Rafael's Love-Child. Kate Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ she could remember.

      ‘But Australia’s a huge place when you’ve no idea where to start looking. Worse than the proverbial needle in a haystack. I would have had her address somewhere; I know I would! But I’ve no idea where it is now.’

      That address must be wherever she had lived in the year since she had left Yorkshire. Because she had learned that much at least. Something had happened to her; something so important or traumatic that she had thrown up her university course and…

      And what? Lying awake in the darkness, Serena thumped her pillow in a rage of impotent frustration. The answer to that question was lost, along with her memory.

      ‘So what do I do now?’

      Because she had to do something. The injuries she’d received in the crash were well on their way to mending, the cuts all but healed, even the worst of the bruises fading away completely. Physically, there was nothing to keep her in the hospital any longer.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that.’ Dr Greene smiled. ‘Mr Cordoba has it all in hand.’

      ‘Just what are you up to now?’

      Rafael had barely had time to get through the door into her room that evening before Serena rounded on him, flinging the furious question into his face.

      ‘Up to? My dear Miss Martin, precisely what are you talking about?’

      ‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about!’

      Serena faced him defiantly across the room, black coffee-coloured eyes flashing fire, her chin up, every inch of her slender body stiff with rejection of his high-handed way of behaving. He hadn’t brought Tonio with him this time, she noted gratefully, knowing that the little boy would distract her from the questions she had to ask.

      ‘And I’m not your “dear Miss Martin”! I’m not your “dear” anything! You can’t just move in and take over my life.’

      ‘And how—exactly—am I supposed to be doing that?’

      The coolly drawled question incensed her, as did the slow, indolently assessing way those brilliant eyes swept over her, narrowing slightly as they considered the oatmeal-coloured loose trousers and cream tee shirt she was wearing. The insolent sensuality of the survey made her heart kick against her ribs, her breathing catch for a second.

      ‘The clothes suit you well.’

      ‘Don’t change the subject!’ Serena exploded, bitterly conscious of the fact that if it had not been for Rafael she would have had nothing to wear, or at least something far less expensive and stylish.

      ‘This is my life we’re talking about. And you can’t take people’s lives and assess them as if they were some sheet of figures you’ve been handed to check through. You can’t just add up the income and the outgoings, take away the number you first thought of, decide if it’s worth the investment you were planning on, and then draw a nice neat line under everything—done—finished—sorted out!’

      Rafael’s laughter had a disturbing edge to it, one that took his response to a point a long, long way from true amusement and turned it into something that sent a trickle of icy apprehension sliding down her spine.

      ‘Who the devil thought to name you Serena with a temper like that?’ he murmured sardonically, moving to throw his long body down into the easy chair that stood beside the window. ‘But then I suppose I should have expected it from…’

      ‘From what?’ Serena demanded when he let the sentence trail off unfinished, his eye apparently caught by something in the street outside. ‘You should have expected it from whom?’

      She regretted the angry emphasis she had put on the last word as Rafael’s proud head snapped round again, his beautiful eyes no longer warm with any degree of amusement but cold and sharp as if carved from golden ice.

      ‘From someone with your hair colouring,’ he told her curtly. ‘Fiery hair, fiery temper—isn’t that true?’

      ‘I—’ Serena began indignantly, but, meeting a flashing warning glance that made her toes curl in fearful response, she hastily gulped down the irritable protest, forcing herself to begin again.

      ‘Believe it or not, I’m not usually like this. As a matter of fact, I’m usually pretty equable. Oh, don’t you dare look at me like that!’ she flung at him when the twist of his mouth, a tilt of his head questioned her assertion without words.

      ‘I rest my case,’ he murmured with silky cynicism.

      ‘If you must know, you make me lose my temper! You drive me to it.’

      ‘And why is that, do you think?’

      ‘Why…?’

      Totally at a loss, Serena could only shake her head. Why did he affect her in this way? Why was her mental equilibrium so precariously balanced whenever he was around that just a look, a word, a gesture was enough to throw it out completely?

      She had never thought of herself as an emotionally volatile person, flying off the handle at the slightest provocation, yet somehow when she was with Rafael she became as uncontrolled as a weathercock, swinging this way and that in response to his passing mood.

      ‘Because you have to be the most provoking man I’ve ever come across. And the way you’ve behaved is a decidedly excessive reaction simply because I was hurt in your car.’

      ‘I was brought up always to meet my responsibilities.’

      Like Tonio. The thought flashed into Serena’s mind in a moment. Rafael had never explained just what had happened to the baby’s mother, but it was patently clear that he had no intention of being an absentee father. Or had he just moved in on the poor woman, as he was now doing with Serena herself, taking control, taking over, no matter what anyone else wanted?

      ‘There’s meeting responsibilities and there’s trampling other people underfoot!’

      Rafael’s exaggeratedly patient sigh brought her up short, painfully aware of the way it warned her that his grip on his temper was loosening rapidly.

      ‘Are you going to rant at me like this for the rest of the evening?’ he enquired in a voice laced with acid. ‘Or do you ever intend to enlighten me as to just what is bugging you?’

      ‘Isn’t it obvious? The thing that’s “bugging” me—’ Serena matched his satire word for word ‘—is that you think you can just make plans for my future and I’ll fall in with them as soon as you snap your fingers. So when were you going to tell me? Today? Tomorrow? When it suited you? Or were you just going to present me with a fait accompli and say, This, and this, and this is what’s going to happen. If you don’t like it—tough!?’

      The fact that Rafael didn’t honour her outburst with a reply, but simply continued to regard her stonily, brilliant eyes carefully blanked off, told her all she needed to know. When he looked down his aristocratic nose at her like that, she felt like some out-of-control two-year-old indulging in a petulant tantrum in front of a decidedly bored and critical parent. And that feeling only incensed her more, driving her to rush on without waiting for him to answer.

      ‘That СКАЧАТЬ