Page 20 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

Not that the opportunity to ask about his women ever arose. Not any more. In the month since she’d stopped feeding Benjamin herself and moved him into his nursery, communication between them had deteriorated further. Now, when Ramos was home, she passed their son into his willing, capable hands, filled him in on anything new or that he’d missed, and then made her escape, usually to her suite, until it was time to hand over again.

It was safer keeping her distance from him, but the distance was not having the effect she so needed it to have. Right now he was over halfway through a two week visit to his majestic hotel casino in Las Vegas, his only non-European enterprise. He’d never been away so far or for so long before and, far from her rejoicing at this extra distance, her stomach had been tied in knots for every minute he’d been gone.

All she wanted was to find an emotional neutrality with him to get her through their marriage until Benjamin was old enough to flee the nest. She would flee straight after. Ramos would have no reason to keep her.

But that was years and years away. The child who would one day grow into a man was currently a five-month-old baby who loved swimming, and it was for this love that Flora smothered Benjamin in sunscreen, and then put him in a swimming nappy and a one-piece swimsuit that gave extra protection to his delicate skin from the sun’s rays.

Hoicking her swim-bag over her shoulder, she carried him downstairs, through the main living area and out of one of the three sets of French doors that led into the rear garden where her favourite of the three swimming pools was located. Well, her favourite to take Benjamin swimming in. She didn’t particularly like the memories she had of it, but it had a lovely sized shallow end.

Leaving their towels on the sandstone tiles that surrounded the pool and the sprawling terrace area, she carried Benjamin into the shallow water and put him in an inflatable ring.

‘Coming for a play?’ she cheerfully asked Mateo, the young pool attendant. Of all the staff, Mateo was her favourite.

He looked over his shoulder and shook his head.

‘Did you get into trouble with Madeline the other day?’ He’d joined them in the pool for ten minutes and had made Benjamin squeal his head off with glee.

He pulled a face and looked at the ground.

The housekeeper ran a very tight ship with the staff. Unobtrusive decorum was expected at all times. It was a mystery to Flora why Mateo had been employed. She’d never known an unobtrusive, decorous eighteen-year-old in her life. She imagined he’d taken the job expecting to be pool and bar attendant to wild parties withmuchossemi-naked ladies like the one Flora had briefly attended, not for the only excitement in his working week to come from the newseñora’s daily swim with the baby.

He would have been in heaven if he’d worked here when Ramos held his twenty-eighth birthday party.

‘Madeline cannot tell you off ifIgive the order, okay?’ she said, speaking slowly.

The look he gave her told her Madeline could and probably would.

Flora smothered a sigh.

When she’d moved in, she’d been physically and emotionally fragile from the birth, and so been glad of Madeline’s cool authority. She’d become gradually less glad of it because it had become patently clear that the housekeeper hadallthe authority. Theseñoraof the house—Flora refused to refer to herself as the mistress—had none.

Since the baby fog had lifted, Flora had become certain Madeline reported on her to Ramos. She hoped it was just paranoia on her own part.

‘Okay, no getting in the pool, then. Can we practise my Spanish?’

That was something no one could scold Mateo for. No one else had time to teach her.

‘Castellano,’ he corrected, sitting down on the pool’s edge. He dragged his fingers into the water and flicked it at Benjamin, who giggled.

‘Castellano,’ she repeated. She’d considered learning Catalan rather than Spanish—Castellano—but then realised Ramos was conversing with Benjamin in the latter. She didn’t want it to get to the stage where her son and husband talked between themselves and she couldn’t understand any of it.

She pushed Benjamin’s inflatable ring back and forth while Mateo continued to flick water at him, laughing and repeating words in Spanish over her son’s delighted squeals.

‘You all look as if you’re having fun.’

Flora didn’t think she’d ever seen someone get to their feet as quickly as Mateo did at Ramos’s deep rumble. And she didn’t think her heart had ever thrown itself as hard against her ribcage as it did then either.

She lifted Benjamin into her arms, then, pulses racing, turned around to face her husband.

Painfully aware that even using Benjamin as a shield didn’t hide the lumps and bumps on her body that her plain black swimsuit couldn’t disguise, Flora managed to find a pleasant smile to greet him with and speak over the staccato of her heart. ‘You’re back early. I wasn’t expecting you until the weekend.’

‘Obviously.’ He fixed his laser stare on an obviously frightened Mateo and barked an order at him.

The young lad scuttled off.

The laser stare zoomed back on her. ‘We will talk about this when Benjamin is sleeping.’

‘Talk about what?’ she asked, confused at the dark fury on his face and confused about why it was directed at her.

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