‘Only because Guy had upset me. I never intended for things to turn out the way they did.’ She looked away from him, colour flooding her cheeks—because she was lying, she admitted bleakly.
During the ball she had been intensely aware of Ramon, and deep down she had longed for him to take her to his room and make love to her. Even now she was acutely conscious of him. Her traitorous body ached for him to touch her as he had touched her last night. The memory of how he had stroked his hands over her naked flesh and brought her to the peak of arousal with his clever fingers made her limbs tremble.
Ramon raked his hand through his hair and swung away from her, pacing around the small living room like an angry caged bear. ‘Who cares for Mateo while you are at work all day? You told me your mother lives in Jersey, so presumably she is not involved in his upbringing?’
‘He is in a daycare nursery. It’s an excellent nursery—the absolute best,’ she continued quickly, when Ramon frowned. The nursery fees were exorbitant, but she was happy to pay them for peace of mind that Matty was happy and well cared for.
‘And when did you return to work?’
‘When he was three months old.’
‘Dios mio! You dumped him in daycare when he was just three months old?’ There was genuine horror in Ramon’s eyes. ‘My sisters did not leave their babies’ sides for the first years of their lives.’
Lauren gave him a startled look. ‘I didn’t even know you had sisters. In all the months that we were together you never spoke about your family.’
He shrugged. ‘I learned long ago to guard my privacy, and that of my family, after a couple of ex-mistresses blabbed to the tabloids about my personal life. Even the colour scheme of my bathroom seems to be fascinating to some people,’ he added dryly.
But there had been another reason why he had maintained a distance between himself and Lauren, Ramon admitted silently. Over the years he had learned to compartmentalise his life; in Spain he had been the son of a duque, who could never forget the life of duty that lay ahead of him, but in London he had enjoyed a playboy lifestyle. His relationship with Lauren had begun as just another affair with a pretty blonde, and because he had known that that was all it could ever be he had deliberately not allowed his two worlds to mix.
‘You must have known that I wouldn’t do something like that,’ Lauren muttered, hurt by his lack of trust in her. It reinforced the fact that he had regarded her as just another casual lover, and once again she wondered how she had been stupid enough to believe he had started to care for her.
‘Unlike your sisters, I live in the real world,’ she said curtly. ‘I had to go back to work to pay the bills. I’m not saying the situation is ideal, but I have done my very best for Matty. I even used to spend my lunch hour in the ladies’ loo, expressing my breast milk so that the nursery staff could give it to him the next day.’
Her life in the first few months after she’d had Mateo had been a blur of exhaustion, worry, and guilty tears shed silently in the cloakroom at work in between meetings. Ramon would never understand what a terrible wrench she still found it to leave her baby for hours every day.
‘It would have been better for him if you had held him in your arms and fed him yourself,’ he said harshly. ‘Breastfeeding is a crucial time, when the special bond between a mother and her child is formed.’
‘I had no idea you were such an expert in childcare,’ Lauren snapped, infuriated by his arrogance. ‘I hate having to leave Matty, but I have no choice…’
‘Yes, you do. You have always had a choice,’ Ramon said bitterly. ‘If you had told me you were expecting my child I would have ensured that you received the best care. My son would have been born in Spain and would have spent the past ten months at the Castillo del Toro, surrounded by his grandmother and his aunts and cousins—not here in this poky flat, farmed out to a nursery all day while you pursue your precious career.’
Poky flat…farmed out…Ramon’s scathing indictment of the way she was bringing up Mateo rendered Lauren speechless with fury. But before she could formulate a reply he spoke again—this time in a cold, implacable voice that she found more frightening than his explosive temper.
‘I want my son. And I will have him; do not doubt it, Lauren.’
The moment Ramon had laid eyes on his son he had realised he did not give a damn if the baby was not deemed to be of true Spanish noble blood because he had been born to an English mother. Mateo was his child, and he felt fiercely possessive and protective of him.
‘It is obvious from Mateo’s striking similarity to me that he is a Velaquez, but if you deny that I am his father I will demand a DNA test, and then I will take him to Spain, where he belongs.’
‘You can’t do that.’ Lauren shook her head, and winced as starbursts of pain shot through her skull. She could not stop shivering, yet two minutes ago she had been burning up. Her legs must be trembling because she had a fever, but as she stared at Ramon’s hard face fear swept through her, and she sank weakly onto the sofa. ‘You have no right to take him,’ she said shakily.
He slammed his hand down on the table, his temper exploding once again. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me about rights! What right did you have to keep my son from me? And what right did you have to deny Mateo his father? This is not about us,’ Ramon said grimly. ‘The only important thing is what is best for Mateo.’
‘How can taking him away from me be best for him?’ Lauren held her hand to her throbbing head and tried to think clearly. ‘I may not have specialised in family law, but no court would separate a baby from his mother.’
‘We’ll see,’ Ramon said coldly. ‘I think it is entirely likely a judge would agree that it would be better for Mateo to live with his father, who is prepared to devote his life to him, within a huge extended family who will welcome him and love him, than with a mother who is at work all day while he is left in the care of nursery staff. A child of Mateo’s age needs the security of being cared for mainly by one or two family members, and I will be there for him night and day.’
‘Really?’ Lauren said disbelievingly. ‘What about when you are jet-setting around the globe for work? Or attending numerous social functions? I suppose you’ll leave Matty with a nanny?’
‘I intend to cut my business trips to a minimum, and to be frank I’m bored with parties. I would much rather spend my time with my son.’
He stared at Lauren’s white face and hardened his heart against a faint flicker of sympathy. She had coldbloodedly denied him his child, and she did not deserve his compassion.
‘What you did was unforgivable,’ he said harshly. ‘You had better start praying you win that promotion Alistair Gambrill told me you are in line for, because you are going to need all the money you can get to pay for the custody battle—and for the appeal if I lose the first round, and then the next appeal. Do you get the picture, Lauren? I will never give up fighting for my son because I genuinely believe he will have a better life with me. Mateo is the Velaquez heir, and I don’t understand how you could want to deny him his birthright.’
Lauren suddenly sneezed violently, and could not stifle a groan as pain tore through every muscle in her body. She still could not stop shivering, but when she pushed her hair back from her face her brow felt clammy with sweat. She rested her head against the back of the sofa, unaware
