‘I think your mother wants you to read the letter,’ she urged softly.
Taking a deep breath, Diego skimmed the words his mother had written, once, twice. ‘Deus...’ His voice was choked with emotion.
‘What does it say?’ Clare asked tautly.
‘She killed him.’ He read the letter a third time. ‘While I was fighting with the man I’d found beating my mother, she hit him on the back of his head with a chair leg. She realised he was dead. I was unconscious from the punch he’d landed on me just before she attacked him. Someone had called the police, and she panicked and told them I had killed the guy while I’d been in a manic rage.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘She explains in the letter that she thought I would be sent to a youth detention centre, but she knew she would spend the rest of her life in prison and she was scared of being locked up in a cell.’
Diego’s throat ached and he felt an unfamiliar sting of tears in his eyes. For twenty years he had been haunted by the idea that he could be a murderer, and all the time he had been innocent. Tears were sliding down his mother’s face and his gut clenched. She hadn’t been much of a mother, but she hadn’t had much of a life after his father had seduced her and abandoned her when she fell pregnant, Diego thought. He looked into his heart and found no anger, just pity.
‘Mãe...’ He took a tissue from the bedside cabinet and wiped away her tears. ‘Eu perdoô voce.’ I forgive you.
He did not see Clare wipe tears from her eyes as she quietly left the room.
* * *
The flight from Belo Horizonte back to Rio took an hour, and it was late afternoon when the limousine that had collected them from the airport drew up outside the Cazorra skyscraper. ‘Are you sure you didn’t want to stay at the hospice with your mother?’ Clare asked as they walked across the foyer.
Diego shook his head. ‘We both said everything we needed to say.’ His mother had fallen asleep while he’d sat with her, and the nurse had assured him that Shayla was sleeping peacefully for the first time since she had been admitted to the hospice.
‘You don’t have to come in the lift with me,’ Clare said as he followed her into the elevator. ‘I know you prefer to take the stairs.’
The lift door closed and Diego waited to feel the familiar tightness in his chest, the sensation that he couldn’t breathe. But nothing happened. He could breathe normally. He thought of the time Clare had helped him cope with his claustrophobia by kissing him. Her distraction method had certainly worked, and the memory of the passion that had blazed between them had a predictable effect on his body.
They had not made love for over two months while she had been suffering with sickness caused by her pregnancy. He had felt guilty that it was his fault she was so pale and fragile, but in the last few days the nausea had lessened and now she looked radiant. There was colour in her cheeks again and her auburn hair shone like silk. To anyone else her pregnancy was not yet visible, but Diego noted that her breasts were fuller and there was a new voluptuousness to her body that made him long to undress her and explore her lush curves.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked innocently.
Deus, he wasn’t going to admit he was so turned on by his fantasies of having sex with her that he was surprised she did not notice the bulge of his erection beneath his trousers.
‘You must feel relieved now your mother has told you the truth, that you didn’t kill a man.’
‘I’m still stunned,’ Diego admitted. ‘For twenty years I was afraid that I was capable of extreme violence, and I avoided close relationships because I didn’t trust myself. Now it’s as though a huge weight has been lifted off me and I feel free.’ Life suddenly seemed full of possibilities and for the first time in his life he was excited by the future, Diego realised.
As he looked at Clare, he was aware of a strange constriction in his chest that was not caused by his claustrophobia. His gaze lowered to the very faint swell of her stomach and the ache in his heart intensified as he visualised the scan image of their baby that he had seen on the ultrasound screen a week ago.
Emotions flooded through him, but he had spent twenty years suppressing his emotions and he was almost afraid of the strength of his feelings. He needed to regain control of himself and take charge of the future.
‘We need to talk, and make plans,’ he said gruffly. ‘First off, you need to sign the document so that we can register our intent to marry.’ He frowned as the lift halted unexpectedly at the eighth floor, which was where the Cazorra Corporation’s offices were. The doors opened and a huge cheer went up from the dozens of members of staff who were crowded around the lift entrance.
‘What’s going on?’ Diego demanded as his PA stepped forwards.
‘The figures for DC Diamonds’ first two months of trading have been issued, and profits are double what they were predicted to be,’ Juliana explained. ‘I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that you had arranged for all the staff to be paid a bonus today. Everyone wanted to say thank you.’ She had to raise her voice above the loud cheer that went up from the crowd.
Diego glanced at the sheet of figures Juliana had given him and grinned. ‘The profits made by the Cazorra Corporation’s newest venture are certainly something to celebrate with champagne.’
The staff gave another cheer, someone was blowing into a vuvuzela—a long plastic trumpet more usually heard at football matches. Champagne corks shot into the air and Diego was pulled into the party.
Clare was left alone in the lift. She watched Diego chatting with Juliana before he was mobbed by some of the dancers from his nightclub, who crowded round him. The sound of his laughter was audible above the babble of voices and he looked more relaxed and happier than Clare had ever seen him. But moments ago he had been frowning when he’d mentioned the marriage application document, which she had yet to sign.
She pressed a button to close the doors, and as the lift ascended to the top floor she pictured Diego surrounded by his staff who clearly adored him. He had looked as if a weight really had been lifted from him. For the first time since he had been freed from prison he was truly free.
* * *
Diego sipped his champagne and looked around the open-plan office for Clare. He smiled as he watched his staff enjoying the impromptu party, but he could not see her auburn hair amid the crowd, and when he asked his PA if she’d seen her, Juliana shook her head.
He wanted to celebrate DC Diamonds’ success with her. After all, it was Clare’s brilliant PR campaign to promote the jewellery shop that was responsible for the excellent profits. He owed her so much. Without her support he would not have made another attempt to find his mother and he would have spent the rest of his life believing he had once acted with such violence that he had killed a man.
He understood now that he had deliberately avoided close relationships because he had been afraid of hurting someone he cared about if he ever lost his temper. But now that fear had gone, just as his irrational fear of confined spaces had disappeared. When he had told Clare he felt free, he hadn’t fully realised the implications of his newfound freedom. He did now. He was free to admit to the emotions surging through him, free to open his heart to love.
The lift took him swiftly up to the penthouse and he checked in the lounge and library before he hurried down the hallway to Clare’s bedroom. His heart was pounding with a mixture of nerves and hopeful anticipation, but when he knocked on the door and entered her room he felt a jolt of surprise that turned to unease as he saw her rucksack on the bed.
She walked through from her sitting room and Diego’s confusion deepened at the sight of her in the khaki shorts and T-shirt that she had been wearing when they had escaped from Torrente. His gaze zoomed to her passport that she was holding and he guessed from her pink-rimmed eyes that she had been crying. That shocked him the most. He had never seen her cry before, even when she had been scared by the python in the rainforest and terrified by the far more dangerous snake Rigo.
He wanted to stride acros
s the room and pull her into his arms, but two decades of hiding his feelings was a hard habit to break, and he leaned nonchalantly against the door frame and folded his arms over his chest. ‘I see you found your passport in my room, although I don’t know why you need it. I’m also curious about why you are wearing your old clothes. Are we going to take another trip through the rainforest? I’ll get my hat.’
She walked over to the bed and dropped her passport into her bag, taking care, Diego noted, to avoid looking directly at him. ‘We are not going anywhere,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve decided to fly home to England. I don’t want to tell my parents about the baby over the phone.’
‘Fine, we’ll go together so that I can meet your family before we get married. We can even have our wedding in England if you want.’
‘I don’t. I...I’m not going to marry you.’
‘Deus, Clare.’ Diego’s iron grip on his emotions snapped. ‘What the hell is the matter? You agreed we would get married once you had passed the first three months of your pregnancy.’ He strode over to her and caught hold of her shoulder, spinning her round to face him. She was pale, and the sight of faint tear streaks on her cheeks made his gut clench. ‘Do you feel ill? I thought the sickness was getting better.’
‘I feel fine.’ She dropped her head but Diego slid his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face upwards. She was so beautiful. He breathed in the fragrant rose perfume she always wore and felt a flare of panic when he realised how tense she was. Was she afraid of him?
‘You know that my mother admitted she killed the guy, not me,’ he said hoarsely. He remembered his mother had written her confession in Portuguese. ‘If you don’t believe me, I’ll give you the letter and you can have it translated.’
‘I do believe you.’
He wasn’t convinced. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, querida. I would never hurt you or our child.’
‘I know you wouldn’t.’ Clare bit her lip. This was even more difficult than she had expected. But she knew she was doing the right thing, and her resolve hardened. ‘We don’t have to be married for our baby to take your name. When he or she is born we can simply register them with the name Cazorra. Nor do we have to be married to be parents to our child. I am willing to move to Brazil so that we can live near each other and take an equal share of parenting. Many families have arrangements that aren’t conventional, and if we both try we can make the arrangement I’ve described work for us and, more importantly, for our child.’
A cold hand of fear curled around Diego’s heart when he saw Clare’s determined expression. ‘When we first found out about your pregnancy, I told you I couldn’t be a proper husband and father because I was afraid that I might be a murderer and I could not put you or our child at risk of my temper. But now I know the truth and I am free of that worry.’
‘Exactly,’ Clare said huskily. ‘You are finally free, Diego. You spent two years in prison but twenty years imprisoned in your mind for a crime you didn’t commit. Do you think I haven’t worked out that you shunned relationships and never allowed yourself to fall in love because you were afraid of yourself, and afraid that you might be a manic killer? That must have been an unbearable burden to carry.’
She had to be brave, even though she could feel her heart breaking, Clare told herself. ‘I conceived your baby as a result of a moment of madness. I refuse to sentence you to be imprisoned in a marriage of convenience because you feel it is your duty to your child. For the first time in your life you are free to fall in love and choose the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with.’
Wild and uncontrollable emotions were storming through Diego, smashing down the last of his barriers and making him feel exposed and vulnerable in a way he had never felt before. He thought he understood what Clare was doing, why she seemed to be pushing him away. But he could be wrong and if he was, and she really did not want to marry him, then the future looked unbearably bleak.
‘And what if I choose you as the woman I want to spend my life with?’ he said roughly. ‘What if I told you I love you? Would you agree to marry me then?’
She shook her head and Diego stared into the abyss.
‘It’s a little too convenient for you to suddenly decide you are in love with me.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘I know why you said it. I know you want to be a devoted father like you wish your father had been. I promise I will never come between you and your child.’ A single tear slipped down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away. ‘You will be a wonderful father,’ she choked out, but Diego did not appear to be listening.
‘Convenient! There is nothing convenient about loving you, anjinho. I knew when I first saw you, a picture of innocence in your nun’s habit and veil, that you were trouble,’ he growled. ‘I wanted to do all sorts of unholy things to you, and when we made love in the cave I was willing to pay for my sin of desiring you by spending the rest of my life in purgatory—because that night was the most beautiful night of my life.’
He cradled her face in his hands and gently wiped another tear from her cheek with his thumb. ‘I should have been furious when I discovered you had tricked me and were not committed to a life of religious devotion, but all I could think of was that you were free to come to my bed.’ His eyes darkened with remembered shadows. ‘But I wasn’t free to follow my heart and fall in love with you. I had to protect you from the monster I believed was inside me.’
‘Oh, Diego, it breaks my heart to think of all the years you spent alone, fearing to love anyone,’ Clare whispered.
He breathed deeply and prayed for the first time in his life. ‘The truth is that I never met any woman who touched my heart until I met you, meu amor.’ His voice deepened. ‘I love you, Clare. Not because it is convenient and not because you are carrying my child. I love you because you are the bravest, craziest, most beautiful, sexiest woman I have ever met. When you told me you trusted me, you made me feel like I could conquer the world. But I don’t want the world, all I want is you. Our baby will be a wonderful bonus. But I am asking you, querida, I am begging you to marry me, because you are everything to me and without you I am nothing.’
The look in Diego’s eyes was love, Clare realised dazedly. His words had chipped away at her defences, but the raw emotion blazing in his silver gaze made her believe him.
‘When I said I wouldn’t marry you, I was trying to be noble,’ she explained shakily. ‘You could have any woman you choose...’
‘I choose you,’ he said fiercely. ‘I don’t want you to be noble, I want you to love me.’
She heard the boy beneath the man, the poet who had read words of love but never heard them spoken to him. Clare reached up and stroked her fingers across the blond stubble on his jaw, traced his beautiful mouth with her fingertips.
‘I do love you, with all my heart and all my soul. You are the other half of me, my hero, my protector, my lover and my husband—I hope,’ she added tremulously.
‘Try and stop me,’ Diego whispered against her lips, before he claimed her mouth and kissed her with all the passion and tenderness and love that he had kept locked inside him for so long, until Clare had unlocked his heart and set him free.
* * *
Six months later baby Rose Cazorra entered the world and promptly stole her parents’ hearts.
‘You wouldn’t believe such a tiny baby could have such a loud cry,’ Diego said as he cradled his daughter in his arms. ‘I think Rose has inherited your fiery temperament, as well as your red hair and blue eyes,’ he told Clare.
She smiled. ‘You could be right. Mum says I had a very loud cry when I was a baby. I can’t wait for my parents to arrive tomorrow to visit their new granddaughter. We haven’t seen them since our wedding.’
They had married in England five months earlier in a simple but intensely moving ceremony at Clare’s parish church. She had worn a white dress decorated with tiny crystals, and white rosebuds in her hair. Diego had looked eye-catchingly handsome in a light grey suit, but
his eyes had been focused on his new wife as they had stood on the steps of the church and he’d swept her into his arms and kissed her.
‘Te adoro,’ he had whispered to her on their wedding day, and he repeated those words now, first to his baby daughter as he placed her in her crib, and then to Clare when he lay down beside her on their bed and drew her into his arms. ‘You are my world, you and Rose, and I will take care of you and protect you and love you every day of my life,’ he vowed.
‘Only every day?’ She pretended to pout. ‘Will you love me every night, too? Starting with tonight.’
Diego felt his body stir as desire heated his blood when Clare tugged the straps of her negligee down and her breasts spilled into his hands. ‘It’s only a few weeks since you gave birth to Rose. Do you feel ready for me to make love to you, querida?’
‘I always want you to love me,’ she whispered, tugging him down on top of her.
‘I always will, anjinho.’
* * * * *
In case you missed it, book one in the BOUGHT BY THE BRAZILIAN duet MISTRESS OF HER REVENGE is available now!
Uncover the wealthy Di Sione family’s sensational secrets in the brand new eight book series THE BILLIONAIRE’S LEGACY beginning with DI SIONE’S INNOCENT CONQUEST by Carol Marinelli
Also available this month.
Keep reading for an exclusive extract of SLEEPLESS IN MANHATTAN, the first book in USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan’s enthralling new trilogy, FROM MANHATTAN WITH LOVE!
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