Rachel was so shocked by Lorena’s startling accusation that Diego had somehow been involved in his twin’s death that she said nothing and simply allowed him to steer her across the room. He halted in the doorway and glanced back at his mother. ‘My child is your grandchild, madre. Do you not think you should try to forget the past and be a part of the baby’s life?’
Lorena gave a harsh laugh. ‘I will never forget,’ she said viciously. She threw Diego a look of such loathing that Rachel gasped. ‘Eduardo will never marry or have a child.’ Hysteria edged into her voice. ‘Everything was snatched away from him …’
The colour drained from Diego’s face and Rachel was shaken by the flare of agony in his eyes. But he quickly masked his expression and nodded to his mother. ‘Adios, madre,’ he murmured quietly, before he swept Rachel out of the room.
CHAPTER TEN
ON THE drive back to the penthouse Rachel could not face talking so she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. But she could not dismiss the image of Lorena Ortega throwing brandy down her throat and staring at Rachel with her wild eyes—and, worse than that, the look on Diego’s face when Lorena had spoken of his twin brother, Eduardo. It was clear Lorena believed that Diego was somehow to blame for Eduardo’s death. But when Rachel peeped through her lashes at Diego’s grim face she dared not ask him for an explanation.
But whatever dark thoughts had been troubling him on the journey across town, he seemed to have dismissed them when they arrived back at the apartment.
‘I knew you would like Juana,’ he commented as he crossed to the bar in the lounge. Rachel knew he hadn’t drunk alcohol all evening, and it was understandable that he would want a nightcap, but as he half filled a glass with brandy she was reminded vividly of his mother, and she could not restrain a shiver.
‘Would you like a drink? I’ll make you some tea.’ He gave her the confident smile of a man who was no longer a stranger to the kitchen, and who had now mastered the intricacies of the teapot to make her tea first thing in the morning and every evening.
‘No, thank you. I’m going straight to bed,’ Rachel replied dully.
Diego frowned, noting how stiffly she held herself. She had seemed relaxed in the car and he’d assumed that meeting his mother hadn’t bothered her as much as he had feared it might. Clearly he had been wrong.
‘What’s the matter, Rachel? Although I don’t really need to ask,’ he said grimly. ‘Perhaps I should rephrase the question, and ask what my mother said to you.’
Rachel bit her lip, hearing again Lorena Ortega’s cry that Diego had sent his brother to his death. It couldn’t be true—could it? It had just been the drunken ramblings of an embittered woman. But why did Lorena hate her surviving son so much? She did not have the nerve to come straight out and ask Diego how Eduardo had died, and instead she dwelled on the other things his mother had said, in particular her assertion that Diego was a womaniser as his father had been.
‘She said that your list of mistresses is legendary—and that you will never remain faithful to one woman,’ she mumbled.
Diego’s brows winged upwards and he gave her an arrogant stare. ‘And of course you believed her—even though you had never met her before and it was obvious she’d had too much to drink? Thank you for your faith in me, querida,’ he said icily.
It was impossible to believe she had hurt him, Rachel thought shakily—not when he was staring down his nose at her as if she were something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe. She wanted to assure him that no, she hadn’t believed a word his mother had said, but she could not forget the newspaper photo of him surrounded by gorgeous glamour models at the US open polo tournament, or the boldly flirtatious glances some of the women at the party had sent his way tonight.
‘Have you had other lovers since me?’ she burst out.
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’ His expression was glacial. ‘You walked out on me, remember?’ Nothing on earth would induce Diego to admit that he had felt gutted when she had abruptly ended their relationship.
His arrogance fuelled Rachel’s temper. She had a sudden flashback to when she had been eight years old and she had watched her mother sobbing uncontrollably because she had discovered that Rachel’s father was having an affair with his secretary. She wasn’t prepared to live her life like that, always looking over her shoulder and wondering …
‘I don’t care how many women you slept with before we were married,’ she told Diego fiercely. ‘But now I am your wife, and if you think I will turn a blind eye to your extramarital activities, think again.’
Diego surveyed her with an air of mocking amusement which did not disguise his anger. ‘Perhaps I should remind you that you are hardly in the position to impose stipulations or make demands regarding our marriage,’ he drawled. ‘I married you for my child, and I will retain custody of the child should I ever decide to end our marriage.
‘But I can see no reason why it should come to that,’ he murmured in a marginally softer tone when Rachel paled. ‘We both want to be good parents and give our child the stability that was missing from our own childhoods.’ He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair, his brows lifting arrogantly when she tensed. ‘Despite the impression my mother has given you that I am a lecherous playboy like my father, I give you my word that I am prepared to be a loyal and faithful husband.’ His other hand snaked around her waist and he jerked her up against his chest, his eyes no longer icy, but blazing with a sensual intent that made Rachel catch her breath.
‘I have been patient, querida, waiting for you to regain your strength after your illness, and giving you time to settle here in Argentina. But now it is time to make this marriage real, so that you can be in no doubt about my intention to please my wife in all the ways I know she likes best.’
‘Diego …’ Embarrassed colour scorched Rachel’s cheeks as she remembered her unabashed enjoyment of the many and varied ways he had made love to her during their affair. But her startled protest was muffled beneath his mouth as he lowered his head and claimed her lips in a devastating assault that obliterated her fear that his desire for her had died.
It had been months since he had kissed her properly, and so much had happened since then. She had learned that she was carrying his child—and he had been so angry when she’d told him, which in turn had fuelled her resentment and mistrust of him. But right now none of that seemed to matter. Her body had been denied him for so long, and it paid no heed to the warning voice in her head which taunted that sexual desire was not love—not for him, anyway. For Rachel it was inextricably linked—and that left her wide-open to being hurt.
Frantically she firmed her lips against the fierce thrust of his tongue, but Diego changed tactics and, instead of trying to force her lips apart, he began to tease her with soft, beguiling kisses, tasting her and sipping her so that her resistance slowly melted away. Her arms crept around him. He was so strong and powerful and she felt safe with him, and yet at the same time she knew she was in mortal danger of succumbing to his potent masculinity.
He trailed his lips over her cheek and down her throat to the pulse jerking wildly at its base. Every nerve-ending on Rachel’s body sprang into urgent life and she gasped when he lowered his head to the deep valley between her breasts.
‘I love what pregnancy has done to your body,’ he murmured huskily, his breath feathering her skin. He closed his fingers possessively around one full breast, and Rachel felt her nipples swell and harden. ‘You are more beautiful than ever, querida.’
Rachel laid her hands on his chest and felt the heat of his body through his shirt, and her senses swam as she caught the scent of his aftershave mingled with the subtle drift of male pheromones. Whatever had happened in his past, he was with her now and had vowed to be faithful to her. He did not love her, but he wanted to make love to her—and she could no longer deny her need for him, she acknowledged, sighing her pleasure when he captured her mouth once again.
She c
ould not fight the insidious warmth spreading through her veins, the heaviness of her breasts and the dragging ache between her legs. Slowly she opened her mouth to him and heard his low groan as he slid his tongue deep into her moist warmth and explored her until she was trembling. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to sweep her up into his arms and stride down the hall to the master bedroom, and when he laid her on the rich burgundy silk bedspread she threaded her fingers through his long, dark hair and tugged him down on top of her.
He wanted her, and nothing else seemed important—because she wanted him too, her desperation to feel his satiny skin beneath her fingertips so great that she tore open his shirt with feverish haste and skimmed her palms over the bunched muscles of his abdomen.
‘Slowly,’ he bade her huskily, amusement at her eagerness mingling with a feral hunger he had never experienced with any other woman. ‘We must be careful of the little one.’
But Rachel did not want to be careful. The baby was safely cocooned inside her, and she was burning up with need. She shifted obligingly onto her side so that Diego could unzip her dress, her breath coming in shallow gasps when he drew the material down to expose her sheer black lace bra.
‘Bella,’ he growled, dull colour flaring along his magnificent cheekbones as he stared down at her proudly erect nipples straining against the lace. He swiftly unfastened her bra and groaned his satisfaction when he cupped her naked breasts in his hands and felt their plump softness. ‘It has been a long time since we were together, and I want you very badly,’ he warned her.
Rachel wanted to tell him that her hunger was as urgent as his, but the words were trapped in her throat when he bent his dark head to her breast and took one rosy crest into his mouth, the sensations he evoked as he sucked making her twist her hips in a blatant invitation. She had relived him making love to her every night since they had parted, but her dreams had been no substitute for the feel of his hands and mouth sliding over her body. Her breasts were so acutely sensitive that when he transferred his mouth to her other nipple and teased the swollen peak with his tongue she cried out and anchored her fingers in his silky hair to hold him to this task of pleasuring her.
Heat flooded between her thighs and she was desperate for him to touch her there, but reality briefly impinged when he began to tug her dress over her hips.
‘Leave it on,’ she implored him, her face flaming. ‘I look like a whale.’
‘No, you don’t. You are exquisite,’ Diego said deeply as he allowed her dress to float to the floor and ran his hand possessively over the hard swell of her stomach. ‘Dios, Rachel, you carry my child within you, and you will never look lovelier than you do now.’
He kissed her mouth, and she sensed tenderness, as well as passion. The sensual sweep of his tongue dismissed the last lingering doubts, and she lifted her hips so that he could slide her knickers down her legs, sighing her pleasure when he gently parted her and probed delicately between the slick wet folds of her womanhood.
‘Please, Diego—now,’ she whispered, and the undisguised need in her voice shattered his restraint so that he jumped up and stripped out of his clothes before stretching out on the bed beside her.
The sight of his arousal still had the power to steal her breath. He was a magnificent bronzed demi-god, and Rachel gave a shiver of anticipation as she ran her hands over the dark whorls of hair that covered his chest, and followed the path over his flat stomach and lower, to where his throbbing erection was pushing impatiently against her belly.
How were they going to do this? she wondered, her heart sinking as she stared down at her stomach.
Diego noted her faint frown and smiled, his amber eyes gleaming. ‘Like this,’ he murmured as he helped her move to the edge of the bed so that her feet rested on the floor. He stood up, nudged her thighs apart and positioned himself between them, slid his hands beneath her bottom and, as he lifted her, he eased forwards and carefully entered her. He filled her so deeply that Rachel gave a little sob of pleasure, but he misunderstood and immediately stilled.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘Only if you stop. I’m not breakable, I’m strong and fit and I want you to make love to me properly,’ she told him, clutching his shoulders and urging him to thrust deeper still. ‘Please, Diego, don’t stop … don’t stop.’
The sensation of having him move inside her was so exquisite that she wanted it to never ever end. He drove into her again, a little faster, a little harder, setting a rhythm that made her blood thunder through her veins as the nagging ache deep in her pelvis grew and grew. The pleasure was intolerable, it couldn’t last, and suddenly she was there on the edge of ecstasy, and the spasms that began as tiny ripples deep inside her radiated out in an explosion of sensation that made her cry out as she shuddered with the intensity of her climax.
Only then, when he had taken her to the heights, did Diego’s control falter. She was so tight and hot, and so generous, lifting her hips to meet the thrust of his. He was afraid of hurting her, but she was urging him on and he gripped her buttocks and drove into her one last time, felt the exquisite spasms of her vaginal muscles squeeze him and with a groan his control shattered and he pumped his seed into her.
For a few moments he rested his weight on her, his breathing ragged and his heart-rate gradually slowing. But he was aware that this must be uncomfortable for her and he drew her back up the bed, curling his arm around her as she laid her head on his chest.
She felt as though she had come home, Rachel thought dreamily. The sound of Diego’s steady heartbeat beneath her ear was wonderfully familiar, and in the golden afterglow of sex she felt the same sense of closeness to him that she had loved during their affair. She loved him, and she finally accepted that there was no point in trying to fight her feelings for him. And, as she lay in his arms and felt him stroke her hair, she felt a wild sense of hope that he might care for her a little.
‘How many women have you slept with since me?’ she whispered, hating herself for sounding so needy, but needing to know.
He stiffened, and in the taut silence Rachel was sure he could hear the overloud thud of her heart. Slowly he turned his head on the pillow and met her gaze, a curious expression in his eyes that she could not define.
‘None,’ he grated, his mouth twisting into a self-derisive grimace. ‘Dammit, Rachel. Sex with you was always explosive—as I’ve just proved,’ he drawled. ‘I don’t mind admitting that you turn me on more than any other woman.
‘Happy now?’ he asked dryly when she could not hold back her smile.
Oh, yes! Happier than she’d believed possible. The fact that Diego hadn’t made love to half a dozen beautiful models while they had been apart did not mean that he actually felt anything for her, she reminded herself. But at least she could banish the jealous demon from her head. There was only one other thing that was bothering her. She felt reluctant to bring up the subject of his brother, but she could not forget Lorena Ortega’s accusation—and there was probably a simple explanation.
Diego watched the play of emotions on her face and wondered if she was aware that he could read every nuance. ‘What is it, querida?’
‘How did Eduardo die?’
‘Dios, what made you ask that?’ His reaction was instant and savage, his face hardening as he jerked away from her.
‘I’m sorry, I was just curious,’ Rachel stammered, wishing she had kept quiet as the harmony between them was shattered. ‘It was just something your mother said …’ She bit her lip and shrank back on the pillows as Diego leaned over her and pierced her with an icy stare that made her blood run cold.
‘What did my mother say?’ he demanded in a dangerously soft tone.
‘She said that Eduardo’s death was … was your fault. But I know that can’t be true,’ she whispered, her heart thudding painfully beneath her ribs when Diego did not immediately refute Lorena’s allegation.
‘But it is true, Rachel,’ he said quietly, his voice no longer full
of anger, but flat and lifeless. ‘I was responsible for Eduardo’s death. Not deliberately,’ he continued, his gut clenching when he saw the flare of horror in her eyes. ‘Eduardo was my twin; we were like two halves of a whole, and when he died …’ Diego broke off, reliving the pain that had been almost unendurable when he had dragged Eduardo’s lifeless body from the river. ‘When he died, I wished I had died too,’ he admitted rawly. ‘But I did not die, and I have had to live with the knowledge that because of my hot temper, my wildness and irresponsibility which—as my mother constantly reminded me throughout my youth—were traits I inherited from my father, I caused the death of the person I loved most in this world.’
He would carry his guilt to the grave, Diego acknowledged silently, as he jumped up from the bed and dragged his clothes on. It ate away at him and tainted everything he did, hovering like a spectre over every moment of happiness and reminding him that he had no right to be happy when, because of him, Eduardo had been robbed of his life. Eduardo would never hold his wife in his arms and run his hands over her stomach that was swollen with his child. He would never experience the excitement of being a father, or look at his wife across a crowded room and feel a surge of pride that she was his woman and his alone.
Rachel’s eyes were huge in her pale face, but her expression of curiosity had been replaced by one of compassion that tore at Diego’s insides. He did not want compassion, did not deserve it. What right did he have to lie next to her in the blissful aftermath of making love, and feel a contentment he had never known before?
Suddenly he could not bear to be near her. She was so beautiful with her golden hair tumbling around her shoulders and her creamy breasts pouting at him invitingly, causing the familiar ache in his groin. He did not deserve her when Eduardo had nothing. And he would not give in to the temptation to confide in her that, far from being the hard, emotionless man he portrayed, he was a bloody mess. It was better to keep her at a distance and deal with his pain alone. Better to strengthen the barriers he had erected against the warmth of her smile.
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