Chapter 3

“Can you Miss Welsh?” Xavier’s tone was hard. “Because the last time I checked my parents were still happily married to each other. To my knowledge neither of them is hiding additional spouses or secret stepchildren.”

Her blush intensified. She had expected this to be tricky. It was why she had put such careful thought into what she would say but how she would say it if she ever got the chance. But now that she was here and he was standing before her so much more imposing in the flesh than she had imagined she couldn't recall one single sentence now she had so painstakingly crafted in her mind. Cara swallowed.

“Maybe we could sit down?” She suggested.

For a long moment he didn't move just stood there staring at her eyes narrowed to the slit sub silver grey as if he were debating whether to have her thrown out or let her stay. Finally as her composer teetered on the brink of collapse gesture to a chair in front of the desk.

Relief pushed to smile on to her face. “Thank you,” she said and noted that he waited until she was seated before sitting in his own chair.

It was simple old fashioned courtesy that made her warm to him a bit until he opened his mouth again.

“Start talking, Miss Welsh. I don't have all evening.”

The smile evaporated from her face. Good grief. Was he this brusque with everyone? Or only with strangers who dare to ask for a piece of his precious time?

She sat up a little straighter and said ,”Cara.”

“Excuse me?”

“My first name is Cara.”

He drummed the long tapered finger of his right hand on the top of the desk and then abruptly stopped curling his hand into a loose fist. “Your accent is it Australian?”

“Yes. I am from Melbourne.” she paused took a deep breath and then opened her tote bag and pulled out a leather bound red journal. She undead the clasp and lifted the covered the sealed envelope and 2 photos she had carefully tucked inside the journal we're still there safe and sound.

“Until recently I lived there with my stepmother.” she picked up one of the photos and held it out her arms extended across the desk. “Matilda Welsh.” He glanced at the photo but no flicker of recognition showed on his face. Cara didn't know why that should disappoint her. Of course he wouldn't recognise her stepmother.

But her eyes…

Could he not see that they were his eyes?

“Her maiden name was Sanchez,” she added. “She was originally from a small village not though here.”

“Was?”

A stillness had come over him and Cara hesitated all doubts she had thought she had laid to rest suddenly rearing up again pushing at the walls of her resolve. For the past 10 days she had written a wave of uncertainty firm in her believe that what she was doing was not only the right thing but also the good thing.

After weeks are feeling lost and adrift and alone with no job nothing and no one left in the world to anchor her she had booked Sarah flight to Spain almost with the sense of euphoria.

“She died 6 weeks ago.”

Somehow she managed to say the words without her voice wobbling she lowered her arm and stared down at the photo of her stepmother.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

She looked up the sentiment in his deep voice had sounded genuine. “Thank you.”

Cara’s gaze missed with his and the intensity of those sharp intelligent eyes made her breath catch in her throat. She shifted a bit unsettled by her escalating awareness of him. He was so handsome so compelling. She couldn't take her eyes off him. And that pre natural stillness in his body. It was disconcerting making her think of a big predatory cats in the wildlife documentaries that her dad had loved to watch.

She took another deep breath and in threw her nose out through her mouth the way Matilda had taught her to do as a child to combat stressful he was waiting for her to speak to spell out why she was here. Did he already have an inkling? She searched for his face but that chiselled features were impassive giving nothing away.

Adopting return she often used that work when mix of practicality and compassion was required she said ,”Matilda was your birth mother.”

The statement landed between them like a burning stick of dynamite tossed into the room full Cara raised herself for its impact her whole body tensing but if Xavier de la Velga was even mildly shocked he hit it well.

“You have proof of this?”

She stared at him. It was such a cool controlled discourse far less emotional than anything she had expected but she counselled herself not to read too much into it. at 26 years of age and after 5 years of working as a trauma nurse she had seen people react in all kinds of way in all sorts of life altering situations. Often what should on the surface delight the tumult within.

She slipped the other photo from her journal across the desk to him. This one was older its colours faded and the edges are bit warned.

He leaned forward gave the photo accessory glance and they drew back. “This tells me nothing,” he said dismissively.

Cara withdrew her hand leaving the photo on his desk. “It's you,” she said and it gave her heart a funny little jolt to think that the tiny innocent baby in the photo had grown into a powerful intimidating man sitting before her.

His gaze sharpened and he flicked his hand towards the photo and the gesture faintly disdainful. “This child could be anyone.”

She reached forward and flipped the photo over. The blue ink on the back had faded with time but Matilda's handwriting was still legible. “It says Xavier,” she pointed out and weighted sensing his reluctance to look again. When he did she saw his eyes widen a fraction. “And the date of birth underneath I believe it's…”

“Mine,” he bit out cutting her off before she could finish he sat back nostrils flaring a white line of tension forming around his mouth. It is no secret that I'm adopted. And old photo with my phone name and my birth date written on it proves nothing.

“Perhaps not,” she considered determined to hold her nerve in the face of his denial and the hostility she sends towards gathering in him. “But my stepmother told me things details that only your adoptive parents or your birth mother could know.”

His eyes darkened the grey iris is no more than a glint of cold steel between the thick fringes of Ebony lashes. “Such as?”

Her lips felt bone dry all of a sudden and she mugged them with her tongue. “33 years ago Reagan Martinez work does a housekeeper for your parents she began carefully reciting the details Matilda had shared with her for the first time just a month before she had died. She had an 18 year old unmarried niece who fell pregnant stop at the time your parents were considering adoption. That was because your mother had several miscarriages. A private adoption was arranged and soon after you were born at a private hospital here in Barcelona which your parents paid for they took you home.”

And the young mother would have been devastated even though she had done the only thing she could. The alternative living as an unwed mother under her strict father's roof in their small conservative village would have helped as much misery and shame on her child's life as her own full knowing first hand how it felt to be genuinely unwanted by ones biological mother Cara hoped Xavier would see Matilda's decision not as an act of rejection or abandonment but one of love.

She waited for him to say something. it was perfectly understandable that he might need a minute or two to process what she had told me stop something like this was.

“What do you want Miss Welsh?”

Her thoughts slam to a halt the question not to mention the distinct child in his voice taking her by surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Money?”

She stared at him. “Money?” she echoed blankly.

His gaze was piercing the colour of his eyes the darkest of storm clouds under his lowered brows. “It is common knowledge that my family is one of the wealthiest in Spain. You would not be the first to claim our tenuous connection in hopes of a handout.”

A hand out? Her head snapped back as if he had sprung acid at her face. She grabbed the edges of her journal shock receding beneath a rush of indignation. “That is offensive,” she choked out.

“Quiet,” he agreed ,”which is why I will ask you again what do you want Miss Welsh?”

Cara felt her heart begin to pound. How on this arrogant imperious man could be her stepmother son? Matilda had been this kind gentle soul who had always looked for the best in people despite the heartbreak that she had suffered early in life.

Cara looked at the envelope she had pleased with such reverent care between the pages of her journal. She had carried the envelope halfway around the world and not once she had been tempted to Snoop inside. The letter it contained was private sacred and the precious words of a dying woman to her son.

Lifting her chin she looked at him in the eye letting him know that he didn't intimidate her. That she had nothing to feel ashamed about. She held up the envelope. “I came here to give you this.”

“And what is ‘this’?”

“A letter from your birth mother.”

“Matilda Welsh?”

“Yes your birth mother,” she reiterated.

A muscle worked in his jaw. His guys flicked to the photo that leaf is down on his desk and then back to her. “A claim which at present is unsubstantiated.”

Cara let her hand fall back to her lap her frustration so great she wanted to slap her palm against the top of his desk and demand to know why he was being so bloody minded instead she claimed her back teeth together and waited for the impulse to pass. She was not someone who flew off the handle at the slightest provocation. She might have been settled with her mother unruly flame coloured hair but she hadn't thank goodness inherited her fiery personality.

Suddenly she felt as cross with herself as she did with him. Why hasn't she been better prepared for this kind of reaction? Had she imagined that because she and Matilda had been so close she would automatically feel some sort of instant kinship with this man? the stranger?

Sadly she had. She tugged her grief away in a safely locked compartment of her heart and don't own those silly rose coloured glasses she should have learned to distrust years ago and set off on her mission to deliver Matilda's letter and scatter her ashes in the homeland she had left 33 years before.

It was the final thing Cara would be able to do for her step mom for the woman whose love and kindness had helped to heal the wound Caras mother had inflicted years earlier with her abrupt unapologetic departure from her daughters life

And the embarrassing though it was to admit it Cara had built up a little fantasy in her head imagining herself striking up a friendship with Matilda's son which kind of step sibling relationship was now seem totally laughable.

This was not a man she could imagine having such a relationship with. Never!