A Love that Endures 2

by Forrest, Bella

  Even with the language barrier, David could figure that one out.

  “Marcos Moreno?” David asked. Even though the driver had used his name, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be ferried out to the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, without even the ability to ask for directions or help.

  “Sim. Moreno,” the man replied, nodding exaggeratedly.

  Guess that settles it.

  He nodded in return and moved toward the black SUV. The driver opened the door for David to get in, then closed the door and moved to the driver’s seat. David sat patiently until the engine roared to life. He tried to bury his disappointment. He had been expecting his father to meet him at the airport, of course. And while he was currently feeling a little foolish for hoping he’d meet the man as soon as he stepped out of the plane, a more logical part of him was thinking, but why not? This was a pivotal moment for David, and surely for his father as well.

  So why had he sent a driver?

  David tried to squash the feeling. You can be a grown-up about this, mate. There was surely some reason for Marcos’s choices. After all, he knew so little about his father. Perhaps he’d had an important business meeting that he couldn’t miss. Or maybe he just wasn’t the sentimental type and figured a driver would be the more pragmatic option.

  It didn’t really matter, did it? What mattered was meeting the man who had made him. Although, a bit pessimistically, David realized that this could be for better . . . or for worse.

  He kept an eye on the street signs as the driver began their journey from the airport to the Moreno home. But as the odometer crept upward, David slowly lost track of where they were going. He knew from his late-night investigations into Bahia that they were moving north along the coast of the Bay of All Saints. But all of the signs and mile markers were in Portuguese, so eventually, and perhaps inevitably, he found himself completely and utterly lost.

  The driver, on the other hand, pressed forward quickly, an obvious destination in mind. As the minutes ticked into hours, David began to consider what lay ahead in greater detail.

  Marcos Moreno. The father David had never known. The only man in the world who might know where Jeanine was.

  Not that meeting Marcos himself was small potatoes. David couldn’t believe that he was about to meet one of his biological parents for the first time. He would finally have a better understanding of who he was and where he had come from.

  Still, Marcos wasn’t the only person David was looking for. He was also looking for Jeanine, his mother.

  And maybe this would set him on the path to finding her.

  After some time, the driver veered off the paved roads and highways and onto a sandy dirt road lined with thick jungle. David looked around the SUV in interest and mild concern. Behind them, a cloud of dust billowed in the air as the SUV sped along the dirt road. In front of them, colorful parrots and tapirs crossed the road.

  In a way, it really was like driving through paradise. David had never been south of the equator before, and everything was new. The tropical weather, exotic animals, and remote location all passed before his eyes like a parade.

  But in another way, David was starting to get worried. Perhaps he had been reckless coming to a country that he’d never seen to meet a man he didn’t know.

  I suppose we’re about to find out.

  After some hours in the car, David was relieved—and anxious to stretch his legs—when the driver finally pulled off the dirt road and onto a private drive. Suddenly, the SUV moved smoothly again on pavement. Like David had thought, Marcos must’ve had money—at least money enough to have his driveway paved. And it was a long driveway, so far that David couldn’t see the house from the main road. So much for stretching my legs.

  Most surprising of all, at a place that David had thought was far out in the tropical forest, was the bustling business that seemed to be happening all around him. Multiple cars passed them on the paved road, all full of locals who looked like they were on the clock. And as the driver pulled up to the stately house, he could see that even more workers abounded. They walked around the house, talked amongst themselves, a few barking orders into cellular phones.

  It all seemed normal enough. Perhaps Marcos owned a ranch or some other type of agricultural business. Perhaps he was an oil baron. Though David didn’t recall seeing any animals or pumpjacks.

  The driver stopped in front of the massive home and turned off the engine. David sat dumbly in the back seat, looking at the sight in front of him. The paved driveway curled into a circle in front of the stately home, though it might have been better described as a mansion. David had no idea that his father was so wealthy. The white stucco Spanish-style home sprawled over a well-manicured, tropical lawn. The hot Brazilian sun glinted off the red tile roof back into David’s dumbfounded face. He felt unsure of how to proceed; but the driver came around and opened his door for him, forcing his hand.

  “Gracias,” David said instinctively, stepping out of the car, before realizing that the driver spoke Portuguese. He didn’t know the right word.

  “‘Obrigado’,” the driver said with a wink, teaching David the proper phrase. And then, mimicking the answer to his own statement, “Não faz mal!”

  So at least that made two phrases in what he assumed was his father’s native tongue that David now knew. It was certainly lucky for him that Marcos spoke fluent, aristocratic English.

  He adjusted his backpack straps and stared in the direction of the house, waiting for someone to show him the way. But when no one did—and the driver simply took off toward what looked like a farm or warehouse beside the house—he inhaled and stepped up to the front steps of the house himself.

  The heavy door was slightly ajar, and David could hear people moving around and talking boisterously inside, so he let himself in and peered around, feeling very small in the huge entryway.

  The home was sparsely decorated, in a way that reminded David of the Wolf Club. Perhaps it’s missing a woman’s touch, he mused to himself. A grand staircase in the entryway led up to an expansive second story visible through carved wooden rails. David’s shoes softly squeaked against luxurious marble floors as he walked farther within, gazing around at the dearth of décor. The off-white walls were decorated only by a handful of artfully designed crucifixes. As David peered about, a Brazilian man came out of a room to his left and walked briskly past him, speaking Portuguese into his cell phone.

  “Rosen?”

  David turned to see a young man smiling at him from the arched doorway of another room.

  “Yes,” David answered. The man was far too young to be Marcos, but perhaps he was someone who had been expecting him and could point him in the right direction—finally.

  The young man smiled and nodded and then pointed behind David. David turned to see a closed door. He turned back to the man.

  “In there?” David tried to clarify. He cast his thumb back at the door, hoping his question would be clear even without the right language to back it.

  The young man nodded enthusiastically. “Sim, sim.” He pointed at the door again.

  “Obrigado,” David replied, though he knew he was butchering the accent, before turning back to the door.

  He didn’t open it immediately. Instead, he let his fingers rest briefly on the heavy mahogany and slowly breathed in and out.

  This is it. I’m about to meet my father.

  It was such a liberating, yet terrifying realization. After everything that had gone wrong for David in the past few days, and all of the hurt and doubt and confusion, he was finally going to do something real and concrete.

  And maybe it would change his life for the better.

  Taking in one last shaky breath, David pushed open the door.

  The room was wood-paneled and musty, smelling of old paper and cigar smoke, and David quickly realized that he was alone. Trying to breathe through his frustration, he walked in and let the heavy door shut on its own behind him.

  It
looked like a study, with one large desk on one end and a wood-burning fireplace on the other. In between, lots of plush leather chairs gave David the impression that the room hosted important meetings or perhaps just casual gatherings. But so far, he hadn’t exactly gotten a homey vibe from the place.

  He slipped off his backpack and sat it down in one of the leather chairs, walking over to the wall with interest. Unlike the bare, sparse entryway, the walls of the study were positively covered in decorations: artwork and picture frames. David walked over to look at the photos. Some were newer, which he could deduce from the style of dress and appearance of the photo. But many others were so old and frayed that the pictures had turned sepia. Some were black and white. In almost all of them, dozens of family members were standing around and smiling. David looked at their faces: tanned, lean Brazilian men and women with dark eyes and hair. The men sported David’s strong jawline and impressive height, while the women shared his olive skin and blackish curls.

  As he examined the pictures, his eyes were drawn to a photo of a single young boy. He was maybe eleven or twelve, on the cusp of manhood, intense eyes belying his childish face and his limbs dangling awkwardly with sudden growth. But as David stared, he realized something peculiar.

  The boy looked like him. A lot like him. A little tanner, maybe. Darker, differently shaped eyes than his own. But everything else looked so familiar . . . He thought back to the row of family portraits that had lined the bureau in his adoptive parents’ bedroom: the photo of himself, smiling in shorts on their Italian vacation . . . The young man in this picture could’ve easily been one and the same.

  “David.”

  David spun around at the sound of the voice. He recognized it immediately. Marcos.

  My father.

  The man had entered the room noiselessly and was now standing between David and the door, the flicker of a smile on his square-jawed face. He was dressed in a thin button-up shirt and slacks, and his loafers were pointed at the ends. He was roughly David’s height and build, with perhaps a little extra in the middle.

  “Marcos,” David said, his voice sounding like it was coming from very far away. He couldn’t believe that he was here, standing in front of one of the two people who had brought him into this world. His heart swelled with too many feelings at once, the beginnings of joy and excitement foremost.

  “Actually,” the man replied, taking a few steps toward the desk. “Marcos won’t be able to join us today.”

  David blinked, trying to understand what he had just heard. But the voice sounded so familiar. If this man wasn’t Marcos . . .

  “Marcos is my brother. I’m Adriano. And we have business to discuss.”

  31

  Katy

  “I’m sure it’ll get better with time,” Cassie assured her cousin. Then, forking a long piece of pasta, she adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and blew a strand of hair away from her face before taking the bite. She continued afterward, even with her mouth full. “Damn wind out here. This would be so much easier if we were eating inside.”

  Katy pushed her plate of parsley-flecked linguine away. “You’re welcome to eat inside without me, Cass. I just don’t want to be in there right now. It’s too claustrophobic.”

  Cassie swallowed and scoffed. “You have a grand piano and a chandelier in your closet, Katy. Don’t tell me it’s not big enough for you.” Then she twirled her fork in the creamy pasta, amassing a sizable spool. As it approached her lipstick-ringed mouth, the steam from her food fogged up her oversized sunglasses.

  “You know what I mean,” Katy replied curtly. Yes, the house was massive, and Katy had more than enough space to roam. But with her parents’ cold reception, the constant stream of business professionals moving in and out, and all of the choices being made on her behalf, the house felt like it was falling down on top of her. She could barely stand to be inside its walls at the moment.

  And David wasn’t there to make it easier.

  Cassie guzzled from her glass of rosé and then glanced greedily at Katy’s untouched plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

  Katy pushed the plate toward her cousin while an insatiable smile spread over Cassie’s face. “Honestly, I can’t get enough of this stuff. College food is such swill.” She licked her lips and pulled the food closer.

  Katy turned back to the white-crested sea as Cassie slurped beside her. At least someone’s got an appetite. Katy didn’t want to eat the world-class food or even sample the expensive wines of the private de Courtes reserves. She just wanted to be back in Cambridge with David, even if it meant eating ramen and frozen foods for the rest of her life. What good was luxury and royalty if she didn’t have the man she loved to share in it?

  “So, what’s on the agenda today?” Cassie asked. “I saw that the crisis team has been consulting with the queen over lunch.”

  “Must be the volunteer planning,” Katy replied, her eyes still on the sea.

  “Ugh, I’m so sorry. Volunteering is the pits. Remember when we had to work in the soup kitchens for a photo op? I dropped a whole pot of stew. Ruined my Manolo Blahniks.”

  Katy looked over at her cousin and tried not to smirk. Cassie was certainly back in her element, after almost a year of “roughing it” in an area that was only slightly less moneyed. But Katy had to admit that silk and baubles suited her cousin well.

  “I like volunteering,” Katy replied. “I have plenty of time for it, and there’s so much that needs to be done in Lorria. But I hate doing it for the wrong reasons. And this is pretty obviously the wrong reason.”

  Cassie shrugged. “Well, what does it matter, as long as the people are getting helped?”

  “Because when the focus is on me, the helper, then no awareness is raised for the people who need help.” Katy felt her voice growing stronger with indignation. “So it’s just a big fanfare for one day, and then the organization will go back to being underfunded and understaffed until the next time the crown needs good press.” Katy took a breath to steady herself. She didn’t want to sound bitter. She truly loved helping her people. But it felt like the king and queen were using the needy as mere pawns for photo opportunities. And that didn’t sit right with her.

  “In any case,” Cassie began, “at least you won’t have to worry about volunteering just yet. You get to hide out for a while first. And I’ll be right there with you.”

  Katy smiled briefly at her friend, then sighed and slunk down into her chair. She pulled out her phone, drawing Cassie’s attention.

  “Heard anything else from David?”

  Katy shook her head. “No. I guess he’s with his father now. I just hope things are going well.” She understood why David had gone, and she could empathize with what he was going through himself, but she was still a bit nervous about the whole trip. David didn’t know anything about Bahia—or, more importantly, Marcos.

  What if he wasn’t the person David was expecting?

  “Hopefully he doesn’t make any bad choices,” Cassie murmured, pulling her own phone out and seeming to grow uninterested in the conversation.

  “What do you mean?” Katy asked, frowning.

  Cassie sighed. “Well, you know Mia. If she thinks that the Morenos are bad news, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s case closed. I wouldn’t want to go traipsing around South America to find some criminal syndicate.”

  Katy winced slightly, regretting sharing that part with her cousin. “Okay, but Mia didn’t say they were the mob or anything. She just said that maybe . . .” Katy trailed off. What else would fraudulent business documents and revenue statements mean?

  Cassie gave her cousin a look. “Exactly. And, I mean, David has proved himself to be a bit impulsive during times of stress. So I just hope he’s not doing anything unwise.”

  Katy wrinkled her nose. “You mean like joining the family business?” She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. David wasn’t being impulsive; he was reacting emotionally to a big upheaval in his life. Just like anyone would.”
A kind of reaction you should know especially well, Cassie.

  “I guess you’re right,” her cousin replied, looking back at her phone. “I’m still just reeling a bit, from thinking I knew him so well to . . . this.”

  Katy narrowed her eyes. “You can’t seriously think . . .”

  Cassie looked up. “That he sold your photos?” She sighed. “Yeah, Katy. I’m sorry, but as a friend, I feel like I need to be honest with you. I’ve been thinking it through, and, well, who else could’ve done it?”

  “Literally anyone!” came Katy’s frustrated reply. “The lawyers requested a records release to see if it was Marty himself trying to get around the copyright transfer. But, assuming he’s not that stupid, maybe he was telling the truth about losing the memory card. Anyone could’ve picked that up and seen what was on it.”

  “Katy. Hon. Really? In the middle of a secluded park?”

  “Well, the photographer knew to go there somehow,” Katy shot back, feeling heated. “And it’s still in the middle of the city of Cambridge. So it couldn’t have been that secluded.”

  “But that’s another thing,” Cassie replied, peeking over her sunglasses now, her eyes sharp. “Don’t you think that’s pretty weird? That it was so secluded—right up until an hour or so after David showed up? If you were followed, then why’d the photographer wait around to start snapping photos?”

  “Probably waiting for just the right moment to make it look like we were doing a lot more than we actually were. Who knows?” Katy pressed her hands against the tabletop and pushed herself up from her chair. She kept eye contact with her cousin. She’d had enough of this talk for one day. “But I know David. I love David. I don’t want to discuss this anymore.”

  But before Katy could get too far away, Cassie called out after her.

  “You used to think that about Alexei, too. . . I’m sorry. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

  Katy stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn around. She took a deep breath and then continued down the stone steps to the side of the veranda and out onto the dry, sandy ground closer to the sea. She had to get away from the estate and everyone in it for a while.