The Sandoval Baby

The child he’d always wanted.

Max.

The little boy scrubbed his eyes with his fists, then blinked sleepily, smiling up at Freya. ‘I had a funny dream …’ He paused, the smile freezing on his face as he stared past Freya to Rafe. Max shrank into Freya’s side, his eyes rounding with uncertainty and perhaps even fear.

Rafe stood there, his throat working as he tried to think of the right words to say. He’d never been speechless before, yet now his mind was empty. The realisation of his own child was thudding through him, obliterating thought.

‘Max, this is a friend,’ Freya said, shifting over on the bed so Rafe could see his son.

Max buried his head in Freya’s lap and Rafe watched as she continued to stroke his hair with pale, slender fingers.

Her words caught up with him and his frozen brain finally thawed for thought. A friend? Freya glanced at him sharply, and he saw a warning in her eyes. Anger spiked through Rafe. He was not a friend. He would not begin this most precious relationship with a lie. Yet, even as he opened his mouth to deny her claim, he realised how difficult it would be to explain the truth to his son. The anger hardened inside him. Already Freya Clark had put him in an impossible position. Already she had tricked him, showing him that he was right not to trust her. Trust anyone.

He clenched his fists, then forced them flat again. He wanted to tell Max to get up, that they were going; he wanted to hug him. He knew both would terrify the child, so he clung to his last shred of patience and took his cue from Miss Clark.

‘Hello, Max,’ he said, and his son buried his face against Freya’s shoulder. ‘Yes, I am a friend. And I’m so very happy to meet you.’

Freya heard the raw note of emotion in Rafe’s voice, and it surprised her. Moved her, even. For, after everything Rosalia had said—‘He never loved me. He doesn’t know how to love.’—she hadn’t really expected Rafe to feel anything for his son. He was cold, cynical, unable to love. That was what Rosalia had told her, what the tabloids and gossip magazines said. El Tiburón.

And she’d been counting on that, counting on the fact that Rafe was too busy with his professional life to deal with his son properly; she’d thought—hoped—he’d be glad for Freya to do it, despite her connection with Rosalia.

Yet hearing the rawness of Rafe’s voice, seeing how he looked almost hungrily at his child, made Freya realise uncomfortably, painfully, that nothing about this situation was what she’d thought. That maybe Rafe wasn’t what she’d thought.

Max peeked at Rafe from behind her shoulder, curious now, but still shy, and Freya stood up from the bed. ‘Why don’t we go downstairs and have a snack?’

Max slipped his little hand in hers, and Freya led him downstairs, Rafe following behind. She could feel the tension and even the anger emanating from the man; it rolled off him in waves. She felt her own body tense in response, her heart thudding despite her determination to remain calm. To feel calm.

Already this man was making her feel too much. She’d been carefully, comfortably numb for so long, and it was strange and unsettling how he’d managed to strip that away from her within minutes. Her mind and body’s basic response to him was alarming. Frightening, even.

Unless, of course, it wasn’t him. It was simply the situation. The possibility of losing Max, and even of travelling to Spain, had brought too many painful memories to the fore. Memories she’d spent the last ten years trying to forget. And, even though they hurt, it was better than thinking Rafe affected her.

Better than making the mistake—again—of falling for a man’s handsome face and then being crushed under his heel. No, she’d learned that lesson all too terribly well. She would not be affected by Rafe Sandoval at all.

Yet she could still feel his presence, even his heat, behind her as she went down the stairs.

The next quarter of an hour was spent dealing with Max, yet Freya knew she could put off another conversation with Rafe for only so long. He loomed like a shadow in the kitchen, watching as she prepared Max a cup of milk and some slices of apple, helping him into his chair while he watched the stranger with wide, solemn eyes.

‘Are you a friend of Mummy’s?’ he finally asked, and the very air seemed to freeze.

Freya was amazed Max had even thought to make such a connection; Rosalia’s visits had been infrequent enough to make him stop asking for her. Yet her death, of course, had brought his mother and her absence to the front of his mind, and Freya supposed it was natural for him to attempt to make sense of the recent disorder of his world.

‘I knew your mother,’ Rafe replied carefully, his voice controlled.

‘Were you friends?’

Another agonising pause. Freya watched emotions flicker across Rafe’s face: anger foremost, and then uncertainty, perhaps even sorrow. ‘Yes,’ he finally said, although to Freya the word sounded reluctant. ‘We were.’

Max nodded, apparently—and thankfully—satisfied, and while he sipped his milk Freya returned to the kitchen, mindlessly tidying up while she registered Rafe Sandoval’s presence near her, felt the force of it like a charismatic and inexorable tug on her body.

‘We leave tonight.’

She turned, her heart caught in her chest. ‘We?’

Rafe inclined his head. ‘I take your point, Miss Clark. Max needs the stability of a familiar care-giver until he settles into his new home.’

Until. The word was ominous. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice cool with dignity. ‘I’ll pack our bags.’

Rafe nodded, satisfied with her acquiescence. Freya knew better than to push for more time in England. She’d got what she wanted, and she intended to keep it by asking for no more. Still, the thought of returning to Spain sent a shiver of trepidation and even cold, raw fear through her. She suppressed it, determined to deal only in practicalities.

‘I don’t think Max has a passport—’

‘I can deal with that.’ Rafe slipped a mobile phone from his jacket pocket, already punching in numbers. ‘I have to make a few preparations for the trip. Be ready by five o’clock.’

Startled, Freya glanced at the clock on the cooker. That was in just over two hours. ‘So quick—’

‘Yes.’ Rafe looked up, and his dark gaze—his eyes were so black—pinned Freya in place. ‘I conceded to you in this one thing, Miss Clark. Don’t look for other concessions.’

Freya swallowed. This felt like a war, yet she could hardly blame Rafe Sandoval for feeling antagonistic. She had seen him as the opposition from the moment she’d heard his name in the solicitor’s office.

He’s the man who will take Max away from me.

‘Just making an observation,’ she stated coolly. ‘We’ll be ready.’

‘Good.’ Rafe snapped his mobile shut and returned to Max, who had finished his milk and apple slices and was now looking at the two adults in the room with wary expectation. ‘Max, how would you like to go on a trip?’ Rafe crouched down to Max’s eye-level, smiling and assured, while Freya watched on.

‘A trip?’ Max repeated, and glanced at Freya. She nodded her reassurance.

‘Yes, a little holiday, Max. Would you like that?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To Spain.’ Rafe stood up. ‘I have a house there, right in the mountains. There’s a swimming pool too. Do you like to swim?’

Max smiled shyly. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘He hasn’t been very much,’ Freya explained.

Rafe’s gaze flicked over her, and when he looked away it felt like a dismissal. ‘I’m sure there are many things Max hasn’t done,’ he said. ‘This will be a new experience for him.’

The hint of challenge in his voice made Freya realise how easily Rafe Sandoval was able to put her in her place. He had all the power, all the control.

She only had Max … and for how long?

‘We’ll both look forward to it,’ she said, and with the faintest flicker of a smile Rafe turned away from her to face his son once more.

‘I shall see you later, Max. We’ll take an aeroplane to Spain. You can even watch a film during the flight.’ Max didn’t reply, clearly unable to process all these changes in so short a space of time. Rafe gazed at his son, his eyes seeming to turn even blacker, and then slowly—hesitantly—he reached out one hand and very gently, as if Max were made of glass, tousled his hair.

Max flinched a little under the hesitant caress, and to her surprise Freya felt a pang of sympathy and perhaps something else, something deeper and more dangerous, for Rafe.