Page 15 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
‘We didn’t use any contraception.’
Five little words dropped into the silence like unexploded bombs, except that it took a few seconds for them to sink in. She was looking at him carefully but his mind had gone blank and he felt like his thoughts were wrapped in fuzzy cotton wool.
‘What are you saying?’ he asked eventually.
‘You know what I’m saying, Leandro.’ Abigail’s voice was gentle. ‘I know you’re probably going to be enraged, and maybe you’ll think that I should have told you then, but I’m telling you now. We had unprotected sex and I got pregnant.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘That’s why I was so desperate to get back down to London. Claire, the friend I just spoke to, had agreed to look after Sam because I had to deliver the ring, but I never expected to get stuck up there.’
‘If this is some sort of gimmick to get me to part with money, then you’re overplaying your hand.’
They hadn’t used any contraception. He’d been so turned on that he’d taken a risk. For the first time in his life, he had taken a risk.
‘He’s ten months old.’
‘I refuse to believe a word of this.’ But the burnished bronze of his golden skin was ashen. He didn’t believe what she was saying, but he was still doing the maths.
She sighed. ‘I would have told you right at the beginning, Leandro, but I was scared. We’d broken up under some pretty horrible conditions, and I was scared because I thought you might try and take Sam away from me.’
Leandro reached for his coffee cup and was surprised that his hand was unsteady.
‘You need time to process all of this. I can see that.’ Abigail stood up and began backing away from the table. ‘If you let me have your mobile number, then I will give you a call in a couple of weeks’ time, once you’ve...um...come to terms with...everything. And I just want you to know that I’m not expecting anything from you.’
The sight of her scuttling towards the exit galvanised Leandro faster than a rocket blazing into outer orbit. He slammed some money on the table and was by her side before she had time to do a runner.
Two weeks? Then she’d be in touch?
She’d just dropped a hand grenade into his lap and she really and truly thought that she could disappear and then resurface after he’d dealt with the fall out?
Had the woman lost her mind?
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ His hand circled her arm and he yanked her to a stop, ignoring her wriggling attempt to break free. ‘Don’t think that you can spring this on me and then vanish!’
‘You need time to process...’
‘Spare me your pop psychology! You tell me that you have a child...’
‘We have a child. A son.’
Their eyes tangled. A son. There was no way that Leandro was going to cave in and believe her but...fatherhood. It was something he had never considered. Never wanted! He’d seen from his own unstable childhood that the production of children was something that could go horribly wrong. He’d not only learned from his own experience but he’d learned from his sister’s. He’d never wished to reproduce and take a chance on being a father. It wasn’t in his make-up.
What if she was telling the truth? Faced with that possibility, Leandro suddenly knew what it felt like for one’s world to fall apart. He’d sought order all his life, to combat the lack of order that had marked his formative years, and there could be nothing more disastrous and explosive when it came to destroying all that hard-fought-for order than the arrival of a child.
But, no, he wasn’t going to think like that.
He was a cool, rational man. He forced his thoughts away from possibilities. Possibilities counted for nothing.
‘Where?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You tell me that I’m a father. Then let me see my son.’
‘Leandro...’
‘This isn’t going to play out the way you had in mind, Abigail. You don’t get to spring something like this on me and then walk into the blue yonder. So you tell me that I have a son? Fine. Let’s go and have a little meet and greet, shall we?’
