Contract Baby

‘You look terrible,’ Raul informed her tautly. ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight and you were very slim to begin with—’

‘Nobody could ever accuse me of that now.’

‘Your ankles are swollen.’

Polly rested her pounding head back wearily, beyond caring about what she must look like to him now. It scarcely mattered. She had been ten times more presentable in Vermont and he had not been remotely attracted to her, although she had only recognised that humiliating reality in retrospect. ‘You’re not getting my baby,’ she warned him doggedly. ‘Not under any circumstances.’

‘Calm yourself,’ Raul commanded deflatingly. ‘Anxiety won’t improve your health.’

‘It always comes first, right?’ Polly could not resist sniping.

‘Desde luego...of course,’ Raul confirmed without hesitation.

She winced as another dull flash of pain made her very brain ache. She heard him open a compartment, the hiss of a bottle cap released, liquid tinkling into a glass, and finally another unrecognisable sound. And then she jerked in astonishment when an ice-cold cloth was pressed against her pulsing brow.

‘I will take care of you now. Did I not do so before? And look at you now, like a living corpse...’ Raul condemned, his dark drawl alive with fierce undertones as he bent over her. ‘I wanted to shout at you. I wanted to make you tremble. But how can I do that when you are like this?’

Her curling lashes lifted. Defenceless in pain, she stared up into frustrated and furious golden eyes so nakedly at variance with the compassionate gesture of that cool, soothing cloth he had drenched for her benefit. Being kind to her was killing him. She understood that. Suffering that grudging kindness was killing her.

‘You taught me to hate,’ she whispered, with a sudden ferocity alien to her gentle nature until that moment.

The stunning eyes veiled to a slumberous gleam. ‘There is nothing between us but my baby. No other connection, nada más...nothing more,’ he stressed with gritty exactitude. ‘Only when you can detach yourself from your emotional mindset and recall that contract will we talk.’

Hatred flamed like a shooting star through Polly. She needed it. She needed hatred to race like adrenalin through her veins. Only hatred could swallow up and ease the agonizing pain Raul could inflict.

‘You bastard,’ Polly muttered shakily. ‘You lying, cheating, devious bastard...’

At that precise moment the limo came to a smooth halt. As the chauffeur climbed out, Polly gaped at the well-lit modern building with its beautifully landscaped frontage outside which the car had drawn up. ‘Where are we?’ she demanded apprehensively.

A uniformed nurse emerged from the entrance with a wheelchair.

In silence Raul swung out of the limo and strode round the bonnet to wave away the hovering chauffeur. He opened the door beside her himself.

‘You need medical attention,’ he delivered.

Her shaken eyes widened, filling with instantaneous fear. Not for nothing had she visited the library to learn all she could from newspapers about Raul Zaforteza’s ruthless reputation. ‘You’re not banging me up in some lunatic asylum!’ she flung in complete panic.

‘Curb your wild imagination, chica. I would do nothing to harm the mother of my child. And don’t you dare try to cause a scene when my only concern is for your well-being! ’ Raul warned with ferocious bite as he leant in and scooped her still resisting body out of the luxurious car as if she weighed no more than a feather.

‘The wheelchair, sir,’ the nurse proffered.

‘She weighs nothing. I’ll carry her.’ Raul strode through the automatic doors, clutching her with the tense concern of someone handling a particular fragile parcel. The mother of his child. Cue for reverent restraint, she reflected bitterly. Restraint and concern that the human incubator should be proving less than efficient. But, weak an

d sick from pain, even her vision blurring, she rested her head down against a broad shoulder.

‘Hate you,’ she muttered nonetheless, and would have told him that with her last dying breath because it was her only defence.

‘You’re not tough enough to hate,’ Raul dismissed as a grey-haired older man in a white coat moved towards them.

Raul addressed him in a flood of Spanish. Scanning her with frowning eyes, the doctor led the way into a plush consulting room on the ground floor.

‘Why does nobody speak English? We’re in London,’ Polly moaned.

‘I’m sorry. Rodney Bevan is a consultant who worked for many years in a clinic of mine in Venezuela. I can talk faster in my own language.’ Raul laid her down carefully on a comfortable treatment couch.

‘Go away now,’ Polly urged him feverishly.

Raul stayed put. The consultant said something quiet in Spanish. Raul’s blunt cheekbones were accentuated by a faint line of dark colour. He swung on his heel and strode out to the waiting area, closing the door behind him.