The Secret Spanish Love-Child - By Cathy Williams Page 0,29
slowly. ‘You know…’
‘Well, actually, no. I don’t.’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘Of course I’m not nervous!’ Gabriel thought it right that he should dispel any such hint of weakness. ‘He must be into certain things, though. Trains? Cars?’ Or was he too young for things like that? Gabriel didn’t know. He was an only child. There were no nieces or nephews clamouring for presents and interaction on birthdays and Christmas. He had friends and a couple of them had young children but they had always been safely out of sight whenever he had been around.
‘He likes planes,’ Alex told him. ‘He has a collection of them.’
‘Good. We already have something in common. I own two.’
‘Which is something we have to talk about,’ Alex told him, laying down her ground rules before she discovered that each and every one of them was being broken. ‘I have tried to bring Luke up to be grateful and happy for small things. I don’t want him growing up to be a spoiled brat. So don’t think that you can swan in here and shower him with expensive stuff.’
Gabriel frowned. For a start, he didn’t like being told what to do. He also didn’t care for her questioning his parenting methods before he’d even met his son properly.
‘Don’t expect me to sit back and watch my own child live in poverty…’
‘Of course I expect that you want to contribute financially to his well-being! I’m just saying…’
‘You’re just saying that you have a right to lay down whatever laws you want. For the past four years, you’ve had it your way. Now I’m here and things are going to change. I have offered you marriage. You turned that down. Fine. But the alternative will not be constant warfare. We will present a civil and united front to my parents. And when we return from Spain, you will move out of this house into something I deem suitable for my son.’
‘What do you deem suitable?’ Alex asked in genuine curiosity because a guy who owned a couple of planes probably had a very different idea of suitable to most other normal human beings.
‘Somewhere close to me, for a start.’ He held up one imperious hand, cutting her off before she could establish her protest vote. ‘Remember, Alex. This was your choice. The twenty-first century option. An amicable relationship working together to do the best by our son. What we had is history. This is what we have now and you will not fight me on it.’
Except, was it history? When the sight of her body sparked something inside him and the curiosity to see what that body looked like now, having given birth to his child, was like a slow-burning fire?
For the moment, though, this was the road he would take. God knew, she thought he was a complete bastard and, that being the case, he would keep all inappropriate impulses under wraps. No problem there. Hadn’t he perfected the art of self-control?
Chapter Five
ALEX settled into the comfortable seat on the plane and closed her eyes. She felt as though she was closing her eyes for the first time in three days because life, in the space of seventy-two hours, had become a crazy roller coaster ride.
Gabriel had taken charge with a ruthless efficiency that had given her very little time to think and even less time to argue. Had he thought that, given half a chance, she would have dug her heels in and refused to go along with his plans? In actual fact, she would have loved to because the thought of meeting his parents and being subjected to their certain disappointment and hostility was terrifying, but there were no grounds on which she could object. She had rejected his offer of marriage and had thereby somehow ended up removing her ability to contradict any further proposals without sounding uncooperative and selfish, two traits which were unacceptable when there was a child to consider.
So her house had now been valued and was in the hands of an estate agent for sale. Even though she had tried to insist on a rental.
‘No can do.’ He had shaken his head without any apparent remorse at flatly turning down that request. ‘Rental carries the unacceptable whiff of lack of commitment. The minute you don’t get your own way, you’d be back in your little terraced house and I would be back to square one, with my son living in a place of which I don’t approve, and subjected to a traffic-laden