by Olivia Gates
He smirked. “As I said, a worthy cause. One that is sure to catapult you to unparalleled fame.”
“This is not about me! This has nothing to do with me!”
“It doesn’t? You won’t star in this ‘documentary'?”
“Star? Where are you getting these ridiculous ideas?”
“You’re not going to be the narrator, the viewer’s guide to this exotic world and the heart-wrenching human drama?”
This gave her pause. At length, she nodded. “They did ask me to appear with my team in a few shots while we performed our duties. Is this why…?” She stopped again. “Listen, I’ve seen samples of the production company’s documentaries and they were certainly no commercial fluff. I don’t know where GAO got the idea that…” Her eyes widened on incensed realization. “It was you! You planted this idea that this was some sort of maneuver to exploit the expedition for commercial ends!”
“I didn’t plant anything. I just made information available to them. That the director of your film crew works mainly on commercials and reality shows, who you really are and what you once did for a living. They drew their own conclusions.”
“So that’s how you made them give you the reins of the expedition!”
He shrugged again. “Giving them to me was the least they could do, considering I’m the one financing the whole thing.”
Some new word had to be invented for what filled her eyes. Shock was too mild a word. He had expected this piece of information to surprise her, but to that extent?
He watched her struggle with her out-of-control distress, if only for moments. Then it was his turn to be surprised at the disdain flooding in its wake, the knowing gleam entering her eyes. “As the expedition is costing almost a million dollars, you must have married an heiress somewhere along the way.”
So she really didn’t know. Hadn’t bothered to find out.
He pressed her backwards until she was flush against the truck’s side. He was going to enjoy this.
He smiled his spite down on her. “Now, how could I marry an heiress when I’m still married to you, minha esposa?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“YOU’RE not still married to me!”
Jewel heard the croaking whisper. It was hers. It hung there in the air, swirling with his words. His impossible words.
They’re not impossible, moron, a furious inner voice spat.
She hadn’t divorced him. To leave him the chance to come out of their mess of a marriage with what he’d wanted. She’d felt she’d owed him for all the pleasure and passion, no matter his reasons for giving them to her. The pain she’d invited, marrying him knowing he hadn’t wanted her for herself.
But when Immigration hadn’t contacted her to confirm the validity of their marriage, she’d assumed Roque had abandoned his plans to obtain American citizenship through her. She’d been sure he’d divorced her, had taken his pick of the endless women who clamored for him and had carried on with his plans without her.
So what did he mean?
“You’re not still married to me!” she choked again, a ridiculous conviction possessing her that if she said it enough, it would go away.
Black amusement lit his eyes. “Your horror is a mortal blow, amor.” He clicked his tongue lazily. “Is this any way to react to the jubilant fact that I’m still your husband?”
“You’re not my husband!”
“First, I’m not your leader—and we know how that debate ended—and now I’m not your husband. Anything else I’m not?”
“Yes! You’re not qualified to lead this expedition.”
“I beg to differ, meu doce. I am a surgeon with an extensive experience in thoracic, trauma, minimally invasive, video and computer-assisted surgery—and I won’t even list the rest of my areas of expertise. While you are just an internist.”
He’d hit on the one sure way to eradicate her horror and resurrect her fury. The sheer gall of his snobbery!
It must be another addition to his character. He hadn’t had it in him before. At least, he’d never bared it to her when he’d needed to be on her good side. Or maybe he’d been in no position to flaunt a non-existent superiority. He sure was flaunting it now he had it.
“Just an internist?” she fumed.
His nod was pure condescension. “Sim, and barely one, too. You started late in this doctoring business, amor.”
So she’d started her medical education at twenty-two, changing her life’s course—starting over, really. She’d just finished her residency, but she’d had it through GAO’s unorthodox medical licensing program, gotten her training in the field and in trials by fire. Her skills covered a wide range and her experience level rivaled that of veteran doctors in generic career paths. If he knew anything about GAO’s standards, he’d know that. Dammit, he’d just seen her in action, seen her standards for himself. It seemed he wasn’t much impressed.
“And that makes me, what? Inferior?” she spat.
His tone grew even more patronizing. “No, it makes you a great sidekick.”
The urge to punch his imposing nose was almost unbearable. “Watch you don’t get a great side-kick in the teeth, buster.”
Ridiculously thick lashes jolted up, unguarded eyes fired emerald. Then he threw his magnificent head back and laughed.
“Ah, Jóia.” He wiped away tears of laughter with both hands, deep chuckles still rumbling in his chest like distant thunder. “This is going to be far more pleasurable than I anticipated.”
“This is going to end right now, Roque. For the expedition’s sake. If you think the next eight weeks are going to be anything like the stuff you’re used to…”
Steel slashed in his eyes, cutting her off. “And you know what ‘stuff’ I’m used to, Jóia? Do you know anything about me?”
No, I don’t. The retort almost erupted from her.
And her self-enforced ignorance had started when they’d first met. In trying to escape his pursuit, his influence, to cling to her commitment to Michael, she’d thought the less she’d known about Roque, the more she could resist him. Apart from her very favorable—and as suspect as her psychological state at the time—observations, there’d only been condemnation volunteered by others. Not that it had stopped her from succumbing to his seduction. She’d married him without confronting him, deciding to remain in the dark, afraid to discover evidence to validate the condemnation and her insecurities.
But she wasn’t about to tell him that. She raised her chin, gave him her best belittling look. “I know enough.”
“Really? Beyond my name, age and profession, what more did you care to find out about me before we got married?”
His intensity shook her, made her blurt out defensively, “I knew everything I needed to know. I knew you were concluding your post-graduate studies while working—”
“In the hospital where your vaunted ex-fiancé was the director and your father was a major shareholder,” he completed for her in a totally bored tone. “That’s common knowledge, nothing a wife could state as privileged information about her husband.”
Oh, she knew more. Revealing, disturbing tidbits supplied by his myriad friends, competitors—and women. That he had no family, had lived close to the poverty line most of his life, had had a temporary U.S. visa he’d needed to make permanent. Heading all had been insights into why he’d pursued her, married her. And it hadn’t been because he’d loved and wanted her, as he’d sworn.
He took her glare to mean she was stymied. His lips twisted. “You certainly have no idea what ‘stuff’ I’m used to.”
“So what? What I don’t know I can guess with reliable accuracy. At least in this matter. Hospital surgeons are a different breed from field ones. I don’t need any specific knowledge of you to know surgeons like you depend on ordered schedules and everything at your fingertips in highly equipped ORs, with legions of personnel as one buffer after another between you and the immediacy of your patients’ needs.”
The last flicker of lightnes
s left his eyes. She had to forcibly stop herself from cringing.
“So you don’t know anything about me,” he drawled, grim, almost frightening. “And you’ve just seen me in a field procedure, and yet you still presume to say ‘surgeons like you'. Has your mother never taught you what a bad girl presumptions and prejudices make you, minha esposa?”
A twinge ran down her chest, stopped her breathing.
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded distant in her ears, clinical even. “I thought you knew my mother was never around to teach me anything, wasn’t even around after my hit and run, too horrified that the perfect daughter she boasted about was broken. I haven’t seen her in longer than I’ve seen you, not since she found a reason to cut me off completely when I left her choice of a socially compatible groom and married you. Thanks for the kind reminder, though. But just in case you think you’ve rubbed salt into my wounds, don’t. I would give anything to be able to feel pain at her absence from my life, to miss her, to think of her with anything besides resignation.”
His bronze face turned dark copper. With anger? No. It looked more like… mortification?
Oh, come on! Why should he be mortified, thinking that he’d hurt her, when it had been his intention to do just that?
But it did seem like she’d read his reaction right. His next words were proof enough. “Jóia, perdoe-me, I was being spiteful. I know how negligent your mother was, how it affected you, especially after your accident. And no matter what, I don’t hurt others, wouldn’t hurt you, this way. Ever. I’m sorry.”
She stared. He was sorry? For hurting her? When he was here for what seemed to be the sole purpose of doing just that?
She exhaled, shook her head. “As I said, it didn’t hurt.”
She stopped as she realized. It did.
But it hadn’t been his dig into her non-existent relationship with her mother that had hurt. It was him poking an accusing finger at a practice she loathed and was guilty of, and her acute sense of fairness lashing her in response.
She’d seen how he’d operated outside the stereotyped medium she’d just painted. Even if she didn’t believe he could do that on a regular basis, she abhorred generalizations, knew from firsthand trauma how blithe bias hurt and damaged. She never inflicted either on another.
But this was Roque. The man who’d once tried to exploit her. The man who was now usurping her role in her most important endeavor ever. Who was as good as accusing her of being self-serving and fame-hungry! She owed him no apologies.
Her conscience still prodded her to give it a go anyway. “Listen, Roque, all I was saying is, if you are really coming, you should leave the work to me and enjoy the scenery aboard our riverboat until a case that requires your talents comes along. Leading this expedition requires familiarity with the objectives and logistical versatility, not surgical prowess. Only I, who have been involved from day one, can provide that.”
He shrugged one daunting shoulder. “Then you’ll come in handy dealing with the logistical side, freeing me to take care of the medical one. You’re good but you can’t be experienced enough for a mission this complex and unpredictable.”
“You have no idea how experienced I am!” OK, so that came out way different from what she’d intended.
And it was no surprise when he didn’t let the opportunity pass. “And I can’t wait to find out, encantador.”
“Quit with the innuendos already! So what if you financed this? I don’t see every expedition financier trotting out to join it, and getting in experienced people’s way.”
“You realize the more you talk about your ‘experience', the more imperative it becomes for me to sample it, don’t you?”
“Stop word-twisting! I don’t know where you got enough money to throw a million of it around, and I don’t want to know, but you can’t buy your way into this!”
“Weird, because I did buy all of this, period. You wouldn’t have an expedition if I hadn’t subsidized it, minha esposa.”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not your wife. I was never your wife. And we both know it.”
“You might have known it, but I surely wasn’t in on that little secret. I was so deluded I thought you were my wife, for better or for worse. The delusion still persists to this moment. Along with all the binding legal documents, meu doce.”
Binding legal documents. Surely he wouldn’t lie about something like this? Not when she could easily check? This was real then. They were still married.
Oh, God!
But why hadn’t he divorced her? And, most important: “Why are you doing this? Why did you fabricate this farce about reality shows to smear me to GAO? Is this your revenge?”
He raised both eyebrows. “Why should I want revenge?”
“I don’t know!” And she didn’t. Wanting revenge indicated being hurt. He had to have cared for her for real to be hurt.
He went on, in that reasonable tone that made her want to scream, “And don’t you think if I’d wanted revenge I would have sought it long before now? And, anyway, how can it be revenge if you’re not harboring any self-serving intentions and my presence here won’t spoil any of your plans?”
“I have no plans!” she almost screamed.
“In that case, why are you all up in arms? Why don’t you just accept that I’m here to supervise this, to regulate you…”
“I don’t need to be regulated! I can’t believe GAO believed this rubbish, let you do this to me!”
“What am I doing? I’m here to work, and to see you.”
Yeah. Right. “Well, I don’t want to see you. Not in this life, not in the next.”
He whistled, impressed this time. “Really? Hard to understand your angst when it was you who walked out on me. And not at all nicely, meu bela.”
She felt sore and swollen, as if she’d been ramming her body against jagged, unyielding rock. She shouldn’t be surprised. She already knew how intractable he was when he latched onto an objective. She tried one last time. “Why don’t you go away, Roque? Just go away and leave me to get on with my work.”
His gaze shifted away from her. Hers followed and she only then realized they were back at the pier. The sun was setting. And then the tropical rain started falling, sudden, steady, shrouding.
He was unperturbed at being drenched in seconds, as was she. But she was used to the daily showers. He only gestured towards Rio Solimoes, the Amazon River in the region. “See this great river, amor? My going away is as probable as getting to ice-skate on its surface. I’m here to stay, Jóia. Get over it.”
Her heart stampeded, her eyeballs heated. Would she burst with frustration? She glared her resentment at him as the clanking vehicle slowed down. The moment it came to a coughing halt, she erupted to her feet—and the sunset disappeared.
The lights came back in moments. She was in Roque’s arms. She’d blacked out. Must have been caused by standing up so suddenly.
“Close your eyes, bela. I’ll carry you to your cabin.” His lips moved on her temple and his voice penetrated her brain.
She jolted out of his arms, fought the imbalance and disorientation, tried to rise to her knees. An aggravated sound spilled from him as he rose, jumped out of the truck. Then he reached up for her. Still groggy, she instinctively reached down and he took her in his arms. This time he kept her there.
“Put me down, Roque.” Her eyes darted around whenhe just looked down on her and smiled, ignoring her demand. Madeline and Inácio were pretending not to notice as they followed. What must they be thinking now?After her painstakingly established record for detachment and lack of interest in men?
Nothing worse than the truth, that was for sure.
The locals had no such qualms, had no intention of missing out on Roque’s displays, watching openly. There went the takecharge, professional image she’d meticulously constructed!
“Put me down if you want to keep your teeth, Roque.”
“You’d ram them and risk teeth marks on that perfect forehea
d? After all the trouble you went to, to make it so?”
A twinge lanced through her. He thought her desire to look whole again, what? Frivolous? He could talk. He’d certainly never known what it meant to be reviled and discarded because he’d ceased to look pleasing.
He suddenly grimaced, put her down, slowly, carefully, but his embrace didn’t even loosen. If she had to get out of it, she had to give their audience a fight scene. No point risking the last of her authority-figure tatters when she was sure he’d end up winning one way or another. But it wasn’t that that enraged her. It was the tremors of pleasure shooting through her from every point of contact with every hard inch of him. Her mind might be averse but her body recognized its mate, clamored for him.
No, he wasn’t her mate any more! Would never be again.
She pushed at him, refusing to be a pawn in whatever game he was playing. He let her go at last and she staggered around on elastic legs.
He fell into step with her, caught her hand, pressed it, an entreaty not to snatch it away. An entreaty? Hah!
“Jewel—again, I’m sorry. That last crack—it was stupid and cruel the way it came out. I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to take you to your cabin. You were barely standing by the time the tribe let us go. I would have insisted on handling the emergency alone if I’d known you’ve been pushing it, sleeping four hours maximum for the last four days, working non-stop loading the boats since two a.m….” She snapped a look at him and he sighed. “Sim, Madeline and Inácio told me.”
“You questioned them? When?” She snapped her head back, stared ahead, waved her hand. “Oh, I know when. The first moment you got them alone during the village’s feast, right? And I’m sure you volunteered information in return.”
“Like the fact that I’m your estranged husband? I sure did. Or did you prefer them to think that you and a man you just met can be all over each other like we’ve been?”
“I wasn’ts” She fell silent, fighting a charring wave of anger. No use. Anything she’d do or say now, she’d end up losing more. Let him play caveman. Or, rather, a huge, majestic cat, leisurely playing with his kill, drawing out its torment for laughs. There was one way out of this. She had to take it.
