CHAPTER ONE

      ‘MR SYMMONDS, would you kindly inform your client that her behaviour when I went to collect Miguel from her home yesterday was unreasonable—’

      ‘Mr Shaw, would you kindly inform your client that I consider his behaviour yesterday worse than unreasonable—it was positively inhuman!’ Brynne’s eyes sparkled deeply blue and her cheeks flushed with temper as she glared across the room at the man who stood so tall and broodingly remote in front of the window of his lawyer’s office. Alejandro Santiago’s swarthily attractive face was half in shadow as he returned her gaze.

      Paul Symmonds, her own lawyer, spoke reasonably as he sat beside her. ‘I’m afraid, Miss Sullivan, that Señor Santiago really does have the law on his side—’

      ‘Perhaps he does—’

      ‘There is no “perhaps” about it, Miss Sullivan. The judge decreed three weeks ago that, as I am Miguel’s father, his place is now with me,’ Alejandro informed her glacially. ‘But when I called at your home yesterday, as was prearranged, you refused to hand Miguel over to me.’

      ‘Michael is a six-year-old boy,’ she said, deliberately using the English version of her nephew’s name, ‘who recently lost the only parents he has ever known in a car crash. He is not some parcel left at the lost-luggage department for you, as his natural father, to just collect and move on!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation, and her hands were clenched at her sides.

      What she really wanted to do was scream and shout, to tell this man that, although it might have been proved he was Michael’s natural father, and she was only his aunt by marriage, the little boy was staying with her.

      Except she knew that wasn’t going to happen. The legal battle with this man was already over, a private legal battle—a battle Brynne had lost—that had nevertheless received much publicity in the press.

      But she wanted to shout anyway.

      Alejandro eyed her coldly, his harsh good looks, from his Spanish heritage, completely unemotional.

      He was tall, with slightly long dark hair and the coldest grey eyes Brynne had ever seen, his face was all hard angles, and the tailored business suit he wore added to his air of cool detachment. He was a man Brynne had come to dislike as well as fear over the last few weeks as she fiercely opposed his claim on Michael.

      ‘I am well aware of Miguel’s age, Miss Sullivan,’ he rasped stiffly in response to Brynne’s outburst. ‘I am also aware, as I am sure are you, that, as my son, his place is now with me,’ he added with determination.

      ‘He doesn’t even know you!’ she protested.

      ‘I am aware of that too,’ the tall Spaniard dismissed abruptly. ‘Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about the six years of my son’s life that have been lost to me—’

      ‘You could have tried marrying his mother seven years ago!’ Brynne scorned.

      Alejandro’s nostrils flared angrily. ‘You have no idea of the circumstances! Do not presume