Guilt surged through Lauren once more. She could stand here all day, trying to defend her actions, but in her heart she accepted that she had been wrong not to tell Ramon he had a son. She could not look at him, and instead glanced around the nursery. Through a half open door she could see an en suite bathroom. ‘I’ll run Matty another bath,’ she said hurriedly, desperate to escape Ramon’s accusing gaze.
Matty loved bath-time, and was perfectly happy to spend another twenty minutes playing in the bubbles.
‘He’s a real water baby,’ Ramon said, smiling at Matty’s squawk of displeasure when at last he lifted him out of the water and Lauren wrapped the disgruntled baby in a fluffy towel. ‘In a month or so, when the weather is warmer, I’ll take him in the pool. It will be good for him to learn to swim at an early age.’
His words made Lauren’s heart jolt. She could not stay in Spain for months. She needed to get back to work. The mortgage on her flat would not pay itself. But she certainly did not intend to leave Matty here at the Castillo del Toro.
She followed Ramon back into the nursery, and her heart clenched when she watched him tenderly drying Matty. For such a big man he was amazingly gentle. Tears blurred her eyes. If only she had known this side of Ramon perhaps she would have acted differently. But when he had spoken of his duty to father an heir she had assumed from his tone that he did not relish the prospect of having a child. Clearly she had been wrong. She could see that already there was a special bond between father and son, and innate honesty forced her to acknowledge that she had no right to try and break it.
Ramon glanced at her white face and frowned. ‘You look terrible. Go back to bed. I’ll dress Mateo and take him downstairs to my mother,’ he continued when Lauren shook her head. ‘Go,’ he insisted. You do not need to be here. I can take care of him fine without you.’
The words felt like a knife through her heart, and with a low cry she hurried out of the nursery, wondering despairingly what on earth she was going to do.
A FEW minutes after Lauren had returned to her room a maid arrived, with a pot of tea and a couple of freshly baked rolls that smelled temptingly good. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, although she had a vague memory of sipping water from a glass on several occasions while a strong arm supported her head and shoulders.
Had that been Ramon—who, according to the nurse, had spent the last four nights in the chair close to her bed? She frowned when she glanced down at the nightgown she was wearing, and it struck her that someone must have removed her jeans, sweatshirt and underwear. It must have been Cathy, she assured herself, her cheeks growing hot at the idea that Ramon might have undressed her.
She drank two cups of tea and managed half a roll before crossing the room to the en suite bathroom. The sight of her reflection in the mirror was a shock. She couldn’t do much about her hollow cheeks and pale complexion, but at least she could be clean. Stripping off her nightdress, she quickly stepped into the shower, relishing the feel of the spray cleansing her body and the lemony scent of the shampoo that she worked into her hair.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
The sound of a familiar gravelly voice coincided with Ramon’s sudden appearance as he opened the door of the shower cubicle and stood glaring at her. Face flaming, Lauren realised that she would have to reach past him to grab a towel. Instead she frantically tried to cover certain pertinent areas of her body with her hands.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ she snapped.
‘It’s a bit late for modesty now, when I have spent the past few nights sponging your body to try and bring down your fever,’ he said grimly. ‘But at least you’ve finally got some colour in your cheeks.’ He took pity on her and threw her a towel. ‘As to what I’m doing here—I came to check that you had gone back to bed. I might have known you would be stupid enough to try and shower without assistance.’
‘I am not stupid.’ Lauren gave him a furious look. ‘I’m feeling much better, and I don’t need help.’ She refused to admit that her legs felt dangerously unsteady, but of course they chose that minute to give way, so that she would have collapsed onto the floor of the shower if Ramon had not caught her.
‘Of course you don’t,’ he said sardonically as he swept her into his arms and strode into the bedroom. ‘But it’s one thing to cause harm to yourself with your obsessive independence, and quite another when it affects our son.’
‘I never did anything to harm Matty,’ she said sharply. ‘The day nursery he attends is excellent—the staff adore him, and he seems quite happy there.’ It was she who was miserable when she left her baby each morning, and she frequently spent the train journey to work trying to hold back her tears.
She clutched the towel to her when Ramon set her on her feet. He pulled open a drawer in the bedside cabinet and handed her a gossamer-fine peach silk nightgown that definitely did not belong to her.
‘You were so ill when we left your flat that I had to carry you down to the car, and I forgot to pack you any clothes,’ he told her. ‘I’ve ordered new things for Mateo, and a few items for you, but you’ll have to shop for more when you are feeling better.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Lauren said tensely. ‘Matty and I won’t be staying long. You can’t make us stay here,’ she cried, when Ramon’s face hardened.
‘I intend to do what is best for my son,’ he said ominously. ‘Why do you want to uproot him from his home, separate him not just from me but from his grandmother and the extended family he has already bonded with?’
‘His home is in England,’ Lauren choked.
‘But regrettably most of his waking hours are spent in daycare.’
Ramon strolled over to the window, and while his back was turned Lauren hurriedly donned the nightgown, dismayed to find that her hands were trembling. There was a comb on the dressing table and she tugged it through her hair’s wet tangles before blasting it with a hairdryer.
She jumped when Ramon came up behind her, took the dryer and began to run his fingers through her hair to aid the drying process. It was soothing, and evocatively intimate, and she had to fight the urge to close her eyes and lean back against him.
‘Does it have to be a battle?’ she pleaded. ‘We both want to do the best thing for Matty. Can’t we come to an amicable agreement on how we should care for him?’
His eyes met hers in the mirror. ‘I think that is possible—as long as we both put Mateo’s needs first.’ He swung her into his arms before she had time to protest, and carried her back over to the bed. ‘You need to rest. You’ve been very ill, and it will be a few days yet before you fully regain your strength.’
‘I want to be with Matty,’ Lauren argued. ‘Who is looking after him?’
‘My mother has taken him for a walk in the gardens.’ Ramon glanced at his watch. ‘If he follows the pattern of the last few days he will fall asleep, and then my dear madre will watch over him like a hawk until he wakes. She is utterly smitten with her new grandson,’ he added dryly.
It was ridiculous to feel jealous of this new woman in Matty’s life, Lauren told herself, but her eyes blurred with tears all the same. ‘I miss him,’ she said thickly.
‘He’s missed you too. The only way we could settle him at night was to lie him beside you in your bed. Once he was asleep I carried him to the nursery.’
Ramon’s jaw tightened. If he had needed proof that his baby son needed his mother, the sight of Mateo curled up against Lauren while his sobs gradually subsided had surely been it. The close bond between mother and son was undeniable—but Mateo needed his father too, and to Ramon’s mind there was only one logical solution that