Bad Blood Collection

by Various Authors

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TRUST him? Hadn’t he listened to a word she said? Hadn’t he understood the risk to her and their unborn child? Her very real fears?

  Of course not. It had taken her years to understand that she battled her eating disorder much like an alcoholic avoided strong drink. Because any number of triggers could throw her back into that vicious cycle of anorexia.

  She’d stayed strong and healthy because her career demanded it. Because she had an average weight she must maintain to stay on top of her game. She was in total control of every aspect of her life. Being pregnant would be a completely different thing, for she’d have zero control over the changes in her body.

  If she failed to cope with her pregnancy—if she was the cause of losing another baby—she’d simply lose her mind.

  As for a normal family.

  “Would either of us recognize a normal family if we saw one?” she tossed back at him, not bothering to hide the shame of her own troubled childhood this time.

  “I know what it isn’t,” he said, serious as always when the subject of family came up. “Though your family was poor, you had a home, a brother and the love of both parents for much of your childhood.”

  Leila let out a bitter laugh at that assessment, for it was far from the truth. “Please, Rafael. You knew my mother. She was not an affectionate woman.”

  Selfish and demanding, yes. But never loving.

  He gave an abbreviated nod, his brow furrowed, likely recalling the rows he’d had with her mother. He’d never been good enough for Leila.

  “What of your father? Your brother?” he asked. “You’ve never spoken much of them, yet they were a big part of your upbringing.”

  What was there to say about people she hardly knew? About a place that had only existed in her mother’s imaginings?

  “Home was a shanty in one of the largest favelas in Rio. No electricity. No water. After my father died, we were forced to move from our two-room ‘home’ into a one-room hut.”

  She glanced at him and took in his stunned expression. She’d shocked him, for like the world he’d believed her mother’s lie. That they’d had a small home near the mountains.

  Leila heaved a weary sigh and dropped onto the sofa, kicking herself for not unburdening this shame years ago. Her mother had woven a tender, tragic story of being a young widow and single parent that Leila had never disputed, for what was the use?

  Unlike her mother, Leila had never courted sympathy from anyone—especially Rafael. But now? She still didn’t want his empathy, for she had escaped the fate she’d been born into. But he was asking, and she couldn’t continue the lie.

  “I don’t remember my father, other than he was a stern man who was always away working,” she began, her fingers worrying her skirt as she searched her memories and found few good ones to draw on. “As for my brother, he was much older than I was and ignored me for the most part. He worked in the factory with my father, and both died the night it caught fire. After that, my mother sponged off anyone she could for support.”

  Rafael’s brows pulled into a disagreeable V over his patrician nose while his beautifully sculpted lips flattened into a thin hard line. “Why didn’t you tell me this years ago?”

  She simply stared at him. “What’s the use? You never asked, and the truth changes nothing about me. And unless I’m mistaken, you’ve never divulged everything about your childhood or your family in England.”

  He jerked his head to the side, his expression hardening, but only for an instant. “You are right. Neither of us had a normal family.”

  She waited for him to go on. Hoped he would, but he remained silent.

  It was just as well. One set of lies revealed in a day was enough for any marriage.

  The past was over. Leila had never dwelled on what would have happened to her and her mother if a talent scout hadn’t “discovered” the teenaged Leila in Rio. How ironic that her mother had gone to the mall that day to beg for a handout from an aunt who had a soft heart and a job.

  Of course that truth had never made the headlines. Instead it was reported that the young beauty had simply been shopping with her mother in the mall.

  But that had never mattered to Leila. Modeling had been her chance to have a better life and she’d taken it.

  From that day forward Leila had become the breadwinner—the hungry young model who was all the rage, the big-eyed waif to millions and the rising starlet on the fashion scene. Nobody knew the truth about her past life in Rio. Nobody but her mother.

  She pushed aside the old shame and anger and chanced another peek at Rafael. He was far too pensive for her peace of mind. “You’re angry with me,” she said. “Yes,” he snapped, and she flinched at the fury in that one word. “Before we married, we vowed we’d never keep secrets from each other. That we’d never set out to deceive each other.”

  She looked away, blinking back the sudden rush of tears, for there was nothing more she could say in her defense. She had lied. She had deceived him.

  “What’s done is done. We reaffirm our vow to be honest with each other always and move forward.” Strong masculine fingers cupped her jaw and turned her to face him, face the determined intensity of his eyes boring into her soul. “I am not giving up on our goal or us, querida.”

  She swallowed hard, helpless to stop the tears from slipping from her eyes. He was right. Yet she dreaded to be brutally honest with him about their future as parents. “Maybe you should.”

  Silence swirled around them, raising the hairs on her nape, twisting her nerves into knots that pulsed and burned and jumped. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know if I will ever be able to give you the family you want, Rafael! Even if my body can carry a child, I’m not sure my fears will allow me to do it.”

  “I will not let what happened to your friend happen to you!”

  “I know you believe that—”

  “Because it is true,” he said with so much conviction she almost believed him. Almost. “Our love is strong, Leila. We’re strong. I will see you have the best doctors. The best care. That you are spoiled and pampered and assured daily how beautiful you are.”

  Leila released a watery laugh that eased some of the tension gripping him. “I doubt that my agent, clients and photography crew will appreciate me playing the role of diva.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they think, for once you become pregnant you’ll give up modeling.”

  Rafael felt her slender spine stiffen and knew he’d hit a raw nerve. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Just like that, all the tension that had drained from him went taut as bowstrings. “Isn’t it obvious? You are concerned about having a healthy pregnancy. About a relapse. Work would be a great risk.”

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” she said, trying to pull away, but he held tight, refusing to let her run away from him or this issue that stood between them, knowing it would only fester if they left it alone.

  “Doesn’t it? We are wealthy beyond measure. There is no need for you to be a working mother, to devote your time to a career instead of your family.”

  Her chin came up. “There is pride, Rafael. You don’t want me to work because your mother slaved to provide for you.”

  “That is some of the reason,” he said with a nod.

  “Well, I refuse to be like my mother, who never worked a day in her life even when we were close to starving,” she said. “She was content to let her husband hold two jobs, and to see her only son follow him to the factory even before he was old enough to do so.”

  He yanked her flush against him, feeling the thunder of her heart against his chest. Feeling anger course through her at breakneck speed.

  “You aren’t like her at all,” he said. “You could never be like her even if you were a full-time mother.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished. “I will work, Rafael. Maybe not full-time. Maybe only on occasion. But I refuse to give up who I
am, what I have worked for.”

  “I wish you could see yourself as I do, Leila.

  Then perhaps you wouldn’t feel so compelled to prove your worth.”

  Her chin came up. “Do you really see me, Rafael? Do you truly understand my passions? What drives me? My career funds my clinic and that is very important to me. I won’t give it up.”

  He cut the air with a hand. “You don’t have to. I have told you before that I can fund that or any other cause of yours for as long as you wish.”

  “Yes, but it would be just another appendage of you, instead of mine,” she said, fist pressed to her heart.

  Frustrated and weary, he threaded his fingers through his hair and paced to the window. On the beach below people laughed and frolicked in the late-afternoon sun. Many couples strolled the edge of the sand hand in hand, just like he and Leila had done earlier today before they had sliced open old wounds and let them bleed freely.

  “It’s getting late,” she said. “I have to get ready.” And then she walked slowly into the bedroom.

  The soft click of the door echoed in the stillness and reverberated along his nerves. In an hour they’d present themselves to the throng. They’d smile and pretend everything was perfect when it was far from it. That they weren’t at loggerheads over their future.

  With a curse he slammed a fist against the panel, frustrated, angry that she’d let fear come between them. That she’d kept so much from him.

  From this moment on, he would do all in his power to convince her that their marriage was more important than anything. He would somehow vanquish her fears.

  Leila stayed in the shower until her skin threatened to pucker, letting the temperature go from a soothing warm to a bracing chill in hope that the cold would ease the puffiness her crying had surely created.

  Her thoughts were a jumble of wanting him. Loving him. Yet his demands veered into unreasonable. What happened to the carefree man she’d picnicked with today? The question eluded her as she stepped from the shower.

  She hadn’t expected Rafael would be there waiting to take her place, waiting to hand her a thirsty towel. Waiting there gloriously naked and aroused with a look of intense need carved on his handsome face.

  Her breath seized as his hungry gaze swept over her, his expression so hot that she felt the water droplets sizzle on her wet skin. But his eyes soon narrowed, staring deeply into hers as if suspecting she still held a secret from him.

  His distrust sent a glacial shaft spearing through her, freezing any desire that had quickly kindled to life.

  Without a word, Leila grabbed the towel and escaped into the bedroom. But she couldn’t stop shaking until she heard the blast of water hit the marble enclosure. Couldn’t calm the rapid pounding of her heart until she’d dropped on the bed and dragged air into her lungs.

  She was in no mood to party, but to stay here would likely prompt Rafael to do the same and right now she couldn’t go through another round of intense questioning about their future.

  So she went about her toilet mechanically. She dried her hair. She donned her red gown—a strapless creation from an up-and-coming new designer, and try as she might, she couldn’t get the memory of Rafael’s glorious body from her mind.

  But right on its heels remained the biting words they’d exchanged. The truths they’d revealed. The soft challenges they’d each issued.

  Why on earth had she told Rafael that he might be better off without her and their dream? What would she do if he decided she was right? If he walked out of her life?

  By the time the water cut off in the shower, she was applying her makeup but was nowhere near calm. How could she be when Rafael was just on the other side of a partition wall, either naked or nearly so as he readied himself for tonight’s events?

  Leila couldn’t be at ease, not as long as she and Rafael were at loggerheads.

  She was no longer the young ingenue. She no longer had the fat fortune to squander, having used much of her money to fund her free clinic for young girls with eating disorders. Poor girls like she’d been with little hope of bettering their lives. Girls who starved themselves in the hopes that they’d fit in.

  With the last of her makeup expertly applied to where it looked as if she wasn’t wearing any at all, she dabbed the perfume she was promoting between her breasts, at her nape and on her wrists. The heady fragrance warmed on her skin, the intensity of it more pronounced, more haunting, than its name.

  “Have I ever told you I hate wearing a tux?” Rafael said as he stepped into the bedroom.

  “Yes, every time we’ve attended a black-tie event.”

  She smiled and reached for the diamond Y necklace Rafael had given her for Christmas last year, a gift that had been delivered to her holiday shoot in Italy by courier. She’d been shocked by his extravagance, yet deeply touched by the gift and the accompanying note.

  She’d called him immediately to thank him, and had been relieved to know he’d liked the watch she’d given him. And during that brief conversation she’d felt suddenly sad and alone, for being apart from the man she loved was no way to spend a holiday.

  Shoving that sad fact from her mind, she concentrated on securing the clasp, on the feel of the platinum and diamonds against her skin. This would be the first time she’d worn it, and the weight and size of the pendant was perfect, the blue and brilliant diamonds near blinding when the light hit them just right.

  After adding diamond earrings that dangled along her neck, she turned to where she’d dropped her shoes. And her heart nearly stopped beating.

  Her imagination didn’t begin to capture the raw power and indisputable status of her husband. He could easily go toe to toe with any of the top male models with his devastating good looks, exquisite physique and unhurried predatory stride that brought all that pent-up need coursing back to the surface.

  His dark wavy hair was slicked back to reveal a strong profile that was classic and intense. If he’d just stop scowling …

  Her gaze dropped to his hands, busily fumbling to fasten his tie. He was making a knotted mess of it, and that realization brought back old memories of her helping him with this task many times before.

  Clearly he’d yet to master it! That fact popped the tension that had bubbled up in her earlier.

  She slipped her feet into her stilettos, crossed to him and pushed his hands aside. “Let me help you before you strangle yourself.”

  He flung his arms to the side, his expression one of fierce self-disgust. “Whoever invented a bow tie should be hanged.”

  She tried not to smile but her lips twitched anyway, for she’d never seen her strong powerful husband become so flustered over something as simple as a tie. She made quick work of loosening the knots and starting over. In less than a minute she’d fastened the perfect bow for him.

  “There,” she said, giving his muscled chest a pat.

  With effort she stepped back from him, for one pat called for two. One more lingering touch. Like a caress.

  He turned to the mirror but his fierce scowl didn’t lessen a fraction. “You always make this look so simple.”

  “It’s really not that complicated. A shoot I was on long ago required me to remove a gentleman’s tie and put it on,” she said. “Since we had to do many sessions to get it right, the lesson stuck with me.”

  “You undressed a gentleman?”

  “I took his tie off,” she said, surprised Rafael was still jealous of her.

  “How did I miss that ad?”

  It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. That realization totally blew her away, for it implied that he’d seen the bulk of her spreads. That he had taken an interest in what she’d done.

  The lesson of learning to tie a proper bow was all but forgotten, for it had transpired in the waning days of her reign as the waif model. Back when she was a victim of anorexia, barely eating enough to stay alive in a desperate attempt to stop her bosom from expanding and her hips from rounding.

  If
she hadn’t been so naive, perhaps she would have realized that her efforts were in vain. That all she would accomplish would be to jeopardize her health.

  She’d had a lot to think about during her long recovery—a lot to learn about herself and her controlling mother. Her road to recovery had been arduous and doubts about her ability to stage a successful comeback had plagued her night and day.

  But she’d pushed forward. She’d fired the agent who had listened to Leila’s mother instead of her, and she began ignoring her mother’s demands.

  With her new curves and determination, she set her sights on becoming the next hot model that woman ached to emulate and men longed to bed. But she hadn’t realized she’d truly succeeded as a woman until she’d met Rafael.

  She glanced at him under the sweep of her lashes. Such a handsome man. Such a determined one.

  He’d made her feel beautiful from that first moment they met. He’d turned her into a sensual woman.

  Could he turn her into a mother as well? Dare she hope it was possible to overcome the fear choking her?

  Time would tell. She only hoped it didn’t run out for them before she could find her inner strength.

  The next five days were a grueling repeat of elegant premieres, demanding parties, personal interviews for him and fascinating photo shoots for her. Rafael had never shied away from the limelight or the chance to tout his innovations, but he found little enjoyment doing the same thing over and over.

  The days were incredibly long. The nights achingly short and a torment for him to endure.

  The king-size bed afforded them ample space, yet in the velvet hush of night he would awake from the sleep he’d finally found when she would curl up against him. Any of those nights he could have taken her, aroused her with hot kisses and hotter caresses until she begged for his possession.

  But he wouldn’t take her by surprise. He wanted her awake. Willing. Wanting him as much as he wanted her. So far that hadn’t happened. So far they hadn’t gone beyond a few kisses, hot caresses and scorching looks.