Beautiful Dangerous

by Michelle Betham

  That’s good to hear. That she seems to have missed me as much as I’ve missed her. And I believe it to be true, I do, but I also believe that Olivia isn’t one to dwell on something for too long. And I left her alone, for too long. Long enough, possibly, for another man to move in and begin to take my place.

  “Do you think I would make a good father, Celine?”

  Her head shoots up, and she stops what’s she’s doing, laying the wooden spoon she’d been beating a cake batter with down on a saucer next to the bowl. “Are you and Olivia…?” She flattens her palms against her cheeks, her eyes wide. “That’s what this special dinner is for, no? You and Olivia are going to start a family?”

  I laugh, because her enthusiasm is contagious. “Please, keep this to yourself for now, I haven’t even broached this subject with Olivia yet, but yes. This dinner tonight, it’s so we can talk, about starting a family.”

  I want an heir to my empire. I want a son or a daughter to carry on the Delgado name, and I need to know whether that’s something Olivia wants, too. Tonight, I will find out.

  “Oh, this is so exciting!”

  “Ssh, Celine, por favor.” I laugh as she slaps a hand over her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, but I have worked for you – for your family – for so long and I’ve always thought it such a pity that you weren’t a father yourself. You’ll make such a wonderful father, Javier.”

  “Thank you, Celine.”

  “You have waited too long. All these years, we could’ve had little ones filling this house with their laughter.” She smiles, and I laugh again, Celine has been like a second mother to me. The only mother I’ve known, in all honesty, after mine was shot and killed. By the Pino cartel… “But never mind.” She waves a cloth around her head before tucking it back into her apron pocket. “We’ll have children running around this place before too long. Yes?”

  I return her smile, but I don’t respond.

  “Why did you wait?” Celine asks, resuming the beating of the cake batter.

  “It just never felt like the right time before. But everything’s different now. Things have changed, and I want this to be a whole new beginning for this family.”

  “You and Olivia, any child you have will be beautiful and blessed and loved by so many people.”

  “That means a lot to me, Celine. Thank you.” I push myself away from the counter, sliding my hands into my pockets. “Anyway, I should let you get back to work. I have a few things to finish up myself before dinner.”

  I leave the kitchen and head into the living room. Lucca’s in there, standing by the window, staring out at the courtyard.

  “Is Olivia home?”

  He turns around at the sound of my voice, immediately stepping away from the window. “No, not yet. I left her at The Garden, she said she still had a few things left to do there. But she also said she wouldn’t be long.”

  “I’d hoped she’d be home before now,” I sigh, I’m starting to feel a little restless, if I’m honest. But this evening has to be a surprise, or I’m not sure it’d have the impact I want it to have. Starting a family isn’t something you do on a whim, I’ve been thinking about this for a while – almost all the time I was away in Mexico – and it’s important I find out how Olivia feels about this. How she feels about me. “I’ve got something special planned for tonight, but it has to be a surprise. Maybe you could call her for me? Try and find a way to get her back here? If I do it she’ll get suspicious, but she’ll listen to you, Lucca.”

  He frowns. “Something special?”

  “I took your advice, asked Celine to cook us something special and set a table out on the terrace. But there’s not much point to it if I’m the only one there. I need Olivia there, too.”

  “I’ll call her.”

  “Thank you, Lucca.”

  I give his shoulder a friendly pat as he passes me, and I pour myself a whiskey and head out into the courtyard, and I sit down and look around me and I imagine a child running around out here. The laughter and the smiles and the insane happiness children can bring to a marriage, I didn’t realize how much I wanted that, until now. I just need to make Olivia want that, too…

  Olivia

  There’s a slight breeze blowing as we sit down on the sand, clutching our beers and staring out at the ocean. The beach is busy but not overly so. It’s getting later now, there aren’t as many people about, which is why I wanted to come down here, before heading home. I’ve always loved the beach, always loved living by the sea, and I’m only just starting to realize how little time I’ve taken in the past to do something as simple as this – sit on the sand and drink beer and not think about anything else except the sun on the back of my neck and the sound of the waves.

  “You and Lucca,” Angel starts, his eyes focused on the ocean, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms resting on them. “What’s going on there?”

  I look at him, but he keeps staring straight ahead. “I don’t think…”

  “It’s any of my business?” He turns his head to face me. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

  His words sting, because they’re true. He’s right. I have very few friends. And I hadn’t actually realized that, or cared about it, until this very second, when he pointed it out.

  “Do you miss having friends? You know, girlfriends you can talk to?”

  “All women don’t live in a small town, Hallmark TV movie where a close-knit group of friends who all grew up together share their lives and their problems over weekly cocktails and cake.”

  He raises an eyebrow and downs a draft of beer. “I’m guessing you’ve watched quite a few of those small town, Hallmark movies, huh?”

  “I had a normal life before I chose to live this one.”

  He laughs quietly and stares back out ahead of him. “You ever feel like you just need someone to talk to? About shit you really can’t talk to your husband about?”

  He’s digging, of course he is, trying to raise a reaction.

  “I keep telling you, you can trust me, Olivia. And I never stop meaning it.”

  “Why, though? Why should I trust you above anyone else?”

  His eyes are back on mine. “Because we have our own secrets, remember?”

  “There isn’t a thing Javier could do if he found out we slept together. We thought he was dead. I’m not saying we should shout it from the rooftops, but it’s hardly a deadly secret. Is it?”

  “I don’t know. Is he not the kind of man who thinks cheating on a dead guy counts?”

  I stare at him, the corners of my mouth lifting upwards slightly. “Do you think he’s that kind of man?”

  He shrugs. “Can’t say I’m willing to find out, to be honest. I’d quite like to keep my balls exactly where they are.”

  I can’t help laughing, once again I’m just so comfortable in Angel’s company. “He wouldn’t hurt you, Angel.”

  “But he’d hurt Lucca.”

  His words thump into me like an unexpected punch. Does he know? Or is he just taking a lucky guess?

  “Javier’s back and you don’t seem as happy as you should be. I mean, you’ve spent most of today avoiding him…”

  “I haven’t been avoiding him.”

  “So why haven’t you gone home sooner? There was no need for you to be hanging around the restaurant all day, everyone else had it all in hand, there was nothing special happening. And now we’re here, on this detour to the beach when you should be going home. The man you mourned for, sought revenge for, he’s back, and you’re doing everything you can to avoid spending as little time as possible with him.”

  “That isn’t how it is.”

  “I think it’s exactly how it is.” He stares out ahead again. “And I saw you and Lucca disappear into the back office together, earlier today. At The Garden.”

  I swallow hard, and down a long mouthful of beer, my stomach churning with guilt and fear and cold, blind panic. But then I th
ink about Lucca, and all those feelings are swept away and I’m left with nothing but this dangerous, beautiful love for him. A man who can never be mine, and yet, he’s all I want.

  “You can talk to me, Olivia, that’s all I’m saying.”

  And bring someone else into this mess? But the urge to get even the smallest part of this off my chest…

  “Lucca, he… Maybe he’s all I’ve wanted, for a long time,” I say quietly, twisting the neck of the beer bottle round and around between my fingers. And I keep my eyes fixed forward, but I can feel Angel’s on me. “Maybe I finished grieving for Javier sooner than I realized, and everything that came after that was just me going through the motions; doing what I thought was expected of me as the grieving widow hell bent on revenge.”

  “And Lucca, he feels the same.”

  He doesn’t even phrase that as a question, it’s as though he already knew how Lucca felt. But I nod anyway, and I turn my head to look at him. “Yes. He does.”

  Angel sighs, because he knows that just being privy to this knowledge puts him in danger. But he was the one who brought it up, not me. He invited himself to be a part of this secret.

  You still should’ve stopped him…

  “I don’t even know when it happened, when I knew I loved him, because it’s like it happened all of a sudden, or that’s what it feels like, anyway.” I down another mouthful of beer and trail my fingers through the rapidly cooling sand. “For so long all I could focus on was getting that revenge for Javier. And it wasn’t even real, was it? They didn’t even kill him.”

  “But they would’ve done, and you know that. They would’ve killed you. They needed to go, Liv.”

  “I know, I just…” I drag a hand back through my hair. “He lied to me, Angel. And I can’t forget that. Everything I went through, all that pain, all the shit that followed, it wasn’t even real.”

  “Lucca lied to you, too.”

  Our eyes lock again. “I know he did.”

  “So, what are you gonna do? ’Cause you know you’re playing with fire here.”

  And so many people could get burned…

  “I want to be with him, Angel. I want to be with Lucca. And he wants to be with me, but we can’t do that here. We can’t be together, here.”

  He frowns, and I think I might be telling him too much when neither me nor Lucca have any real idea of what we’re doing ourselves, not yet.

  I shake my head and look back out over the ocean, I don’t know what else to say. I think the best idea is to say nothing, change the subject, and then my phone rings and I’m saved from having to make that decision.

  It’s Lucca. And for a moment I just stare at the screen, watch his name flashing in front of my eyes.

  “You gonna get that?” Angel jerks his head in the direction of my ringing phone, and I’m suddenly yanked back to reality.

  “Oh… Yes. Yes, of course… Hey, Lucca.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the beach. With Angel.”

  “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this, it’s supposed to be a surprise, but Javier’s planning some big romantic night for you both so you need to get back here. Soon. You’ve got to start playing the wife, Liv, or he’s going to start getting suspicious.”

  I drop my head and sigh quietly, raking my fingers back and forth through my hair. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

  “This is hard, I know it is, but until we can work out a way…”

  “I know, Lucca. I know.”

  I end the call and tuck my phone away.

  “You need to get back, huh?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  We pull ourselves to our feet and head back toward the car.

  “Listen, Olivia, if you need any help, you come to me. You hear me? You come to me.” He’s involved now. Too deep to back out.

  “Thank you. But maybe this is something we need to work out for ourselves.”

  “Well, you know where I am. And remember, you can trust me. I won’t say anything, to anybody, I promise.”

  I lean back against the car, my focus on the beach and the palm trees blowing slightly in the light breeze. “I shouldn’t have involved you. I’m sorry.”

  I look at him, and he smiles, and there’s a kindness in his eyes, a genuine kindness that actually takes my breath away.

  “We’ll find a way, okay? If you and Lucca really want to be together, we’ll find a way.”

  Turning my focus back to the beach, I watch as a young family runs along the sand, a cute little dog chasing after a toddler who’s still quite unsteady on her feet but determined that she doesn’t need mom or dad to hold her up.

  “Did you never think about having kids?” Angel asks, leaning back against the car beside me. “You and Javier? Before his faked death, I mean.”

  I keep my eyes on the family as the dog runs toward the ocean at breakneck speed, the excited shrieks of the little girl filling the air, mingling with the screeches of the seagulls and the dull thud of music coming from a nearby bar.

  “No. We never talked about it, not once. I never even gave it a thought. As far as I’m aware, neither did he.”

  The woman I’m assuming is the child’s mom finally catches up with her, just in time to stop her from falling face-first into the sand, while dad throws a ball for the dog, who practically bounces into the ocean to retrieve it. And I’m suddenly smiling, imagining what mine and Lucca’s child would look like. Could we possibly have a life like that? A simple, normal, ordinary life?

  “Come on.” I tear my eyes away from the family, and push any thoughts of happy-ever-afters to the back of my mind. “Let’s go.”

  “You okay?” Angel frowns, and I look at him, and I smile, but the answer is I don’t know. I don’t know if I am okay.

  “I will be.”

  I might be.

  But nothing in this life is guaranteed…

  Sixteen

  Olivia

  I feel like I’ve just walked onto the set of a cheesy rom-com, the scene where the guy tries to impress the girl with some huge, wildly over-the-top romantic gesture.

  “Too much?”

  I look at Javier, and I shake my head and smile. “No. It’s not too much.” Maybe a little, with a myriad of lights strung through the trees and an array of candles decorating not just the table, but the ledges and the low wall that lines the terrace. “It’s beautiful, actually. It’s really beautiful.”

  “As are you, mi amor.”

  I laugh and roll my eyes as he takes my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it lightly, and he laughs too before pulling me into his arms, kissing me so gently it sends a wave of confusion ripping through me. This is the Javier I remember. The man I fell in love with, in this moment, this very moment, he’s the man I thought I’d lost. He’s my husband.

  “You’re not usually one for a great amount of cheese.” I smile, letting my fingers trail lazily along the back of his neck.

  “Maybe I’m a changed man, after my return from the dead.”

  “Maybe you are,” I murmur, and he kisses me again, and I close my eyes and remember all the good times we had. The nights we’d eat out here and dance under the stars and talk until the early hours. The times when reality was pushed aside, just for a couple of hours, and everything felt normal. Almost.

  Nothing was ever normal, Olivia. Remember that…

  “Come. Sit down, let’s eat. Celine has prepared some of our favorite dishes.”

  Spicy chicken stew, her famous Mexican bean salad, fresh bread and plenty of butter; pork roasted over the barbecue with corn and green tomato salsa, I’m in heaven with this food! But the nervous ache in my belly is also reminding me that this dinner is for a reason. That’s what he told Lucca, what Lucca told me, although I remembered to act surprised. And it’s obvious now that there’s an ulterior motive for all this fuss; all this beautiful food.

  “We’ve barely had any time together alone,
Olivia, since I came home.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry, if you feel like I’ve been…” I briefly drop my gaze, because I don’t really know how to finish that sentence. “I just…” I look up, look right into his eyes. “It messed with my head, you coming back the way you did. It was so – so out of the blue. And all of a sudden, everything I’d been through… It was for nothing.”

  He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it, let his fingers curl around mine. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts me, to know I’ve hurt you, and I know that I can say sorry for the rest of eternity and it still won’t be enough but, please, believe me, I will do whatever it takes to make it up to you. Whatever it takes, Olivia.”

  I know he will. I know he would. I’m just not sure it’s enough anymore. Has our moment really passed? Or could what I’m feeling for Lucca be nothing more than emotions forced upon me because I missed Javier so much?

  No.

  What you feel for Lucca is real.

  It’s very real…

  I force myself to smile, because Lucca’s right. I need to start playing the wife, for both our sakes.

  Javier lets go of my hand and reaches for the bread. “Eat, before it goes cold.”

  I start spooning stew onto my plate, filling it up with rice and salad, and for a little while we enjoy the food as we talk about his time in Mexico, and how we move forward on both sides of the border, and I’m fine talking business. It’s my comfort zone, I feel safe talking business. But he hasn’t set up this dinner with all its extravagant detail so we can talk business all night. And as the evening wears on, that dread in the pit of my stomach intensifies, a nervous anticipation growing by the minute.

  “We never talked about having children, did we?”

  My stomach sinks, and I know Angel and I had briefly touched on this just a couple of hours ago, at the beach, but I had no idea it had ever been on Javier’s mind. Like I’d said to Angel, I’d just assumed kids weren’t something on either of our agendas, and the fact Javier’s mentioning it now, it’s enough to set off another small wave of panic.