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Gwen flung an arm out. ‘Don’t put her down yet, Rio. There’s broken glass all over the floor!’
Rio swung her back up.‘Vamos en la piscina mas tarde—perfecto!’
To Gwen’s utter amazement Ellie stopped dead and looked at him.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said we’d go to the pool later.’
‘She understood you?’
He shrugged and grinned. ‘She is already fluent.’
She lost her fight not to respond to his grin.
‘Will you be careful of the glass too?’
Rio was barefoot, but at some point since she’d left him he had pulled on a tee shirt and boxers. His hair was sticking up in sexy spikes, which probably had less to do with nature than with Ellie, looking equally tousled but very cute in a pair of rabbit pyjamas, who was now running strands of her father’s dark hair through both chubby hands.
‘Where were you, Gwen? We both missed you, didn’t we, my sweetest?’ Rio crooned, bending his head towards the toddler, who grabbed another handful of the thick, glossy hair that seemed to fascinate her. ‘Ah...please don’t give her scissors... Hmmm, yes, thank you, Ellie—I think that’s what she’s saying?’
The warmth in his eyes as they lifted and connected with her own would have melted Gwen like ice cream on a hot day in any other circumstances.
‘What do you fancy for—?’ He broke off, a frown forming between his brows as he scanned her face, apparently seeing something there that bothered him. ‘Do we need to talk?’
Roman, who had coped with the sudden appearance of a woman wearing very little, but who was coping less well with his ruffled brother carrying a child who bore a really startling resemblance to him, finally recovered his voice.
‘I think maybe we do,’ Roman mused.
Hugging a squirming Ellie, who had finally got bored playing with his hair, a little closer, Rio turned jerkily to where his brother stood.
‘Roman...?What—?’ The rest of his rapid staccato response was delivered in Spanish.
Roman patiently waited his twin out, watching the child in his brother’s arms with a fascinated eye as he replied, ‘I knew you’d be glad to see me.’
Rio ignored the irony. ‘Of course I’m glad to see you,’ he lied. ‘But I—’
Reading the appeal in his eyes as he turned to her, Gwen moved forward, holding out her arms to receive Ellie, who cried shrilly in protest and held out her arms demandingly to Rio.
‘I’ll just leave you two to it, shall I?’ Gwen said, not waiting for a response as she headed for the door.
‘You don’t have to go, Gwen.’ Rio simultaneously registered his twin’s expression of surprise and the revealing flicker of pleasure on Gwen’s face as he spoke.
He also recognised it was impractical for her to stay, as the things he needed to say to his brother would be hard enough without an audience.
‘Actually, it might be better, Gwen, if you just took Ellie to—’
‘That’s fine,’ Gwen interrupted hastily with a throwaway smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I’ll catch up with you both later.’
Roman waited until she had gone.
‘She looked hurt then, when you told her to go,’ Roman said slowly.
Rio’s jaw clenched.Tell me something I don’t know.‘Sheis the mother of my child.’
Roman wondered if his twin was aware of the pride in his voice or the challenge in his eyes. ‘I did kind of work that one out,’ he responded drily. ‘So Mum was here, to meet her?’
Rio dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Actually, she arrived looking for you. She is booked in for more surgery next Friday and she wanted to let you know,’ he told his brother tersely.
