“No more than three days.”
The older woman nodded. “I’ll have Wilma show you to your rooms. Leave me the keys for your car and I’ll arrange for your luggage to be brought up.” She inhaled, her full breasts trembling noticeably under the silk fabric of her dress before she let out her breath. “I suppose you want to know about your father?” Chris’s response was a slight lifting of one eyebrow. “He’s not well,” Sonia continued. “The infection takes all of his strength.”
“What is the cause of the infection?”
“Acute myeloid leukemia. The infection stems from a delayed bone marrow transplant.” Sonia’s eyes filled with unshed tears. “The doctors couldn’t find a donor match. They tested me and a few cousins, but…” she shook her head as her words trailed off and she valiantly composed herself. “Even though I knew Alejandro had a son, I had come to think of my brother as the last of the Delgado-Quinteros.” Her expression hardened when she pursed her lips. “Alejandro probably will not live another three months, but our legacy will not die with him. The family name continues with you, Cristobal. You are a Delgado-Quintero.”
Emily studied Chris’s face, unable to believe that he had remained so composed. His aunt had just revealed that his father was dying of leukemia and he hadn’t even blinked. It was as if the man she had fallen in love with had affected an expression of stone, an expression so unnerving that it chilled her blood.
“Did you tell him that I’m here?” Chris asked with an aloofness that indicated that he could have been asking about the weather.
Sonia shook her head. “No. The doctor left only minutes before you arrived. He gave Alejandro something to help him sleep.”
“Is he in pain?” Again, his tone was neutral.
She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “It comes and goes. Today was not a good day for him.”
Closing his eyes, Chris pressed his head to the cushioned softness of his high-backed chair. The gesture was the first emotion he had exhibited since walking into the hacienda. He did not want to confront a terminally ill man—one who counted his days by the amount of pain he could endure when he did not mask it with a prescribed narcotic.
That meant he would have to wait—wait until Alejandro Delgado surfaced from his drug-induced sleep to answer his questions.
Sonia studied her nephew. He was an exact replica of his father at thirty-five years of age. The only exception was that Cristobal hadn’t inherited his father’s eyes, and the younger man’s height eclipsed her brother’s by at least four inches.
Placing her glass on the table, she rose to her feet, and Chris opened his eyes and stood up. “Come. It’s time for siesta.”
Wilma appeared, as if someone had rung a silent bell, summoning her. It was apparent that the housekeeper had been listening outside the door.
“Wilma, please take Señorita Kirkland to the bedroom overlooking the sanctuary. Señor Delgado will occupy the room across from his father.”
Emily felt the heat radiating from Chris’s gaze on her back as she turned and followed the housekeeper. They would sleep under the same roof but would not share the same bed. How had it happened so quickly? How had she grown so used to falling asleep in his arms? How had she come to crave him in the same manner an addict craved a drug?
Not sleeping together in Puerto Escondido would prepare them for their eventual return to the States. And when they returned all she would be left with would be the memories of what they’d shared in Ocho Rios—memories of their private passions. Memories that would have to sustain her until after the election.
The stubborn set of her delicate jaw revealed her determination. She could and would remain personally detached from Christopher Delgado. After all, she had had eighteen years of dress rehearsals.
Chapter 14
Chris followed Wilma and Emily as they made their way up a winding staircase with an elaborate wrought-iron railing. He hadn’t missed the timeless elegance of the centuries-old hacienda or the opulence of its priceless furnishings, wondering who had assumed responsibility for the upkeep on the property during Alejandro’s absence.
Wilma reached the top of the staircase and stopped. “Señor Delgado, your room.” She pointed to a closed door on her right, then continued in a shuffling gait down the wide hallway. The thick, whitewashed stone walls countered the buildup of western Mexico’s tropical heat.
Emily smiled at him over her shoulder, then followed the elderly woman to the end of the hall. He waited, watching Emily enter the room assigned to her. Wilma nodded at something Emily had said, then made her way down another staircase at the opposite end of the hall. Chris’s gaze swung to the open door less than ten feet from where he stood. All he had to do was cross the hall, walk into the bedroom and come face-to-face with his past.
But he decided to wait—wait until Alejandro was lucid. He wanted to see the look on the elder Delgado’s face when he stared up into a face from his past, a face he hadn’t seen in thirty-two years, a face that would remind him of what he’d looked like when he had allowed revenge to control his very existence.
* * *
Emily walked around her room, awed by its contents. There was no doubt that the house had been constructed during Mexico’s colonial period, but had been expanded and modernized with technological advances that had not diminished its original splendor.
Making her way across a terra-cotta floor to a casement window, she opened it and stepped out onto the second-story veranda. Resting her elbows on the wrought-iron railing, she gazed out on a small structure painted in bright yellow with a gleaming gold cross attached to its Baroque-style bell tower. It was probably the sanctuary Sonia had mentioned.
The sloping landscape, dotted with palm trees, led to the beach and the Pacific Ocean. She detected the smell of salt in the ocean breeze as she walked over to a cushioned rocker and sat down. Closing her eyes, she willed her mind blank, while experiencing an emotion of weightless peace. She felt as free as a feather floating on the wind.
The man she had loved for more than half her life had followed her to Jamaica, baring his soul. They had shared their love in the most intimate way possible, but what they’d shared over the past week would come to an abrupt end once they stepped foot onto U.S. soil. She would return to the TV station and Chris would begin what was certain to become a long, arduous and hard-fought campaign for the highest elected office in the state of New Mexico. Their lives would cross only in the political arena, while their private lives would be placed on hold until after the first Tuesday in November.
Could she wait that long for him? Could they wait that long for each other? Opening her eyes, she mumbled a silent prayer that she and Chris would be able to recapture what they’d discovered in Ocho Rios. What she refused to acknowledge was the possibility that if Chris became Governor Delgado he would change into someone she would not know nor want to know. Would his thirst for power make her regret ever loving him? And what might happen if he lost the election?
She spent her siesta on the veranda, sitting in the hot sun. When she returned to the bedroom she found her luggage by the bed. She unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged it off. She would shower, change her clothes, then seek out Chris.
* * *
A light rap on the door captured Chris’s rapt attention. He rose from the chair where he’d sat reading Don Quixote in Spanish. The last time he had been required to read Spanish had been as an undergraduate. He had faltered over the words, saying a few aloud, until he was able to grasp the language. The exercise reminded him of what lay ahead. His campaign manager had hired two speech writers: one for English, the other for Spanish. The fact that he was bilingual had given him a distinct advantage over his political opponent. There was no doubt that his senate victory by a mere sixty-four votes had been due to the heavier than usual turnout of Spanish-sp
eaking voters. He had less than a month before he began campaigning actively, but he knew it would be a plus if he could read Spanish as well as he spoke and understood it.
A young woman in a nurse’s uniform stood in the doorway staring at him. “Señor Delgado,” she whispered hoarsely, after finding her voice, “your father is awake. You may see him now.”
She moved aside as the tall, well-dressed American walked past her. Her admiring gaze lingered on his off-white raw silk shirt and the tailored precision of his coffee-brown slacks. Even his accessories were exquisite: the brown lizard belt circling his slim waist and a pair of brown woven leather loafers. His fluid elegant swagger was also in keeping with his being a Delgado-Quintero. Mexican history books had recorded the wealth and power of the Delgados—Spaniards who had come to the New World in search of gold.
The family also had its share of secrets and scandals. The nurse had grown up hearing her relatives gossip about Alejandro Delgado-Quintero’s fall from grace, fleeing his family lands before she was born. The wagging tongues started up again when word circulated that Mexico’s last Delgado-Quintero had returned to his familial hacienda to die.
But it appeared that the gossips were wrong. The Delgado-Quintero line would not end with Alejandro; there was no doubt his American son had come to claim his legacy.
Chris walked into the large, shady bedroom, his gaze fixed on a man who sat up in a massive bed with the aid of several pillows supporting his back. A lump rose in Chris’s throat, not permitting him to swallow as he neared the bed. Despite the heat, a chill racked his body as he stared at his own face in the throes of late middle age.
He had inherited Alejandro’s high, proud forehead, elegant cheekbones, nose, mouth and the cleft in his strong chin. Only the eyes and his coloring were different. The elder Delgado’s eyes were dark, but not as dark as his, and they did not tilt upwards as his did. And despite his illness, he had not lost his hair. Straight, graying black hair was neatly combed and parted on the left side of his noble head. Now seeing the vain, selfish, wealthy, powerful and vindictive man, Chris knew why his mother had been attracted to him. There was an air of refinement in Alejandro Delgado that even age and illness had not diminished.
Alejandro ignored the spasm of pain gripping his body as he stared at the son he hadn’t seen in over thirty years. It was as if he were looking in a mirror, and he saw things in his only child that no one else could see. He noted the slightest wave in his son’s hair—the blending of his own straight hair with Eve Blackwell’s curls. He felt as if he were looking into his ex-wife’s eyes. Closing his eyes, he pictured the woman he had fallen in love with on sight. A woman he had claimed as wife, a woman he had made a mother, a woman he’d lost because of his own weakness of the flesh.
Opening his eyes, Alejandro managed a crooked smile. “Come, sit down.” He had spoken English, a language he had only rarely used over the last three decades.
Chris moved closer and sat down on a chair beside the bed. He draped his right leg over his left knee in a smooth, continuous motion, resting his hands on the curved arms of the chair. Alejandro’s alert gaze followed the motions. His smile widened, revealing a set of perfect teeth despite his age and debilitating illness. Not only did his son resemble him, but he had also inherited his body language. Their walk and the way they sat was identical.
“I can speak Spanish,” Chris said in a terse tone.
“But I prefer speaking English,” Alejandro countered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the luxury of speaking the language,” he said in British-accented English, while straightening a lightweight beige blanket over the pair of maroon silk pajamas concealing his wasting body.
A muscle twitched in Chris’s jaw, indicating his annoyance. It was apparent that the man hadn’t changed from the one his mother had told him about. Alejandro still wanted to control everything and everyone who came into contact with him.
“I’ve come because I want answers,” Chris continued, deliberately speaking Spanish.
“Your mother should have given you the answers,” Alejandro shot back in English.
Chris’s fingers tightened on the intricately carved arms of the chair. “There are questions only you can answer. Why did you hate my mother so much that you tried to destroy her when you abducted your own son?” The Spanish words tumbled from his mouth like the staccato tapping of sleet assaulting glass. “Why did you see fit to shame her when you wallowed with every puta who would open her legs for you?”
A rush of color flooded Alejandro’s pale face. “¡Basta!”
Shifting on the chair, Chris glared at Alejandro. “Oh, now you want to speak Spanish,” he taunted. “It’s not enough!”
The older man’s right hand searched under the sheets, his fingers closing around the handle of a small bell. Gripping it tightly, he shook it violently. Within seconds the nurse appeared.
“Get him out of here!” he ordered in Spanish.
The nurse felt the swell of tension in the bedroom and trembled noticeably. “Señor, you must leave,” she said apologetically.
Rising, Chris leaned over the bed. “You sniveling bastard,” he ground out between his teeth. “I’ll be back again, and I’ll haunt you until you give me the answers I want.”
Without a backward glance, he walked out of the room, not seeing the tears staining his father’s cheeks. Rage so blinded him that he did not see Emily rise from the chair where she had sat waiting for him as he stalked into his bedroom. His gaze was wild as she closed the distance between them.
He jerked away from her, holding up a hand. “Don’t! Just leave me alone.”
Emily was totally bewildered at his behavior. Vertical lines appeared between her eyes. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
She refused to see his pain and anguish. All she knew was that he was pushing her away. Her quick temper flared. Resting her hands on her hips, she rose on tiptoe and pushed her flushed face close to his.
“Don’t play yourself, Christopher Delgado. You were the one who begged me to come here when I didn’t want to. Bark at me one more time and I’m out of here. All it takes is one phone call to West Palm and I’ll be on a jet back to New Mexico so fast it’ll make your head swim.”
The red haze of rage that had blinded Chris until he couldn’t form a rational thought cleared with Emily’s threat. The fists at his sides unclenched and he gathered her close to his tense body. Burying his face against the column of her scented neck, he pressed a kiss to the silken flesh.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m not angry with you. I’m ashamed to say it, but I lost it with him.”
Running a hand up and down his back in a comforting gesture, Emily said, “You came here to reconcile with your father…”
“He’s not my father,” Chris interrupted.
She silently cursed his stubbornness. “He is your father whether you choose to acknowledge him or not. And if he goes to his grave without you getting the answers you need from him, you’re going to spend the rest of your life disconnected from your past. You can’t possibly know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from.”
Pulling back, he stared at her. When had she become so wise? How did she know all the right things to say?
“My family has been where you are now,” she said cryptically. Taking his hand, she led him over to a love seat in the sitting area of the bedroom. Sitting, she pulled him down next to her. “The Delgados aren’t the only ones with family secrets.”
Dropping an arm around her shoulder, Chris eased her head to his chest. “Every family has its secrets, baby girl.”
“You’re right about that. But what you can’t do is allow your bitterness toward Alejandro Delgado to come between us.”
“What I feel for him has nothing to do with you.”
/> “Yes, it does, Chris. You’re angry with him, and when I tried to reach out to you, you pushed me away. I’ll never ask you to reveal what you discuss with your father, but I’m going to ask that you trust me enough to know that I’ll support you in the bad times as well as the good. I love you. I’ve told you and showed you that much. Either we’re in this together or we’re not.”
Anchoring a finger under her chin, he stared at the brilliant green lights in her incredible eyes. A slow smile crossed his handsome face. “It’s too late for you to back out, Miss Kirkland. We are in this together.”
“Good,” she whispered seconds before his mouth covered hers. The kiss was sweet, healing—sealing their pledge to each other.
Chris’s mouth moved from her lips to her neck. “I love the way you smell,” he breathed out under her ear. “Just being next to you makes me so…”
Emily’s mouth covered his, cutting off his erotic confession. Grasping her hand, he placed it over his groin. The evidence of his arousal throbbed under her palm. When would he ever not want her?
The harsh, uneven sound of Chris’s breathing indicated that they were fast approaching the point of no return, and Emily tore her mouth away. Passion had dilated her pupils.
“Let’s go for a walk.” Her sultry voice trembled with lingering desire.
He ran a finger down the length of her nose. “You go. I need to be alone right now. There’s a lot of damage control I have to do.”
She kissed his chin. “I’ll see you later.”
Chris pushed to his feet. He extended his hand and pulled her up gently off the love seat. He watched as Emily left the bedroom, his gaze lingering on the space where she had been.
The lush scent of flowers filled the warm air when Emily stepped out onto the shaded loggia. She noticed the musical sound of a flowing fountain for the first time as she walked its length. She was startled when she bumped into Sonia carrying a basket of freshly cut flowers.
“Perdóneme,” Emily said as she reached out to steady the wobbling basket.
Private Passions Page 13