instantly, the baby went as stiff as a tiny steel girder and looked up at him with enormous stricken brown eyes. Her mouth opened wide enough to treat him to an unwelcome view of her miniature tonsils and a yell that would have roused a graveyard exploded from her. Her face turning scarlet, the baby shrieked blue murder as if she were being attacked. Antonio stared down at his niece in paralysed horror.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ he demanded.
‘Have you ever been snatched out of bed by a stranger and dangled in mid-air like a toy?’ Sophie asked fiercely, resisting the urge to haul Lydia from his inept and unfeeling hands.
Hearing Sophie’s voice, Lydia twisted her little head round. The baby squirmed like mad and stretched out her hands towards her aunt in a movement that was as frantic as it was revealing.
‘Perhaps you should have made the effort to introduce us first,’ Antonio censured, and without further ado he deposited the screaming bundle into Sophie’s waiting arms.
His sculpted mouth curling, his ears still ringing from that appalling bout of shrieking, he watched his tiny niece clamp onto Sophie’s shoulder like a limpet restored to its favourite rock. An immediate and very welcome silence fell. While the baby clung with what he considered to be quite unnecessary drama, Sophie rewarded that show of extreme favouritism with an enormous amount of petting and kissing and soothing whispers.
‘I had no idea that the child would be quite so attached to you,’ Antonio admitted flatly.
‘I’ve been looking after Lydia since she was born.’ Restless with tension, Sophie moved out of the bunkroom and back into the lounge. ‘Belinda was ill at first…and then later, well, there were reasons why she wasn’t able to spend as much time as she would have liked with her daughter.’
‘What reasons?’ Antonio prompted.
‘Belinda started seeing a bloke who wasn’t fussed about kids and when she moved in with him, Lydia stayed on with me,’ Sophie explained grudgingly.
‘Here…in this place?’
‘We should be so lucky.’ Sophie loosed an uneasy laugh. ‘This is a luxury holiday home. The one I live in is at least twenty years older and without frills.’
Antonio spread his attention round the confines of a room that he found claustrophobically small. Frills? What frills? The décor was abysmal and so jazzy and cheap it offended his eyes. This was what she called luxury? He bit back an incredulous comment.
‘If you don’t live in this, why are you here?’
‘I’m cleaning it for the holiday-makers coming to stay tomorrow.’
Appalled by that admission, Antonio stared at her with concealed disbelief. ‘You are employed on the park as a cleaner?’
Sophie curved Lydia even closer to her taut length. ‘Have you got a problem with that?’
His strong jaw line squared, for he had hoped she had been joking. ‘Of course not. You said that my brother robbed your sister. Did you lose money too?’
‘I’ve never had money to lose,’ Sophie answered in surprise, and then, realising that he did not understand why that should be the case, she sighed and surrendered to the inevitable. ‘There’s a skeleton in my family cupboard and Belinda didn’t like me to talk about it. Belinda and I may have had the same mother but we had different fathers. I didn’t meet my sister until I was seventeen.’
‘All families have their secrets,’ Antonio murmured, relieved to finally have some explanation on that score. ‘Let us be candid with each other.’
Sophie tensed again. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you any lies.’
Picking up on her anxiety, Lydia lifted her head and loosed an uneasy little cry.
Antonio spread expressive lean brown hands. ‘I do not want to argue with you.’
‘Good…but between you and me and the wall there, you and I would always argue.’
‘I don’t accept that.’ Antonio angled a smile at her, dark golden eyes cool and confident. ‘A child’s future is at stake here and after what you’ve undergone in recent months, it is natural that you should be under stress.’
‘I haven’t undergone anything,’ Sophie asserted tightly. ‘I love Lydia and I enjoy looking after her. Worrying about what’s going to happen now that you’re in the picture is all that’s stressing me out.’
Two pairs of eyes, one green, one brown, were anxiously pinned to him, both fearful. For the first time in his thirty years of existence, Antonio felt like the wolf in the fairy tale, guilty of terrorising the innocent and the vulnerable. At the same time being treated like the bad guy infuriated him and stung his strong pride. He decided that it was time to drop the diplomatic approach. If he made his intentions and his expectations clear there would be no room for misunderstandings.
‘Why should you worry about what’s going to happen now that I’m here to help? I must assume that you intend to insult me—’
‘No, I didn’t intend that!’ Sophie interrupted in dismay at that interpretation of her words.
Lean, strong face hard, Antonio dealt her a stony appraisal. ‘My intervention can only be of advantage to my niece when she is currently living in appalling poverty. You have done your best in most trying circumstances and I honour you for your efforts on the child’s behalf and thank you for your concern,’ he drawled smooth as glass. ‘But Lydia’s best interests will be met only when I take her back to Spain and ensure that she receives the care and privileges which are hers by right of birth.’
As he spoke every atom of colour slowly drained from Sophie’s shattered face. ‘We don’t live in appalling poverty—’
‘On my terms, I’m afraid that you do. I do not wish to offend you but I must speak the truth.’
‘You can’t take her away from me…and back to Spain,’ Sophie breathed shakily, feeling so sick at that threat she could hardly squeeze out sound. The very idea of losing Lydia hit her as hard as a punch in the stomach, winding her, driving her mind blank with gut-wrenching fear.
‘Why not?’ Antonio quirked an ebony brow. She was white as snow and clutching the baby to her like a second skin. A mixture of frustration and anger gripped him, for he knew that his intentions were pure and his solution the only sensible one. ‘I can see no alternative to that plan. If you love the child, you won’t stand in her way. I will give her a much better life.’
Sophie took a step back as if she could no longer bear to be that close to him. ‘I honestly think I will die if you take her away from me,’ she framed unsteadily. ‘I love her so much and she loves me. You can’t just throw me out of her life as though I’m nothing just because I’m poor.’
Antonio stilled. Faint dark colour illuminated the spectacular slant of his carved cheekbones. He was severely disconcerted by the tears swimming in her eyes and her raw emotion. She had abandoned all pride, dropped her tough front. She looked like a tiny teenager striving to stand up to a bully. The baby, evidently picking up on her aunt’s distress, was sobbing into Sophie’s slight shoulder.
‘It is not a matter of throwing you out of her life…This is the language of emotion, not of intellect,’ Antonio censured in exasperation.
Sophie dragged in a deep, tremulous breath and treated him to a look of fierce condemnation. ‘I’m not ashamed of that…as far as I’m concerned love would win over money every time—’
‘According to what I understand, you’ve never had any money, so are scarcely qualified to make such a sweeping statement—’
‘I love her…you don’t!’ Sophie launched at him.
‘If you love her why don’t you restrain your temper and stop scaring her?’ Antonio asked with lethal effect.
Sophie