offered it to the baby—who stubbornly refused to open his mouth.
‘Come on, chiquito, it’s good,’ Ramon said persuasively. ‘Try it for Papà, hmm?’ Instead, Mateo tried to grab the spoon. ‘Okay, you want to be independent and feed yourself?’
Maybe his son was a child genius? he mused as he handed the baby the spoon and set the bowl down on the highchair’s tray.
‘You do it, then. No, Mateo—with the spoon…’ In disbelief Ramon watched Mateo pick up the bowl and upend its contents on top of his head, completely covering his mop of curls.
‘Now I’ll have to bath you all over again!’ Ramon raked his hand through his hair.
He stared at Mateo, and the baby stared solemnly back at him, his rosebud mouth suddenly curving into an angelic smile. And in that moment Ramon fell utterly and irrevocably in love.
He threw back his head and laughed until he ached. ‘You’re a monster—you know that?’ He lifted Mateo out of the highchair, his laughter dying as he hugged the baby to him. ‘You are my son, and I will never be apart from you again,’ he vowed fiercely.
A faint sound made him swing round, and he stiffened when he saw Lauren standing in the doorway. She looked pale and fragile, but it was the gleam of tears in her eyes that caused Ramon to frown.
‘Why are you out of bed?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Cathy told me you were awake, but not strong enough to get up yet.’
Lauren swallowed, unable to tear her eyes from the sight of her son sitting contentedly in his father’s arms. ‘I wanted to find Matty,’ she said huskily. ‘The nurse said that you were giving him his breakfast.’ She could not disguise her surprise that Ramon had wanted to take care of the baby rather than allow the nanny to see to him. He even looked different, she noticed. In faded jeans and a black polo shirt, rather than one of the designer suits that she was used to seeing him wear, he looked relaxed and somehow more human than the coldly arrogant, aristocratic duque who had stormed into her flat and threatened to fight her for their child.
Ramon glanced at the cereal plastering Matty’s hair and gave a rueful grimace. ‘As you can see, giving him his breakfast has not been a resounding success.’
Lauren gave him a faint smile. ‘I can’t count the number of times he has done that at home—usually on a morning when I’ve been running late for work. But he doesn’t like to be fed. Even at this age he’s very determined and wants to do everything for himself.’
‘Rather like his mother,’ Ramon commented dryly. ‘It can’t have been easy, caring for him on your own and holding down your job, but you never considered asking for my help—did you, Lauren?’
She heard the latent anger in his voice and bit her lip. ‘I didn’t know how you would feel about having a baby,’ she mumbled.
Ramon made an impatient sound. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t ask me.’
Guilt surged through Lauren once more. She could stand here all day, trying to defend her actions, but in her heart she accepted that she had been wrong not to tell Ramon he had a son. She could not look at him, and instead glanced around the nursery. Through a half open door she could see an en suite bathroom. ‘I’ll run Matty another bath,’ she said hurriedly, desperate to escape Ramon’s accusing gaze.
Matty loved bath-time, and was perfectly happy to spend another twenty minutes playing in the bubbles.
‘He’s a real water baby,’ Ramon said, smiling at Matty’s squawk of displeasure when at last he lifted him out of the water and Lauren wrapped the disgruntled baby in a fluffy towel. ‘In a month or so, when the weather is warmer, I’ll take him in the pool. It will be good for him to learn to swim at an early age.’
His words made Lauren’s heart jolt. She could not stay in Spain for months. She needed to get back to work. The mortgage on her flat would not pay itself. But she certainly did not intend to leave Matty here at the Castillo del Toro.
She followed Ramon back into the nursery, and her heart clenched when she watched him tenderly drying Matty. For such a big man he was amazingly gentle. Tears blurred her eyes. If only she had known this side of Ramon perhaps she would have acted differently. But when he had spoken of his duty to father an heir she had assumed from his tone that he did not relish the prospect of having a child. Clearly she had been wrong. She could see that already there was a special bond between father and son, and innate honesty forced her to acknowledge that she had no right to try and break it.
Ramon glanced at her white face and frowned. ‘You look terrible. Go back to bed. I’ll dress Mateo and take him downstairs to my mother,’ he continued when Lauren shook her head. ‘Go,’ he insisted. You do not need to be here. I can take care of him fine without you.’
The words felt like a knife through her heart, and with a low cry she hurried out of the nursery, wondering despairingly what on earth she was going to do.
A FEW minutes after Lauren had returned to her room a maid arrived, with a pot of tea and a couple of freshly baked rolls that smelled temptingly good. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, although she had a vague memory of sipping water from a glass on several occasions while a strong arm supported her head and shoulders.
Had that been Ramon—who, according to the nurse, had spent the last four nights in the chair close to her bed? She frowned when she glanced down at the nightgown she was wearing, and it struck her that someone must have removed her jeans, sweatshirt and underwear. It must have been Cathy, she assured herself, her cheeks growing hot at the idea that Ramon might have undressed her.
She drank two cups of tea and managed half a roll before crossing the room to the en suite bathroom. The sight of her reflection in the mirror was a shock. She couldn’t do much about her hollow cheeks and pale complexion, but at least she could be clean. Stripping off her nightdress, she quickly stepped into the shower, relishing the feel of the spray cleansing her body and the lemony scent of the shampoo that she worked into her hair.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
The sound of a familiar gravelly voice coincided with Ramon’s sudden appearance as he opened the door of the shower cubicle and stood glaring at her. Face flaming, Lauren realised that she would have to reach past him to grab a towel. Instead she frantically tried to cover certain pertinent areas of her body with her hands.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ she snapped.
‘It’s a bit late for modesty now, when I have spent the past few nights sponging your body to try and bring down your fever,’ he said grimly. ‘But at least you’ve finally got some colour in your cheeks.’ He took pity on her and threw her a towel. ‘As to what I’m doing here—I came to check that you had gone back to bed. I might have known you would be stupid enough to try and shower without assistance.’
‘I am not stupid.’ Lauren gave him a furious look. ‘I’m feeling much better, and I don’t need help.’ She refused to admit that her legs felt dangerously unsteady, but of course they chose that minute to give way, so that she would have collapsed onto the floor of the shower if Ramon had not caught her.
‘Of course you don’t,’ he said sardonically
