In Alistair MacCraig’s BMW.
10.01 a.m.
Being away from her had only made Alistair crave Sophia all the more. He missed the scent of her hair, the feel of her satin skin under his fingertips, the way she called his name in a low cry just before she came, the sensation of her moving underneath him, with him.
He needed to hear her voice, her laughter. He needed her back, by his side, in his bed. He needed to know that she still wanted him. He needed to be inside her. He needed to make love to her like he needed air to breathe. He needed her.
Sex was his apple a day, and he needed it. He needed to show her not with words but with actions that he loved her, worshipped her, would do anything for her. That was the way he knew how to express his feelings.
But she didn’t seem to need him.
Certainly, she didn’t want him.
She had left him and she hadn’t answered any of his messages or calls.
I’m going mad, I’m sure. He picked up his iPhone and called Baptist. “Any news?” He tried to keep the strain out of his voice, but failed miserably.
“Mr. MacCraig, I was just about to call you. She’s just taken a flight to the end of the world,” he chuckled.
What the fuck? Another one making fun of my desperate situation. Alistair frowned, “Huh? I don’t pay you to be funny, I pay you for information, Baptist.” Alistair heard the investigator’s reply, his spirit returned. He touched the intercom. “Change of plans, Garrick. My place, please.”
“Thank you, Baptist. Send all the information you’ve gathered by email asap,” he said and tapped the screen, answering Tavish’s call. “Aye?”
“Where are you?” Tavish asked brusquely.
“Going home. I discovered where Sophia is.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Tavish disconnected.
Alistair shrugged at the screen and immediately called MacKeenan with a long list of orders.
Alistair MacCraig’s Apartment.
10.55 a.m.
His door bell rang insistently. Alistair opened his apartment door to look at his brother’s turbulent sea green eyes.
Tavish stalked into his brother’s living room without saying a word, determination stamped on his face and flung himself in the armchair.
He leered at his brother and said, “You look like crap, Alistair Connor.”
Alistair sighed, two full days of no information had done nothing, but make him more miserable. He knew there were huge shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping well. He hadn’t been sleeping at all. Now, if he wasn’t mistaken, Tavish was there to lecture him about Sophia.
“Thank you, Tavish Uilleam and good morning to you, too. Is there something else you wanted to say, other than to give me an update on my looks?”
“You did it again, didn’t you?”
Tavish’s turbulent personality was diametrically opposed to his own. Alistair could see he was angry and that he was spoiling for a fight. If Alistair didn’t control himself, they would be at each other’s throats in a few minutes.
“I beg your pardon?” What did I do now?
“I was in your office when Baptist’s email came through. It flashed on your computer screen.” Tavish’s lips curled up. “You should be more careful.”
“And what did you see?” Alistair raised an eyebrow. “Just a name and the fact that I had incoming email. No one has ever broken into my computer.” He fisted his hands, irritated. He had been estranged from Tavish ever since Heather had entered his life. After Sophia, they were beginning to get closer again, but at that exact moment Alistair’s patience was wearing thin.
Don’t go there again, Alistair Connor. He is your brother. Listen to him. Maybe he wants to tell you something important. Alistair grimaced as another thought complemented the first. Like he tried with Heather. Tavish Uilleam has good instincts. “You were telling me about my looks and Baptist.”
Tavish crossed his long legs and demanded, “I want to reread her letter.”
Alistair fished Sophia’s letter from his desk and handed it to Tavish, slouching in his armchair again. He sighed and watched Tavish glowering at the letter as he reread it. “Sophia is in Argentina.”
“I know,” he smirked. “I spoke to Sophia this morning.” Tavish dropped the bomb without warning.
“You-” he halted in the middle of his living room. “Come again?”
“I spoke to Sophia this morning,” he repeated slowly. “Around eight. She was worried about you.”
“She called you?” Alistair was openmouthed, jealousy gripping his heart, and he whispered, “What for?”
“She was worrying about you, at four o’clock in the morning Rio time. Can you believe it? Worrying. About. You.” Tavish shook his head, as if horrified by the thought.
He cursed under his breath. Tavish Uilleam, stay out of this. You think you’re the sole detainer of the truth- Stop, Alistair Connor. Just stop. He’s right and you know it. If you’d been more like your old self, Sophia wouldn’t have run away. But she ran away because she’s also keeping secrets from me. “Call her. I want to talk to her.” He closed his eyes and breathed twice before pleading, “Please.”
“I warned you, Alistair Connor. How many times? She doesn’t want to talk to you. She doesn’t want to see you.”
Alistair clenched his hands to control his temper. When Tavish rose from his chair and leisurely walked to the windows, standing with his hands on his back, he lost it.
“Fuck, Tavish Uilleam!” He punched the arm of his seat. “How. Is. She?”
Tavish slowly turned on his heels, so slowly that Alistair wanted to punch him and break his nose again.
“Sophia is unhappy. Confused. Lonely. Hurt,” he said. “You know, the typical things one feels when betrayed by someone one loves.”
“I didn’t betray her,” Alistair was astonished at his brother’s words.
“There are many forms of betrayal, Brother.” Tavish handed the letter back to Alistair taking a last look at the creamy sheets of paper filled with Sophia’s neat and feminine handwriting. He glared at his brother. “She is brokenhearted and confused. And she thinks she betrayed you. You lied, Alistair.”
Who would have guessed that Tavish and Sophia could form such a close friendship? Then a thought hit him. He wasn’t so sure it was only friendship. They have too much in common. They have lost too much, in a very similar way.
He shoved a hand into his hair and studied his brother’s face trying to understand, to perceive any kind of desire in it. He was a master at discovering other people’s feelings, but it seems that when it came to Sophia his senses were all jumbled. “She lied too. She equally betrayed me.”
“I’m sure, given her letter and everything we talked about, that Sophia hadn’t had the smallest inkling of what your preferences were,” said Tavish without acknowledging his brother’s answer. He opened his wallet and took a folded sheet of paper from it. “You left her in the dark. You lied. You betrayed her. It seems Sophia and I have the same opinion about moral and ethics. And, Alistair Connor, you’re so fucking lucky,” Tavish muttered and gave his brother the sheet of paper. “This is where Sophia is. The woman who is in love with you. Madly in love with you. If you so much as hurt a hair on her head, if you don’t marry this woman and be as happy as you should have been from the beginning... I am going to break your nose so bad, you’ll always remember what you lost when you look in the mirror.”
Alistair’s lips curled up. “You are right, you know? I lied, but I’m going to make it right.”
He turned and entered his bedroom to finish packing with Tavish Uilleam at his heels.
Chapter 24
Argentina, Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia.
Los Cauquenes Resort & Spa.
Friday, April 9th, 2010.
9.01 a.m.
Alistair knew that all he wanted was waiting for him beyond the locked door. He breathed deep, willing some strength into his tired body. In spite of the sixteen hour fligh
t and the four hour time difference, he’d only managed to sleep a few hours on the plane.
He knocked firmly on the large door and had to wait a long time before it opened. Zareb’s big body blocked the entrance.
“Good morning, Mr. MacCraig,” the bodyguard politely acknowledged Alistair, waiting for him to state his wishes.
Alistair mused that appearances could be deceiving. Zareb’s permanent wide smile hid an impressively alert and expeditious man.
Alistair drew himself up to his full height towering over the bodyguard, who smiled even widely seeing through Alistair’s posing.
“Good morning, Zareb. I would like to talk with Mrs. Leibowitz.” And I’m not budging from here until I do.
“I’ll handle this, Zareb,” a mellifluous male voice said from behind the broad bodyguard.
He instantly recognized Felipe, Sophia’s brother, as he stepped out of the suite and closed the door behind him.
Alistair cleared his throat, conscious of Felipe’s cautious gaze studying him from head to toe.
“Alistair Connor MacCraig, I presume,” Felipe stretched his hand with a small curl on his lips.
Aye. The bastard that scared your sister away. Alistair sagged inwards. “And you are Felipe Espírito Santo,” he replied.
“Guilty.” Felipe smiled as he shook Alistair’s hand. “How do you do?”
“How do you do?” He was looking at an older male version of Sophia. Come on, Alistair Connor, charm the guy. “I couldn’t have mistaken you for a second. You are Sophia’s twin.”
“I like to think that I am.” Felipe’s smile opened. “Sophia is still sleeping. Let’s get some coffee while Maria finishes dressing Gabriela.”
“I have no idea what Sophia told you,” Alistair said as he sat across from Felipe in the dining room with an incredible view of the large blue channel.
“She told me many things, but I’d rather you told me your version of the facts.”
“So, I’ll start from the beginning.” They have more in common than just their looks. Gazing distractedly into the Martial Mountains and its snowy peaks, Alistair quickly told him how he’d met Sophia, about their relationship, what had happened in the last few days and what his intentions were, omitting Sophia’s discovery in his dressing room.
“So,” he concluded, “it was more of a misunderstanding.”
Felipe keenly stared at Alistair, evaluating his words and weighing them against what he knew from Sophia. He knew there was a piece missing in the puzzle, but he couldn’t see what it was. Nonetheless, there was something innately protective and fierce about this huge man that made him give Alistair’s story some credit. “Let’s me be frank here, Alistair. I don’t know you, but I know my sister. We are very close. But for once, I know she is holding something back. Something very serious must have happened to make her flee like that. She is devastated, which means, to say the least, that she cares for you a lot and is suffering. However, all she told me was that she remembered the night of the kidnapping and that when you proposed, she got confused. I would have believed it if she had told me this on the phone, not in person, having come all the way down to Rio, right after your proposal. It doesn’t make sense.” His lips curled in a self-deprecating grimace. “I must look very gullible to you both. Do you want my help? Try telling me what she won’t.”
Perspicacious, aren’t you? You would use all your power to impede her from seeing me again. Alistair schooled his face as his mind concocted a half-truth. “That was all she told you? That she was confused by my proposal?” On his face, Alistair plastered a surprised look. Think, Alistair Connor. Think.
“Yeah.”
Just checking. Alistair’s relieved smile surfaced briefly, then he sobered. “She said she couldn’t burden me with her secrets and crimes. She left me for her own reasons. She had already said no to my proposal the day before. She thinks rather badly of herself.”
“Oh, no!” Felipe rolled his eyes heavenward, exactly like Sophia when she was irritated. “She’s not still saying she is a criminal, is she?”
“She is,” he said. I wish that were the whole truth.
“This is all my fault,” he muttered under his breath. “I put this idea in her mind. I was angry-” Felipe breathed deeply and took a firm decision. To an increasingly incredulous Alistair, Felipe explained the whole story of how the criminals had sent Sophia proof that Gabriel was still alive, about the financial help the Leibowitzes had given to the slum and the drug lord’s decision to disregard Sophia’s order not to kill them.
Alistair was speechless.
“I was shocked too. I couldn’t believe my gentle, gentle sister had asked for their fingers to be cut off. Things got of control. They were all killed, except for one who got away. She feels responsible for their deaths.”
“It’s neither here nor there.” He looked down at his plate, unable to eat anything else. I wish Heather had felt the same love for me. He looked at the scenery outside, feeling relieved by finally knowing Sophia’s secret. “I love her and the rest is absolutely irrelevant to me. It’s not something I could ever have guessed, but it’s not going to stop me from being with her.” If you only knew the dark secrets I keep, Felipe, they’re nothing compared to this. “Can it be traced back to her?”
“No,” Felipe shook his head. “There’s a pact of secrecy around it.”
“Good. I’m marrying her even if I have to spend all my life try-”
Something made him turn toward the door. Sophia.
He was still attuned to her.
But Alistair was not ready for his first glimpse of Sophia.
In the doorway, she had stopped dead in her tracks, white as the small patch of gauze that protected the stitches on her head.
The sight of her was a caresses on his sore heart. He let himself bask in her beauty. But there was also a sadness he hadn’t seen before. The light make up didn’t quite conceal the bruises on her left temple and the shadows under her eyes, and her raven hair loosely flowing around her accentuated her paleness. Her morning clothes were elegant, but her posture was despondent. Her faded blue jeans were baggy on her hips and thighs. She is not eating. Nor sleeping.
He noticed that her jeans were paired with a baby blue anorak with navy details opened to show an orange turtleneck sweater underneath.
He smiled. It is so like Sophia to dress colorfully. My private ray of sun. My Beauty.
He rose and everything happened at the same time.
Gabriela squealed delighted and ran in his direction.
Sophia swiftly gave an order to Maria and whirled around, almost running away from him, her heeled booties echoing in the quiet hotel.
Felipe turned and saw Sophia spinning on her heels. “Oh, damn!”
Gabriela flung herself into Alistair’s waiting open arms and hugged his neck, kissing his check, “Hi, Alistair. Hello!”
“Hello, Fairy. How are you?”
“I will talk to her.” Felipe raised from the table, as Gabriela chatted away and told him everything she’d been doing during the last few days.
10.38 a.m.
Felipe’s expression was one of guileless innocence. Alistair had proven his point to him and he transmitted it to Sophia the best way he could. But she was not budging from her position.
As a man who had been through what he had, he could relate to what Alistair was feeling. As a brother, all he wanted was Sophia to be happy. She deserved it more than anyone. He knew that if he wanted to convince his sister, he would have to pull the right strings.
“Sophia, when I told him about what you have done, he didn’t care-”
Sophia paled so suddenly that Felipe sat her down.
“Who gave you the right to tell him?” she asked hoarsely, shaking her head. “Felipe...” Tears filled her eyes and she put her face in her hands.
“Sis. You are making your mistake greater than it is. Making mistakes are part of being human. Learn from it and move on. You’re letting go a precious li
fe lesson. Wisdom can only be learned the hard way.” He took her hands in his and made Sophia look at him. “My dear, you’re not perfect and, you know what? That’s a good thing.”
“I know,” she sighed forlornly. “I wish I could undo what I have done.”
“The past cannot be changed, but the future is yours. Don’t waste it trying to change the unchangeable.”
“Anyway, it was my secret to tell, not yours. Now, I’m even less ready to face him,” she shook her head in such an unhappy way, which told Felipe that she loved Alistair as much as he loved her.
“Sis, really, I think you are being too stubborn. He came all this way... To the end of the world!” Felipe mocked, hoping for one of Sophia’s smiles, but when her shoulders just sagged unhappily, he tried another approach. “Did you see Gabriela when she saw him? Did you see his face when he saw you? He is willing to wait for you. I mean, why not give yourselves another chance? Hear him out.”
Because I won’t be able to resist. That’s why. She sat on one of the reclining chairs on the veranda, watching her brother. I was counting on you to resist Alistair’s charms. Sophia could have sworn Felipe was impervious to all forms of influence. But I should have known better. Alistair Connor is the most charming man in the whole planet. “I need more time, Felipe.”
“Sophia,” he sat beside her. “I-”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Leibowitz,” Zareb interrupted Felipe. “Mr. Davidoff is in the adjoining room. He-.”
“Edward is here?” Sophia’s eyes rounded.
“Sophia!” Edward barreled through the door.
Yes. Definitely Edward is here. Sophia was aggravated. “How did you find me?”
“Hello to you too, love!” Edward bent and kissed Sophia’s cheeks and took a seat on the other reclining chair. He tsked twice and shook his blond head. “You look terrible.”
“What is everyone’s problem?” Sophia complained to the two men. “You keep pointing out my flaws.”
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