Aztec Sun

by Judith Arnold

  He wanted to invite her up onto the deck. He wanted to touch her, make sure she was real.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Her apology took him aback. He was the one with the apologies to make. “What are you sorry for?”

  She surveyed the silhouetted trees surrounding his house, the reservoir below, the star-dappled sky above. A melancholy laugh escaped her. “So many things, I hardly know where to begin.”

  “Come here,” he said. He’d meant it as an invitation but it came out sounding like a command. He realized he was petrified, afraid of letting her know how much he needed her when she was only going to abandon him once this strange visit ended.

  She climbed the steps to the deck. Her glance took in the unopened bottle of tequila, the chairs, the potted avavado tree occupying a corner near the railing. She allowed herself a quick peek through the glass sliders into the den, and through the window into the living room. It occurred to Rafael that she was avoiding him.

  “Your address was in the white pages. At your arraignment yesterday, your lawyer said you lived in Silver Lake, and... Anyway, I would have telephoned, but I was afraid you’d tell me not to come.”

  He would have begged her to come. Pleaded. Or else ordered her to stay exactly where she was, so he could come to her.

  She fidgeted with the newspaper, her nerves too close to the surface. “I rang the bell by your front door and no one answered. But I saw a light on in the house, so I thought...if I just... Well, anyway. Here’s the early edition of tomorrow’s Post.” She managed to hand him the newspaper without getting too close to him or meeting his gaze. “You made the front page. Below the fold, but still...”

  “I don’t want the front page,” he muttered, taking the newspaper but not bothering to search for the article about him.

  “Yes, you do. I fought with Flannagan for prominent placement. The newspapers always make a big deal when someone famous gets in trouble, but then when they’re cleared, the story gets buried in the back somewhere. Your arrest made page three in today’s paper. I wanted your exoneration on page one in tomorrow’s.”

  Reluctantly, Rafael unfolded the paper and held it at an angle so the light from the window would illuminate it. The article was at the very bottom of the page, and no photograph accompanied it. Producer Cleared in Drug Death of Starlet, the headline proclaimed. Sandra shared the byline with someone named Brad Russo.

  In a surprise development, Rafael Perez, the founder and chief executive officer of Aztec Sun Productions, was cleared today of all drug and murder charges relating to the death of Melanie Greer, an actress who had been working on a film for the studio at the time of her death. Aztec Sun’s vice president and chief operating officer, Diego Salazar, was arrested and charged with supplying the tainted cocaine that led to the actress’s death....

  He didn’t want to read the rest. He’d already lived it. He’d lived a scene not even the most imaginative screen writer could have come up with. Diego’s full-throated accusations, rantings, promises of vengeance. Three police officers trying to subdue him in the entry to the precinct house. Diego shouting, “To you, Vendetta is just a movie. To me it’s my life. You took my woman away from me. You’ll pay for this, Perez! I’ll get you!” as he was hustled away from Rafael. Each word was another cut, another blade impaling him. Each curse was another wound. Remembering, he grimaced.

  “So, you had to share the byline,” he said. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, what he needed to say. In fact, the way Sandra cringed told him it was the worst possible thing he could have said.

  “I don’t care about the byline,” she declared, clasping her hands before her and focusing on the narrow trunk of the avacado tree. “I suppose I should count my blessings that I still have a job.”

  That disconcerted him. He hadn’t known her career was in jeopardy. “Why wouldn’t you have a job?”

  She laughed sourly. “Sleeping with one’s subject isn’t the way journalists are supposed to work.”

  “Oh, God...” He’d never realized what she’d been risking when she’d spent the night with him. Her body, yes. Her heart, perhaps. But her life’s work, her ambitions and dreams—he hadn’t known that so much had been at stake for her.

  She recoiled when he extended his arms, and shook her head. “It was my choice, okay? I knew what I was doing, Rafael, and I...” A tremulous sigh escaped her. “I don’t regret it. All right? Let’s not talk about it.”

  He couldn’t think of anything more essential for them to talk about. But this was Sandra’s show. He respected her request and let his hands drop to his sides. “Why do you think you have to apologize?”

  “Because I botched everything.” She sighed again, and hugged her arms around herself. The night was balmy, but she was shivering. “Mostly because—” she swallowed and, at long last, lifted her glistening eyes to him “—I was the one who turned you in.”

  “Called the police, you mean?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  He shrugged. Slowly she unwound her arms and frowned. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I knew it was you who called them. They walked in and went straight to the trash in the kitchen. You were the only one who could have told them they’d find the empty bag there.”

  “Oh.” For a woman of such immense courage, she looked downright meek, her gaze skittering away from him again, her toe scuffing the planks of the deck floor. “Well. Anyway, it was my fault you were hauled off to jail to spend a night like a common criminal. I owe you an apology.”

  He couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t stand her beating herself up, and he couldn’t stand having her so near him yet not in his arms. One long stride carried him across the deck. He gathered her hands in his and lifted them to her chin, nudging it until she was gazing into his eyes. “You owe me nothing, Sandra.”

  “I dragged your name through the mud—”

  “You saw what you saw. You have principles.”

  Her eyes welled up again. “Some principles,” she grumbled. “I slept with you and then turned you in. I—”

  “Stop.” He closed his fingers tightly around her hands. They were so slender, the skin so smooth. He wanted to press them to his chest, to his groin. He wanted to cover her trembling lips with his and kiss her until all her remorse was gone, all her despair.

  But she hadn’t come to his house at midnight to have him throw her onto the nearest chair and make love to her.

  “It was unethical,” she said, her tears overflowing, sliding silently down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to turn you in, but...”

  “If you were unethical, you wouldn’t have called the police. You would have written your story and had your scoop.” He offered a hesitant smile. “I wasn’t sleeping with any other reporters, you know. You would have gotten an exclusive.”

  “Rafael...” A sob broke her voice—and it broke his heart. He pulled her against him, closed his arms around her and let her weep. Her shoulders shuddered; her tears dampened his shirt. At that moment he knew he would never be able to let her go.

  “If calling the cops on me is the worst thing you’ve ever done, Sandra...” He stroked his hand through her hair, loving its texture, its infinite darkness. “You’re too good a woman for me.”

  “No—”

  “I’ve done bad things. I’ve been in fights, I’ve committed crimes, I’ve acted out my anger in too many ways. I’ve trusted fools. I’ve been deaf to wise voices.”

  “Don’t say that, Rafael.”

  “I wear the Sol Azteca on my flesh. It doesn’t matter what I’ve made of myself. I will always be a Hermano del Sol. Can you understand that? This—” he tapped his arm where the tattoo was “—is who I am.”

  “I love who you are,” she whispered.

  At first he was sure he’d misheard her. But he wasn’t deaf anymore. This fine, brave, honest woman had actually said she loved him.

  He pulled back, slid his hands to her throat and used his thu
mbs to angle her face so he could view it. Through the moisture edging her eyelids and spiking her lashes, he gazed into the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, eyes that were clear and true. “How can you love who I am?”

  “How can I not?”

  He leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers. He tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. He tasted love. “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  “You deserve everything in the world, Rafael.”

  He permitted himself a small grin. “Maybe I’m just very lucky.”

  He saw his grin reflected in her eyes, filling them with light like dawn in the heart of the darkest night. “Maybe,” she murmured, then slid her hands into his hair and drew him down to her for another kiss.

  ***

  AFTERWARD, SHE LAY QUIETLY in the curve of his arm, her head cushioned by his shoulder and her fingers trailing lazily over his skin. The steady rhythm of his respiration lulled her; the warmth of his body comforted her.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” she said.

  He chuckled. His chest’s vibrations shook her head and caused her to laugh, as well. “You’re right, chica. It’s all technique.”

  “Oh, you!” She gave him a playful poke. He quickly snagged her hand to keep her from poking him again.

  Lifting it to his lips, he kissed her palm. One light kiss, and her body surged with heat again, with renewed desire.

  She resisted the urge to roll on top of him, to cover him with kisses until he was once again able to do something to slake that desire. Right now they had to talk. She wasn’t convinced everything that needed saying had already been said.

  “Everyone has luck,” she said. “It’s what people do with their luck that matters. You said it yourself, Rafael—you are who you are. You’re the strongest, most determined man I’ve ever met.”

  “Don’t,” he warned, still laughing. “Those are the words of a satisfied woman, nothing more.”

  Another surge of desire fluxed through her. She deliberately pushed away from him and sat up, as if putting some distance between them could make her want him less. She gazed down at him, trying not to be distracted by his marvelous smile, his eyes, his sleek male body stretched out across the sheet. “I love my job,” she said.

  His smile waned slightly. “I know.”

  “I don’t ever want to give it up. But...” She glanced around at the master bedroom. At first she’d been startled that he lived in a nondescript modern house in an affluent but unpretentious neighborhood. Yet the more she thought of it, the more sense it made. This was Rafael: not flashy clothes, not a flashy address, but something calm and comfortable and, somehow, right.

  She liked his deck with its view of the lake, and his spacious living room with its thick carpets and leather furnishings. She liked his pathetically underused kitchen, and his den with its slouchy chairs and its huge library of videos, books and DVD’s.

  But most of all she liked his bedroom. Especially right now, with him in it, naked and beautiful, sprawled out in his wide bed.

  “My editor tells me I’m over the hill.”

  “What hill?” Rafael asked.

  “I’m thirty-three years old.”

  He reached up and caught a lock of her hair, which he coiled around his finger like a black ribbon. “If you don’t do something fast, that old lady Alessandra will never be a great-grandmother.”

  Was he teasing? This wasn’t a subject she could joke about.

  She peered down at him. Despite his smile his eyes were earnest, his jaw set, the dimple barely visible at the corner of his mouth. “Women have babies and still keep the jobs they love,” he said. “It can be done.”

  What he was saying was so close to what she needed to hear. But no matter how much courage it had taken to come to his house that night, she lacked the nerve to speak her heart.

  “In fact,” he continued when she remained silent, “it’s even easier when you have money. You can hire sitters and nannies.”

  “How do you know so much about this?”

  “I have money.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Not for yourself, but for our child.”

  “Our child,” she echoed, her voice rising in a question.

  “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But...is it what you want?”

  “Yes.” He lifted her hand out of her lap and laced his fingers through hers. “I want children with you. Children who will grow up to be as strong and wise and honest as their mother.”

  “And their father,” Sandra added.

  “I don’t want them ever to wonder whether there will be any food to eat that day, or whether they have shoes to wear to school. I don’t want them ever to know the kind of fear I grew up with.”

  “They won’t,” Sandra vowed, her eyes filling with tears yet again. She lowered herself into Rafael’s outstretched arms. “They’ll grow up knowing only love.”

  “Then they’ll be the lucky ones.” Rafael rolled her onto her back and bowed to kiss her.

  “Yes.” She reached for Rafael, held him tight, embraced him with her love. His arms closed around her, protective, possessive, powerful, embracing her with just as much love, just as much certainty. And she and knew, in her soul, that she was the luckiest of all.

  ###

  About the Author

  Judith Arnold is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than eighty-five published novels. A New York native, she currently lives in New England, where she indulges in her passions for jogging, dark chocolate, good music, good wine and good books. She is married and the mother of two sons.

  For more information about Judith, or to contact her, please visit her website: www.juditharnold.com.

  Here’s a list Judith’s e-book reissues, all available for sale:

  Cry Uncle

  Barefoot in the Grass

  Safe Harbor

  Found: One Wife

  Change of Life

  One Whiff of Scandal

  A> Loverboy

  Father Christmas

  Father of Two