by Tara Pammi
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm. The scent of her tickled his nostrils. “That cruise... I went on it to amuse Eduardo. You were like this exquisite gift that somehow landed in my lap. That first week I was even afraid to touch you. I was terrified that I would somehow mar you.”
She shied her gaze away from him, but not before he saw the incredulous look in her eyes.
“Is that why you took forever to kiss me?” she asked with a laugh.
He didn’t buy it. She was struggling under the weight of what he had said. Why, when she had known how much he had loved her?
“I mean, I might as well have been wearing a T-shirt that said Take My Virginity that first week.”
Laughter barreled out of him. “I don’t remember you coming onto me that hard.”
“That’s not a surprise. Every woman on that cruise ship wanted a bite of the GMM. I had very stiff competition—especially from that hot dancer.”
Wasn’t she full of surprises? “What’s GMM?”
A blush dusted her cheeks pink. “Glorious Man Meat.”
“Aah...I’m very honored.”
“Liv’s term. Two minutes after meeting you I finally got what she meant.” A naughty smile—a very rare sight—split her mouth. “Though now, what with you all old, out of shape and with this whole daddy-in-the-making thing—” her gaze caressed his body in a swift sweep, belying her words “—I think we can pass the title of GMM on to Miguel,” she finished with a dreamy sigh.
The little cat was needling him on purpose. But it was this cheeky, smiling side of her that got to him. He leaned into her and clasped her face with his hands.
Before he could think better of it, he touched his mouth to hers.
The barest of contacts was enough to spread a wildfire of need inside him. With a groan that was torn out of him, he pulled her close and devoured the lushness of her mouth.
Her fingers dug into his arms. She mewled against his mouth, a sound made deep in her throat that slithered over his skin.
He half dragged her into his lap, his hands spanning her thin waist, seeking and searching the curve of her breasts.
Droga, but she was all soft and warm, the stretchy fabric of her swimsuit no barrier. He closed his hands over her covered breasts, felt the tightened nipples grazing his palms. He rubbed his palms up and down and her mouth opened on a soft moan.
“Meu Deus, I touch you and you blow up like TNT...”
He plunged his tongue inside her mouth and licked the inseam. He felt lightheaded with desire, every drop of blood flowing south.
He pressed wet kisses down to her neck—just as the two floodlights on the opposite sides of the terrace came on, drowning them in bright light.
With a gasp, Kim slid off his lap. Her lips were swollen and pink, her hair all mussed up. Their gazes met in silence for a second, before both of them burst out laughing.
“I’m thinking that was Miguel, right?” she said, her smile still in place.
Her taste lingering on his mouth, he nodded. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s good he stopped us when he did. Of course I did earn my kiss, but you don’t want to give me too many points.”
He raised a brow.
A teasing glint appeared in her eyes. “Remember? Sexual points for good behavior? You kissed me because I moved in, right? Like a dutiful little wife? Or was that just you forgetting your own—?”
He made a quick lunge to catch her, but she was too fast this time. With lithe grace she moved to the other side of the lounger. Her robe half dangled around her elbows, giving him a perfect view of her swimsuit-clad body.
Holding his stomach tight, he sucked in a sharp breath. His wife was hot. There was no other word for it.
Like everything else she wore, the swimsuit was modest, a one-piece in hot pink. But it showcased the swell of her high breasts, the dip of her dainty waist...which would soon be rounded...the slight flare of her hips and long legs that went on forever. The memory of how she had wrapped them around him while he had thrust into her, her tight heat clenching him. He was rock-hard just thinking about it.
Which meant it was time to walk away, however painful the simple act was.
She tied the sash on her robe, stepping back as he reached her. He raised his hands. “Stay and have your swim,” he said. “I need to have a talk with Miguel anyway.”
She waylaid him again. If she kept touching him like that, one of these days he wasn’t going to be able to walk away. “I forgot to ask—how is Eduardo?”
Just hearing his half brother’s name felt as if someone had stuck a knife in his side. He stilled, the ball of guilt around his neck threatening to choke the life out of him. He had lived through busted kneecaps, broken bones and so much more, but this clawing, crippling guilt—it was going to gouge him alive from inside out.
“I’m surprised he’s not still following you around. He worshipped you.”
Every word out of her mouth was true, and every single word dug into his skin like the sharp end of a knife.
“Diego?”
He jerked back from her. “He’s in a rehabilitation clinic in Sao Paulo.”
“What? Why?”
Eduardo was the best kind of reminder as to how far Diego could go when he was obsessed with something—when he let something he wanted have control over him. Then, it had been pursuit of his wealth. Now it could be the woman in front of him, waiting for an answer.
“He’s receiving treatment for a cocaine addiction.”
“Eduardo used cocaine? But he used to be so... That’s awful. He was always so sweet and kind to me.”
Kind and sweet. They were the perfect words to describe Eduardo.
Fisting his hands, Diego rocked on his heels, bile filling his throat.
His half brother had been a nice kid, weak at heart, forever bullied by the man who had fathered them—which Diego had learned too late. Diego should have protected him. Instead Diego had been the one who nudged him that last step toward his own self-destruction.
But he wouldn’t give up. He would never give up on him. If Eduardo didn’t have the will to fight for his life anymore Diego would fight for him. He would use every cent he had, would wield all his power, if it meant he could get his half brother back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KIM SCRUNCHED HER eyes closed and tried to recall all the literature she had been reading over the past month. With little Jennie wailing in her arms and that image from her afternoon appointment flashing before her eyes it was all a blur. There were two. She wasn’t even equipped for one.
Telling Laura, her company’s design architect, that she would look after little Jennie for a couple of hours had seemed like a good idea. She had been reading all about how to take care of a baby for almost a month. So of course she was ready for a ground test, right?
Wrong.
Sweat beaded her brow. Her arms were starting to ache a little bit.
She bent her knees and picked up the cheat sheet she had made out of Laura’s instructions, even though she knew them by heart.
She had warmed the pumped milk to precisely the exact temperature, tested it on her wrist, had fed Jennie and even tried to burp her. And then she’d put her down for a nap. Not a minute early or late.
The nap had lasted ten minutes, ending in a loud wail. According to Laura’s schedule Jennie should have napped for at least an hour.
Tucking the baby tighter against her chest, she swung a little from side to side, imitating what she had seen Laura do when she had brought the baby to the company’s premises a couple of times.
Her chubby cheeks scrunched up tight, Jennie wailed louder. The muscles in Kim’s arms quivered until she shook all over. Even her head was beginning to pound now.
She increased the pace of her walk, tension tugging her skin tight. She should call Laura and take Jennie back to her. Every hysterical inch of her wanted to. Will you desert your child when it gets hard? the annoyingly logical part of her asked.
No, she couldn’t accept failure—yet.
She heard the door open and turned around. Why hadn’t she thought of Anna?
Diego stood in the doorway, frowning.
Her heart sank to her feet, dismay making her weak-kneed.
His gaze amused, he checked his watch.
“Was I gone that long?”
“You said you were going to Sao Paulo.”
They both spoke at the same time.
His mouth tightened. As it did every time their conversation skated anywhere near Eduardo. “My trip got postponed.”
Her shoulders felt as if there were metal rods tied to them, crushing her with their weight. The last thing she needed was for Diego to see her abysmal failure.
“What’s with the baby?”
“She’s—”
“Laura’s. I know. She had her with her last week.”
She nodded, insecurities sawing at her throat. Of course he remembered Jennie from that one visit—while Kim had always scrambled even to remember her name.
He had picked her up one evening last week from work—a strangely domestic but comforting gesture—and she had been forced to introduce her staff to him. All forty of them—from their sixty-year-old office manager Karen to nineteen-year-old intern Amy—had mooned over him. And informed her with a sigh the next morning that they understood her actions perfectly.
“Kim?”
She sighed. Jennie’s little mewls were picking up volume again. “I offered to look after her for a few hours.”
A single eyebrow shot into his hairline. “Why?”
She raised her voice to be heard over the infant’s cries. “I decided to take myself on a test drive, and Laura’s the only one with a baby.”
“You’re practicing because you’re pregnant?”
“Something like that.”
“Isn’t that a little extreme?”
“I believe in being prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
She pushed her hair out of her face with her free hand, trying to ignore his gaze drilling into her.
“I...I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She won’t calm down.” Hitching Jennie up with her one hand, she wiped her forehead. “I’ve fed her, changed her and tried to burp her. I’m running out of ideas except to take her back.”
She looked around the cozy sitting area she had taken over for the evening, taking in the untouched protein shake, the dirty diaper on the rug, Jennie’s blanket trailing over the edge of the designer leather couch...
But it was the clawing urge to take Jennie back to Laura and pretend the evening had never happened that gutted her.
Tears burned in the back of her throat, gathering momentum like a storm.
Dear God, how was she...?
Diego’s hard frame in front of her pulled her to a stop.
Jennie’s wails were becoming incessant, her little face scrunched up tight. Kim’s heart sank to the floor. She was ready to bawl her own eyes out.
She raised her gaze to Diego, her neck stiff, her forearms strained to the point of shaking. “She won’t stop crying, Diego.”
He took Jennie from her, his movements infinitely gentle. The little girl fit on his forearm with room to spare.
Kim’s heart lurched into her throat.
With curious ease he held Jennie high in the cradle of his arms, her pink dress contrasting against his rough, large hands. “Might be because you’re holding her too tight and she can feel your tension.”
“That’s not true. She was crying long before I picked her up...”
The infant immediately stopped crying, as though confirming Diego’s statement. He swung the cradle of his arms left to right, gently, his gaze never moving from Jennie.
Kim froze as he cooed to her. It was the most wonderful sight she had ever seen.
“Babies are very sensitive to our own moods and personalities.”
His soft words landed like a slap on her. “What the hell does that mean?”
The look he threw her, puzzled and doubting, pierced through the last shred of her composure.
“It means that she can sense that you’re nervous—wound up.” His gaze drilled into her. “Overwrought, stressed out...do you want me to go on? What you feel is setting her off. If you just—”
“I get it—okay!” she said, practically shouting.
Every muscle in her trembled, and her chest was so tight that it was an effort to breathe. As long as it had just been in her head it had still been bearable. Given voice like that, it tore through her.
“She can sense that I don’t care, that I want to be doing anything but looking after her. That’s it, right?”
* * *
Diego lowered the sleeping infant into the tiny bassinet and tucked her in tight. The little girl settled in without a whisper, and he rubbed his thumb over a plump cheek.
A soft, sleepy gurgle erupted from the baby’s tiny mouth.
Whatever his past sins, the new life that was coming was a precious gift. If only he could figure out what was worrying Kim.
Familiar frustration spiked through him. The past few weeks they had fallen into a somewhat torturous routine of sorts. With each passing day and every single minute they spent in each other’s company—and this was with both of them avidly trying to keep it to a minimum—he had realized how hard it was to keep his hands to himself. Especially when he had begun to see glimpses of the girl he had fallen in love with so long ago.
She still hadn’t cut down her work hours, but she had spent the last Sunday home watching a soccer game with him and Miguel. Who, interestingly, had said more to her than he had to Diego.
He might even say she was slowly letting her guard down with him. Except when Anna or he brought up the pregnancy.
Then she immediately retreated behind that shell of hers. She refused to share what was on her mind. And yet more than once he had seen her reading articles on motherhood on her tablet, lost in deep thought.
And tonight she had borrowed a baby. Because she had known he would be out for the night.
Foreboding inched across his skin. Once he had been too involved in his own world and had neglected Eduardo when he had needed him. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. He was going to get to the root of what was bothering her tonight.
He eyed her across the room. She was plumping the same pillow on the couch, her shoulders stiff with tension, her punches into it increasing steadily, until her jabs were vicious and accompanied by soft grunts.
He reached her quickly, meaning to catch her before she buried whatever was troubling her under grating self-sufficiency. With a hand on her shoulder, he turned her around. “If you’re imagining that to be my face,” he said, “let me...”
She let him look at her for only a second before she pushed away from him. But what he had seen in that second was enough to stun Diego.
Tears filled her huge brown eyes.
His breath felt as if it had been knocked out of him—as if someone had clocked his jaw. He had never seen her tears. Not when he had humiliated her, not when he had threatened her company, not even when her father had shredded her.
With an arm thrown around her waist he tugged her hard against him and locked her there. She was plastered to him from shoulder to thigh. Her soft flesh shuddered and rearranged itself against him.
“Let me go.”
“Shhh...” he whispered near her ear, knowing that she was extra-sensitive to any touch there. “I just want to look at you.”
Her hands against his chest, she glared at him, her tears unshed.
Every inch of her was taut, like a tightly wound spring, and a slow tremor was inching through her. Something had shaken her up badly. He tightened his arms around her, waiting for the tremors to pass.
Dark blue shadows danced under her huge eyes. Her hair was not the sleek polished silk that gleamed every time she moved her face in that arrogant, thoroughly sexy way of hers. Instead it curled around he
r face, lending a false vulnerability to the sharp angles of her face.
But the fact that she was close to exhaustion was written in the dull pallor of her skin, in the pinched look stamped upon her features.
His ire rose to the surface again, and he didn’t fool himself that he was worried for his unborn child. The anxiety that he couldn’t purge from his system, the anger that had his muscles quivering for action, was all for her.
Despite his best intentions he just couldn’t not care about her.
He moved his hand up from her waist to her nape and dug his fingers into her hair, held her tight.
His grip didn’t hurt her. He knew that. But he needed that hold on her for a second—the deceptive illusion of control over her, over her emotions.
Because she reduced him to what he’d been born to.
All the trappings of wealth, all the polish he had acquired in the past six years, fell away, reducing him to what he was at his core. Someone who had been born into the gutter and craved a better life that had remained out of his grasp for so long.
There was always a part of her that remained unreachable, unattainable to him, as though he still didn’t make the cut.
He trailed his gaze over her, from the well-worn Harvard T-shirt that hugged her breasts to the low slung sweatpants that left a strip of flesh bare at her midriff.
“You can’t stop shivering. You look awful,” he said.
Pushing away from him, she glanced down over herself. Distaste marred her brow. “I spent last night at work and I didn’t have time for a shower when I came back.”
“Aren’t you working enough without taking on babysitting?”
She glanced at Jennie and trembled again. “I just... I wanted to see if I could handle her for a few hours.” The resigned curve of her mouth tugged at him.
“Meu Deus, what is the matter with you?”
Silence.
He frowned, resisting the urge to shake her by her shoulders. He had never seen her so defeated, never heard that self-deprecating tone in her words. He picked her up and settled down into the recliner with her in his lap. The fact that she sagged into him without a protest alarmed the hell out of him.