by Olivia Gates
Leonardo rolled his eyes. “Apart from walking into the lecture hall and finding hearts and chocolate all over the counter or the collection of panties spirited into my briefcase with photos and phone numbers stuck on them? No.”
As they all laughed, Carlos, her youngest half brother, and her closest sibling slapped him on the back. “And you didn’t share your crop of panties with your brothers?”
Leonardo scowled at him. “Shouldn’t you be exporting panties, given the way women throw themselves at you?”
Carlos shuddered. “Not when I’ve perfected the art of dodging feminine missiles. Unlike you, I don’t stand still long enough for them to stuff panties in my personal effects.”
As everyone laughed again, Ellie felt euphoric.
After treating the news of Rafael’s real identity and his history with due gravity, her half brothers had proceeded to seamlessly treat him as an old childhood friend, and their very welcome new brother-in-law.
Suddenly, she felt Rafael tense. After looking at his phone, he made their excuses to her brothers.
Heart thudding, she turned away with him and crossed the garden overlooking the ocean where they would have their ceremony. As they rushed, she was again thankful for her both functional and pretty wedding dress—white as snow, embroidered in pearls and sequins, chiffon and satin with a strapless, pleated bodice and a flowing, easy-to-run-in skirt.
Not that she could run. “Easy, amor.”
At her wince, Rafael slowed down at once. They’d ended the previous night by going to bed. After the two weeks of turmoil and alienation, the discharge of passion had been cataclysmic. She was deliciously sore after he’d ravished her again and again, as she’d pleaded for him to, and had spent the day struggling to walk straight.
They reentered the mansion from its western entrance, and her pulse raced with anticipation as they neared the man and woman who stood rooted in the middle of the foyer.
His parents.
She’d begged him to contact them, to let them know that the son they thought they’d lost was alive and well and incredibly happy. She couldn’t bear knowing they existed, had that permanent scar of his loss and would not be given the choice to reconnect with him. He’d finally succumbed to her wishes and called them.
His parents, especially his father, had been distraught.
Asking them not to tell anyone until they figured out a safe way to introduce him to his siblings, he’d asked them to attend their wedding. Both he and Numair had sent their private jets to fetch them from their homes in Fortaleza and Belém. They’d postponed the ceremony to around sunset until his parents could arrive.
Now Rafael was face-to-face with them. Though they’d both known Rafael for the past two years, they’d only known him as his new persona. Now they saw him as their long-lost son come back to life.
It felt surreal to Ellie, meeting his father, Andrés Ríos Navarro, who was also her father’s once-best friend. Bianca Franco Molena, his mother, had once been her mother’s friend, too.
“I’m so sorry...” Andrés blurted out, swallowed, then he burst into tears. Rafael’s mother followed suit.
Rafael pulled his father into a fierce hug. “I’m the one who’s sorry I didn’t tell you before.” He dragged his mother into the hug, and let them weep for all the years of helplessness, dread and heartache as he enclosed them in his power and protection.
When their emotional storm abated, Rafael reached out to Ellie. She rushed to join them in his all-encompassing embrace.
Kissing them all, he smiled gently at his parents, and adoringly at her. “You owe my coming to my senses to my bride, the one who put everything in my life right.”
And Ellie found herself in his parents’ arms, squeezed and kissed and thanked for the miracle of having their son back.
“It’s me who thanks you for giving me the only man I’ll ever love,” she choked out. “But has he told you my full name?”
Both blinked at her uncomprehendingly. After she told them, they gaped. Then they burst out talking at once.
“Teo’s daughter?”
“How is that even possible?”
“Where is Teo?”
“Is he here?”
She hooked her arm into theirs and steered them out to the garden. “He is here, and he’s been waiting all my life to see you again.”
* * *
Their ceremony went without a hitch, and sort of felt like an afterthought. Apart from Rafael’s parents meeting her father, and Rafael pulling her father into his embrace as he gave him her hand, and her father finally exchanging his first kiss with Isabella in jubilation after her and Rafael’s “I dos,” all the monumental stuff had already happened during and after the rehearsal yesterday.
Everyone had retired to their suites after long hours of celebration, and she was in Rafael’s arms again. And she couldn’t hold her tears back again.
“Deus, coração, I can’t see your tears even if they’re ones of joy....” Then he exclaimed, “Those aren’t tears of joy!”
“I’m sorry, meu amor, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish weeping for the boy you were, for what you lost.”
“With what I’ve gained—you, our coming baby, Diego and even more brothers—I am now obscenely blessed. I even got back everything I lost—my parents, with their new broods sure to follow them. And Teo.” He pulled her with him to a reclining position and she burrowed deeper into his chest. “And together we will give our baby and Diego everything I was deprived of, and what even you didn’t have, both a mother and father.” Suddenly he squeezed her tight. “Who won’t let them out of their sights!”
Laughing through the tears, she spluttered, “Don’t you go smothering our baby and Diego with love!”
His lips twisted. “Any complaints yourself?”
“Hmm, you’ve got a point.” She pulled him on top of her. “Smother me some more.”
“Sorceress.” His chuckle poured into her lips.
But as he started making love to her, lightness drained as her hand feathered his scar.
“I wish I had real magic, meu amor. I would have erased this scar, its memory and all the memories of your suffering.”
“You already have. You found me, saw me for what I am. You made me yours and healed all my wounds and erased all my scars.” He joined their bodies, swallowed her cry. “Now you’ll love me forever. You don’t only have magic. You are magic.”
She wrapped herself around him, inside and out, took him to the very heart of her, and whispered, “Look who’s talking....”
* * * * *
If you loved
FROM ENEMY’S DAUGHTER TO EXPECTANT BRIDE,
pick up the next book in USA TODAY bestselling author Olivia Gates’s series
THE BILLIONAIRES OF BLACK CASTLE
SCANDALOUSLY EXPECTING HIS CHILD
Coming December 2014!
Also available now from Olivia Gates:
TEMPORARILY HIS PRINCESS
CONVENIENTLY HIS PRINCESS
CLAIMING HIS OWN
SEDUCING HIS PRINCESS
THE SARANTOS BABY BARGAIN
Keep reading for a special excerpt from THE SECRET AFFAIR by Brenda Jackson.
Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all.
Austin Treffen has the plan… Hunter has the money… Alex has the power!
Read each of their stories in the captivating Fifth Avenue trilogy,
only from Harlequin Presents:
Avenge Me by Maisey Yates (June 2014)
Scandalize Me by Caitlin Crews (July 2014)
Expose Me by Kate Hewitt (August 2014)
And don’t miss the Fifth Avenue prequel that started it all,
Take Me, by Maisey Yates!
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SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
Here’s a sneak peek of
THE SECRET AFFAIR
by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author
Brenda Jackson
Dr. Aidan Westmoreland entered his apartment and removed his lab coat. After running a hand down his face, he glanced at his watch, frustrated. He’d hoped he would have heard something by now. What if…
The ringing of his cell phone made him pause. It was the call he’d been waiting for. “Paige?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Is Jillian still going?” he asked, not wasting time with chitchat.
There was a slight pause on the other end, and in that short space of time knots formed in his stomach. “Yes, she’s still going on the cruise, Aidan.”
He released the breath he’d been holding as Paige continued, “Jill still has no idea I’m aware that the two of you had an affair.”
Aidan hadn’t known Paige knew the truth either, until she’d paid him a surprise visit last month. According to her, she’d figured things out the year Jillian had entered medical school. She’d become suspicious when he’d come home for his cousin Riley’s wedding and she’d overheard him call Jillian Jilly in an intimate tone. Paige had been concerned this past year when she’d noticed Jillian seemed troubled by something that she wouldn’t share with Paige.
Paige had talked to Ivy, Jillian’s best friend, who’d also been concerned about Jillian. Ivy had shared everything about the situation with Paige. Which had prompted Paige to fly to Charlotte and confront him. Until then, Aidan had been clueless as to the real reason behind his and Jillian’s breakup.
When Paige had told him about the cruise she and
Jillian had planned and she’d suggested an idea for getting Jillian on the cruise alone, he’d readily embraced it.
“I’ve done my part and the rest is up to you, Aidan. I hope you can convince Jill of the truth.”
Moments later he ended the call and continued to the kitchen, where he grabbed a beer. Two weeks on the open seas with Jillian would be interesting. But he intended to make it more than just interesting. He aimed to make it productive.
A determined smile spread across his lips. By the time the cruise ended there would be no doubt in Jillian’s mind that he was the only man for her.
Find out how this secret affair began—and how Aidan plans to claim his woman in THE SECRET AFFAIR by New York Times and
USA TODAY bestselling author Brenda Jackson.
Available December 2014, wherever Harlequin® Desire books and ebooks are sold!
Copyright 2014 © by Brenda Streater Jackson
ISBN-13: 9781460341858
From Enemy’s Daughter to Expectant Bride
Copyright © 2014 by Olivia Gates
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