home office would be the best place to begin.
She sought out Maria, who took one look at the clenched jaw, the blazing eyes, and immediately caught hold of Nicki’s hand.
‘Come, pequena, we will go into the kitchen and bake some biscuits, si?’
Shannay even achieved a tense smile. ‘Thank you.’ She smoothed a hand over Nicki’s hair. ‘Be good for Maria. I’ll check with you soon. OK?’
‘OK.’
Marcello’s home office was situated in the far corner of the first level, overlooking the gardens and pool area. Two adjoining rooms whose dividing wall had been removed and refurbished to hold a large executive desk, hi-tech computers, a laptop and the requisite office equipment in one half of the room, while floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the walls of the remaining half, together with a few comfortable leather chairs, lamps and side-tables.
A very male domain, and one she entered with barely an accompanying knock to announce her presence.
Marcello glanced up from a computer screen, caught the gleaming anger apparent in her dark eyes and settled back in his chair to regard her with thoughtful speculation.
Attired in black jeans and a watermelon-pink top, her hair pulled back into a careless pony-tail and no make-up he could discern, she looked little more than a teenager. Harbouring self-righteous anger he was tempted to stir into something more.
Her honest emotions had always intrigued him, for she rarely held back … a quality lacking in many women of his acquaintance. Sophisticated women who played a false seductive game with both eyes on the main chance.
Shannay had been different. She hadn’t known who he was, and didn’t appear to care when she did.
Four years ago he hadn’t been able to prevent her leaving. Hadn’t fought for her as he should have done, erroneously supposing all he needed to do to soothe some of the hurt and pain inflicted by Estella and his widowed aunt was provide evidence of his love by gifting sex.
Exceptional lovemaking, he reflected, and felt his body tighten in remembered passion.
‘There’s something you want to discuss?’
He looked so damned laid-back, controlled. Even, she decided furiously, faintly amused.
With studied calm she extracted the folded newsprint from her pocket, opened it out and tossed it down onto his desk.
‘Perhaps you’d care to explain?’
He merely gave it a glance. ‘I’m sure your knowledge of the Spanish language is sufficient to provide a reasonably accurate translation.’
The fact he was right didn’t sit well. ‘That isn’t the issue here.’
His eyes never left her face. ‘What is the issue, Shannay?’
‘A reconciliation was never on the cards.’ Her eyes flashed gold sparks, and her fingers curled into her palm in frustrated anger. ‘There’s no way in hell it’s going to happen.’
‘You think not?’
‘I demand you order a retraction.’
‘No.’ His voice was dangerously soft, his expression an unyielding mask. ‘You deny it would be advantageous for Nicki to have two parents, a stable family life, and thus negate custody arrangements in two countries on the opposite sides of the world?’
‘With a mother and father constantly at war? Please.’
‘Would there necessarily need to be dissension?’ He made an encompassing gesture with one hand. ‘You would enjoy every social advantage and as my wife, be gifted anything you want.’
Marcello watched the fleeting expressions, divined each and every one of them, and moved in for the kill.
‘Not even to please a very ill old man with only a short time to live?’
Conflicting emotions tore at her emotional heart and lent shadows to her eyes.
‘Ramon has a very progressive form of cancer,’ he relayed quietly. ‘Various surgical procedures have delayed the inevitable. However, the brain tumour is inoperable, and the medical professionals predict it will only be a matter of weeks before he lapses into a coma.’
Shannay was unable to hide the shock, or her genuine regret. ‘I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I thought I had.’
She searched for the precise words he’d used. ‘You said he was ill,’ she recalled. ‘You didn’t say he is dying.’
She was conscious of his scrutiny, the studied ease with which he regarded her as the impact of his words sank in.
‘Given the circumstances, is it too much to ask?’
Her eyes held his. ‘What about Nicki? Ramon wants to meet her, but have you given a thought to how Ramon’s rapidly deteriorating health will affect her? She’s only a child, and she’s much too young to assimilate and cope with illness of this magnitude.’
‘I’ve agonised over it,’ Marcello assured quietly. ‘At the moment Ramon spends a short time sitting in a comfortable chair in the sala. He looks old, a little tired and fragile, but he’s remarkably lucid.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘You will be able to judge for yourself.’ An entire gamut of conflicting emotions vied for supremacy, including doubt. In the end, compassion won out.
‘You give me your word you’ll allow me to decide when Nicki’s visits should cease?’
‘Without question.’ He sank further back in his chair and raised his hands to cup his nape. ‘The purported reconciliation? You’ll agree to the pretence for Ramon’s sake?’
Why did she harbour the feeling she was being led deeper into deception with every passing day?
She wanted no part of it.
Yet it seemed so little to do to ease an elderly man’s mind. To let him believe … what? That his beloved eldest grandson had reconciled with his wife? Spend time with his only great-grandchild?
Couldn’t she gift Ramon that much?
‘Aren’t you forgetting something? Someone?’ Shannay asked at last.
Marcello didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
‘Nicki will be told precisely who I am before we visit Ramon.’
‘Which will be when?’
He checked his watch. ‘At eleven.’
Just over an hour? ‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard.’
Without thought she reached for a paperweight and threw it at him.
Only to miss, as he fielded it in one hand.
For
