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And there was still hope, she told herself, that their differences could be settled without resort to the law. Rafael might soon become bored with fatherhood. Gilly and Ben could be extremely demanding and difficult. Where would they be staying in Spain? In his grandmother’s home? The set-up would certainly cramp his style. Rafael demanded total seclusion when he was painting and the twins would be constantly underfoot. Patience wasn’t one of his virtues. And how could he possibly imagine that they could live together again? Rafael was very hot on sounding off high ideals about how he wanted his children to grow up. Just how good was he likely to be in the field when he found his own freedom curtailed? She could afford to bide her time for a few weeks and let him find out those facts for himself.
When she arrived at the nursery school to pick up the twins, Rafael was standing on the steps talking to their teacher, Gilly clinging to one hand, Ben to the other.
‘Gilly…Ben.’ Sarah stuck out her hand impatiently.
‘We’re saying bye to Daddy.’ Ben stayed where he was, a truculent cast to his small face. Gilly turned her head the other way and pretended not to have seen her mother.
Descending the steps, Rafael shook them free. ‘When your mother tells you to do something, you do it.’
Ben gave him an obstinate look. ‘No.’
Gilly tossed her head. ‘No.’
Sarah held her breath, awaiting a lion’s roar from Rafael. Instead he crouched lithely down on a level with them. ‘Why not?’
Gilly’s rosebud mouth quivered. ‘Peter Tate’s daddy went away on a plane and never came back.’
Ben scuffed at the ground with a trainer-clad toe, striving to hide his fear behind a faade of cool. ‘Daddies do that all the time, I s’pose,’ he muttered.
‘I promise that I will not.’ Rafael slid his gold watch carelessly off his wrist. ‘Soon you will be coming to Spain to stay with me. Will you look after this until you see me again?’
There was an overbright glitter in Rafael’s beautiful dark eyes. Sarah glanced away, her throat thickening. Rafael was sol y sombra—sun and shade. She had fallen in love with his warmth and his vibrance. In her innocence, she had not begun to understand the dark, savage complexity that lay beneath. By the time she had understood, it had been too late. Rafael had retreated from her. Rafael, once so open with her, had shut her out. She hadn’t known how to reach him. She had been afraid to try. She had been so certain that he intended to leave her. She had walked on eggshells for months.
But what if Rafael had been walking on eggshells too? He had wanted her to have a baby. He had ensured that she became pregnant. How many men still wanted a child in a failing marriage? He must have valued their marriage much more than he was prepared to admit at the time. Sudden anger seized her. Why was she thinking like this? What he might have felt five years ago had no bearing on the present.
He didn’t have a faithful bone in his body. That woman in New York and the beautiful Suzanne who had followed had been as inevitable as a cold wind on a January day. Passionate affairs, equally passionate partings. And Sarah had too much pride and too much anger still trapped inside her to become part of that pattern. Ice, she reminded herself and ice she would be. Yesterday he had taken her by surprise. Yesterday her own body had taken her equally by surprise. The next time, she would be prepared. The next time, she would freeze.
Rafael joined her at the railings. ‘I wanted to see them again before I left,’ he murmured intently, employing a long-fingered hand to edge her round to face him.
Sarah slapped his hand away in instantaneous rejection. ‘Don’t touch me!’
Within view of the children she had thought herself safe but she discovered her mistake. He drew her inexorably into his arms, clamping her slim body to the virile strength of his. He devoured her mouth with hot, compelling urgency, his tongue stabbing between her lips with a piercing sweetness that was as devastating as it was unexpected. She fell into that kiss like ice-cream melting on a hot summer day. When he set her back from him, she staggered against the railings and he steadied her with a mocking hand. ‘To be continued,’ he promised, tawny eyes blazing with raw amusement.
He strode across the pavement and swung into the taxi waiting by the gates.
‘That was disgusting,’ Gilly said loudly.
‘People on TV do it.’ Ben was slightly less censorious but he was obviously embarrassed for her. He could not have been half as embarrassed as his mother was.
* * *
Why did the phone or the bell always go when she was in the bath? Sarah snatched irritably at a towel and pulled on her robe in more or less the same motion, wondering who could possibly be at her door at half-ten at night. Karen was in New York. And it certainly wouldn’t be her parents. That particular confrontation had taken place four days ago and had she announced that she was running away with a mass murderer she could not have achieved a bigger effect.
It was Gordon on her doorstep. Taken aback, she flushed, recalling that she had refused to see him twice in the last week and had relied on his male ego to make him take the hint without forcing the issue.
‘Obviously I’ve come at a bad time, but do you mind if I come in?’
Reluctantly she showed him into the lounge. He took up a stance by the fireplace, rather pink and stiff about the face. ‘I dined with your father at his club tonight,’ he said thinly. ‘He told me that Alejandro is your husband and that you’re going back to him. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.’
‘My father shouldn’t have involved you.’ Sarah sighed.
It was the wrong thing to say. ‘Don’t you think I had a right to know?’ he demanded. ‘If you must know, I was damned grateful that your father did choose to take me into his confidence. He’s worried sick about you and the children and I’m not surprised!’
Sarah tilted her chin. ‘Tell me, did Rafael figure as a wife-beater, a fortune hunter or a womaniser? Or all of the above? I should warn you that my father doesn’t limit his imagination.’
‘I want to help you, Sarah. He must be putting pressure on you through the children. You can’t be doing this willingly,’ he asserted. ‘You need a good lawyer and I hadn’t planned to say this yet but in this situation, well, perhaps I ought to say it. A respectable new husband in the wings wouldn’t be a disadvantage either.’ He paused, quite instinctively for effect. ‘I have been thinking of asking you to marry me.’
His careful wording roused a wicked twinge of amusement in her but it couldn’t survive when he was so obviously upset and sincere. ‘That’s very kind of you, Gordon, but—’
‘I’m not being kind.’ He gripped her hands before she could back away. ‘You don’t belong with someone like Rafael Alejandro. You’re panicking into the worst possible decision. I can understand that you’re angry with your father. Alejandro should have been told about the twins when they were born but after what he put you through I can equally well understand why your father wanted to protect you.’
Sarah turned an angry pink. ‘I don’t need to be protected from Rafael.’ She attempted to break loose when he linked his arms round her but his slim build was deceptively strong. ‘Don’t,’ she pleaded in distress.
‘You’re actually defending him!’ he grasped in disbelief. ‘You’re not even giving me a chance. I just asked you to marry me!’
He kissed her angrily, forcibly and then he lifted his fair head, reading the annoyance in her pale face. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Mummy does that with Daddy too.’ Gilly was watching them from the hall.
‘What are you doing out of bed?’ Sarah snapped.
Gilly took one look at Sarah’s stern expression and turned and vanished back into the bedroom.
Gordon was straightening his tie, affronted by the interruption. ‘When are you flying out?’ he asked curtly.
‘Day after tomorrow.’
His mouth tightened. ‘What is it about him? He’s over here less than a week, he snaps his fingers and you run!’
‘It isn’t like that, Gordon!’
‘From where I’m standing it looks exactly like that and if one half of what your father said is true you are riding for one back-breaking fall,’ he forecast.
‘I didn’t ask for your opinion. And you don’t really want to marry me, Gordon,’ she responded ruefully. ‘I can’t see you as a stepfather.’
He reddened. ‘I do want to marry you and I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. Your father believes that Alejandro is using you to strike back at him.’
‘Rafael isn’t that petty.’ She was stung into the retort.
