The Alvares Bride

“Doctor.” She sat up, her eyes bright with anticipation. “I want to see my daughter.”

“Yes,” he said, and grinned, “so they tell me. Just give me five minutes to check you over, and I’ll tell them to bring her to you.”

“Five minutes,” Carin said, and smiled back at him, “not a second more.”

“You have my word. Okay, let’s take a look. Lie back a little…That’s the girl. You’re coming along just fine, Carin. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Good. I’m sure you know that when you leave here, you’ll need time to recover.”

“I’ll take a couple of weeks off.”

“Well, you’ll want more than a couple of weeks. You’ll be tired, for a while. You’ll need somebody to relieve you with the baby, give you the chance to rest.”

“I’m strong as an ox, Doctor. I’ll be on my feet in no time.”

“Yeah, you will, but if you push things, you’re liable to regret it. And you won’t want to have that happen, for the baby’s sake. Now, let’s just check that belly…”

“I’ll work something out,” she said, as the doctor gently poked and prodded. “Tell me about my baby. My sister says she’s fine. Is she?”

“Better than fine. Got the best pair of lungs in the nursery, all the requisite fingers and toes. A regular little beauty. Does it hurt when I press here?”

“No.” Carin winced. “Well, just a little.”

“That’s okay. You’re doing great.” The doctor straightened up and smiled at her as he tucked his stethoscope back into his pocket. “Remember how panicked you were when you first came to see me, and how I said everything would work out? And it has. You’ve learned that your family is thrilled about your baby, and that her father wants to be part of her life and yours. I think that’s all pretty remarkable.”

“Yes, I suppose it…” Carin froze. “What?”

“I said, I think it’s remark—”

“You must be confusing me with another patient. My baby’s father didn’t know about my pregnancy. He doesn’t know about my daughter. And he never will.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Well, of course, that’s all up to you. Meanwhile, suppose I tell the nurse to arrange for a visit with your little girl?”

“That would be wonderful.”

“Fine.” The doctor took her hand. “One last thing…”

“Yes?”

“Things change, Carin. It’s possible to be sure you’re on the right path in life and then, all of a sudden, you discover you were meant to take another.”

“I’ve already learned that,” she said softly.

“Yes, well, sometimes we learn the same lesson in more than one—ah.” He swung towards the door as it opened. “Here’s your baby now.”

Carin sat up. The doctor patted her shoulder again, then made his way to the door. His bulky figure blocked her view and she shifted on the bed, trying for her first glimpse of her child.

“My little girl,” she said softly.

“And mine,” a voice said coldly. “At least, that’s the story I’ve been told.”

Her eyes flew from her daughter to the face of the man holding the child in his arms.

It was Raphael Alvares.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE WAS here.

The dream had been real. Rafe had come for her…

But he hadn’t. Another look at his face, and Carin knew that. He wasn’t here for her. She couldn’t think of a reason he would be…unless one of her stepbrothers had done something incredibly stupid.

“Querida,” he said.

The tone of his voice, the little half smile on his lips, turned the endearment into a mockery.

“Rafe.” She cleared her throat. Fear danced along her spine but that was silly. What was there to be afraid of? Slade, or another of the Barons, had sent for him. All she had to do was tell him they’d been wrong to do that…

“You seem surprised to see me, Carin.”

“Yes. I—I am. What—what are you doing here?”

He gave her a twisted smile and walked towards the bed. “Why, querida, I am here to see you, of course.” He glanced at the sleeping infant in his arms. “And to see your daughter.”

Carin’s gaze flew to the baby, then to him. “What are you doing with my baby?”

“Don’t you mean, what am I doing with our baby? That seems to be the consensus, querida, that this child is mine.” His lips curved in another tight smile. “One of the nurses thought a father should become acquainted with his offspring. I decided to indulge her in her little fantasy.”

Carin’s color heightened. “Give me my daughter.”

“Certainly,” he said politely. “But first, perhaps, you’d be good enough to tell me why you’ve claimed I am her father?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice sharpened. “Give her to me, Rafe.”

He did as she’d asked. She cradled the tiny bundle against her breasts, crooned to the child and pressed a kiss to the dark hair. He watched, dispassionately, as she carefully undid the pink blanket, touched each little toe, then each finger with what surely seemed to be solemnity. Tears glistened on her lashes, then trickled down her cheeks.

“My little girl,” she said softly, and kissed the baby again.

Madonna and child, Rafe thought coldly, watching as she gently wrapped the child in the blanket, but a Madonna didn’t have sex with a stranger, or deny a man the right to know he’d fathered a child—if he had fathered it.

He could accept that some women might treat sex with all the casualness of a man. The world had changed, especially in North America. Apparently, Carin Brewster was one of the new breed of female. She could tumble into bed with a stranger, enjoy the pleasure he brought her and think no more of it than if she’d shared a cup of coffee with him instead of her body.

Rafe reached for a chair, turned it around, straddled it and folded his arms along its top.

What he couldn’t comprehend was why her licentiousness should bother him, or why she had decided to name him as her daughter’s father.

The baby uttered a soft cry. “Hush, sweetheart,” Carin murmured, and pressed another kiss to the silky curls.

If—if—this child were his, he would be troubled to think of a woman with such lax morals raising it. Of course, to watch her, a man would think she had all the right maternal instincts.

Rafe’s mouth thinned. Was this all a performance for his benefit?

He was wealthy. Other women found that fascinating. Why wouldn’t this one? She had a rich stepfather but obviously the old man didn’t support her or she wouldn’t have to work. She was an investment advisor, he’d learned from her sister.

“She works long, hard hours,” Amanda had told him.

A child—his child, if he were foolish enough to take her word for it—could change all that.

But if that were her plan, why had she kept her pregnancy a secret?

The answer might be that she knew he’d have laughed in her face if she’d tried to trap him into a declaration of fatherhood, but fate had played into her hands. A man might be easier to convince if the woman claiming to bear his child was at the point of death.

Deus, he was exhausted, weary from two days of caffeine, anger and confusion. He’d caught only moments of sleep in the hospital waiting room. Mostly, he’d marched up and down the corridors. A hundred times, perhaps more, he’d told himself to turn around, walk out the door and never look back.

What was he doing here? he’d kept asking himself. Why had he responded to that frantic phone call from Amanda, telling him that her sister was in childbirth?

“Senhora,” he’d said, his voice frigid, “this is not of interest to me. Tell it to her lover. To the man who put the child inside her.”

“You are that man, senhor.”

“That is…” Impossible, he’d started to say, but it wasn’t. He hadn’t used a condom; he hadn’t asked Carin if she had her own protection. Everything

had happened so quickly, the shocking need to possess her, the swift rush of desire that had driven logic aside…

“My sister refused to tell us who’d made her pregnant,” Amanda had said, her voice breaking.

“And now,” he’d answered, while he’d tried to process the information, “now, suddenly and conveniently, she has decided to share her secret?”

Amanda had started to cry. Rafe had told himself the sobs of Carin’s sister meant nothing but the sound had torn at him until, finally, he’d closed his eyes and taken a deep breath.

“Tell me,” he’d said sharply.

She told him everything, that Carin had spent long hours in labor and that, at the end, something had gone wrong.

“She’s hemorrhaging,” she’d whispered. “And—and, I don’t know, maybe she knows she might not—might not make it, because when they let me see her, she was only half conscious…but she clutched my hand and called for you.”

Rafe stirred uneasily in his chair.

That was when he’d dropped the phone and set out on a journey that he’d known might well change his life. If the child coming into the world were his, what else could he do? He was going to Carin because of the child. Only the child. It had nothing to do with her.

Could a man who had never known his own father do less?

He’d made his plans during the long flight to New York. He would ask for tests to prove his paternity: he was not a fool. But if the child were his…