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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.
‘He’s a bit shy with strangers—aren’t you, Max?’
Rafe turned to her, his expression coolly challenging, his voice low enough so only Freya would hear. ‘Well, we shan’t be strangers for long, shall we?’ he said, and with one last smile for his son he left.
Rafe sat in the driver’s seat, knowing he needed to put the key in the ignition and drive away. He didn’t. Couldn’t. His hands were trembling too much.
He let out a slow, shuddery breath, adrenalin, anticipation, and anger racing through him in equal measures. He’d just seen his son. The child he’d always wanted and never thought to have.
The child his ex-wife had tricked him out of … twice.
Rafe forced himself to relax, forced the dark memories back—memories of his own loveless childhood, and then the unhappy years of his marriage. The cold, cold gaze of his father as he surveyed the son he’d never loved. The way he’d often looked past him, as if Rafe wasn’t there. As if he didn’t want him to be. And only when he was an adult had he learned why.
Things would be different now, Rafe promised himself. A new generation, a new day. He was the father now, not the unwanted child, and he loved his son. Nothing and no one would keep him from Max … and certainly not Freya Clark.
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