Contract Baby

In the blink of an eye Raul had gone from that chilling threat to an unashamed display of tenderness with their son, Polly registered. That was the most intimidating thing to watch—the speed and ease with which he could switch emotional channels. Although there had been nothing emotional about his determination to tell her how he felt about her flight from the clinic. Cool, scornful, cutting.

‘I’ll get his bottle,’ Polly muttered.

She skidded down to the bedroom to pull on a fluttering silk wrap first. When she returned to the dimly lit bedroom, Raul rose from the armchair to let her take a seat. He settled Luis into her arms and then hunkered lithely down to watch his son greedily satisfy his hunger.

‘Dios mío! No wonder he’s grown so much!’

Polly cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘I want you to know that I would never use Luis as a weapon—’

‘You already have,’ Raul told her without hesitation, smoothing an astonishingly gentle hand over Luis’s little head before vaulting upright again. ‘In disputes between couples, the child is often a weapon. You should understand that as well as I do. When your parents’ marriage broke up, your father kept you and your mother apart. Why? He was punishing her for leaving him for another man.’

Polly was astonished that he should still recall that much information about her background. ‘I suppose he was,’ she conceded as she got up to change Luis.

‘Love turns to hatred so easily. It never lasts,’ Raul murmured with supreme cynicism.

‘It lasts for a lot of people,’ Polly argued abstractedly, down on her knees and busily engaged in dealing with her son’s needs. But she gathered courage from not being forced to meet Raul’s often unsettling gaze. ‘You know what I said on the phone earlier... about us not having to stay married?’

Having expected an immediate response to that reminder, Polly looked up in the resounding silence which followed.

Raul was staring back at her with penetrating and grim eyes. ‘I do.’

‘Look, why don’t you wait in the lounge while I settle Luis?’ Polly suggested uncomfortably.

A few minutes later, Luis was back in the cradle, snug and comfy and sleepy.

‘I love you, you precious baby,’ Polly whispered feelingly, not looking forward to the discussion she was about to open but convinced that Raul would be extremely relieved when she suggested that they have their marriage annulled.

As she entered the lounge, Raul swung round from the fireplace. ‘I don’t like this room. It’s claustrophobic with that conservatory built over the windows,’ he said with flat distaste. ‘It’s insane to close out such magnificent views!’

‘Maxie’s terrified of heights. That’s why it’s like that...’ Polly hovered awkwardly. ‘Raul—?’

‘I’m not giving you a divorce,’ Raul delivered before she could say another word.

Was he thinking angrily about the prospect of having to offer a divorce settlement? Did he imagine she was planning to make some greedy, gold-digging claim on his legendary wealth?

Polly reddened with annoyance at that suspicion. ‘We don’t need to go for a divorce. We can apply for an annulment and everything will be put right. It will be like this wretched marriage of ours never happened.’

Raul had gone very still, dark eyes narrowing into watchful and wary arrows of light in his dark, devastating face. ‘An annulment?’ he breathed, very low, that possibility evidently not having occurred to him.

‘Well, why not?’ Polly asked him tautly. ‘It’s the easiest way out.’

‘Let me get this straight...’ Raul spread two lean brown hands with silent fluency to express apparent astonishment ‘Just one short month ago you married me, and now, without living a single day with me, you have changed your mind?’

‘You’re making me sound really weird,’ Polly muttered in reproach. ‘I was wrong to let you marry me, knowing that you didn’t want that option. Now I’m admitting it—’

‘But too late...you’re admitting it too late,’ Raul declared.

‘But it’s not too late...’ Polly’s brow furrowed with confusion, because the discussion was not going in the direction she had expected. ‘It’s not as if we’ve lived together... or anything like that. Why are you looking at me like I’m crazy? You don’t want to be married to me.’

As he listened to that stumbling reminder, dark colour flared over Raul’s slashing cheekbones and his stunning dark eyes suddenly blazed gold. ‘But I have come to terms with the fact that I am married to you!’

‘I think we both deserve a bit more than that out of marriage,’ Polly opined in growing discomfiture. ‘We rushed into it—’

‘I didn’t rush,’ Raul interrupted. ‘I just wanted to get it over with!’

‘Yes, well...doesn’t it strike you that that isn’t a promising basis for any marriage?’ Polly framed carefully, alarmingly awake to the angry tension emanating from his tall, commanding figure. ‘I thought you’d be pleased at the idea of having your freedom back.’

‘Freedom is a state of mind. I now see no reason why marriage should make the slightest difference to my life,’ Raul returned with grating assurance.