Page 38 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

Nibbling on a chocolate brioche roll, Gabrielle tried to regulate her breathing, a feat not made easy with Andrés sitting across the table from her nursing a coffee. She hadn’t thought to bring sunglasses with her and with his eyes hidden behind a pair of aviators that perfectly suited him, she felt strangely exposed. At least she’d changed from her faithful jeans into her only summer dress, a floaty, modest thigh length cream creation that dipped in a V to skim her cleavage and matched perfectly with her ballet shoes. It had been a last-minute panicking change made after Lucas and her mother had driven away that she couldn’t explain any more than she could explain the application of mascara and lip gloss and the extra conditioner used to defrizz her hair.

Armour, she told herself. It was going to be hard enough getting through the day without feeling like a bag lady, especially when pitted against the dark masculine perfection that was Andrés.

How could someone grow more beautiful each time you set eyes on them?

‘How did you know about Lucas?’ she asked when she couldn’t bear another second of the loaded silence. All her emotions had coiled so tightly that she could feel them trying to break free. Shehadto keep herself together.

Andrés put his coffee on the table and stretched his neck. It had been a long night, his overloaded brain making way for sleep in snatches, memories of their night together colliding with thoughts of the future he’d never wanted.

His life as he knew it was over.

Gabrielle was carrying his child.

He’d be tied to her for ever.

Amidst all the turmoil of his thoughts was the indisputable fact that she was passing off someone else’s child as her own, and until he knew for certain that Lucas hadn’t been snatched from his real mother, coming up with a game plan for their own child was out of the question.

The visit to Gabrielle’s apartment had given him a good idea of who the child really belonged to but he needed it confirmed, needed to hear all the reasons why.

One look at her ashen face when she’d climbed into his car and the grim determination to drag all the answers from her that he’d set off with had melted away.

To see the wry, determined, intelligent, fun woman he’d spent the best night of his life with in such clear turmoil and distress did something to him. It was similar to how he used to feel when growing up at Sophia’s distress, as if her distress was his distress. To have similar feelings...similar but far more acute...for Gabrielle had been disconcerting in the extreme. It had knocked him off his stride.

Up here on the sun deck, with the rising sun landing like jewels on Gabrielle’s skin just as the setting sun had done the night of the party, his tastebuds tingled to remember the sweetness of that skin, his fingers tingled to remember its smooth, soft texture, his loins tingled to remember the sweet, hedonistic perfection of their night together, and the questions had melted even further away.

And now her quietly delivered question had pulled him back to the here and now.

‘It was an educated guess but your reaction confirmed it,’ he said tightly.

A line appeared in her forehead and she shook her head. ‘But... How could you guess something like that?’

‘There was a smear of blood on my sheets.’

Her eyes widened, colour saturating her face.

‘I assumed at the time that it was menstrual blood and that you must have started your period.’ As his hangover had worn off and the haziness of the night cleared, Andrés had been glad of that stain. They’d used protection but they’d been careless. Gabrielle starting her period had put any worries about their carelessness to bed.

He’d never been in the slightest bit careless before that night. Not ever.

That she’d conceived that night meant the chances of it being menstrual blood was reduced to practically zero, and as soon as that fact lodged in his brain, it brought fresh insight to everything else, including the lack of physical evidence that she’d carried or given birth to a child. That there was not a single photo of Gabrielle pregnant on her walls had only added weight to this.

‘You were a virgin.’

Dark eyes swimming with unshed tears, pretty chin wobbling, her nod was barely perceptible.

His chest sharpened to remember the gasp she’d made when he’d entered her for the first time. That gasp hadn’t been the shock of pleasure like he’d experienced but the shock of pain. If he’d known he’d have been gentle with her, so, so gentle.

‘Is he your sister’s?’

Her lips clamped together but the widening of her eyes let him know he’d hit the mark.

‘He’s obviously a Breton,’ he said. ‘There are many photos of Eloise displayed on your walls but none with him.’ No photos of Eloise at all after Lucas’s birth...

Blinking frantically, she got unsteadily to her feet and staggered to the railing, holding it tightly as she stared out over the endless sea.

Andrés stood beside her, waiting for her to speak, the sharpening of his chest a physical pain to witness the great gulps of air she was taking in.

He hated that this was so necessary.

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