by Diana Palmer
She turned under the sheet to keep her restless hands busy. “Tell him I love him and miss him very much, and that I’ll be home soon, will you?”
“Of course.” He hesitated, feeling awkward. “The child misses you, too.” He smiled faintly. “He said if he could be allowed to visit you he would kiss the hurts better.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and suddenly she felt terribly alone. She dabbed at the tears with the sheet, but Diego drew out a spotless white handkerchief and wiped them away. The handkerchief smelled of the cologne he favored and brought back vivid memories of him. Her eyes lifted, and she gazed at him. For one long instant, time rolled away and she was a girl with the man she loved more than her own life.
“Enamorada,” he breathed huskily, his black eyes unblinking, smoldering. “If you knew how empty the years have been—”
The sudden opening of the door was like a gunshot. Melissa glanced that way as a smiling nurse’s aide came into the room to check her vital signs. Diego smiled at the woman, his expression only slightly strained, and left with a brief comment about the time. Melissa clutched his handkerchief tightly in her hand, wanting nothing more than the luxury of tears. She was in pain and helpless, and she was much too vulnerable with Diego. She didn’t dare let him see how she felt or make one slip that would give away Matthew’s parentage. She had to bank down her hidden desire and hide it from him—now more than ever.
She was grateful Diego had left, because the look in his black eyes when he’d held that handkerchief to her eyes had brought back the most painful kind of memories. He still wanted her, if that look was anything to go by, even though he didn’t love or trust her. Perhaps that might have been enough for her, but it wouldn’t be for Matthew. Matthew deserved a father, not a reluctant guardian. It would be hardest for him, because of Diego’s resentment. But telling Diego the truth could cost her the child, and at a time when she wasn’t capable of fighting for him. She’d have to bide her time. Meanwhile, at least she could be temporarily free of financial terrors. And that was something.
* * *
Several days later, Melissa was released from the hospital and Diego took her to the hotel where he was staying. He had chartered a plane to take Melissa to Chicago the next day, a luxury she was reluctantly grateful for.
She pleaded to let her come along when he went to Mrs. Grady’s to pick up Matthew, but he wouldn’t allow it. She was too weak, he insisted. So he went to get the boy and Melissa lay smoldering quietly in one of the big double beds in the exquisite hotel suite, uncomfortable and angry.
It only took a few minutes. The door was unlocked and Matthew ran toward her like a little tornado, crying and laughing as he threw himself onto her chest and held her, mumbling and muttering through his tears.
“Oh, my baby,” she cooed, smiling as she smoothed his brown hair and sighed over him. It was difficult to reach out because her stitches still pulled, but she didn’t complain. She had her baby back.
Diego, watching them, glared at the sight of her blond head bent over that dark one. He was jealous of the boy, and more especially of the boy’s father. He hated the very thought of Melissa’s body in another man’s arms, another man’s bed. He hated the thought of the child she’d borne her lover.
Melissa laughed as Matt lifted his electronic bear and made it talk for her.
“Isn’t he nice?” Matt asked, all eyes. “My…Your…Mr. Man bought him for me.”
“Diego,” she prompted.
“Diego,” Matthew parroted. He glanced at the tall man who’d been so quiet and distant all the way to the hotel. Matt wasn’t sure if he liked Diego or not, but he was certain that the tall man didn’t like him. It was going to be very hard living with a man who made him feel so unwelcome.
Melissa touched the pale little cheek. “You need sunshine, my son,” she murmured. “You’ve spent too much time indoors.”
Diego put down the cases and lit a small cheroot, pausing to open the curtains before dropping into an easy chair to smoke it at the table beside the window. “I have engaged a sitter for Matthew, since I will be away from the apartment a good deal when we get to Chicago,” he told Melissa. “Perhaps the sitter will take him to the park or the beach.”
Melissa felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle. Here she’d been the very model of a protective, caring mother, making sure Matt was always supervised, and now Diego came along and thought he could shift responsibility onto a total stranger about whom she knew nothing.
She clasped Matt’s waist tightly. “No,” she said firmly. “If he goes anywhere, it will be with me.”
Diego’s eyebrows lifted. She was overly protective of the child, that was obvious. Mrs. Grady had intimated something of the sort; now he could see that the older woman had been right. Something would have to be done about that, he decided. It wasn’t healthy for a mother to be so sheltering. A boy who clung to his mother’s apron could hardly grow into a strong man.
He crossed his legs and smoked his cheroot while his narrowed eyes surveyed woman and child. “Will you condemn him to four walls and your own company?”
She sat up, wincing as she piled pillows behind her. “I’ll be able to get up and around in no time,” she protested.
“Oh, yes,” he agreed blandly, watching her struggle. “Already you can sit up by yourself.”
She gave him her best glare. “I can walk, too.”
“Not without falling over,” he murmured, watching the cheroot with a faint smile as he recalled her last attempt to use her damaged leg.
“I’ll hold you up, Mama,” Matt assured her. “I’m very strong.”
“Yes, I know you are, my darling,” she said, her voice soft and loving. The man sitting in the chair felt an explosive anger that she cared so much for another man’s child.
“What would you like for dinner?” he asked suddenly, getting up. “I can get room service to bring a tray.”
“Steak and a salad for me, please,” she said.
“Matt wants a fish.” The little boy looked up, nervous and unsure, clinging to his mother’s arm.
“They may not have fish, Matt,” Melissa began.
“They have it,” Diego said stiffly. “I had fish last night.”
“Coffee for me, and milk for Matt,” she said, turning away from the coldness of Diego’s face as he looked at her son.
He nodded, a bare inclination of his head, and went to telephone.
“Mr. Man doesn’t like Matt,” Matthew said with a sad little sigh. “Doesn’t he have any children?”
Melissa wanted to cry, but she knew that wouldn’t solve anything. She only hoped Diego didn’t hear the little boy as she shushed him and shook her head.
Diego didn’t turn or flinch, but he heard, all right. It made the situation all the more difficult. He hadn’t realized how perceptive children were.
Dinner was served from a pushcart by a white-coated waiter, and Matthew took his to the far side of the table, as if he wanted a buffer between himself and the tall man who didn’t like him. Diego sat beside Melissa, and she tried not to smell the exotic cologne he wore or notice the strength of his powerful, slender body next to hers. He was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, and as he cut his steak she had to fight not to slide her fingers over the dark, lean hand holding the knife.
Diego finished first and went to the lobby on the pretext of getting Melissa something to read. In fact he wanted to get away from the boy’s sad little face, with its big, haunting black eyes. He hated his own reactions because they were hurting that innocent little child who, under different circumstances, might have been his own.
He went to the lounge and had a whiskey sour, ignoring the blatant overtures of a slinky blonde who obviously found him more than attractive. He finished his drink and his cheroot and went back upstairs, taking a magazine for Melissa and a coloring book and crayons for Matt.
Melissa had Matt curled up beside her on the couch, and they both tensed the minute he walked in
. His chin lifted.
“I brought a coloring book for the boy,” he said hesitantly.
Matt didn’t move. He looked up, waiting, without any expression on his face.
Diego took the book and the crayons and offered them to him, but still Matt didn’t make a move.
“Don’t you want the book, Matt?” Melissa asked softly.
“No. He doesn’t like Matt,” Matt said simply, lowering his eyes.
Diego frowned, torn between pain and his desire for vengeance. The child touched him in ways he had never dreamed of. He saw himself in the little boy, alone and frightened and sad. His own childhood had been an unhappy one, because his father had never truly loved his mother. His mother had known it, and suffered for it. She had died young, and his father had become even more withdrawn. Then, when his father had met the lovely Sheila, the older man’s attitude had changed for the better. But the change had been short-lived—and that loss of hope Diego owed to Melissa’s family, because his father had died loving Sheila Sterling, loving her with a hopeless passion that he was never able to indulge. The loss had warped him and Diego had seen what loving a woman could do to a man, and he had learned from it. Allowing a woman close enough to love was all too dangerous.
But the boy…it was hardly his fault. How could he blame Matt for Melissa’s failings?
He put the coloring book and the crayons gently on the table by the sofa and handed Melissa the women’s magazine he’d bought for her. Then he went back to his chair and sat smoking his cheroot, glancing through a sheaf of papers in a file.
“I’m going to read, Matt,” Melissa said gently, nudging him to stand up. “You might as well try out your crayons. Do you remember how to color?”
Matt glanced at the man, who was oblivious to them both, and then at the crayons and coloring book. “It’s all right?” he asked his mother worriedly.
“It’s all right,” she assured him.
He sighed and got down on the floor, sprawling with crayons everywhere, and began to color one of his favorite cartoon characters.
Diego looked up then and smiled faintly. Melissa, watching him, was surprised by his patience. She’d forgotten how gentle he could be. But then it had been a long time since she and Diego had been friends.
They had an early night. Melissa almost spoke when Diego insisted that Matt pick up his crayons and put them away neatly. But she didn’t take the child’s side, because she knew Diego was right. Often she was less firm with Matt than she should be because she was usually so tired from her job.
She helped Matt into his pajamas and then looked quickly at Diego, because there were two double beds. She didn’t want to be close to her estranged husband, but she didn’t know how to say it in front of Matt.
Diego stole her thunder neatly by suggesting that the boy bunk down with her. It was only for the one night, because there were four bedrooms in the Chicago apartment. Matt would have his own room. Yes, Melissa thought, and that’s when the trouble would really start, because she and Matt had been forced to share a room. She could only afford a tiny efficiency apartment with a sofa that folded out to make a bed. Matt wasn’t used to being alone at night, and she wondered how they were going to cope.
But she didn’t want to borrow trouble. She was tired and nervous and apprehensive, and there was worse to come. She closed her eyes and went to sleep. And she didn’t dream.
The next morning, they left for Chicago. Despite the comfort of the chartered Lear jet, Melissa was still sore and uncomfortable. She had her medicine, and the attending physician at the hospital had referred her to a doctor in Chicago in case she had any complications. If only she could sit back and enjoy the flight the way Matthew was, she thought, watching his animated young face as he peered out the window and asked a hundred questions about airplanes and Chicago. Diego unbent enough to answer a few of them, although he did it with faint reluctance. But Matt seemed determined now to win him over, and Diego wasn’t all that distant this morning.
Back in the old days in Guatemala, Melissa had never thought about the kind of father Diego would make. In her world of daydreams, romance had been her only concern, not the day-to-day life that a man and a woman had to concern themselves with after the wildness of infatuation wore off. Now, watching her son with his father, she realized that Diego really liked children. He was patient with Matthew, treating each new question as if it were of the utmost importance. He hadn’t completely gotten over the shock of the child, she knew, and there was some reserve in him when he was with this boy he thought was another man’s son. But he was polite to the child, and once or twice he actually seemed amused by Matt’s excitement.
He was the soul of courtesy, but Melissa couldn’t help thinking he’d much rather be traveling alone. Nevertheless, he carried her off the plane and to a waiting limousine for the trip to the Lincoln Park apartment he maintained, and she had to grind her teeth to keep from reaching up and kissing his hard, very masculine mouth as he held her. She hoped he didn’t see how powerfully his nearness affected her. She was still vulnerable, even after all the years apart, but she didn’t dare let him see it. She couldn’t let him destroy her pride again as he had once before.
The apartment was a penthouse that overlooked the park and the shoreline, with the city skyline like a gray silhouette on the rainy horizon. Melissa was put to bed at once in one of the guest bedrooms and told to rest while Matthew explored the apartment and Diego introduced Melissa to Mrs. Albright, who was to do the babysitting as well as the cooking and cleaning. Apollo had recommended the pleasant, heavyset woman, and she’d been taking care of the apartment for Diego for over a year now.
Mrs. Albright was middle-aged and graying, with a sweet face and a personality to match. She took Melissa coffee and cake in bed and set about making her as comfortable as possible, insisting that she stay in bed to recuperate from the long flight. Then she took Matt off to the kitchen to spoil him with tiny homemade cream cakes and milk while she listened to his happy chatter about the flight from Tucson.
Once the boy and Melissa were settled, Diego picked up the phone and punched in a number.
Melissa heard him, but she couldn’t make out many of the words. It sounded as though he were speaking to Apollo, and in fact he was, because Apollo showed up at the apartment an hour later with a slender, petite black woman.
Diego introduced the tall, muscular black man in the gray suit. “This is Apollo Blain. Perhaps you remember him.” Apollo smiled and nodded, and Melissa smiled back. “And this is Joyce Latham, Apollo’s secretary.”
“Temporarily,” Apollo said with a curt nod in Joyce’s direction.
“That’s right, temporarily,” Joyce said in a lilting West Indian accent, glaring up at the tall man. “Just until the very second I can find anybody brave enough to take my place.”
Apollo glowered down at her. “Amen, sister,” he bit off. “And with any luck I’ll get somebody who can remember a damned telephone number long enough to dial it and who can file my clients alphabetically so I can find the files!”
“And maybe I’ll get a boss who can read!” Joyce shot back.
“Enough!” Diego laughed, getting between them. “Melissa has survived one disaster. She doesn’t need to be thrust into a new one, por favor.”
Apollo grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I got carried away.” He shot a speaking glance at Joyce.
“Me, too,” she muttered, shifting so that she was a little away from him. Her features weren’t pretty, but her eyes were lovely, as deep and black as a bottomless pool, and her coffee-with-cream complexion was blemishless. She had a nice figure, probably, but the floppy uninspired blue dress she was wearing hid that very well.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Melissa told the woman, smiling. “I remember Apollo from years ago, of course. How long have you worked for him?”
“Two weeks too long,” Joyce muttered.
“That’s right, two weeks and one day too long,” Apollo added. “Dutch and
J.D. are coming over later, and Shirt says he and his missus are going to fly up to see you next week. It’ll be like a reunion.”
“I remember our last reunion,” Diego said, smiling faintly. “We were evicted from the suite we occupied at three in the morning.”
“And one of us was arrested,” Apollo said smugly.
“That so?” Joyce asked him. “How long did they keep you in jail?”
He glared. “Not me. Diego.”
“Diego?” Melissa stared at him in disbelief. The cool, careless man she knew wasn’t hotheaded enough to land himself in jail. But perhaps she didn’t really know him at all.
“He took exception to some remarks about his Latin heritage,” Apollo explained with a glance at Diego, whose expression gave nothing away. “The gentleman making the remarks was very big and very mean, and to make a long story short, Diego assisted the gentleman into the hotel swimming pool through a plate-glass window.”
“It was a long time ago.” Diego turned as Matthew came running into the room.
“You have to come see my drawing, Mama,” the boy said urgently, tugging at his mother’s hand. “I drew a puppy dog and a bee! Come look!”
“Momento, Matthew,” Diego said firmly, holding the boy still. He introduced the visitors, who smiled down warmly at the child. “You can show your drawings to Mama in a moment, when our visitors have gone, all right, little one?”
“All right.” Matthew sighed. He smiled at his mama and went shyly past the visitors and back to his crayons.
Apollo said, “He’s a mirror image of you…” The last word trailed away under the black fury of Diego’s eyes. He cleared his throat. “Well, we’d better get back to work. We’ll be over with the others tonight. But we won’t stay long. We don’t want to wear out the missus, and don’t lay on food. Just drinks. Okay?”
“And we’ll come in separate cars next time,” Joyce grumbled, darting a glance at the black man. “His idea of city driving is to aim the car and close his eyes.”
