The Secret Spanish Love-Child - By Cathy Williams Page 0,55

to wall meetings?’

‘You’d be surprised how flexible they could be.’

‘No…’ Right now seemed a little too sudden. ‘I need to settle in for a bit. There’s stuff to do around here.’

‘Stuff to do? What stuff?’ Gabriel frowned because stuff had never been offered up as an excuse not to see him by any woman.

‘I need to get Luke changed and fed and I need to unpack and have a shower and wash my hair…Why don’t you come around six-thirty? You can have some time with Luke and then we can…chat. I’ll fix something to eat. Although I’m not sure what I’ve got in the fridge. Actually, I haven’t got anything in the fridge. Maybe I could pop out and buy one or two things…’

‘I’ll bring something over!’

‘You don’t know what I need.’

‘You need food. I’ll bring food.’

‘Okay.’ She resisted the temptation to ask whether he knew where his local supermarket was and then concluded that he would probably send someone out to buy a few items on his behalf.

Would this be their life together? Extreme wealth and privilege that would inevitably remove Luke, and her, from the realms of the ordinary? Did she want that for her son? She realised that she didn’t. She had had a richly, rewarding and very grounded upbringing and that was something she intended to confer upon her son.

‘And I don’t want to be fussy here,’ she said, as gently as she could, predicting a blank wall of incomprehension that would greet her conditions, ‘but Luke’s had a pretty rich diet for the past few weeks. It would do him good to have simple home-cooked fare.’

‘Okay. You’re losing me here.’ Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair and fought off a feeling of having suddenly been dumped in quicksand. He had no idea what she was talking about but, strangely enough, he would still have had the conversation, given the choice between that and his meeting. ‘He’s had the finest food money could buy in Spain. Pretty healthy too.’ He frowned. ‘I’m sure there was lots of fish.’

‘Maybe you could just pick up some bread and butter and other essentials and some baked beans. Oh, and something simple for us to eat.’

‘Simple like what?’

‘I’ll leave it up to you. Anyway, I think I hear Luke. I’ve left him in the sitting room watching a cartoon. He’s missed that a bit, watching cartoons, I think…See you later.’

Gabriel gazed at the phone in stupefaction as he heard the distinctive sound of a disconnected line.

However, instead of fully appreciating the rest of his day and proceeding with the important business of running his empire, he managed to find himself wandering around a supermarket two hours later with a trolley and not much of an idea as to what to put in it.

At six-thirty, Alex opened the door to a dishevelled-looking Gabriel, still in his suit and holding three carrier bags with a couple more on the ground by his feet.

‘I come complete with shopping. I can’t overestimate that achievement, considering I had to battle with a trolley that seemed to have a mind of its own.’ She looked fresh and clean and sexy-as-hell in a pair of old jogging bottoms and a T-shirt that barely skimmed her flat, tanned stomach.

‘So I see. Come on in. Luke’s been clamouring for you.’

She opened the door, feeling very ordinary next to him, and Luke bounded out behind her like an eager puppy hearing the sound of its master’s footsteps. Several drawings were thrust at Gabriel, who looked at them with a gravity that thrilled Luke to death and made Alex smile because representational art was not exactly Luke’s forte. Objects were pointed out with engaging earnestness and all adult conversation was lost in the deluge of excitable childish chatter.

‘You bought the baked beans.’ She held up a four pack and turned it around with an expression of mock wonder. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember.’

So it was baked beans on toast with cheese for Luke and only when he had finally been settled into bed did she and Gabriel reconvene in the kitchen.

Having felt calm and controlled amidst the chaos of having Luke around as the centre of attention, she was now very much aware of Gabriel’s presence, that certain something he possessed that allowed him to own the space around him, and unfortunately her with it.

‘You never answered my question…’ His dark-as-night eyes roamed over her until she turned pink under the scrutiny.

‘What question?’

‘Did you miss me?’

Stupid question, Alex thought. Did