Mia didn’t look convinced. “You’re not exactly someone any of us want to confide in.”
He walked toward her. “You’re right. She didn’t think she had told me anything significant, but she did. I recognized the symptoms. She is bound by duty.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
“She isn’t happy dancing. She regrets her career choice, but because of all the sacrifices her family made for her, she feels too guilty to tell them. She’s acting out, hoping to shock her parents enough so that they will punish her by bringing her home. She may even want to go to college.”
Mia moved back into the house and he followed her. “You know I’m right,” he said.
“I do not.”
“Think about it. How unusual is her behavior? Hasn’t it come on fairly quickly? The drinking, Etienne. She admitted she doesn’t even like him. What twenty-year-old sleeps with a man she doesn’t like?”
Mia leaned against the kitchen counter. “Maybe,” she admitted. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
“I have solved the problem of your niece, Mia. Admit it. That should be worth something.”
She glared at him. “This isn’t a barter economy.”
He eased toward her, enjoying the fire in her eyes. “Of course it is. You have something I want and I have something you want.”
“You have nothing I want.”
He touched her arm. She wore a sleeveless summer dress and he brushed his fingers down her bare skin to her elbow. He was close enough to feel her shiver and see the goose bumps that erupted.
Interesting. All her fury had not burned away her desire for him. He was pleased, because he still wanted her as well, but that wasn’t what he spoke of.
“I wish to have a relationship with my son,” he said. “You wish that as well.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. He had suspected she wouldn’t be comfortable saying she didn’t want him to be close to Daniel. What mother stood in the way of a boy and his father bonding?
“You’re still a pig,” she said.
“So Kelly informed me. The women of your family are not afraid to speak their minds.”
“We’re good at it.”
“I have noticed. Come. We will go see Daniel in his play and you will think about what I have said about Kelly. In time, you will admit I was right. I am not as insensitive as you think.”
“Don’t push it,” she grumbled as she collected her purse.
“I will not.” He held open the door. “I have a surprise. I bought a new car so that I would fit in with the other parents.”
She stepped out and stared at the massive SUV. “That’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. You think it’s inconspicuous?”
“It does not have diplomatic flags. And see? Oliver and Umberto are driving in a different car. No one will notice them. We are just like everyone else.”
“Oh, right,” she muttered as she walked over to the SUV and eyed the high step. “We’re the walking, breathing definition of normal.”
15
Although Mia had mocked Rafael about his new SUV, she was actually pretty grateful to arrive at Danny’s preschool in it rather than in a limo with diplomatic flags. As promised, Oliver and Umberto stayed in the background and did their security guard best to blend in. Which left her the yet unsolved problem of how to explain Rafael.
While she wasn’t close with the other mothers in the school, she did chat with them from time to time. She’d never mentioned a father for Danny. Not that anyone had asked. In today’s world of single mothers, no one thought it was unusual to be manless. But showing up with a well-dressed, gorgeous man who looked like a fallen angel and spoke like Antonio Banderas was bound to create just a little too much interest.
She stopped at the edge of the parking lot and looked at him. “I don’t know how to explain you,” she admitted. “To the people here.”
“Will they ask?”
“Danny’s been enrolled just over a year and this is your first time showing up. Not to mention the fact that you haven’t exactly been a subject of conversation.”
“All right. Tell them I am his father. We will smile pleasantly and keep moving. If you do not give them time to gather their thoughts, they will not be able to ask questions. Most people are too polite to pry in a setting such as this.” He smiled. “You may get a few phone calls later.”
She’d already figured that out. As for his plan, it was the only one they had.
“Let’s go,” she said, and led the way into the low, one-story building.
There were several small classrooms, three playrooms, and a big meeting room that currently had a stage at one end. Mia smiled at several of the mothers she knew and did her best to ignore their wide-eyed stares at Rafael. Oh yeah, there would be plenty of phone calls later.
The two of them took seats on the far side of the room, by a fire exit. There weren’t any other parents sitting there yet. She had a feeling that spot had been prearranged and that Umberto and Oliver were hovering just outside. She subtly shifted her chair a bit farther away from Rafael’s so there would be no accidental touching. Right now she didn’t need the distraction.
“I hope no one recognizes you,” she muttered. “I’m not a big tabloid reader, but lots of other people are. I wouldn’t enjoy someone standing up and screaming out your identity.”
“Nor would I.” He glanced around. “We do not have a camera. I did not think to bring one. This is Daniel’s first play. We must have pictures.” He started to rise. “Instruct them not to begin the play until I have returned.”
Mia put her hand on his arm. “Settle down. I have a camera.” Then she realized they were touching and that the heat from his skin burned her in a way designed to make her rip off her clothes and beg to be taken right that second.
She casually removed her hand and reached into her bag for her digital camera.
Why did he still have to get to her? If only they hadn’t made love. If she didn’t have such incredible and recent memories, she would be able to ignore her physical attraction to him. She loathed the man with every fiber of her being and she absolutely hated suspecting that if they were alone and he started to seduce her, she wouldn’t be able to say no.
In her head, she knew the opposite of love was apathy. That as long as she had energy in her feelings for Rafael, she was far from being over him. But in her heart, she wanted to slice her feelings away, like an unwanted disease. She wanted to forget how good he was with Danny, how he could be sensitive at the oddest times, how, until the Portuguese incident, he respected her intelligence.
Two months ago, her life had been relatively uncomplicated. Now it was fodder for a cable movie of the week.
“You told me Daniel is the star of the play,” Rafael said.
“No I didn’t. He’s a tree. I told you he has three lines, just like every other child. This is preschool, not Broadway. There are no stars.”
“But he is…” He lowered his voice. “He is the heir to the Calandrian throne.”
“Gee, you know what? I didn’t have that information when they were casting the play. What a shame, because if I’d told them I’m sure they would have made him the star.”
Rafael stared at her. “Do you not believe your son is special?”
“Of course. But because of who he is on the inside. Not because of his relationship to you. I thought he was the most amazing child back when he was the son of an antiquities smuggler.”
He frowned slightly. “I had not considered that. Were you angry when you discovered you were pregnant?”
“No. Not angry. Shocked. But I was going through a bad time, and finding out I was pregnant got me through it.”
She really didn’t want to talk about this. Why couldn’t they be arguing about the light bill like the other parents?