No way, she decided grimly. He was still after her father and there was no way she would allow Eric’s privacy to be invaded by the press, which was exactly what could happen should Matias choose to publicise her brother’s existence. Her darling, fragile brother was not going to be part of Matias’s retribution or even unintentionalcollateral damage.
Matias instantly realised that that simple statement held the distinct possibility of opening up another quagmire and so he opted for silence.
‘So what is your explanation for your behaviour?’ he eventually demanded, grudgingly curious to find out what she would be able to come up with that didn’t begin and end with her need to have money injected into her company.
‘I don’t have to provide you with an explanation,’ Sophie retorted quickly, cringing back from a vision of reporters banging on the window of her brother’s bedroom, terrifying him because he would be hopelessly confused and panicked.
‘I just need to take everything you say at face value and believe you. Is that it?’
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I haven’t come here because I want anything from you and there’s nowein this situation. I came here because I felt it was the right thing to do but this isn’t a problem that I’m forcing you to face. I don’t trust you, Matias, but you deserved to know about the pregnancy so here I am.’
‘We’re back to this again. Let’s move away from that and focus on the present and the future. And just for your reference, there very muchisawein this situation because half of my chromosomes, whether you like it or not, happen to be inside you right now in the form of a baby neither of us expected but which both of us have to deal with.’ His instinct was to qualify what he had to say by telling her that everything depended on whether she was telling the truth, but he decided that silence on that subject was definitely going to be the diplomatic course. ‘You’re having my baby...’ For a few seconds he was stunned again by the impact that had on him. Matias Rivero, a father. He still couldn’t quite get his head round that. ‘If you thought that you could just pass on that information and then walk away, job done, then you were sorely mistaken. I won’t be walking away from my responsibility, Sophie.’
‘I don’t want to be your responsibility.’
‘You’re not but my unborn child is, whether you like it or not. I didn’t sign up to this but it’s happened and we have to deal with it. You have an unhappy family background so maybe that’s led you to imagine that stability is overrated, but I haven’t and I am a firm believer in the importance of having parents in a child’s life. Both parents.’
‘I happen to believe very strongly in stability,’ Sophie corrected him tightly, ‘becauseI’ve had an unhappy family background. I didn’t know how you would react when I came to see you, bearing in mind the way we parted company, but you can rest assured that I won’t stand in the way of your seeing your child.’ She hated the way he made her feel. She didn’t want to be here, and yet, in his presence, she felt sodifferent, as though she were living on a plane of heightened sensation. She feltalive. She wanted to walk out but felt compelled to stay. She wanted to ignore his staggering, unwelcome impact on her senses but was drawn to him by invisible strings that she couldn’t seem to sever. She loathed him for what he had done and loathed herself almost as much for knowing that somewhere inside her he still stirred something...something only he could somehow manage to reach.
‘That’s not good enough,querida.’ Matias had never contemplated marriage and now here he was, facing marriage as the final frontier, and not simply marriage, but marriage to the woman who was the daughter of his sworn enemy. And yet what other solution was there? He had no intention of being a bit player in his child’s life, forking out maintenance payments while having his visiting rights restricted and curtailed by a vengeful mother. Sophie wouldn’t forget the circumstances that had brought him into her life and she would have the perfect opportunity, should she so choose, to wreak a little healthy revenge of her own by dictating how much or how little influence he had over his own flesh and blood.
He thought of his mother, recovering in a private hospital in London. She would be so upset if she ended up as only a part-time grandparent, snatching moments here and there with a grandchild caught in a tug of war between two warring parents. Matias might have been put off emotional commitment thanks to a conniving ex and the lessons learnt from his own emotional father and where it had got him in the long run. That said, he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Sophie that his childhood had consisted of a strong and supportive family unit and now, in the face of this unexpected development, that strong family bond locked into place to override everything else.
‘Twenty minutes ago, you were telling me that time was money, so I’d better go now.’
‘Things change. Twenty minutes ago I didn’t realise that you were carrying my baby.’ His sharp eyes were glued to her face while he programmed his brain to accept the news she had broken to him, to start thinking outside the box. ‘You’re now set to be a permanent feature in my life. I want to be there for my child twenty-four-seven and the only way that can be achieved is if we marry.’
Deathly silence greeted this extraordinary statement and Sophie’s mouth inelegantly fell open in shock.
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘You might have come here out of a sense of duty but I have no intention of going away like an unpleasant smell because you refuse to accept that the past is over and done with.’
‘I will never forget how you used me in your quest for revenge. You used me once and who’s to say that you won’t use me again?’ She thought of Eric, the secret that Matias could not be allowed to uncover because what if his desire for revenge hadn’t been sated? She looked at him from under lowered lashes and shivered. So beautiful, so powerful and so incredibly ruthless.
‘Sophie, that story has ended. We are travelling down a different road now.’ But Matias was genuinely puzzled by her statement. What else could he possibly use her for? For better or for worse, he had uncovered everything there was to uncover about her father.
He continued to look at her and noted the way her cheeks slowly coloured, arrowed in on the soft tremble of her full lips. The air between them was suddenly filled with a charge he recognised all too well, a sexual charge that made him immediately harden for her. He vividly recalled the silky wetness that always greeted his exploring fingers, his questing mouth, and he clenched his jaw.
He motioned, without looking around, for the bill and wondered whether she was conscious of the signals she was sending out under all the hostility and mistrust, signals that were as powerful as a deep sea-depth charge, signals that advertised a connection between them that was founded on the oldest thing in the world...sexual attraction.
‘Think about it, Sophie, and I will call you tomorrow so that we can pick up this conversation.’ He smiled slowly and watched intently as a little shiver went through her. ‘I think we both need to do a little private reflection, don’t you?’
