Page 13 (2/2)

That angle had not occurred to Antonio His brilliant eyes grew bleak He was most reluctant to conte the role of a hands-on parent in constant de was ridiculous He was the Marqués de Salazar, head of an ancient and noble fa a powerful and influential businessman on whom many thousands of employees depended His time was too valuable His importance to the success of his business projects was limitless What did he know about children? Babies?

At the sae banged the equivalent of a sepulchral cell door shut in Antonio’s iination and made him pale

In the act of changing Lydia’s T-shirt, Sophie succumbed to te with chuckles, Lydia held up her arms to be lifted, her little face below her soft brown curls lit by a sunny smile

‘I don’t knohich one of you is the bigger kid!’ Norah Moore quipped while her stocky, well-built son, Matt, set the old highchair out beside the pine kitchen table

Tiny in stature and slender as a ribbon, Sophie thrust her own curls back off her brow in a rueful gesture and resisted the urge to ad tofinancially afloat was a constant struggle and since Lydia’s birth had required her to do two jobs Heras a cleaner for the Moores Mother and son owned the trailer park where she had lived for almost four years At present she cleaned the caravans that were rented out as holiday lets But quite a feere lived in all the year round by people like herself who could not afford more expensive acco clothes for an exclusive ht be poor in corateful for any work that she could co for Lydia

‘But I knohich one of you is the prettiest,’ Matt declared with a ful look in Sophie’s direction

As Sophie strapped Lydia into the high chair she contrived to evade his ading the wrong men to chase her She liked Matt She had tried, she really had tried to find hi, honest and decent He was everything her irresponsible father had not been and a solid gold choice for a sensible woman As always she wished that she were less fanciful and more prudent

‘Right now, I should think Sophie’s ht have to say to her,’ Norah, a thin worey hair, told her son brusquely ‘I can’t understand why Belinda even bothered toto leave’

‘She had Lydia,’ Sophie pointed out to the older woman ‘Belinda had the will drawn up after Pablo died I think ither independence’

‘Yes, your sister was very keen on her independence,’ Norah Moore said with a sniff ‘And not so fond of being tied down to a kiddie once Lydia was born’

‘It was hard for her’ Sophie lifted a slight shoulder in a nonco because it hurt that she could not actively defend Belinda’s rash behaviour during the last months of her life At least, not to a wo for Belinda’s daughter But then that hat she most liked about the Moores, she re false about them

‘It was even harder for you,’ Norah told her squarely ‘I felt very sorry for Belinda when she first cah time But when she took up with that new boyfriend of hers and landed you with Lydia, I lost patience with her silliness’

‘I loved being landed with Lydia,’ Sophie declared staunchly

‘Soood for you,’ the older woman retorted crisply

But at a time when Sophie’s heart still ached from the cruelly sudden death of her sister, her baby niece was her only real coh Sophie and Belinda had had different fathers and had not rown very fond of her older sister Belinda had, after all, shown Sophie the first faer woman had ever known

Yet the stark difference between their respective backgrounds ht more easily have ensured that the two sisters rerown up in a lovely country house with her own pony and every childhood extra her parents could afford, Sophie had been born illegitimate and raised in a council flat by a father as always broke Sophie was the result of their mother, Isabel’s extramarital affair After her infatuation had subsided, Isabel had won her estranged husband back by leaving Sophie behind with her lover Sophie’s feckless father had brought her up with the help of a succession of girlfriends She had learned when she was very young that her wants and wishes were rarely of interest to the self-seeking adults who surrounded her

At first , Sophie had been in awe of her beautiful, sophisticated sister Five years older, Belinda had been educated at a fancy boarding-school and she had talked with a cut glass accent that put Sophie in mind of the royal family Her warm and affectionate nature had however soon won Sophie’s trust and love Perhaps more slowly and rather more painfully, Sophie had come to appreciate that Belinda was not very clever and was extre and ied that unhappy truth from Sophie, as loyal to a fault

Leaving her niece in Norah Moore’s capable care, Sophie cliave her a lift into Sheerness and, stopping right outside the solicitor’s office, he offered to wait for her

As always in a hurry to escape Matt’s hopeful air of expectation, Sophie had

already jumped out onto the pavement ‘There’s no need,’ she said breezily ‘I’ll catch the bus’

Matt behaved as if she hadn’t spoken and told her where he would be parked

A young car driver waiting at the lights buzzed down histo call, ‘Hiya, sexy!’

Sophie flung hireen as old-fashioned bottle glass ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

He looked startled by the comeback Sophie pondered the decided e like a sixteen-year-old when she was almost twenty-three years old She blaht and skinny build She kept her hair long because, although she would not have ad soul, she was always terrified that her slender curvesmistaken for a boy

As she entered the legal fired uneasily at the hem of her denim skirt, which rejoiced in floral cotton frills The skirt ell out of fashion and she had worn it only because she thought it looked more formal than the jeans that filled her limited wardrobe All her clothes caner cast-off variety Without complaint, she hovered while the receptionist chatted to a colleague and answered a call before finally deigning to take note of her arrival

In the waiting room, Sophie took up a restive position by theShe watched a li the street outside and cause traffic chaos The long silver vehicle caed Impervious to the car horns that protested the obstruction that the lier to alight

As the passenger sprang out and straightened to an ireen eyes widened with disbelief It couldn’t be, it si brother, Antonio Rocha! She shrank back to the side of thebut continued to stare It was Antonio all right He had the impact of a tidal wave on her self-command