a couple walking on the beach. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. I cannot tell you any more than that.’
Cannot or will not? Inside Dominique despair set in. Ramón might have died in considerable pain. She might have stopped loving him a long time ago, but he’d still been the father of her baby. She wrapped her arms around her chest to hold in her grief.
Needing to divert her unhappiness, she grasped at what Cristiano had said previously. ‘I understand how much his mother must want to see Matilde, and I am truly sorry for her suffering…the poor woman must be demented at losing her only son! But Christmas is just a couple of weeks away, and it’s the busiest time of year at the restaurant I work at. You must understand that I have responsibilities too, and if I were to go to Spain I couldn’t possibly go until the New Year.’
His black eyes stared at her in disbelief. ‘You would put this unimportant job you have in a restaurant before letting a grieving woman see her only grandchild?’
His lip curled contemptuously, and Dominique flinched at the scorn in his voice.
‘Unimportant? It’s the means of earning my living so that I can provide for Matilde and me! You might not be aware, but job opportunities aren’t exactly overflowing for women in my situation, so don’t you dare look at me as if I’m deliberately creating problems where there aren’t any!’
‘You talk about opportunity…can you not see that is exactly what I am offering you by suggesting you move to Spain? There we can provide opportunities that will improve your lives a hundredfold.’
Moving onto her opposite hip, Dominique scraped her hand wearily through her hair. ‘Even if I agreed to go with you and meet Ramón’s mother and his family you must understand it could only be for a short visit. You can hardly expect me to just leave everything behind and decamp to another country as though I was just moving round the corner! And to go and live with a bunch of strangers too!’
‘They would not be strangers for very long. They are warm, loving people, and they would embrace you as though you were one of their own—which, of course, by virtue of being the mother of Ramón’s child, you are. It is a shame your own mother could not be as forthcoming! I have heard myself her obvious antagonism towards you for taking a path she did not want by bearing the child of a man she clearly despised. The sooner you and the baby are far away from such a woman the better, as far as I am concerned!’
Cristiano’s words hit their mark. The relationship between Dominique and her mother had deteriorated to an all-time low from the moment Dominique had confessed her pregnancy, and even Matilde’s arrival had not softened the other woman’s heart in any way. She refused to even hold the baby, let alone mind her for any length of time! Her lack of affection had blighted Dominique’s own childhood, and it was heartbreaking that she was now treating her grandchild in the same cruel way. Yet even so…it would be a hell of a gamble to go and live with the family of a man Dominique knew had never loved her, who had callously turned his back on her when he’d found out she was pregnant.
‘I’m sorry… But, like I said, I can’t go anywhere until after the New Year—and then only for a visit.’
‘So you say.’
‘I’ve explained my reasons. Why won’t you—?’
‘Where is the baby tonight? With this friend of yours?’ Cristiano interrupted. ‘I was very much hoping to see her.’
The annoyance in his voice was clear, and Dominique felt her body tighten even more in response. ‘She’s not with my friend.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘She’s right here…asleep in her cot behind that screen. It helps shut out the light a little, so it won’t disturb her.’
She was already moving towards the other side of the room, and Cristiano followed her with a stunned look on his face. Dominique knew she could have deceived him by agreeing that the baby was with her friend, but whilst she was afraid to let him see Matilde for fear of future demands, in all conscience she knew she could not refuse his request. As overwhelming as the thought was, Cristiano Cordova was part of her daughter’s family.
‘Here she is. She’s teething at the moment—that’s why her cheeks look so pink.’ She heard the love and pride in her own voice as she stood to the side to allow Cristiano a better view.
The sleeping infant looked blissfully peaceful and angelic as Cristiano peered into the cot to gaze at her. With her cap of sable hair, sweet little face and dimpled chin—a definite genetic inheritance from the Cordovas—she was absolutely enchanting. For disturbing seconds his head swam and his heart raced as he remembered another infant—had she lived, she would have been just like her. Then he recalled the fact that this was Ramón’s baby, and that his cousin would never enjoy the privilege of gazing at his beautiful daughter as Cristiano was gazing at her now. Once again, sadness and regret bore down on him like a heavy iron cloak laid across his shoulders.
Glancing up, he solemnly studied the pale, strained features of the girl standing beside him. He could scarcely think of her as a woman at all—she appeared no more than a teenager.
‘She is exquisite,’ he remarked, the corners of his mouth lifting into a smile despite the terrible circumstances that had brought him here.
‘She’s a contented, happy soul. I can sense that about her already.’
Her guard down, Dominique ventured a smile back, and Cristiano thought he had never seen eyes of that vivid heavenly blue before. The mesmerising colour was tempting him to dive down deep into their iridescent crystal depths and lose himself completely. Young or not, there was something about her that affected him deeply, and the leap of hunger that suddenly flared inside him shockingly confirmed it.
‘She must be—what? Around six…seven months old now?’
‘Nearly seven, yes.’
‘She is much changed from the picture you sent with your letter to Ramón.’
‘I’d only just had her then. She was a tiny pink scrunched-up little thing, but she was still the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen!’ Coiling her long honey-brown plait round her fingers, Dominique sighed and let it go again. ‘It’s such a shame that Ramón couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge her. Not for my sake but for Matilde’s. A child deserves to know her father, or at least something about him, don’t you think?’
The statement had a doubly poignant resonance for her. Her own father had left her mother when Dominique was just a baby, and her mother had always refused to talk about him except to run him down. No matter how she personally felt about Ramón, Dominique would never do that to her own child.
Reaching inside the cot, she tenderly ran the tip of her finger across the sleeping baby’s downy cheek. ‘I think she’d make any man proud to be her father.’ Her voice was an emotional whisper as her glistening eyes met Cristiano’s.
‘Yes…she would…’
Suddenly Cristiano realised he was weary right down to his marrow, and not as in charge of his emotions as he would like. Although no stranger to the deadening weight of grief, he had honestly forgotten how enervating it could be. Now tiredness and sorrow was draining him of the capacity to stay clearheaded and in control, and this girl with her flawless blue eyes and stubborn pride was disturbing things in
