Secret Love-Child. Kate Walker

story—with no truth behind it at all.

      The look Ricardo slanted at her from those dark eyes said that he wished he didn’t have to believe her but he had no alternative.

      ‘You’ve changed since I saw you—lost weight. But you’re well now?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’

      That, at least, she could say without fear of how he would judge her. She wouldn’t be here now, like this, if that wasn’t true. Having forced herself away from Marco once in her life, there was no way she was going to risk having to make that terrible decision ever again by coming back too early.

      ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

      Fine didn’t really describe it, would never describe it. Not until she had her beloved baby boy back in her arms and could make reality of the assurances that the hospital had given her. But, before that could ever happen, she had to deal with his father. And, because she didn’t know why he was here, she didn’t know how to handle Ricardo.

      But he was here—and he had accepted that she had been ill. So would she be a gullible fool to allow herself to hope for something from that?

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, slipping into careful politeness in the hope of steering the situation into calmer waters so that they could at least talk civilly. ‘I should offer you a drink…or something. But, as you can see, I’m afraid this room doesn’t even boast a kettle.’

      Her hand gesture, used to indicate the lack of facilities in the room, was a little too wild, a little too expansive. It gave away too much of the uncomfortable way she was feeling inside, the struggle she was having against the need to demand to know just what he wanted from her.

      ‘I didn’t come here for a drink.’

      ‘No? So what did you…’ Abruptly the courage to ask the most important question deserted her and she rushed on instead to a different distracting topic. ‘I think I could do with one…’

      There was a bottle of water and a glass on her bedside table across the other side of the room, just near to where Ricardo was standing. Without thinking, she moved to reach for it, stretching out her hand in the same moment that he did just the same. Their fingers clashed at the top of the bottle, tangling, pausing, snatched back, only to pause again, just touching, as they froze, barely inches apart, staring deep into each other’s faces.

      ‘Lucia…’

      ‘Rico…’

      Their voices clashed too, just for a second, then died away into stillness as silence reached out to enclose them, hold them.

      It was as if they had both been struck by lightning. An electrical response had sizzled up her arm, fizzing along every nerve at just the feel of the heat of his body, the burn of his skin against hers.

      Now she really did need that drink of water. Her throat was drying out completely in the wave of heat that seared her body, shrivelling her thoughts in its fire and setting alight the senses that she had barely kept under control from the moment that Ricardo had walked through the door.

      ‘Rico…’ she croaked again, unable to drag her eyes away from the burn of his glittering gaze, unable to move, unable to think, only able to feel.

      And what she felt was the rush of awareness, of need that she had known from the first moment this man had touched her. A need and a hunger that had grown with each kiss, each caress. A hunger that she had convinced herself she could learn to live without as long as she was far away from him, never seeing him, never speaking to him, never touching him…

      And she had managed it until now.

      But she had only to touch him, have him touch her, and it had all sparked off again in the space of a single heartbeat. Nothing had vanished; it was all still there.

      He felt it too. She could read it in his eyes, sense it in the change in his breathing, the way that a muscle jerked at his jaw line. It was still there, as strong, as sharp and as primitively intense as ever. Body speaking to body, sense to sense. Whatever had burned between them in the eleven months of their marriage, it was all still smouldering just below the surface, needing only a touch to make it flare into life all over again.

      ‘Oh, Ricardo…’

      Acting purely at the demand of her instincts, Lucy finally moved. Twisting her hand around, she let her fingers brush his palm, watching fascinated as his own fingers jerked just once, convulsively, as if about to close around her teasing touch, but then were abruptly forced still again. Those gleaming black eyes were suddenly hooded, hidden from her, concealing any trace of his thoughts. But Ricardo couldn’t hide the way that his breath caught sharply in his throat, the deep swallow that struggled to ease the dry discomfort that matched her own.

      Lucy let a small smile curl the corners of her mouth, grow until her lips curved upwards, wide and soft at the thought that at least in this one way she could still affect this hard, distant man as she had once been able to.

      ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. It really doesn’t.’

      ‘No?’ Ricardo’s voice was thick and rough, seeming to come from a throat that was so clogged with something raw that he could barely speak.

      ‘No.’

      Softly she let her fingertips drift over the palm of his hand, watching the strong hand quiver in uncontrolled response. Circling his thumb, she caressed her way over the powerful bones in his wrist, watching as the sinews tightened, the muscles clenched. It was impossible to control the need to touch him, impossible to fight back the urge to provoke him to react in a way that revealed that he was no more immune to her than she was to him.

      To feel him close like this, scent his skin, feel the heat of him, made her mind respond as if she had slipped back to the days when she had been free to touch him, to caress him whenever she had wanted. She had loved those days, adored that freedom—adored him. And she wanted to go back there—wanted it, needed it so much…

      ‘It never used to be this way.’

      She didn’t deliberately pitch her voice to sound so breathy, so husky. It just came out that way naturally. And right now she couldn’t regret the way it revealed how the tiny physical contact had shaken her. How aware, how aroused it had made her. With her eyes fixed on Ricardo’s taut face, she could see how, just for a moment, his tongue slid out to moisten suddenly dry lips.

      Perhaps he too recalled the softer times in their relationship. The times before suspicion had changed him, darkening his opinion of her.

      ‘It could still be…’

      Moving her hand again, this time she curled it around Ricardo’s, fingers lacing with his, palm pressing to palm, deepening the contact, making it more intimate.

      And she knew her mistake as soon as she’d done it.

      ‘Inferno—no!’

      The harsh mutter was harder, more biting than if he had shouted. And the way that he froze, before deliberately, coldly uncoiling his hand from her gentle grip, pulling away almost in slow motion, was so obviously a deliberate insult that it stung like a slap in the face. With a flick of his wrist, he seemed to shake off even the last traces of her touch as he swung away from her, putting as much distance between them as it was possible to do in the small bedroom.

      ‘It could not “still be” anything,’ he declared, every word pure ice. ‘There is nothing left between us, nothing I want to revive. Certainly not how it used to be. That is not what I came here for.’

      ‘So what did you come here for?’

      Determined not to show how his rejection of her had hurt, Lucy brought her head up defiantly, turning what she hoped were cold eyes on him as she injected every ounce of control possible into her voice.

      ‘I take it it wasn’t just to pass the time of day—renew an old…’ she hesitated deliberately over the word ‘…friendship?’

      ‘Hardly.