fatherhood is not something you want?’
He came toward her and she looked at him, her challenge still lingering in the air. ‘My reaction, as you so nicely put it, was due not only to being told you were pregnant, but to the headlines about me and my brother—and, if I am honest, the initial thought that you had known about that and hadn’t told me.’
‘But you still wouldn’t have been overjoyed.’ Lisa ignored the reference to that moment when she’d realised they had been talking at cross purposes, determined to keep the focus on what was important. The baby. After several meetings over the last few days he’d sorted things with Raul and now it was time to sort things with her. Deep inside her, she hankered after the man who’d melted her with just one kiss, the man who’d loved her physically with a passion so intense it still burned in her memory. She wanted that man now, but each time the baby was mentioned the chances of that seemed to slip further and further away.
‘No, I would not.’ The truth lashed at her like icy rain and she steeled herself against it, but the onslaught continued. ‘Our marriage broke up because we are too different. You wanted love from me and children too. The truth is, the only thing that ever existed between us was passion. It’s what brought us together and ultimately what pushed us apart.’
For him that was true, but she couldn’t say that now. If she did she’d be admitting she’d had feelings for him, deep feelings of love that she knew he could never return. It was that realisation as she’d watched him get dressed that morning after their night together that had made her see that. It had only ever been about passion—or was it merely lust? Whatever it was, love had never entered into it for him. She had just become another of his deals, his challenges to master and command.
In total contrast to everything she wanted to feel, her body heated with something distinctly like lust as he moved very close to her, his dark eyes full of unveiled desire. Her heart almost stopped beating as he reached out and lifted her chin slightly with his thumb and finger. ‘I also think that passion still exists, that, however much you glare at me with sparks of anger in your sexy eyes, you want me as much as I want you.’
Why was he doing this? Why was he torturing her so?
‘That’s absurd.’ It should have been a hot denial, but the husky undertone to her voice said far too much about the effect he was having on her. The light touch of his thumb and finger on her chin was pure torment but she couldn’t step back, couldn’t move away. She wanted him, wanted his touch that could lead to a kiss so powerful that it would render her unable to fight him at all.
‘Is it?’ His voice was far too sexy but she refused to give into the urge to close her eyes, to surrender to his touch, his will.
‘Of course it is.’ She’d wanted to snap the words out, to make it very clear how cross she was, how she hated what he was doing to her, the power he had over her, but they came out as a ragged whisper.
‘I disagree,’ he said softly. Too softly. ‘Passion is what brought us back together two months ago, Lisa, and it’s what will keep us together.’
He had that look in his eyes, that sexy come-to-bed look that she’d never been able to resist but this time she would. This time, she wouldn’t fall for it or him and she most certainly wouldn’t be falling into his bed.
‘No way.’ She stepped back from him, noticing for the first time that the apartment was now much darker, that the light outside had faded, creating a very different ambiance from the one she’d felt as she’d walked through the door of his apartment a few days ago.
‘No way, what, Lisa?’ he teased.
‘No way am I falling back into your bed—ever again.’
To her horror he moved closer, closing the distance between them. His eyes were so dark, so heavy with desire and she couldn’t help the leap of need that jumped into life within her, defusing the anger she’d been harbouring all afternoon.
‘Are you quite certain about that?’ His husky voice and heavy accent left her in no doubt that passion and desire were fighting for supremacy within him too.
‘Yes.’ The whisper was barely audible, but he’d heard it and she wondered if he could hear her heart thumping too, hear the beat so loudly, calling to him.
Max gathered her unresisting body against his, the masculine smell of his aftershave doing untold things to her senses, making her want him, want to be in his arms, to feel his lips on hers. But she had to resist, had to hold onto her control, her sanity.
‘Very sure.’ She pushed at his chest, trying hard to ignore the muscles beneath her palms. ‘Just as I am about the fact that by New Year’s Eve you will have tired of me, of being the expectant father and maybe even playing the role of diligent brother, which will leave me free to return to my life.’
‘So I have until New Year’s Eve to prove this theory of yours wrong?’ The velvet edge to his deep voice sent tremors of awareness over her and she fought to remain rigid and still as she glared at him angrily—although that anger was directed as much at herself as at him.
‘But you won’t prove anything, Max.’
‘Are you quite sure about that, Lisa?’
She wanted to shout at him, to rail against the way her body even now wanted to feel his touch, his caress. Instead she stepped calmly away, accepting that distance was her only defence right now.
‘Absolutely sure.’
He smiled. ‘Then I look forward to attending my brother’s wedding with my wife at my side.’
‘That will only be temporary. I know you don’t want to be married, much less a father.’
‘But we are married, Lisa. And I am going to be a father to my child. A proper father.’
CHAPTER FIVE
IF LISA HAD thought being in Madrid with Max at Christmas might soften his hard mood, she was quickly realising that was not the case. Since their arrival yesterday he’d been courteous yet as distant as a stranger. That last night in London he’d just been proving his power over her, proving that desire and passion still simmered between them—waiting.
They had left their hotel early that morning and now Lisa found herself shivering against the unusually cold winter winds, in a much less salubrious area than that of the hotel. The kind of area she’d grown up in. Surely Raul Valdez, with all his millions, wasn’t getting married anywhere near here.
‘What are we here for?’ she asked tentatively, pulling the collar of her coat tighter around her neck.
Max seemed impervious to the cold, his attention focused on the shabby apartment buildings and one in particular. ‘This is where my mother and I lived after we left Seville.’
Lisa’s mind reeled. Max was a billionaire in his own right and his stepfather was well known in the world of football. She’d never for one moment considered that Max knew what it was like to live on the wrong side of town.
‘I never knew.’ Her voice was soft, full of thought as she looked around her, turning to see a football ground beyond. It was very different from the grounds of the clubs that Max invested in. ‘Did you start your football career here?’
Finally, he turned to look at her and for the briefest of moments she thought she saw sadness in his eyes. Then he blinked and the usual, ever-present guard was back in place. The protection he always wore.
‘My mother moved us to Madrid soon after my father walked out. I thought at the time we were just making a new start, now I know she was hoping that, by being close to him, she could change his mind.’ His jaw clenched as he turned to look once more at the three-storey apartments. ‘And yes, I started playing football here seriously. It’s also where my mother met my stepfather, when she would stand on the sidelines cheering me on, trying to be the father figure I was lacking.’