by Diana Palmer
But Diego thought about the baby with bridled fury. They were still married, despite her unfaithfulness, and there was no question of divorce. Melissa, who was also Catholic, would have been no more amenable to that solution than he. But it was going to be unbearable, seeing that child and knowing that he was the very proof of Melissa’s revenge for Diego’s treatment of her.
The sudden buzz of the telephone diverted him. It was the doctor, who’d obtained the name and address of the neighbor who was caring for Melissa’s son. Diego scribbled the information on a pad beside the phone, grateful for the diversion.
An hour later he was ushered into the cozy living room of Henrietta Grady’s house, just down the street from the address the hospital had for Melissa’s home.
Diego sat sipping coffee, listening to Mrs. Grady talk about Melissa and Matthew and their long acquaintance. She wasn’t shy about enumerating Melissa’s virtues. “Such a sweet girl,” she said. “And Matthew’s never any trouble. I don’t have children of my own, you see, and Melissa and Matthew have rather adopted me.”
“I’m certain your friendship has been important to Melissa,” he replied, not wanting to go into any detail about their marriage. “The boy…”
“Here he is now. Hello, my baby.”
Diego stopped short at the sight of the clean little boy who walked sleepily into the room in his pajamas. “All clean, Granny Grady,” he said, running to her. He perched on her lap, his bare toes wiggling, eyeing the tall, dark man curiously. “Who are you?” he asked.
Diego stared at him with icy anger. Whoever Melissa’s lover had been, he obviously had a little Latin blood. The boy’s hair was light brown, but his skin was olive and his eyes were dark brown velvet. He was captivating, his arms around Mrs. Grady’s neck, his lean, dark face full of laughter. And he looked to be just about four years old. Which meant that Melissa’s fidelity had lasted scant weeks or months before she’d turned to another man.
Mrs. Grady lifted the child and cuddled him while Matthew waited for the man to answer his question.
“I’m Matthew,” he told Diego, his voice uninhibited and unaccented. “My mommy went away. Are you my papa?”
Diego wasn’t sure he could speak. He stared at the little boy with faint hostility. “I am your mama’s husband,” he said curtly, aware of Matthew’s uncertainty and Mrs. Grady’s surprise.
Diego ignored the looks. “Your mama is going to be all right. She is a little hurt, but not much. She will come home soon.”
“Where will Matt go?” the boy asked gently.
Diego sighed heavily. He hadn’t realized how much Melissa’s incapacity would affect his life. She was his responsibility until she was well again, and so was this child. It was a matter of honor, and although his had taken some hard blows in years past, it was still as much a part of him as his pride. He lifted his chin. “You and your mama will stay with me,” he said stiffly, and the lack of welcome in his voice made the little boy cling even closer to Mrs. Grady. “But in the meantime, I think it would be as well if you stay here.” He turned to Mrs. Grady. “This can be arranged? I will need to spend a great deal of time at the hospital until I can bring Melissa home, and it seems less than sensible to uproot him any more than necessary.”
“Of course it can be arranged,” Mrs. Grady said without argument. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, please let me know.”
“I will give you the number of the phone in my hotel room and at the hospital, should you need to contact me.” He pulled a checkbook from the immaculate gray suit jacket. “No arguments, please,” he said when she looked hesitant about accepting money. “If you had not been available, Melissa would certainly have had to hire a sitter for him. I must insist that you let me pay you.”
Mrs. Grady gave in gracefully, grateful for his thoughtfulness. “I would have done it for nothing,” she said.
He smiled and wrote out a check. “Yes. I sensed that.”
“Is Matt going to live with you and Mama?” Matthew asked in a quiet, subdued tone, sadness in his huge dark eyes.
Diego lifted his chin. “Yes,” Diego said formally. “For the time being.”
“My mommy will miss me if she’s hurt. I can kiss her better. Can’t I go see her?”
It was oddly touching to see those great dark eyes filled with tears. Diego had schooled himself over the years to never betray emotion. But he still felt it, even at such an unwelcome time.
Mrs. Grady had put the boy down to pour more coffee, and Diego studied him gravely. “There is a doctor who is taking very good care of your mother. Soon you may see her. I promise.”
The small face lifted warily toward him. “I love Mama,” he said. “She takes me places and buys me ice cream. And she lets me sleep with her when I get scared.”
Diego’s face became, if anything, more reserved than before, Mrs. Grady noticed. A flash of darkness in his eyes made her more nervous than before. How could Melissa have been married to such a cold man, a man who seemed unaffected even by his own son’s tears? “How about a cartoon movie before bedtime?” Mrs. Grady asked Matthew, and quickly put on a Winnie the Pooh video for him to watch. The boy sprawled in an armchair, clapping his hands as the credits began to roll.
“Gracias,” Diego said as he got gracefully to his feet. “I will tell Melissa of your kindness to her son.”
Mrs. Grady tried not to choke. “Excuse me, señor, but Matthew is surely your son, too?”
The look in his eyes made her regret ever asking the question. She moved quickly past him to the door, making a flurry of small talk while her cheeks burned with her own forwardness.
“I hope everything goes well with Melissa,” she said, flustered.
“Yes. So do I.” Diego glanced back at Matthew, who was watching television. His dark eyes were quiet and faintly bitter. He didn’t want Melissa’s child. He wasn’t sure he even wanted Melissa. He’d come out of duty and honor, but those were the only things keeping him from taking the first flight home to Guatemala. He felt betrayed all over again, and he didn’t know how he was going to bear having to look at that child every day until Melissa was well enough to leave him.
He went back to the hospital, pausing outside Melissa’s room while he convinced himself that upsetting her at this point would be unwise. He couldn’t do that to an injured woman, despite his outrage. After a moment he knocked carelessly and walked in, tall and elegant and faintly arrogant, controlling his expression so that he seemed utterly unconcerned.
Which was quite a feat, considering that inside he felt as if part of him had died over the past five years. Melissa couldn’t possibly know how it had been for him when she’d first vanished from the hospital, or how his guilt had haunted him. Despite his misgivings, he’d searched for her, and if he’d found her he’d have made sure that their marriage worked. For the sake of his family’s honor, he’d have made her think that he was supremely contented. And after they’d had other children, perhaps they’d have found some measure of happiness. But that was all supposition, and now he was here and the future had to be faced.
The one thing he was certain of was that he could never trust her again. Affection might be possible after he got used to the situation, but love wasn’t a word he knew. He’d come close to that with Melissa before she’d forced him into an unwanted marriage. But she’d nipped that soft feeling in the bud, and he’d steeled himself in the years since to be invulnerable to a woman’s lies. Nothing she did could touch him anymore. But how was he going to hide his contempt and fury from her when Matthew would remind him of it every day they had to be together?
Chapter Five
Melissa watched Diego come in the door, and it was like stepping back into a past she didn’t even want to remember. She was drowsy from the painkillers, but nothing could numb her reaction to her first sight of her husband in five years.
She seemed to stop breathing as her gray eyes slid drowsily over his tall elegance. Diego. So many dreams ago, she�
��d loved him. So many lonely years ago, she’d longed for him. But the memory of his cold indifference and his family’s hatred had killed something vulnerable in her. She’d grown up. No longer was she the adoring woman-child who’d hung on his every word. Because of Matthew, she had to conceal from Diego the attraction she still felt for him. She was helpless and Diego was wealthy and powerful. She couldn’t risk letting him know the truth about the little boy, because she knew all too well that Diego would toss her aside without regret. He’d already done that once.
Even now she could recall the disgust in his face when he’d pushed her away from him that last night she’d spent under his roof.
Her eyes opened again and he was closer, his face as unreadable as ever. He was older, but just as masculine and attractive. The cologne he used drifted down to her, making her fingers curl. She remembered the clean scent of him, the delicious touch of his hard mouth on her own. The mustache was unfamiliar, very black and thick, like the wavy, neatly trimmed hair above his dark face. He was older, yes, even a little more muscular. But he was still Diego.
“Melissa.” He made her name a song. It was the pronunciation, she imagined, the faint accent, that gave it a foreign sound.
She lowered her eyes to his jacket. “Diego.”
“How are you feeling?”
He sounded as awkward as she felt. She wondered how they’d found him, why they’d contacted him. She was still disoriented. Her slender hand touched her forehead as she struggled to remember. “There was a plane crash,” she whispered, grimacing as she felt again the horrible stillness of the engine, the sudden whining as they’d descended, her own screaming.
“You must try not to think of it now.” He stood over her, his hands deep in his pockets.
Then, suddenly, she remembered. “Matthew! Oh, no. Matthew!”
“¡Cuidado!” he said gently, pressing her back into the pillows. “Your son is doing very well. I have been to see him.”
There was a flicker of movement in her eyelids that she prayed he wouldn’t see and become curious about. She stared at him, waiting. Waiting. But he made no comment about the child. Nothing.
His back straightened. “I have asked Mrs. Grady to keep him until you are well enough to be released.”
She wished she felt more capable of coping. “That was kind of you,” she said.
He turned to her again, his head to one side as he studied her. He decided not to pull any punches. “You will not be able to work for six weeks. And Mrs. Grady seemed to feel that you are in desperate financial straits.”
Her eyes closed as a wave of nausea swept over her. “I had pneumonia, back in the spring,” she said. “I got behind with the bills…”
“Are you listening to me, Señora Laremos?” he asked pointedly, emphasizing the married name he knew she hated. “You are not able to work. Until you are, you and the child will come home with me.”
Her eyes opened then. “No!”
“It is decided,” he said carelessly.
She went rigid under the sheet. “I won’t go to Guatemala, Diego,” she said with unexpected spirit. In the old days, she had never fought him. “Not under any circumstances.”
He stared at her, his expression faintly puzzled. So the memories bothered her, as well, did they? He lifted his chin, staring down his straight nose at her. “Chicago, not Guatemala,” he replied quietly. “Retirement has begun to bore me.” He shrugged. “I hardly need the money, but Apollo Blain has offered me a consultant’s position, and I already have an apartment in Chicago. I was spending a few weeks at the finca before beginning work when the hospital authorities called me about you.”
Apollo. That name was familiar. She remembered the mercenaries with whom Diego had once associated himself. “He was in trouble with the law.”
“No longer. J.D. Brettman defended him and won his case. Apollo has his own business now, and most of the others work for him. He is the last bachelor in the group. The others are married, even Shirt.”
She swallowed. “Shirt is married?”
“To a wiry little widow. Unbelievable, is it not? I flew to Texas three years ago for the wedding.”
She couldn’t look at him. She knew somehow that he’d never told his comrades about his own marriage. He’d hated Melissa and the very thought of being tied to her. Hadn’t he said so often enough?
“I’m very happy for them,” she said tautly. “How nice to know that some people look upon marriage as a happy ending, not as certain death.”
His gaze narrowed, his dark eyes wary on her face. “Looking into the past will accomplish nothing,” he said finally. “We must both put it aside. I cannot desert you at such a time, and Mrs. Grady is hardly able to undertake your nursing as well as your son’s welfare.”
She didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the reference to Matthew. He had to believe she’d betrayed him, and she had no choice but to let him think it. She couldn’t fight him in her present condition.
Her gray eyes held his. “And you are?”
“It is a matter of honor,” he said stiffly.
“Yes, of course. Honor,” she said wearily, wincing as she moved and felt a twinge of pain. “I hope I can teach Matthew that honor and pride aren’t quite as important as compassion and love.”
The reference to her own lack of honor made his temper flare. “Who was his father, Melissa?” he asked cuttingly, his eyes hard. He hadn’t meant to ask that, the words had exploded from him in quiet fury. “Whose child is he?”
She turned her head back to his. “He’s my child,” she said with an indignant glare. Gone were the days when she’d bowed down to him. Gone were the old adulation and the pedestal she’d put him on. She was worlds more mature now, and her skin wasn’t thin anymore. “When you pushed me away, you gave up any rights you had to dictate to me. His parentage is none of your business. You didn’t want me, but maybe someone else did.”
He glared, but he didn’t fire back at her. How could he? She’d hit on his own weakness. He’d never gotten over the guilt he’d felt, both for the loss of control that had given her a weapon to force him into marriage and for causing her miscarriage.
He stared out the window. “We cannot change what was,” he said again.
Melissa hated the emotions that soft, Spanish-accented voice aroused in her, and she hated the hunger she felt for his love. But she could never let him know.
She stared at her thin hands. “Why did they contact you?”
He went back to the bed, his eyes quiet, unreadable. “You had our marriage license in your purse.”
“Oh.”
“It amazes me that you would carry it with you,” he continued. “You hated me when you left Guatemala.”
“No less than you hated me, Diego,” she replied wearily.
His heart leaped at the sound of his name on her lips. She’d whispered it that rainy afternoon in the mountains, then moaned it, then screamed it. His fist clenched deep in his pocket as the memories came back, unbidden.
“It seemed so, did it not?” he replied. He turned away irritably. “Nevertheless, I did try to find you,” he added stiffly. “But to no avail.”
She stared at the sheet over her. “I didn’t think you’d look for me,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d mind that I was gone, since I’d lost the child,” she added, forcing out the lie, “and that was the only thing you would have valued in our marriage.”
He averted his head. He didn’t tell her the whole truth about the devastation her disappearance had caused him. He was uncertain of his ability to talk about it, even now, without revealing his emotions. “You were my wife,” he said carelessly, glancing her way with eyes as black as night. “You were my responsibility.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Only that. Just an unwelcome duty.” She grimaced, fighting the pain because her shot was slowly wearing off. Her soft gray eyes searched his face. “You never wanted me, except in one way. And after we were married, not even that way.”
“Freedom was to me a kind of religion,” he said absently. “I had never foreseen that I might one day be forced to relinquish it.” He shifted restlessly. “Marriage was never a state I coveted.”
“Yes, I learned that,” she replied. She grimaced as she shifted against the pillow. “What did they…do to me? They won’t tell me anything.”
“They operated to stop some internal bleeding.” He stood over her, his head at a faintly arrogant angle. “There is a torn ligament in your leg which will make you uncomfortable until it heals, and some minor bruises and abrasions. And they had to remove one of your ovaries, but the physician said that you can still bear a child.”
Her face colored. “I don’t want another child.”
He stared down at her with faint distaste. “No doubt the one your lover left you with is adequate, is he not, señora?” he shot back.
She wanted to hit him. Her eyes flashed wildly and her breath caught. “Oh, God, I hate you,” she breathed huskily, and her face contorted with new pain.
He ignored the outburst. “Do you need something else for the discomfort?” he asked unexpectedly.
She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. “It…hurts.” She touched her abdomen.
