Cat stiffened in his arms. “No! Jake, you said—”
“Me, sweetheart. I’m that guy.”
“You?”
“My old man was a Brazilian citizen. His name and nationality are right there on my birth certificate. That gives me dual citizenship. I’m American…and I’m Brazilian.” He tried, and failed, to look stern and serious. “And, as you well know, I’m a very proper man.”
It took a moment to sink in. When it did, Cat began to smile.
“That means our marriage will fulfill the terms of my parents’ will and of Enrique’s, too.”
“You’ll get your inheritance.”
“I don’t care about that! What matters is that Estes will tell you the names of your brothers.”
“Better than that. The three of us are going to meet in his office.”
“When?”
“He’ll phone with the date.”
Cat’s smile broadened. “That wily old fox. He knew, didn’t he? He knew we were meant for each other…and so did your father.”
My father, Jake thought, trying the words for size. Was it possible? At this point he was willing to admit it might be.
“Maybe. But right now…” Jake’s arms tightened around Catarina. “Right now I think you should know something about proper Brazilian husbands.”
She caught his teasing tone. Smiling, she linked her hands behind his neck.
“What’s that, senhor?”
“They believe that snowy nights and snowy days should be spent in bed.”
Jake began to climb the stairs with Cat in his arms. She pressed her lips to his throat.
“What about starry nights and sunny days?”
“Bed,” he said solemnly.
“And rainy nights?”
“And rainy days.” Jake shouldered open the door to his bedroom. To our bedroom, he thought, and his heart filled with joy.
“In fact,” he said softly, “I can’t think of a better place to spend the rest of our lives, sweetheart.”
“Neither can I,” Cat whispered, and drew his mouth down to hers for a kiss.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MAYBE there came a time in every man’s life when he felt unnecessary.
Superfluous might be more accurate.
Jake introduced his mother to his bride-to-be at Sarah’s apartment on Sutton Place
, had all of an evening to beam as he watched the women in his life form an instant bond…and then discovered what all men discover when the word “wedding” is spoken.
He was unnecessary, superfluous and, more to the point, in the way.
“A wedding next week?” his mother said in horror. “It isn’t possible! Catarina? Tell my son we need more time than that to get ready.”
“More time for what?” said Jake, in his innocence.
“For what, he asks.” Sarah rolled her eyes at Catarina, who smiled at Jake but rolled her eyes right back at her mother-in-law-to-be.
“Where will you have the ceremony? The reception?”
“At my place. Our place,” Jake said, taking Cat’s hand.
Cat nodded and wove her fingers through his. “The ceremony before that wonderful fireplace in the living room, and with the doors to the library flung open for the reception.”
“Perfect.”
That was it, then, Jake thought—but his women had launched into female-speak. It didn’t take him long to realize he’d never understand the language.
“Who’ll do the flowers?”
Who’ll do the flowers? What was there to do? You phoned the florist, ordered a corsage. Two corsages. Okay, two corsages and a boutonnière. Okay, yeah, and maybe a bouquet for the mantel.
“And the caterer. Of course it depends on the time of day. Brunch is always nice.”
Brunch? Brunch was definitely a word in female-speak. No man Jake had ever met could make sense of a meal that was neither breakfast or lunch.
“And musicians,” Sarah said. “Three pieces, perhaps. A pianist, a violinist, a cellist. And of course you’ll have to find the right gown.”
“Honey?” Jake cleared his throat. “I thought we were going to have a small wedding.”
“We will,” his mother said, answering for Catarina, “but that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful. Isn’t that right, Catarina?”
Jake looked at Cat. Her eyes were shining; she had the same little smile on her lips as the one on that Italian lady in the portrait that hung in the Louvre.
“Well,” she said softly, “flowers and some music would be nice. What do you think, Jake?”
What Jake thought, as he gazed at the woman he loved, was that he was an idiot. His Cat had spent years in the austere surroundings of a convent school. If she wanted a wedding with all the trimmings, by God, she’d have one.
Smiling, he put an arm around each of his women.
“I think all of it would be nice,” he said bravely. “The gown, the musicians, the caterer, the flowers. Everything you want, sweetheart.”
Cat touched her hand to his face. “I already have everything I want,” she said softly. “I have you.”
Sarah Reece, who had watched her son go from troubled boy to determined man, who’d watched him earn the millions that had changed her life and his, knew that what she was seeing now was all that mattered.
Her Joaquim was happy.
She held back until the lovers had kissed her goodbye and left. Then she let the tears come. After a while, she sighed, put on her coat and went to a little church nearby. There, in its comforting silence, she lifted her face to the vaulted darkness and sent a message to a man she hated for abandoning her and loved for giving her Jake.
“Enrique,” she said softly, “wherever you are…thank you for finally doing something right.”
They were married a month later, before the fireplace that was garlanded with white and pink roses.
Sarah had arranged everything, with Belle’s help. A handful of Jake’s friends—friends who now were Cat’s—attended the ceremony and the brunch that followed.
The bride was beautiful, the groom handsome. Most people thought they were crazy to head north to the Adirondack Mountains for their honeymoon. The winter, everyone pointed out, was an especially snowy one; didn’t they want to go where it was warm and sunny?
“We like snow,” Jake said, and Cat blushed and buried her face in his shoulder.
The day after they returned home a letter was hand-delivered to Jake’s office. The vellum envelope, bearing a Brazilian stamp, was marked “Private” and “Confidencial.”
Jake felt a tightness in his throat when he saw it—he had not heard from Javier Estes since he’d phoned him with news of his marriage to Catarina—but he waited until he got home that night to open it.
He wanted his wife with him.
They sat before the fireplace in their bedroom. Jake took a deep breath and tore open the envelope.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see below the now-familiar name of Javier Estes. The attorney had promised Jake a meeting with his brothers, but perhaps he’d changed his mind. Perhaps he’d simply sent two names, two addresses and telephone numbers.
What he found was a note written in Estes’s hand. Jake read aloud. “‘Dear Ramirez, I am sure you will be happy to learn that your half-brothers have also successfully completed their tasks.”’ He looked up at Cat. “I figured they’d have to jump through some hoops, too.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Thank God my jump led to you.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Go on,” she said. “Read the rest.”
“‘If you wish to meet them, please appear at my office promptly at four in the afternoon on the fourteenth of February.’ If I wish to meet them,” Jake said, and made a choked sound that was supposed to be a laugh.
Cat kissed him. “Only another few weeks! Oh, Jake, how wonderful.”
“There’s more.”
He read the final paragraph.
“‘You will, at the same time,
receive a check representing your share in your late father’s estate.”’
Estes had thoughtfully translated the amount of the inheritance into American dollars. Jake read it aloud.
It was an amazing figure.
“He probably stole it from widows and orphans,” Jake growled, though he knew that wasn’t true. One of the things he’d learned about his father was that Enrique had inherited a fortune and more than tripled it during his lifetime. “I already told Estes what he could do with that money. I sure as hell won’t touch it.”
Cat put her hand on his. “Maybe your brothers can put your share to good use.”
“If they’re anything like me,” Jake said decisively, “they won’t want it, either.”
But that was the question, wasn’t it? he thought later that night, as he lay in bed with his wife asleep in his arms. Were his half-brothers like him? Or were they like the man who’d sired them?
Another couple of months and he’d know.
They flew to Rio a few days before the scheduled meeting.
Jake had rented a duplex at Ipanema. The terrace, which overlooked the gorgeous beach, had its own private pool. After a little coaxing he convinced Catarina that the only way to enjoy that privacy was to swim nude—and to make love under the hot Brazilian sun.
“Wicked man,” Cat whispered the first time, in such a throaty purr as her body arched to his that Jake grinned and said yeah, and wasn’t she glad he was?
They walked on the beach, watched the sunset from the rocks at Arpoadoar, discovered tiny restaurants and elegant boutiques. At Jake’s urging Cat bought the kind of bikini that befitted a carioca, even though she refused to wear it anywhere but on their terrace—for him. They danced until dawn, swaying together to the hot, sensual beat of Rio’s music.
And then, at last, it was the fourteenth of February.
Jake awoke early, immediately aware that this was the day. Whatever happened at four o’clock would surely change his life.
He dropped a light kiss on his sleeping wife’s mouth, slipped on a pair of shorts and went out on the terrace.
Moments later Cat came up behind him, slid her arms around his waist and kissed his back.
“Good morning,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry I woke you, sweetheart,” he said, drawing her to his side.
“I put up the coffee.”
“Great.”
They stood in silence, watching a lone jogger on the beach below. Then Cat sighed.
“It’s going to be fine, Jake.”
There was no point pretending he didn’t know what she meant.
“It’s going to be. That’s all I know,” he said gruffly. “I’m meeting two strangers whose genes I share, and when I do…Well, who knows? They might turn out to be guys I’d like to know better or—”
“They will,” Catarina said quickly. “I feel it in my bones.”
He looked down at her and smiled. “Such beautiful bones.”
She smiled, too. Then she turned in his arms and faced him. “I love you, Joaquim Ramirez.”
Jake tilted her face to his. “And that’s all that matters,” he said, and knew in his heart it was true.
And yet, he thought, and yet how incredible it would be if his brothers turned out to be men he’d be proud to call his friends.
A little after two-thirty he kissed Cat goodbye and took a taxi to the offices of Javier Estes. He’d figured on traffic. Besides, by then he’d been pacing the terrace like a trapped animal.
“Go,” Cat had said gently, when he’d said maybe he ought to get started.
But when he stepped out of the cab he still had forty minutes to kill. No way was he going up to Estes’s office to wait that out.
The street could have been one in New York. Tall buildings crowded together, but he could see a break in the unrelenting glass and steel forest right across the way, where a neon sign said Café.
Jake checked for a break in the stream of cars and trucks, found one and jogged toward it.
The café was a cool, dimly lit oasis. Leather booths, mostly unoccupied, stretched the length of one wall, and a zinc bar stood to the right, where a lone bartender was polishing glasses. The man acknowledged Jake with a polite smile and a lift of his eyebrows.
“Um whisky, por favor,” Jake said.
The bartender nodded. “Sorry,” he said, in perfect English. “I thought the girl served you before she went on her break.”
“I’m afraid you have me confused with another patron,” Jake said politely.
The bartender cocked his head. “Yeah. Now that I take a second look…” He nodded. “Whiskey, you said? Scotch?”
“Yeah. Laphroaig, if you have it, and bottled water on the—”
“Side.” Another smile as the bartender poured the drink, then the water. “Amazing.”
“What is?” Jake said, as he took out his wallet and put down some bills.
“That guy in the back. The last booth. He ordered Laphroaig, too, with bottled water on the side, and he looks enough like you to be your—Hey! Hey, you forgot your whiskey!”
The man in the last booth had risen to his feet and was staring at Jake. Jake returned the stare.
The hair rose on the back of his neck.
He could have been looking into a mirror.
Everything was the same. Height. Weight. Build. The ink-black hair that curled over his forehead no matter how he tried to prevent it. Green eyes. Even that little indentation in the chin he’d nicked a dozen times as a kid, first learning to shave.
Hell, the guy was his doppelganger.
Jake swallowed hard and walked toward the back of the room just as the other man began moving toward him. They met mid-way, and now Jake could see there were differences. It was the same face, the same build—and yet it wasn’t. The shape of the nose, of the eyes. Half an inch or so in height. The man facing him had a little less curl in his hair at the temples…
Jake cleared his throat.
“Are you…?” he said, just as the stranger opened his mouth and said the same words. Both of them hesitated.
“My name,” Jake said, “is—is Ramirez.”
The other man nodded. “Yes. Same here. Ramirez. Luis Ramirez.” He gave a little laugh. “Or Anton Scott-Lee. Depends on the time and place.”
“Jake,” Jake said. “Jake Ramirez. Or Joaquim.” Somehow he dredged up an answering laugh. “Depends on the time and place—and maybe on my mood.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Anton held out his hand and Jake took it. “Jake—good to meet you.”
“Same here, Luis. Or is it Anton?”
“Anton’s the name I grew up with.”
“I grew up with Jake.”
“Well, then, Anton and Jake it is.”
The men went on staring at each other. Then they smiled and ended the prolonged clasping of hands.
“So,” Jake said briskly, “is that a British accent?”
“I should hope so,” Anton said, his smile turning into a grin. “And you’re American?”
“Yes.”
“Well—”
“Well—”
“I don’t believe this,” a gruff voice said, and a third man joined them. He was tall. Had black hair. Green eyes. A cleft in his chin. He stared from Anton to Jake. “Don’t tell me,” he said softly. “You’re both named—”
“Ramirez,” Jake said. “And so are you.”
“Yes. Nicholas. Nick. I’m—I’m…”
“Australian?” Anton ventured.
Nick grinned. “Right. I’m just stunned. We look like a three-way mirror.”
“Triplets,” Anton said, grinning in return.
“Or a vaudeville routine,” Jake offered.
The men laughed. Then Anton gestured to the booth. “Shall we? I was just having a—”
“Scotch?” Jake said, checking the pale amber color of the liquid in the glass.
“Right. I’ll get the barman. You’ll want…?”
Jake, Anton and Nick looked at each other. Anton swallowed hard. “No,” he said softly, “I guess it doesn’t.”
They had dozens of things in common, and they’d yet to touch on their individual stories. Too complicated to go into now, with the clock ticking, Nick said. Jake and Anton agreed.
But all the rest was amazing. The sports they played. The places they enjoyed. Their preferences in Scotch whiskey. Their determination to make their own way in the world.
Their ideas of what constituted a desirable woman. Physical beauty, yes. But much more than that.
A woman had to be independent.
“Fiercely,” Jake said, “even when it can be a pain in the…butt.”
His brothers grinned, raised their glasses and touched them together.
She had to be strong.
“Strong as only a woman can be,” Anton said quietly, and they touched glasses again.
“Independent, strong…and with a generous heart,” Nick added.
Another ceremonial touching of the glasses and a celebratory swallow of whiskey.
“My Cat—Catarina—is all those things,” Jake said. “My bride.”
It turned out all three were newly married, and crazy about their wives.
“Wait until you meet my Tess,” Nick said.
“You’ll be crazy about my Cristina,” Anton said.
Smiles all around. Then Jake’s smile faded.
“I hate him,” he said quietly.
“Enrique?” Nick and Anton said, in one voice.
“Yeah. I didn’t even know he existed until a few months ago.”
Anton lifted his glass and looked at it as if it held deep secrets. “Neither did I.”
“Well, I knew he existed,” Nick said carefully. “I even met him.”
His brothers stared at him. “And? What was he like?”
There was a long silence. Then Nick shrugged. “There was a time I’d have said our father was soulless.”
“And now?” Anton said, leaning forward.
The Disobedient Virgin - The Ramirez Brides 03 Page 16