Contract Baby

Polly shuddered with a rage that was out of control, a rage that had its roots in pain and violent resentment. She was shattered by the sudden ripping down of the careful barriers that had made it possible for them to skim along the surface of their complex relationship. Without those barriers, and shorn by Raul of all face-saving defences, she was flailing wildly.

A look of positive loathing written in her furious eyes, she snapped, ‘Then you’ll have no problem understanding that the only way you’ll ever get me to Venezuela...the only way you’ll ever achieve full custody of your child...is to marry me, Raul!’

A silence fell between them like a giant black hole, waiting to entrap the

unwary.

Raul was now formidably still, brilliant dark eyes icy with incredulity. That’s not funny, Polly. Take it back.’

‘Why? Do you want me to lie to you? Say I didn’t mean it?’ Polly demanded rawly as she tipped her head back, mahogany hair rippling back from her furiously flushed face. ‘I’m being honest with you. If I stay here in the UK, I will get on with my life and you will not interfere with that life! I am not prepared to go to Venezuela as anything other than a wife!’

Raul sent her a derisive look that said he was unimpressed. ‘You are not serious.’

Polly studied him with so much bitterness inside her she marvelled she didn’t explode like a destructive weapon. ‘I am. Let’s see how good you are at making sacrifices when you expect me to sacrifice everything! Why? Because I’m not rich and powerful like you? Or because I’m going to be the mother of your child and you have this weird idea that a decent mother has no entitlement to any life of her own?’

Raul jerked as if she had struck him, a feverish flush slowly darkening his hard cheekbones.

This time the silence that fell screamed with menace.

A tiny pulse flickered at the whitened edge of his fiercely compressed mouth. His hands had closed into fists, betraying his struggle for self-command. But, most frightening of all for Polly, for the very first time Raul stared back at her with very real hatred. Cold, hard, deadly loathing. And, in shock, Polly fell silent, mind turning blank, all the fight and anger draining from her, leaving only fear in their place.

‘I’ll take you back to the clinic,’ Raul drawled with raw finality. ‘There is no point in allowing this offensive dialogue to continue.’

CHAPTER FOUR

TWO days later, Polly was still recovering from the effects of that catastrophic lunch out.

But her mind was briefly removed from her own problems when she picked up a magazine dated from the previous month and learnt that her childhood friend, Maxie Kendall, had got married, indeed had already been mamed for several weeks. Maxie and her husband, Angelos Petronides, had kept their marriage a secret until they were ready to make a public announcement. Polly read the article and scrutinised the photos with great interest, and a pleased smile on Maxie’s behalf.

She had last met Maxie at the reading of Nancy Leeward’s will. Her godmother had actually had three goddaughters, Polly and Maxie and Darcy. Although the girls had been close friends well into their teens, their adult lives had taken them in very different directions.

Maxie had become a famous model, with a tangled love life in London. Darcy had been a single parent, who rarely left her home in Cornwall. Polly had tried to keep in touch with both women but regular contact had gradually lapsed, not least because Darcy and Maxie were no longer friends.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ one of the nurses groaned in admiration, looking over her shoulder at the main picture of Maxie on the catwalk. ‘I would give my eye teeth to look like that!’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Polly’s smile of amused agreement slid away as she found herself reflecting that Maxie closely resembled what appeared to be Raul’s ideal of a sexually attractive woman. Tall, blonde and stunning. And here she was, a five-foot-one-inch-tall, slightly built brunette, who had never looked glamorous in her life.

She grimaced, still angry and bitter about the options Raul had laid before her with a cruel air of understanding generosity. If she lived until she was ninety she would not forget her crushing sense of humiliation when Raul had dragged her attraction to him out into the open and squashed her already battered pride.

In Vermont, Raul had evidently seen her susceptibility and quite deliberately steered clear of encouraging her. That awareness now made her feel about a foot high. She had honestly believed that she hadn’t betrayed herself, had fondly imagined that she had managed to match his cool and casual manner. She had deliberately avoided every temptation to do otherwise, biting her tongue many, many times in his presence.

She had always left it to him to say when or if he was coming again, had never once complained when he didn’t show up, had never attempted to pry into his private life. And, boy, had she been wasting her time in trying to play it cool, she thought now in severe mortification. Raul had been ahead of her. ‘Sexual hunger’, he had called it! How gallant of him to pretend that he had been tempted too, because she didn’t believe that—indeed, not for one second could she believe that!

And now she blamed Raul even more bitterly for her own painful misconceptions during that time. Why hadn’t he mentioned the existence of other women in his life? Even the most casual reference to another relationship would have put her on her guard. But, no, Raul had been content to allow her to imagine whatever she liked. That had been safer than an honesty that might have made her question his true motive for seeking out her company.

So Raul needn’t think that she was going to apologise for telling him that a wedding ring was the only thing likely to persuade her to move to Venezuela. It had been the honest truth. She hadn’t expected him to like that truth, or even pause for a second to consider marriage as a possible option to their problem, but she had wanted to shock him just as he had shocked her, she conceded uncomfortably.

Yet the raw hostility and dislike she had aroused had not been a welcome result. In fact, his reaction had terrified her, and in retrospect even that annoyed her and filled her with shame. She had to learn to deal with Raul on an impersonal basis.

Raul arrived that evening while she was lying on the sofa watching the film Pretty Woman. He strode in at the bit where the heroine was fanning out a selection of condoms for the hero’s benefit. Shooting the screen a darkling glance, he said with icy derision, ‘I’ve never understood how a whore could figure as a romantic lead!’

Polly almost fell on the coffee table in her eagerness to grab up the remote control and switch the television off. Hot-cheeked, she looked at him then. He had never seemed more remote: fabulous bone structure taut, lean features cool, his dark and formal business suit somehow increasing his aspect of chilling detachment.

Eyes as black and wintry as a stormy night assailed hers. ‘I’ve applied for a special licence. We’ll get married here in forty-eight hours.’

In the act of lifting herself from the sofa, Polly’s arms lost their strength and crumpled at the elbows. She toppled back onto the sofa again, a look of complete astonishment fixed to her startled face. ‘Say that again—’

‘You have made it clear that you will not accept any other option,’ Raul drawled flatly.