by Tara Pammi
“I had...I have every intention of making this work.”
His words weren’t bereft of emotion now. On the contrary, they vibrated with a dark intensity that gave her goosebumps.
“Except you make it so hard to be civilized with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He raised the tablet toward her. “I just watched the coverage of your press statement.”
“And?”
“You left out the most important part. Again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My statement was concise. I followed the details of the investment contract, just as your legal team dictated, and I stopped it from downgrading into Twenty Questions about my personal life.”
“Your personal life,” he said softly, “is not just yours anymore.”
She waited for him to elaborate. Unknown dread pooled in her gut.
The limo came to a stop in front of the plush New York Plaza Hotel, where the awards ceremony was being held. She could hear the hushed roar of the crowd outside.
Before she could blink he opened a small velvet box.
Drawing a painful breath, she tucked herself farther into her seat, her heart pounding behind her ribcage. He’d done this on purpose—waited until the last minute.
The diamond twinkled in the dark, every cut and glitter of it breathtaking in its princess setting. There was an accompanying band of white gold, exquisitely simple in contrast to the glittering diamond.
Alarm twisted her stomach into a knot. That simple band might very well be an invisible shackle, binding her to him. And it could unlock every impossible hope, every dangerous dream she had so ruthlessly squashed to survive. “I don’t want to wear it. I don’t know what you think this achieves...”
Her words faltered as he gently tugged her hand into his and slipped the rings on her finger. They were cold, heavy against her skin, yet she felt branded.
“It puts a stop to the dirty speculation about you...about my child.”
“What does it matter what the world thinks?”
“Do you know when the first time my mother took me to see my father was?”
Every other thought fled her mind. She just stared at him. She knew he didn’t like talking about his childhood. And she hadn’t pushed him six years ago.
“I was six. We stood outside his house for three hours before he even met with us. Then she took me again when I was seven. Every year she would drag me to his doorstep, hoping this time he would accept me as his son. I grew up hearing the neighborhood’s taunts—bastard and so much more. She wanted a different life for me, a better one, but I never cared. I didn’t think he owed me anything. Until she ended up in the hospital.”
A cloud of dark anger surrounded him in proportion to the incredible cruelty of his father’s treatment. A knot twisted in her own gut. Could she blame him for how much he had hated his father? Because she knew, firsthand, what a parent’s negligence, even indifference, could do to a child. “How old were you?”
He blinked as though suddenly realizing she was there. “Sixteen. Her body was weakened by years and years of hard labor and not enough food. I couldn’t pay for her treatment, and she’d made me promise I wouldn’t go back to the street gangs. So I went to see him. By myself for the first time.”
Her gut churned, the subdued violence in him raising the hairs on her neck. Sixteen years old—he had been nothing but a child himself. Suddenly she had a feeling where this was going. She understood what had angered him so much. Guilt spiraled through her.
“I went to the offices of his construction company. I begged him to pay for her treatment. I told him I would work for him for the rest of my life. He had his bodyguard drag me by my collar and throw me out. She died that night. And I swore I would take everything from him. I didn’t stop until I destroyed him.”
“Diego, how would I—?”
“There is very little I have asked of you or will ever ask of you. But when it comes to our child I won’t settle. I will never be that boy who was denied his rights ever again.” He shrugged—a casual movement, in complete control of himself. “I want my child to be recognized as mine. You had the perfect chance to do that at your press statement. You didn’t. So now we will do it my way.”
* * *
Diego let his fingers linger around Kim’s as she stepped out of the limo and joined him on the red carpet in front of the New York Plaza.
He felt her fingers stiffen in his, her body already taut as a tightly wound spring.
For a minute everything around him, all the ruckus, faded away as he let himself indulge in the gloriously sensuous figure she made by his side.
The cream-colored dress drew a straight line, covering her breasts, but it was the sexiest sight he had ever seen. His fingers fanned out of their own volition over her back. The cut of the dress was such that it didn’t begin again until the upper curve of her buttock.
Everything in him that was barely restrained roared at the silky feel of her skin.
Desire was a hard knot in his belly, messing with his thinking. As it had been in the limo. It was hard enough to resist her when she dressed in trousers and jackets, even though they didn’t hide the sensuality of the woman beneath.
At least he had never been able to buy into the frosty business façade. Maybe because he knew the passion that lurked beneath her composed, perfect exterior.
But dressed as she was now, every curve and dip delineated so sexily, her long legs in those heels... He had a better chance of stopping breathing than controlling his hunger for her.
Her wrap slipped and a creamy shoulder glistened in the camera flashlights. A simple chain with a teardrop diamond pendant glittered at the juncture of her breasts. He swallowed, heat flexing in his muscles, pumping him for action, and pulled his gaze away.
A roar erupted around them as they turned together and mounted the carpeted steps. Flashes exploded in their faces, a frenzy of questions in the air around them.
Her press statement about a new investor for her company, against all the odds, had been sensational enough. The fact that it was him hadn’t gone unnoticed by the media.
But of course she hadn’t answered their questions. Which meant the task was left to him. More fool him that he had believed even for a minute she would do the right thing. That she would give him what he deserved without him having to fight for it.
It was good that he’d fought his whole life for every little thing—from the roof over his head, to every single morsel of food.
He had fought for his mother, he had fought for himself, and now he would fight for his unborn child.
He tightened his grip around Kim as she faltered, her mouth stiff with the smile she’d pasted on, her chin tilted high. It was but a momentary fracture in her perfection, not noticed by anyone but him.
The media were like bloodhounds after her, rejoicing in even a little crack in the pedestal of perfection that Kimberly Stanton stood on.
Nothing would give him more satisfaction than fracturing that pedestal, breaking the woman, so that all of her was undone at his hands. Except it would require a price from him, too, a piece of his soul, and he was damned if he’d let her take anything more from him.
“Ms. Stanton, is it true that you were still married when you were engaged to your twin’s husband?”
“Who is the father of your child?”
“Are you seeing Mr. Pereira now?”
Diego heard her startled gasp amidst the rumble and forced her to stop beside him. Had she not expected this? Had she no idea how hungry the media was for a story—any story—about her?
He leaned over the thick rope that contained the press, toward the microphones thrust into his face. “It is Mrs. Pereira,” he said, and paused, waiting for his words to sink in. He turned toward Kim and smiled. He bent and kissed her cheek. The shock in her gaze was visible only to him. The softness of her skin burned an imprint on his mouth and he turned toward the flashing cameras agai
n. “And we’re very happy to begin our life together again, with our baby on the way.”
The crowd went ballistic. He hadn’t expected any less.
“You guys are married?”
“Reunited after six years.”
He pulled her tighter toward him, every action hungrily raked over by the crowd. She felt like a ticking bomb that could go off at any minute.
“My wife realized her mistake and came back to me on the eve of her wedding.”
“You are happy to be together?”
“Incredibly happy,” he said, tongue in cheek. “Like we’ve never been apart.”
Kim turned to him, her face devoid of any color. “You bastard,” she hissed at him.
He deftly pulled her away from the uproar his statement had caused, dark satisfaction heating his blood. His arms around her slender waist were literally keeping her upright as he and his wife climbed the stairs.
An incredible high buzzed through his veins. Possessive triumph sang in his blood.
His wife.
He had waited for this moment for a long time. To be able to shout to the world that Kim was his wife and have her accept it.
The fact that he had arrived at it through foul means and six years late didn’t diminish his victory one bit.
He’d learned a long time ago that playing fair would give him nothing but a bruised body and a broken heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS THE worst evening of Kim’s life.
It shouldn’t have been.
The awards ceremony was being held in the huge banquet hall at the Plaza, the food was delicious and she was rubbing shoulders with great business minds.
Yet in between avoiding Liv’s curious gaze, fielding congratulations from her peers, which were not over her being chosen for the prestigious award, Kim had never wanted to escape more.
She had realized two minutes after they had walked in that Diego’s infuriating statement to the press had given new meaning to the term fairy-tale ending. It wasn’t enough that the incredible mockery of his statement—something she would have cherished in an alternative life—haunted her, pricked her.
With the news of his two-million-dollar investment in her company coupled with his revelation that he was the father of her child and that they were married, he’d suddenly become her knight in shining armor.
No matter that the same crowd—the same media—had called him a monster just days ago, for his predatory tactics when it came to new businesses, for the way he had recently used a man’s gambling losses to take ownership of an island off of Brazil’s coast. An ecological paradise, no less, which he was allegedly going to mine and destroy for its precious metals.
Her mouth hurt from the contented smile she forced to her lips as more people congratulated her for the fact that she had landed on her feet with Diego.
She didn’t know what infuriated her more—Diego’s charming smiles and the intimate glances he threw her way in the face of everyone’s prurient curiosity about them, or the educated crowd’s insulting joy that she finally had her act together.
As if Diego’s very presence in her life could somehow make her brain work better. She laughed at the irony of it.
By the time the awards presentation was over and her speech delivered—which had left a sour taste in her mouth—all she wanted was to escape the crowd, sink into her marble bathtub and lose her mind in a crossword puzzle.
But her torment was nowhere near over yet.
His grip on her wrist unyielding, Diego pulled her onto the dance floor. His hands around her waist, he enveloped her in a hard wall of heat until he filled her vision and the invigorating scent of him was all she could breathe.
He had held her at arm’s length ever since she had blurted out the news of her pregnancy. The sudden intimacy of his embrace now toppled her equilibrium, and her flesh sighed against his hardness.
Her skin tingled when his callused fingers moved over her back at images and sensations she’d rather not remember: the feel of those calluses on the sensitive skin of her thighs, the muscles in his back bunching under her fingers... Her body reveled in the memories his nearness evoked.
She sucked in a sharp breath, willing herself not to melt into his arms, not to enjoy it so much. Because all this was for show. He was playing to the media, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind about them, leaving her no way out.
At least no way out with her life still intact.
He studied her, curious amusement playing on his mouth. “You’re not enjoying the evening?”
She pulled her head back and glared at him. “I’ve never been more disappointed in my entire life. I’m the same person with the same faculties I had yesterday. And yet you get lauded for sweeping me off my feet.”
A smile curved his lush mouth, and infuriated her further.
“You weren’t this upset even when I trapped you at the island.”
“I don’t like being thought an incompetent idiot,” she said, gritting her teeth.
His mouth narrowed with displeasure. “You mean you don’t like even the illusion that you’re in love? You have your investment, your company’s reputation is intact and you have my total support with the pregnancy. I don’t see what’s bothering you so much.”
Put like that, she sounded the very epitome of selfishness. But she couldn’t quiet the increasing panic that things were slowly but surely slipping out of her control. That Diego was stripping away everything she needed to survive. Whatever his intentions, the truth was that he would bring her down to her knees, plunge her into the same whirlpool of crippling hope, if she wasn’t on guard.
“There’s no need for this pretense that we’re living a happily-ever-after. As if this is Romeo and Juliet Reunited.”
“No? Have you thought of how this might have affected your sister and her life? Being continually mobbed by the media speculating on how she felt about her sister carrying her husband’s child?”
Her mouth fell open. “Liv always knew the truth.”
“Does it mean it doesn’t bother her? Hurt her? Cast a dirty shadow on her marriage? What about Alexander King? You went straight to him for help, and you claim guilt for having deceived him, but did you think for a minute what this twisted speculation might do to him? Do you care that you’ve asked them to pay a high price just because it raises your hackles to be tied to me?
Shame flooded her within, and her gaze wavered away from him. God, every word out of his mouth was true. She had been avoiding Liv, worried she would know that Kim was barely keeping it together.
“Did you give a moment’s thought to me? Or have you, in your usual selfish fashion, neglected to think of anyone else but you?”
“How would I know how you felt about this? Until a couple of hours ago I didn’t know how cruelly your father had treated you, or how your mother died. You never told me anything. Once we were off that ship you kept me in a bubble, as if...” She met his gaze, the disbelief spiking there halting her words.
But would she have behaved differently even if she had known?
He frowned, and she had a feeling he was thinking the same.
“The truth is that it scrapes at you that you’re not able to reduce this pregnancy and my involvement in it into something tangible.” Frustration glimmered in his gaze. “Anything that makes an average woman happy breaks you out in hives.”
“Your fault if you thought me average.”
“No, I didn’t think you average—or this warped either. You cover it all up with your perfection.”
She mocked a pout, her heart crawling into her throat. Only Diego could reach the horrific truth with a few careless words. The muscles in her face hurt with the effort to keep the smile intact, even though inside everything had crumbled under his attack.
But she couldn’t let him or their marriage mean anything to her. He had already proved her worst fear true once. If she let her guard down, if she let herself care, she would just break this time. “Does that mean yo
u don’t want a perfect wife anymore?”
His fingers tightened over her hipbones, a fierce scowl bunching his forehead. “You’re the one obsessed with perfection. Not me. And I never wanted a perfect wife either.”
“You mean now?”
“What?”
“Now that you’ve achieved all this status, this wealth, now that you’ve proved yourself to your father and the whole world, you don’t need a trophy wife for an accessory now. Not like you did six years ago.”
His hand stole up her back, his fingers curling possessively around her nape. Her skin seared as though branded. The entire world around them fell away in that moment. As did the veneer of his sophistication. A curse fell from his lips and she colored. Even her little grasp of Portuguese was enough for her to understand.
“You don’t want to wear my ring. You didn’t want to acknowledge the baby as mine. However much I want to give this marriage a try, you’re determined to make this warfare. Maybe working sixteen-hour days with no social life is beginning to fry your brain and corrupt your memories.”
He whispered in her ear. It was a low growl, every word pulsing with the slow burn of his anger.
“Because I was not the one that walked away. You knew when you married me what I came from. When we got off the cruise, when the dirty reality of my roots, my life, began to creep in, you didn’t want me anymore. So don’t you dare blame me for the past.”
* * *
Diego set Kim away from him, his muscles pumping with furious energy. He needed to walk away right that moment, before he did something stupid.
Like kissing her senseless or driving his fist into the nearest wall.
This was the woman who had looked back at him calmly after he’d slept with her and then discarded her as if she was garbage. This was the woman who had then quietly slunk back to her life, to her waiting fiancé, calmly dismissed any thought of him and gone on with her life.
Nothing touched her—not the fact that he was back, not the fact that she was carrying his child. How many times did he need to learn the same lesson?
