The Mediterranean Millionaire's Reluctant Mistress. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ since she had stormed out of the dining-room the evening before!

      It was an anger she wanted to cling to, finding it a much more comfortable emotion than her physical awareness of this man. Today he was casually dressed again in black trousers and a grey shirt that emphasized his dark colouring.

      Her mouth twisted derisively. ‘And what’s in Deya?’

      ‘Nothing too exciting,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘But while I attend a business meeting you and Miguel could have a look around the village, and then perhaps we could all meet up for lunch.’

      ‘What’s the catch?’ She eyed him suspiciously.

      Alejandro was starting to regret making the invitation. ‘There is no catch,’ he snapped. ‘I was merely thinking of your request yesterday to see some of the island.’

      ‘And I suppose Michael and I are to be accompanied by armed guards wearing dark sunglasses and looking totally out of place?’ she queried sarcastically.

      His mouth tightened. ‘They are not armed,’ he responded tautly.

      ‘But they will be wearing dark sunglasses and looking out of place!’ Brynne scorned as she swung her legs onto the tiled patio, and Alejandro noted she was wearing a black bikini today that suited the golden tan she was quickly acquiring.

      Alejandro eyed her impatiently. ‘You are being extremely childish about this—’

      ‘Am I?’ she challenged. ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry about that! But it could be because this is the first time I’ve ever had to be accompanied anywhere by guards—armed or otherwise!’ Although she knew Alejandro saw it as a necessary tool to keep Michael safe, she certainly didn’t agree with the way he had gone about it.

      He had realized that after their brief conversation on the subject last night, and he had tried to make allowances for it, but at the same time he did not intend fighting this woman over everything.

      ‘I suggest, for the length of your stay here, you get used to it!’ he said harshly.

      She was arguing for the sake of it, Brynne acknowledged heavily. She still wasn’t happy with the idea that Michael would now need to be watched and protected wherever he went, but at the same time she accepted that it was better than Alejandro not caring enough about Michael to keep him safe.

      As for herself, she had no intention of getting used to being watched all the time!

      She gave Alejandro Santiago one last scathing glance before turning to look at Michael as he swam over to hang on the side of the pool. ‘Your father has invited us to go for a drive with him to a place called Deya,’ she prompted softly, having no intention of making Michael a part of the tension that seemed to surround his father and herself every time they met; after all, she was here to smooth the way for a relationship between the two, not make the situation any worse than it already was.

      Although Michael didn’t seem to be having too much trouble adjusting, last night being the first time he hadn’t woken up crying for Joanna and Tom.

      Her own evening hadn’t been quite so untroubled, she thought. Sha had sat out on the balcony of her bedroom still trying to calm down after her argument with Alejandro when she had seen him leave the villa to walk over to the garages, driving a sleek sports car out onto the road minutes later, the red tail-lights quickly disappearing down the winding road as he had accelerated the vehicle away.

      She remembered thinking ten o’clock at night seemed an odd time to be going out …

      Although it perhaps explained why he had been so formally dressed for dinner earlier. Maybe it hadn’t been in her honour at all, but because he’d had another—assignation, later that evening?

      She knew from their legal battle over Michael that Alejandro didn’t have a wife or a fiancée, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have a particular woman in his life.

      Not that it was any of her business, she had told herself firmly. No matter what Alejandro might have assumed to the contrary, she intended continuing to be a part of Michael’s life even after this month was finished. But at the same time she accepted she had no right, legal or otherwise, to comment on whom Alejandro might possibly one day choose to be Michael’s stepmother.

      ‘What do you think?’ she prompted Michael brightly now.

      ‘Great!’ He grinned, easily levering himself up out of the water to grab a towel and hurry into the villa to dress.

      Brynne’s heart caught in her throat as she watched him, aware that the sun here was already darkening his skin to the same olive of his natural father, and that Michael seemed to be becoming more and more like Alejandro Santiago with each passing hour.

      ‘I think that’s a yes.’ Her voice was brittle as she spoke dismissively to Alejandro. ‘We’ll just change and then join you back down here,’ she added before turning to pick up her book and magazine with the intention of joining Michael upstairs.

      ‘I forgot to enquire yesterday evening—your parents were both well when you spoke to them yesterday?’ Alejandro asked softly.

      She straightened abruptly, her expression tense. ‘As well as can be expected, in the circumstances.’

      Yes, Alejandro could only imagine his own parents’ distress if anything were to happen to himself or his brother.

      Or his own distress, even now, if anything should happen to Miguel …

      He had only spent a few hours in the little boy’s company, but already he knew him to be strong and independent, his nature naturally cheerful in spite of his recent loss, with none of the spoilt whining that sometimes happened with children.

      Miguel was a boy he recognized as being very like himself at the age of six. A boy he was already proud of.

      Although no doubt Brynne Sullivan, believing him cold and heartless, would find that hard to believe!

      ‘It must be very difficult for them,’ Alejandro recognized.

      ‘Yes,’ Brynne agreed. ‘Taking Michael to see them the night before we left was—harrowing.’

      Alejandro knew this was far from an ideal situation, that the discovery of his son had far-reaching consequences, not least to the couple who considered themselves his grandparents.

      But there was no easy solution to this dilemma that Alejandro could see.

      ‘We won’t be long,’ Brynne told him shortly.

      ‘I am in no particular hurry.’ Alejandro shrugged, watching her walk back to the house before sitting down wearily on one of the loungers to wait for them. Allowing his head to fall back on the cushion and his eyes to close, he thought how Antonia had been particularly difficult last night, so much so that in the end he had cut the evening short and driven home much earlier than he had intended.

      He accepted that the time he’d had to spend in England the last six weeks had been time spent away from Majorca, but it was a separation that Antonia had felt much more personally than he had. As her displeasure had clearly let him know last night. Even her exotic beauty did not compensate for the air of possessiveness she had started to adopt where he was concerned. A possessiveness she СКАЧАТЬ