The Buenos Aires Marriage Deal by Maggie Cox Page B

honestly don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out, won’t we? I feel so torn, Mum. It was very wrong of me to keep Adán from Pascual…I know that now. And I owe it to him to at least give this marriage he’s suggesting a try. Can you imagine how he’s feeling right now, learning that he’s been a father for the past four years and didn’t even know it?’
    Pushing her hair away from her eyes, Briana leant back against the kitchen worktop and folded her arms.
    ‘He’s in the living room with Adán, down on the floor playing cars, and already they look like they’re crazy about each other! Adán was so pleased to learn Pascual was his dad…His little face lit up as if he could hardly believe it. I didn’t expect that. You know how reticent he can be about meeting new people, don’t you? It’s as though the natural bond between them was just waiting for the chance to be forged. Okay, so there’s the not so small matter of Pascual living in Argentina, but it’s only natural that he wants his son to be with him there. Adán can have a good life there, and we won’t have to struggle any more. There are lots of pluses.’
    ‘Adán can have a good life, you said? What about you, Briana?’ her mother asked thoughtfully. ‘Can you live with a man you’ve already told me can’t possibly love you, who bears resentment towards you because you kept his son from him?’
    ‘Pascual’s not like Dad, Mum. I don’t mean to upset you, but he wouldn’t be deliberately cruel to me…I know that.’
    Frances’s light grey eyes—so like her daughter’s—narrowed . ‘Withholding love from someone has got to be about the cruellest thing there is in my book,’ she said softly, and Briana shivered as though someone had just walked over her grave…
    Buenos Aires…three days later
    The heat was like a sultry tropical kiss as soon as they stepped out of the plane. Even though they were only in the airport terminal, the sense that they were somewhere much more exotic and different from home was palpable immediately. Breathing in the myriad scents and the atmosphere of being back in the city that she had embraced with such excitement and hope when she’d first arrived there five years ago, for a beguiling moment Briana felt her fears and doubts replaced by unexpected optimism.
    A short time later, in the chauffeur-driven Mercedes that had been waiting to pick them up, she had a chance to view their location more closely through discreetly tinted windows, her hands in her lap and her gaze soaking up everything she saw just like a child…just as if she were seeing it all for the very first time. Someone had described the city as the ‘Paris of South America’, and with its sweeping boulevards and grand architecture, she could easily understand why. But Briana also knew that every barrio or district had its own distinct features that reflected the multiplicity of cultures that resided there. Some were not grand at all, but intimate, lively and colourful.
    Next to her, Adán had fallen asleep, his curly dark head against Pascual’s suited shoulder, the child’s sweeping long lashes and hair the same intense sable of his father’s. Glancing at them both, she felt her breath catch. That bond they seemed to have instantly forged on sight was growing ever stronger, she intuited, and would continue to deepen the more time they spent together.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ His disturbing gaze touching hers, Pascual raised an enquiring brow.
    ‘Fine. Hardly tired at all after the journey.’
    Having imagined that the trip to Argentina would raise all kinds of challenges and concerns—not least because of the tension between herself and Pascual—Briana had figured without the effortless reassurance of first-class luxury travel. Her husband-to-be had only to click his fingers, it seemed, and the attentive flight staff would bring them anything they desired…from a four-course gourmet meal to champagne on