Raul's Revenge

Penny thought she heard him mumble and waited, but still Raul remained silent, his dark face expressionless, so she continued, 'But that is all that is on offer, or ever likely to be...'

As a departure line, Penny thought it was rather good, and, spinning on her heel, she walked out of the room.

Lifting James up in her arms, she turned him around. 'Hello, my love, did you have a nice nap?'

'Nap, nap, nap,' James gurgled with delight.

'Not nap but nappy, I think!' Penny said ruefully, her hand on his bottom decidedly damp.

It was a simple matter to lie the little boy on the baby changer and strip off his old nappy, but not so simple to get the new one on. James loved the freedom of being half-naked. His chubby arms and legs waving around in the air, his little hand caught strands of Penny's long hair and pulled while his big brown eyes laughed happily up at her. 'Mamma, Mamma.'

'Yes, Mamma is here and always will be, I promise.' And, deftly fastening a new nappy around his dimpled bottom, she picked him up and cuddled him to her bosom. 'No strange lady—' she nuzzled his neck until he screeched with laughter '—or man is ever going to take you away from me ever again.'

'Was that for my benefit?’

Penny stopped and turned sideways; Raul was standing in the door watching them. 'No, but if the cap fits...' She trailed off.

Raul was not listening. He was gazing in rapt fasci­nation at the child she held in her arms. She glanced down at James and, oddly, he was staring equally in­tently at the man. Her glance slid from one to the other; they were so alike it was uncanny.

'It’s James, isn't it? I heard it on the television.' Raul's deep husky voice shook as he walked towards them.

They were the saddest words Penny had ever heard Raul utter. How appalling to have to discover your child's name from the television, and suddenly she was smitten with guilt.

'May I...? Will he let me hold him?'

His hesitant request added to the weight of her guilt. She looked up at him and saw a different Raul, stripped of all arrogance. The pleading humility in his dark gaze shocked her to her soul.

Had she done right in depriving him of all knowledge of his child? Or had she done it simply out of pride— if he did not want to marry her for herself, then she was damned if she would marry because she was pregnant? And now today she was doing the same thing again. The thought disturbed Penny more than she wanted to admit.

She forced a smile to her lips and lifted James high in the air. 'Yes, of course you can hold him,' she de­clared, not looking directly at Raul. 'And as for James minding you have nothing to worry about. He's such a friendly little chap he will go with anyone. Unfortun­ately,' she said with dry irony, recalling how easily he had toddled off with the strange woman.

Raul chuckled and, reaching out his hands, gently took James from Penny's arms. 'He may look like me but obviously he has inherited your naive disposition.'

'I was naive once but not any more,' Penny said quietly, not wishing to upset James but not at all happy with Raul's reminder of how easily he had fooled her years ago. But it didn't matter, because neither of the two males was listening. Raul was talking softly in Spanish to the little boy and it did not seem to matter that James did not know a word. The rapport between them was instant.

Watching father and son together brought a lump to her throat. Identical dark eyes with the exact same ex­pression, the same curly hair. She saw James reach a chubby finger to Raul's chin and smile. Penny remem­bered Raul had always been a twice-a-day man when it came to shaving, sometimes three times if they had been late going to bed and he hadn't wanted to roughen her skin when making love. A vivid image of them both in the bathroom one night—Raul shaving and then sharing her shower—flashed in her mind.

She felt the colour surge in her cheeks. 'I'll go and make tea,' she said into thin air, suddenly needing to get away.

It was bard seeing her baby take so easily to Raul, she excused herself. But deep down she knew that seeing Raul again, kissing him, had awakened all the old, familiar, sensual feelings she had thought gone for ever.

He was a very dangerous man... Penny found it no easier to resist the magnetic pull of his vibrant mascu­linity now than she had more than two years ago, and it terrified her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

'I'm sorry, Penny, I don't care what you say. I still don't trust him,' Amy said flatly.

Cuddling her mug of hot chocolate in one hand, with her elbow on the kitchen table, Penny propped up her head with the other hand. She was tired and she had had the same argument with Amy every night for the past four nights, ever since Raul had suggested taking Penny and James out for the day on Sunday.

'What harm can there be in going out with the man for one day?'

'I don't know. But I do know by your own admission that when Da Silva arrived out of the blue three weeks ago first he demanded marriage and then threatened a custody battle. Ask yourself, was that the action of a reasonable man? Don't forget I've seen the possessive way he holds James. He wants him, and that man is used to getting his own way—something you should know better than most...'

Everything Amy said was true in a way. Except now Penny did not believe that Raul had any intention of taking James away from her. Admittedly the first time he had arrived on her doorstep she had thought differ­ently. She had been shocked rigid, and frightened. But once Raul had seen the boy he had changed from a stern-faced autocrat to doting father in minutes.

A reminiscent smile curved her lips as she saw again in her mind's eye the picture of Raul and James on the living-room floor when she had walked out of the kitchen with the tea-tray. Raul had built a castle with Lego bricks and James had been in the process of knocking it down, both of them laughing. Amy had arrived home and in her usual fiery manner had told Raul to go. To Penny's amazement Raul had gone...

But even more amazingly he had called back quite late the next evening. Amy had already left to visit her boy­friend, and Penny, alone except for James, had not known what to expect—further demands for marriage or threats of custody.