and vowed with everything in his body that she would pay for her actions a million times over.
CHAPTER TWO
THE next morning Rowan sat tensely in a chair and watched the door of the suite. She’d woken early, to find herself stiff and uncomfortable on the couch, still holding Zac’s toy. With the arrival of the morning things were clearer in her head. She could not let Isandro intimidate her. She had to make him see that she had rights. She cursed her own lack of foresight. Today was Saturday, and she didn’t have her solicitor’s home or mobile number. She should have rung him yesterday, after Isandro had left…but she’d been feeling so shocked. She knew that it was a mistake that could cost her dearly.
The truth was, she’d only contacted her solicitor in anticipation of the worst-case scenario—that Isandro, on being contacted, would prove intractable and unforgiving. She was still too much of a coward to admit to herself that she had harboured the wish that somehow, despite everything, once he knew, they could be a happy family. A hundred jeering voices mocked her naïve fantasy.
But they had been happy. They had had something. But, she had to concede painfully, that had been before, in the earlier months of their time together. Isandro had been the first man to draw Rowan out of herself, the first man she’d slept with…the first man she’d fallen for. He’d made her feel beautiful, desirable. And, to her shame, she found she was remembering that, and not her discovery of what he’d really felt for her: which was nothing.
That brought her mind back to reality. No doubt Isandro would already have consulted with an army of legal advisors on how best to deal with the reappearance of his wife. His ability to adapt and react to situations had always awed her. This would be no different. She could well imagine that David Fairclough would have been intimidated out of his skin yesterday, faced with Isandro’s wrath.
Suddenly the door opened, taking her by surprise, and Rowan jerked up to stand, all of her clear-sightedness deserting her with the arrival of her husband. Her body was rigid with tension as she took in his dark blond good-looks, his hair slightly tousled, as if he’d been running a hand through it.
Isandro closed the door softly behind him, watching her. Her face was still as pale as alabaster, her eyes like two huge bruises of colour. His own eyes ran up and down her form. She trembled as lightly as a leaf, barely perceptible.
‘I trust you slept well?’ he asked innocuously, with no evidence of the will he was imposing onto his body’s response to seeing her. Anger at this renewal of response surged through him.
‘Very well. The bed was most comfortable.’ Rowan was not going to pretend for a second that she hadn’t had a night of perfect restful sleep.
A fleeting expression that she couldn’t decipher crossed his face as he pushed away from the door and came close. Rowan fought against backing away.
This morning his jacket and tie were gone, shirtsleeves rolled up. She noticed what looked suspiciously like dried food on his shirt. Had he been feeding Zac? An overwhelming urge to see her son again nearly floored her. She needed to see that he was real, that she hadn’t imagined him. That he was as beautiful and healthy as he’d looked…
Isandro folded his arms. Everything about him was forbidding. Rowan forced her swirling emotions down.
‘Your timing is impeccable…but then I guess you’ve proved that already.’
Rowan’s eyes met his cold ones. She ignored his barb. Waited to hear what he would no doubt explain. He brushed past her to the window, as if in deliberate provocation, and Rowan sucked in a betraying breath at the way he took her off guard by coming so close. At the way her skin prickled uncomfortably. His cool and musky scent wrapped around her, and another scent…that baby scent. Her heart lurched in reaction.
He stayed with his back to her for a moment. For some reason he couldn’t trust himself to face her, and he hated that. He spoke in a monotone. ‘Two months from now it will be two years exactly since you walked out of that hospital. You’ve returned now because we can both file for divorce and you can get your hands on the money agreed in the prenup. I see you’ve been careful not to go beyond the two-year desertion mark, which would have biased things against you. It must be killing you to come back and disrupt your plans, but once the divorce is through you’ll be off again.’ He turned around and fixed her with those laser eyes. ‘Yes?’
Rowan struggled through waves of shock at his cool mention of divorce to understand what he’d said. She had no concept of time or legalities. She’d come here now because she was able. Because she was finally well enough…
His arms were folded, every line in his face regal, hard, uncompromising. Her betrayal and his own shaming lack of judgment seared him again now he was faced with her wideeyed act of shock. He laughed briefly, harshly. ‘Come now—even you, with all your guile, hardly expected us to play happy reunited families?’
Rowan shook her head. His words, which committed to dust that childish and secret fantasy, had rendered her momentarily speechless.
His voice assumed a bored tone which did even more damage to her heart. ‘You’ve done me a favour. If you hadn’t turned up now I wouldn’t have been able to seek a divorce without your consent, so you’ve saved me the tedious job of having to track you down.’ His expression changed in an instant, and he moved closer, looking at her assessingly. ‘Let me guess. You’ve run out of your inheritance?’
Rowan blanched, going even paler. The sizeable inheritance from her mother was almost gone, but not for the reasons he’d so obviously guessed. But it was too late. He’d seen her reaction. A hard, triumphant glitter made his eyes icy.
‘As I thought.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, it disappoints me how predictable you women are. But then I don’t know why I’m surprised. I should have known this was on the cards.’ He continued. ‘So now you’re back, seeking to cash in on a prenup which will give you a nice nest egg…although at the rate you got through your mother’s money, I can’t see that mine will last much longer.’
Rowan’s anger built with a white-hot flash. She felt colour bloom in her cheeks and welcomed it. ‘I have no desire for your money, Isandro. The only thing I desire is to see my son.’
He looked bored. ‘I can see how he will be a good pawn for you, but please do not insult my intelligence. Turning up now shows just how deeply your mercenary streak runs. Being the mother of my son is an added insurance, to make sure you get as much as possible. No doubt this was all part of the grand plan.’
The grand plan? If only he knew…
‘Tell me,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘have you already planned your public defence? Are you going to go with postnatal depression, which is what the papers hinted at as being the likely cause of your curious absence from my side?’
Her mouth fell open. ‘Postnatal depression…you mean people don’t know?’ Rowan had feared that the press would have heard how she had deserted her child after she’d gone. She’d been prepared to deal with it, and it was more than surprising to her that Isandro hadn’t leaked the news for maximum benefit… Yet how could she forget that towering Spanish pride?
Isandro’s eyes narrowed on hers. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you pretending you don’t know?’
‘But… I don’t…’ Rowan felt woolly in the head. For the first six months after her departure she hadn’t seen one newspaper. Or the news. And by the time she’d
