mother is on her world cruise,’ Antonio reminded him. ‘She offered to come home, but I thought it might be better if we had some time alone.’ That had been eight days ago. If asked again today, Antonio was not sure his response to the maternal offer would be the same!
‘Is there anything I can do…?’ Huw tried not to look too obviously relieved when Antonio assured him there wasn’t.
The door slammed. Antonio was beginning to suspect that his immediate future held a lot of door slamming.
There had to be a solution to this problem, he told himself. Experience had taught him there was always a solution.
He just didn’t know what it was yet.
‘You don’t want me any more than I want you,’ his new daughter had yelled before her dramatic exit from the room. ‘You wish I don’t even exist! Do you wish I hadn’t been born? Stupid question—of course you do. You’re not even English. And,’ she added, glaring up into his lean dark face, ‘it’s your fault I’m so horribly tall! I got your genes!’
‘I am your father.’
The gentle reminder precipitated her flight.
Hand on the door handle, she turned back, tears sparkling in her eyes.
‘Biological father!’ she sneered, making it sound like the worst insult in the world. ‘And why are your eyes so blue? They’re spooky…like a wolf or something with those dark rings around the iris. This place isn’t my home and if anyone here calls me Miss Rochas again I’ll scream. My name is Finch. I can’t even pronounce Rochas. I hate it and I hate you! I wish you were dead!’
At intervals he heard the slamming of several more doors.
Well, that went well.
As he looked out through the full-length Georgian windows to the green sweep of manicured lawn beyond, Tamara, her hair flying out behind her, was running as though the devil himself were on her heels.
Antonio knew that this role had been assigned to him in her eyes.
It would be dark in another hour and, though the evening was one of his favourite times to walk the woods, he was pretty sure a town-bred girl would not enjoy the experience.
On his way out, he shrugged on a jacket and shoved a torch in his pocket.
He was in luck—well, it had to happen some time—the gardener had seen her heading in the direction of the west wood. By the time he had vaulted over a stile and entered the wood the shadows were deepening and so was his concern.
Alternately calling her name and pausing to listen, he made his way deeper until finally his efforts were rewarded by suspicious rustling sounds a few hundred yards to his right, where he knew there was a clearing.
‘Tamara! This is pointless. It is—’ Before he had time to complete his appeal a dog, possibly the most unattractive animal he had ever seen in his life, shot out of the undergrowth blocking his path. It bared its teeth and emitted a ferocious growl.
Antonio regarded the animal with irritation rather than fear. It was small, and animals liked him—they always had.
‘Clear off!’ he said, using a firm, calm tone.
Animals responded well to a firm, calm tone.
Nobody had told this dog about the firm, calm tone. It carried on growling, if anything more ferociously. Ignoring the warning signs, Antonio went to move past him, at which point the animal went for his ankle. He looked down in total astonishment at it, then rolled his eyes and cursed.
Could this day get any worse?
He soon discovered that it could.
Chapter Three
‘HERE boy…Sandy…?’ Fleur rattled the lead in her hand hopefully. Actually she didn’t feel very hopeful—the light was fading fast and her hopes of finding the dog any time soon along with it.
She muttered, ‘Damn,’ under her breath as her jeans snagged on a bramble. A worried frown creasing the smoothness of her brow, she carefully detached her arm from the barbs of yet another aggressive bramble and rubbed the blood welling from the long scratches on her forearm. Finally abandoning her cajoling tone, she yelled.
‘You stupid animal, where are you?’ She had definitely had better birthdays.
One last yell and she was going home…she really was. Fleur didn’t even convince herself.
Her shoulders sagged in relief when her exasperated screech was rewarded with the sound of an indistinct but definite bark. The excited canine cry seemed to come from the wooded area on a rise to her left. Stumbling a little on the uneven ground, she set off in its direction hoping that Sandy stayed put.
She turned a blind eye to another Keep Out Private Property sign—she had passed several—and entered the wooded area. Once inside she realised it was a lot denser than it had looked. Very little light managed to pierce the leafy canopy overhead and there was a lot of leafy rustling Fleur didn’t like going on.
She hesitated for a moment, suddenly wondering whether if left to himself Sandy might not find his own way home, when an outbreak of agitated barking made her mutter, ‘Wimp,’ under her breath and, with her firmly rounded chin set, plunged into the woods proper.
About fifty yards inside the dense growth began to thin. At the same time she became aware of the human voice the dog’s barking had until now masked. A male human voice. A loud, angry male voice.
Oh, my God, that’s all I need.
Breathless, she burst noisily into the clearing. The figure with his back to her was dressed in jeans and a dark jacket. He was very tall, broad of shoulder and long of leg with a lean, athletic build. On his feet he wore mud-splashed leather boots; the toe of one was very close to poor Sandy.
Fleur, her protective instincts on full alert, planted her hands on her hips and said in a loud, clear voice, ‘Get away from that dog this instant!’
‘Me get away from him?’ Despite the irritation he was feeling, Antonio’s lips spasmed into an ironic grin as his gaze slewed from the snarling dog to the young woman who had flung the stern command.
As he turned his head towards her the breath caught sharply in Fleur’s throat.
Oh, my good gosh! Generic his clothing might be, but there was nothing standard about that face. No wonder the paparazzi loved it. Her first thought when the shock of recognition wore off was—Jane will be pleased I found a man.
The corners of her mouth twitched into a rueful half smile. This wasn’t the sort of man Jane had had in mind, because, above all things, her best friend was a realist with an understandable—given her history—prejudice against Mediterranean males.
And men like this were extremely thin on the ground, even if you went looking for them.
Not that Fleur was looking. She didn’t want a man. She blinked, felt the heat bloom in her face as his piercing, astonishingly
