Contract Baby

Somewhat disconcerted by that interruption, Polly breathed, ‘Yes...er, well, he was another student—’

‘I don’t need to know that either... what I want to know is how you felt,’ Raul stressed.

‘How I...felt,’ Polly echoed. ‘Silly and dizzy, and then gutted about covers it. The minute I got to know what he was really like, I couldn’t understand what I’d seen in him.’

‘You fell out of love again that fast... what did he do?’ Raul enquired darkly, raising himself up to stare down at her.

‘He hustled me into a bedroom one lunchtime and told me it was my lucky day.’

She now had Raul’s interest. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘When I said no, he got abusive. He thought I’d be a push-over.’

‘Major misjudgement,’ Raul framed, a slight shake in his dark, deep voice. ‘How old was this guy?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘All teenage boys think about is scoring.’

‘You weren’t much older when you and Melina... I mean—’ Biting back the remainder of that impulsive remark, Polly coloured at the sudden narrowing of the shrewd dark eyes above hers. ‘Well, she mentioned you’d once been an item.’

‘Did she really?’ His black spiky lashes screened his gaze, his wide, sensual mouth hardening on that information.

Polly lowered her eyes, more disturbed by that silence than she would have been by any explanation. Why was it that the unknown was always so much more threatening?

‘We’ll fly home on Friday morning,’ Raul informed her.

‘But the fiesta...’ Polly groaned, torn between relief and anxiety. ‘There must be loads of arrangements to make, and I haven’t even made a start—’

‘After all these years of practice, the staff could stage it on their own.’ Rolling over onto his back, Raul reached for her again. His gleaming scrutiny raked over her pink face with unsettling efficiency. ‘Have I ever told you how extraordinarily expressive those gorgeous blue eyes are,

mi esposa?’ he asked huskily. ‘Do you know they close every time I kiss you?’

Polly studied him with the focused intensity of a woman in love, a kind of agony coiling tight as a spring inside her. If he betrayed her, she would die. If their marriage ended, her future would end with it. She could not bear to think of life without him. She wanted to cling like a vine, but clinging would be as much out of order as probing personal questions which might well have answers she’d be better off not hearing.

And suddenly he was kissing her again, evoking a wild hunger that clawed at her slim body, awakening all over again that frantic, feverish, elemental need that overwhelmed every restraint and blanked out every thought.

Polly woke up alone on the morning of their departure. There was nothing unusual about that. It was a challenge to keep Raul in bed after dawn. Early rising and a twohour break at midday were the norm in Venezuela. Trying not to feel sad that they were leaving the villa, she went for a shower.

As she leafed through a wardrobe that had grown mightily in size since leaving the ranch, she hugged precious memories of their stay to herself. Strolling hand in hand along the Paseo Colón boulevard in Puerta la Cruz, enjoying the cool breezes coming in off the ocean; speeding in a motor launch through the eerie mangroves in the Mochina National Park; eating crispy churros with hot chocolate for breakfast and supper on Margarita Island; driving up to Caracas to shop in the CCCT and Paseo las Mercedes malls, discovering that there was such a thing as a male who loved shopping and indeed that there were no greater worshippers of the consumer society or the art of being beautiful than the Venezuleans.

She was happy—yes, she had to admit it, she was very, very happy. Feeling good in a beautifully tailored leafgreen short skirt and top, she glanced into Luis’s room and smiled at the sight of the empty cot. Luis was probably sitting in his infant seat watching his father work and enjoying a somewhat one-sided conversation in between times.

She could already hear Raul talking as she reached the door of the room he had been using as an office.

‘...an I bored?’ Raul was saying with husky amusement. ‘On my honeymoon, Melina?’ And then, ruefully, ‘I’m thinking in English these days!’

Polly froze in her tracks. Her heart was thumping so hard it felt as if it was banging in her ears, and she had to strain to hear. The silence went on and on. She peered round the door lintel and glimpsed Raul, poised with his back to the door, wide shoulders bunching with tension below the superb cut of his lightweight cream jacket, bronzed fingers beating out a rapid soundless tattoo on the edge of the desk.

‘Of course I appreciate your loyalty, Melina,’ Raul continued in a roughened sexy undertone. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight too. No, I don’t think it should be too difficult. I’m not on a leash yet.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘YOU still look rough. You should lie down,’ Raul decreed as he walked Polly up the steps into the ranch.

‘What about the fiesta... all the people coming?’ Polly mumbled sickly, edging away from him as soon as she decently could.

‘It’s been happening for over a hundred years without you, mi esposa,’ Raul responded in a teasing tone as he bent to lift her gently up into his arms and stride towards the magnificent staircase. ‘Just go to bed and stay there until you feel better. That’s the only important thing.’