Rafael's Love-Child

And that was obviously not what he wanted to hear, Serena thought hazily as she saw the flare of anger in those amazing eyes, the temper that fought against the strict control he imposed on it so that the beautiful mouth clamped into an uncompromisingly hard line.

In that moment it was as if she had known him for ever, so recognisable were the danger signs in his face. Whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t accustomed to being opposed by someone he obviously considered his inferior. His breath hissed in through his teeth as he prepared to speak.

But then, just as she had nerved herself for the explosion that she felt sure was about to break over the doctor’s unsuspecting head, he clearly reconsidered his position. That forceful jaw snapped shut on the angry words he had been about to utter, closing with such force that Serena actually heard the click of his teeth as they came together.

‘As you wish!’ he declared icily.

Satisfied that he was going to keep silent, at least for the moment, Dr Greene turned back to Serena.

‘Is there anyone we can contact for you? Your parents? Some other next of kin?’

‘No.’ Despondently she shook her head. ‘My parents are no longer alive. My mother died of cancer last year and my father had a fatal heart attack eighteen months before that. There’s no one.’

Once more she had to struggle against the sting of tears, blinking furiously to hold them back as the doctor leaned forward and placed a reassuring hand on hers.

‘You really must not get upset. You need to rest and take things quietly, recuperate…’

‘But how can I rest until I know what happened?’ Serena’s voice quavered weakly on the words. How could anyone expect her to relax until she had been told exactly how she had come to be here, in this hospital, and just what had happened before that?

Because she could remember nothing of what must have been an accident that had so knocked her for six that she hadn’t even been aware of having been brought to the hospital and put in this bed. And if she was in London…

‘Please!’ Reaching out, she caught hold of the doctor’s hand, clinging onto it as if it was her only lifeline, the one weak link with sanity in a world that suddenly seemed to have gone completely mad. ‘You must tell me! How did I come to be here?’

‘You had an accident.’ Dr Greene spoke with obvious reluctance. ‘You were in a car crash and you had a rather nasty bang on the head. You’ve been completely out of it for a while.’

‘A while? How long is a while?’

‘It’s almost ten days now. You were deeply unconscious at first, but just lately you’ve been drifting in and out.’

‘I have?’

Frowning hard, Serena forced herself to concentrate. If she really tried, it was just possible to recall vague moments that she had thought she had dreamed. Moments of seeming to struggle to the surface of some clouded, murky pond, reaching frantically for footholds or something to cling on to.

Then, just for a few tiny, brief seconds, she had been able to open her eyes and look around, barely managing to focus before the heavy, sticky darkness had descended once more and folded around her, cutting her off again.

‘There was someone…’

Someone had been sitting by the bed, watching and waiting for her to wake. Someone who had heard the unhappy, troubled sounds she had made as she stirred restively, struggling against the nightmares that enclosed her. Someone who had smoothed the tangled copper hair back from her hot forehead with a cool, soothing hand.

And, later, someone who had poured her water and held her as she struggled to drink, gently dissuading her from gulping as she strained to ease her parched and aching throat.

‘Someone was here…’

‘A nurse. You’ve been under strict observation.’

‘No…’

It hadn’t been a nurse. She had no idea how she knew that, but it was the one point on which she was absolutely positive. The good Samaritan, the soft voiced helper who had tended to her in the darkness of the night, at her lowest moments, had not had the coolly professional approach, the detached, impersonal restraint of a trained carer. And the voice she had heard…

The voice!

Wide and rounded with shock, her brown eyes flew to Rafael Cordoba’s face, clashing harshly with the stony golden gaze he turned on her. The beautifully carved features could have been sculpted from bronze marble, showing no response at all as he deliberately blanked out her questioning glance, stonewalling, giving away nothing at all.

‘You have had the best care that money could buy, Miss Martin,’ he said coolly, as if that was the unspoken question she had asked him.

But she didn’t really need to ask anything. She knew what she had heard, and she had heard that accent soothing her, comforting her in the darkness of the night. So why had he now turned from ministering angel into Spanish Inquisitor?

‘But…’ she began, then wearily shook her aching head. ‘I need to know…’

Her voice seemed beyond her control, fading weakly into a sigh she could not suppress.

‘You’re tired,’ Dr Greene put in gently. ‘You must be careful not to overdo things at this early stage. You know as much as you can cope with right now. You need to rest.’

Wearily Serena nodded. She was tired. Her thoughts were sliding out of focus, that fuddled, heavy feeling like cotton wool back inside her head. Lacking the strength to stay upright, she sank back against her pillows, heavy eyelids drooping.

‘I’ll be back to talk to you again soon. Everything will be all right.’

‘Everything!’ It was a harsh exclamation, slashing into the silence that had descended as Rafael moved suddenly, one hand coming up in a violent gesture. ‘Everything! Madre de Dios, what about—?’

‘Mr Cordoba!’ There was real annoyance in the doctor’s voice now. ‘I said enough! I want you to go now—to leave Miss Martin alone.’

He was tempted to rebel against her instructions, it was obvious. Once more that dangerous anger flared in his eyes, in the darkly searing glance he flung at the doctor and then, unnervingly, at Serena herself. But a couple of seconds later he drew himself up again, that strong jaw setting determinedly.

‘Very well,’ he said, each word cold and clipped and icily precise, heightening his accent strongly. ‘I’ll go. But…’

The turn of his head, the direction of his eyes, made it plain that the next thing he said was for Serena alone.

‘I’ll be back,’ he said, low and hard, and deadly. ‘I promise you that. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

They were only words, Serena tried to tell herself as she shrank back in the bed, pulling the covers up close around her. Only words. Almost the same ones that the doctor had used just a few moments before.

But she had seen Rafael Cordoba’s eyes as he spoke, seen the dangerous gleam in them, the burn of something that made her shiver inwardly, and as a result his promise to return had had precisely the opposite effect to the reassurance that Dr Greene had given her.

He would be back; she could have no doubt about that. And the honest truth was that the prospect of coming face to face with him again was one that made her shudder in fearful apprehension.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’VE brought someone to see you.’

‘What?’

Serena glanced up from the magazine she had been staring at listlessly, not taking in a single word, her eyes going to where the man who had spoken stood in the doorway.

Rafael Cordoba, of course. Who else would it be?

It was five days now since the disturbing, confusing moment when she had woken from unconsciousness to find herself here in this hospital and on the receiving end of Rafael’s forceful questioning. ‘I’ll be back,’ he had promised, and he had kept firmly to that promise. The very next morning he had appeared at her bedside, and every day since.

But it was obvious that Dr Greene or someone in a position of even higher authority had had a word or two with him before he had been let into the ward. The hard, aggressive tone had been muted, the curt, sharp questions silenced, temporarily at least, and even the powerful sexual awareness she had sensed in him had been ruthlessly reined in.