little boy before him. His mother would be undone by this news of a grandchild. Leandro could already imagine her weeping with joy. The baby’s existence would help towards healing the great hurt done her when her beloved husband had lost his life so cruelly and without warning.
All at once he was galvanised by a tremendous sense of overwhelming purpose. The plans for the future that he had vaguely turned over in his mind last night after Isabella had left now became almost urgently reinstated at the sight of his child. He found that his thinking on the subject was so much more focused than it had been.
Surging to his feet, Leandro just about contained the sense of urgency that was gripping him to regard Isabella with deceptive calmness. She stood with her arms down by her sides, her face pale with anxiety, her dark eyes locking onto his as if she were a prisoner awaiting sentence and he the judge and jailer who held the key to her freedom or incarceration …
Attacked on all sides by a myriad conflicting emotions, Leandro clenched his jaw and drew determinedly upon his characteristic resolve to overcome the feelings that threatened to swamp him. Self-control was paramount now if he was going to achieve the outcome he suddenly knew with great clarity that he desired and he could not afford to be swayed by emotion alone. There were important things to be conveyed to Isabella …the mother of his son. Things that he had no time in which to consider how she would react to them, or whether they pleased or displeased her.
‘I can see that he is my child …of that there is no doubt.’ Moving his head slowly from side to side, Leandro took a moment to let the astounding realisation properly sink in. ‘Last night, his existence was merely the most impossible, incredible idea. But now today, seeing him in the flesh …it is …’ Dropping his hands to his hips, he looked nothing less than stunned. ‘How can I explain? There are not the words to say.’ As he considered Isabella his penetrating glance grew doubly resolute. ‘But now that I have seen him …it is clear to me that you will both have to return to Madrid with me,’ he declared, as though he were the authoritative captain of a ship announcing to his passengers that the crew had to make an unavoidable detour on their voyage …a detour that was not open to argument.
‘What?’ Now it was Isabella’s turn to look stunned.
‘I am due to start directing a new film in three days’ time and I want you and our son with me when I return …I do not have time to contest this with you, Isabella; it simply must be. I have a house a little way from the old part of the town and fortunately I will be working close by because I am shooting on location there. There is no need to worry about bringing everything. Just pack essentials for you and the child for now. Anything else you want to bring I can arrange to have transported over later.’
Her mouth agape, Isabella closed it again as she strove to assimilate the sensation of being dragged along by a runaway train by her coat tails. Indignation helpfully shook her out of her temporary stupor. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He wanted her and Raphael to move back to Spain with him in just a couple of days? As she considered the determined glitter in those incredible eyes of his, along with the indisputably dictatorial stance he was taking, Isabella inwardly took umbrage. ‘Now wait a minute here! You can’t just say, “It must be,” and expect me to meekly agree as if there was no question that I should come with you! This is our home! My friends and my family live here …My life is here!’
‘In Spain you told me that you wanted to live a different life. You said that things for you had become predictable …that you longed to change that. To me that would suggest that you might welcome the notion of living in another country—not be totally against the idea. Surely walking the Camino helped you to have less fixed and rigid views, Isabella?’
He had a point, of course. Feeling acutely discomfited by his solemn-faced cynosure as well as the wisdom in his words, Isabella sighed and ran her hand across her brow. ‘My views aren’t rigid or fixed!’ she protested, glancing down at her slumbering baby. She had never sought to deny him knowledge or influence of his father—on the contrary, she had tried every which way she could to contact him—but at the same time Leandro could not just wade in and take charge of everything now that he was here. If only she could think more clearly for a minute! But that was easier said than done when the strongly magnetic pull for this man kept interfering—like some pirate radio station infiltrating the airwaves. ‘But if you seriously expect me to consider your suggestion, then I need more than three days to think it over.’
‘No,’ he snapped back with a dangerously warning glance, ‘that is not possible! I want my son with me when I return to Spain and I am not prepared to wait while you make up your mind about whether it is a good idea or not! How do I know that when I leave the country you would not flee somewhere else with Raphael and leave no forwarding address?’
Isabella blanched in indignation. ‘I would never do that to you!’ As she struggled to calm herself she could see the genuine fear in Leandro’s expression that she might do just that and her heart turned over with sorrow. She would never deprive him of contact with his son or Raphael contact with his father. ‘Look …this is an impossible situation. I know that. We both have to be reasonable if we’re going to make the right decision …don’t you agree?’
‘The “right” decision?’ For a moment Leandro appeared scornful. ‘The right decision is that we simply have to do what is best for Raphael! And, in my opinion, living with both parents in a comfortable home and not lacking for anything is surely something to be desired and not rejected? Even if it is not in the country he was born in. I want to be in my son’s life on a daily basis—I am not interested in a long-distance “weekend father” kind of relationship! The only way we can accomplish that is for both of you to come and live with me. I say again, Isabella …it is Raphael’s welfare that must take precedence over any other considerations. And I have already been deprived of nine months of his life and do not intend to be deprived of any more!’
At the sound of the raised male voice, Raphael stirred where he lay on the sofa beneath the pretty fringed shawl, opened his startling grey eyes and whimpered softly as he looked up at Leandro.
‘Increíble …’
Lapsing into awed Spanish, Leandro gazed down into the glistening mirror of his infant son’s eyes, his expression rapt. Any vestige of doubt that they were father and son was annihilated into dust in that amazing moment. He let his breath out slowly.
Automatically moving past him to pick up her infant, Isabella felt her own body tremble violently with emotion. She felt for both of them. For her baby son who, did he but know it, was looking upon the face of his father for the very first time …and for Leandro, meeting the child he hadn’t even known existed until yesterday …
I have already been deprived of nine months of his life and do not intend to be deprived of any more!
The ache inside her throat burned intolerably as Leandro’s passionate words echoed hurtfully round her brain. She had tried so hard to contact him when she’d found out that she was pregnant, but every avenue, every door to reaching him, had been absolutely shut in her face. It would have been easier to try and make contact with the Pope! What was she supposed to have done under the circumstances but decide to raise her child on her own?
Frustration and guilt gripping her, Isabella tried to stay calm for her son’s sake. Carefully lifting Raphael up into her arms, she cradled him tenderly as he laid his head on her shoulder and proceeded to suck his thumb—all the while regarding Leandro from beneath his sable lashes with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
‘He’s hungry,’ Isabella declared tightly as she walked back across the room and out into the kitchen. Retrieving a bottle of milk formula from the fridge,
