by Abby Green
She looked away, toying with the half-eaten croissant on her plate. “I imagine I would have followed you to the ends of the earth, Marcos. Though I’m sure I’d have figured out the truth soon enough.”
“The truth?”
“That you were only using me.”
“As you were using me.”
“You can continue to believe that if it makes you feel better,” she said. Then she speared him with a glare. “But the truth is, if I had thought that asking my father to buy you for me would have worked, I probably would have done it. Because yes, I was that hopelessly in love.
That deluded.”
Her words pricked him more than he liked. Deluded. “How do you know that you did not ask him? You didn’t have to say those exact words, after all.”
“I never spoke with my father about you. I never spoke with any of them, because I was afraid of what they would say.”
“And what did you think that would be?”
She thrust her chin up, a gesture he was beginning to recognize as a defense mechanism. It was her mantle of self-assurance settling into place, however tattered a mantle it may be.
“That I was delusional, that I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough, that you would never look at me twice. The list can get quite long if you want to hear it all.”
Anger surged through him at the thought of her family saying such things to her. And they would have, he knew. At least her mother and sister would have. Her father had adored her, which was perhaps why her mother and sister had been so jealous.
“They would have been wrong, Francesca.”
She snorted. “Of course. And you proved how wrong they were by leaving as soon as the ink was dry on the marriage license.”
He leaned forward and caught her face between his hands, kissing her until she began to soften, until he could feel the blood rushing to his groin and feel the pounding of desire in his veins. “They could say none of those things now, and you know it,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “Stop picking at old wounds. Life is about forward motion, not regrets.”
She gently disentangled herself from his grasp. Her golden-green eyes were full of sadness as she searched his face. He felt like he’d been shoved beneath a microscope—and the scrutiny was becoming uncomfortable because it went so far beneath the surface.
“Then why don’t you take your own advice, Marcos? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re a man living so deeply in the past you can’t even enjoy the present.”
They had not found Ana and her boyfriend by nightfall. Francesca took turns with Ingrid and another of the women who worked there in playing with Armando. He was a sweet little boy, but he was beginning to get fussy the longer he went without his mother.
Surely, Ana must have done a few things right, or her son would not have bonded with her so strongly as to notice she’d been gone for a very long time. Francesca had just given the child back to Ingrid and decided to go for a walk in the vineyard when Marcos emerged from his office.
She’d not spoken with him since breakfast. Once they’d finished eating, he’d said he had business to attend to and shut himself away. He’d even had his lunch delivered and had eaten behind closed doors.
She’d thought he meant to ignore her completely after what she’d said to him this morning. Looking at him now, her heart contracted. “Have they found her?” she asked, hoping beyond hope that he’d found out something.
He shook his head. He looked so forlorn in that moment, so defeated. She wanted to go to him, wrap her arms around him. Tell him how she felt.
And just like that, the truth of what she was feeling slammed into her, stole her breath away. She loved him.
She loved Marcos Navarre. This time it was real, not the childish love of an infatuated teenager. He was far from the selfish, cruel bastard she’d thought him to be. He felt things deeply, and he acted with more dignity and morality than anyone she’d ever known.
Including her own family. Her mother was selfish beyond belief, her sister had always been concerned with herself and the way she looked, and her father indulged them all with bigger and better gifts and trips. Not one of them had ever expressed concern over those less fortunate than they were. She didn’t ever remember any talk about favorite charities or reasons other than tax deductions to give money away.
And she’d been just as bad, living in her shell and worrying about herself and her secret—or not so secret—crush on Marcos.
Yet, in spite of loss and pain and a difficult childhood, Marcos had dedicated himself to helping others.
And she loved him for it.
The thought sent a little shiver of heat and joy racing up her spine all at once. And fear.
Because he did not love her in return, nor was he likely to do so. This was a temporary marriage, based on his desire to reclaim his family birthright once and for all. At the end of their time together, he would stick her on a plane and say goodbye forever.
“How is Armando?” he asked her.
“He seems fine,” she said. “Ingrid has taken him.”
Marcos shoved a hand through his hair. “This has never happened before. I cannot allow that child to go to an orphanage,” he finished fiercely.
Francesca finally conquered her paralysis. She went to him, slipped her arms around his waist and pressed in close, her head on his chest. He did not push her away. Instead, he squeezed her to him.
“Of course you can’t,” she said. “It won’t come down to that.”
“What a tiger you are,” he murmured. “So fierce, so strong in your beliefs. I am thankful you’ve never been disillusioned.”
She pushed back, tilted her head up to look at him. “I’ve been disillusioned plenty, Marcos. But that doesn’t mean I give up.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair. “I do not give up either. Perhaps we are more alike than I thought.”
Heat wound its way through her limbs, sizzling into her nerve endings. All he had to do was touch her—no, all he had to do was look at her—and she was on fire. She dropped her chin, certain he would see her heart in her eyes if she kept looking at him.
A baby’s wail ricocheted through the house. Marcos stiffened, though she knew it wasn’t out of annoyance or anger.
“We should go see what’s happening,” she said. “Maybe Armando will respond to one of us.”
“Sí,” Marcos replied, taking her hand and leading her toward the kitchen.
The scene they entered into was one of controlled chaos. Ingrid was extracting her hands from a pile of dough, her skin too covered in flour and gluten to quickly be free, and Isabelle was cleaning up an oozing pile of spaghetti that had spattered on the floor, the table, her, and Armando. A stoneware bowl also lay on the floor, shattered.
Baby Armando wailed at the top of his lungs in his high chair. Francesca hurried over to help Isabelle while Marcos grabbed a wet rag and wiped off Armando’s face. Then he lifted the toddler out of the chair, uncaring of the tomato sauce that got on his shirt as he held Armando close and began to bounce him up and down.
Armando kept wailing.
“Give him to me,” Francesca said when she’d helped Isabelle pick up the broken stoneware. Marcos handed him over, and though he continued to cry, he began calming down as she crooned a song to him. A song she’d sung to her unborn baby at night when her little girl would kick and keep her awake. It had often worked, or so she’d convinced herself.
It worked on Armando too. He lay his head on her shoulder and stuck his thumb in his mouth, though he still sniffled and hiccoughed.
“He likes you,” Marcos said, shooting her a smile that melted her insides.
“Only this time. Later, it could be you he prefers.”
Marcos’s smiled didn’t waver. “I doubt that, mi gatita. He knows he has found a soft heart in you.”
She turned from her husband, certain her face was red. Ingrid gave her a smile and a wink. Francesca couldn’t help but smile back. S
he carried Armando into the cavernous living area and sat down on one of the long couches there. Marcos was close behind, his hands in his jeans pockets, his shirt streaked with red sauce.
He’d never looked sexier to her. She could imagine him being so tender and good with his own child, and her heart ached. She loved him, and she could never give him that.
A pain throbbed in her breastbone. He didn’t want that kind of life with her anyway. This was not a true marriage, and she was not a true wife. She’d been so incredibly stupid in not keeping an emotional distance from this man.
But how could she have done so? Each new thing she learned about him was like a nail in the coffin of her determination not to like him.
She’d failed, and she would pay the price when the time came.
Marcos perched on the thick wooden coffee table in front of the couch. “And you said you were scared of children.”
“I’d never been around them, is all,” she replied, stroking Armando’s soft curls. Her eyes filled with tears. She tried to hold them back, but one spilled down her cheek regard less.
Marcos leaned forward, his brows drawing together as he caught a teardrop on his finger. “What is this, querida? You have told me to have faith. Do you not take your own advice?”
“It’s not that,” she whispered, suddenly overwhelmed with all she wanted to say. With all she wanted to share. “I-I was pregnant once.”
Shock rocked him back. “Pregnant?”
She nodded, unable to look at him, her heart throbbing. “I lost the baby at six months. There was a robbery at the store, and I was beaten. They killed my baby.”
“Francesca, my God—”
“She was a girl. Jacques cared for me when all I wanted to do was die as well. It wasn’t just physical, either. He saved me from myself.”
“Your mother? Your sister?”
She shook her head. “He called them, but they’d disowned me. Because of the Corazón del Diablo.”
“Madre de Dios,” he breathed, visibly shaken. “When did this happen? What did they do to the men who did this?”
“It was four years ago, soon after Robert and I split. The men were caught. One of them died in prison, but the other two are still there. There’s one more thing.” She drew in a deep breath. “I can never have children of my own. The doctors say the damage was too great.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE DIDN’T KNOW what to say. Shock, outrage—even despair—were the emotions crashing through him at the moment. He stared at his wife in disbelief. Francesca’s head was bowed, her attention focused on the toddler sleeping so peacefully in her arms. She stroked his hair with a shaky hand.
She could never have children—no wonder she’d been so uncomfortable when Armando had first appeared. She’d told him she had a headache, that she needed to lie down. But what she’d needed, he realized now, was escape.
He wanted to destroy the men who had done this to her. Wanted to destroy the man who’d left her to face the future alone while she was pregnant with his child.
He shot to his feet, overwhelmed with hot emotion, ready to do battle for her and slay the demons of her past. Yet it was too late, as he well knew.
She gazed up at him. Tears slid freely down her cheeks now and she swiped them away with the backs of her fingers while she tried not to awaken Armando.
He was so gripped with feeling, with emotion he didn’t understand. He needed to escape, at least for a few moments. He needed time to regain his perspective.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.”
He couldn’t move. He wanted to go, but he couldn’t. “Understand what?”
“You’re angry, probably even horrified. And you’re glad we have a contract, because we both know this is ending in three months. You aren’t saddled with a barren wife for real.”
As long as she lived, she would never forget the way he was looking at her right now. His expression was hard, angry. The scar on his face was white, and she didn’t think he realized that his hands were clenched into fists at his side.
Perhaps she should have waited to see what he would have said, but the truth was she couldn’t bear it. So she’d said it for him, because she was certain he would not. He would have told her how sorry he was, how sad, and then she would have been forced to murmur her thanks, all while holding this precious baby, who almost looked like he could belong to Marcos, in her arms.
She couldn’t bear it, so she’d given him his out.
“Francesca, that’s not at all what I was thinking.”
She sniffed, and was furious with herself for doing so. Being weak was not how she’d survived those dark days, or how she’d gotten where she was now.
“It’s all right, Marcos. You don’t have to explain.”
He sank down again, elbows on his knees, his hands steepled together. “I am angry, you are correct about this. Angry enough that I want to find these men and punish them for what they did to you. And I want to find this Robert too. I want them to bleed, Francesca. For you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s not what I want,” she managed, her heart zipping recklessly.
“I know this,” he replied. “It’s what I want.”
She could see the warrior in him then. A man who said he’d seen the worst that one person could do to the other. He’d not only seen it, he knew how to do it. And she knew he was capable of it. A shiver washed down her spine at the thought.
“I will not do this,” he continued. “But it’s what I want to do.”
“It’s in the past, Marcos. Nothing will bring my little girl back now. If it would, I’d do it myself, believe me.”
He was looking at her in a new way, she realized. Was it respect? Or pity? She couldn’t tell, and she was too emotionally exhausted to figure it out.
“It is no wonder I didn’t recognize you that night,” he said. “You have changed, Francesca, and not only in a physical way. Don’t you see how strong you are? How fierce and protective? How could you think that you are not unbelievably beautiful? You blind me with your beauty.”
Armando stirred in her arms then, saving her from having to say something in return. Because, quite frankly, he’d stunned her. And given her hope. Was it possible he felt something more for her too? Was it silly to believe that maybe there could be something wonderful between them?
Marcos’s cell phone rang. He answered it with a clipped, “Sí.” And then, much quicker than she’d expected, he was finished. His eyes were dark with emotion. He reached out to stroke Armando’s curls and shook his head, his jaw clenched tight.
“Marcos, what is it?” she asked. Deep inside, she knew it wasn’t good. She could see it in his face, feel it in the air. Poor, poor Armando.
“They’ve found Ana.”
“But that’s good, right?” Hope beyond hope. Please let this baby get his mother back …
“She’s not coming back, Francesca. Not ever. She and her boyfriend were drinking. There was an auto accident. They did not survive.”
The house was in an uproar for several hours. Marcos went with one of the men to claim the body for burial. The teens seemed to come out of the woodwork now, their ability to concentrate on their tasks severely compromised. Ingrid rocked Isabelle, who cried endlessly. Though Ana hadn’t lived at the winery for long, Isabelle had grown close to her in that short time.
Ana, it seemed, had been vibrant and fun, quick to laugh, a peacemaker and sweet girl who just wanted to be loved. It was that need to be loved that had led her to run away with a boy she’d thought adored her. No one knew who Armando’s father had been, but they knew Ana had been in love with him once. He’d abandoned her and she’d ended up here, lonely and scared and still looking for love.
Armando was, thankfully, asleep in his crib. He’d begun to cry again when so many others were doing so, but Francesca got him to go back to sleep and he was currently bedded down in the room he’d shared with his mother.
By the time Ma
rcos returned, it was late. Everyone had trickled back to their rooms by then. One of the young women had gone to stay in the room with Armando. Francesca had thought about having him brought into her room, but he’d been asleep and she’d been afraid that moving him would only wake him.
When Marcos walked in, she could see the strain on his face. Her heart went out to him. How was it that this man, this wealthy man who controlled a vast empire, could be so broken up over one young girl whom he’d never even met?
She could explain it, because she knew Marcos, but there truly weren’t enough words to do so. The way she’d fought for Jacques, the way she would have fought for her baby if she could have, this was the way he fought for these kids. With his whole heart, though she wasn’t sure he realized that’s what it was. He felt obligated, he’d said, because he’d been one of them.
But it was more than that. He could have turned out so cold and brutal after what had happened to him, but he wasn’t.
He came over and caught her to him, sweeping her off her feet so quickly she gasped in surprise.
“No words, Francesca,” he said. “I need you too much for words.”
She didn’t realize he’d carried her to his room until they were inside and he was whisking her shirt over her head. For some reason, the fact he’d taken her to his room caught at her heart and made hope blossom more strongly than before.
He stripped her urgently while she tore at his clothes in return. As soon as they were naked, they fell to the bed, mouths melding, limbs fusing, bodies straining for each other.
She was so turned on, so ready for him, that she didn’t need any preliminaries. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she urged him inside her. When they were joined, she thought he would take her to the heights of pleasure very quickly, that his need was urgent.
Instead, he moved languidly, thoroughly, touching her so deeply that she could only gasp with each stroke. She’d never felt like this before, never felt her heart expanding so wide, the joy and pleasure of being with a man she loved so very much making the experience that much more intense.
