boy had a wonderfully sunny nature, which had made him rather a pet of the child-minder who looked after him while she was at work. It was reassuring to know that he was being well cared for when she couldn’t be with him.
‘Miss Williams.’
She stopped dead when she recognised the voice that had called her name. She’d known that Felipe wouldn’t rest until he’d got to the bottom of this situation, but she’d hoped to have a little more time before she spoke to him again. Now, when she turned and saw the uncompromising expression on his face, she felt her heart start to race.
Would she be able to stop him finding out that she wasn’t Josh’s real mother? Everything hinged on her doing that.
‘I NEED to speak to you, Miss Williams. There’s a bar across the road—maybe we can go there.’
‘I can’t.’
Felipe frowned when he heard the anxiety in Rebecca’s voice. Although he understood how stressful this situation must be for her he couldn’t understand why she sounded so scared.
Once again the idea that she might have been telling him a pack of lies about the child being Antonio’s son filled his mind. After all, why hadn’t Antonio written and told him that he’d become a father? Despite that row they’d had before Antonio had left Mallorca, his brother had never been the kind of person to harbour a grudge. There was something about this situation which didn’t add up.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ he said tersely. ‘I’m having a great deal of difficulty understanding what is going on, Miss Williams. A few hours ago you told me that you and my brother had had a son and now you refuse to talk to me about the child.’
Her lids lowered, effectively hiding her eyes from view. ‘I’m not refusing to talk to you, Dr Valdez.’ She shrugged, but he wasn’t blind to the strain that was etched on her face when she glanced up. ‘However, I thought we’d agreed that I would telephone you and arrange a time when we could meet.’
‘We did, but I can see no reason why we cannot talk now and get this all sorted out.’ He went to slide his hand under her elbow, but she stepped smartly out of reach.
‘I’ve just told you that I can’t talk to you now. I have to collect Josh. I’m late as it is because we had an emergency, and the childminder will be wondering where I am.’
She started hurrying down the path, but if she thought that he was prepared to let her walk away, she was mistaken. Who knew what she might be planning? She claimed that she’d intended to phone him, but could he trust her? What if she took Josh and disappeared? How would he feel if his brother’s only child was left in the care of a woman like her?
He strode after her, his long legs swiftly bringing him level with her. He saw her glance round, saw her pretty mouth compress, but she didn’t say a word. They walked in silence down the path and across the busy London street. It was the middle of the rush hour and the traffic was horrendous, car after car belching out fumes.
He suddenly wished that he was back home in Mallorca, breathing in the fresh, salt-laden air as it blew in from the bay. Had Antonio really preferred to exchange all that beauty for this?
‘Antonio used to love the rush hour. He spent a lot of time looking out of the window when…when he became too weak to go out.’
He heard the catch in her voice and felt his heart ache. He had tried many times to imagine how his brother must have felt, knowing that he was dying. Suddenly, he needed to know how Antonio had dealt with it.
‘How was he toward the end?’ He heard the roughness in his voice and knew that she had heard it, too, but, oddly, he didn’t feel embarrassed. He cleared his throat, deeply disturbed by the thought. ‘It must have been difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that he was dying.’
‘I think by that time he had come to accept what was going to happen.’ She smiled gently. ‘He told me that he didn’t want to waste his last few weeks on earth by feeling bitter. And, of course, having Josh helped tremendously. Knowing that a little bit of him would live on after his death gave him strength.’
‘Did he see the child, then?’ Felipe asked, keeping his gaze averted because he was deeply moved by what she had said. He wasn’t embarrassed, but he was too private a person to feel completely comfortable about exposing his feelings.
The problem was that it was so hard to think about Antonio at the end of his life; he kept having flashbacks to when he’d been born. Felipe had been fifteen when his brother had arrived in the world. His parents had been shocked at first when they’d discovered they were having another child and delighted later when the baby had been born.
Antonio had brought great joy to his parent’s lives, great joy to his own life as well. After their parents had been killed in a car accident when Antonio was ten, Felipe had willingly taken over the task of raising him.
He had done his best to guide Antonio, but maybe he’d been too strict. If he hadn’t been so set on making Antonio do as he’d wanted him to, his brother might never have left Mallorca and certainly wouldn’t have ended up having a child with Rebecca Williams. How strange it was the way everything had worked out.
‘Oh, yes. Josh was born a few weeks before…well, before Antonio died. He was in a lot of pain by then and his medication had been increased because of it. He used to sleep most of the time, but once I brought Josh home from hospital Antonio refused to take more than the barest minimum of pain relief.’
He saw her dash her hand across her eyes and could hear how her voice had thickened with tears. ‘He said that he didn’t want to miss a single minute he had left with Josh. He used to hold him all day long. My one abiding memory of Antonio is seeing him sitting by the window, cradling his son in his arms.’
Her voice broke on a sob and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms and hold her while she cried. In his heart, Felipe knew that he was probably making a mistake, but he couldn’t stop himself wanting to comfort her.
He drew her closer, amazed by the sense of helplessness he felt. He couldn’t assuage her grief and for some reason it hurt to know that she was crying for his brother and that there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
He smoothed his hand over her hair, feeling the silky strands snagging against his palm. Her hair felt like gossamer, so light, so soft, so sensuous. He found himself staring at it in wonderment, watching the play of light and shadow as the pale gold strands rippled beneath his fingers. All of a sudden he wished that this moment could last for ever, that he could keep her here in his arms and never let her go. She would be safe then, because he would be able to protect her from any more pain.
A shiver ran through him and he stiffened, shocked that he should be thinking thoughts like that. This was Rebecca Williams in his arms, not some woman with whom he was thinking of having an affair. It was a relief when she abruptly stepped back so that he was forced to release her.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,’ she said softly, her voice quavering, although whether it was from embarrassment or pleasure at him having held her he couldn’t decide.
He took a deep breath and deliberately rid himself of that foolish
