Anton wondered if he was going mad, doing this to them when they were about to go downstairs and into the public domain, but—
‘Look at you,’ he rasped out softly. ‘You are the most exquisite creature I have ever held this close to me.’
‘And you hate yourself for wanting to hold me.’
The two black satin edges of his eyebrows came together across the bridge of his nose. ‘Not hate,’ he denied, holding her dark eyes with his own disturbingly perplexed ocean green. ‘Worried,’ he provided. ‘If I don’t watch out I think you could seriously get me again, and I don’t think that would be good for my—’
‘Plans?’
He sent her a smile through the mirror—it was like being lit up from inside. ‘I was going to say something really soppy—like heart,’ he confided, watching her breasts move as her breath caught. Then he added softly, ‘But I think that would be just a bit too honest, so we will stick to your word—for now.’
The lift arrived then. Maybe it was fortunate. Any more of this and she would be dragging him back into the suite.
The lift carried them downwards. Cristina stood in front of him, with their clasped hands now pressed to the tiny pulse beating in the flat of her stomach. His mouth arrived to brush a featherlight caress across her throat where it met her shoulder. With a sinuous stretch of fragile muscle she gave him greater access and lost herself in a cloud of sumptuous desire. There wasn’t a part of her that had not quickened, not a single inch that did not want to feel the warm brush of his mouth. She moved against him, felt his inner pulse like a living entity.
‘Luis.’ She breathed his name in the wispy voice of an aroused woman.
That was how their waiting party saw them when the lift doors opened to reveal a tantalisingly beautiful creature dressed in red, lost to the sensual desires of her tall, dark, handsome lover.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CRISTINA, took in the gathered assembly staring at them and felt an icy barb of shock hit her chest. Kinsella was there, dressed in a tube of pale blue fabric that showed off every perfectly neat curve of her long slender shape. Her creamy face was cold, her blue eyes split by a fury she could not contain.
‘How could you?’ Cristina gasped out accusingly, and tried to stiffen away from him.
He kept her right where she was. ‘Listen,’ he murmured in what must have looked like a lover’s whisper. ‘That lady you see standing next to Kinsella is my mother. She is the most important person in the world to me so you will behave like the totally besotted bride-to-be. Understand me?’
Understand? Pulling her gaze away from the angry Kinsella, Cristina looked at the woman who had once been betrothed to Vaasco, and understood so much more than Luis could ever appreciate that the consequences of that understanding were already threatening to squeeze the life out of her sinking, sickly dipping heart.
Maria Ferreira was a beautiful woman of indefinable years, dressed in a beautiful smoky blue silk evening suit that made her look as delicately structured as a fragile rose yet contrarily regal, though she was unable to hide her shocked dismay.
Cristina had not expected this. In the last mad forty-eight hours her mind and her body had been so engrossed in Luis that she just had not once considered the possibility of coming face to face with the one person Vaasco had hated above anyone.
And Vaasco had hated.
Swallowing tensely, she tried to turn within Luis’s embrace, needing to stop this before it exploded in their faces. But he was not in the mood to listen.
‘Behave,’ he repeated, kissed her pale cheek, then straightened, releasing only one of her hands as he moved to her side so they could exit the lift.
And it was not by accident that he retained her left hand, bringing two pairs of eyes dipping down to stare at the diamond clustered ruby adorning her finger. It was making a huge statement, Cristina realized, with a growing awareness of the disaster about to descend on their heads.
Recovering her poise first, his mother took a couple of steps forward.
Did she know? Cristina wondered anxiously.
‘Querida,’ Anton greeted her warmly, lowering his dark head to brush his mother’s smooth cheek with his lips.
‘Querido—’ his mother responded, returning his embrace.
‘You look tired,’ he observed as he straightened again. ‘Perhaps we should have left this until tomorrow, to give you time to sleep off your jet-lag.’
‘I am fine; do not fuss,’ his mother said with quiet impatience. ‘Although I did assume you and I would be sharing a private dinner, Anton,’ she scolded. ‘I needed urgently to talk to you, but—’
‘You will contain your impatience for another time?’ her son suggested with a gentle amusement that made his mamma’s eyes flutter—because, like Cristina, she had heard the censure threading through his tone.
‘Meu querida…’ His hand tightened its grip on Cristina’s hand to draw her closer. ‘Let me introduce you to my mother, Maria Ferreira Scott-Lee—Mother…this beautiful creature is Cristina Vitória de Santa Rosa…Marques…’
The pause, staged for effect, certainly had its reward, Anton noted as he watched his mother’s spine rack up in shock.
‘You are the daughter of Lorenco Marques?’ Maria asked Cristina sharply.
‘Y-you knew my father?’ Cristina returned, her voice small and very wary.
‘We met once—many years ago,’ Maria replied in a slightly dazed way. Then her lovely liquid brown eyes narrowed. ‘But I was led to believe—’
‘You knew Cristina’s father?’ Anton smoothly took back control. ‘Well, this unexpected surprise makes what I have to say next all the more special.’ He smiled. ‘Mother, you can be the first to congratulate us because the astonishingly beautiful daughter of Lorenco Marques is about to become my wife…’
It was like living in a kind of nightmare after that, one in which people talked and behaved in one way when their body language said entirely something else.
‘Well, this is a—surprise.’ Luis’s mother used dignity to hide behind as she tried not to go pale. ‘Congratulations, my dear.’ And she even managed to kiss Cristina on both cheeks, when surely she would rather be demanding answers to all the questions that must be whirling around in her head.
Was it Kinsella who had mentioned the Ordoniz name to Luis’s mother? Cristina only had to meet the venom in the blue eyes as she politely offered them her congratulations to know that she had.
Only Luis appeared not to notice the undercurrents weaving around them. He smiled, he charmed, he pretended to be the happiest betrothed on this earth. They toasted their coming nuptials with champagne drunk from tall fluted glasses. They moved from the lounge into the restaurant. They discussed food and ordered their individual courses. Luis chose the wine.
And through it all either his hand or his eyes or his mouth were in contact with Cristina somewhere. He toyed with her fingers. If she snatched them beneath the table his followed, captured and tangled with hers, then lifted them up to receive the brush of his mouth before he placed them back on top of the table again. It was like being paraded naked for everyone to stare at, because he was making absolutely no secret of what they would be doing right now if they were not sitting here.
The first course arrived with a flourish from four waiters eager to impress. Cristina looked down at her salad starter and wondered how she was ever going to manage to place a single forkful into her mouth. Her stomach had knotted, the tension in her stretched across every muscle she had. Letting her gaze slip around the table, she saw across the flickering candlelight how difficult his mother was finding it to keep the conversation pleasant and polite.
Kinsella ate sparingly and kept her eyes carefully lowered, but it was what was going on behind the lowered eyelashes that worried Cristina. How could Luis do it to her? How could he make his lover sit here and endure this when only recently she had still been sharing his bed?
He was ruthless. He gave way on nothing, she deci
ded. Did his mamma know she had raised this kind of man?
‘May I look at your ring, Marques?’ Maria Scott-Lee requested.
‘Cristina,’ her son corrected softly.
Biting her lip in annoyance with him, because his mother was at least trying to be nice, Cristina stretched out her hand to display the ring.
Scott-Lee gazed down at it for a long time before she glanced up at Cristina. ‘I have one just like it,’ she said with a tense little smile. ‘Instead of your beautiful ruby mine has an emerald in the centre—to match the colour of my son’s eyes…’
Those eyes belonging to her son narrowed for some reason. His mother refused to look at him. Tension whipped around them all like barbed wire stretched to its optimum. The waiters arrived to remove plates.
While they waited for their main course to arrive, it was Luis’s mother who surprised Cristina once again, by mentioning Santa Rosa.
‘I visited your home once—a long time ago,’ she said. ‘It is such a beautiful place.’
Cristina blushed. ‘Obrigado,’ she murmured, thinking bleakly, You would not find much beauty there now.
‘Have you seen Santa Rosa, Anton?’ Luis’s mother asked her son. ‘The ranch sits on the edge of the pampas, with fertile pastures and valleys dramatically backed by the rise of the mountains and the most awe-inspiring sub-tropical forest acting like a barrier to hold back the ocean beyond…’
She went silent for a moment, eyes lost to some distant memory. Then she blinked. ‘I may be mistaken, because it was more than thirty years ago when I was there, but I seem to recall that the house itself resembles a Portuguese mansion house?’
Cristina nodded, wetted her dry lips with a sip of wine. ‘My ancestors built the house over three hundred years ago. It was not unusual for Portuguese settlers to reproduce the style of house they were used to living in Portugal. The area has many similar-styled houses.’
‘But few were built and furnished to the grand style of Santa Rosa, I suspect.’
Cristina lowered her eyes, thinking about the home she had left only a few short days ago, where grandeur had lost out to peeling paint and damp walls.
‘Do you think I might know your mother?’
Cristina shook her head. ‘My father met and married my mother when he was visiting Portugal. She died a year later, giving birth to me, so I doubt you would have met.’
‘It is a shame, then, that your father could not join us this evening.’
Her tone had taken on a subtle alteration. Everyone noticed it. Luis tensed. Kinsella reached for her wine glass. Cristina waited a moment before she lifted her eyes.
‘Both my parents are dead, Senhora Scott-Lee,’ she provided, as calmly as she could.
‘Ah, my sympathies.’ Scott-Lee tilted her head. ‘But surely your father must have married again? Provided you with a brother, perhaps, to inherit Santa Rosa?’
‘I am an only child. I inherited Santa Rosa.’
‘Then my son has indeed made a fortunate choice in bride,’ his mother said. ‘Your children will be truly blessed on both sides of the family—unless you have children from your first marriage, who will naturally inherit from you?’
It was like taking a double punch in the stomach. Cristina didn’t answer, could not answer. More tension leapt around the table. Kinsella sent her a cold, sly, malicious little smile that chilled Cristina’s blood.
‘Is there a point to this line of questioning?’ Anton intervened at last.
Maria looked at her son. ‘I was led to believe that your—betrothed had previously been married.’
‘Interesting,’ Anton murmured. ‘Who exactly led you to believe this?’
She didn’t bat an eyelash. ‘Miss Lane
and I were discussing the interesting fact that you had a—guest staying with you, just before you arrived, querido.’
‘Miss Lane
—’ Anton did not so much as cast a glance in Kinsella’s direction ‘—should know better than to discuss my private business with anyone.’
‘Even with your mother?’
‘I apologise if you feel I’ve overstepped my working brief, Anton.’ Kinsella came in on a contrite little rush. ‘But I assumed your mother must already know about—’
‘And why should information relayed to you by my secretary make you jump on the first plane out of London to Rio?’ Anton continued, right over Kinsella’s breathless little rush.
His mother stiffened as she stared at her son. ‘Max?’ she whispered.
Anton nodded grimly. ‘I would also like to know why the fact that Cristina has been married before is of any interest to anyone but Cristina and I, and why you feel it is necessary to interrogate her like this.’
Maria flushed. ‘I was merely trying to ascertain—’
‘What I was up to?’
‘You hardly know the woman, querido!’ his mother suddenly sparked. ‘You met her for the first time barely twenty-four hours ago. She is not what she seems. She is—’
‘The widow of Vaasco Ordoniz,’ Cristina herself placed into the erupting tension.
‘Cristina—’
Ignoring the husky warning in Luis’s tone, she looked directly at his mother instead. ‘Since you say you knew my father, I must assume that you also knew my husband, Vaasco?’
‘He was—’
‘I know what he was, Senhora Scott-Lee. I married him; you did not,’ Cristina said, and watched as the older woman caught her meaning, then went pale. ‘It is therefore perfectly understandable to me, if not to Luis, that you should wish to know why I was willing to marry a man who was more than twice my own age.’
‘You misunderstand me—’
‘Not at all,’ Cristina said. ‘I understand you perfectly.’
Luis mother was staring at her with a kind of pained plea glowing in her eyes. She was terrified of what Cristina was going to say next. Kinsella was utterly captivated, and Luis was too calm for her to suspect that he had any idea what was threatening to come out into the open.
But Cristina was not going to be the one to tell him. Let his mamma confess her own sins, she thought as she rose to her feet. ‘I think I will—’
Her hand was closed inside a male fist. ‘Sit down,’ Luis instructed.
‘Anton—’ his mamma said on a hushed warning breath. The altercation at their table was beginning to attract attention, other diners were turning to stare.
A man appeared at Cristina’s side. Young, slight and immaculately dressed. ‘Excuse me for interrupting your dinner, senhora,’ he murmured politely. ‘I have been instructed to give this to you…’
He handed Cristina a white envelope. Amidst the rest of what was happening around her it made the whole scene take on a surreal quality as the young man bowed politely, then melted away again.
‘What the hell was that about?’ Anton demanded.
His guess was as good as anyone’s—except for Cristina’s. She took one glance at the envelope, went as white as a sheet, then turned on a muffled, ‘Excuse me,’ stepped around her chair and fled.
Anton shot to his feet to go after her. His mother was on her feet too. ‘No, Anton,’ she said quickly. ‘I think Marques needs to read her letter alone.’
Not while I’m here to stop her, Anton thought grimly, and went to go after her.
‘You cannot enter the Ladies’ Room, darling!’ his mother said anxiously.
‘I will go if you like.’
It was enough to make Anton’s head whip around. ‘You will remain right where I can see you, Miss Lane
!’ he lanced at his so called private secretary.
Kinsella blanched at his tone. His mother gasped. They were all on their feet now and people were openly staring.
Frustration bit into him. This had all gone wrong. How had he let it go so wrong?
His mind shot back to the call from Max. Until then he had been firmly focused on what he was doing and why he was doing it. Everything had been running smoothly and under his c
ontrol. Then Max’s call had arrived to muddy the waters, and the arrival of his mother had muddied them some more. The machinations of Kinsella, the burning leap of angry jealousy that had come with Max’s wisecrack about the Ordoniz widow—and seeing the stranger in the shopping mall when he thought he’d sharpened his focus. In truth, that was the moment he’d lost what bit of focus he’d had left.
This dinner was supposed to have been a trial by demonstration, aimed to show his mother and Kinsella Lane
that, no matter what they thought or wanted or hoped to the contrary, he and Cristina were an inseparable item. Whatever else needed to be said should have taken place in private. Why would he want to turn it into a public scene? Why would he want to embarrass Cristina in front of anyone? She was the woman he was going to marry, the woman he—
Dear God. It hit him then, the one thing he had been carefully skirting around without actually grasping with both hands. It had been there staring at him from the moment he saw her across the crowded reception room. Further back, when he’d stood staring at her name typed in bold on a document and felt himself coming alive. He’d even fooled himself into thinking he was still in love with a memory when he’d watched her pose in her red dress, but it was no distant memory. It was here and now and so potent he could actually taste it!
He must have looked strange because his mother placed a hand on his arm to capture his attention, and when he looked at her he saw concern there, a mother’s instinctive understanding wrapped in dark-eyed remorse.
‘I will go and see if Cristina is all right,’ she said gently.
The letter. His mind spun. What was in the letter? Who was it from? Why would one look at the envelope make Cristina turn and run? His chest grew tight, as if a steel band was trying to squeeze down a searing hot desire to explode into panic. But there were other issues here that had to be dealt with—Kinsella Lane
being the most pressing one.
He caught his mother’s hand as she went to follow Cristina. ‘She is the most important thing in the world to me, so you treat her with respect—understand?’
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