On the doorstep, Carlos failed to make the obvious response; his mood was too black for that. ‘I said…let me in.’
Trembling, she pressed the button, dashing into the bathroom to check her appearance—but there was barely any time to brush her teeth before a loud thumping on the door announced his presence. He must have run up the stairs, she found herself thinking inconsequentially, because the ancient elevator took ages.
Opening the door to him, she could see that her assumption had been correct—since he was slightly out of breath and his colour was raised—but most of all she noticed the rage which sparked in dark flames from his ebony eyes. He was carrying a newspaper in one hand and he looked furious. Pushing past her, he slammed the door shut behind him and then turned on her.
‘Perra,’ he whispered, his face contorted into a dark mask of anger which automatically made Kat’s heart begin a frantic racing. ‘You lying little cheat.’ He took a deep breath and pushed his face a little closer to hers—but a wave of minty toothpaste hit him and this, with the glossy fall of hair and the carefully made-up face, was enough to make him recoil as if he’d just been bitten by a snake. He stared at the tight, white jeans she wore and the cute silk T-shirt—which was exactly the same colour as the costly aquamarines which glittered at her throat. He found himself looking at the sleek and pampered little rich girl and it was as if the past few weeks simply hadn’t happened.
‘And there was me thinking that you’d changed,’ he raged. ‘That you were no longer the girl who ran away at the first opportunity. Who had learned to deal with life and look it in the face. But, no, I was wrong. Very, very wrong. First you lie to me, and then you run—just the way you’ve always run! Commitment?’ he bit out. ‘You wouldn’t know the word commitment if it jumped out and shook you!’
Kat was trembling as the force of his words compounded her own growing sense of realisation, and fear. And with it came the sinking sensation that he was all too eager to think the worst of her. ‘You’ve seen the paper?’ she questioned.
Carlos looked as if he was about to explode. ‘So you know about the paper? Of course I’ve seen the damned paper!’ And then his face darkened with suspicion. ‘Is this some kind of elaborate set-up?’ he demanded. ‘A teaser for some newspaper deal you’re setting up? Have you perhaps succeeded where every other journalist has failed in “getting to know” the real Carlos Guerrero and are about to do an exposé on me?’
Kat felt sick. How could she have ever believed he felt for her anything other than contempt? The fact that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her while she’d been on board his yacht meant nothing. Nothing, she reminded herself bitterly.
‘We can’t have this conversation here,’ she said dully—for she was afraid that if she didn’t sit down she might do something unforgivable. Like faint. Or be sick—a fear which now felt very real indeed.
Without waiting for his reply she began walking towards the sitting room, aware that he was following her. She turned around as he came into the room, wondering how a man could possibly dwarf a room as huge as the main drawing room of the Balfour apartment—but somehow Carlos managed it quite effortlessly. In his dark suit and snowy shirt, he looked the epitome of crisp elegance. And a complete stranger.
‘I haven’t seen the paper,’ she said.
His eyes narrowed. ‘But you knew about it?’
‘My sister rang.’
‘How convenient.’
‘May I see it, please?’
He half threw it onto the coffee table and Kat knelt down and opened it up with hands which were shaking. And there, on page three, was the article Sophie had alerted her to.
It wasn’t the first time she had been featured in a national newspaper but it was the first time she had been visibly shocked by what she saw. The Kat who had been photographed leaving the doctor’s rooms in Harley Street was barely recognisable as herself. Her face looked bleached, her eyes huge and a pashmina shawl hugged around her shoulders seemed to envelope her.
But it was the headline—and the subsequent article which disturbed her far more.
Guerrero’s Society Babe Visits Baby Doc.
Swallowing down her disbelief, Kat read on.
Famous ex-bullfighter Carlos Guerrero is used to playing cloak-and-dagger—and the latest beauty in his life seems to be following in his footsteps. Fresh from a Mediterranean trip on the Spanish billionaire’s luxury yacht, stunning Kat Balfour was tight-lipped as she left Dr. Steve Smith’s Harley Street surgery. Dr. Smith is best known for his delivery of last year’s Royal Princess and his spokesperson refused to comment on rumours that one of the notorious Balfour Babes is pregnant.
Kat Balfour hails from one of the richest and most scandal-ridden families in the land, but her new beau is more than a match for their colourful history. Playboy tycoon Guerrero was once tipped to be Spain’s finest bullfighter before dramatically withdrawing from the ring, fifteen years ago.
Who knows? With capricious Kat Balfour at his side, the man tagged ‘Cold Heart’ by the Spanish tabloids may have taken on his biggest challenge yet!
Dazed, Kat sat back on her heels and stared up at the forbidding mask of Carlos’s face.
‘But they didn’t ask me to comment!’ she protested. ‘I didn’t even know they had a snapper there!’
Carlos clenched his fists in fury. ‘Is that all you care about?’ he demanded. ‘The fact that you didn’t know you were being photographed? Why, would you have applied a little more gloss to those lying lips of yours?’
Her heart began to race as she registered the venom in his voice. ‘How dare you speak to me like this?’
‘Quite easily,’ he snapped. ‘And before you start to offer any half-hearted defence, surely the fundamental flaw in your argument is that you lied to me, Kat. But we could spend the whole morning railing against each other and none of it is relevant. In fact, only one thing is.’ He fixed her in the piercing spotlight of his ebony eyes. ‘Just tell me one thing. Are you or are you not…pregnant?’
There was a horrible pause and the only sound which Kat could register was the uncomfortable irregularity of her own breathing. ‘I…’
‘Are you?’