by Dani Collins
When the Mercedes indicated to turn into the huge shopping complex, his chest tightened. This had been the place Marisa liked to shop. She knew its layout better than he knew the layout of his Mykonos home.
By the time the automatic sensors had read his licence plate and he’d waved his bank card in front of the scanner, he’d lost sight of her.
It was for the best, he thought, grimacing. It had been a strange burst of sentimentality that had found him outside the Lopez estate in the first place and curiosity that found him wasting precious time tailing an old lover to an underground car park. Time to follow his original plan, to drive to the airport and resume the life he’d been forced to hide from. His plane had been refuelled, his crew ready to fly him home.
As he followed the exit signs, he caught sight of the tank-like Mercedes parked ahead. It was only as he approached it that he realised it was in a row of spaces reserved for parents and children.
He slammed his foot on the brake. The car behind him sounded its horn in protest.
Why the hell would Marisa park there?
Pulse suddenly surging, he cast his gaze around for a free space and, cursing under his breath, drove straight to the closest one, which was still a good distance away.
The distance didn’t matter. Out of the car, he could see clearly enough.
What he saw made his blood freeze. Marisa, curly golden-red hair bouncing in all directions, was scooping a small infant from the back of her car.
The blood in his head defrosted into a burn in an instant.
She carefully placed the child in a buggy, strapped it in, then reached back into the car and removed a large bag which she slung on the back of the buggy.
The elevators into the complex were directly opposite where Nikos had parked. In silent horror, he watched her stride towards them. He needed to hide. One slight turn of her head and she would see him.
But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t wrench his gaze from the lover he’d vanished from and the child—baby—he’d had no idea existed.
* * *
Marisa Lopez scrunched a face at her appearance. Should she leave her hair down or pin it up? Yes, to the former and yes to some under-eye concealer. Her light golden skin had become so pale and the rings under her eyes so dark she resembled a corpse. The black dress she’d chosen to wear only enhanced the effect, a point reinforced when her sister, Elsa, walked into her dressing room and burst into laughter. ‘I suppose funeral chic beats aubergine chic.’
‘Don’t,’ Marisa muttered. Only vanity had made her return the aubergine-coloured dress. It had clashed horribly with her red hair. This black dress, though horrendously unstylish, was marginally more flattering colour-wise.
Elsa stood behind her, wrapped her arms around Marisa’s waist, groped for her hands and rested her chin on her shoulder. Their eyes met in the mirror. The contrast between them had never been so stark. Elsa shone with good health and happiness. Her eyes, though, brimmed with concern. ‘Are you okay? You don’t look well.’
Marisa opened her mouth to assure her sister all was well but the lie refused to form.
‘I can’t do this.’ The words expelled in a puff.
A line cleaved Elsa’s brow.
‘I can’t marry Raul,’ Marisa whispered, and squeezed her sister’s hand tightly for support as the truth of her feelings, which had swirled inside her like steadily thickening soup for so long, suddenly solidified into truth. In a stronger voice, she repeated, ‘I can’t marry Raul.’
There. She’d said it. Finally admitted it.
‘You were right.’ Her spine straightened and her lungs inflated as she spoke. ‘I keep thinking about what you said the other day about not trusting him and you’re right. He lied to me. Raul doesn’t want to be a father to Niki. He only wants the business.’
Marisa’s relationship with Raul was very much one of convenience brought about by the circumstances that had seen her world implode when a vicious cartel had targeted her family’s shipping company to smuggle their drugs around the world. Her parents’ refusal to comply with their demands had resulted in her father’s murder.
This had come only a few short months after Marisa’s lover had drowned and she’d discovered she was pregnant.
Up against a network of brutal crooks with her father dead, the multinational family business passing into her hands, a fatherless newborn baby to love and nurture, her sister in a different country and her mother a wounded soul, Marisa’s desperation for help had found her arranging a marriage with Raul Torres, a man she knew socially who ran a business of a similar kind to Lopez Shipping.
She’d been upfront about what she wanted: a father for her son and help running the badly neglected family business.
She’d chosen Raul because she’d believed he was one of the good guys. Believed they had what it took to make a good team. Believed he would make a good father to her fatherless son.
Belief had differed greatly from reality.
A month ago, the cartel had discovered the Lopezes were working with international authorities against them and hatched a plot to kidnap Elsa from her home in Austria. Santi, a man who’d been practically raised a Lopez, had taken Elsa into hiding. Marisa, her son and her mother had stayed in their heavily guarded estate, terrified for Elsa and essentially under siege. Then, two weeks ago and after fifteen months of hell, the cartel were finally defeated. It took a huge international effort to bring them down; private security forces teaming up with worldwide security organisations and culminated in a co-ordinated swoop of arrests across twelve countries.
‘I keep thinking about what you said about the cartel and you were right about that too,’ Marisa said. ‘Raul offered us no protection at all. He abandoned the baby he swore he loved to his fate.’
And that, along with his increasingly obvious indifference to her son, was unforgiveable.
Slipping her hand from Elsa’s, she rubbed her forehead. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘End it.’
‘I know that. I mean how am I going to end it?’ She stepped closer to the mirror and stared at her reflection, stared at the ugly dress her subconscious had chosen for her. Her gut had known before she did that she couldn’t marry Raul.
‘Call him. Do it now,’ Elsa urged.
She found a smile. ‘I can’t break up with him an hour before our engagement party. That would be like poking a hornets’ nest. This family doesn’t need more enemies.’
Raul wouldn’t tamper with the brakes of her car like the cartel had done to her father, or drown her dog, or plot to kidnap her sister, but Marisa had learned in their time together that the man she’d chosen to marry out of desperation had a strong streak of narcissism and an unlimited capacity for grudge-holding. He knew enough secrets about Lopez Shipping to ruin them.
‘Well, don’t wait too long,’ Elsa warned.
‘I won’t,’ she promised. Now her mind was made up, she’d do it as soon as possible. She managed another small smile. ‘Although, with luck, this dress might make him decide to end it.’
Leaving the dressing room, Marisa walked through her bedroom then tiptoed into the dark adjoining nursery.
Her heart swelled as she peered into the cot. Her son, her heart, her life, was fast asleep, his little chest and podgy belly rising and falling. She kissed her fingers then gently placed them to his silky-soft cheek.
How could anyone look at this child and not feel the compulsion to love and protect him?
She picked up the photo on the cabinet beside the cot, the swelling of her heart sharpening as she gazed at the wry smile of her son’s father. Nikos. The love of her life.
Dead.
Hot tears stung the back of her eyes and she hurriedly blinked them back before kissing Nikos’s face and placing the photo back on the cabinet.
His memory lived as an ache in every beat of her
heart. Only by nestling her love and grief deep inside her and holding it tight until darkness fell and she was alone to purge the anguish of his loss, had she learned to get through the days. The pain never seemed to lessen.
After taking a moment to compose herself, she left the nursery through the main door and knocked on the door opposite. Estrella, their housekeeper, opened it. Estrella had worked for the Lopezes since Marisa was eight and had happily agreed to babysit for the night.
‘We’re leaving now,’ Marisa said, wringing her fingers together. ‘Can you check the baby monitor’s working for you?’
The room she’d put Estrella in was so close to the nursery she’d hear him sneeze before the monitor picked it up.
Marisa hated being parted from her son. Since his birth, she’d only left him for a handful of evenings, and a few hours here and there when it had been absolutely necessary for her to attend work in person. This would be the first time she’d left him alone with anyone but her mother and the first time she’d left him for a whole night.
‘It’s working fine.’ Estrella held the baby monitor to her ear. ‘I can hear his breathing.’
Marisa resisted the impulse to yank the monitor from her hand and listen for herself. She knew she was a paranoid first-time mother but she defied anyone to walk in her shoes and not be the same.
‘You promise to call if there’s any problems?’
‘There won’t be any problems but I promise.’
‘I’ll be back by ten in the morning, at the latest.’
‘There’s no rush, so take your time.’ Estrella gave a wide, sympathetic smile. ‘Enjoy having a lie-in.’
The thought alone made the nausea in her belly bubble afresh. Marisa liked the early-morning closeness with her baby while the rest of the household slept.
It was just for one night, she reminded herself. In the morning she’d be back home with her son and would cuddle up with him and plan how to end her engagement without provoking Raul’s vengeance.
* * *
The exclusive hotel’s staff had done a fabulous job of turning its function room into a glittering party pad. The two hundred guests chatting and dancing had a constant flow of champagne and canapés, the bar at the far end plentifully staffed so no one had to wait long to be served. The world-famous DJ played a medley of tunes to suit all ages and tastes and judging by the smiles, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Everyone except Marisa.
Her gaze kept falling on Elsa and Santi, glued to each other’s sides. They’d finally admitted their love for each other two days ago. Marisa had known for years that the two of them were meant for each other but suspecting something and seeing that love bloom before her eyes had been both heart-warming and heart-wrenching.
She had loved like that once. Loved with the whole of her heart.
Swallowing the ache, she let Raul drag her around the room to welcome their guests together and tried to curb her irritation at his annoyance every time she checked her phone for messages from Estrella.
How had she ever thought he would make a suitable husband for her and a good father for her son? She must have been mad.
No. Not mad. Frightened. Overwhelmed. Likely suffering from postnatal depression.
Once he started chatting with a group of his golfing friends, Marisa escaped his clutches and found her own friends, a bunch she’d been to school with and remained close to.
Her respite lasted only until the end of the DJ’s first set.
Raul took her by the arm and steered her to the raised dais. He wanted to make a speech. Of course he wanted to make a speech.
Knowing she had no choice but to go along with it, she snatched another flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and climbed the steps.
The music stopped. Raul took the prepared microphone and called for everyone’s attention. The dance floor filled, their guests eager to hear what he had to say.
He held her hand tightly. The feel of his skin on hers made her flesh crawl.
‘Thank you all for coming tonight and for your understanding at the postponement,’ he said. Their party should have been held two weeks before but the takedown of the cartel and the danger it had put Marisa and her family in had forced them to postpone. ‘It certainly wasn’t through choice but as you know, recent events took the decision out of our hands. This has been a difficult time for me and my future wife, and your support has been appreciated.’
Marisa almost choked on her champagne. Luckily Raul was too busy basking in the applause to notice. She loved how he made it sound as if it had been a difficult time for them as a couple when the truth was the coward had hidden away until it was all over.
‘I ask you all to raise a glass to my fiancée. To Marisa.’
But the crowd had fallen silent. Their attention had been taken by something that parted them like Moses and the Red Sea.
Marisa followed the open-mouthed stares. In the newly created gangway stood a tall, solitary figure. He was looking directly at her.
Heart suddenly racing, prickles ran up her spine and over her skin.
Certain she was hallucinating, she blinked hard and tried to catch her breath, fought to keep her shaking legs from collapsing beneath her.
It couldn’t be.
The prickles infected her brain, reduced it to fuzzy mush. The room began to spin. Something distant smashed. She had only the faintest awareness it was the glass she’d been holding before the world went black.
* * *
Nikos cut through the stunned silence to bound up to the dais where that idiot Raul hovered over the prone Marisa, doing absolutely nothing.
The complete shock at Nikos’s appearance meant no one was capable of stopping him from checking her pulse, satisfying himself that she was alive, then scooping her into his arms.
‘Excuse me,’ he said as he carried her through the still-frozen crowd. ‘She needs air.’
Her large brown eyes opened. Fixed on him. Widened. Blinked. Blinked again. She whimpered.
A waitress opened the double doors so he could sweep a now struggling Marisa out of the room. Her hand pushed at his chest but her movements were too sluggish to be effective. The whimpering was growing. It cut through him. It was the sound a wounded puppy made.
A member of the hotel’s concierge team hurried to them. ‘Can I call a doctor for you, sir?’
‘Not necessary. She fainted—a shock, nothing serious. Can you get the elevator for me?’
‘Certainly.’
The concierge pressed the button and the elevator door opened.
‘Top floor,’ he commanded, stepping inside with her. Marisa had stopped struggling and gone limp. Her eyes were screwed tight like a child trying to make itself invisible to a monster.
He’d never meant to scare her and neither had he intended to make such a grand entrance.
When the birth certificate of his son had been presented to him earlier that day, Nikos had been collected and analytical in his response. The mental preparations he’d made for a positive result greatly aided this mindset. Remaining dead to Marisa was no longer an option. Allowing her engagement party to go ahead was not an option either, and he’d set off to Valencia immediately. He’d called the hotel on the drive to the airfield, certain all the rooms would be taken, and had been surprised to find the penthouse still available. Surely the happy couple would be spending the night in it?
How happy were they? How happy was Marisa?
He’d done his research on Marisa’s fiancé during the flight back to Valencia. A few phone calls with mutual acquaintances—explaining his return from the dead had been dealt with by giving promises that he would explain in person when he next saw them—and he’d learned Raul’s only attribute was that he was rich. One friend quoted him as ‘an untrustworthy snake’. That had been the most positive of the opinions.
At the top floor he shifted her position to free a hand and pressed his thumb to the security box. Inside the suite he laid her loose body carefully on the sofa and took a step back to look at her properly for the first time in eighteen months.
What on earth had possessed her to wear such an unflattering dress to her own engagement party? The Marisa he’d dated had a love of fashion. This dress was something the old women of Mykonos would wear. And where was the make-up she loved to wear? Whenever he’d told her she didn’t need it, she’d laugh, thank him, then trowel it on until every freckle was masked and her eyes, lips and cheeks shone with unnatural colour. Now, all her freckles, faint though they were, were on display, and his chest tightened to remember how he’d adored waking to this bare face.
She didn’t move a muscle under his scrutiny. He suspected she was playing possum.
Shock at his resurrection he’d learned in recent days meant varied extreme emotions. He’d give her a minute to compose herself.
Truth was, he could do with a moment of composure too, and his suite’s bar was fully stocked.
He selected an eighteen-year-old single malt, unscrewed the lid and poured a hefty measure into a crystal glass. As he took his first sip, he sensed movement behind him.
Turning, he found Marisa only a foot from him.
He took another, larger drink to burn through the lump that had formed in his throat and held her silent stare.
Her head tilted slowly from side to side as she gazed at him through wild, wide brown eyes. Her plump lips were pulled in a straight line. She was breathing heavily through her pretty nose. With her golden-red tangled mass of frizzy curls—another curious thing: the Marisa he’d dated had used every product known to humanity to prevent frizz from forming—she had the look of someone sizing him up, someone...
The word ‘rabid’ flashed through his mind.
Marisa stared at the ghost before her, too scared to blink for fear he’d disappear.