Bad Blood Collection

by Various Authors

  And in two months he’d channeled all his past hurt and shame into a wildly creative endeavor and reprogrammed his old computer to make it even better.

  There had been no stopping him from achieving what he wanted from then on.

  There wouldn’t be now either.

  He turned and cupped her narrow shoulders, staring down into her worried face and thinking he was the luckiest man on earth to have found her. “That is why I refuse to be an absentee father, or allow us to live apart.”

  “Oh, Rafael! Can’t you see you are nothing like that man?”

  “For now. But, Leila, if those horrid traits ever emerge in me, promise me you will pack up our babies and leave me. Get as far from me as you can and don’t look back.”

  Her face bleached of color, like driftwood left too long on a sun-baked beach. “I can’t do—”

  “Promise me!”

  One tear slipped from her wide eyes, then another. “I promise. But I know it will never come to that.”

  He managed a stage smile, wishing he had just an ounce of her confidence.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHILE Leila slept during the flight back to Los Angeles, Rafael tended to business. Delegating was not something he did willingly or often, yet this time he had no choice.

  He had made the decision to be with Leila this week, even though he had a crucial meeting planned. His family came first now.

  With a few keystrokes, he’d placed his next in command in charge of the meeting. The next hour had been spent sending accompanying documents for the meeting with a lengthy letter detailing Rafael’s stand on the next big step the company was to take.

  He’d never left such a monumental decision in an employee’s hands before. He damned sure wasn’t comfortable doing so now.

  But a greater risk was at stake here.

  His wife. His children. His family!

  He was ever mindful that Leila had gone through part of this before. Alone.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t forget the grief in her eyes when she spoke of losing their first baby. Of her very real fears now. She’d taken the knife of trust and sliced open an emotional vein, bleeding onto his heart, his soul.

  He couldn’t fail her. Fail them.

  Rafael closed the browser on his PDA and exhaled heavily.

  He was certain Leila had been honest with him. That she held no more secrets. No more demons.

  If only he could say the same!

  He’d yet to tell her the whole truth surrounding his birth. A fact he’d learned at the tender age of eight when cruel villagers had revealed his mother’s dark secret—that William Wolfe had paid her to have sex with him.

  He’d not been entirely sure what that had meant at the time. When he’d asked his mother, she’d flushed and told him to forget about it, but he’d not been able to.

  In time he learned what being paid to sleep with a man signified. A painfully demoralizing lesson that he’d never forgotten. That had left him hating his mother for nearly a year. Hating her nearly as much as he hated the brutally cruel William Wolfe!

  Yet you learned to trust your mother again, to understand her reasoning. To be proud of her for

  doing what she had to do, knowing it would mark her for life.

  And what of Leila? She had deceived him by keeping her miscarriage secret. Yet his conscience was quick to remind him that he was just as much at fault for leaving her alone.

  He drew in a slow deep breath and then expelled his pent-up tension in one long shuttering exhalation. The lack of sleep and emotional stress were playing hell with his mind.

  He glanced at the woman softly dozing beside him and felt his heart warm even as his gut clenched with concern. If he lost her and their babies, he’d never forgive himself.

  Leila’s mobile began singing a haunting melody by a popular Celtic singer that disrupted the silence. Even though he found the music appealing, he was annoyed that the call would rob her of much-needed sleep.

  Mouthing a curse, he followed the direction of the music to find her mobile was quite visible in her open bag beside her chair. He didn’t hesitate to reach down to mute it. But he hadn’t realized that in grabbing her phone, he’d pulled out a scrap of paper too.

  With her phone now silent and returned to her bag, he retrieved the note that had dropped on the floor. A clinic’s name was jotted on it with a Canadian address.

  He certainly didn’t recognize the place. Yet the hair on his nape stood on end just the same.

  She had a Californian doctor. Why would she need one in Canada as well? Was there another shoot planned there that she’d neglected to tell him about?

  In a matter of seconds, he’d tapped the clinic’s name into his web browser. Two things happened at once.

  The jet hit a pocket of air and dropped a jarring degree in altitude, waking Leila with a startled cry. And his browser window opened to reveal that the clinic was one that specialized in abortion.

  A red cloud of rage drifted over him.

  Had her paralyzing fear and grief convinced her that this was a possibility? Had she considered ridding herself of their babies?

  “I hope we’re nearly there,” Leila said, oblivious to his darkening mood.

  He cut her a sharp look and had the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. “Why are you carrying around the name of an abortion clinic? Were you thinking of doing this vile thing?”

  Her mouth worked, but the only sound that came out was a sputtering moan that was too high-pitched and too shaky. “My agent gave me the name of that clinic in case I wanted to pursue that option. I’d forgotten I even had it.”

  It galled him that she’d sought her agent’s advice when she should have come to him immediately! Okay, so she had come to him in the end. But what if she hadn’t? What if she’d been pressured into doing the unthinkable because of her damn career?

  He remembered well what she’d told him of her first rise to fame in modeling. That when her waif image began changing as she matured her mother and agent had taught her how to control her meals to the extreme. How she had often binged on food as she had been so hungry, before purging herself and then starving herself for days. How they had both nearly killed her.

  “Did you even consider this?” he asked.

  She reeled back as if he had slapped her. “That you would ask such a question proves you don’t know me at all!”

  He stiffened, ready to argue that he did know her. And in that split second he saw a distorted image of himself, railing like a crazed man consumed with rage. Like his father?

  The comparison was sobering. Chilling. He was shamed at his own actions.

  “The greater question to ask is why is that note in your hands?” Leila asked. “Did you search my purse? Do you distrust me that much that you have to look through my possessions as if I were a rebellious teenager? “

  “The note fell on the floor when I pulled your phone out to silence it.”

  She simply stared at him, as if expecting more.

  He swore, not at her but at himself. “I’m sorry, querida.”

  Her shoulders bowed, and she almost seemed to cave in on herself. Before he could reach out to support her, she stiffened in her seat.

  “After all I’ve told you about losing our first baby, how could you think for one moment that I’d do something like that?” she asked.

  This was the steel he’d recognized in Leila from the moment he’d met her. A core of strength that hinted at a young woman who had escaped her humble beginnings and had seen more than she should have seen. Who’d been scarred by her past, much like he’d been emotionally scarred.

  Yet he, in his arrogance and shock, had lashed out first. All his old doubts and fears that he’d become a monster reared its head. Yet he refused to give them breath. Refused to allow that fear to suffocate him again.

  He reached over and cupped Leila’s silken cheek, and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t pull away from him. “I only wanted you to rest, querida
.”

  “You have a strange way of showing concern.”

  For a moment he thought she’d say more, but she shook her head and closed her eyes, shutting him out as securely as if she’d slammed a door in his face. His face burned, as did his conscience.

  Everything he’d ever wanted had been placed before him now. Yet here he was, being an overbearing, arrogant ass, interrogating her over an address he’d found in her purse. Assuming the worst of her instead of trusting her.

  “I had to know the truth,” he said.

  Again she didn’t reply. Didn’t so much as look his way.

  He swore, not waiting for his jet to taxi to a stop before ripping off his seat belt. So far he’d handled this very badly.

  He knelt beside her chair and took her stiff hands in his, his gut clenching as she trembled. “Don’t shut me out, querida.”

  She shook her head and he caught the telling quiver of her lower lip. “I don’t want to, Rafael, but when you act so strong and dominant, I instinctively rebel against you. You cannot control me, Rafael.”

  He downed his head and sighed, for her pregnancy seemed to bringing out the worst in him. It shamed him. Enraged him to be this way with her.

  “I only want to protect you and our babies. It is clear I failed you before,” he said, well aware he needed to calm the storm brewing in her soul.

  “I won’t fail you again. Tomorrow you will go to your shoot and I will escort you to the location and will simply be a quiet observer. No control.”

  She cast him a wary look. “Okay.”

  Okay. That was a start.

  In moments, he hailed a cab to take them to her residence. And he was quickly hit with another surprise to learn that she no longer lived in the mansion in Brentwood.

  When they’d met, she’d just bought the massive house. He’d seen it once and thought it garish in the extreme, but her mother had adored it and had deemed it her residence.

  “When did you move?” he asked as he caught a glimpse of the low, squat house the moment the limo passed through the security gate.

  “Seven months ago,” she said as the taxi pulled up in front of the house that nestled back in the woods, nearly hidden.

  He frowned. That would have been shortly before her miscarriage.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d moved?” he asked.

  “Perhaps for the same reason you never told me you now owned a farm in São Paulo,” she said, and then with a shrug, added, “You were away then, and by the time you returned …” She shook her head and stared out the window.

  By then she’d lost their child. Recovered. And had dived right back into her career.

  Her house was a blend of Spanish and American architecture and instantly reminded him of his casa. She would like their fazenda, he thought as he followed her inside. She would make it a home.

  The salon was alive with color and heavy black ironwork, more of an old California than Spanish flavor. The land was thickly forested hills, broken by large grassy fields.

  The concern that needled him earlier doubled. From the large expanse of glass, the view of the ocean was spectacular, but the house was fairly remote with only the occasional rooftop of neighbors tucked into the hillside marring the vista.

  “Do you have guards?”

  She laughed, as if the idea was ludicrous. “Electronic ones. The house and grounds are equipped with a state-of-the-art security system. It can detect when anyone breeches the perimeter.”

  Not always. Even sophisticated systems like this could be overridden by a clever hacker.

  “A gated community would be safer.”

  She cut him a dubious look. “Because we all can be sure that our neighbor is the trustworthy sort?” Before he could respond to that, she snorted and went on. “I don’t want to live that way, Rafael. I never did. Being that close to neighbors reminds me of the favelas. There was no privacy. No security. Everyone knew everyone’s business there.”

  He nodded in understanding, for while he’d grown up in a small flat, there had been no secrets in the village. Which is why he preferred his hacienda carved out of the rain forest. It was a compound with an adequate staff who knew how to make themselves blend into their surroundings.

  There he felt free.

  And once Leila moved in with him, once their children were born, he’d no longer feel so alone, so adrift in this world.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, dropping her bag on the terrazzo floor and striding into the kitchen, her heels tapping out a beat that matched the pounding of his heart.

  “Ravenous,” he said, the sway of her hips leaving him carnally aching for her.

  He ruthlessly tamped down that desire and joined her in a kitchen that was light and airy. After reading about the dangers Leila could face, he wouldn’t make love to her until he’d spoken with a doctor. Even then he wasn’t sure that he was willing to take that risk just to satisfy his lust.

  “Where would you like to eat?” he asked, kicking himself for not insisting they stop at a restaurant before they got to her house. But then he hadn’t known she’d moved out into the hills. He hadn’t guessed she didn’t have a housekeeper or cook on staff. “Right here.”

  Leila? Cook? She surprised him by preparing huge salads teeming with fresh vegetables, ripe cheeses and a blend of native olives. For his benefit, she added steamed chicken and a crisp Californian chardonnay.

  He carried the food out onto the patio that overlooked the cliffs, marveling at how domestic she clearly was. He hadn’t known that about her, but then they had spent a year apart. The meal was light, the warm breeze refreshing and the view of the glowing orange sun dipping into the sea breathtaking.

  Yet he found himself more content to watch her. To just be in her company and share this quiet time with her.

  And it was quiet. Isolated. How long would it take her to get medical help from here? Who’d know if she needed help if she was here alone?

  “I would like to visit your doctor,” he said.

  Her brow narrowed the slightest bit, and for a moment he was sure she’d argue.

  “I have an appointment tomorrow after the session. You’re welcome to come along.”

  As if he needed an invitation!

  “How long does it take you to reach your doctor or the hospital?” he asked.

  “If the traffic is moving, I can get there in forty-five minutes.”

  “That’s too long in an emergency,” he said, his insides clenching at how much precious time would be wasted to get her to a hospital. “It is less than twenty minutes from the fazenda to the highest-rated obstetrician and hospital in all of Brazil.”

  “You’ve researched every aspect of this already?”

  He gave a brief nod, for once he realized the risks she faced, he couldn’t stop until he’d left no stone unturned. “I want the best for you and our babies.”

  “You want me under your control in Brazil.”

  “I want you safe,” he reiterated, the ringing of her mobile an irritation he could have lived without.

  While he would have preferred she let it ring, she pushed her half-eaten salad aside and took the call. “Yes, I know the place. Is the second session there as well?”

  Second session? When had this come about?

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s better to get it all done in one day if possible. Thanks for the update.”

  “I gather that was your agent,” he said, rocking back in his chair to savor his wine after she ended the call.

  “Yes, she always gives me a courtesy call before a session, especially if there has been a change.” She tried to stifle a yawn and failed. “The photographer wants to do both sessions tomorrow because he won’t be back in L.A. for six weeks. By then I will be showing.”

  By then Rafael hoped for them to be settled into their home in São Paulo. But he resisted bringing that topic up now.

  She got to her feet and yawned again. “Two flights so close together have exhausted me, so fo
rgive me for seeking bed so soon.”

  He waved aside her apology, more concerned that she was this weary. Was that normal? Should she call her doctor? Should he?

  His mobile vibrated in his pocket, and he frowned, annoyed that someone had chosen that moment to ring him. He spared a moment to check the display and swore. His manager wouldn’t ring him unless it was urgent.

  “Sorry, I can’t ignore this,” he said to Leila, looking up with an apologetic frown. But she had already gone inside the house, leaving him alone with his worries and his hopes rattling through him.

  The rest of the evening was lost for him in business, long phone calls and even longer hours poring over designs on his laptop. By the time he’d finished it was after midnight. His back ached and his head swam with numbers and codes, none of it making sense to him any longer.

  The house was dark. Quiet.

  He found the bedroom, stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed beside her, pulling her into the curve of his body. His palm splayed over her flat belly.

  She moaned in her sleep and snuggled closer. He smiled, his heart full, but worry quickly intruded.

  His wife. His babies. He’d never forgive himself if he failed to keep them safe.

  That mantra whispered through him the following morning as he drove Leila to the session, the powerful car maneuvering the winding coastal highway with ease. The site of the shoot along the jagged rocks that spilled into the ocean was breathtaking and hinted of danger.

  The photographer applauded her professionalism and Rafael appreciated his wife’s poise and beauty against a backdrop of stone and sand and sea. She made her job look effortless when he knew it was demanding.

  However, the afternoon session farther up the coast in a small seaside town was entirely different, all because by the time the light was right, Leila’s sizzling energy was fading. While her body was perfect and her smile captivating, there was a remoteness in her eyes.

  “Just a couple more, Leila,” the photographer said after she’d taken a break to refresh her makeup and hydrate herself. “Work with me. Let’s do this right in one so we can get out of here.”