The Secret Spanish Love-Child - By Cathy Williams Page 0,52

Hopeful that her love might spread to him like some sort of contagious virus?

By the end of the day she was exhausted from dashing around outside and was nursing a slight headache from her relentless analysing of everything. She wished that her brain had a switch, something she could conveniently turn off when it got too bothersome.

The house felt unbearably empty without Gabriel around and it depressed her to think how quickly she had become accustomed to his presence. She put Luke to bed and was further confronted with the reality of what Gabriel had told her because Luke was only marginally interested in having a story read to him. He was much more interested in trying to find out where Gabriel was and when he would be seeing him. She was beginning to realise that she and Luke were no longer a team of two. How would Luke react if Gabriel was no longer a constant in his life when they returned to England? He was only young now, but would he come to blame her in later years for depriving him of his father?

The magic of the island seemed to have disappeared now that Gabriel was no longer in the house and when she finally sat down to the simple crab salad which had been earlier prepared for her the food tasted like sawdust.

It was a relief when she heard the sound of the doorbell. For one glorious moment she wondered whether it was Gabriel. A cancelled meeting or, even more unbelievable, he was returning because he just couldn’t be out of her company. That second thought she squashed with ruthless speed as she headed for the front door.

Both housekeepers had already left for the evening and far more likely it was one of them who had forgotten something. It was not that unusual an occurrence. They both had quarters at the house and Ana, particularly, was prone to forgetting some item of clothing or book or personal possession which she had left in her room.

But the interruption was a blessed relief from her thoughts and she was smiling as she pulled open the door halfway, looking forward to enticing whichever of the housekeepers it happened to be into some conversation. She had enjoyed practising her Spanish with both of them and was interested in their lives outside the splendid house.

In her head, there was no room for the unexpected and her shock at seeing Cristobel on her doorstep made her stumble backwards.

‘You!’

‘I know. I don’t suppose you were expecting me.’ She placed one hand on the door and Alex noticed that her nails were beautifully manicured and painted a vibrant shade of red. It was an insignificant detail but it distracted her momentarily from the nervous banging of her heart against her ribcage.

‘What do you want?’

‘To have a girlie chat, of course. What else?’

‘I really don’t think that Gabriel…’

‘But Gabriel’s not here, is he? He is in London.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I don’t do doorstep conversations.’ Cristobel flashed her a cool smile and pushed against the door.

Of course Alex could have slammed the door in her face. She was, after all, a good six inches taller than the diminutive blonde. Taller, stronger but, unfortunately, she afterwards thought, lacking in the necessary aggression. Would Bambi have come out on top against a pit bull intent on destruction?

Okay, so she wasn’t, an hour an a half later, having to apply plaster to open wounds, but her head was reeling.

She was surprised that she had managed to shove the thought of Gabriel’s ex-fiancée to the back of her mind with such single-minded efficiency. She had no idea how she had been represented in the gossip columns. Newspapers had been non-existent for the past few weeks. She had cocooned herself in a bubble and, except for the occasional vague notion that reality was waiting back home, she had successfully managed to stifle anything too demanding.

Cristobel’s appearance, she now thought, had brought all that up to the surface.

She had no idea where the other woman had gone after she had left the house and she didn’t care. She had just wanted to be rid of the venomous blonde’s presence, the blonde who had flicked her hair and looked at her with hard, bright eyes and told her that Gabriel had only hooked up with her through a misguided sense of duty, that his heart would always belong to her, that she would get him back and would have him in her bed