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He looked around the room again and glanced at her, wondering if she thought he considered it to be shabby and cramped. She was clearly bracing her shoulders in a defensive attitude and when he suddenly turned, she jumped, taking a nervy involuntary step backwards. She bit down, her white teeth sinking into her plump lower lip, distracting him for a moment. Then she cleared her throat loudly, and he wondered if she’d noticed.
Rio frowned. He could see that the blue-veined pulse at the base of her slender throat was throbbing nervously, and the possibility that she was scared of him made him feel like a monster.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked when she lowered her hand from her mouth.
She nodded. ‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ she offered.
‘It sounds likeyouneed a drink,’ he said, wondering if that would relax her a little.
She shook her head.
‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘Is she...Ellie...?’ He paused after pushing out her name slowly as if he was still trying it out for fit. ‘Is she feeling better now?’ he asked, grimacing faintly as he heard the accusatory note edge into his tone. He could tell by the stiffening of her posture that Gwen had too.
She nodded.
‘Can I see her?’ His jaw clenched, the fine muscles quivering, as the request brought home just how wrong this situation was. He was asking permission to see his own child.
The look of alarm that flickered across her face as she desperately tried to think of an excuse to say no only added to the feeling ofwrongness.
‘I’m not going to snatch her, you know,’ he said with impatient irony.
He saw a guilty flush rise up her neck until her face looked as if it were burning. ‘I never thought you were,’ she protested defensively.
His expressive mouth twisted. ‘But you are now.’ She was as easy to read as a neon headline.
‘She’s sleeping.’
For a guilty moment he acknowledged a flash of relief. How did you talk to a person who was little more than a baby? What did you say to your own child? But the hunger to see her again remained stronger than his self-doubt.
It made him think again of Roman, his twin, who had a child he would never know, and the guilt he lived with every day tightened as he promised huskily, ‘I won’t wake her.’
For a split second he thought she was going to refuse and the hell of it was there was not a thing he could do about it. He had fathered a child and yet he had no rights... His taut jaw clenched, dragging the skin tight across his slashing cheekbones at the prospect of having to beg to see his own child.
Gwen kick-started her brain, ashamed that for a few vital moments she had allowed herself to get sidetracked by the small jagged scar she had noticed on his forehead, white against his golden-toned skin.
‘Fine,’ she mumbled, except of course it wasn’t. ‘This way.’
She didn’t look at him but she was very conscious of his physical presence as he followed her through the door she pushed open. She wondered where she drew the line—when did she say no? There had to be guidelines, limits...didn’t there?
Gwen turned and saw straight away that his attention was almost immediately riveted by the cot that stood at the foot of the small old-fashioned brass double bed in the bright-yellow-painted room. She wondered if he could feel the quivering tension coming off her but she said nothing, just stood to one side as he walked towards the cot cautiously.
Gwen hung back, hands clenched, not wanting him here and particularly not wanting to see the conflict in his face as he looked down into the cot. Yet it was the wonder that flickered into his eyes, and something close to longing there too, that she really didn’t want to see the most.
She looked away. She couldn’t let this situation be all about him and his feelings. This was about her and Ellie; they were a unit of two. Rio had to stay on the outside of that unit—she’d be fair but firm and if necessary selfish in order to protect Ellie.
‘I’ll be just through there.’ She nodded her head to indicate the other room and left, but she didn’t think he noticed.
It was five minutes before he joined her. Gwen was staring out of the window blindly and didn’t hear his soft-footed approach. It was only the prickling on the back of her neck that alerted her to his presence.
She turned and saw him standing just inside the doorway, but his expression told her nothing. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear—’
‘I didn’t wake her...’ he said at the same time, and hesitated. Then, as she stayed silent, he added, ‘Is she well?’ He dragged a hand through his dark hair and moved further into the room. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘She hasn’t seen a doctor.’ Before he could express the outrage she could see tauten his face she quickly explained, ‘The next appointment the surgery has is not for several days.’
Rio snarled out his opinion of this situation in a flood of blistering angry Spanish.
