nodded. ‘Yes, these days I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to cut my hair.’
‘You don’t look like a woman who asks permission for anything.’
Her shocked eyes brushed briefly with his before she lowered them and he turned his attention back to the road.
‘I’m not,’ she said after a moment. ‘I just forgot it for a while.’ She swallowed to relieve the emotional constriction in her throat.
‘It happens,’ he agreed. In his experience you scratched the surface of the average control freak and you revealed a pathetic loser riddled with insecurities. ‘You lived with this Adam?’
She wondered how far it was to the hospital and considered telling him to mind his own business, and then thought, What did it matter? It wasn’t as if it were a secret or anything.
‘Yes, for nearly three years. We split up about eighteen months ago.’
‘Madre di Dios! How old were you when you moved in?’
‘Is that relevant?’ she countered spikily. ‘I was twenty…so what? People can be just as stupid when they’re thirty as they are when they’re twenty.’
‘Twenty? His breath escaped in a hissing sigh of disbelief. Insane! My daughter will be twenty in seven years’ time.’ The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks falling on his chest.
‘She’s going to be a knockout when she’s older,’ Fleur predicted. ‘You’re going to have trouble long before she’s twenty.’
As images of men with evil intentions pursuing his little girl flashed through Antonio’s mind he felt the foundations of his once-stable world shift even farther.
‘I don’t think so.’ The present was so bad it had not occurred to him that there was every chance that the future could be worse.
‘Oh, you’re of the over-my-dead-body school of thought?’ Fleur mocked.
His jaw tightened. ‘I believe in discipline.’
‘You do know the surest way to send a female into the arms of an unsuitable man is to offer opposition?’
The little witch is patronising me! His eyes, fixed on the road ahead, narrowed. ‘Didn’t your parents have anything to say when you moved in with this man?’
‘I was a very mature twenty…’ And her parents had at that point just retired to Scotland.
‘And now you’re a very mature, damaged…what twenty-four?’
‘Twenty-five.’ Her eyes widened as she recalled it was her birthday. ‘Today, actually.’ Her head turned as a frown formed on her smooth brow. ‘And I am not damaged!’ she yelled, her voice very loud in the confines of the car. ‘Or do you think anyone who isn’t an innocent virgin damaged goods? What century are you living in?’
‘I was speaking about emotional damage.’
‘Well, don’t, because it’s not any of your business,’ she growled.
‘For the record, I have no especially strong feelings about virgins.’
‘How emotionally mature of you.’
‘Would this be the right moment to wish you a happy birthday? I don’t suppose that this was the way you planned to spend it.’
‘Nobody plans a day like today; they just have nightmares about it.’
‘Well, you’ll never forget it, at least.’
Or you. ‘Just like chicken pox.’ She lowered her eyes, which currently had a disturbing tendency to drift towards his profile.
‘Did you have something special arranged?’ Was some man waiting for her with flowers and champagne? ‘Now I understand your crankiness. I suppose I should apologise for spoiling your plans.’
‘I am not cranky! And…I was just having a quiet night in.’
‘Alone…?’
Fleur flushed, aware that she was in danger of appearing like a sad loser if she told him what her plans for her birthday had been. ‘What is this—twenty questions? You’re getting my life history and I don’t know anything about you.’
‘I thought reading those magazines had made you an expert.’
‘I suppose there might have been one or two things they missed out,’ she conceded lightly. ‘Unless you really do spend all your time making indecent amounts of money and attending film premières.’ Not alone, but she felt strangely reluctant to bring his glittering companions into the conversation.
‘I like to think my life is more balanced than that.’ His female family members might have disputed this. Actually, they frequently did. ‘What do you want to know? Ask away.’
It amused him that his passenger didn’t appear to appreciate what an extraordinary invitation this was. He still didn’t know what impulse had made him extend it. Volunteering information was not something he usually did. After a couple of incidents when he had first found himself in the media spotlight Antonio had turned being guarded and discreet into an art form, much to the intense frustration of those who pursued him.
‘Seriously.’
He shrugged and said, ‘Why not?’ His theory was that while he kept her angry or interested she wasn’t stressing about her imminent visit to the hospital.
‘Well, knowing your views on making lifelong commitments when you’re young, as I now do, and thanks for sharing that with me,’ she said with deep sincerity, ‘I was wondering how old you were when Tamara was born.’
His head turned and for a brief moment their eyes met. She saw the acknowledgment of her hit reflected in his face. Fleur settled back in her seat, satisfied she had made her point.
‘I’m not totally sure,’ he said a moment later.
Her eyes widened. ‘Not sure? The birth of their child is not the sort of thing that most people forget.’
Under the flickering street lamps Fleur saw an expression she couldn’t pin down flicker across his lean face. ‘I wasn’t around at the time.’
‘So you weren’t there at the birth.’ Her heart went out to the mother giving birth alone.
‘Tamara’s mother and I were not together when she was born.’
‘But Tamara lives with you now…?’
‘Her mother died a short time ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed inadequate, but what else could she say that wasn’t equally trite?
‘Thank you, but Miranda has not been part of my life for many years. But, yes, when she’s not running away, Tamara is now living with me. It is a…new arrangement.’
