‘Twenty-five.’ Her eyes widened as she recalled it was her birthday. ‘Today, actually.’ Her head turned as a frown formed on her smooth brow. ‘And I am not damaged!’ she yelled, her voice very loud in the confines of the car. ‘Or do you think anyone who isn’t an innocent virgin damaged goods? What century are you living in?’

‘I was speaking about emotional damage.’

‘Well, don’t, because it’s not any of your business,’ she growled.

‘For the record, I have no especially strong feelings about virgins.’

‘How emotionally mature of you.’

‘Would this be the right moment to wish you a happy birthday? I don’t suppose that this was the way you planned to spend it.’

‘Nobody plans a day like today; they just have nightmares about it.’

‘Well, you’ll never forget it, at least.’

Or you. ‘Just like chicken pox.’ She lowered her eyes, which currently had a disturbing tendency to drift towards his profile.

‘Did you have something special arranged?’ Was some man waiting for her with flowers and champagne? ‘Now I understand your crankiness. I suppose I should apologise for spoiling your plans.’

‘I am not cranky! And…I was just having a quiet night in.’

‘Alone…?’

Fleur flushed, aware that she was in danger of appearing like a sad loser if she told him what her plans for her birthday had been. ‘What is this—twenty questions? You’re getting my life history and I don’t know anything about you.’

‘I thought reading those magazines had made you an expert.’

‘I suppose there might have been one or two things they missed out,’ she conceded lightly. ‘Unless you really do spend all your time making indecent amounts of money and attending film premières.’ Not alone, but she felt strangely reluctant to bring his glittering companions into the conversation.

‘I like to think my life is more balanced than that.’ His female family members might have disputed this. Actually, they frequently did. ‘What do you want to know? Ask away.’

It amused him that his passenger didn’t appear to appreciate what an extraordinary invitation this was. He still didn’t know what impulse had made him extend it. Volunteering information was not something he usually did. After a couple of incidents when he had first found himself in the media spotlight Antonio had turned being guarded and discreet into an art form, much to the intense frustration of those who pursued him.

‘Seriously.’

He shrugged and said, ‘Why not?’ His theory was that while he kept her angry or interested she wasn’t stressing about her imminent visit to the hospital.

‘Well, knowing your views on making lifelong commitments when you’re young, as I now do, and thanks for sharing that with me,’ she said with deep sincerity, ‘I was wondering how old you were when Tamara was born.’

His head turned and for a brief moment their eyes met. She saw the acknowledgment of her hit reflected in his face. Fleur settled back in her seat, satisfied she had made her point.

‘I’m not totally sure,’ he said a moment later.

Her eyes widened. ‘Not sure? The birth of their child is not the sort of thing that most people forget.’

Under the flickering street lamps Fleur saw an expression she couldn’t pin down flicker across his lean face. ‘I wasn’t around at the time.’

‘So you weren’t there at the birth.’ Her heart went out to the mother giving birth alone.

‘Tamara’s mother and I were not together when she was born.’

‘But Tamara lives with you now…?’

‘Her mother died a short time ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed inadequate, but what else could she say that wasn’t equally trite?

‘Thank you, but Miranda has not been part of my life for many years. But, yes, when she’s not running away, Tamara is now living with me. It is a…new arrangement.’

‘I suppose it can be hard for fathers when their little girls start to grow up,’ she conceded generously.

‘This situation is different.’

Fleur shrugged. ‘I suppose we all think something is different when it happens to us.’

His vocal cords chose that moment to start acting independently of his brain and Antonio heard himself tell a total stranger, ‘I only met my daughter a week ago.’

Fleur’s first thought was that she had misheard him. ‘A week…?’

‘Eight days, to be precise.’ By all means be precise, Antonio, while you strip your soul bare to satisfy her curiosity.

Antonio’s father had been a man who held some pretty inflexible beliefs when it came to manly behaviour. High on the list of things that were signs of weakness and never to be indulged in by real men were crying, whining and talking about your feelings.

If Antonio had displayed any of these undesirable traits as a child his father had been disappointed…he had looked at his son and shaken his head.

For Antonio, who had worshipped his father, a sound beating would have been infinitely preferable to that shake of the head.

Even allowing for the balancing strong female influence in his life, something of his father’s attitude had inevitably coloured his own behaviour. As an adult it never occurred to him to seek out a shoulder, not even a pretty one, to cry on when the going got tough. And he most certainly did not blurt out private and personal details to total strangers.

Until now.

‘You didn’t have any contact with her while she was growing up?’

He could hear the frost in her voice. ‘None at all.’ He’d already told this woman far too much; he wasn’t about to defend himself to her.

Lips compressed, Fleur turned her head and looked out the window. She didn’t know why she felt disappointed. It wasn’t as if the things she had read about him suggested he was big on family values. He was a selfish, hedonistic egotist and they didn’t generally make the best fathers in the world.

‘And you’re surprised she ran away?’ He ignored the child all her life and then on a whim decided he wanted to play at being father. What did he expect? she thought scornfully, turning back to look at him.

‘So you blame me? You think tonight was my fault?’

‘It’s really none of my business.’

‘Well, that hasn’t stopped you from expressing an opinion so far.’

The angry words burst from Fleur. ‘Well, I just think—’ She stopped and bit her lip. ‘Well, there’s more to being a father than DNA. It’s a title you have to earn—’ She stopped again and turned her head to the window. ‘Sorry, it’s not my business…I just think…I’m sure you don’t give a damn what I think…why would you?’

Why do I? He thought about the lies that had been printed about him, and his indifference to them, and asked himself again…why did he care about the opinion of an inquisitive female he had never set eyes an until today?

‘You sit there looking so smug and superior, thinking—’

‘You don’t know what I’m thinking,’ she protested.

‘You don’t think so? Try this!’ All the anger and frustration he had been feeling for the past week was in his eyes as without warning he pulled the car to the side of the road, brought it to a halt on the grass verge and switched off the engine.

It was a stretch of road without lights and they were immediately plunged into darkness. Fleur instinctively shrank back in her seat, her eyes widening as she heard the clasp of his belt click. He switched off the car headlights and they were immediately plunged into total inky blackness.

It was the sort of darkness that had texture.

Fleur shivered. Her eyes were wide, straining in the darkness. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the sound of him breathing and feel his anger vibrating in the enclosed space.

The sound of his voice made her start.

‘You think that I’m a selfish absentee father who has just decided to play at families.’

As this was almost exactly what she was thinking Fleur remained silent. It didn’t seem wise to aggravate farther someone who, for all she knew, could be a dangerous maniac on his days off.

One thing she did know was that he definitely wasn’t the ice-cool character portrayed in those glossy magazines. She had begun to wonder if the authors of those pieces had ever even met him. If they had they could not possibly have missed the combustible quality that lay there just beneath the surface. She had been all too aware of it from the moment she had laid eyes on him.

Her stomach churned sickly with apprehension as she waited for him to speak.

‘That is a very eloquent silence.’

Her eyes had begun to adapt to the lack of light and she could make out his outline. It was large and threatening. ‘You’re scaring me.’

The silence that followed her breathy confession was heavy and oppressive. Then to her relief he clicked a switch and the interior of the plush car was filled with weak light.

A gusty sigh escaped her tight, aching throat.

He dragged a hand through his dark hair and looked at her pale face. ‘You scare easily.’

It might not be his fault that the pale light drew attention to the hard, chiselled angles of his face, making him look sinister and dangerous, but it was his fault that he had scared her witless.

‘No, I don’t,’ she retorted with feeling.

A grimace that might have suggested regret crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pressing his head deep into the leather head rest.

Sorry was a word she suspected didn’t cross his lips too frequently. She watched as he stared out the window. The thoughts he appeared lost in were, if his expression was any measure, pretty dark. ‘I didn’t know of her existence until now.’

‘Whose existence?’

A muscle alongside his mouth clenched as his head turned. His blue eyes found hers. ‘Tamara’s.’

Fleur grimaced in concentration and wrinkled her nose as she tried to follow what he was saying. ‘How could you not know you had a daughter?’

‘I did not know until last week that there was a Tamara. I didn’t know that Miranda was pregnant. My daughter and I are total strangers.’

He watched her almond-shaped eyes fly open and cursed under his breath. What was it about her, he wondered, that loosened his tongue?

‘Strangers?’ she echoed.

He nodded, reliving as he did so the moment he had been given the first glimpse of his daughter as she’d climbed out of the back seat of the Bentley. His trademark objectivity had been history.

She’s mine…

Fatherhood might be more than some matching strands of DNA, but in that moment what Antonio had felt had been nothing less than a connection.

However, whatever hope he might have held that Tamara also felt that connection had been quickly dashed. Not content with abandoning Tamara, her so-called father, Charles Finch, had obviously done a number on her. And Antonio was clearly the villain of the piece, the heartless man who was stealing her away from the only home she had ever known and a father who, or so he’d told her, would give anything to keep her. And so his daughter never looked at him with anything but hate in her eyes.

‘That’s…that’s…’

The past faded as beside him and very much in the present Fleur shook her head slowly from side to side.

‘That’s what she meant when she said you weren’t her real father?’

He nodded.

‘Her father—the other one, I mean—does she have…? Is he…?’

‘He’s alive.’ His expression was savage as he tacked a furious volley of Spanish onto the terse statement.

Fleur didn’t understand a word, but she was guessing—it didn’t seem a big leap—he wasn’t expressing warm affection for the other man.

‘I suppose,’ she conceded, ‘under the circumstances you’re bound to resent him, but you can’t really blame the poor man, can you? I mean, I don’t know the circumstances—’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘But this must be a tough situation for him too.’

‘Yes, the poor man has suffered so much, but you know what they say about karma—what goes around comes around. We can only hope that he will get all he deserves one day.’ And Antonio really hoped that he would be around to see it…better still deliver it!

Puzzled by the edge to his voice that didn’t match the sentiment of his words, she studied him uncertainly.

His lips curled into a sardonic smile. ‘You are trying to get into my head again, aren’t you, querida?’

The husky accusation brought a guilty flush to her cheeks. ‘I’ve told you, it’s not somewhere I’ve any desire to be,’ she told him primly.

‘Maybe you just can’t help yourself where I’m concerned?’ he suggested silkily.

Now that was a really scary thought. ‘And maybe you’re totally deluded—’ She broke off, her eyes widening as without warning he leaned across and took her face between his big hands.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek and with a whimper closed her eyes tight shut.

‘It is your birthday,’ he said in a voice that seemed much more thickly accented than she had noticed before.

‘I know that.’

He tilted her framed face up to him. If he didn’t kiss that mouth he would always wonder…‘Is it not almost obligatory to kiss a person on her birthday?’

‘Not this per…’ She sucked in a deep startled breath and stilled as she felt the feathery touch of his lips on first one eyelid, then the other. At the corner of her mouth his touch was equally light.

This was fine. This she could cope with, even laugh about with Jane at a later date. The day Fleur got kissed by a Spanish billionaire would be a joke between them.

All I have to do, she told herself, is not make a big thing of it and breathe…yes, breathing was important.

His head lifted.

‘Right, I consider myself kissed. Can we get on?’

‘Kissed…?’ he echoed, his blue eyes glittering with amusement and a lot of other things that she didn’t want to put a name to. ‘You haven’t been kissed, querida,’ he drawled.

Then before she had a chance to react he lowered his mouth to hers.

His warm lips moved against her mouth. She tried to signal her disapproval by not reacting, but there was a raw hunger in the skilful, sensuous friction that she couldn’t resist.

Didn’t want to resist.

His mouth lifted fractionally and Fleur gave a fractured moan before he claimed her parted lips again. This time the hunger he had leashed slipped a notch.

As if he had all the time in the world Antonio slid his tongue deep into the warm, intimate crevices of her mouth. Tasting her and letting her taste him.

As bright lights exploded behind her closed eyelids Fleur moaned into his mouth and kissed him back, winding her arms around his neck, her fingers trailing in the dark strands that curled at his nape.

He said something indistinct against her mouth and lifted his mouth. Leaning back into his seat, he sat there staring straight ahead and breathing hard.

At some point between him unwinding her hands from around his neck and fastening his seat belt her brain started functioning again.

Well, I suppose that now I have been kissed.

She lifted a shaky hand to her tender lips and swallowed past the constriction in her aching throat. Oh, yes, there was no doubt about it—she had been kissed!

And what a kiss.

Antonio turned the key in the ignition, nothing in his manner suggesting that he had just kissed her until she forgot her own name. And he still hadn’t said a word.

Resentment mingled with the cocktail of confusion, shame and excitement that was already swirling in Fleur’s veins as she watched him.

As if it had never happened!

Kissing me probably registered somewhere below combing his hair on his scale of the totally forgettable, she decided wrathfully.

And I, stupid idiot that I am, will be left comparing every kiss I ever receive with that one.

Before releasing the handbrake he swivelled his glance her way. ‘Happy Birthday.’

For a brief moment their eyes clung. The searing heat in his sent a shocking rush of heat through Fleur’s body. Knowing that he hadn’t wanted that kiss to stop any more than she had was not the salve to her pride she had imagined it would be.

Being the victim of a helpless passion was one thing. It was frustrating, sure, and horribly embarrassing, but it was safe. Knowing that the object of her desire for some inexplicable reason wanted her right back…now that scared her witless!

About a quarter of a mile down the road they hit the outskirts of the town and almost immediately the hospital came into view.

If anyone had told her yesterday that she would be weak with relief to see a hospital Fleur would have laughed in their face. Yesterday, she thought, flashing a look of seething dislike at the man beside her, she had not met Antonio Rochas.

Chapter Seven

FLEUR sat in an alcove off the waiting room feeling invisible. They had told her that the painkillers the doctor had insisted on prescribing would be up from the pharmacy directly. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw she had been there for almost thirty minutes. Maybe they were taking the scenic route.

She looked around at the steady stream of humanity bustling past her all with a purpose, but none of their purposes involved helping her get out of here. Had they forgotten she was there?

Almost immediately she felt guilty for being so impatient. It wasn’t that she resented having to wait her turn, and the treatment she had received had been excellent, it was just the place made her want to crawl out of her skin.

Somehow she couldn’t imagine anyone forgetting Antonio Rochas was here. Her brow furrowed as she gave an exasperated sigh. For someone who had decided that she was going to blank him, his convoluted family problems and his wretched kiss from her mind totally, she had been thinking about him a lot.

Still, at least it stopped her thinking about the hospital smell. She picked up a newspaper someone had left on the seat beside her and began to skim through the pages, although she wasn’t actually able to concentrate on the stories.

The elderly woman opposite waved her stick to get Fleur’s attention. ‘What does my horoscope say, dear?’

Fleur smiled and turned to the appropriate page. ‘What star sign are you?’

‘Virgo.’

‘Me too,’ Fleur said. ‘Let’s see,’ she said, stabbing the appropriate column with a finger. ‘It says here that “an unexpected meeting will have life-changing consequences.”’ She stopped reading and heaved a sigh. Even the stars were conspiring against her, it would seem! Not that she believed that sort of stuff. A person made their own destiny irrespective of whether Jupiter was rising in Capricorn or whatever. All the same, that was spooky. ‘I don’t have my reading glasses with me—would you like the paper?’

At this rate, next I’ll be seeing him in the tea leaves!

The grey-haired figure smiled her gratitude as Fleur limped across. ‘So young to have problems with your eyesight,’ she said, accepting the folded newspaper.

‘It runs in the family,’ Fleur improvised shamelessly.

‘And such pretty eyes too.’

Did Antonio think her eyes were pretty?

‘Stop that, Fleur!’ she told herself severely.

‘Pardon, dear?’ the old lady said.

Fleur shook her head and limped back to her place and, with nothing much else to do, her thoughts drifted. Inevitably they drifted in the direction of a tall dark Spaniard. She had no doubt that the fact she had walked, or rather limped, into the place at his side had a lot to do with her being attended to so swiftly.

Just as she was considering the shallowness in human nature that made people respond to a famous face that way the nurse who had attended to her while her leg was sutured walked past.

‘Still here?’ she said looking sympathetic.

Fleur nodded.

‘I was wondering,’ she began tentatively, ‘do you know how Tamara Rochas…’ She stopped and gave a rueful grimace. ‘Sorry, I expect you can’t discuss patients with nonrelatives.’ And as a completely disinterested party I ought not to be asking.

‘Well, you’re not exactly a stranger, are you?’ The girl smiled.

Fleur, not quite sure how to respond, shrugged and said cautiously, ‘Not exactly.’

‘If you like,’ offered the cheerful nurse, ‘I’ll show you to her room. It’s on my way to the canteen.’

‘I’m supposed to wait here for my painkillers,’ Fleur said, thinking, This is not something I should even be considering.

‘And wait you will. The computers were down for two hours this morning and they’re still catching up on the backlog. And to make matters worse Pharmacy has half its staff off with the flu thing. It’ll probably take them another half-hour at least to get your prescription sorted.’

Having been part, albeit an incidental part, of the rescue it would be nice to see for herself that the victim was all right.

Rationalisation, said the snide voice in her head.

Fleur tilted her chin and said, ‘You’re really kind.’ If Antonio was there…well, that had nothing whatever to do with her decision.

‘Family friend, are you?’ the inquisitive nurse asked as she pressed the lift button for the third floor.

The query brought home to Fleur just how inappropriate her actions were. She might know a little more concerning the details of Antonios’ Rochas’s strained relationship with his daughter, but the bottom line was she was a stranger.

A stranger the patient’s father had kissed.

Fleur chose her words with care, extremely aware that this was the perfect opportunity to smother any foolish rumours before they started circulating.

‘Just a neighbour. I hardly know him.’ What, she wondered, would be the consequences if she were to claim a closer relationship? Mention the fact that her lips were still tingling from his kiss.

‘Sure you are.’

Fleur didn’t respond to the girl’s conspiratorial wink.

‘No, really,’ she said firmly.

The nurse’s face dropped. ‘Really? We thought maybe you and he were…?’

Fleur adopted a droll expression. ‘Yes, that’s really likely, isn’t it?’

The girl’s glance slid over Fleur in her borrowed clothes. ‘We can dream, can’t we?’ The other girl sighed.

Feeling rather deflated that it had been so depressingly easy to convince the nurse that the notion of her and Antonio being an item was ludicrous, she leaned against the wall of the lift and thought, Dream about being Antonio’s lover? Not a good idea.

‘Fifth door on the left—3B,’ supplied her guide with a smile before the lift door closed.

Fleur counted the doors off and then knocked twice. When there was no response, she tentatively pushed the door open and found herself inside a small hallway.

Fleur was relieved the nurses’ station to her left was unoccupied. The moment she opened the door she had realised that this was not a good idea. The man was going to think she was stalking him.

And I’m not…?

She hesitated a fatal moment too long. If she hadn’t she would not have heard the voices. One was high and young, one deep. One more backwards step and she’d have been free.

You still are free, she told herself.

So why then was she walking towards that voice as though someone had tugged the other end of a string and was reeling her in?

Of the four rooms that opened off the area, two appeared unoccupied. One door was open.

From where she stood to one side of the doorway she could see the hospital bed, but its occupant could not see her. As she hesitated a tall figure who had been out of view came to stand beside the bed. He put his hands flat on the edge and bent towards the figure who held an oxygen mask in her hand.

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