Fierce Passion

by Phoebe Conn

  “Are you sure that’s what she wants?”

  “Yes, I am. Fatima knows I’m coming.”

  Henry reached for the phone at the desk. “I’ll give her a quick call to let her know you’re here.”

  Alejandro held his breath, but Fatima hadn’t changed her mind and invited him to come up. She let him in at his first knock. He was relieved she wasn’t holding a knife.

  “I’ve worried Romeo and Juliet are here alone too much of the time, or I’d not be giving them to you. There’s a piece of paper on the dining table. Go ahead and sign for them.”

  “I’ll be happy to.” He pulled a pen from his pocket, and after addressing the note to his darling Ana, he promised to take excellent care of the kittens and return them if she so desired. “There. Pin it up in her office so she’ll be sure to see it.”

  “Don’t worry, she will. The real challenge will be to corral Romeo and Juliet and put them into their carrier.”

  “I’d love a cup of coffee. If I sit here for a while, they should come to me, and it will make everything easier.”

  Fatima rested her hands on her ample hips. “All I’ll give you is a glass of water.”

  He took the chair at the head of the table. “That would be nice too.”

  She plunked the glass down in front of him. “We both know the cats are an excuse to see Ana again, but you shouldn’t be sure it will happen.”

  “Even if she hates me now, I still have hope.”

  A perplexed frown crossed her brow. “You don’t understand.” She sat down beside him. “She’s more angry with herself than with you. She’s cautious about letting men into her life, and she’s furious to have made such a gigantic mistake with you. She blames herself for being gullible. I shouldn’t have told you, but I want you to see just how much damage you’ve done.”

  He stared at his water. Even if he told Fatima about the baby, she’d see it as an excuse to trick Ana into marriage. Plenty of women had done that to men, but it didn’t justify his actions. “You’re right. I should have told Ana the truth. I didn’t have a choice about coming home early, but I should have taken her with me rather than leave her alone on the Siren.”

  “And what, continued your lies? That’s not the right answer, Mr. Vasquez.”

  “Maybe not, but it would have given me time to straighten out things before she discovered the truth on her own.”

  “Well, it didn’t happen.”

  Romeo brushed against his leg, and he picked him up to cuddle. “One down. Where’s the carrier?”

  “I put it in the guest bathroom. If you’ll carry him in there, he won’t see us sneaking up on him with it.”

  “Good plan.”

  “Well, of course,” she scoffed. “I think things through.”

  He scratched under Romeo’s chin. “Good advice, but I doubt cats plan anything at all.” The kitten stared up him as he carried him into the bathroom, and Alejandro pushed him into the carrier and closed the door. Romeo pushed his nose against the wire grid in the door and meowed to get out.

  “When we get home. Now where’s your sister?”

  “She’s the hard one to catch,” Fatima opined.

  Just like her mistress, Alejandro thought.

  Cats captured and all their gear stacked out in the hallway, Fatima leaned against the open door. “I was supposed to tell you Ana has gone to Brazil for a bathing-suit shoot.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Fatima, you know that isn’t true.”

  She shrugged. “I work here and pass on whatever messages I’m given.”

  “I’ve always wanted to see Brazil.”

  “I wouldn’t leave too soon.”

  That was all the help she was likely to offer, and he thanked her for it.

  Ana ate a delectable croissant her stepfather had baked that morning and licked the butter from her fingers. “This is the absolute best croissant ever baked, Claude.”

  “Better than the chocolate-filled?” he asked.

  “For breakfast yes. The chocolate are luscious for dessert.”

  They were seated on the terrace of the charming stone cottage he shared with her mother. “I’m so happy you could come for a visit. Your mother has worried herself sick since your accident. She was certain you weren’t telling us all you should.”

  Reclining on a chaise longue, she gestured toward her cast. “It’s only a broken leg and a scar everyone tells me barely shows. I wanted to come visit you.”

  Claude studied her closely. “There’s something in your eyes, a sorrow you’re not revealing.”

  “I hate being unable to work, that’s all,” she lied smoothly.

  Claude was in his sixties with thick gray hair he wore smoothed back. He described himself as merely plump, and he had such a charming personality no one ever remarked on his weight. “There is a musician who plays at the café on Sunday afternoons. You might find his company entertaining.”

  From the day he’d married her mother, he’d been seeking the perfect Frenchman for her. She smiled at his latest effort. “I’m sure he’s a nice man, but I’ll be gone soon.”

  “You’re too pretty to be alone. Your mother is so happy with me. You must give a nice man the chance to please you.”

  Restless, she shifted her position but still couldn’t get comfortable. “Claude, enough, please.”

  “Forgive me, but I must try. Now it’s time for me to go to the café.” He stood and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Your mother is thrilled you’re here.”

  Ana had outgrown a need for a mother to manage her career in her late teens, and while they still shared a love of fashion, they hadn’t remained close after Carol had remarried and moved to France. Carol was tall and slim despite Claude’s butter-laced cooking, and had swiftly taken on a Frenchwoman’s elegance. Ana smiled as her mother joined her on the terrace.

  “What would you like to do today?” Carol asked. “We’ve toured the cathedral, and it would be difficult to do again with your crutches. I’ve been meaning to buy some new lingerie. Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll have lunch at Claude’s café.”

  Ana wanted to do absolutely nothing, but her mother would keep proposing activities until she gave in. “My lingerie is a bit ragged, so let’s go.”

  “Your lingerie is never ragged, my sweet, but a woman always needs something new.”

  Ana had been to the shop with her mother on an earlier trip, and again posed for a photo with the owner, a Madame Cotillard, who often posted ads featuring her from French Vogue. The shop held a delicious lavender fragrance from the sachets hidden among the satins and lace.

  “I’m so glad to see you looking well,” Madame Cotillard exclaimed. “When I read about your accident, I feared the worst and said many prayers for you.”

  “Thank you. Clearly they were effective.” She sat in the pink damask chair men used when accompanying their wives and girlfriends there. It was discreetly placed at the rear of the shop so they’d not be seen through the window. Alejandro would have loved the place and insisted she buy lingerie in every color of the rainbow. She shut her eyes tightly to force away his image, but he stubbornly lingered in her thoughts. When her mother had made her purchases, she bought the blackest lace bras and panties Madame Cotillard carried and folded the pink bag into her purse.

  Claude’s café overlooked the Seine and was popular with tourists and locals alike. Ana liked the tables out front but today asked for something inside.

  “Of course, you do not wish to be troubled by admirers,” the chef replied. “I have the perfect cozy table for you and my bride.”

  Ana had always thought his devotion to her mother was sweet, and clearly her mother thrived with his loving attention. She had to remind herself she was only twenty-four and had plenty of time for true love to find her too. For today, she’d satisfy the longing with a dozen escargot, dripping with garlic and butter.

  Alejandro stood with Carlotta beside his father’s bed. She had wept continually since her
husband had entered the hospital, and he marveled at how anyone could hold so many tears. The doctors had yet to recommend they take his father off life support, but he knew it had to be coming. He’d prepared himself for it, but Carlotta would never agree. They had the resources to maintain his father in a coma forever, but that wouldn’t be what Orlando would have wanted. He’d been far too ambitious and active a man to welcome a vegetative state for even a day, let alone the years he might live on the edge of twilight.

  “I need to check in at the office,” Alejandro told her.

  “I’m sorry everything has fallen on you when you wanted another life,” Carlotta whispered between sobs.

  Amazed by her unexpected sympathy, he hugged her shoulders and left rather than agree. He’d worked for his father before returning to the university and knew exactly what was expected of him. His father had a responsible staff, but they were in a daze along with his stepmother, and no one had stepped forward to oversee things. He’d train someone himself if he had to, but he wasn’t going to devote the rest of his life to the Ortiz Line. Although his father had tried to trap him, he’d broken free, and he’d do so again at his first opportunity.

  When he returned home that evening, the cats were asleep in the middle of his model village. They hadn’t swatted the little cubes onto the floor, just curled themselves around them. They lifted their heads and focused their yellow eyes on him. “I hope your day was better than mine.” He hung his coat on the peg by the door and went to them. Romeo pushed against his hand while Juliet sat up and watched. He dropped Romeo to the floor, and Juliet jumped down by herself.

  “I thought you two liked your bed.” Before he left in the morning, he’d pack up the little houses to keep them safe, and maybe put their bed on the table. He’d be spoiling them, but why not? He filled their bowls and went into the kitchen to see if he had anything he could possibly eat for dinner. Sorry he hadn’t bought something on the way home, he ate a cheese sandwich, leaning against the counter.

  No matter how he added up the days, Ana had to realize she was pregnant soon. He needed to work on how he wanted to respond, but the words wouldn’t come any easier than his so-called proposal.

  Ana was chopping chili peppers when she made the mistake of touching her eye. “Oh damn,” she cried.

  “Did you get pepper in your eye?” Carol grabbed a clean dishtowel and wet it. “Just press this to your eye and let the tears wash away the sting. I’ll get the eye drops.”

  Ana was seated at the kitchen table, and while she didn’t need another reason to cry, she struggled not to be overwhelmed by tears after the burning sting finally abated. “I haven’t cooked anything for myself in so long, I’d forgotten to be careful. I won’t forget again.”

  Her mother smoothed back her hair. “You should visit us more often. This is the real world, not the make-believe paradise I raised you in.”

  “I know the difference, Mother. Now what can I do for the salad that won’t involve peppers?”

  “First scrub your hands to get rid of all the juice and cut the tomatoes.” When they sat down to eat, Carol paused after taking a few bites. “There’s the nicest young man working at the bookstore near Claude’s café. We should have stopped there the other day.”

  “I’m sure he’s a sweetheart, but I don’t belong with a man from the ordinary world. He’d soon tire of the attention I receive, and it wouldn’t last long.”

  “He’s a poet, so he might be more understanding.”

  Ana speared a bite of cucumber with a fierce jab. “A poet? That’s even worse. They’re such sensitive souls and need to comfort themselves. They have little time or emotional strength to sympathize with anyone else.”

  Carol swallowed a sip of tea and added more lemon. “No one from the ordinary world, nor poets? Who does that leave? Only the men you meet on jobs?”

  “I’m not looking, so please let it go.” The plea worked until Claude came home carrying a tabloid with Alejandro and her on the front page.

  Claude handed it to her. “One of the waiters saw this and showed it to me. If you went on a cruise with your husband, where is he? Why haven’t you mentioned him? Did you think we didn’t care? God help us, did he fall overboard and drown?”

  Ana sighed unhappily and quickly scanned the story. They’d been photographed on the deck of the Siren. Alejandro had knelt beside her wheelchair, and they were laughing at some shared joke. Anyone could have taken it, but the comments on how little she ate had to have come from someone seated at their table. Linda Suarez was the likely source, and she hated the fact the psychologist had pretended a friendly interest simply to gather material to sell to a tabloid.

  She looked up at her mother and stepfather. They were all the family she had and deserved the truth. “Why don’t we make tea, and I’ll tell you all about Alejandro Vasquez.”

  Carol put on the teakettle, and Claude produced a box of pastries from his café. “I need more than a tepid cup of tea.” He opened a bottle of his favorite chardonnay and poured himself a glass. “Please begin,” he urged.

  They stared at her as though expecting a damning confession, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. Fatima had met Alejandro and knew most of their story, so Ana hadn’t had to provide more than a few details of the end of their romance. She couldn’t use the same verbal shorthand with her mother and stepfather. “I should start at the beginning.”

  Claude refilled his glass. Carol poured Ana a cup of tea and fetched a stemmed glass to join her husband with wine. The box of pastries sat unnoticed on the table.

  Ana fortified herself with sips of sugar-laced tea and began her story in a calm, detached manner, without prejudicing them against Alejandro until she disclosed his lie about their marriage. “It doesn’t matter what the tabloids say. We aren’t married.”

  Carol reached across the table for her daughter’s hand. “I’m astonished. A man who’d lie about something so important would lie to you again and again. You’re better off without him.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Claude cautioned. “He’s from one of the wealthiest families in Spain, so clearly he can afford you. He’s handsome, so he’d be an attractive partner. He wanted to marry you, which is honorable, even if he went about it poorly. I think you should give him another chance.”

  “Another chance at what?” Carol responded. “To create another preposterous fabrication? No, you did the right thing to leave him, sweetheart.”

  “If she did the right thing,” Claude countered, “she wouldn’t look so miserable. You must listen to your heart, regardless of what your mother says. Men make more mistakes than women, and you should be generous with your forgiveness.”

  Carol got up to wash out her wineglass. “I think I’m going to be ill.”

  Ana had felt ill for a long while and understood completely. Alejandro kept leaving her phone messages, and she was disgusted with herself for listening to each one more than once. He had such a marvelous voice. She wished she could trust what he said. “Can we agree not to talk about him?”

  “Of course,” her mother replied.

  Claude looked between them and shrugged. “If you insist, but if you’re heartbroken without him, you already know what to do.”

  “It would be like walking into a burning building,” her mother chided.

  “We just agreed to drop the subject,” Claude replied. “I need to go back to the café for the dinner hour. I’ll see you both later. I may stop at the cathedral to pray for wisdom on the way home.”

  Once he was gone, Carol returned to the table. “I knew there was something wrong. Why didn’t you tell us about Alejandro when you first arrived?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t think me a fool.” She opened the pastry box and removed a cherry tart. “These are always so good.”

  Carol leaned back in her chair. “At least you’re eating. That’s good. Do whatever you truly want to do about Alejandro, and we’ll back you either way.”

  “Thank you. I’ve
been here a week and should think about going home.”

  “Stay forever if you like. You’re safe here.” Carol reached for the pastry box. “Oh good, he brought two cherry tarts.”

  Ana didn’t think of her personal calendar until she returned home and found it in her lingerie drawer. When she realized her period was three weeks late, she quickly recounted. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how many times she checked the days. She was still late. She’d been in a serious accident, had anesthesia, taken pain meds, and maybe the combination had upset her body’s rhythm. But with the way her life had been going lately, she doubted such a convenient explanation would prove true. Condoms weren’t 100 percent effective, and things had progressed so quickly with Alejandro, she hadn’t even had time to think about going back on the pill. Clearly it had been another gigantic mistake on her part.

  Fatima wasn’t there on a Sunday afternoon to go out for a pregnancy test, and while some pharmacies delivered, she’d have to use an assumed name and ask Juan at the security desk to watch for it. She could send for a whole list of health supplies—Band-Aids, cotton balls, antibiotic ointment, her favorite hand cream and bubble bath. That would fill up the bag, but the pregnancy test would be all that mattered, and whoever filled the order would know it.

  She wondered if Alejandro would be glad to hear the news. With her leg in a cast, she couldn’t dance away her choking fear, but she’d wanted a clear break, not an everlasting tie to him. He’d left a message for her when he’d picked up the cats. After he had them. He’d not asked beforehand. If he had asked, she’d probably have let them go rather than return his call. His calls since had all included an update on Romeo and Juliet’s welfare. He certainly knew how to hang on when she wanted to let go. She lay down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling for more than an hour, but no escape for her newfound dilemma appeared. No matter how much she didn’t want to do so, she’d have to get up and call Alejandro. Her voice shook as she said hello.