His Unknown Heir (15 page)

And so Pilar had attended the party alone—and had spent most of the day flirting with Ramon, Lauren brooded, recalling the sharp knives of jealousy that had stabbed her insides when she had watched the two of them laughing and chatting together.

‘The trouble is that you do not understand a man like Ramon,’ Pilar drawled.

Lauren’s hold on her temper was close to snapping point. ‘And I suppose you do?’ she said tightly.

‘Of course. We are from a similar social background. I am aware that Ramon takes his responsibilities as Duque seriously, and he requires a wife who is suited to the role of Duquesa.’

‘Are you suggesting that
you
would make Ramon a better wife?’ Lauren demanded, deciding that bluntness was the only way to deal with Pilar’s sly insinuations.

The Spanish woman shrugged. ‘Only Ramon can decide that.’ She inspected her long, perfectly manicured fingernails and said obliquely, ‘Do you know where he spends every Friday afternoon?’

‘He drives out to inspect the vineyards with his estate manager.’ Lauren frowned at the curious question. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No reason.’ Pilar’s smile was reminiscent of a smug Cheshire cat’s, but she sashayed gracefully back across the room before Lauren could ask her what she meant.

CHAPTER NINE

L
AUREN
was furious with Ramon, and avoided him for the rest of the party. By the time the last guests had departed she had a splitting headache, and was grateful when Cathy offered to give Matty his bath.

‘Go and lie down in the quiet for a while. I always find that’s the best remedy for a headache,’ the nanny said kindly.

But when Lauren walked into the bedroom and found Ramon packing a suitcase her heart slammed against her ribs.

‘You’re going away?’ she queried sharply.

‘Something has come up at the Madrid office which needs my urgent attention.’ Ramon glanced at her tense face and his jaw hardened.

He still felt bitterly angry with her, but seeing her looking so dejected made him want to pull her into his arms and make love to her. There were never any misunderstandings between them in bed. It was the once place they communicated perfectly.

‘We’ll talk when I get back,’ he told her grimly.

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ she said flatly. ‘I didn’t take that job. I tried to tell you earlier, but you wouldn’t listen.’

‘But you were tempted to take it.’

‘Yes, I
was
tempted.’ She wasn’t going to deny it. ‘I worked for Pearson’s before I went to PGH. I kept in contact with the MD there, and he emailed me out of the blue with an offer of some consultancy work. I let James Pearson know I was interested, but when he sent me more details and I realised I would have to be away from Matty I turned the offer down.’

Ramon slammed the lid of his suitcase shut. ‘I don’t know why you want to go back to work,’ he said, his frustration tangible. ‘I give you everything.’

Not the one thing she really wanted from him, Lauren thought dully. She had felt they were growing closer, but this argument proved that on an emotional level they were miles apart. She crossed her arms defensively in front of her. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Then
make
me understand.’ He caught hold of her shoulder and spun her round to face him. ‘If our marriage is going to work, you have to trust me, Lauren.’

‘It’s not easy to trust when your trust has been broken,’ she muttered. And yet if her relationship with Ramon was ever going to develop didn’t she have to try?

‘What happened?’ he asked grimly. ‘Did some guy let you down?’ He raked his hand through his hair until it stood on end. ‘I need some help here, because I can’t work you out.’

‘I told you my parents are divorced,’ she said abruptly. ‘They split up when I was fifteen—after my father left my mother for a twenty-year-old exotic dancer and disappeared to Brazil with her. He cut off all contact with me, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.’

Ramon heard the bitterness in her voice. Fifteen was such an impressionable age, and he sensed that she had been deeply hurt by her father’s actions. ‘That must have been tough,’ he murmured. ‘Did you have a good relationship with him before he left?’

‘I adored him, and I thought he loved me—but presumably I meant nothing to him.’ Lauren swallowed.

Even after all this time her father’s desertion still hurt, and her sense of abandonment was as strong now as when she had been a teenager.

‘The day he left was the worst day of my life,’ she said bleakly. ‘Dad was a barrister, and he worked long hours, but he always made time for me, and I was closer to him than to my mother. He taught me to play chess, pretended to like the music I liked, and most weekends he would drive me to gymkhanas so that I could compete on my pony.’

She stared down at her hands, ferociously blinking back her tears. ‘He was my world, and I still can’t believe he went away and left me. I’ve never even received a birthday card from him. It’s as if I never existed to him—but I don’t understand why. Even if he didn’t want to be with Mum any more, why did he reject
me
?’ She swallowed. ‘I guess the truth is that he just didn’t love me enough to want to keep in contact.’

‘Did you have any idea that there were problems in your parents’ marriage?’ Ramon asked gently.

‘No—they seemed perfectly happy to me. Mum was always busy with the WI and her bridge club—and, as I said, my father spent a lot of time at work. But they used to hold dinner parties and things, and people used to comment on what a strong marriage they had. I found out afterwards that it was all a façade,’ she said heavily. ‘Apparently Dad had been unfaithful for years, and had had dozens of affairs before he went off with his Brazilian pole-dancer. My mother put up with his infidelity because she was terrified that if she objected Dad would divorce her, and she would lose the house and the wealthy lifestyle she was used to. In the end that’s what happened anyway. Unbeknownst to Mum, Dad had remortgaged the house, and he took all the money from their joint bank accounts before he jetted off to South America.’

‘It must have been hard for your mother to suddenly become a single parent and have to support a teenage daughter. How did she manage?’

‘She didn’t.’ Lauren sighed. ‘The truth is Mum had some sort of breakdown. She had never had a job or earned her own money, you see. Her parents had been well-off, and she’d married my father straight after she left finishing school. But with no income to pay the mortgage the house had to be sold, and I had to leave my private school and transfer to the local comprehensive. Most of Mum’s friends from the bridge club didn’t want to know her any more, and she took to drowning her unhappiness in gin and tonic.’

‘Dios!’
Ramon frowned. He had always assumed that Lauren had enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing, but the truth was clearly very different. ‘What happened to you? You were little more than a child.’

‘I had to get a job—well, three jobs actually—that fitted around going to school. I worked in a shop and did cleaning—anything to earn a bit of money to pay the rent on our flat and buy food. Luckily I was able to keep up with my school work, and I managed to get to university. I was determined to have a good career. You wonder why I want to retain some measure of independence?’ she said fiercely. ‘Well, the reason is that after what happened to my mother I vowed that I would
never
be reliant on another person, as Mum was on my father. When Dad left I was forced to grow up fast. I learned to get on with things, and now when problems occur I prefer to manage on my own rather than seek help from anyone.’

‘Including bringing up your child on your own,’ Ramon said slowly.

He had never really understood why Lauren had kept Mateo’s birth a secret from him. It seemed such a cruel and vindictive thing to do, and that had puzzled him, because he knew she was not a cruel person. Her words gave him a sudden insight into why she had behaved as she had.

‘Is that the reason you did not tell me you were pregnant?’ he demanded.

She nodded. ‘You regarded me only as your mistress, and I honestly believed you would not want our baby. But I was afraid you would feel an obligation towards your child, and I couldn’t bear the thought of Matty growing up wondering why you did not love him, as I have wondered all these years why my father did not love me. I was scared at the prospect of being a single mother,’ she admitted, looking away from him so that she missed the flare of anger in his eyes. ‘But I had a good job, I knew I could cope, and so I decided to just get on with it.’

‘You should not have had to cope alone,’ Ramon said roughly, but his anger was directed solely at himself.

If he had been more open with Lauren during their affair, instead of allowing her to believe in his playboy reputation, she might have turned to him for help when she had needed it most, and he would not have lost the first precious months of his son’s life.

From Ramon’s tone it was clear that he had not been able to forgive her for keeping Matty from him, Lauren thought bleakly. She saw every day how deeply he loved his son, and she bitterly regretted the decision she had made when she had discovered that she was pregnant. But she couldn’t change the past. It still hung between her and Ramon, and with a flash of despair she realised that it would always define their relationship.

‘I thought that if you didn’t know about Matty you would be free to choose a bride better suited to being a
duquesa
.’ She hesitated. ‘Someone like Pilar. Juanita told me that everyone expected you to marry
her
,’ she muttered when Ramon frowned.

‘My sister has always allowed her tongue to run away with her,’ he said tersely.

But, like a dog with a bone, Lauren found that she could not drop the subject. ‘You can’t deny that with her aristocratic background Pilar would have been an ideal wife and an ideal
duquesa
.’

Ramon shrugged. ‘Perhaps so. But I didn’t marry Pilar. I married you.’

He did not sound overjoyed by that fact, and Lauren was unaware that his mind was reeling as he tried to assimilate all that she had told him.

His jaw was tense when he picked up the suitcase and strode over to the door. ‘To quote the words you used earlier—we just have to get on with it. I’ll be back in a couple of days,’ he told her curtly, and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

He phoned several times while he was away, but their conversations were stilted and entirely about Mateo.

‘He’s fearless,’ Ramon said, laughing, when Lauren recounted one day how she had caught their daredevil son trying to climb out of his cot.

The mixture of pride and love in Ramon’s voice tugged on her heart, and she felt a wistful longing that he would love her even half as much as he loved Matty.

He had said he would be home the following day, but when at midnight he hadn’t arrived, or even called her, Lauren went to bed, made a half-hearted attempt to read a book, and finally buried her face in the pillows and wept silent tears.

He wasn’t worth crying over, she told herself angrily, when she sat up to blow her nose. Her mother had cried constantly after her father had left, and she had vowed then that she would never allow any man to mean that much to her. But she had underestimated the power of love, she acknowledged wearily. She did not
want
to love Ramon, but her heart had a will of its own and it seemed hell-bent on self-destruction.

She was about to switch off the bedside lamp when the door suddenly opened and he walked in. Lauren’s eyes flew to his face, and then to the bouquet of red roses he was holding. Her heart skittered in her chest.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, when he silently handed the flowers to her. She buried her face in the velvety blooms and inhaled their exquisite fragrance. ‘They’re beautiful.’

She wished he would stop looking at her with that curious, unfathomable expression in his eyes and say something. But when he did finally speak his words evoked a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

‘I need to discuss something with you.’

‘I see.’ She had hoped the roses were a peace offering, but maybe they were a prelude to him announcing that he was no longer prepared to try and make their marriage work.

He sat down on the bed, and her senses instantly flared when she breathed in the evocative scent of his cologne.

‘I’ve been to Bilbao.’

She frowned. ‘I thought you went to Madrid?’

‘I did. I flew up to Bilbao this afternoon, instead of coming straight home.’ Ramon suddenly smiled, the golden warmth of his sherry-brown eyes easing a little of Lauren’s tension. ‘I have some information that I think you’ll find interesting.’ He opened his briefcase and took out a booklet. ‘This is the prospectus for the university in Bilbao. As I understand it you studied a different system of law to the system we have in Spain?’

Lauren nodded, confused as to where their conversation was leading. ‘The UK follows the case law system, while Spain and most other European countries follow the continental system. The two are significantly different.’

‘But you could study for a Spanish law degree at the university—perhaps on a part-time basis while Mateo is a baby. Once you qualify and he starts school I thought you could join the legal department of Velaquez Conglomerates, or look for a position with a Spanish law firm—whatever you prefer,’ he said quietly, when Lauren stared at him in stunned silence.

‘I don’t understand. You were so against me going back to work,’ she said faintly, trying to suppress a little spurt of excitement as she flicked through the university brochure.

‘I want you to be happy,’ Ramon said simply. It had taken two miserable days and nights away from her to acknowledge that Lauren’s happiness was important to him.

Lauren bit her lip. ‘It’s a wonderful idea, and when Matty is a bit older I’ll certainly consider it. But even studying part-time would mean leaving him for two or three days a week, and although Cathy is a great nanny—

‘He won’t be with Cathy,’ Ramon interrupted her. ‘I will look after him on the days that you are at university. I’ve already arranged for chief executives to take over many of my responsibilities at Velaquez Conglomerates. I’ve decided to take a back seat role in the company while Mateo is young. I will need to continue with my duties in running the estate, but I can arrange my work around your studies.’

He paused, his brows drawing together when he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. ‘What’s the matter,
querida
? I thought a modern-thinking woman like you would welcome the idea of sharing the care of our child equally?’

‘I do,’ she assured him. ‘It’s just that you’ve taken me by surprise. I didn’t expect you to understand how I felt,’ she added huskily.

Her smile tugged on Ramon’s insides. ‘You
should
expect it,’ he said seriously. ‘You are my wife, and it is my duty to try and make you happy.’

Lauren’s heart sank a little at the word
duty
. She didn’t want to be another of his responsibilities. It would be so much nicer if he wanted to make her happy because she was important to him, she thought, unaware of the faintly wistful expression in her eyes.

Ramon began to undo his shirt buttons, revealing his muscular chest, the golden satiny skin covered with a mass of fine dark hairs that arrowed down over his flat abdomen. Lauren’s heart-rate quickened when he leaned close to her and slid his hand beneath her chin.