IT SOUNDED as if someone was trying to break down the door. Her heart beating like a loud bass drum, Briana let her gaze adjust to the dark for a second, before leaning over to the bedside lamp and switching it on. As soon as light flooded the room she was out of bed in a flash, hurrying to see who her urgent-sounding caller was. Her mind was wild with fear that something unthinkable might have happened to her son.
The figure that loomed up before her out of the semi-darkened corridor was Pascual, and he was glaring at her like a man holding onto the last vestiges of his self-control. His furious, contemptuous gaze seared her to the spot with its ferocity.
‘You heartless, selfish little bitch!’ he spat out.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked weakly, her hand nervously going to the V of her short cotton nightie. She was afraid she knew the answer.
Kicking the door shut behind him with the heel of his shoe, he moved towards Briana in head-to-toe black clothing, like some deadly feral panther alighting on his kill, and she honestly thought she might pass out in shock. She was almost tripping over her own feet in her anxious bid to get away, but nonetheless Pascual easily caught her and impelled her towards him, his hard chest acting like an impenetrable wall to confound her escape.
‘You have a son! A four-year old son! He’s mine, isn’t he? He must be mine! Even you would not have deceived me with another man when we were together … not when I made sure that practically every night you were kept occupied in my bed!’
For long, excruciating seconds every possibility of speech deserted Briana. Staring up into the sea of pain and accusation bearing down on her in Pascual’s scorching livid gaze, she felt her stomach clench sickeningly with fear and regret.
‘How did—?’ she began brokenly, hardly even feeling the immovable band of his fingers that was tightly circling her small-boned wrist. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Your colleague Tina was most illuminating about a lot of things,’ he answered scathingly. ‘I found her alone in the drawing room, reading, and I suggested she share a nightcap with me. Sitting by a cosy fire, it did not take long for alcohol to loosen her already willing tongue. Before I knew it she was practically telling me your life story!’
‘She—she wouldn’t!’
Throwing Briana’s arm away, as if her touch was nothing less than poison, Pascual snorted. ‘How little you seem to know about human nature … No wonder your business is failing! Did you not know that anyone can be bought for a price? In your colleague’s case just a small sherry was enough for her to spill all your guilty secrets at my feet … like a treasure trove!’
Lost for words for a second time, Briana threaded her fingers through her tousled hair in deepening anguish. If only Tina had not been so free with her conversation, or had made the decision to retire to bed the same time as her boss instead of sitting up to be dazzled by Pascual’s undoubted charm! But what troubled her the most was the fact that he had discovered the existence of his son not from his mother but from a gossipy colleague! No wonder he was enraged. Nothing would prevent her from taking the full brunt of the blame, even though she still believed she had had good reason to leave him.
‘Yes … Adán is your son.’ Her mouth was almost too dry to get the words out. Wincing, she lifted her gaze to meet the blistering reply of the man whose sheer charismatic presence seemed to fill up the room, making her feel as if she was relegated to just a small corner of it.
‘Adán?’ His voice grated, as if he too were having trouble with words. ‘You had the temerity to call him by a Spanish name and not even let me—his father—know of his existence … why?’
Moving his head from side to side, Pascual couldn’t hide his torment and Briana’s heart went out to him—even though she knew he would likely despise and detest any compassion she demonstrated.
‘Why did I give him a Spanish name?’
‘No! Why did you keep the fact that you were pregnant from me and disregard my feelings as though they were of no account whatsoever? I thought that you could not hurt me any worse than you did when you left … without giving me even the smallest indication that you were planning such an unbelievable act. But now I have discovered that you are capable of far worse crimes. I was wrong to think that I knew you, Briana … Your behaviour is beyond my understanding and makes you an utter stranger to me!’
Staring at her, Pascual saw a myriad of emotions cross her pale just-stirred-from-sleep face. But he wished he could see more than just the evidence of feelings there. He wished he had a mental microscope to probe deep inside her heart and see if he could understand what had motivated her to deal him such a cruel and yet perversely wondrous blow all at the same time?
The news that he was a father had turned his whole world upside down, and it was by far the most momentous thing he had ever heard. But right now rage and despair were the prevalent emotions crashing through him, battering him like a violent cyclone at the thought that he had already missed out on four years of his child’s life because of the woman that stood in front of him.
Had he somehow treated her so badly that she would act in such a vicious way towards him? He did not think so. From the first he had always treated her with the utmost care and respect … hadn’t he? Because of the immense gravity of what she’d done to him, there was a painful glimmer of doubt in Pascual’s mind. Had he missed out something important? Searching his memory with rapier-like honesty, he could recall nothing that he’d done or said to wound her in any way. Apart from that unfortunate scene at the party that his inebriated ex had instigated—the incident which he had tried to explain had been genuinely nothing to do with him … No, he concluded. That could not be the only reason she had kept him in the dark about his child. This was all about what had been going on with Briana personally, and he vowed he would let nothing stand in the way of his getting to the bottom of it.
Looking distressed, she brushed back her hair with a trembling hand, and Pascual’s attention was helplessly drawn to the short pastel blue night garment she wore that resembled an oversized T-shirt—probably a chainstore item that had not been designed to be alluring in any way, he guessed. Her lack of sophistication and guile-free attitude towards things like that had once totally charmed him. And even now, in the midst of his disbelief and despair at what she had done, his libido was unequivocally and treacherously aroused by the sight of her body in the plain, nondescript nightwear … the firm rounded breasts that pressed against the thin material, nipples provocatively erect, the perfect Botticelli angel-like curve of her hips and her long shapely bare thighs.
‘I’ve anguished so long about talking to you about things. Then it turned out you’re the VIP guest this weekend and—and it was such a shock. I wasn’t deliberately trying to avoid discussing what happened between us earlier … I just needed time to get my bearings.’
‘So now you have had plenty of time to deal with the fact that I am here—and you owe me an explanation … to put it mildly!’
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Moving gracefully towards the striped pink and cream slipper chair that she’d laid her robe across, she gathered up the flimsy blue garment and slipped it on over the matching oversized T-shirt, leaving the chair empty.
Barely knowing how to contain his impatience and frustration at what he perceived to be deliberate delaying tactics, Pascual threw up his hands in temper. ‘Do not tell me what to do!’ A string of Spanish invective escaped him, and he saw the frisson of fear that flickered across the darkened grey irises, but just then he refused to concern himself with the fact she might be intimidated by him. ‘All I want is a truthful explanation of your actions. After that …’
After that … what?’
‘Dios mio! Just stop wasting time and tell me!’
‘All right. I—I wanted to tell you not long after you’d proposed … There’s no easy way to soften this, but the truth is I’d begun to seriously realise that I was only kidding myself that a marriage between us could ever work.’
The sense of rejection and pain that had never left him since Briana had walked out coiled like a band of steel round Pascual’s chest and squeezed as tight as a deadly cobra, intent on crushing it.
‘You only have to start with our backgrounds,’ she continued, unable to disguise her apprehension. ‘You were born into the most extraordinary wealth and privilege, with all the expectations that go along with that, and I came from much more … shall we say ordinary beginnings? I was never going to fit into the incredibly elite lifestyle you were used to, Pascual! Your family made me quite aware of that very early on. They saw me as a drifter. Someone with no purpose or direction because I had taken time off from my usual routine to travel and work at not very prestigious jobs to keep myself.’
‘Why bring my family into this? You are just using them as a convenient excuse. You clearly did not feel the same way for me as I felt for you, and were simply too cowardly to just come out and say it!’
‘No! That’s not how it was at all.’
‘Then why did you not tell me that you were pregnant? How could you have left, knowing that you were carrying my baby? What kind of man do you think I am that I would not be interested in such an incredible piece of information? Did you not think that I would want to know my own child and have some say in how he was raised? You must either have taken temporary leave of your senses or you are even more heartless than I thought!’
The lovely face before him crumpled a little, but quickly she appeared to gather herself and determinedly returned her gaze to Pascual’s. As he studied her, his heart was thundering as fast as a racehorse galloping for the finishing line. Years of turmoil and anguish over her desertion had just reached a crescendo, and he had no intention of reigning in his emotions now. Especially since he had so shockingly discovered that Briana had had his baby and had deliberately kept him in ignorance of the fact.
She pressed her hand to her chest. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left. I only found out a couple of weeks after I got home … The thing is, Pascual …’
For a moment the depth of pain that glimmered in her ethereal grey eyes and the small catch in her voice unexpectedly got through the armour he had erected and pierced him.
‘This is the truth. I had personal experience of what it was like, coming from parents from two different worlds, and it made for a very schizophrenic upbringing … a painful one too. My mother was from an ordinary working class background but my father went to public school and when they met was training to be a barrister. Unlike you and I—’ heated colour swept into her face ‘—they did marry … But somehow their initial strong attraction for each other couldn’t bridge the social and educational divide between them and the relationship quickly got into trouble. They rowed a lot, and my mum says that my father started to put her down by making fun of where she’d come from and her lack of education. But even when he was cruel to her she still loved him, she said. Then he went and made things even worse by having an affair … the first of many.’
Pushing some of her tousled hair away from her flushed cheek, Briana gazed into the distance for a moment, clearly haunted by what had happened.
‘When I was just five years old they broke up. I grew up spending two weekends a month with my father, in his ancestral family home in Dorset, and the rest of the time with my mother in a tiny mid-terrace house in Camberwell. When I was with my father he got his housekeeper to take care of me. He used to call me his “regrettable mistake”. After the divorce he quickly remarried … someone from his own class. None of his family ever welcomed me or made me feel at home, and after every painful visit I couldn’t wait to get back to my mum’s! We no longer keep in touch, in case you’re wondering.’
A heavy sigh fell on the air.
‘When I met you, Pascual, I really wanted to believe that where we both came from wouldn’t sabotage our future together. But then I started to have the most terrible doubts … doubts that just wouldn’t go away. The dinner parties and polo matches you took me to with your wealthy friends, the disdain I saw in your family’s eyes because I was not from the same background … Well … it finally got to me. And because of the way I’d seen things play out between my own parents I knew I was only kidding myself that our relationship could work. Then I saw you with your ex that night, and suddenly I knew the hell my mother must have gone through when the man she loved had an affair. I knew then that I could never be with someone who might have the capacity to be unfaithful … that it would likely destroy me.’
‘Dios mio! I told you what really happened!’ Pascual interjected with frustration. ‘She had had too much to drink—the woman was just making mischief. She was jealous because it was you I wanted to marry and not her. I thought I showed you in so many ways that I genuinely loved you and wanted no other. And yet you judged me so quickly over that stupid incident, and did not even give me the chance to defend myself before you chose to walk out!’
‘I saw what I saw and I was devastated. Given my background, surely you can understand that now? I just couldn’t take the risk that once we were married you might quickly grow tired of me and have affairs. You see, I didn’t want what we had to turn into something ugly and painful. Nor did I want to be someone else’s regrettable mistake either! As for Adán … When I found myself pregnant with him, I anguished for a long time about what to do for the best. Obviously I had to make some decisions about his future. I found myself asking how, in all practicality, he could go to and from Argentina every month to visit you. The situation would have been impossible. All a parent wants for their child is for them to grow up feeling loved and secure, and I finally came to the conclusion that I could only do that for him if he stayed with me. In the cold light of day I know it sounds utterly despicable to have made that decision without involving you. But, having walked out on you, I simply had to make it.’
‘You keep referring to the child as your baby, but I had a part in making him too—did I not?’ Emotion locked inside Pascual’s throat and he struggled to speak past it. ‘Why did you not tell me all this about your background before? You should never have just left without speaking to me first. To have a note thrust into my hand the day after a party that had been meant to celebrate our upcoming marriage and read that you had left was unbelievable. I thought I was having a nightmare!’
Staring briefly down at the floor, Pascual recalled the devastation that had for a time driven him to the very pits of despair and shook his head.
‘I—it was hard to think straight at the time,’ said Briana. ‘Preparations were going ahead for the wedding, and every day I got more and more scared that I was making a dreadful mistake … Then that incident with your ex happened.’
‘And you could not talk to me about any of these things? I was not some uncaring stranger … I was supposedly the man that you loved!’
‘You were! I mean, you—’
His glance was withering. ‘I fear your explanations have come far too late, carino mio. You should know that nothing you can say to me now could ever regain you my trust or respect. Any feelings I might once have had for you have been crushed to dust by what you have done!’
Moving across the room, Pascual tried hard to clear his head. The rain outside thudded with force against the old-fashioned leaded windowpanes, echoing the sensation of pressure building up inside him. So many thoughts, regrets and painful feelings were crowding his mind and his heart that he almost could not stand it. But out of all the turmoil, one thought gripped him more than any other. He had a son.
Recalling how passionately his friend Fidel had felt about his only son, he was deluged by the strongest determination to make things right in that quarter at least. He might have not been present in the first four years of his child’s life, but by God he would be more than present in the rest of it!
Turning back to survey the lone slender figure standing in the centre of the room, he ruthlessly stamped out any fleeting feelings of sympathy that arose inside him. It was true what he had told Briana … her explanations had come too late. Whatever happened next … she had brought it all upon herself.
‘I do not want to discuss this any further tonight. I need time to think. It has come as the greatest shock to me to learn what I have learned … that I have a son. A son whose cold and selfish mother decided that I did not have the right to know about him! We will talk again tomorrow, after the polo match … By which time I will have come to some important decisions where both you and he are concerned.’
‘Any decisions about the future are not just up to you, Pascual!’
‘If I were you, Briana,’ he said, his furious glance utterly scathing, ‘I would not risk saying anything more on that subject tonight. You have already had everything your way for far too long. You should know that I do not intend to let that situation continue … believe me.’
Striding to the door, realising that a serious explosion of temper was imminent if he stayed in the same room with her for even a second longer, Pascual let himself out into the narrow dimly lit corridor and did not look back …
‘Rough night?’ Tina’s relentlessly cheerful tone almost made Briana snap when she joined her for breakfast in the kitchen the next morning. Her nerves were on edge as she poured herself coffee from the generous-sized cafetière on the ornate sideboard, and she threw the other woman a wry glance. ‘You could say that.’
Carrying her cup across to the sturdy oak table, she pulled out a chair and sat down. Reaching for the milk jug and sugar bowl, she absently added some of the contents of each to her drink. It was clear the dark shadows beneath her eyes must reveal she’d hardly slept a wink—but what woman could possibly sleep after that distressingly painful scene when Pascual had woken her from sleep in the middle of the night? And exactly what important decisions had he reached about her and Adán after he had left her? she wondered anxiously.
Last night he had been beyond furious, and a big part of her acknowledged that she deserved his condemnation. She should never have kept Adán a secret from him, no matter how scared she was of her future life repeating her mother’s. The tragedy was that she had loved this man so much—with all her being, in fact—and seeing him again she had shockingly realised that her love had not died. It had merely been lying dormant.
There had been a few moments during their unhappy confrontation last night when Briana had wanted to reach out to Pascual and beg his forgiveness … to ask him how she could start to make amends. But so fearful was she of what he might demand that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Now she anguished over whether he might seriously contest her for custody of their son, and the icy tentacles of fear that were running in the back of her mind and in the pit of her stomach clutched at her even more. With his incredible wealth and powerful family Pascual had all the means necessary to take Adán from her, and there would be nothing Briana could do about it. In the light of this most worrying crisis of all going to court for an outstanding business debt couldn’t be less important!
Hardly knowing what to do about anything right then, she gazed despondently into the beverage, watching the curling wisps of steam from the delicate porcelain cup in front of her as if she was staring into a dark tunnel with little prospect of ever finding a source of light at the end. If only her father had not been so incapable of staying faithful to her mother—had put her and his daughter’s welfare above the snob value of class and money he had grown up with—then maybe Briana wouldn’t have found herself in the heart-rending situation she was in now with Pascual.
‘What’s the matter, Bri?’
As she dropped down into the seat opposite, there was genuine concern on Tina’s pretty face. Mindful of what the girl had unknowingly revealed to Pascual last night, Briana felt naturally reluctant to discuss anything personal. Her young colleague hadn’t meant any harm, she was sure, but she shouldn’t have been quite so free with her conversation.
‘I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep very well, that’s all.’
‘Our gorgeous Mr Dominguez was asking me about you last night. In fact every time I tried to turn the conversation around to something else he turned it back to you! I think he really likes you, Bri.’
‘It’s neither here nor there whether the man likes me or not. I’m just here to do my job and that’s all. And in future I’d be very grateful if you wouldn’t tell all and sundry about my personal circumstances. Especially not people I’ve been hired to work for.’
Appearing genuinely shocked at her boss’s uncharacteristic burst of temper, Tina shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m really sorry. It was just that he was being so charming, and before I knew it he’d got things out of me that I normally wouldn’t tell anyone under pain of death! About the business being in difficulty, I mean, and you being a single mum …’
‘I accept your apology. But trust me … if you want to get on in this business as well as in life, Tina, you need to learn to be a lot more discreet! Now, I’m going to finish my coffee and then we’ve both got things to get on with. And if Mr Dominguez asks you any more questions about me just tell him to come and ask me himself, will you?’