As it was, the Jerezano believed she had the greater claim to the baby, as his mother. And that was something he must go on believing—until the adoption order had safely gone through, at the very least.
Squeals of delight were coming from the living-room as she carried the bottle through, and her eyes widened in disbelief. Javier Campuzano had discarded his coat, the expensive, beautifully tailored garment flung haphazardly over the back of a chair, and he was bouncing the crowing baby on his impeccably suited knees, strong hands supporting the sturdy little body, his own face lit with a smile that gave an entirely and heart-stopping new dimension to his lean and handsome features.
Relaxed, he was a man she could find irresistibly attractive, she acknowledged dizzily as her heart began to beat again, picking up speed as if to make up for lost time. And that was something she hadn’t admitted in a long time, not since Donald.
But she recognised the momentary foolishness for what it was as, becoming aware of her hovering presence, he rose elegantly to his feet, holding the baby securely against his shoulder, the smile wiped away as if it had never been as he told her, ‘The preliminaries are over, señorita. I now propose to lay my cards on the table.’
Oh, did he? Cathy stamped on the impulse to tell him to get lost, and took the baby without a word. Settling herself on the chair she always used to nurse Johnny, she told herself that it wouldn’t hurt to hear what he had to say. As long as he believed she was the child’s mother she didn’t have to agree to a single thing.
He took his time over settling himself in the chair on the opposite side of the gas fire, and his eyes were coldly determined as he told her, ‘Having seen you and recognised you, having seen Juan, I can’t dispute that he is Francisco’s son. One day I will show you photographs of my brother at roughly the same age. You would swear they were twins, if you didn’t know better.’
Was she supposed to make some comment? She was too edgy even to look his way, and kept her eyes on the contentedly sucking baby. And Campuzano continued smoothly, ‘I intend to make sure that Francisco’s son is brought up in full knowledge of his Spanish heritage. One day he will inherit, become head of the family. Do you have the remotest idea of what that means?’
Forced by the edge of steel in his voice to emerge from the wall of uninterest she had carefully hidden herself behind, Cathy raised unwilling eyes and met the cold intensity of his. She shivered, forcing a cool disbelief into her voice as she queried, ‘Have you no sons of your own to inherit, señor?’ and saw his mouth compress to a line that was as bitter as it was brief, and, oddly, felt wildly exultant. Somehow she had flicked him on the raw, and surely it wasn’t too ignoble of her to rejoice in the knowledge? Ever since he had announced himself she had been feeling apprehensive, edgy and very, very vulnerable, so paying him back felt good!
But her elation lasted no time at all because, as she eased the teat out of the baby’s mouth and lifted the sleepy bundle against her shoulder, she saw Campuzano’s eyes follow every gentle movement with an intentness that was infinitely disturbing and heard him say, ‘My wife died. There were no children. I have no desire to replace her—much, I might add, to my mother’s disapproval. However—’ he spread his hands in a gesture that Cathy found poignantly fatalistic ‘—I looked to Francisco to marry and provide heirs. But he died.’
But left an heir. Battening down her agitation, Cathy got to her feet and carefully laid the child in his Moses basket, tucking the blankets around his body, the reward of a tiny, sleepy smile and the downdrift of thick black lashes making her loving heart twist in anguish.
Javier Campuzano would take him from her if he could; the dark intent, the threat, had been threaded through everything he had said so far.
She turned, finding him, inevitably, at her shoulder, his brooding eyes on the child. She wanted to scream, to make him go away and never come back, and, to hide her reaction, defuse a little of the pressure he was putting her under, she said quickly, ‘I was sorry to hear of Francisco’s death, but he can’t have been much interested in his son’s existence, otherwise he would have contacted my...’ She caught herself just in time, and altered quickly, ‘Answered one of my letters.’
Her face flushed. She wasn’t used to dissembling. Her character was straightforward and direct, but she was fighting for Johnny, for the right to keep him, for the right to give him all the love his natural mother was incapable of feeling. And she didn’t want all the unwilling sympathy he aroused when he told her with painful simplicity, ‘About a week after your... encounter—shall we call it?—he was involved in a car accident which left him hooked up to a life-support system. He was in a coma for many months and when he regained partial consciousness he was paralysed. His eventual death must have come, for him at least, in the form of a release. When your letters arrived my mother’s housekeeper put them aside. They were forgotten until I came across them two weeks ago when I began putting my brother’s effects in order. Maria was not to blame. She was, like the rest of us, distraught by what had happened, by the fact that Francisco couldn’t open his own mail, much less read it. I know, however, that he would have acknowledged his son.’ He drew himself up to his full, intimidating height, deeply rooted family pride marking his features with a formidable severity.
Cathy’s breath caught in her throat as she unwillingly admitted to his dark male magnificence, but she fought the grudging admiration as he added scathingly, ‘If you’d got to know him at all, you too would know that much, at least. I can’t know, of course, how deep the emotional side of your brief relationship went, but from your reaction to the news of his death I would judge it to have been regrettably shallow on your part.’
‘Oh... I...’ Cathy floundered. She had been forced into an unsavoury corner, and raked her memory for Cordy’s explanation of events. Self-protectively, she dropped back into her chair, drawing her legs up beneath her. ‘We had two glorious days and nights,’ Cordy had confided. ‘Eating, drinking, making love. Not much sleeping. From what he told me, and what I picked up from discreet enquiries, he comes from a fabulously wealthy family. Just one older brother who runs the whole family show—a bit of an enigma from what I can gather, but we can rule him out, because you know how the Spanish have this thing about pride and honour, and the importance of family? So, by my reckoning, I’m on to a winner! He was pretty cut up when I had to leave Seville, of course, and I did promise I’d let him know when I had some free time to entertain him in London. But you know how busy I’ve been.’ She had given an elegant shrug. ‘Never mind, I just know he’ll be delighted when he gets the news. I’m going to write and tell him, get it down in black and white.’
Aware that Javier was waiting for some reply, Cathy frantically edited what she had learned of the brief affair from her sister and came up, lamely, with, ‘We only knew each other for a couple of days.’ She knew she sounded defensive, and that was down to the circumstances, the way she was having to go against her instincts and lie. And there wasn’t anything she could do about that.
‘Long enough, however, for your child to be conceived,’ he replied with a dryness that shrivelled her bones. Slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, he drew two sheets of paper from an inside pocket and spread them out in front of her. ‘Obviously, from reading your letters, up until five months ago you wanted Francisco to know of the existence of his child. You did write these letters of your own free will?’
What could she say? To deny it would let him know more than was safe. She nodded mutely, hating the web of deceit that was enmeshing her more firmly by the moment. And she felt even more guilty when he remarked, a thread of humour in his voice, ‘You sign your name indecipherably. You are the mother of my nephew—I think I should know your name, don’t you? Try as I might, I can’t fathom it.’
She didn’t blame him. The letters were written in Cordy’s affected,
