Page 62 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

‘Thank you.’ She was touched that he’d noted her discomfort. ‘I’ll go and put it on.’

‘There’s no need.’

He handed her the bikini bottoms and she pulled them on beneath the shirt, and then he handed her the top and she tied up the neck while still wearing his shirt.

He rolled his eyes as she held it over her front and he tied the back. ‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ She looked up at him. ‘I called Emily and I said I’d visit her this evening. She’s moving into a suite on the NICU.’

He nodded with his eyes closed and she guessed he’d already done his due diligence with his brother.

‘How’s your daughter?’

‘She’s having fun with her grandparents.’ Anna smiled, but didn’t elaborate, sure he was just being polite.

But then he asked a question. ‘Have you told her about the new baby?’

‘Not yet.’

How odd, Anna thought, to be lying in a tiny gold bikini and having such a normal conversation. So normal that as she answered him she rolled onto her front to look at him as she spoke.

‘I’ve told my mother, but I want to wait till I’m home to explain it to Willow. I think she’ll be upset.’

‘Because the baby is so small?’

‘Because she isn’t here to see her. I think it would just overwhelm her.’

Sebastián nodded and from behind his dark glasses stared up at the sky. There was not a single cloud in sight. He could recall lying on a beach in Corsica, with Ella beside him, a sparkling ring on her finger, and feeling no peace in his soul...

‘Does her father help?’

He’d asked Anna about him before and she’d closed that down, but he wanted to be more personal now.

‘No.’

‘Does he see her?’ he asked, and looked from the sky to her green eyes as he removed his shades.

‘No.’

‘Is Willow really why you fell out with your parents?’

She nodded. ‘They think it was just a one-night stand.’

‘Even I could tell them that it wouldn’t have been.’

She blinked in surprise. ‘Are you forgetting our one night?’

‘Never!’ He smiled and looked at her. ‘I’m very good at seduction.’

‘I had noticed.’

‘I had to use all my skills—and they are considerable—to get you into bed... Anyway, we didn’t sleep together the night we met, even though we were flirting on sight.’

‘No!’

‘Yes,’ he refuted. ‘I wanted you the first second I saw you.’

He knew he was spinning her mind, because while she thought back to the day they’d met he got back to the conversation they’d been having before.

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