I didn’t tell her it was me calling, but she’ll know. She remembers my voice just as I remember hers. She’ll be shocked to hear from me, no doubt, and is probably hoping that I’m calling her about something else and not the pregnancy she deliberately didn’t tell me about.
‘Santiago,’ she says eventually, her tone admirably cool. ‘Or should I say,Mr Veracruz? How nice of you to call. What would you like to chat about?’
Oh, she’s good. She’s very good. Perfect even, especially with that faint note of surprise at the end. Another person might think she’s being genuine, but I know better.
‘Come, now, Miss Morgan,’ I turn away from the window and pace over to my desk, ‘let’s not pretend. I know about your pregnancy.’
Again, there’s a silence and this time it’s a shocked silence.
I smile as I pull out my chair and sit down. I’m enjoying this. I’m enjoying rattling the ice-queen mask that she likes to pretend is the truth of her. But that’s not the truth. There’s a wild heat in her and now I know that for a fact. I tasted it.
‘What pregnancy?’ She sounds unbothered, but I know she is, indeed, very bothered. There’s a roughness to her voice that she can’t hide. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Still lying through your teeth, I see,’ I say. ‘Don’t play games with me, Miss Morgan. The rumours are all through the village and you’ve been sick for approximately six weeks. That’s a long time for a stomach bug.’
She’s quiet a moment, then says, with a slight hint of impatience, as if I’m a child pestering her for a sweet, ‘Okay, fine. Yes, I’m pregnant. I was hoping to wait a little longer to announce it formally. Who told you? Sofia, I suppose?’
I ignore this, conscious of a rising fury that she doesn’t seem perturbed to have been caught in a lie. ‘You didn’t think that perhaps I might have wanted to know?’ I demand roughly.
‘And why would you want to know?’ she asks, as if she can’t think of one single reason.
I grip my phone hard, the edges digging into my palms as the fury mixes with the raw desire I always feel for her, eating through my self-control like hydrochloric acid through metal. ‘We had sex without a condom,’ I say bluntly. ‘Why do you think I’d want to know?’
She gives a long-suffering sigh, as if this conversation is boring her. ‘It was once,’ she says. ‘And surely you must know that your father and I shared a bed. The baby is his, not yours.’
It could be. It very well could be. And yet some instinct in me is telling me she’s lying, and this only makes my fury burn even hotter. Is she lying because she thinks I’m not a fit father for the child? That there’s something wrong with me?
You know there is. There always has been.
I almost growl as I shove the thought away. ‘I only have your word for that,’ I say, struggling to keep my temper under control. ‘And I know how much your word is worth.’
‘Are you calling me a liar, Mr Veracruz?’ she enquires coolly.
‘It’s not the first time you’ve been called one, remember?’
This time she says nothing, but I can feel the hot electric current between us pull tight, and it doesn’t matter that she’s thousands of miles away in Spain while I’m here in France. I can feel it, I’m sure she can feel it too, and I’m not above using that to get what I want.
‘Remember how you told me that you didn’t want me?’ I go on, lowering my voice, turning it into a caress. ‘Remember how wet you were and how desperately you begged me to make you come?’
I hear her take a soft, shaken breath and a savage satisfaction twists inside me. ‘You lied about that,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to lie about this too.’
Again, she says nothing.
‘A paternity test.’ I make no effort to hide the demand in my voice. ‘I want one.’
‘Go to hell,’ she says.
And abruptly ends the call.
Chapter Five
Beatrix
I’m walking outof the hacienda’s kitchen at the Veracruz estate, when I hear the rhythmic sound of helicopter rotors. I stop dead, listening as it gets louder and louder, my pulse ramping up. The only person I know who’d use a helicopter to get anywhere died four months ago, which means it’s obviously not Antonio. So who else could it be? And why would they be flying to this remote spot in Castile? We don’t get visitors, since I’ve yet to make friends with anyone in Spain. I had none in England, either, or not close friends, but that was because it was easier not to have any. I wanted a home first, a place where I was going to stay permanently—making friends when you’re constantly moving around is difficult. Another lesson from my numerous foster homes.
I move quickly along the hacienda’s wide, whitewashed hallways to the central courtyard, then make my way down the colonnade to the rear of the house. There’s a big salon there that runs the width of the hacienda, with windows that look out over the rolling lawns and gardens, and as I reach those windows a black helicopter comes in to land directly on the lawn. There’s a logo on the doors and, while I’m too far away to see what it is, a sudden premonition grips me.
You know exactly who this is.
