take it or leave it. In the end, she left it. I do not blame her. She was lonely and Carl was able to give her the things she wanted.’ He held her blue eyes as he said, ‘Some men are not meant for marriage.’
The warning was implicit. Wondering uneasily what she’d done to make him feel the need to spell out the obvious, she pulled her hands out from the warmth of his and laughed.
‘I suppose there’s still time to cancel the engagement notice I sent to the paper. Relax, Isandro, I’m not about to propose.’
And not even in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined Isandro doing so. She had accepted that what they had would never be deep and meaningful for him. What choice did she have? She was taking it one day at a time, enjoying the moments when they were together. Perhaps the knowledge that they would not last gave them a sweet bitterness, but she was determined not to waste a second.
Isandro leaned back in his own seat and turned his head to look at her. ‘So you think I should go to my father’s wedding?’
‘Does it matter what I think?’
‘Sometimes an objective view is good.’
Zoe laughed, the sound dredged from somewhere deep inside her bubbling from her lips. She couldn’t help herself—objective where Isandro was concerned was something she could never be.
Biting her lip to stem the flow, she responded to his quizzical look with a shrug. ‘I thought I was emotional and illogical?’
‘You have the occasional lucid moment,’ he threw back with a lazy grin.
‘So will you go?’
‘There is no point in burning my bridges.’
Zoe nodded and lowered her gaze. She had burnt her bridges some time ago. Would she regret it…? She shook her head; she didn’t want to think about that now.
She glanced at her watch and was shocked to see how long they had been here. ‘I need to pick up the twins. I promised Chloe’s mum-in-law I’d pick them up at half past.’ It was almost that time now. While she was being utterly selfish she would never let her own selfish desires come ahead of her duty to her sister’s children.
‘Calm down—it won’t take long.’
It didn’t. He delivered her to the cottage door only five minutes late. Zoe got out of the car. About to join her, Isandro paused and responded to the bleep of his mobile.
He scanned the screen and with a curse slid it back into his pocket. ‘Are you all right getting home alone?’
‘Of course.’
‘I will see you…’ He paused, as if unable to commit himself even to a minor thing like a time, and, nodding curtly, slammed the door and drove off.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STRUGGLING TO PUSH all thoughts of Isandro from her head, Zoe tapped on the cottage door and walked inside the warm, homely, farmhouse-style kitchen. A second later the impossible was achieved: she wasn’t thinking of Isandro.
‘Oh, my God!’ She dropped to her knees in front of the child seated at the table, her face creased in lines of anxiety as she touched the uninjured side of her nephew’s face. ‘Harry!’
‘It’s fine.’
Maud was on her feet, laying a hand on Zoe’s shoulder.
‘Seriously, it’s a lot worse than it looks, dear.’
‘How on earth…? Who did this? Has a doctor seen…?’
‘The nurse at school cleaned the cut.’ Georgie, who had come to stand beside her brother, provided the information to a stunned Zoe.
‘But who did this to you, Harry? Why didn’t the headmaster inform me?’
‘Sit down, dear, you’ve had a shock.’ Maud pushed Zoe down into a chair beside Harry and produced a cup of tea from somewhere. ‘The head tried to ring you but you’d already left and your mobile was switched off.’
‘He wants to see you tomorrow,’ Harry muttered, licking his bruised and swollen lip.
‘And I want to see him! I want to know the little thug who—your poor face…’
‘It wasn’t Adam, it was Harry. He just went for him.’
Zoe turned her head to look at Georgie. ‘Harry fighting…?’ She shook her head. The image of gentle, sweet Harry brawling was one she simply couldn’t accept. Now, if it had been Georgie…
‘He was. I saw it.’
‘But, Harry, why?’
The little boy shook his head and looked away. It was Georgie who responded.
‘It was the things Adam was saying about you and Isandro. I was telling him he was stupid but Harry came in just when Adam called you a bad name and Harry went for him…He was brilliant,’ she enthused, turning an admiring