Rafael's Love-Child

They were coming from the man on the opposite side of the room. The man whose powerful frame filled the doorway in which he stood, strong back ramrod-straight, broad shoulders squared.

He was tall, dark, definitely imposing—frighteningly so.

Frighteningly? The word brought Serena up sharp. She was sure she had never seen this man in her life before, so where had that description come from? She couldn’t say, only knew that it seemed disturbingly appropriate.

‘Do you?’ he insisted now, the intriguing accent that she had caught so briefly a moment before deepening with the emphasis of his tone. ‘Can you tell me how you came to be here?’

That was much more difficult. If she hunted in her mind for the answer to his question, all she found was confusion, tangled, clouded thoughts and vague memories. There were muddled impressions of noise and panic, a sickening crash and someone screaming in fear.

Was that someone herself?

‘I—I presume there must have been some sort of accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’

For all that he hadn’t moved from his position at the door, the way that the man spoke made Serena feel as if he had actually stepped further into the room, coming dangerously close to her and seeming to pin her against the wall.

‘I—I don’t know!’ For the first time she faced him head-on, turning defiant brown eyes on his dark face. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

Who was he? Another doctor? He wasn’t wearing the regulation white coat that revealed the occupation of the woman who still sat at her bedside. Instead, his lean frame was encased in the sort of dark suit whose exquisite fabric and perfect tailoring screamed the sort of perfection only a great deal of money could buy.

But perhaps he was of some higher rank than the friendly woman—a surgeon, or a consultant. Wasn’t it the case that they didn’t wear white coats, just as they were addressed as ‘Mr’ and not ‘Doctor’?

Whoever he was, he was stunning, impossibly handsome. Looking at him was like looking into the brightness of the sun, the effect on every one of her senses was so devastating.

That impressive height was combined with jet-black hair, sleek and heavy, brushed back from his face in a way that emphasised his superbly carved cheekbones. Dazedly Serena became aware of a straight, jutting nose, determined chin and surprisingly sensual mouth, but it was the eyes that she noticed most. Fringed by impossibly thick, luxuriantly black lashes, they were deep gold, almost the colour of flame and blazing just as brightly.

And the rich tan that bronzed this man’s skin was not the result of some two-week Mediterranean holiday. Instead it was obviously his natural colouring, the year-round tone that came from an ancestry that was definitely not English.

Unconsciously, Serena shifted slightly in the bed, feeling suddenly too warm, too restless to stay still. There was a new, pagan wildness in her blood, one that drove her heart faster, pushing hot colour into her cheeks, making her sharply aware of the fact that under the bedclothes she was only wearing a short, regulation hospital nightdress.

And the truly disturbing thing was that she could see her own feelings reflected in this man’s eyes, in the black, enlarged pupils, the intensity of his gaze, even though his expression never altered but stayed as coolly assessing as before. The contrast between that apparently calm control and the blaze of something very different and very primitive in his gaze dried her mouth and throat so that she had to swallow hard to relieve them.

‘What makes you think I can tell you anything?’ he flung at her now, his accent deepening on the words in a way that confirmed her suspicions about his ancestry.

‘Mr Cordoba…’ the doctor put in quietly, warningly, but both Serena and her inquisitor ignored the interjection, their attention focused solely on each other.

‘Well, I presume I’m supposed to know you.’

‘Not at all!’

An arrogant little flick of his long-fingered hand dismissed her comment as nonsense.

‘On the contrary, you have never seen me before in your life.’

Well, that was a relief. She was sure that if she had come up against this man at any time in her past she would remember him—with bells on! She didn’t know how she had come to be here, in this hospital, had no idea what had happened to her, but she definitely felt easier knowing that this—what had the doctor called him?—this Mr Cordoba had played no part in her life before.

‘Then who are you?’

‘My name is Rafael Cordoba.’

Clearly he expected that that would mean something to her. Serena could only wish that it did. Right now she would be grateful for anything that would explain this Rafael Cordoba’s presence in her room. Anything to get him off her back, stop this unnerving string of questions.

No, if she was honest, what she really wanted was to be free of this restless, unsettled feeling that he created in her. Never before had she felt so intensely physically aware of anyone, and the decidedly carnal nature of the thoughts he sparked off in her brain was making it so very difficult to concentrate on anything else.

‘And you…?’ Serena turned to the woman at her bedside, a friendly, sympathetic face in the middle of this confusion and uncertainty.

‘I’m Dr Greene.’ To her relief the other woman stepped into the breach, answering the mute appeal of her patient’s deep brown eyes. ‘Do you feel up to answering some questions?’

‘I’ll try.’

It was a struggle to ignore Cordoba. Even though she forced herself to concentrate on the doctor, she could still see him out of the corner of her eye. His presence in the doorway was like a bruise at the back of her mind, dark and ominous.

‘Your name is Serena Martin?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you are how old?’

‘Twenty-three.’

Slowly Serena started to relax. This was easier. Dr Greene’s quiet questions posed no problems, carried no threats. And the confusion in her thoughts that had so disturbed her at first was gradually starting to clear. She couldn’t have suffered any real ill-effects if her answers came as quickly and easily as this.

‘Can you tell me your address?’

‘Thirty-five Alban Road, Ryeton… What is it?’ Serena questioned sharply as the pen which had been writing busily suddenly stopped and the doctor turned surprised eyes on her face.

‘Ryeton in Yorkshire?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what are you doing in London?’

It was that voice again. The one with the accent that lifted all the little hairs at the back of her neck, sent shivers skittering down her spine. She should have known that Cordoba couldn’t bring himself to stay quiet for long.

‘L-London? I—is that where we are?’

‘Where this hospital is,’ he put in curtly, ignoring the reproving glance Dr Greene turned in his direction. ‘Where you are, where the accident took place, where—’

‘That’s enough, Mr Cordoba!’

But Rafael Cordoba was clearly not at all concerned by the doctor’s intervention, his dark head coming up arrogantly, golden eyes flashing rejection of her reproof as he took a couple of swift, forceful strides into the room.

‘So what were you doing here, if you live in—?’

‘I don’t know!’ Serena had reached the end of her tether. Her head was aching and she felt exhausted, wrung out, as if she had just run a marathon. Frantically she shook her head, tears of weakness filling her eyes, blurring the sight of his darkly intent face. ‘Perhaps I’m on holiday. Perhaps…’

‘I said enough!’ Dr Greene was clearly not in any way over-awed or cowed. But then she continued on a softer, more conciliatory note, one that revealed she was far from under-impressed by this man’s forceful presence, ‘I have my patient to think of. Miss Martin is easily tired. She has been through something of an ordeal, the sort of thing that would set anyone back, let alone someone who was already rather rundown. She needs rest, and I must insist that she gets it.’