Page 19 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

He lifted Benjamin from her arms and said, ‘The press have gone.’

He smelt as fresh and spicy as he looked and her despondency grew. She was still in her pyjamas. She hadn’t even run a brush through her hair. She must look a right state.

And Ramos, who she knew for a fact hadn’t had sex in at least three weeks on account of him not leaving the villa, was heading to a city filled with some of the world’s most beautiful, sophisticated women.

She must not think like this. Ramos could do what he liked.

‘Good,’ she answered. And it was good. The press had been camped outside the villa’s grounds since she’d arrived. She guessed they’d finally moved on to a fresher story.

‘There are bodyguards to escort you when you’re ready to go out,’ he told her. ‘Let Madeline know and she will make the arrangements. If you need anything at all, speak to her.’

‘Okay.’ She kept the nonchalance in her tone by the skin of her teeth. Her heart was feeling bluer by the passing second.

He kissed Benjamin’s cheek then carefully passed him back to her, dark eyes scrutinising.

For one silly moment Flora held her breath in anticipation that he would kiss her cheek too. Other than the brushing of arms when lifting Benjamin between them, he hadn’t touched her since that comforting kiss on her forehead when she first moved in.

He took a step back. ‘If you want me to stay, I can rearrange things.’

Lightly stroking Benjamin’s back, she injected even more brightness into her voice. ‘Don’t be silly. We’ll be fine.’

‘You are sure?’

‘Haven’t I already told you that a thousand times? Go on, shoo. Rome is waiting with bated breath for you.’

She managed to wait until he’d closed the door behind him before bursting into tears.

Benjamin was sound asleep.

Flora wished she could drift off too but her head, so hot and heavy from newborn baby sleep deprivation, was too full of Ramos to sleep. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering where he was and what he was doing... And who he was doing it with.

He was on his third business trip in two weeks. This time he’d gone to London, just mentioned casually the day before he left that he’d be visiting his Mayfair casino for three days. She’d held her breath waiting for him to invite her and Benjamin with him to her home city, but nothing.

She supposed a wife and newborn baby would cramp his style.

Those early days and weeks when they’d found a harmony together were nothing but a distant memory. She often wondered if she’d dreamt them because, since he’d returned to work, in the much reduced time they spent together conversation had become stiltedly polite and only ever concerned their son.

Wiping away more tears that had sprung from nowhere—she wished she didn’t cry all the time but could do nothing to stop them—she gave herself a good talking to.

Flora had married Ramos for her brother’s freedom. Ramos had married her for their son. That was all there was between them and she had better get used to it. When he was home he was a good, hands-on father. She must stop torturing herself about the women he shared his nights with. No good could come from it. All it would do would make her bitter and she had no right to be bitter, not when she was raising her son in a luxury she could never have dreamed of for him.

If Ramos had presented this marriage to her from the outset; a marriage where they had separate rooms, where he worked away for the majority of his time and where relations between them were cordially polite when home, she might not have needed to be blackmailed into agreeing to it.

These baby blue hormones would pass soon, she assured herself, and, when they did, all her emotions would return to an even keel and Ramos would mean nothing more to her than the man she shared a child and a roof with.

CHAPTER FIVE

FIVEMONTHSAFTERgiving birth and moving to Barcelona, Flora finally felt like her old self. She’d come out of the baby fugue. She hadn’t cried in at least a month. It helped that Benjamin now slept through the night, meaning she slept soundly through the night too.

With sleep deprivation a thing of the past, she began to see and feel things more clearly. Her love for her son had formed when the pregnancy stick had shown the positive sign and swelled from there. In the fugue after the birth she’d carried that swell of love every second of the day but now it had become more defined, encapsulated within the certainty that she would sooner throw herself in front of a speeding train than let harm come to a single hair on his precious head.

Unfortunately, her awareness for Ramos had become more defined too.

The days he was home, all the tiny atoms that made her became fully charged, creating a buzz in her skin and a burr in her brain. Her heart would thump painfully. The very air she breathed tasted different.

If her presence had any effect on him, he hid it well, but why should she affect him when he had any number of women to keep him entertained when he was away on business, women who didn’t bear the scars of a belly that had so recently been swollen to the size of a watermelon? And he was away on business far more than he was home. It was probably why he’d not bothered moving her into his room or made any intimations to make their marriage anything more than two people who shared a child and a roof.

She never asked him about the women. It was none of her business, she reminded herself staunchly and often. It was obvious their marriage was in name only and, with all the stupid effects he had on her, that was just as well.

---