Page 15 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

‘A woman I dated briefly for a month last year got in touch a few weeks ago and told me I was the father of her child.’

‘And were you—are you—the father?’

He shook his head emphatically. ‘No. I knew the child couldn’t be mine. It wasn’t possible. A DNA test confirmed it. My lawyer called me with the results when you were searching my car.’

She moved her hand from her chin, sitting back a little from him, and rubbed her arm. ‘Was it the thought of being a father that put you in such a foul temper?’

‘No... Yes. But not for the reasons you think.’

Her eyebrow arched again. ‘You can read my mind?’

‘Unfortunately all the riches in the world doesn’t bestow that power.’ He grabbed the back of his neck and wished that he could read her mind. It was one thing discussing these matters dispassionately with his legal team but Gabrielle had a child she was raising without the father’s involvement. For all that she refused tobewailthe choices she’d made, he didn’t imagine life was easy for her.

‘Gabrielle, I like children—I’m godfather to my cousin’s sons and I very much enjoy the time I spend with them—but I don’t want to get married or be stuck with a long-term partner, and having children means I would be stuck in a potentially toxic relationship. I couldn’t be like Lucas’s father. I would want to be there every day for my child, just as my father was for me, but my parents’ marriage is toxic and I have never wanted that for myself.’ He drained his wine and shook his head. ‘I can barely remember a time when they didn’t hate each other but they stayed together for mine and Sophia’s sake and now I think they enjoy hating each other so much that they stay together out of spite.’

‘That sounds horrible but there’s no reason any marriage you made would go the same way.’ She shrugged her shoulders lightly. ‘My parents’ marriage was happy.’

‘Was?’

Sadness clouded her stare. ‘My father died when I was ten. Sepsis.’

He gave a grim shake of his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, meaning it. Divorce had been Andrés’s biggest fear at that age. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d have coped if either of his parents had died, and a sharp pang sliced his chest to think how much he’d neglected them in recent years. It wasn’t deliberate, merely that all his business interests meant there weren’t enough hours in the day for anything other than business.

‘Thank you. It’s been thirteen years but I still miss him. My mother does too. Losing him devastated her.’ Her shoulders rose again and she softly added, ‘Not all marriages end in acrimony.’

They were words he’d heard before, from countless lovers. Usually they sent alarm bells clanging and sent Andrés heading swiftly to the nearest exit, but on this occasion he sensed they came from a thoughtful place, not a self-serving one.

‘I know that but when you’ve lived through a toxic marriage, life is too short to take the risk. If Susi’s child had been mine I have no doubt it would have turned toxic between us quickly.’

‘How can you be so certain?’

‘She took a baseball bat to my Maserati when I ended things. She smashed all the windows and the bonnet. She was trying to smash her way into the garage to get to the other cars when my security apprehended her.’

Gabrielle’s eyes had widened, shock ringing loud and clear. ‘After you’d been together only a month?’

‘Yes. And it was never serious. I saw her maybe five times in that month.’

‘That is not someone who sounds stable.’

‘Exactly. It is why I ended things with her. I was getting some serious bad vibes. When she told me I was the father, I knew she was lying. I am scrupulous about contraception.’

‘That poor baby,’ she said with a hint of distress.

‘Don’t worry about the baby,’ he assured her. Not even Sophia, the only person outside his legal team he’d confided the situation to, had mentioned any concerns for Susi’s child. ‘I’ve had business dealings with Susi’s father and I spoke to him and Grace, Susi’s mother, when she first made the claims. They know their daughter needs help and they’ve promised me they will give it to her.’

Her features relaxed at this. Putting her chin back on her hand, she murmured with more of that husky softness, ‘That’s good. And good of you to think to do that.’

Andrés actually felt his chest expand. Why a woman he’d known barely a quarter of a day’s opinion mattered he couldn’t begin to explain but there were a lot of things about this woman and the things he was confiding and the way he was reacting to her that couldn’t be rationalised.

At that moment, a server reached between them to lay the plates of their seventh and penultimate course down, and Andrés experienced a stab of resentment at being prevented from looking at Gabrielle for all of ten seconds.

It was her eyes he realised a few moments later when they each lifted a spoonful of warm lemon tart to their mouths and their gazes were drawn back together. They were so expressive and warm and open that it was impossible for a man to look into them and not feel the urge to spill his soul...

Incapable of pulling her stare away from Andrés, Gabrielle inhaled the scent of her beautifully presented individual tart that smelt as if the lemons had been picked only minutes ago and thought that as beautiful as its aroma was, it could never smell as good as him. Nothing could.

Muting the Andrés effect had become impossible. The constant fluttering in her chest and the churning sick-like feeling in her stomach had grown so strong it was a struggle to swallow the dessert that tasted as good as its scent promised.

Would he be having such a stark effect on her if she’d let her brother fix her up with his friends like he’d pestered over the years? Hadn’t he told her more times than she could count that committing herself to a life of celibacy went against every human instinct and craving?

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