Modern Romance Collection: August 2017 Books 5 -8. Jennie Lucas

It was incredible that a small baby could make such a loud noise. Yet still Harry’s mother did not appear.

      Cortez opened a door to an adjoining room and recognised he was in the bedroom where he had spent the night with Elin just over a year ago. Memories assailed him of her wearing a scarlet silk dress and not a lot else besides, he’d soon discovered. Their passion had been electrifying and she had been with him every step of the way. He did not know what to make of her assertion that she’d had sex with him that night because her drink had been spiked with a date-rape drug. The sexual chemistry that had ignited between them when he had kissed her earlier today had been undeniable.

      The room was dimly lit by the bedside lamp. He switched on the overhead light and frowned when he saw the top of her blonde head poking above the duvet. ‘Elin?’ She did not answer, and when Cortez pulled back the covers her eyes flickered open and she stared at him vacantly. Her skin was pale and beaded with sweat. ‘Your baby needs you,’ he told her. She muttered something incomprehensible and huddled beneath the duvet. Cortez’s concern for his son was paramount. ‘Does Harry want to be fed?’ His jaw tightened. ‘For pity’s sake, you can’t leave him to cry.’

      She either did not hear what he said or did not care, and she closed her eyes again. Cortez frowned as he remembered the recent speculation by the media that Elin used recreational drugs. There had been a photo in some of the tabloids of her being carried out of a nightclub in a semi-conscious state. Had she taken an illegal substance this afternoon which had rendered her unable to care for her baby? His baby.

      He returned to the nursery and hesitated. His heart was pounding and for the only time in his life he felt terrified. He had never held a small baby before, and Harry looked so breakable. Taking a deep breath, he reached into the cot and picked Harry up. The baby’s cries immediately subsided to little whimpers that tore on Cortez’s heart.

      ‘Hey, little man,’ he murmured as he held the baby against his shoulder. Harry stared at him with big, dark eyes fringed with long black lashes. He was more beautiful than anything Cortez had ever seen. The baby’s Cupid’s bow mouth curved into a smile and Cortez felt a constriction in his throat. ‘My son,’ he said thickly, wonderingly. He was Harry’s father and he would never abandon his child like his own father had abandoned him. He was instantly smitten with his baby boy, and his heart felt as if it had swelled to twice its size and was filled to overflowing with love for his child. ‘I would give my life to protect you,’ he whispered to Harry.

      He heard a noise and looked round, expecting to see Elin, but it was the nanny standing in the doorway. ‘Ah, Miss Lennox.’

      ‘I would have been back from my daughter’s earlier, but there was a delay on the Tube,’ she explained.

      Cortez looked down at the baby he was cradling so carefully in his arms. ‘I am Harry’s father.’

      ‘Oh, I guessed that,’ she said cheerfully. ‘He has inherited your colouring rather than his mother’s.’

      ‘Elin is asleep and didn’t hear the baby crying. She seems...spaced out,’ he said tersely.

      The nanny nodded and seemed unsurprised. ‘She has these episodes quite frequently. Hopefully, she’ll be back to herself in a day or two.’

      Cortez instinctively held Harry a little tighter. The nanny’s words seemed to confirm the suggestion in the tabloids that Elin was a drug user and he resolved to protect his son from his mother, who was obviously unfit to take care of a child. One of the first things he intended to do was arrange for his name to be added to Harry’s English birth certificate under the section for father’s details. Even more importantly, he wanted to register his son’s birth in Spain, which would be Harry’s country of residence from now on. But, to do so, he would need Elin’s agreement.

      He handed Harry over to the nanny so that she could change his nappy. The procedure was one of many things he would have to learn how to do, Cortez mused.

      ‘Miss Lennox...’ he smiled at the nanny and turned on the full force of his charm ‘...may I call you Barbara? You guessed that I am Harry’s father and you might also have realised when you saw Elin and I together at Cuckmere Hall that we are reunited.’

      The nanny looked embarrassed by his reminder of when she had caught him and Elin kissing. ‘I’m very glad for the two of you,’ she murmured, ‘and for Harry to have both his parents.’

      Cortez did not disabuse Barbara of the idea that he and Elin were going to play happy families. ‘We have decided to take our son to Spain, and before we left Cuckmere Hall Elin gave me her and Harry’s passports.’ It was not a lie, more an elaboration of the truth, he assured his conscience.

      ‘Certain reasons make it necessary for me to return to Spain earlier than I’d planned,’ he told the nanny. ‘In fact, I need to leave tonight to deal with an urgent business matter. As I am sure you will appreciate, I am reluctant to leave my son and Elin behind in England, especially when we have just got back together.’ He shamelessly pushed the idea that their relationship was the romance of the year.

      ‘I know it is short notice,’ he continued, giving Barbara another dazzling smile. ‘Would you be prepared to accompany us to Spain on my private jet? Elin will be able to rest during the flight, and I’ll need you to take charge of Harry because I am a new and inexperienced father.’ He thought of a possible problem. ‘You will need your passport.’

      ‘As a matter of fact I always carry it with me. Of course I’ll be happy to help in any way that I can,’ Barbara told him. ‘Elin came up to London only last week to shop for clothes to take on a holiday she’d booked to Greece. Would you like me to pack some things for her and Harry, Mr Ramos?’

      ‘Thank you. And Barbara, please call me Cortez, as all my friends do,’ he murmured. The nanny could be a useful ally in his bid to win custody of his son, he decided. He was a master strategist and he knew the benefits of making a friend in the enemy’s camp.

      * * *

      ‘Harry.’ Elin sat bolt upright and took a shuddering breath when she realised she’d been having a nightmare. In her dream she had been running down a long corridor and at the end of it was Harry’s pram. But when she finally reached the pram and looked inside, it was empty and she had no idea where her son was.

      She looked around her bedroom still with a sense of shock. Yesterday, or was it the day before?—she’d lost track of time—her fever had abated and her head no longer felt as if someone was boring into her skull with a pneumatic drill. But her relief had turned to astonishment when she’d found herself in unfamiliar surroundings and Barbara had told her that they were in Cortez’s home in Andalucía.

      The nanny had explained that Cortez had arranged for them to fly to Spain on his private jet. He had carried Elin into the plane’s bedroom and she had been in a deep sleep for the entire journey. A car had collected them from the airport at Jerez and brought them to his mansion, La Casa Jazmín.

      ‘Cortez had to return to Spain urgently, but he did not want to be separated from you and Harry,’ Barbara had told Elin. ‘I think it is so romantic that the two of you have got back together. Cortez is devoted to his son. He insists on giving Harry his bottle and he has learned how to change nappies.’

      Elin had masked her anger because she did not want Barbara to feel guilty that she had been tricked by Cortez into helping him in effect kidnap her and Harry. She hadn’t yet seen him to demand an explanation. Barbara said he had visited her room a few times, but on each occasion she had been feverish and she hadn’t recognised him.

      Worry gnawed in the pit of Elin’s stomach as she slid out of bed and went into an adjoining room which Barbara had explained had formerly been a dressing room. Cortez had instructed his staff to transform it into a nursery. Apparently no expense had been spared to equip the nursery and Harry slept in a magnificent hand-carved cot. She walked past the latest addition to the nursery, an enormous wooden rocking horse, and hurried over to the cot.

      Her heart missed a beat when she found it empty. For a few seconds she was back in her nightmare,