Кэтти Уильямс – Latin Lovers: Passionate Spaniards: The Spaniard's Marriage Demand / Kept by the Spanish Billionaire / The Spanish Doctor's Convenient Bride (страница 12)

He shrugged, convinced he could win her round. It might be arrogance on his part, but it was obvious to Leandro that he was definitely having an effect on her.

‘When do you finish work? We have to talk.’

‘“Have” to?’ Her dark eyes flashed her annoyance. ‘I don’t have to do anything that you want me to do! You didn’t even have the courtesy to give me your phone number when we said goodbye in Spain! Now you turn up as casually as though it were just yesterday we saw each other!’ She raised her voice, hissing her anger and people were looking. Isabella’s cheeks turned even pinker.

Leandro could not deny his own irritation in response. Perhaps he should not have been so quick to imagine that she would be glad to see him again, but he certainly had not expected to be openly castigated for seeking her out!

‘You know full well the reason I did not give you my number! But this is not the time and place for us to have this conversation. That should be in private when we are alone. What time do you finish here?’ he asked again, his silvery gaze almost fierce. Isabella sighed heavily and Leandro saw her charged breathing tighten her blouse a little across her breasts. He swallowed hard, watching her collect the little pile of white envelopes on the counter in front of her and hold them to her chest, almost as if to protect herself.

Isabella hardly trusted herself to speak. All she really wanted to do was go somewhere and have a good cry. But weeping would not accomplish anything and even though she’d flared up at Leandro about talking, they definitely needed to have a conversation! She had to tell him about his son. It had never been her decision to keep his existence a secret. Leandro was the one who had forced that decision on her by not giving Isabella his telephone number or at least somewhere where she might contact him and give him the news. She had longed to share with him that their passionate union that night had created a wonderful little boy, yet at the same time she had also dreaded it because she feared his reaction. If he had dismissed their time together as just another one-night stand, as Isabella was pretty sure Leandro had—then the last thing he would want to hear was that he had a son! But now that he had turned up in her life again, Isabella was experiencing confusion as well as anger.

‘I finish at five-thirty, but I need to go straight home tonight. If I give you my phone number perhaps we can arrange to meet tomorrow evening?’ She was only delaying their talk because she had to go to the nursery first and collect Raphael. That hardly gave her enough time to compose herself and think how she was going to break the astounding news to Leandro that he’d become a father! She saw the dismissive shake of his dark head with trepidation.

‘No. I do not want to wait until tomorrow to talk to you! If you need to go home first then I will wait until you finish and we will go back to your house together.’

Isabella had to think fast. She could see that Leandro was in no mood to be amenable about this, yet she desperately needed some time to get herself together! And she’d frankly rather talk to him first before letting him see Raphael. She wondered if she could prevail upon either Natasha or Chris to baby-sit?

Suddenly noticing Becky make her way past the long line of computers where the public utilised the Internet—the promised cup of coffee clasped between her hands—Isabella glanced pleadingly up into Leandro’s forbidding handsome gaze. ‘If you could give me a couple of hours to sort myself out, I can go home, do what I have to do, then meet you somewhere where we can talk? Please, Leandro …’

‘Why don’t you come to me then?’ he suggested, a flash of impatience in his eyes at having to wait to see her at all. Drawing an empty white envelope towards him, he wrote down an address. ‘A friend of mine has loaned me his house for a few days. We can talk, then go out to dinner.’

‘Okay …I’ll do that. I’ll come to you.’

‘Here you are!’ Becky put down the steaming beverage in front of Isabella, then glanced sidelong at Leandro. Immediately Isabella saw the interested gleam that stole into her bright blue eyes. She found herself praying that the teenager wouldn’t mention anything about Raphael. A public confrontation was the last thing she needed!

‘No biscuits, I’m afraid …but then that’s probably a blessing. Wouldn’t want to spoil our figures, now, would we?’ As the girl grinned flirtatiously Leandro ignored her to instead rest his gaze very deliberately on Isabella, letting it slide libidinously down her body and back again. Witnessing her obvious discomfort, he shrugged almost arrogantly. ‘That would indeed be a crime against nature …to spoil such beauty and perfection,’ he commented, his voice seductively lowered. Wrenching her gaze free with difficulty, Isabella addressed her younger colleague in a sharper voice than usual. ‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do before you leave at five-thirty, Becky, and so have I.’

She deliberately presented Leandro with her back to attend to some imaginary ‘necessary’ task, but not before she saw him push the envelope he’d written on further up the desk towards her …

CHAPTER FIVE

ISABELLA walked up and down the smart London street with its ‘perfect’ but way out of her price range terraced houses twice before plucking up the courage to ring the bell at the address that Leandro had given her. Number Sixty-six. Sixes and threes were always lucky for Isabella and she could certainly use some good fortune now, given the task ahead of her.

How would he take to the news that he was a father? Would he show her the door and tell her that he didn’t want anything to do with either her or their child ever again? Isabella told herself that she was quite prepared for such an eventuality even though it would be dreadfully hard to bear. Leandro was, after all, no ‘innocent’ party she was wilfully trying to implicate. They had both had an equal part in creating Isabella’s gorgeous little boy and it had been heartbreaking for her not to even be able to tell him about what had happened after she’d left the Port of Vigo and perhaps share the anxieties of her pregnancy and Raphael’s birth with him—instead of going it alone all this time.

Well …she’d learned a tough lesson but Isabella wasn’t resentful. How could she be when she had Raphael? Motherhood had definitely changed her for the better and she’d met the challenges with courage and resourcefulness. And although admittedly in an ideal world it would have been preferable and perhaps easier to be part of a couple, she had nonetheless become a very capable single parent. So, it wasn’t as though she needed Leandro’s help or intervention, was it? She was merely going to tell him the truth at last. Even though she’d no doubt be emotionally crushed by his rejection when confronted with it face to face …’Come on, Isabella, you can do this!’

Turning up the collar of her long winter coat to help fend off the freezing night air, she finally plucked up the courage to press the doorbell.

He had been like a man anticipating an urgent visit from his lawyer and a quick thankful release after being unlawfully detained in prison—such was Leandro’s impatience and insistent craving to see Isabella again. He could not remember the last time that he had done so much useless pacing in all his life! Picking up the screenplay that he had been in consultation with his script editor with for most of the morning, which—if he was honest—he was still vaguely unhappy with, he silently cursed his too distracted mind for making it almost impossible for him to concentrate. Rescuing the mug of strong black coffee that he’d made himself earlier, which was rapidly chilling since his thoughts had been so preoccupied, he settled himself determinedly in his friend Richard’s agreeably comfortable high-backed armchair and struck his long legs out towards the fire blazing in the Edwardian fireplace. Resting his bare feet on the matching well-used footstool, he endeavoured to overcome his persistent preoccupation and try to relax instead. But it was just too hard to stop thinking about Isabella.

Seeing her at the library earlier had activated a need in him that he could scarce believe. Had he ever felt this agitated about seeing a particular woman before? He didn’t think so …In fact nearly all of his previous girlfriends had accused him of being far too aloof and distant and not nearly as attentive as they would like …including the girl who had betrayed him with another man. When the doorbell sounded suddenly, chiming its incongruous cheerful tune throughout the house, Leandro bit back a relieved curse and levered his athletic frame with fluid ease out of his chair. Discarding the too cold mug of coffee on a small side-table, he drew in his breath and padded out in his bare feet to the sedately decorated corridor to answer the door. ‘Sedate’ because he’d wryly observed that the English seemed to have something against the use of bright vivid colour in their homes. Maybe it was something to do with the long months of ‘grey’ weather they had to endure?