by Maya Blake
Many times before and even after the doctors had informed her of the state of her pregnancy, she’d wondered what their child would look like. She’d eventually discovered she was carrying a girl. Imagining a female version of Ramon had been a little harder than a male version, and perhaps a blessing in disguise in the long run, a way the cosmos chose to help her cope.
Because the man dressed from head to toe in bespoke black standing in front of her was every inch as formidable—goodness, even more so—than her imagination had conjured up.
He stopped before her, eyes of chilled green glass fixed on her. ‘Are you not going to greet me, Suki?’ he asked icily.
Her gut clenched harder at the sound of his voice. Although it was now arctic, she didn’t need much prompting to recall it in a different tone. A huskier, headier timbre. A tone she had no business recollecting right now. She bit her tongue against informing him that he’d entered her domain and therefore etiquette dictated he needed to greet her first. There was no use because men like Ramon played by their own rules. And for her own peace of mind, she wanted the next two days to go as smoothly as possible.
Clearing her throat, she strove for an even tone. ‘Good morning, Ramon. I... I wasn’t expecting to see you.’
‘Were you not?’ he countered, unforgiving eyes still hooked into her. ‘What were you expecting, exactly?’
‘Well...not you...here...’ She stopped, silently cursed the silly stammering she’d thought was far behind her. ‘I mean, I was expecting your driver, not you...to come in person.’
‘Then I guess you’ll just have to suffer the inconvenience of my presence,’ he bit out.
His tone raked across her hackles, making her own chin rise. ‘It’s not an inconvenience, but surely you have better things to do than personally escort me to the memorial?’
‘Indeed, there are many demands on my time. But perhaps everything else paled in comparison to my wish to see you. Perhaps I couldn’t wait to clap eyes on you again, reassure myself that you’re indeed flesh and blood.’
Something about the way he spoke the words stamped cold, hard dread onto her soul. Frantically she searched his gaze, but his face was an inscrutable mask, the only indication of his demeanour the darkening eyes that continued to regard her with unnerving intensity. ‘Flesh and blood? As...as opposed to what?’ she asked, her voice not as steady as she craved it to be.
His firm lips flattened. ‘As opposed to the many other descriptions whose veracity I will test once the memorial is over. And believe me, Suki, there are many.’
Her hackles rose higher, her breath shortening as ice filled her spine. ‘Well, I don’t know what that means, but I assure you, I’m made of the same flesh and blood and bone I possessed when you last saw me.’
Cold eyes grew even more remote, his nostrils pinching white before he took a step back. ‘Should I find it curious that you neglected to mention your heart?’
Her breath strangled. No, her heart wasn’t the same. It’d grown into twice its size when she’d found out she was carrying a child. Then it’d been lacerated beyond repair at the harrowing events and the decisions that had led to the loss of her child. Suki was sure that were she to pluck it out of her chest right this moment, she wouldn’t recognise the battered organ.
‘Since the contents of my heart are none of your business, no, I don’t believe it’s a matter for discussion.’
He exhaled slowly, his chest expanding then settling as he regarded her. ‘For both our sakes, we will set this aside for now. We will go and remember my brother with our best memories. Then after that, we’ll talk.’
She recalled the paragraph in the email that had demanded her attendance at a meeting involving Luis’s will, and her heart lurched. ‘If this is about Luis’s will, please know that if there’s any contention I’m willing to relinquish whatever it is that involves me.’
One corner of his mouth twitched with a cruel non-smile as he turned and strolled for the door. ‘It’s about much, much more than that, Suki. But rest easy, you’ll find out soon enough.’
Of course, his assurance achieved the opposite effect. The journey to San Augustino Cathedral in Old Havana took a little over ten minutes, but it felt like several lifetimes with the deadly silence at the back of the limo dragging each second to infinity.
Inside the cathedral, life-size pictures of Luis and his parents were set on easels, their sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, always vibrant faces striking a deep well of sadness and grief inside her. Suki wasn’t aware she was silently weeping until a white handkerchief was briskly presented to her. The grateful look she sent to Ramon dissolved when she met his stony profile.
The ceremony was over in a little more than an hour with the two dozen guests lighting candles and saying a final goodbye to lives cut short too soon.
Suki was setting her lit candle back into its cradle when Ramon appeared beside her. Hoping the acrimony she’d sensed in him had receded, she cleared her throat and faced him.
‘Thank you for allowing me to be here, and for sending me the ticket. I promise, I’ll pay you back as soon as I’m back at work next month.’
His lip curled. ‘Such consideration. Tell me, where was that consideration when you decided to get rid of my baby without so much as a text message informing me?’
Her heart lurched to a stop. She felt the blood drain out of her head as she swayed on her feet. Opening her mouth, she strove for words, for anything to explain. But her brain had closed off in utter shock, her whole body drenched in ice-cold dread as he stepped closer, his body throbbing with menace and rage and dark promises of retribution.
‘Nothing to say, Suki?’ he scythed at her a second before one hand jerked out to imprison her wrist. With a merciless tug, he brought her flush against his body. To anyone watching it would’ve seemed as if he were comforting her. But he was leaning close, his lips a hair’s breadth from her ear as he whispered, ‘Don’t worry, I have plenty to say. And if you think the repaying of an airplane ticket is the only worry you have, then you’re seriously deluded.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NOTHING ABOUT HER disturbed him, Ramon assured himself as his driver pulled away from the cathedral and into traffic. Not the prolonged paleness of her frozen face, the ephemeral fragility of the fingers twisting in her lap, the intermittent shudders that racked her body.
She wasn’t cold. Or in pain.
No. Not at all.
It was all an act. Suki Langston was nothing but a stone-hearted liar. One he’d had the misfortune of tangling with for one single night. Long before that night, he’d wondered what Luis saw in her, why their so-called friendship had stretched into years.
He’d concluded that his brother had been fooled as concisely as he had. Not only that, Suki had lured Luis into keeping a secret that shouldn’t have been his to keep.
In his darker moments, Ramon wasn’t sure he would ever be thankful that his brother had finally gone against his vow and told him the truth. Because what use was it to be told that something you hadn’t even known you possessed had already been ripped from your life? What good did it do when it left you with a gaping wound further compounded by deeper losses?
At first he’d been stunned at the news, even doubting Luis. He’d used condoms the three times he’d taken her. Granted that last time in her bed had been a very close call but he hadn’t taken complete leave of his senses to forget protection. But he was aware that prophylactics weren’t one hundred per cent foolproof. And very quickly he’d accepted the consequences of that mishap.
What he hadn’t accepted then and couldn’t accept now were the decisions Suki had taken with regard to what belonged to him.
His fist balled, the rage and grief in his chest multiplying a thousandfold.
It was unfortunate that she chose that moment to flick those wide
, duplicitous blue eyes at him.
‘How...how long have you known?’ Her voice was little above a murmur. As if the strength had been bled from her vocal cords. He believed no such thing. Unfortunately, he was well versed in such female tactics, was accustomed to women who often pretended emotional weakness to gain advantage. In his younger days it’d been a mere irritant if it meant the woman in question ended up in his bed. With the passage of time, he’d grown to abhor it. Svetlana had been a master at it. Little had she known that he’d been onto her games very early on in their relationship.
‘That’s what you’re concerned about? How long I was in the dark before I found out the truth?’ he demanded. ‘Not how I feel about you getting rid of my child?’
She paled even further, but he was in no mood to show mercy. She’d showed him none and dragged his brother into colluding with her lies. ‘I—’
‘Are you aware of what you robbed me of? Do you know that tying Luis into your web of lies put a strain between us and deprived me of time with my brother in the months before he died?’ The words ripped fresh wounds on top of barely healed ones.
A broken sob tore from her. ‘Oh, no! Please, please don’t say that.’
White-hot rage and shredding grief scorched him from the inside. ‘Why not? Because it’s too difficult to hear?’
She bunched a fist against her mouth, her eyes shining as she stared at him. ‘Yes! It is,’ she admitted brokenly.
The car drew to a stop at the private heliport. On the tarmac his aircraft waited to transport them to the easternmost point of the island that was his true home. The rotor blades were already turning, but he wasn’t quite done with her. Wouldn’t be for a very long time.
‘What right had you to ask that of Luis, hmm? What happened that night was between you and I and no one else. The consequences should have been borne by both of us.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. ‘I know, and I didn’t want to...to tell Luis.’
‘Why not? Because it was a dirty little secret you wished to dispose of but couldn’t quite accomplish on your own?’
‘No! My God, no. Stop twisting my words. Ramon, please listen...’ Her mouth trembled as she opened her eyes and sucked in a deep breath.
He inhaled a breath that didn’t quite replenish his lungs. Right in that moment he felt as if nothing would ever be right again. He’d lost too much, too soon.
‘I have the medical bills from the private clinic, the ones you let my brother pay for. I know exactly how much it cost to get rid of my child.’
‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered.
‘No. You’re out of luck, cara. Not even a higher power is going to save you now.’
She stared at him with wide eyes before her gaze flicked past him, and out of the window at their surroundings. Seeing the readying aircraft, she turned back to him.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To my villa in Cienfuegos. My lawyers are waiting for us there.’
A wave of apprehension washed over her face. ‘I thought we were going back to the hotel. Do...do I need to come with you?’
Another emotion sliced through him. ‘You don’t wish to know what your so-called best friend bequeathed you?’
She hesitated. ‘I do, but...’
‘You suddenly fear for your safety?’ He couldn’t help but mock.
Her chest rose and fell in a steadying breath. ‘I fear for the mood you’re in. I prefer for us to continue this conversation when you’re more rational.’
‘The only thing that would make me irrational is you choosing to remain in this car one moment longer. Get out, Suki.’ He jerked his chin towards the door his driver was holding open for her and waited, teeth clenched, as she slowly stepped out.
Grabbing his own handle, he threw the door open, the space suddenly too small to contain the power and might of his volatile emotions.
Striding across the tarmac behind her, he wondered how he would bear to be in close proximity to her during the helicopter ride when everything in him wanted to shake answers out of her. No, not everything. A small, intensely illogical part of him wanted to curl his hand over that delicate nape of hers, stop her in her tracks and demand that she stop shaking. That she stopped being so damned pale and fragile. Demand to know why she was no longer as curvy as she’d once been.
Madre de Dios...
Ramon was half thankful when his driver helped her into the helicopter. The same part watched her scramble to the farthest seat and buckle herself in, her body throwing up keep off signs.
Climbing in beside her, he saw to his own belt, then nodded to his pilot.
Despite the state-of-the-art noise-cancelling interior and the headphones with microphones they donned, he chose silence over continuing their conversation. He needed time to collect himself.
Losing control now would be counterproductive. He’d set a specific plan in motion when he’d instructed his lawyers to bring her here. And he would carry those plans through.
They completed the twenty-five-minute air ride in silence but he noted that she continued to tremble, her fingers twisting one way then another in her lap.
They landed at the purpose-built heliport at the south end of his villa’s garden. Emerging to the small gathering of people at the edge of the tarmac, he caught the questions in her eyes although she refrained from speaking.
Ramon addressed them, shook hands, accepted hugs and fought debilitating emotions that bubbled up when heartfelt condolences were offered up. All through it, Suki stood by in silence, her hands clutching her purse in front of her.
Eventually, when the last of the visitors left, he continued towards the house.
‘Who were those people?’ she asked as she hurried to keep up with him.
His jaw clenched. ‘Our neighbours and Luis’s childhood friends.’
The shadow that crossed her face could’ve been real pain. Or a carefully crafted gesture meant to fool him into thinking she had genuine feelings. Dios, he’d had it with calculating women. He clawed his fingers through his hair.
He needed a drink. Badly.
But first there were the lawyers to deal with.
Striding across the terrace, he made a beeline for the hallway that led to his study.
Three of his trusted legal team waited, suits sharp and pens poised to carry out the plan he’d formulated. But first he had to sit through listening to his brother’s last words to the woman who had cheated him out of something he hadn’t even known he craved until it was gone.
He made quick introductions, ignored the curious stares his lawyers cast her way as he sat at his desk and indicated the chair opposite.
She strode forward, her slimmer hips swaying in the simple but stylish black dress.
Ramon found his gaze lingering over her neatly tied caramel-blonde hair, then lower, scrutinising other areas where her body had changed. Her jawline was more pronounced, her cheeks hollower. Her lightly glossed mouth was still full and attention-grabbing, but her waist was even trimmer, its slightness easily spanned by his hands...
Realising what he was doing, he ruthlessly reeled himself in, but not before he caught the lingering gaze of the youngest member of his legal team on her. A sharp look redirected the man’s focus to the papers he held.
‘We will conduct the meeting in English. Miss Langston doesn’t speak Spanish...’ Ramon paused, one eyebrow raised at her ‘...unless I’m mistaken?’
She shook her head as she sat down, summoned a whisper of a smile. ‘Nothing beyond hello and goodbye.’
Neither of which she would be using on him any time soon. They were light years beyond cordial greetings and he had no intention of letting her out of his sight for a very long time.
His chief legal representative opened the folder before him. ‘The reas
on you’re here, Miss Langston, is because of the late codicil attached to the personal will Luis had drafted earlier this year.’
Ramon’s nape tightened. ‘When was this done?’
‘In May, four months ago. On the fifteenth to be exact.’
Suki’s breath caught, her throat working furiously.
‘What?’ he demanded, although he suspected he knew the answer.
‘It was the day after...’ She stopped, firmed her lips.
He didn’t need to hear more. He knew it was the day after she’d first checked into the private clinic. The time and dates Luis had told him were seared into his brain. And if for any reason he needed hard proof, the report from his private investigators was locked away in the top drawer of his desk.
He dragged his focus back to his lawyer. ‘Carry on.’
‘Miss Langston, I believe at the time the codicil was added you were pregnant?’ his lawyer asked.
Still tight-lipped, she nodded.
‘Well, Luis didn’t alter it so the original document stands. In it, your child was to receive a lump sum of money on his or her eighteenth birthday. But in the event of altered circumstances like what subsequently ensued, half of that sum was to go to you but only at his brother’s discretion.’
She shook her head, her eyes finding his. ‘You won’t need to decide whether I should have the money or not. I don’t want it.’
The lawyer’s eyebrows rose. ‘But you haven’t heard how much—’
‘I don’t care how much it is. I don’t want it. Feel free to give it away to Luis’s favourite charity.’
Fresh anger boiled in Ramon’s gut. ‘That’s how you’re choosing to honour his memory? By tossing away his gift so carelessly?’
The eyes that met his were darker than normal. Bruised. Perhaps she cared about his brother to whatever extent her stone heart was capable. But in the end, her caring hadn’t been enough. Luis had assured him he’d tried to talk her out of her decision to no avail.
