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Sophie studied herself critically in the dressing room mirror and decided that she looked downright indecent. If the fire alarm went off and she was forced to jump from a window, she would have to pretend that the reason she was in her underclothes was that she was fresh out of her bath. She was wearing a lace-trimmed blue silk lingerie set adorned with tiny roses and seed pearls. On her terms the flimsy camisole and panties were the last word in erotic presentation and daring. Did she look daft? Women photographed in similar get-ups for magazines always had legs that went on for ever and beautiful faces stamped with superior expressions of extreme boredom. She practised looking bored while struggling to suppress her worst fear: suppose Antonio laughed?
The food she had ordered arrived on a trolley along with an ice bucket and champagne. Casting off her wrap again, she took the trolley into the bedroom and began lighting scented candles. He gave her flowers and a romantic card and she gave him…a rerun of their wedding night with supper on the floor and sex. She winced, green eyes reflecting her mortification over that analogy. Well, she couldn’t tell him she loved him, could she? He certainly wouldn’t thank her for any soppy confessions of that nature. Let’s enjoy being married, he had said. There was nothing deep or emotional about that suggestion.
Nervously she fingered the glittering diamond pendant in the shape of a flower at her throat. He had given it to her while they were abroad. He had also bought her an exquisite watch and diamond-studded ear hoops and she had no doubt that she would receive something even more expensive and precious to mark her birthday. He had bought her and Lydia a host of other little gifts as well. He was very generous. Ought she just to have bought him something? No, she decided, when a guy could buy himself anything, a woman had to go that extra mile to make an impression. But did she look cheap…sluttish?
When the door opened, she called out, ‘Antonio? Close your eyes before you come in!’
He didn’t close his eyes: he looked and he burned with hot anger and even hotter desire. There she was spread across the bed for his benefit, sin in miniature and only minimally clad in silk. And she looked shameless, sexy and stunning. It was a combination that did something quite disgraceful to his healthy libido.
Encountering the chillingly cool light in Antonio’s stunning eyes, Sophie flushed to the roots of her hair and sat up with a jerk to hug her knees. She felt like an absolute idiot and almost cringed, for his disinterest was palpable. ‘I was getting dressed…and I just decided to lie down for a nap,’ she lied in a stricken surge, sliding off the bed in such clumsy haste that she almost fell.
‘Did you know that Lydia wasn’t my brother’s child?’ Antonio murmured smooth as silk, his tone conversational.
At that entirely unexpected question, Sophie froze like a fawn in flight and her green eyes opened very wide in response. ‘Say that again…’
‘If you are trying to convince me that you had no suspicion, you’re wasting your time,’ Antonio retorted with scornful bite. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know. How could you not have known? Your sister lived with you while she was pregnant and you were best friends—’
‘Let me get this straight…out of the blue you are attempting to suggest that Lydia might not have been Pablo’s kid?’ Sophie recounted in strained interruption. ‘What is this? Some sort of horrible bad joke?’
‘If only,’ Antonio riposted, lean, darkly handsome features hard as steel. ‘I feel that you should be aware that you’ll have to do more than prance round the bedroom in sexy knickers to dig yourself out of this particular tight corner!’
‘How am I in a tight corner?’ Sophie demanded, striving not to show any response to that mortifying reference to both her appearance and her behaviour. ‘Just you explain why you’re suddenly throwing all this rubbish at me. Have you any idea how insulting you’re being?’
‘Is there a polite way to put this? Belinda slept with someone other than my brother and that man was Lydia’s father.’
‘Don’t you dare try to smear my poor sister’s reputation with disgusting lies!’ Sophie shouted at him, her temper flaring as she stared at him in bewildered disbelief.
‘It may be disgusting but it’s not a lie. DNA tests have been carried out on me and on Lydia and I have the paperwork that assures me that there is no question of there being a blood relationship between us—’
‘How could you have had DNA tests carried out?’ Sophie gasped. ‘That’s not possible!’
‘The tests were done a couple of weeks ago when I took Lydia to see Navarro Teruel—’
‘You went behind my back and—’
‘It wasn’t like that—’
‘It was exactly like that!’ she flung fierily.
‘I knew DNA testing would be necessary even before I came to England to see you. My lawyer warned me that the very fact that Lydia was born after Pablo and Belinda broke up and after his death might awaken doubts about the child’s paternity. Qué demonios! It is most ironic that I had no doubts but those tests had to be done to protect the child in the future—’
Her head was reeling with the twists and turns of his explanation. ‘I can’t accept what you’re saying. Why would people think such nasty things about an innocent child?’
‘When there’s money involved even my relatives are not above malicious conjecture.’
Sophie was more confused than ever. ‘Money? What money?’
‘My grandmother is a wealthy woman. The minute she learned of Lydia’s existence she decided to alter her will and leave a substantial legacy to her great-granddaughter,’ Antonio clarified coolly. ‘For that reason even I saw the good sense of proving now by whatever means possible that Lydia was my brother’s legitimate heir.’
‘I had no idea about the legacy or your grandmother’s plans,’ Sophie admitted unevenly. ‘But that doesn’t excuse you taking advantage of me being ill to have tests done on Lydia that I didn’t know about!’
‘At the time my main goal was that she should have a full medical examination. I didn’t want to worry you with my concern
but she seemed very small and frail to me—’
‘Thought I’d been neglecting her, did you?’ Sophie stabbed jaggedly.
‘No, my concern related to the fact that a couple of babies in this family were born with heart murmurs.’
‘Right, OK,’ Sophie groaned. ‘But what is this gobbledegook about Lydia not being Pablo’s child?’
‘She isn’t his child,’ Antonio asserted grimly. ‘DNA tests have proved that.’
‘I still don’t believe you…either you’ve picked this up wrong or you’re lying for some weird reason of your own!’ Sophie condemned wildly in her desperation. ‘Belinda was married to Pablo and there was nobody else in her life until after Lydia was born. Somebody has made a dreadful mistake.’
Antonio dealt her a derisive look of distaste. ‘You’re wasting my time with these empty protests. It is my belief that you and Mrs Moore were well aware that Lydia was not related to me. I also think that you hoped to make money out of the deception—’
‘What deception?’ Sophie exclaimed so sharply that her voice broke, for she was feeling increasingly out of her depth.
‘I believe you expected me to pay you handsomely to look after the child in England. I’m a rich man. It was well worth your while to try and pass off Lydia as my brother’s child—’
‘That’s the most revolting suggestion I’ve ever heard and you seem to be forgetting that my sister named you as one of her child’s guardians in her will. Was she also in on this deception? Are you saying that my sister knew she was going to die?’ Sophie asked him in disgust. ‘And what on earth has Norah Moore got to do with all this?’
Antonio vented an embittered laugh. ‘She was the ace up your sleeve. Things weren’t looking too good for you that day that we talked on the beach, were they? I had every intention of taking Lydia back to Spain and you weren’t going to make much profit out of that. So what did you do?’
Sophie jerked a thin shoulder. ‘I don’t know…you have this amazing imagination,’ she breathed curtly, fighting her pain with all her might because it hurt so much that their relationship could disintegrate so fast into a welter of crazy accusations and suspicions. ‘You tell me what I supposedly did next.’
