“You’re right about that,” she confirmed with a bright smile.
“I don’t like spreading gossip, but you have to know that Aaron was quite the bachelor before he married you.” Jeannette had lowered her voice. “I don’t mean that he ran around with a lot of women, because he didn’t. Some women were just downright shameless whenever they tried coming on to him.”
“What did they do?” Regina did not know why she’d asked the question, but a part of her always wanted to know more about the man she now shared a house with before he had come into her life.
“It wasn’t so much a they as it was one person in particular.”
“Elena?”
Sitting up straighter, Jeannette stared directly at her. “You know about Elena?”
“What I do know is that we will never become friends.”
Wiping a corner of her mouth with the napkin, Jeannette frowned. “I’m surprised Dr. Elena Carvalho hasn’t come at you with a scalpel.”
Regina felt a flicker of apprehension race up her spine. “She’s a doctor?”
“Aaron didn’t tell you?”
“Aaron and I do not discuss the lady.”
Jeannette registered the sarcasm immediately. “Nicolas and I have had long, heated conversations about her. She’s one of the best surgeons on the continent, but she’s also obsessed with Dr. Aaron Spencer. She had a prestigious position at a major hospital in Rio, but transferred to Salvador about eighteen months ago after she met Aaron at a medical conference. He was dating someone else, but that ended a week after Elena joined the staff.”
“Was the other woman also a doctor?”
Jeannette shook her head. “No. She was a television news commentator.”
“What did Elena do to her?”
“No one knows. The word was she handed in her resignation and left the country. I really can’t say that Aaron and Elena were ever a couple, because the few times I saw them together I realized there were no sparks, no passion. I watched him with you Saturday night. Seeing the way he touched you and looked at you said more than a spoken admission of love. We had no idea that when he took a personal leave of absence for more than a month it was to get married.”
“Aaron is a very private person,” she said truthfully—so private he would not permit his full-time household staff to reside under his roof.
It was apparent Aaron had not told his friends and colleagues that he had left Bahia to bury his father—subsequently seducing his father’s widow.
“How did you find your way to Bahia via North Carolina?” she queried Jeannette, smoothly changing the topic.
Jeannette’s expression brightened. “I came here for Carnival three years ago and met Nicky. I was a partner with three of my college soros in a travel agency, and each year one of us visited a different place to update our travel packages.
“We offered trips to Rio for Carnival, then decided to add Bahia. I was chosen to cover the festivities, and after several hours of dancing and mingling with local Bahians and visitors I was literally cooling my heels in a small restaurant. I had taken my sandals off and put my aching feet up on a chair when Nicolas Benedetti walked in with two of his friends. They were seated at a table next to mine. He kept staring and smiling at me while I tried ignoring this hulk of a man who looked like the after for a Rogaine ad. I much preferred his taller, darker friend, whom I later discovered was Dr. Aaron Spencer.”
Regina shifted a naturally arching eyebrow at this disclosure. She remembered Aaron saying that he stayed away from Carnival because it had become too boisterous for him.
“How did you finally meet Nicolas?”
“He walked over to my table, sat down, and began massaging my bare, dusty, aching feet. I was too shocked to do anything but stare at this gentle giant while he whispered softly in Portuguese about how much he liked my face. He said it reminded him of a beautiful sculpture he had on a wall in his house.”
“You understood Portuguese?”
Jeannette nodded. “I was a language major in college. At that time I spoke fluent Spanish, French, and Italian. My Portuguese was limited, but my knowledge of Spanish helped a lot. I’ve lived here for two years, and there are times I still have to grope for the words because I find myself thinking in Spanish. Nicky was talking about me coming to his house to see his sculpture when most guys I knew would talk about taking a girl home to see the etchings on their ceilings.”
Leaning forward, her eyes shining with anticipation, Regina said, “What happened after that?”
“I turned him down, but hadn’t noticed that his two friends left the restaurant without him. When I told him why I was in Bahia, he offered to act as my tour guide. We spent the next six hours together, talking and laughing. He took me back to my hotel, and as we stood outside the door to my room his beeper went off. I let him in to use the telephone to return the page, and when he hung up I saw a very different Nicolas Benedetti. Gone was the smiling, joking man, and in his place a very serious Dr. Benedetti. He told me he had to get to the hospital to deliver a baby.”
“He hadn’t told you he was a doctor?”
Shaking her head, Jeannette said, “No.”
“What happened after that?”
“He came back to the hotel around four o’clock the next morning, exhausted. His patient had been unable to deliver vaginally, and he’d had to perform a C-section. He laid across my bed and slept for six hours without waking up. When he woke up I ordered breakfast for us and we spent the day together until he left to go back to the hospital.
“I saw him every day until it was time for me to return to the States, and in all of the time we spent together he never tried to touch or kiss me. At first I thought that he hadn’t found me attractive, but a month later he called me and he said he was sorry he let me go without kissing me. I told him that I would give him the opportunity when I came back to Bahia for the next Carnival.”
“Did you?”
“No. I came back sooner. Nicky called me every Sunday night for four months, and we’d talk for hours. Then one day without warning I decided to fly down and surprise him. I told myself I was crazy, but I didn’t care. I walked into the hospital, went to his office, and asked to see him. His bushy eyebrows shot up so far on his forehead that I thought they would never come down. I stared at him, realizing he looked nothing like the men I had ever dated in the States, but at that moment I didn’t care because I had fallen in love with him.
“I spent the week with him at his house, and before I left Bahia to fly back to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I had accepted his proposal to become Mrs. Nicolas Benedetti. My girlfriends thought I had lost my mind until Nicky came to the States to see me that Christmas. I invited them over to my apartment for a Kwanzaa party, and showed them my engagement ring. Needless to say, my three very beautiful, unattached girlfriends left later that night just a tad jealous.”
“Where were you married?”
“We decided to marry in Bahia. My sister was my matron of honor, and Aaron was Nicky’s best man. Aaron paid for the reception dinner at Tempero da Dadá, one of the more popular restaurants in Salvador. It was a very small gathering with my parents and Nicky’s, who had flown up from Buenos Aires.”
Regina sighed softly. “It sounds like a fairy tale romance.”
“And it has been,” Jeannette confirmed. “Earlier this year we decided to start a family, and I finally conceived in August.”
“Which means we should deliver a month apart.”
“Which means our children will grow up together. Our husbands are good friends, and I’m hoping you and I will also become good friends,” Jeannette said, flashing a bright smile.
Reaching across the table, Regina squeezed her hand. “I’m certain we will.”
She wanted to tell Jeannette that she had never had a girlfriend. Her female cousins did not count as girlfriends, and while in school she had never cultivated a friendship with any girl she felt comfortable enough to confide in. After her
kidnapping she had found it hard to develop a closeness with anyone outside her family, and when most girls were flirting and hanging out in the malls with adolescent boys she had immersed herself in her studies, excelling, accelerating, and graduating a year ahead of her contemporaries.
She’d moved in with Oscar at seventeen, married him at nineteen, and spent the next eight years caring for her elderly, sick husband. She planned to spend six months in Bahia, and during that time she was certain she would call Jeannette Benedetti friend.
Aaron reread the newspaper article, the smile playing around his mouth widening as his gaze moved swiftly over the words.
“Good news?” questioned Dr. Dennis Liu.
“It has to be, or why would we be sitting here with chilled champagne?” asked the doctor who headed the research team.
Nodding, Aaron glanced up at the brilliant young microbiologist. “Very good news.”
“Then share it with us, Aaron,” a female research assistant pleaded softly.
Smiling at the eight people sitting around the conference table, Aaron lowered his gaze and began reading.
“Doctors at the São Tomé Instituto de Médico Pesquisa in Bahia, Brazil, have developed a new way to test fetuses for a potentially fatal blood problem known as RH incompatibility.
“The procedure, which is not yet in general use, is safer and faster than existing tests. Instead of inserting a needle through the mother’s abdomen and into her uterus, the doctors draw blood, with test results available within a day rather than a week or more.
“RH incompatibility can cause anemia, swelling, and brain damage. The current tests for RH-factor incompatibility use a needle to extract amniotic fluid or tissue from the placenta. These tests are accurate, but there’s a small risk—one percent to two percent—of their causing a miscarriage.
“The testing determines whether what is called the RH-factor in the baby’s blood is compatible with the mother’s. If not, the mother’s immune system may create antibodies that attack the baby’s blood.
“In a study to be published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Aaron Spencer, the institute’s director, said he found that the mother’s blood carries enough of the fetus’s DNA to determine the baby’s RH-factor as early as fourteen weeks into pregnancy.”
Folding the newspaper, he offered each person sitting at the table a warm smile. “Congratulations.”
The man who headed the research team stood up and applauded as the others in the room followed suit, applauding one another.
The young doctor from China, who had joined the research staff a year ago, reached for the open bottle of champagne chilling in a container on the conference table, and one by one each person held out a flute to be filled.
Dr. Dennis Liu filled a glass, extending it to Aaron. “To you, Aaron. For believing in us, and for signing our paychecks.”
“Hear! Hear!” the assembled chorused.
Aaron took the proffered glass and raised it. “To the finest research team in the world. This recognition could not have come at a better time, because this Christmas will become one that I will remember for a long time. And before we end this research year for our holiday recess I’d like to invite everyone to my home for a little celebratory soiree next Saturday evening. You may bring your wives, husbands, partners, or significant others.” There was a stunned silence during which the eight exchanged questioning glances. “The festivities will begin at seven,” he continued smoothly. Draining his glass, he savored the bubbles on his tongue before swallowing the premium champagne. “Excuse me, ladies, gentlemen. I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off.”
Dennis Liu glanced at his watch. It was only two-thirty. He might have been the newest member of the research team at the São Tomé Instituto de Médico Pesquisa, but he was more than aware of the in-house rumors of Dr. Aaron Spencer regularly spending as many as three nights a week at the institute until he took a leave of absence several months ago.
He had returned to Bahia a changed man, and since his wife arrived he had exhibited another facet of his personality no one had ever seen before. He seemed more relaxed, smiled more often, and there were times when he seemed more human, not an automaton who existed for medical research. Yes, Dennis mused, getting married had had an amazing effect on the man who headed the São Tomé Instituto de Médico Pesquisa.
Aaron parked the Range Rover in the garage, then made his way toward the garden, where he was certain to find Regina. He slowed his pace, noting the obvious changes. All of the overgrown portions of the flower and herb gardens were cleared away, turning the garden into a civilized oasis. Water poured from the fountain into a pool, which flowed into a long runlet.
Walking along a wide avenue of stone, he noticed that the many flowers were living works of art. He touched the dewy petals of a dainty iris, and inhaled the distinctive fragrance of orchids growing in extravagant abandonment.
He had played hide-and-seek in his aunt’s garden during his youth, usually ignoring its haunting beauty. Regina had painstakingly begun its restoration, and like a phoenix it now rose anew.
Making his way up a flight of stone steps, he smiled at a statuary swathed in palm fronds. He ran his fingers over the cool marble, tracing its smooth curves.
Movement caught his attention and he went completely still, listening.
He heard Regina’s low, sultry voice then that of Christôvão’s. Aaron did not know why, but he felt like a cuckold husband spying on his unfaithful wife. He waited until they emerged from the overgrowth of trees, startling both when they saw him.
“Boa tarde,” he announced quietly, inclining his head.
Christôvão offered him a half-smile. “Boa tarde, Senhor Spencer.” He gave Regina a shy smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Regina gestured to him. “No, Christôvão, don’t leave.”
“Let him go,” Aaron commanded when the younger man quickened his pace and walked away.
Rounding on him, Regina glared at Aaron. “What are you doing? Spying on me?”
Folding his arms over his chest, he tilted his head at an angle. “Is there a reason why I should?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Of course not.” She gave him a long, penetrating stare. “What are you doing home so early?”
His upper lip curled under the neatly barbered moustache. “I came home to share siesta with my wife.”
“You delude yourself, because I’m not your wife,” she shot back angrily.
His temper rose to match hers. “And what keeps you from becoming my wife, Senhora Spencer?”
Her gaze widened. “There are a number of reasons.”
“Enumerate.”
“I don’t want to become a possession, Aaron. I don’t want to feel as if you own me the way you own this land. And I don’t want you to think I’m beholden to you because I’m carrying your child. Years from now I don’t want you to throw it in my face that you married me because you didn’t want your child to be illegitimate. I also don’t want you to use me to pay your father back for marrying your fiancée. And, last but not least, I don’t need your money to provide support for this baby, nor do I need your name, because I’m already a Spencer.”
“Are you finished?” he questioned in a dangerously soft voice.
Raising her chin in a haughty gesture, she turned her back. “Yes, I am.”
“Good.” Taking two steps, Aaron swept her up in his arms and carried her into the allée of palms closing in around them. She struggled in his embrace, and he tightened his grip. “The only time you aren’t verbally abusing me with that whip you call a tongue is when I make love to you, Senhora Spencer.”
Her gaze widened as she froze. “You’re not going to make love to me in—”
He stopped her words when his mouth descended on hers, robbing her of her breath. Pulling back, he drew in a lungful of air, then recaptured her soft, throbbing mouth.
Day merged into night the farther he retreated deep into the garden,
the towering trees blocking out the brilliant Brazilian afternoon summer sun.
Regina, caught up in the dizzying spell of rising passion, remembered Aaron lowering her to the cool, damp earth, but nothing beyond that. It was later, much later that she found herself nude, lying on Aaron’s shirt as he lay beside her breathing heavily. When his respiration returned to normal, he had plucked a flowering shell ginger and tucked it behind her left ear.
The cool earth absorbed the heat from her moist body as she closed her eyes, reveling in the aftermath of their passions having spiraled out of control.
“What are you doing to me, Aaron?”
Turning on his side, he smiled at her thoroughly kissed mouth. “I’m loving you, Princesa.”
“No, you’re not,” she slurred.
“Oh, yes I am,” he insisted.
“You’re taking advantage of me. You’re bigger, stronger, and—”
“And I love your life,” he confessed, pressing his mouth to hers.
There was a low rumble as the earth vibrated under their bodies and both went completely still. It was thunder. They were lying naked in the garden while the threat of imminent rain threatened to cool their wanton coupling. There was another roll of thunder, followed by fat, warm drops dotting their fevered flesh.
They sprang to their feet, pulling on articles of clothing to cover their nakedness as they raced out of the garden toward the house. Aaron managed to slip on his slacks and Regina her slacks and top, both leaving underwear and shoes behind.
She clutched Aaron’s hand, while holding her unbuttoned blouse together with her other. “Slow down!” she screamed to be heard above the intermittent rumbling.
He slowed enough to swing her up into his arms and raced the remaining feet to the house. Staring down at her flushed face, he smiled, his gaze moving down to her exposed breasts. The lush darkness of her distended nipples renewed his passion all over again as he pushed open the door to the inner courtyard.
Harvest Moon Page 22
