by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
He swallowed.
“I’ll see you later?” She toyed with the hem of her tank top, her fingers fidgety.
He clasped his hand around the cold door handle. “Yes.”
She nodded and took the stairs without looking back. He knew, because, from the office door, he could see her sandals pacing up the steps—if he raised his head high enough to angle his vision at the gaps between the titled staircase.
Seconds later, he entered the home office he’d made his own. Working in the suite with her had proved distracting, and he enjoyed the complete focus of a quiet, uncompromising environment. Also, top-of-the-line printers, electronic gadgets, and a sleek PC were at his disposal. Thoughts of Addie resurfaced. Damn it. He’d made love to her at the beach. In the car. And all he wanted was—wait. Made love? No. They had had sex. They’d screwed like two horny, frantic teenagers. He couldn’t use that kind of language. She wasn’t his to love.
He could never offer her the kind of openness she deserved. He enjoyed the blend of desire and challenge in her eyes. Settling for pity instead wasn’t part of his plan.
A handwritten note from one of the nurses sat on the keyboard. Your father would like to talk to you.
Talk? Bruno had been strategic in visiting his father when he’d been asleep. Still, there was only so much he could avoid. Dancing around the problem didn’t make it go away.
He pressed his lips together until his teeth bit into his skin.
Maybe it wasn’t about Toca do Tigre. Maybe his father wanted to spend time with him while he could. Bruno usually released the night nurse for a few hours and sat on a recliner at his father’s bedside. He would check the vital signs, his breathing, oxygen level, and heart rate on the sterile screen. He’d look at the sleeping man and think of his mother. How gentle and kind she’d been, always with a warm smile and open arms. She, too, had looked frail at the worst of her disease. But the similarities ended there: she’d had no access to medical care, private nurses, or healthy food. And barely any rest. The invasive presence of rats in their tiny concrete and brick house still made his blood boil. Whenever those memories crawled under his skin, he rose from the recliner and left the room.
“Pai.”
His father muttered something to Tereza, who nodded and left the room.
“Your mother would have loved that garden.” Pai touched the window and turned to him with mournful eyes.
Silence.
Bruno didn’t let resentment lodge in his throat. “She always loved flowers.”
“A man named Lancaster was here today.”
His body tensed. Lancaster had had a hard time with Bruno’s desire to wait. But the image of the man inside his home? That was a low blow. “What did he want?”
“He was in Rio for business meetings. He’d tried to call you all day, but your cell phone was off. He said he popped over to talk about selling Toca do Tigre sooner than agreed.”
Damn the man. At times like this, he was tempted to not sell to Lancaster anymore. But then rationalization sunk in. Lancaster had offered above market price. And when his father passed, he wanted to have Toca do Tigre’s sale already in process. He had agreed to give Addie more time, and he would, but he also wanted to make sure he severed his ties with his past. He didn’t want his last piece of real estate in Brazil lingering on forever.
“He’ll raise the initial offer if you turn it over to him sooner. He said he wants to start building soon,” his father said, in between coughs. “I told him you will call him back.”
He paced in the room. “I will handle it.”
“I’ve already told you to get rid of that land.”
“It’s more complicated than you think, Pai.”
“You can make it very simple. If you’re really a changed man, you don’t need to carry that burden anymore.”
Bruno held his breath and tried to process his father’s words. “What about the Kwanis? I want to give them adequate time to relocate. I will still sell the land, but there’s a delay. That’s all.” He echoed the logical voice in his head. Addie’s voice. How would his father react, especially after calling him a changed man, if he found out about his marriage of convenience? That he hadn’t found a nice woman to love in all those years, and he had actually vehemently avoided the nice ones, instead wasting his time with the bad.
“Why delay? Are you hiding something from me? Mr. Lancaster said you don’t need ten months to relocate them. Plus, his project will bring jobs to the local economy. He’s willing to hire them,” his father said earnestly.
Apprehension flowed through him. “It’s not that simple, Pai. There are more things involved.” More people involved. Damn it, he pressed his lips together. The last thing he needed was to bring up Addie and her passion for the tribe. He had to protect the reason behind their marriage at every cost.
“I don’t have much time left, Bruno. This might be the last advice I give you. I’ve been seeing your mother again, and she’s worried about you. We both want you to start fresh with Addie. Listen to me, for once and for all, and sell it.”
…
Addie reached out and patted the other side of the empty bed. What a fool she had been. She’d lain awake all night waiting for Bruno to return. She’d figured sleeping in his bed would be less hypocritical after giving herself recklessly at the beach and in his car.
Bruno not showing up was his way of setting things straight, wasn’t it? She let out a long sigh, the air rushing out of her lungs. Sex was all he had to offer. He wasn’t emotionally available. And to him, she was a piece of ass.
Was she? She wasn’t sure. The fact that it was eight o’clock in the morning and she had to ask herself when she had last thought of Michael was not a good sign. Michael would always have a tender place in her heart. And Bruno… He seemed content with her every other body part.
Which was why she’d waited and waited and waited. She’d sprayed on some perfume, slipped into one of those fancy negligees, and nothing. He couldn’t have worked all night, could he? She knew he could have gone to his father’s room, like he did every night. But usually he returned before dawn.
At eight thirty in the morning, showered and dressed, she scurried downstairs. Camila waved good-bye on her way out the door. Her father-in-law sat at the big, round table, eating slowly while glancing at a folded newspaper. Bruno checked something on his tablet. And was not talking with his father. How surprising.
The sound of the chair screeching on the tile floor as Addie pulled it away from the table made them both raise their heads.
While Sergio smiled and greeted her, Bruno sucked in his breath. His eyes held a note of both acknowledgement and warning. She fought against her traitorous skin warming under his scrutiny. A voice deep inside her snarled that it might already be too late to protect her heart from getting involved with Bruno.
She picked an apple from the colorful fruit platter and bit into the fruit, savoring the crispiness. “Good morning,” she said in between chews.
“Did you sleep well?” Sergio took a bite of a croissant.
“I managed.” She pinned Bruno with her stare. “How about you?” she continued, unsure who she asked.
“Seu Bruno, phone call for you.” Maria sauntered behind them with the cordless phone in hand.
“Excuse me.” Bruno rose to his feet and shot Addie a noncommittal glance as he accepted the phone and headed toward the office. Addie’s gaze followed him. The planes of his back tensed through his shirt as he murmured something into the phone. He disappeared into the office and closed the door behind him.
“He’ll be back soon.” Sergio’s gentle voice was soothing. She turned her attention to the old man and managed to smile. “My wife was like that…always worried whenever I left her.”
Addie added more orange juice to her glass and took a sip, but it didn’t overcome the guilt lodged in her throat. There he was, her father-in-law, talking about an old-school marriage. After swallowing the juice, she asked, “You m
iss her?”
A gleam of pride flickered in his hazel eyes, which softened the wrinkles around them. “Every day.”
Her heart flooded with warmth.
Sergio cleared his throat. “The irony is she ended up dying and leaving me.” Heartbreak trickled into his voice.
She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t push any words out. Pain, sympathy, and sorrow coursed through her. Sergio smiled, more to himself than to her, then lifted his gaze to hers and shrugged as if he sensed her emotions.
The office door swung open, and Bruno strolled toward them. By the time he was sitting and helping himself to a croissant, she blinked.
“Who was it?” Sergio asked. “Was it Lancaster?” He lifted his coffee to his lips and took a sip. “I thought he said he’d email you a new contract.”
“Contract?” Maybe they had settled the ten-month waiting time. Though it didn’t please her that Lancaster was still after the deal like a hawk. “Honey, you didn’t tell me.” She used her most condescending voice.
“We’ll talk about this in private.” Bruno demanded.
Sergio excused himself from the table and rolled out of the dining room with his nurse in tow. Bruno nudged her elbow, and they headed to the office.
“What’s going on?” she asked after he closed the door behind them.
He clenched his jaw. “Some of Lancaster’s investors are threatening to back out unless building starts. We’re talking an obscene amount of money.” She tensed and had to push the lump lodged in her throat to string the words together.
“Yes, but he knows about our condition. The fact you want to work with that sleazeball speaks volumes of your character,” she said, louder than she would have wanted. Was that why he slept with her? To distract her from what was really happening?
“My character,” he hissed, his expression gloomy like dark clouds on a stormy day. He twitched his eyes and let a long sigh out. “I understand the Kwanis are all you care about. You must see this will be a lost opportunity, though. Hundreds of people will be jobless, and the economy will be impacted.” He rubbed his forehead. “Now it’s all or nothing. I talked to him again this morning.”
She rubbed her palms together, feeling the cold sweat on them. “What’s it going to be, Bruno?”
All? Or nothing? This could not be happening.
His shoulders sagged like someone about to deliver bad news. There he was…backing away from his promise. Cheating. Lying. Her mother had apologized when she was younger, when they lost the house. Lost the cars. Did it make it right? No. Because the next day, she would go and gamble again.
She placed her hands on her waist. “Does he also know about our fake marriage?”
He quirked up his lip. “Judging from yesterday, it’s not that fake anymore.”
“Don’t do this to me, Bruno. We’ve already gone over this. I married you because you gave me your word. Now you want to go back on it, again?”
He sighed. “Addie, this is different. Lancaster won’t wait long.”
“If you lose him, I’m sure other offers will come in.” Though none that would pay him thirty percent more than the market price, she suspected. She had researched Lancaster before kidnapping Bruno and knew the man was eager to put his greedy hands on Toca do Tigre. Real estate in northeastern Brazil boomed, especially with the strong economy. Investors wanted to build, to grow, to profit. And Toca do Tigre offered a world of possibilities with one thousand acres, an untouched forest, and its proximity to the ocean.
“It’s not just about the money. My father is adamant about me selling. His advice has turned into a dying man’s wish.”
“And you can’t say no?” He barely spent any time with his father. How odd that he couldn’t bring himself to explain something so important to the man.
He let out a long, deep sigh. “That place has some ties to my past. It was my first meaningful purchase after I made it big in the US. It meant a lot back then,” he said with the familiar caution that surfaced every time he discussed his past. Though, this time, she wouldn’t let him off the hook easily.
“Don’t sell it then. Keep it.” She positioned herself in front of him and lifted her chin.
“I have. For years.” He winced. “My father never asks anything of me. And he has now.”
“I understand. Maybe I can explain to him what’s in play.”
“Don’t,” he said firmly. “Because I know how passionate you are about this, Addie, I’m sure my father will, too. He may be dying, but he’s not stupid. I don’t want him to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find out why we married.” It was not a request. “Besides, he doesn’t have much time left. We can’t stress him.”
What she really wanted was to throw the vase of flowers at him, but she contained herself. “You’ll have to do better than that, Bruno.”
The pace her mind raced overwhelmed her, thoughts of anger and deception piling up. Truth was, he screwed her. She remembered that summer afternoon when her mother told her they would make a quick stop at the bank while Addie waited in the car. Three hours later, her mother showed up—after going to some underground, illegal betting joint where she had left that month’s mortgage.
“Well?” she asked, willing to get him in the heat of the moment and not after he’d had time to rehearse explanations. Her mother had an addiction. What was his excuse? Hundreds of people shouldn’t pay because of the endless bridge he’d built between himself and his father. And she wasn’t going to let him.
“Before I left Brazil, I came into some money. It wasn’t much, but instead of using it to help my family and my mother, who suffered from lupus, I bought a plane ticket and went to the US. Due to circumstances at the time, which I won’t get into right now, I left behind my overwhelmed father, my sick mother, and three younger siblings.” His voice carried guilt and regret.
She backed away from him until the back of her legs felt a cool leathery cushion against them. She plopped down on the sofa. “You abandoned them?”
He’d abandoned them. His own family.
He stared at her with a look that changed everything. The tortured soul, the guilty party, the aware man. All in one. All Bruno. “My mother died shortly after I left. My money may have helped in some way. I could have afforded better care or kept her more comfortable during her last days.”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. How could he have done it? She didn’t know and couldn’t pretend to understand what it was like to live with the consequences of such an act.
“After I’d started to make money in the US, my first big purchase, besides a roof over my family’s head, was Toca do Tigre. My family had immigrated to Rio for a better life by then, but I wanted to hold on to the land. I gave Toca do Tigre to my father, but he refused it. So I kept it in my name but gave Leonardo power of attorney, in case my father ever changed his mind.”
“Why didn’t you ever sell it or use it?”
“I left that decision up to my father. The stubborn old man accepted this house, maybe because it was his ticket out of the region where we grew up. But I didn’t need that land, and neither did my father. Pai was too proud to accept the land.”
“How about the Kwanis?”
“Truthfully, when a caretaker for the land mentioned the Kwanis had invaded a piece of my property, I didn’t care. In one way, I was relieved that at least some of it would be put to good use.”
She slid to the edge of the sofa, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “It can still be put to good use, Bruno. I know that you didn’t help your family when you left, but now you can help dozens of families…you can make a difference.”
“You really think that? That some charity will take away the horrible son I’ve been?”
“If you were still that person, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” The words left her mouth against her consent. She bit her lip hard, willing to taste blood and use it to wash away her last sentence. She was fully aware that if he acted like a good son now, the Kwa
nis would lose their home.
He sighed and turned away, running his fingers violently through his hair. “There has got to be a better way.”
“Have you tried negotiating with Lancaster?”
“I’ve offered to allow him to start construction on another part of the land until he can have it all. Lancaster said the investors are concerned the Kwanis might invade or vandalize the properties and don’t want that liability.”
The wave of irritation shifted into a sea of panic. “They would never do that.”
“You know that, Addie. But there are no guarantees.” He shrugged.
She paced in small circles, the lack of hope tearing at her insides. Her legs, like the rest of her, were restless. Some Indian tribes in the region invaded people’s empty summer houses or construction sites, but the Kwanis wouldn’t.
“I can’t imagine how to tell them they’ll have to move again.” If only he could see them and talk to them in person, perhaps he’d change his mind about selling it so soon and overriding their deal. She hadn’t come this far to give up. “Come to Toca do Tigre…for just a day. Come with me and meet them.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So they can have me for breakfast?”
“I’ve been telling you about them, but it just occurred to me that you should really come and see for yourself. Give me that. Then see if you still want to expel them afterward.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Have you heard nothing I said?”
“I have.” I just disagree.
“No.”
“Well, if you don’t honor your end of the bargain, I won’t keep mine,” she said firmly. She could feel her face tightening, and her every nerve stood on end as she tried to pull off the bluff.
He shook his head. “You can’t do that.”
“Try me. I don’t have anything to lose. I will tell everyone our marriage is a sham.”
“That would be a breach against our agreement. Look, just give me some time. I’ll find a way to help them. I’d never kick them to the curb. If you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, all is lost.”
