Rafael's Love-Child. Kate Walker

her. Someone who had smoothed the tangled copper hair back from her hot forehead with a cool, soothing hand.

      And, later, someone who had poured her water and held her as she struggled to drink, gently dissuading her from gulping as she strained to ease her parched and aching throat.

      ‘Someone was here…’

      ‘A nurse. You’ve been under strict observation.’

      ‘No…’

      It hadn’t been a nurse. She had no idea how she knew that, but it was the one point on which she was absolutely positive. The good Samaritan, the soft voiced helper who had tended to her in the darkness of the night, at her lowest moments, had not had the coolly professional approach, the detached, impersonal restraint of a trained carer. And the voice she had heard…

      The voice!

      Wide and rounded with shock, her brown eyes flew to Rafael Cordoba’s face, clashing harshly with the stony golden gaze he turned on her. The beautifully carved features could have been sculpted from bronze marble, showing no response at all as he deliberately blanked out her questioning glance, stonewalling, giving away nothing at all.

      ‘You have had the best care that money could buy, Miss Martin,’ he said coolly, as if that was the unspoken question she had asked him.

      But she didn’t really need to ask anything. She knew what she had heard, and she had heard that accent soothing her, comforting her in the darkness of the night. So why had he now turned from ministering angel into Spanish Inquisitor?

      ‘But…’ she began, then wearily shook her aching head. ‘I need to know…’

      Her voice seemed beyond her control, fading weakly into a sigh she could not suppress.

      ‘You’re tired,’ Dr Greene put in gently. ‘You must be careful not to overdo things at this early stage. You know as much as you can cope with right now. You need to rest.’

      Wearily Serena nodded. She was tired. Her thoughts were sliding out of focus, that fuddled, heavy feeling like cotton wool back inside her head. Lacking the strength to stay upright, she sank back against her pillows, heavy eyelids drooping.

      ‘I’ll be back to talk to you again soon. Everything will be all right.’

      ‘Everything!’ It was a harsh exclamation, slashing into the silence that had descended as Rafael moved suddenly, one hand coming up in a violent gesture. ‘Everything! Madre de Dios, what about—?’

      ‘Mr Cordoba!’ There was real annoyance in the doctor’s voice now. ‘I said enough! I want you to go now—to leave Miss Martin alone.’

      He was tempted to rebel against her instructions, it was obvious. Once more that dangerous anger flared in his eyes, in the darkly searing glance he flung at the doctor and then, unnervingly, at Serena herself. But a couple of seconds later he drew himself up again, that strong jaw setting determinedly.

      ‘Very well,’ he said, each word cold and clipped and icily precise, heightening his accent strongly. ‘I’ll go. But…’

      The turn of his head, the direction of his eyes, made it plain that the next thing he said was for Serena alone.

      ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, low and hard, and deadly. ‘I promise you that. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

      They were only words, Serena tried to tell herself as she shrank back in the bed, pulling the covers up close around her. Only words. Almost the same ones that the doctor had used just a few moments before.

      But she had seen Rafael Cordoba’s eyes as he spoke, seen the dangerous gleam in them, the burn of something that made her shiver inwardly, and as a result his promise to return had had precisely the opposite effect to the reassurance that Dr Greene had given her.

      He would be back; she could have no doubt about that. And the honest truth was that the prospect of coming face to face with him again was one that made her shudder in fearful apprehension.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘I’VE brought someone to see you.’

      ‘What?’

      Serena glanced up from the magazine she had been staring at listlessly, not taking in a single word, her eyes going to where the man who had spoken stood in the doorway.

      Rafael Cordoba, of course. Who else would it be?

      It was five days now since the disturbing, confusing moment when she had woken from unconsciousness to find herself here in this hospital and on the receiving end of Rafael’s forceful questioning. ‘I’ll be back,’ he had promised, and he had kept firmly to that promise. The very next morning he had appeared at her bedside, and every day since.

      But it was obvious that Dr Greene or someone in a position of even higher authority had had a word or two with him before he had been let into the ward. The hard, aggressive tone had been muted, the curt, sharp questions silenced, temporarily at least, and even the powerful sexual awareness she had sensed in him had been ruthlessly reined in.

      ‘I’m sorry—what did you say?’

      She prayed that he would take the unevenness in her voice, the faint quaver she couldn’t quite suppress, as the result of being taken by surprise by his unexpected arrival. The last thing she wanted him to suspect was the sheer, mind-blowing, physical effect he had on her simply by existing. Just the sight of that long, lean body, the jet-black hair and burning golden eyes made her breath catch in her throat, her heart stumbling in its natural rhythm.

      And today it was even worse. On every other occasion on which she had seen him, he had been dressed in an immaculately cut suit like the one he had been wearing on that first day. But today, perhaps as a concession to the heat of the sun outside, he had thrown off that formality, opting instead for casual jeans and a short-sleeved shirt.

      The tight denim hugged the firm lines of his narrow waist and hips, emphasising his masculinity in a way that was sinfully sensual, and the pure white cotton of his shirt contrasted starkly with the bronzed skin at his arms and throat, making it seem darker and warmer as a result.

      Nervously Serena twitched at the peach-coloured cover on her bed, painfully aware of the amount of pale, lightly freckled skin exposed by the sleeveless vee-necked top of her cream cotton nightdress. She longed to cover up, but feared that any unwise movement would simply draw his attention to the way she was feeling.

      ‘I’ve brought someone with me…’

      ‘Another visitor? That’s a surprise. I didn’t think I knew anyone in London.’

      Her memory of the accident, and the days leading up to it, had still not returned, and in a way that she found intensely frustrating neither the doctor nor Rafael was prepared to give her any information on the subject.

      ‘You have to be patient,’ was the response she heard every time she asked a question or fretted at her lack of recollection. ‘It’s better to let your memory come back naturally, on its own. If you’re told anything at all, then that won’t happen.’

      ‘So where is this friend of yours?’

      ‘Right here…’ Rafael told her, bronzed forearms tensing as he lifted something up and deposited it on the bed.

      Totally bemused, Serena realised that she was staring at a carrycot, and inside, dressed in soft blue cotton, tiny feet bare, lay a small baby.

      ‘Oh! He’s gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, her full mouth breaking into a smile of delight. Automatically she leaned forward, wanting to pick him up, then froze, unsure of what Rafael’s response might be.

      ‘You think so?’

      Rafael’s reaction was not at all what she had expected. There was a new and disturbing tension in his tone, one that jarred sharply, scraping over Serena’s nerves and setting them sharply on edge.

      ‘Of course I do!