The Spaniard's Love-Child Read Online Free PDF

Carreras’s approval, but if his antipathy was personal it wasn’t going to help her advocacy of the children’s case.
    â€˜Kate and Antonio are my concern though.’ The mystery was no longer why Katerina had run away from her uncle, but why it had taken her so long! Imagining her own fate in the hands of such a man sent a shiver down Nell’s spine.
    The grim smile that curved his wide, sensual mouth was without humour as he coldly replied, ‘Thankfully that is not true.’ Nell opened her mouth to contradict him, but was forestalled by his smooth and astonishing addition. ‘You are my dead brother’s ex-mistress, a position I think you’ll find will carry very little weight legally or otherwise.’
    Mistress!
    Now the explanation for his attitude had revealed itself Nell didn’t know why she was so astounded, or why this possibility hadn’t occurred to her earlier. It wasn’t as if this were the first time some ill-informed person had assumed Javier and she had been lovers.
    Even though it seemed laughably preposterous to her, if she thought about it objectively Nell could see how they got there. They had shared a house, not had other partners and, despite the age gap, Javier had been a very attractive man, though not admittedly in the same class as his younger brother.
    But then who was?
    Nell scanned the lean, dark and permanently bad-tempered features of Raul Carreras from under the protective shield of her lashes. He might be an overbearing pain, but there was no denying the man really did have raw sex appeal coming out of his pores. As gorgeous as he was to look at, in Nell’s eyes his staggering beauty didn’t compensate for him being a humourless, stuck-up bully.
    A thoughtful expression on her face, she tried to figure out how he had come to the conclusion she and Javier had been lovers. Though she had never personally met the man up until the day of the funeral she did know that he and Javier had met up infrequently. Nell could recall thinking it was touching when she had learnt that Javier’s younger brother had broken ranks and did have contact with the estranged member of the family.
    Had Javier said something during one of their infrequent meetings that his brother had misinterpreted? If he had realised, Javier, who had been extremely protective of her reputation, would no doubt have put him straight. Javier on the surface, unorthodox and caring little for convention, actually never stopped being essentially a Spanish male, and as such he held some quaintly old-fashioned ideas about a woman’s reputation. He had been much more concerned about what people might think than she had been.
    As far as Nell herself was concerned the people that mattered knew the only interest Javier had in her was mildly paternal, and, besides, the sort of people that thought ill of her were not the sort of people she cared much about anyway.
    â€˜It has been a trying evening, Miss Rose. I think you’ll find it is imprudent to try my patience.’
    Nell’s dazed gaze focused openly on his dark face. Nell didn’t have much practice at hating but in that split second as their eyes meshed the dislike she felt for him hardened into something far more implacable than mere dislike. RaulCarreras was not the sort of man who inspired tepid emotions.
    Until that moment she had fully intended to set him straight, but that changed too. Her full mouth arranged itself into a mutinous line. Let him think what he liked; she didn’t owe him any explanation.
    â€˜Is that a threat?’ she enquired quietly.
    â€˜It is a statement of fact.’
    â€˜Will you lower your voice? I have neighbours, you know.’
    â€˜I would have thought that in an area such as this noise is the least of the neighbours’ problems.’ Every time Raul thought of the children walking through such an area in the middle of the night his blood ran cold.
    â€˜Why, you