‘I had her checked out before I did anything. Discovered she was living with a man old enough to be her grandfather and, more to the point, was as heavily pregnant as you are now, my sweet.’ He caught hold of her hand and kissed it. ‘I arranged a meeting; she arrived expecting to see Rafiq. She tried convincing me that Rafiq was the father of her baby. So I told her what I thought Rafiq would do if she managed to convince him that this was true. She did not pursue the claim,’ he concluded with grim satisfaction. ‘A very nasty paternity battle through the courts was too much for her to take, apparently. She slunk off into the ether and was never heard from again.’
‘But what if the child had been Rafiq’s?’
‘It was not,’ he stated with absolute certainty. ‘You know his background. If there had been the slightest possibility that he had made the woman pregnant he would have followed the prospect until he could be certain either way.’
‘What did he say when you told him she was pregnant?’
‘I didn’t tell him,’ he replied. ‘I said I couldn’t find her but that I’d heard she was living with some man. He never mentioned her name again.’
‘Sometimes I really don’t like you,’ Leona informed him. ‘You have a ruthless streak so wide it makes me shiver.’
‘She was a woman on the make, Leona,’ he said deridingly. ‘People in our position meet them all the time. They see dollar signs up above our heads and latch on like limpets.’
‘But still….’
‘Rafiq caught her red-handed with her other lover.’
End of story. ‘What a manipulating bitch,’ Leona murmured, taking it personally that some woman would dare to use her beloved bother-in-law in such a way.
Rafiq had only just put the phone down when Kadir knocked at his door, then quietly let himself into the room. He was wearing the look of a man who was walking towards the gallows. Rafiq straightened in readiness, but nothing prepared him for what he was about to be hit with.
‘My apologies, sir, but I think you should see this…’ Carefully Kadir placed a newspaper onto the desk in front of Rafiq. With his usual efficiency his aide had folded the English tabloid so that Rafiq needed only to glance down and see what it was Kadir was showing him.
There was Serena, smiling up at Carlos Montez. It was the same damn article, now reproduced in spiced-up English. Rafiq couldn’t believe it. He shot to his feet. ‘What the hell?’ he muttered.
‘Apparently Miss Cordero arrived in London this weekend, sir,’ Kadir quietly explained. ‘Her show opens at a West End theatre on Wednesday. The—er—article is by way of a promotion for this event. I thought…’
He was talking to fresh air because Rafiq was already striding across the room with the rolled-up newspaper clenched in his hand.
‘H-How did you get hold of this?’ Melanie asked Sophia.
‘My grandmother likes to send me the Spanish newspapers to make sure I keep in touch with my roots,’ Sophia explained.
Melanie nodded unhappily. ‘And it says?’ she prompted.
‘You don’t really want me to read it out to you again, Melanie,’ Sophia murmured gravely. ‘The point is that this paper is dated last Tuesday—which is the same day you went to see Rafiq…’
‘Meaning what?’ Her lips felt too cold and numb to move properly; her whole face felt very much the same.
‘Meaning the guy was publicly dumped on the day you walked into his office. He was already out for someone’s blood before he even saw you. Therefore I think you have to ask yourself the question whether his actions since have been motivated by this.’
‘Saving face?’
‘Yes.’ Sophia sighed. ‘To suddenly pull a wife and son out of the hat will turn the tables on Miss Cordero. It will appear as if she is the one who married on the rebound while he walked away from their relationship of over a year unscathed.’
