Blackmail & Secrets: The Sandoval Baby / The Count's Secret Child / Playboy's Surprise Son

Rafe frowned. ‘I assume he will not. There is enough for him to get used to already.’

‘I think it would help him settle,’ Freya said firmly. ‘Give him a routine, friends—’

‘I’ll look into it, Miss Clark.’

‘Please, call me Freya. If we are to be living together—’ She stopped abruptly, felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment. ‘Sharing living space,’ she amended, and Rafe’s mouth quirked upwards. It was the first time she’d seen him smile.

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her dryly. ‘I took your meaning.’

Freya nodded stiffly, yet she could not keep a hot rush of awareness from coursing through her body and she shifted in her seat. Those innocent words had caused a reel of provocative images to flip through her mind—images of Rafe that had no business taking up space in her brain. Yes, he was a handsome, arresting, intimidating man, but she was not attracted to him. She couldn’t be. She didn’t do relationships, wasn’t looking for a man. Didn’t need or even deserve one, considering all that had happened before. And she could not afford the slightest slip when it came to caring for Max.

Rafe watched colour wash Freya’s face, turn her eyes to smoke. Her tongue darted out and moistened her lower lip, and he experienced a sudden fierce jolt of lust. It surprised him because, while he hadn’t been completely celibate since his divorce, he focused on business, not pleasure. Not desire. And yet now he felt it uncoil within him, and he could hardly credit that Freya Clark, with her neat ponytail and sensible shoes, was its source.

There was something unsettling about how still she kept herself, how those fog-coloured eyes gave nothing away. The fact that she was embarrassed by her silly slip of the tongue intrigued him, for Freya Clark seemed utterly in control of her emotions … if she had them at all. She felt passionately about staying with his son, he knew that, but it was still a careful, controlled ambition, and he knew that it was intentional—just like her expressionless face. Was it just a mask? What secrets and emotions could Freya Clark be hiding so carefully? For surely she was hiding something? Desire aside, his instinct told him not to trust her.

He capped his fountain pen and closed the folder of business documents that had been spread out on the table before him. ‘How long have you been taking care of Max?’

‘Three years.’ She spoke firmly, clearly on familiar territory. ‘Since he was three months old.’

Three years ago. That would have been less than a year after Rosalia had left him. She would have been four or five months pregnant; she would have known. And she’d never said. She had, in fact, told him the opposite. ‘I never mean to fall pregnant—ever.’ Even now the memory sent a fresh rage rushing through him. He forced himself to relax.

‘And how did you meet my ex-wife?’

‘I answered an advert in a newspaper,’ Freya replied. ‘For a nanny. Rosalia’s English wasn’t exceptional, and she wanted someone who was fluent in Spanish to converse with her, but who could also teach her son English.’ She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, the movement both delicate and graceful. ‘I fit those requirements.’

Unusual requirements, Rafe thought. There were so many things he wanted to know: what Rosalia had said of him, how she had explained his absence. What lies she had told. And more, too, more about Freya herself: why was she a nanny? Why was she fluent in Spanish? What was she hiding?

For surely those clear grey eyes held some secrets.

‘And have you been a professional nanny for very long?’ he asked. ‘Did you have a position before Max?’ He supposed he should have asked for a reference before bringing her to Spain. He’d been so overwhelmed by meeting Max, by wanting to get him back to Spain—back home—that such considerations had completely slipped his mind. Still, he trusted Freya at least to care for Max. Beyond that …

Freya hesitated, causing Rafe to refocus, swinging his gaze back on her sharply. She bit her lip, looking unsure for only a second before she answered, ‘I was a student before I cared for Max.’

‘A student?’ He’d assumed she was in her late twenties, simply based on the assured way she held herself. Despite that brief flash of uncertainty, Freya Clark had the composure and confidence of a woman, not a girl.

‘Yes, I took am MPhil in pure mathematics,’ she elaborated, although with seeming reluctance.

Rafe sat back, saying nothing. This woman had no end of surprises. She possessed an advance degree in an abstract and technical field, and yet she had been nannying for the last three years and seemed content—in fact, intent—on continuing to do so.

‘And you did not wish to pursue a position in your field of study?’

Freya lifted her shoulders in a defensive shrug. ‘No,’ she said simply, and Rafe’s gaze narrowed.

Something wasn’t right. She was hiding something; he was sure of it now. She stared at him steadily, without a flicker or tremor, refusing to give anything away. Yet there was something silently defiant about that stare, and it told Rafe that Freya Clark was not telling him everything he needed to know. Or was he simply suspicious, because he wasn’t used to taking women at face value? The two women he’d let into his heart—his mother and his wife—had both deceived him in the most devastating ways possible. Over and over again. He didn’t trust Freya, but he didn’t know if that was because of him.or her.

‘What an interesting choice of study,’ he finally said mildly. Was he imagining her relaxing, no more than the tiniest fraction of a movement, shoulders lowering, expression ironed out?

‘It was,’ Freya said in that same firm, cool voice. ‘But caring for Max has been far more rewarding.’

‘Indeed.’ He steepled his fingers together, watched her over their tips. She’d tensed again; it was something he felt, as if they were connected by an invisible thread, a live wire. She didn’t want to talk about herself, Rafe thought. She was afraid of revealing something—but what? ‘And will you return to mathematics when your position here is finished?’

Pain flashed across her features, a lightning streak through her eyes before she composed herself again. Perhaps he had been needlessly cruel, reminding her that her position would end, but she needed to know it. He had no intention of Freya Clark staying around any longer than necessary.

‘I’ll have to see,’ she told him, her voice and gaze both level. ‘When the time comes.’

Max stirred then, letting out a little cry. Freya rose and went to him. Rafe watched her bending over the child, speaking in a low, soothing voice as she swept the silky dark hair from his forehead.

Watching her, the cheap material of her black skirt moulding itself over her hips, Rafe felt another lick of lust uncurl inside him, and he yanked his gaze away impatiently. His unexpected desire for Freya Clark was yet another reason to have her return to England as soon as possible.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS nearing midnight when they were finally driven to Rafe’s home in Madrid. Freya hadn’t really spoken to him again since that tense exchange on the aeroplane, and for that she could only feel relief. She didn’t like the way Rafe looked at her—so assessing, so knowing. She saw suspicion in those dark eyes, and she wondered what he suspected. It wasn’t as if she was hiding anything relevant from him. She had no secrets when it came to Max and her care of him. Yet still Rafe looked at her as if she did.and he intended on finding them out.

Max was exhausted from the flight, and he’d barely woken up as they’d left the plane. Freya had been bending to lift him when Rafe had stepped forward.

‘Let me.’

Silently she had watched as he’d scooped his son into his arms, so gently that Max had barely stirred before nestling closer against Rafe—almost as if he instinctively recognised and trusted this stranger who had come so suddenly into his life.

The sight of Rafe cradling his son had made Freya’s throat close up. This was how it was meant to be—parents and children. This was what she was missing out on being just Max’s nanny. This was what she would forever miss out on. She’d turned away, unable to watch, unwilling to feel.yet the pain and memory still lanced through her.

A limo had been waiting on the tarmac to take them into the city.

Freya breathed in the warm, sultry air, so different from the chill of early spring back in London. She remembered how she’d loved stepping into the sunshine when she’d flown into Barcelona ten years ago, her heart buoyant with the opportunities and possibilities ahead of her.

If only she’d known.

Would she have averted the heartbreak and loss that had come later? Could she have kept herself from that consuming despair? Or had the weaknesses which had led to so much heartache been there inside her, fault lines waiting to crack open and destroy everything she’d ever held dear?

Her gaze travelled to Rafe, the breadth of his shoulders, the darkness of his hair. Those fault lines were still there, she knew. Papered over, perhaps, but still visible. Still a threat. She had to be careful. Perhaps it was because he was Spanish, or simply because he was an unbearably handsome and charismatic man, but Rafe Sandoval presented her with a lethal temptation—and it was one she had to resist.

‘Are you all right?’ Rafe asked over Max’s head. He was still holding his son, and Freya had slid into the seat next to them in the limo.

He must have felt her tension, sensed her anxiety. She forced herself to relax. Smile.

‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired.’

Rafe nodded, accepting, and Freya turned her face to the window and watched the darkened streets slide by. Neither of them spoke, and Max didn’t stir, yet the tension in the limo felt palpable—at least to Freya.

She was conscious of how close Rafe was sitting to her, his strong, muscled thigh just inches from her own, and how easily and gently he held Max. She could hear the steady sound of his breathing, could inhale the musk of his aftershave. All of it conspired to make her feel tense enough to snap. Break. There was simply too much about this whole situation that she didn’t like. The rawness of old memories, the uncertainty of her present situation. Her unwanted attraction to Rafe Sandoval.

She took several slow, deep breaths, forced her fists to unclench even if her insides wouldn’t.

‘We’re here.’ The limo had pulled up to a stately building with ornamented pillars and portico, and a general aura of privilege and wealth. A liveried doorman opened the door.

‘Señor Sandoval. Buenas noches.’

‘Good evening,’ Rafe returned in Spanish. ‘Has my apartment been prepared?’