Page 13 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

The old internal alarm system went off. Choosing her words carefully, she said, ‘You can ask but I might choose not to answer.’

‘That is fair. I’m just wondering why you do the work you do.’

She narrowed her eyes to scrutinise him, wondering where this was leading. ‘That is a strange way to phrase it.’

His broad shoulders rose as he drank some of his wine. ‘See, this is why I’m asking. You are clearly educated. You speak three languages...’

‘French is my native language and all Monte Cleure children are taught English and Spanish at school,’ she interjected. ‘It is nothing special.’

‘You speak my language as well as I do and your English is excellent.’

She felt her cheeks flush with pleasure at the compliment. Spanish had always come easily to her but English washard.

‘You must have studied hard to be as proficient as you are at them,’ he continued. ‘Then there is the way you speak, your knowledge of fonts.’ He pulled an amazed face. ‘Come on, who knows about fonts?’

‘I do. You do.’

‘I know about fonts because I own Janson Media.’

‘The TV company?’

‘We also publish newspapers and magazines.’ He named a few that made her eyes widen. ‘When I buy into a company I want to know everything about it.’

‘And that meant learning aboutfonts?’

He grinned. ‘I can be obsessive. Also, it was the first major company I bought into—they were struggling to transition into the digital age and the shares were going cheap enough to entice me. I’m now the majority shareholder. Funnily enough, I’m currently going through the process of buying a Japanese publishing company. I’ve wanted to break into the Asian market for a long time and this is the first real viable option for me, but going back to you, Gabrielle, you are an intelligent woman. I cannot believe a career as a border guard is what you dreamed for yourself.’

And she couldn’t believe he’d tapped into her so easily. She couldn’t decide if it was terrifying or enthralling, knew only that the beats of her heart were racing at a canter. ‘It isn’t what I dreamed of doing,’ she agreed, forcing herself to speak calmly. Just because Andrés had picked up on certain things about her in the short space of time they’d spent together did not mean he could actually read her mind. ‘But then, I never imagined I would have a child at nineteen.’

‘What career did you dream of?’

‘Publishing. Books,’ she hastened to clarify, not wanting him to think she was only saying it because he’d mentioned he owned a media company and was in the process of buying another. ‘I had a place at a university in England to study English Literature lined up.’

Andrés was impressed. He could never understand people who were content to limit their horizons to the places of their birth. ‘Publishing is wide ranging. What did you want to do within it?’

‘I hadn’t decided. I just liked the idea of being absorbed into the world of words. I was going to do my degree and then see where it led me. My mother is a reader. We never had much money but there were always books at home. You could open one and be transported to any place in time anywhere in the world.’

‘What stopped you pursuing your dream?’

She pulled a ‘duh’ face. ‘I told you, I had a baby. I couldn’t go to university in another country with a baby in tow. It just wasn’t feasible even if I could have afforded it, and Monte Cleure doesn’t have a university, and there is no point in me bewailing it because I made my choice and that choice was Lucas. I won’t lie, being a border guard isn’t the career I once dreamed of but it’s a living and one I’m proud of, and it has a career ladder I can climb as Lucas gets older and becomes less dependent on me.’

‘I’m not criticising you,’ he said, noting the defensiveness in the rapidity of her speech. ‘Being a parent means making sacrifices and I have nothing but admiration for the people who are prepared to make them.’

Something flickered in her eyes, an emotion he couldn’t discern but which strangely tugged at his chest. Gabrielle had been so young when she’d had her child that he could only imagine the other sacrifices she’d had to make. ‘I know you said it was just you and Lucas but is his father on the scene?’

The colour that suffused her face was so different to the colour it had turned when she’d learned that Sophia wasn’t his wife that he immediately regretted asking. ‘That is none of my business. I apologise. Forget I asked.’

She had a long drink of her water. ‘No, it’s okay. And no, he isn’t on the scene at all. It’s been just me and Lucas since the day I brought him home.’ The pillowy lips he was finding it harder and harder not to fantasise about the taste and feel of curved into a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘And as we’re speaking of Lucas, does your jacket have an inside pocket?’

Her change of subject threw him. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I want to sneak my place menu out as a memento for him but the bag Sophia lent me is so small I’m scared I’ll damage it.’

Gabrielle held her breath as she waited for him to respond, and she mentally kicked herself for not giving him the pat response she’d honed over the years to explain The Bastard’s absence to the curious, which consisted of Lucas’s father being a tourist she’d had a brief fling with and that he’d given her a fake number and so she’d never been able to tell him of their son. She’d repeated the lie so many times it came naturally to her. What wasn’t natural was her tongue’s refusal to repeat that lie to Andrés.

After what felt like an age in which the black stare she was finding increasingly hypnotic bored into her, the sides of his eyes crinkled. A giant hand reached across her empty plate. The sleeves of his jacket and shirt pulled back, revealing the fine dark hair covering his arm and the base of his sleeve tattoo. A place deep and low between her legs pulsed. A moment later her place menu was swallowed into the mysterious confines of Andrés dinner jacket.

‘If I get thrown in the dungeon for theft, I will expect you to plead my case for me,’ he said in the lighter tone of their earlier conversation.

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