The Alvares Bride

by Sandra Marton

  “And I remember how you used to talk about everything under the sun, rather than talk about whatever was upsetting you. Looks to me as if some things never change.”

  Carin flushed, put down her cup and folded her hands on the table. “Nothing is upsetting me.”

  “You left your husband.”

  “I left a man I never should have married.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Amanda sighed. Carin rolled her eyes.

  “And I,” she said, “remember that you used to give that irritating little sigh anytime you were about to stick your nose into somebody else’s business.”

  “Good,” Amanda said. “Then, you won’t be startled when I ask you the obvious question.”

  “I can’t think of one obvious question, but ask whatever you want. Just don’t expect an answer.”

  Amanda sat back and folded her arms. “If you never should have married him—”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Well, then, why did you?”

  Carin laughed. She went to the stove, poured herself more coffee, held out the pot. Her sister shook her head.

  “Too much caffeine for the little prince.”

  Carin smiled. “You might be carrying a princess,” she said, knowing that her sister had opted not to know the sex of her baby in advance.

  “This is a prince. Only a boy would act as if he were kicking around a soccer ball inside my—What? Oh, Carrie, what did I say?”

  “Nothing.” Carin sank down in her chair and shot a big smile at her sister. “Go on. You were saying…?”

  “I was saying that you don’t strike me as a woman who’d marry a man she didn’t want to marry.”

  “Well, I did. But I finally smartened up and realized I wasn’t going to let him ruin the rest of my—the rest of my—”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No.” Tears trailed down Carin’s face. “Why would I be crying?” she said, and buried her face in her hands.

  “Carrie.” Amanda went to Carin’s side and put her arms around her. “Tell me what happened, please. How soon after the wedding did you realize it had been a mistake?”

  “I knew it was a mistake the second I agreed to marry him.”

  “But I must have spoken to you a dozen times, while you were living on that ranch. At the beginning you sounded, well, sort of blah.”

  Carin looked up and laughed through her tears. “Is that a scientific diagnosis, doctor?”

  “You know what I mean. You sounded flat. I figured you were having a little post-partum thing, you know?” She pulled a chair close to Carin’s and sat down. “I thought about paying you a surprise visit but, after about a month—”

  “Six weeks,” Carin said, and dug a bunch of tissues from her pocket. “Six weeks, and one night…”

  She blushed. Amanda looked at her and blushed, too.

  “Okay,” she said, and cleared her throat, “after six weeks and one night, you sounded—look, I know you’ll tell me I’m crazy, but you sounded as if you’d never been happier.”

  “I’m a good actress.”

  “You’re a terrible actress, the same as me. That’s why Sam used to get all the Cinderella parts in those school plays, remember? You and I were always the wicked stepsisters.”

  “Yeah,” Carin said, with a sad little laugh. “We had fewer lines to ruin.”

  “Exactly.” Amanda raised an eyebrow at the soggy mass of paper in Carin’s hand. She took it from her with two fingers, dumped it in the trash, pulled several sheets from the roll of paper towels over the sink and handed them to her sister. “Blow.”

  Carin blew, then wiped her eyes, then sighed. “All right. I was happy. Kind of.”

  “And?”

  “And then I wasn’t. And I left Rafe.”

  Amanda sat down again and took Carin’s hand. “That’s it? You were happy, then you weren’t, and so you packed up and left?”

  “Yes,” Carin said, and she began to weep, this time as if her heart might break. “He doesn’t love me,” she sobbed.

  “Well,” Amanda said cautiously, “did he actually love you when he asked you to marry him?”

  “He didn’t ‘ask’ me, he blackmailed me. I’d never have agreed otherwise.”

  “Aha.”

  “Aha, what?”

  “Aha, I was right. I told Nick something was fishy. I mean, Mom made it sound like this romantic adventure. The dashing Brazilian and the beautiful American met at Espada, had a passionate night, then continued their affair in New York…”

  “We didn’t. The passionate night at Espada was it. Rafe made up the rest to make it easier on Mom.”

  Amanda reached over and tucked her sister’s hair behind her ear. “I figured it was something weird like that, that maybe you’d dreamed up a story to appease Mom’s maternal sensibilities. You and I talked on the phone, we had lunch, and you never once mentioned that you were seeing anybody, much less Raphael Alvares.”

  “He threatened he’d take Amy from me, if I didn’t marry him.”

  “What? How could he have done that?”

  “He had papers. Legal documents. He said he had contacts…”

  “The rat.”

  “So, I had no choice. And for the next six weeks, we—we lived in a sort of armed truce. Separate rooms, separate lives. And then—and then something happened, and it changed, and I began to see that he wasn’t the cold, insensitive man I’d thought he was, and—and I fell in love with him. I thought I fell in love with him, I mean, because I didn’t. Why would a woman fall in love with a man who doesn’t love her?”

  “I don’t know,” Amanda said softly. “Suppose you try and tell me.”

  “Sex,” Carin said, her voice trembling. “It was sex, that’s all.”

  “If two people are really lucky, sex can be a wonderful affirmation of love.”

  “Well, that wasn’t it. It was just…” Carin bit her lip. “All right,” she whispered. “I did fall in love with him. I never believed I could love a man, the way I loved Rafe. But he didn’t love me. He married me because of Amy. Only because of Amy.”

  “You married him for the same reason.”

  Carin slapped her hand on the table and shot to her feet. “Haven’t you been listening? I married him because I had no choice. And I don’t love him, not anymore. I hate Rafe. I despise him. I’ll always despise him!”

  “Wait,” Amanda said, as Carin rushed from the room. “Carrie…”

  “Let her go,” Nick said softly. “She needs to be alone for a while.”

  Amanda turned around. Her husband was standing in the door that led to the dining room.

  “It’s a classic mess,” he said, “isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she went into his arms, kissed him, and wondered why it looked as if not one of the Brewster sisters could meet a man, fall in love, and live happily ever after without having to go through the torments of hell.

  * * *

  Carin sat curled in the blue velvet chair, feet up, arms wrapped around her knees, and stared out the window.

  Night had captured the city. It was night back home, too, but it was different there. There were no streetlights at Rio de Ouro, no blaring horns. The sky would be black and scattered with stars; the rustle of the brush near the stables might be the only sound that drifted on the night wind. Back home…

  Back home? What was she thinking? She was home. She was in New York. Rio Grande do Sul, with its gently rolling grasslands, its coastal mountain range, wasn’t her home.

  It was Rafe’s.

  Carin leaned her head back. She was tired, that was the problem. Drained, emotionally and physically. She’d only been back a week, or was it more? Monday? Tuesday? What day had she left ho—

  Dammit. What was the matter with her?

  “I am home,” she said into the silence. Even Rafe had finally understood that she belonged in her world, not his. Otherwise, why would he have let her go?

&
nbsp; She hadn’t spent any time wondering if he would, after their quarrel. All she’d known was that she was going to leave him, that he couldn’t stop her. What she’d felt for Rafe, all the love, had turned to hatred so bitter that she’d trembled with fury as she packed her things and Amy’s.

  She was almost done when she heard the front door slam. Her heart raced as she listened to Rafe pounding up the stairs.

  I should have locked the door, she thought, but it was too late. He flung the door open and filled the doorway with his size and his anger.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  Carin’s heart was still going crazy but she spoke calmly. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she said as she tossed a handful of clothing into a suitcase. “I’m leaving you.”

  Rafe kicked the door shut. “You are not leaving me,” he roared.

  “I am.” She turned and looked at him. Rage was etched into his face, into the way he held himself. “And you’d better not try to stop me.”

  He strode towards her, every step a menace. She wanted to run but she made herself hold her ground and he reached past her and slammed down the top of the suitcase.

  “You are my wife.”

  “Not for long,” she said, and moved past him to the closet. “Once I’m home—”

  “You are home.”

  “Once I’m in New York, I’m going to start divorce proceedings.”

  “I will not permit it.”

  She looked at him and laughed. “You will not permit it? Excuse me, senhor, but I don’t need your permission to file for divorce.”

  “You will need it to get a divorce, and I will not give it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Besides, this discussion is all academic. I am not going to allow you to leave this house.”

  “No?” She swung towards him, trembling with an anger that was almost palpable. “What will you do, Rafe? Lock me in my room? Chain me to a wall? I am leaving you. The sooner you understand that, the better.”

  He folded his arms, looked at her with eyes so cold they might have been ice.

  “Very well, Leave. I don’t want you, anyway.”

  “No,” she said. “You never really did.”

  Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “Do not tell me what I wanted, Carin.”

  “I’m just telling you the truth but you’re right, none of that matters now. I’m leaving, and I’m taking my baby with me.”

  “You are not! Amalia is mine.”

  “Her name is Amy, and I’m the one who gave birth to her. She’s going with me.” She turned away from him, grabbed a handful of things from the nightstand, opened the suitcase and tossed them in. “I’m a citizen of the United States of America. So is Amy.”

  “Amalia is also a citizen of Brazil.”

  “I’m not going to debate this. Amy goes with me. If you try to prevent that, I’ll call my embassy.” She moved past him, yanked garments from where she’d left them, on a chair, and dumped them in the suitcase, too.

  “Call whomever you like. This is Brazil, and you are my wife.”

  “This is the twenty-first century, and if you think I’d leave my daughter with a man who has no heart, you’re crazy.”

  “I have a heart,” he said.

  Some quality in his voice made her look up, but his expression, the set of his shoulders, hadn’t changed. He looked like a man carved from granite.

  “You don’t have one that works,” she said coldly, as she closed and locked both suitcases. “Get out of my way, please. Teresa is getting Amy ready, and the plane should be here soon.”

  “What plane?”

  “I phoned Nick. Your friend, Nicholas al Rashid.” Her mouth curled in a tight smile. “Or maybe I should say, my brother-in-law. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize he probably has even better ‘contacts’ than you do.”

  “You involved an outsider in this?”

  “He’s not an outsider. I just told you, he’s family. I told Nick that I wanted to come home, and he said he’d send his plane. If I’m not on it, with Amy, he’ll know you physically prevented me from leaving.”

  She didn’t add that Nick had told her she sounded as if she’d lost her mind.

  “Put Rafe on the phone,” he’d kept saying, and she’d kept saying there was no reason for him to talk to Rafe, and finally Nick had given a heavy sigh and said, all right, he’d send the plane but he hoped she knew what she was doing.

  “Is that what you really want?” Rafe said, with barely concealed disgust. “To turn this into a battle? A scandal that will involve everybody? A war, where there will be no winners?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to get my daughter away from you.” Carin walked towards him, head high. “You make speeches about doing what’s right. About obligation, and responsibility. But you never speak about the things that really matter, the things I want my little girl to understand. Things like love.”

  “Love,” he said, and his lip curled. “There is no such thing.”

  “No,” she said after a moment, and tears filled her eyes. “No, not in you, there isn’t. That’s why I’m leaving you, and taking our baby with me.”

  They stared at each other in silence. Then she turned away, wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the window.

  “I would be grateful,” she said, as if she were talking to a stranger, “if you’d let me take Amy’s nanny with me.”

  Rafe didn’t answer. She swung towards him and, for a heartbeat, what she saw in his eyes almost made her run to him and take him in her arms, but then it was gone and she knew she had seen only what she longed to see, not reality.

  “I will spend time with my daughter whenever I wish.”

  Carin let out her breath. He was going to let her go. “We’ll work out the details.”

  “Whenever I wish,” he repeated. “Do you understand, Carin? If you try to keep me from her—”

  “I won’t shut you out of Amy’s life,” she said quietly, “not because of your threats but because you were right about one thing. A child should have two parents, a mother and a father. And I know, in your own way, you love our baby.” She took a breath. “I’ll send you my address and phone number, once I’m settled. For now, I’ll be staying with Nick and Amanda. Call whenever you want to see our little girl, and I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “Arrangements?”

  “Yes. So that you and I don’t have to see each other.” She’d come close, then, to losing her composure. “I don’t ever want to see you again, Rafe,” she’d said, and her voice had broken. “Not ever, do you understand?”

  He’d said nothing, only looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. She’d turned her back to him, not wanting him to see the tears running down her face, waiting for the moment when she’d hear the door open, then shut, behind him.

  Instead, she’d heard the whisper of his voice.

  “Carin? Answer one question. This—this ‘love’ you talk so much about. Did you ever imagine you might feel it for me?”

  She hadn’t answered, couldn’t answer, not without breaking down. After a while, she’d heard the sound she’d waited for as Rafe opened the door, stepped into the hall and out of her life.

  Now, thinking back, Carin rose from the blue velvet chair, walked to the window, and rested her forehead against the pane.

  “Oh, Rafe,” she whispered, “Rafe, don’t you know? I’ll always love you. Always, as long as I live.”

  She began to cry. After a while, when she had no tears left, she lay down on the bed and curled into a tight ball. When she finally fell asleep, it was from exhaustion; when she awakened, it was because she’d realized that she had a favor to ask of Nick.

  One favor. One thing, Rafe would never have to know. One thing, that she owed not to him, but to the little boy he had once been…

  To the man she had lost, but would always love.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NICHOLAS AL RASHID, who still bore
the honorary titles of Lion of the Desert and Lord of the Realm even though there was no longer an imperial throne in his homeland, looked across the table at his guest and wished he also held the title of Mind Reader Extraordinary.

  Then, perhaps, he’d know what his silent, glowering old friend was thinking.

  Rafe had flown into Kennedy Airport an hour ago. Nick had picked him up and driven him here, to his club. If they’d exchanged a dozen words in all that time, it was a lot. And of those dozen words, at least ten had been Nick’s. Rafe seemed capable solely of saying yes and no.

  Just now, he was turning a cold stare on their waiter, who had begun describing the specials of the day. Somewhere between lobster tails and New York-cut sirloin, Rafe raised his head and gave the man the look Nick figured the Medusa had used to turn men into stone.

  The waiter’s speech faltered. Nick decided it was time to come to the rescue.

  “Steak for me. Rafe? What about you? He’ll have the steak, too,” Nick said quickly. “Uh, make them both me-dium-rare, green salads, baked potatoes…Is that okay with you, Rafe?”

  Rafe grunted. Nick took that as a yes, nodded at the waiter, added that they’d appreciate two bourbons, no ice, a little water—

  “No water,” Rafe said, which increased his vocabulary by a word. Well, Nick thought, that was progress.

  The drinks arrived in record time. Nick almost grinned. The waiter must have decided to take no chances. He lifted his glass. Rafe glowered at him, then lifted his.

  “To friendship,” Nick said.

  Rafe nodded, tossed back most of the bourbon, looked around for the waiter and pointed at his glass.

  Oh, hell, Nick thought. This was not good. Rafe was going to drink his lunch, maintain a stony silence, and he was on a mission to Find Answers. That was what his wife had told him to do. Actually, it was what he wanted to do, anyway.

  “So,” he said briskly, “how was your flight?”

  Rafe looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Long,” he growled. “The weather was clear, no diversions, twenty-eight-thousand feet all the way. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  Nick sighed, shook his head and drank some of his bourbon. Better and better, but then, he hadn’t actually expected Rafe to say much of anything. It was, he thought with another sigh, one of the major differences between men and women.