Free His Unknown Heir by Chantelle Shaw Page B

thought bleakly. Now she knew that she could never mean anything to him.
    But trying to disguise her intense awareness of him was not her only problem. Far more seriously, most of the PHG staff knew she had a child, and it would only take one unwitting remark to alert Ramon to that fact. Panic surged through her. Perhaps it would be better if she danced with him all night, she thought wildly. At least that way he could not speak to anyone else.
    Ramon inhaled the lemony scent of Lauren’s hair, and could not resist sliding his hand up her back to tangle his fingers in the long honey-blonde tresses that she had left loose tonight. Dios , she was beautiful. And soon she would be his again, and he would slide his hands not over her dress but across her naked satin-soft skin. He moved his hand down to her derrière , and felt the tremor that ran through her when he drew her hard against the throbbing erection straining beneath his trousers. For a second he almost gave in to the temptation to scoop her up and stride out of the ballroom, up to his hotel room, but he forced himself to be patient and bide his time.
    ‘How about that drink?’ he murmured, a long while later.
    Lauren lifted her head from Ramon’s chest and stared at him dazedly, appalled that she had been so seduced by the warmth of his body that she had melted against him. She had no idea how long they had been dancing. All she had been aware of was the sensual, spicy scent of his cologne and the steady thud of his heart beneath her ear.
    The heartbeat was such a poignant sound—the drumbeat of life, she thought emotively. When she had been pregnant, hearing her baby’s heartbeat on the monitor at her antenatal appointments had been so exciting. It had been a link with her child—a link that Ramon had never experienced, because she had never told him that she had conceived his baby.
    She bit her lip and tore her gaze from the golden-brown eyes that were so like Matty’s. Had she been wrong to deny him his child? she wondered desperately. It was a question that had haunted her constantly over the past months. She had tried to do the right thing for Matty—had been so
    afraid that Ramon would not love her baby that she had decided to bring him up on her own. But what if that decision had been wrong? Supposing Ramon would have loved Matty even if he was not the noble heir deemed necessary for the Duque de Velaquez?
    Her thoughts swirled in her head until she felt as though her skull was about to split open. Unable to meet Ramon’s gaze, she glanced around the ballroom and realised that many of her work colleagues were staring at her speculatively. Their curiosity was not surprising, since she had been snuggled up to PGH’s most prestigious client, she acknowledged grimly. Guy Hadlow was leaning against a pillar, watching her, and his knowing smirk was mortifying.
    ‘I seem to have monopolised your attention for far too long,’ she said stiffly.
    ‘I’m not complaining, querida .’ Ramon’s confident smile held it all—satisfaction that she had succumbed to his potent charm, and the expectation that he had only to click his fingers and she would fall into his bed.
    She had to get away from him before she made an even bigger fool of herself. ‘Actually, I’ve got a headache. Please excuse me,’ she mumbled, and spun away from him before he had a chance to protest.
    She walked swiftly across the ballroom, needing to escape the cacophony of noise, the sound of people’s voices and the music. She needed to be alone, to think, as the enormity of her decision to keep Matty a secret from Ramon evoked the nagging guilt that she had tried to push away.
    She hurried into the lift and pressed the button to take her to the fifth floor. The door had started to close when a figure appeared, and she gave a silent groan when Guy Hadlow joined her.
    ‘Off to bed so early, Lauren?’ he taunted.
    She ignored him, but he moved closer, trapping her against the wall of