“Your brother is gone. He forgave you long ago. But we’re still here, and we need you,” she said. She took a deep breath and lifted her tearstained eyes to his. “Please, Gabriel. I love you. Love me back.”
His jaw hardened as he stared down at her.
“Don’t use the word love,” he said harshly. “You lied to me. And you turned me into a liar, as well. I said I would never have a wife. Now look at me.” Rage burned inside him as he gazed down at his tuxedo. He ripped the tiny rose boutonniere out of his lapel. “Just look at me!”
She went pale beneath her wedding veil, and the beautiful light in her eyes dimmed. “I’m sorry. It’s why I didn’t tell you I was pregnant. I knew it wasn’t what you wanted, that you’d feel trapped by duty to a child. But—” she took a deep breath “—I couldn’t marry you. Not without telling you the truth.”
“Thank you,” he said coldly, pacing the carpet. He stopped. His body felt chilled, as frozen as a New Hampshire winter. Maybe because of the icy dagger she’d just plunged through his back. “Thank you, Laura, for being so trustworthy and decent.”
She flinched. Her eyes were red, her beautiful face swollen with tears. “I understand if you want to back out.”
“Back out?”
“Of the wedding,” she whispered. He saw the way her petite, curvaceous body was shivering in her wedding dress. He forced himself not to care. What difference did her feelings make to him anymore? His lips curved as he looked at her scornfully. “I’m more determined to marry you now than ever.”
She licked her lips and he saw a tremulous hope in her blue eyes. “Because you love Robby?”
He stared at her. “Because he’s my duty.”
Tears fell unchecked down her face as she clutched her arms together over her exquisite beaded gown. “Can’t you even try to love him?”
“The deal stands,” he said coldly. “I will still marry you. I will still take care of your son.”
“Our son!”
For a long time, she stood, staring at him. Her lips parted to speak, and his cell phone rang in his pocket. Emotionlessly, he turned away from her. “Santos.”
“I’m afraid I have to back out of our deal, Santos.”
Gabriel recognized the voice at once. Felipe Oliveira. His eyes widened in shock as he stepped away from Laura. “Is that some kind of joke, Oliveira?” he growled into the phone. “Some attempt to drive up the price? Because you’ve already signed the papers.”
“Just the preliminary papers. And Théo St. Raphaël has just offered me three million euros more for Açoazul than you. Best of all, he’s throwing in his prize vineyard to sweeten the offer.” The man gave a laugh. “I’ve always wanted to make my own champagne, and his vineyard is legendary.”
“You can’t do that!” Gabriel exploded. “We signed a contract!”
“A preliminary contract,” the man pointed out gleefully. “All I need pay for reneging on the terms is a small penalty—a million American dollars. Which St. Raphaël has also offered to cover.”
Gabriel cursed aloud. “But why? Why betray me like this, Oliveira, after we helped you see Adriana’s true nature?”
The older man cackled. “Now that I’m rid of her, I suddenly find I’m interested in business again. Sorry, Santos.” He paused, then said with greater seriousness, “Sorry, young man. But you’ll live to fight another day.”
“I’ll leave within the hour,” Gabriel said desperately. “I can be in Rio by tonight, and we can talk further—”
But Oliveira had hung up. Gabriel stared for a long moment at the phone in his hand. He felt dizzy with the vertigo of how much he’d lost in the last two minutes.
He’d lost…everything.
He whirled on Laura, who was staring up at him with big eyes. “Let’s get the wedding over with,” he growled, stomping toward the door. “As soon as it’s over, we’re leaving for Rio.”
Her trembling voice stopped him. “No.”
He frowned, looking back at her from the doorway. “No? What do you mean, no?”
She licked her lips, coming closer. Her eyes were luminous in the morning light.
“I could accept you not loving me,” she said. “I told myself that my love could be enough for both of us.” Her eyes narrowed, glittering like a frozen blue sea. “But I can’t accept you not loving Robby. He can’t just be your duty.”
“I just found out he’s my son,” he retorted, “after a year of your lies. What do you expect from me? That I declare my love and fall at your feet?”
She looked at him, and her lips trembled in a smile. “That would be nice.”
He shook his head angrily. “Accept what I can give you. And be grateful!”
“Grateful?” she cried. With an intake of breath, she held up the hem of her wedding dress and marched right up to him. Her beautiful face was outraged. “I waited five years for you to love me,” she said. “I dreamed of you for the whole last year! All I wanted was for you to marry me…”
“And I will,” he said impatiently. “Come on.”
“But I was wrong.” She lifted her chin. “Love is what matters. Without love, this marriage is nothing but a lie.” She shook her head fiercely. “And I won’t let Robby settle for that. I won’t let him grow up wondering why his father doesn’t love him, why his parents’ marriage is so strained, what he’s done wrong!”
Gabriel stared at her. It suddenly seemed as if an ocean divided them. He reached out his hand. “Laura…”
She slapped it away. “No!”
He glared at her. “I don’t have time for this.”
“So go.”
He briefly considered the idea of dragging her forcibly down the aisle. But she was surrounded by farmers and ranchers and strong neighbors with guns, while to their eyes he was just some stranger who was taking her and Robby away.
But he wasn’t just a stranger. He was Robby’s father.
Gabriel sucked in a deep breath, overwhelmed by the flood of emotion in his heart. He couldn’t give in to the feeling. Couldn’t…
Grabbing her wrist, he started to pull her towards the door. “We will marry, then leave for Rio—”
She ripped her arm out of his grasp. “I’m not going.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Don’t you understand? Oliveira is backing out of the contract! If I don’t change his mind, I’ll lose everything!”
“I understand,” she said softly. “You should go.”
“I’m not leaving the country without you and our son.”
“I’m not marrying you. Not like this.” “You’re being selfish!”
Laura swallowed, her cheeks pink. He could see he’d hurt her with the accusation. But she wasn’t going to let him manipulate her so easily. “I’ll never try to stop you from seeing Robby whenever you want. Our lawyers can work out some arrangement. But I won’t marry you, and I won’t leave the people who love us for someone who doesn’t.”
“So that’s it?” he said incredulously. “You’re giving me an ultimatum?”
“Yes.” Her eyes filled with tears as she gave him a trembling smile. “I guess I am.”
Gabriel swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. He couldn’t force her to marry him. He couldn’t seduce or charm or bully her into it. When did she get so steady? When did she get so strong?
Raking his hair back, he looked at her. “Laura,” he said slowly. He exhaled a deep breath. “I can’t do it. What you’re asking. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t…love you.”
Pain flashed across her face, raw and sharp. Then she straightened her shoulders in her wedding gown.
Reaching up, she pulled the vintage lace veil off her elegant blonde chignon. Her blue eyes were stricken but steady.
“Then I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But if you can’t love us…you can’t have us.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GABRIEL had to hurry. Every second he wasted with Laura was like a grain of sand falling through a fatal hourglass.
He had to leave at once. And yet he couldn’t.
Leaving her felt like a death. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “This isn’t over,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll be back after I close the deal in Rio.”
“Of course.” Laura’s shoulders straightened, even as her lower lip trembled. “I will never stop you from seeing Robby. I hope…I hope you’ll see him often. He needs his father.”
Gabriel heard the music start to play downstairs and thought of the guests surrounded by white roses and candlelight, waiting for the wedding ceremony to begin. He clenched his hands, feeling that same strange spinning, sinking feeling in the region of his chest.
“Remember,” he said tersely, looking at her. “This was your choice. I wanted to marry you.”
She swallowed as tears streamed unchecked down her pale cheeks. “I’ll never forget that.”
No, he thought suddenly. It couldn’t end like this. Not like this!
With a sudden, ragged breath, he seized her in his arms. Pressing his lips against hers, he kissed her with every ounce of passion and persuasion he possessed. He never wanted to let her go.
She was the one to pull away. He saw tears falling down her cheeks as she stepped back, out of his reach.
“Goodbye.”
He sucked in his breath. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing to be done. “I’ll be back,” he said heavily. “In a few days.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Robby will be glad whenever you choose to visit.”
He left the room. Went out the door. Walked past her mother, who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He went outside into the cold winter air to the limo waiting outside. Gabriel felt a sudden pain in his chest when he saw that someone—one of Laura’s friends, perhaps—had written Just Married across the back window in white shaving cream, and attached aluminum cans to the back bumper to drag noisily down the road.
His hands clenched as he flung himself heavily into the backseat of the limo. Carlos, who’d apparently been texting someone as he waited in the driver’s seat, jumped.
“Mr. Gabriel! What are you doing, so soon…? And where is Mrs. Laura?”
“She’s not coming,” he replied tightly. His throat hurt. “And she’s not Mrs.”
“But senhor… What happened?”
Gabriel looked bleakly out the window, at the beautiful fields of endless white. “Just go.”
Laura stood by the closed door until the sound of Gabriel’s footsteps faded away.
Sagging into a chair, she covered her face with her hands. She’d been happy to be a bride, a single mother no longer—so pleased to finally leave the scandal behind her. She thought of her baby, downstairs now with one of her cousins, and a sob came from her lips.
But she’d had no other honorable choice. If she’d been willing to accept a life without love forever, what would that have done to her soul? What would that have taught her son?
She’d done the right thing. So why did she feel so awful?
She heard the door squeak open and looked up with an intake of breath.
Her three sisters, all dressed in elegant bridesmaid gowns, stood in the open door with their mother. “Why did Gabriel storm off like that?” Ruth asked tremulously. Then she saw Laura’s tearful face. “Oh, sweetheart!”
A moment later, Laura was crying in their arms as they hugged her, and her scowling little sister Hattie was cursing and offering to go punch Gabriel in the face. That made Laura laugh, but the laughter turned to a sob. Wiping her eyes, she looked up at them.
“What do I do now?” she whispered.
Her mother searched her gaze. “The wedding is off? Is it for sure?”
Laura nodded with a lump in her throat. “He said he didn’t love me, that he would never love me. Or Robby, either.”
Her mother and sisters stared at her with a unified intake of breath. Then Ruth shook herself briskly.
“Well then. I’ll go downstairs, tell everyone to head home.”
Laura folded her arms, her belly sick with dread and grief. “It’ll cause such a scandal,” she whispered. She stared at the patterns on the carpet as the full horror built inside her. “Just when all the rumors were coming to an end.”
“Weddings get canceled all the time,” Becky said staunchly. “There’s nothing scandalous about it.”
“Zero scandal,” Hattie agreed quickly, pushing up her glasses. “It’s totally uninteresting.”
“Not even as interesting as when Mrs. Higgins’s cow knocked over the Tast-E Burger truck,” Margaret added.
“It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” her mother said, softly stroking Laura’s hair as she sat beside her. “Just stay here. I’ll handle everything.”
It was very tempting. But with a deep breath, Laura shook her head.
“I’ll ask your uncle, then,” Ruth said quickly. “He’s waiting to walk you down the aisle. He can simply make a little announcement and—”
“No,” Laura choked out. “I did this,” she whispered, rising to her feet. “I’ll end it.”
Climbing onto his private jet at the airport five miles away, Gabriel nearly bit the stewardess’s head off when she offered him champagne. As she scurried off to the back cabin, he grabbed the entire bottle of Scotch from the galley and gulped straight from the bottle, desperate to feel the burn. But when he pulled the bottle from his lips, he realized the pain in his chest had only gotten worse.
It was his heart. His heart hurt.
“Ready, sir?” the pilot said over the intercom.
“Ready,” Gabriel growled. Falling into the white leather seat, he took another gulp of the bottle and stared out his window.
He felt as if he were leaving part of himself behind. His wife. His child.
Robby. His son. Gabriel still couldn’t believe it.
He didn’t want to go.
I have to, he told himself angrily. I have no choice. He remembered how his parents had taken Gabriel and Guilherme to visit the factories of Açoazul Steel. It had been truly a family company. His father had been president, his mother vice president of marketing. “Someday, boys,” his father had said, “this company will be yours. Your legacy.”
The jet’s engine started. Closing his eyes, Gabriel leaned his head into his hands. He still remembered the sound of his father’s laugh, the tender smile in his mother’s eyes. They’d been so proud of their strong, handsome, smart sons. He could still hear his brother saying, at twenty years old, “I never intended to have a family so soon, but now I can’t imagine it any other way. I’m happy, Gabriel. I am.”
Grief gripped Gabriel’s chest. Why hadn’t he believed him? Why had he been so sure that he was right, and his brother wrong?
“Robby’s not an accident. He’s not a mistake.”
He suddenly saw Laura’s beautiful face as she’d stood in the morning light, wearing a wedding gown as luminescent as New England snow.
“Then what is he?”
She’d looked up at him. “A miracle.”
He blinked, staring at the porthole window as the jet’s roar increased. Last year, he’d let Laura go because he’d wanted her to find a man who could love her. He’d wanted her to be happy. He’d been so angry when he’d thought she’d thrown her dreams aside and fallen into bed with a man who didn’t deserve her.
But she’d loved Gabriel himself all this time. She’d loved him without hope. She’d taken care of their baby all on her own, while carrying such a heavy weight on her shoulders at home. She’d assumed from the start that she and Robby were on their own.
Gabriel was the man who didn’t deserve her.
He’d tried to offer her money. His name. But that wasn’t what Laura wanted. She wanted his love. She wanted…a family.
Gabriel set down the bottle. His body felt hot and cold at once.
The jet lurched forward, taxiing toward the runway.
He gripped the armrests. He had to go back to Rio, or he’d lose his family’s company forever. Açoazul SA would be disma
ntled. He would lose his last link to his family.
The jet started to go faster down the runway, and he sucked in his breath.
His family.
He’d told himself for twenty years that he didn’t deserve another family. And yet, like a miracle, he had one.
He had a family. Right here and now. And he was choosing to leave them.
He sat up straight in his chair. His breathing came hard and fast. What about his family’s legacy?
Legacy.
He had a sudden flashback of a million small memories of warmth and joy and home. Visiting the steel factory. Sitting on his father’s shoulders at Carnaval, watching the parades go by. Vacations in Bahia. Dinner together each night. A life of love and tenderness. Until he’d made one dreadful mistake.
“Your brother would forgive you. Your family loved you,” he heard Laura’s warm, loving voice say. “They would know your heart.”
The jet hit full throttle, racing down the runway faster and faster, preparing for takeoff.
And Gabriel suddenly realized he was about to make the worst mistake of his life. And this time it wouldn’t be an accident, a car spun out of control on a rainy road by a nineteen-year-old boy. This time it would be a stupid, cowardly decision made by a full-grown man.
He hadn’t wanted another family.
But he had one.
Gabriel saw the white fields fly past the window. The jet started to rise, lifting off from the ground, and he leapt to his feet with a scream.
“Stop!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LAURA hesitated outside the closed doors of the huge, flower-strewn library, frightened out of her mind.
She could hear the rumble on the other side of door, the mutters and whispers. The wedding had been scheduled to start thirty minutes ago, and everyone was obviously starting to assume the worst.
But there was no way around it. She had to get through it. With a deep breath, she pushed the doors open.
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