Contract Baby

‘You could do a lot better than him, cielita,’ he responded softly.

Polly’s natural sense of fairness prompted her to add, ‘Henry isn’t that bad. He was honest. It wasn’t like he pretended to fancy me or anything like that...’

Slumberous dark eyes semi-screened by lush ebony lashes, Raul emitted a low-pitched laugh that sent an odd little tremor down her sensitive spine. ‘Henry has no taste.’

The silence that fell seemed to hum in her eardrums.

Feeling that languorous heaviness in her breasts, the surge of physical awareness she dreaded, Polly shifted uneasily and leapt straight back into speech. ‘Why did you decide to hire a surrogate?’ she asked baldly. ‘It doesn’t make sense to me.’

His strong face tensed. ‘I wanted to have a child while I was still young enough to play with a child...’

‘And the right woman just didn’t come along?’ Polly assumed as the silence stretched.

‘Perhaps I should say that I like women but I like my freedom better. Let’s leave it at that,’ Raul suggested smoothly.

‘I’m so sorry I signed that contract.’ Troubled eyes blue as violets rested on him, her heart-shaped face strained. ‘I don’t know how I thought I could actually go through with it...but at the time I suppose I couldn’t think of anything but how sick my mother was.’

‘I should never have picked you. The psychologist said that he wasn’t convinced you understood how hard it would be to surrender your child—’

‘Did he?’

‘He said you were too intense, too idealistic.’

Polly frowned. ‘So why was I chosen?’

Raul lifted a broad shoulder in a slight fatalistic shrug that was very Latin. ‘I liked you. I didn’t want to have a baby with a woman I couldn’t even like.’

‘I was a really bad choice,’ Polly muttered ruefully. ‘Now I wish you’d listened to the psychologist.’

Raul vented a rather grim laugh. ‘I never listen to what I don’t want to hear. People who work for me know that, and they like to please me. That’s why you were fed lies to persuade you into signing the contract. A very junior lawyer got smart and set you up. He didn’t tell his boss what he’d done until after you’d signed. He expected an accolade for his ingenuity but instead he got fired.’

‘Did he?’ Polly showed her surprise.

‘Sí...’ Raul’s mouth tightened. ‘But my lawyer saw no reason to tell me what had happened. He had no idea that either of us would ever be in a position to find out.’

Polly ate the ice cream, lashes lowering as she savoured each cool, delicious spoonful. The seconds ticked by. Raul watched her. She was aware of his intent scrutiny, curiously satisfied by the attention, but extremely nervous of it too, as if she was a mouse with a hawk circling overhead. It was so quiet, so very quiet at that hour of the night, no distant buzzing bells, no quick-moving feet in the corridor outside.

And then Polly stiffened, a muffled little sound of discomfort escaping her as the baby chose that moment to give her an athletic kick.

Raul leant forward. ‘Que...what is it?’ he demanded anxiously.

‘The baby. It’s always liveliest at night.’ She met the question in his eyes and flushed, reaching a sudden decision. Setting down the ice cream, she pushed the bedding back the few necessary inches, knowing that she was perfectly decently covered in her cotton nightie but still feeling horrendously shy.

Raul drew closer and rested his palm very lightly on her stomach. As he felt the movement beneath his fingers, a look of wonder filled his dark, shimmering gaze and he smiled with sudden quick brilliance. ‘That’s amazing,’ he breathed. ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?’

‘Mr Bevan offered to tell me but I didn’t want to know,’ Polly admitted unevenly, deeply unsettled by that instant of intimate sharing but undeniably touched by his fascination. ‘I like surprises better.’

Raul slowly removed his palm and tugged the sheet back into place. His hands weren’t quite steady. Noting that, she wondered why. She could still feel the cool touch of his hand like a burning imprint on her own flesh. He was so close she could hardly breathe, her own awareness of him so pronounced it was impossible to fight. At best, she knew she could only hope to conceal her reaction, but though she was desperate to think of something to say to distract him her mind was suddenly a blank.

‘You can be incredibly sweet...’ Raul remarked, half under his breath.

Her intent gaze roamed over him, lingering helplessly on the glossy luxuriance of his black hair, the hard, clean line of his high cheekbones and the dark roughening of his jawline that suggested a need to shave twice a day. Reaching the wide, passionate curve of his mouth, she wondered as she had wondered so often before what he tasted like. Then, wildly flustered by that disturbing thought, her eyes lifted, full of confusion, and the dark golden lure of his gaze entrapped and held her in thrall.

‘And incredibly tempting,’ Raul confided huskily as he brought his sensual mouth very slowly down on hers.

She could have pulled back with ease; he gave her every opportunity. But at the first touch of his lips on hers she dissolved into a hot, melting pool of acquiescence. With a muffled groan, he closed his hand into the tumbling fall of her hair to steady himself and let his tongue stab deep into the tender interior of her mouth. And the whole tenor of the kiss changed.

Excitement so intense it burned flamed instantly through her, bringing her alive with a sudden shocking vitality that made her screamingly aware of every inch of her own humming body. And as soon as it began she ached for more, lacing desperate fingers into the silky thickness of his hair, palms sliding down then to curve over to his cheekbones. Only at some dim, distant, uncaring level was she conscious of the buzzing, irritating sound somewhere close by.

Raul released her with a stifled expletive in Spanish and sprang off the bed. With dazed eyes, Polly watched him pull out a mobile phone. And in the deep silence she heard the high-pitched vibration of a woman’s voice before he put the phone to his ear.

‘Dios...I’ll be down in a moment,’ Raul murmured curtly, and, switching the phone off, he dug it back into his pocket.

‘I’m sorry but I have to go. I have someone waiting in the car.’ He raked restive fingers through his now thoroughly tousled black hair, glittering golden eyes screened from her searching scrutiny, mouth compressed into a ferocious line. ‘I’ll see you soon. Buenas noches.’

The instant he left the room, Polly thrust back the bedding and scrambled awkwardly out of bed. She flew over to the window which overlooked the front entrance and pulled back the curtain. She saw the limo...and she saw the beautiful blonde in her sleek, short crimson dress pacing beside it. Then she watched the blonde arrange herself in a studied pose against the side of the luxury car so that she looked like a glamorous model at an automobile show.

Polly rushed back across the room to douse the lamp and then returned to the window. Raul emerged from the clinic. The blonde threw herself exuberantly into his arms Polly’s nerveless fingers dropped from the curtain. She reeled back against the cold wall and closed her arms round her trembling body, feeling sick and dizzy and utterly disgusted with herself.

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