Free The Secret Spanish Love-Child by Cathy Williams Page B

the least amusing situation I have ever found myself in and if you think you can stand there, fuming and behaving as though you’redue the sympathy card, then think again. I am the one whose life has come to a grinding halt! I am the one now faced with a series of decisions which will affect the lives of more than just myself! You behaving like a brat isn’t going to help matters! Am I making myself understood loud and clear?’
    Alex stared down stubbornly at her feet, acknowledging that there was more than an element of truth in what he was saying but still resenting his tone of voice.
    ‘I never asked you to change your life for me,’ she mumbled indistinctly.
    When she raised her eyes, it was to find that he had pushed himself away from the counter and was towering above her. She wished she had worn heels instead of a pair of socks. At least, with the benefit of heels, she would have been more or less on eye level with him.
    ‘I’m not changing my life for you ,’ Gabriel ground out. ‘I’m changing my life for my son.’
    You mean nothing to me. That was the implied, unspoken rider to his statement, Alex thought. He intended to do the right thing for his son and in the process she would be dragged along, whether she liked it or not. He couldn’t have reminded her more forcibly of his take on events than if he had printed a sign saying you’re someone I happen to be stuck with and shoved it in her face.
    She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe we should talk in the sitting room. I…I haven’t eaten dinner yet. There’s a casserole in the oven. It could just about stretch to two.’
    It was an olive branch of sorts and Gabriel knew better than to snap it in two. But her stubbornness did things to his normally cool head that he wouldn’t have thought possible.
    ‘I thought you hated cooking.’ She had worked in a hotel to practise her Spanish but she had once confessed that kitchens made her dizzy. All those items of food and ingredients in bottles baffled her. He wanted to smile at the memory.
    ‘I’ve learnt…to…I prefer to give Luke home-cooked food,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I can manage a casserole but anything fancier than that is out of the question.’
    ‘So he’s yet to sample a soufflé…’
    Alex dipped past him towards the sitting room at the front of the house. She knew that this polite banter was his way of making the best of a bad situation and she would have to go along for the ride or else make life a constant battleground for them both, and inevitably for Luke. She couldn’t do that. But dredging up memories of their brief shared past was more than she felt she could handle. Yet where was the common ground between them now? They were operating in an unreal space, where the normal rules of social engagement were suspended.
    ‘What happens now?’ she asked abruptly, as soon as they were sitting. Gabriel on the sofa, she on the comfy chair by the fireplace. Her half finished glass of wine was still there and she took a sip but it had gone warm.
    ‘I didn’t see any mention of Luke in that article…’ she carried on, drawing up her long legs and then resting her chin on her knee.
    ‘Because I didn’t mention him. There was no point getting into the nitty-gritty and, besides, I have little respect for reporters. The world will find out about you both when I’m good and ready.’
    ‘You mean you haven’t told your fiancée the truth ?’
    ‘ Ex -fiancée. And no. Time enough for that.’
    ‘What on earth did you tell her?’
    Gabriel shrugged. ‘I told her that ours was not a relationship that was destined to last the course and, as such, we should break it off before we both made a mistake.’
    ‘That little speech should have come easy to you, Gabriel. You must have had years to practise it.’
    Gabriel looked at her broodingly. There would be no profit in taking up this futile conversational thread. His mission was to get her on board and the only way he could do that was