Duarte's Child

‘Are you going to have other women…again?’ Emily heard herself ask and almost died on the spot because that dreadful question had just come out of nowhere and leapt on to her unguarded tongue.

The silence seemed to flex like a stranglehold ready to tighten round her slender throat.

Slowly, Emily looked up, aquamarine eyes aghast.

Duarte gazed back at her as if she had just dropped down through the car roof, a fully fledged alien with two heads. ‘What do you mean by…again?’ he prompted very softly.

Emily connected with electrifying dark golden eyes and gulped. ‘I didn’t mean anything…I…I just wondered.’

‘You made an accusation,’ Duarte contradicted with razor-edged cool. ‘A specious feminine attempt to justify your own behaviour by implying that I played away—’

Emily was backtracking so fast she was literally into full-throttle reverse. Not because she was a coward but because she could not afford to antagonise Duarte, lest he change his mind and decide that Jamie did not need his mother as much as he believed he did. ‘No, I didn’t…I didn’t—’

‘Don’t try it again,’ Duarte warned steadily, shimmering eyes resting on her like a slowly uncoiling whip lash.

Turning away in turmoil to stare fixedly into the middle distance, Emily only then appreciated that the car had already pulled up outside Alice’s farmhouse. The chauffeur opened the passenger door and she leapt out like a rabbit with a fox on her tail. The older woman was already coming outside with Jamie clasped in her arms. ‘Will you and Duarte join me for coffee?’

Emily reclaimed Jamie, her heart beating very fast. She didn’t want to get back into the limo. She wanted to run again and she knew that this time there was no place to run. ‘I’ll ask Duarte if we’ve got time—’

But Duarte was right behind her. He greeted Alice with a courteous charm which Emily had only got to enjoy briefly during their even more brief courtship. Emily stared at her husband, marvelling at the tone of regret he contrived to employ as he refused an invitation he could not have had the slightest desire to accept. She said goodbye in a dulled little voice and got back into the car to fix Jamie into his seat.

‘Stop cringing around me,’ Duarte instructed grittily as the chauffeur closed the door on them again.

At least the previous unfortunate subject which she had opened was forgotten. But she noted that he had given her no answer. Not that she cared any more, she told herself. They would hardly be living together again but wasn’t it peculiar that he wasn’t talking about what they were going to be doing? Or was exerting that kind of power over her part of the punishment?

Becoming only slowly aware of the silence, Emily turned her head. Only then did she recall that Duarte was really only now having his first meeting with his son. Duarte was studying Jamie with an intensity she could feel. Jamie was kicking his feet, smiling and in the mood to be admired. Emily watched Duarte. The tension etched in his bold bronzed features, the movement of the lean brown hand he semi-raised and then settled back on a long powerful thigh again.

He wanted to touch Jamie. He wanted to connect; naturally he did. Her throat thickened in the weighted quiet. She slid Jamie’s little blue teddy towards Duarte, nudging his braced fingers with the toy. ‘You could give him that—’

‘When I need your advice, I’ll ask for it.’ Lean strong face clenching hard, Duarte dealt her a flaring glance of bitter hostility. ‘It’s not a lot of fun wondering whether my own child will scream if I try to touch him.’

Emily paled. ‘I know…I’m sorry—’

A tiny muscle pulling tight at the corner of his hard jawline, Duarte thrust his broad shoulders back against the seat. ‘I’ve got plenty of time to get to know him. I’ll do it without an audience.’

He was so incredibly proud. Had she not seen the yearning in Duarte’s body language as he contemplated his infant son, she might have believed that he felt nothing.

‘I was scared to get in contact with you…I was scared of losing him—’

‘I’m not about to discuss your behaviour in front of him. You’re his mother. You sound distressed. Look at your son…he’s listening to your voice and watching your every move and you’re scaring him,’ Duarte condemned.

Emily saw the truth of that censure in Jamie’s anxious air and her strained eyes stung, forcing her to blink rapidly. She compressed her lips on all the words that wanted to spill out of her but which Duarte did not want to hear. And could she really blame him? She was making excuses again. Right at that moment, Duarte’s sole interest was in his son. She was just an adjunct, along for the ride because Jamie needed her. However, it was painfully obvious to Emily that Duarte was barely tolerating her presence.