“And that makes me, what? Inferior?” she spat.
His tone grew even more patronizing. “No, it makes you a great sidekick.”
The urge to punch his imposing nose was almost unbearable. “Watch you don’t get a great side-kick in the teeth, buster.”
Ridiculously thick lashes jolted up, unguarded eyes fired emerald. Then he threw his magnificent head back and laughed.
“Ah, Jóia.” He wiped away tears of laughter with both hands, deep chuckles still rumbling in his chest like distant thunder. “This is going to be far more pleasurable than I anticipated.”
“This is going to end right now, Roque. For the expedition’s sake. If you think the next eight weeks are going to be anything like the stuff you’re used to…”
Steel slashed in his eyes, cutting her off. “And you know what ‘stuff’ I’m used to, Jóia? Do you know anything about me?”
No, I don’t. The retort almost erupted from her.
And her self-enforced ignorance had started when they’d first met. In trying to escape his pursuit, his influence, to cling to her commitment to Michael, she’d thought the less she’d known about Roque, the more she could resist him. Apart from her very favorable—and as suspect as her psychological state at the time—observations, there’d only been condemnation volunteered by others. Not that it had stopped her from succumbing to his seduction. She’d married him without confronting him, deciding to remain in the dark, afraid to discover evidence to validate the condemnation and her insecurities.
But she wasn’t about to tell him that. She raised her chin, gave him her best belittling look. “I know enough.”
“Really? Beyond my name, age and profession, what more did you care to find out about me before we got married?”
His intensity shook her, made her blurt out defensively, “I knew everything I needed to know. I knew you were concluding your post-graduate studies while working—”
“In the hospital where your vaunted ex-fiancé was the director and your father was a major shareholder,” he completed for her in a totally bored tone. “That’s common knowledge, nothing a wife could state as privileged information about her husband.”
Oh, she knew more. Revealing, disturbing tidbits supplied by his myriad friends, competitors—and women. That he had no family, had lived close to the poverty line most of his life, had had a temporary U.S. visa he’d needed to make permanent. Heading all had been insights into why he’d pursued her, married her. And it hadn’t been because he’d loved and wanted her, as he’d sworn.
He took her glare to mean she was stymied. His lips twisted. “You certainly have no idea what ‘stuff’ I’m used to.”
“So what? What I don’t know I can guess with reliable accuracy. At least in this matter. Hospital surgeons are a different breed from field ones. I don’t need any specific knowledge of you to know surgeons like you depend on ordered schedules and everything at your fingertips in highly equipped ORs, with legions of personnel as one buffer after another between you and the immediacy of your patients’ needs.”
The last flicker of lightness left his eyes. She had to forcibly stop herself from cringing.
“So you don’t know anything about me,” he drawled, grim, almost frightening. “And you’ve just seen me in a field procedure, and yet you still presume to say ‘surgeons like you'. Has your mother never taught you what a bad girl presumptions and prejudices make you, minha esposa?”
A twinge ran down her chest, stopped her breathing.
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded distant in her ears, clinical even. “I thought you knew my mother was never around to teach me anything, wasn’t even around after my hit and run, too horrified that the perfect daughter she boasted about was broken. I haven’t seen her in longer than I’ve seen you, not since she found a reason to cut me off completely when I left her choice of a socially compatible groom and married you. Thanks for the kind reminder, though. But just in case you think you’ve rubbed salt into my wounds, don’t. I would give anything to be able to feel pain at her absence from my life, to miss her, to think of her with anything besides resignation.”
His bronze face turned dark copper. With anger? No. It looked more like… mortification?
Oh, come on! Why should he be mortified, thinking that he’d hurt her, when it had been his intention to do just that?
But it did seem like she’d read his reaction right. His next words were proof enough. “Jóia, perdoe-me, I was being spiteful. I know how negligent your mother was, how it affected you, especially after your accident. And no matter what, I don’t hurt others, wouldn’t hurt you, this way. Ever. I’m sorry.”
She stared. He was sorry? For hurting her? When he was here for what seemed to be the sole purpose of doing just that?
She exhaled, shook her head. “As I said, it didn’t hurt.”
She stopped as she realized. It did.
But it hadn’t been his dig into her non-existent relationship with her mother that had hurt. It was him poking an accusing finger at a practice she loathed and was guilty of, and her acute sense of fairness lashing her in response.
She’d seen how he’d operated outside the stereotyped medium she’d just painted. Even if she didn’t believe he could do that on a regular basis, she abhorred generalizations, knew from firsthand trauma how blithe bias hurt and damaged. She never inflicted either on another.
But this was Roque. The man who’d once tried to exploit her. The man who was now usurping her role in her most important endeavor ever. Who was as good as accusing her of being self-serving and fame-hungry! She owed him no apologies.
Her conscience still prodded her to give it a go anyway. “Listen, Roque, all I was saying is, if you are really coming, you should leave the work to me and enjoy the scenery aboard our riverboat until a case that requires your talents comes along. Leading this expedition requires familiarity with the objectives and logistical versatility, not surgical prowess. Only I, who have been involved from day one, can provide that.”
He shrugged one daunting shoulder. “Then you’ll come in handy dealing with the logistical side, freeing me to take care of the medical one. You’re good but you can’t be experienced enough for a mission this complex and unpredictable.”
“You have no idea how experienced I am!” OK, so that came out way different from what she’d intended.
And it was no surprise when he didn’t let the opportunity pass. “And I can’t wait to find out, encantador.”
“Quit with the innuendos already! So what if you financed this? I don’t see every expedition financier trotting out to join it, and getting in experienced people’s way.”
“You realize the more you talk about your ‘experience', the more imperative it becomes for me to sample it, don’t you?”
“Stop word-twisting! I don’t know where you got enough money to throw a million of it around, and I don’t want to know, but you can’t buy your way into this!”
“Weird, because I did buy all of this, period. You wouldn’t have an expedition if I hadn’t subsidized it, minha esposa.”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not your wife. I was never your wife. And we both know it.”
“You might have known it, but I surely wasn’t in on that little secret. I was so deluded I thought you were my wife, for better or for worse. The delusion still persists to this moment. Along with all the binding legal documents, meu doce.”
Binding legal documents. Surely he wouldn’t lie about something like this? Not when she could easily check? This was real then. They were still married.
Oh, God!
But why hadn’t he divorced her? And, most important: “Why are you doing this? Why did you fabricate this farce about reality shows to smear me to GAO? Is this your revenge?”
He raised both eyebrows. “Why should I want revenge?”
“I don’t know!” And she didn’t. Wanting revenge indicated being hurt. He had to have cared for her for real to be hurt.
He went on, in that reasonable tone that made her want to scream, “And don’t you think if I’d wanted revenge I would have sought it long before now? And, anyway, how can it be revenge if you’re not harboring any self-serving intentions and my presence here won’t spoil any of your plans?”
“I have no plans!” she almost screamed.
“In that case, why are you all up in arms? Why don’t you just accept that I’m here to supervise this, to regulate you…”
“I don’t need to be regulated! I can’t believe GAO believed this rubbish, let you do this to me!”
“What am I doing? I’m here to work, and to see you.”
Yeah. Right. “Well, I don’t want to see you. Not in this life, not in the next.”
He whistled, impressed this time. “Really? Hard to understand your angst when it was you who walked out on me. And not at all nicely, meu bela.”
She felt sore and swollen, as if she’d been ramming her body against jagged, unyielding rock. She shouldn’t be surprised. She already knew how intractable he was when he latched onto an objective. She tried one last time. “Why don’t you go away, Roque? Just go away and leave me to get on with my work.”
His gaze shifted away from her. Hers followed and she only then realized they were back at the pier. The sun was setting. And then the tropical rain started falling, sudden, steady, shrouding.
He was unperturbed at being drenched in seconds, as was she. But she was used to the daily showers. He only gestured towards Rio Solimoes, the Amazon River in the region. “See this great river, amor? My going away is as probable as getting to ice-skate on its surface. I’m here to stay, Jóia. Get over it.”
Her heart stampeded, her eyeballs heated. Would she burst with frustration? She glared her resentment at him as the clanking vehicle slowed down. The moment it came to a coughing halt, she erupted to her feet—and the sunset disappeared.
The lights came back in moments. She was in Roque’s arms. She’d blacked out. Must have been caused by standing up so suddenly.
“Close your eyes, bela. I’ll carry you to your cabin.” His lips moved on her temple and his voice penetrated her brain.
She jolted out of his arms, fought the imbalance and disorientation, tried to rise to her knees. An aggravated sound spilled from him as he rose, jumped out of the truck. Then he reached up for her. Still groggy, she instinctively reached down and he took her in his arms. This time he kept her there.
“Put me down, Roque.” Her eyes darted around whenhe just looked down on her and smiled, ignoring her demand. Madeline and Inácio were pretending not to notice as they followed. What must they be thinking now?After her painstakingly established record for detachment and lack of interest in men?
Nothing worse than the truth, that was for sure.
The locals had no such qualms, had no intention of missing out on Roque’s displays, watching openly. There went the takecharge, professional image she’d meticulously constructed!
“Put me down if you want to keep your teeth, Roque.”
“You’d ram them and risk teeth marks on that perfect forehead? After all the trouble you went to, to make it so?”
A twinge lanced through her. He thought her desire to look whole again, what? Frivolous? He could talk. He’d certainly never known what it meant to be reviled and discarded because he’d ceased to look pleasing.
He suddenly grimaced, put her down, slowly, carefully, but his embrace didn’t even loosen. If she had to get out of it, she had to give their audience a fight scene. No point risking the last of her authority-figure tatters when she was sure he’d end up winning one way or another. But it wasn’t that that enraged her. It was the tremors of pleasure shooting through her from every point of contact with every hard inch of him. Her mind might be averse but her body recognized its mate, clamored for him.
No, he wasn’t her mate any more! Would never be again.
She pushed at him, refusing to be a pawn in whatever game he was playing. He let her go at last and she staggered around on elastic legs.
He fell into step with her, caught her hand, pressed it, an entreaty not to snatch it away. An entreaty? Hah!
“Jewel—again, I’m sorry. That last crack—it was stupid and cruel the way it came out. I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to take you to your cabin. You were barely standing by the time the tribe let us go. I would have insisted on handling the emergency alone if I’d known you’ve been pushing it, sleeping four hours maximum for the last four days, working non-stop loading the boats since two a.m….” She snapped a look at him and he sighed. “Sim, Madeline and Inácio told me.”
“You questioned them? When?” She snapped her head back, stared ahead, waved her hand. “Oh, I know when. The first moment you got them alone during the village’s feast, right? And I’m sure you volunteered information in return.”
“Like the fact that I’m your estranged husband? I sure did. Or did you prefer them to think that you and a man you just met can be all over each other like we’ve been?”
“I wasn’ts” She fell silent, fighting a charring wave of anger. No use. Anything she’d do or say now, she’d end up losing more. Let him play caveman. Or, rather, a huge, majestic cat, leisurely playing with his kill, drawing out its torment for laughs. There was one way out of this. She had to take it.
She did. “Fine, Roque, you win.”
His uncanny eyes flared. Triumphant, was he? She wondered how he’d feel when he realized how total his victory was.
His arm snaked around her waist, gathering her to him, something soft entering his gaze. Soft? Sure.
She lurched a step backward and out of his hold, snarled her admission of defeat. “You win. And you stay. I’m leaving.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ROQUE watched Jewel walk away.
It seemed all he did was watch her walk away.
And though he knew he should let her go this time, should consider he’d won, had achieved his mission, he couldn’t. All he knew was that he was damned if he’d let her walk away again. This time anyone doing the walking away would be him.
He followed her, his steps slow, his thoughts racing, scalding emotions roaring in his system. He could name them very well now. Anger, aggravation, arousal.
He watched her tall, lithe figure reach the row of boats docked at the pier, climb onto the lower deck of the tripledeck, steel-hulled riverboat he’d picked for this expedition. If only she knew how much more money over her estimated million he’d poured into that selection.
He’d had the boat almost rebuilt, not only for this mission but for what he intended to be a regular endeavor, reaching out to the isolated, endangered people of his country. He’d made sure it would be sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of constant use by replacing the hull and engine, and that it would rival a luxury cruise boat by having installed air-conditioning in all cabins and public-use areas and fitting each cabin in cedar and Amazon mahogany and private baths and showers. He wanted the humanitarian workers who’d use it to know how their efforts were appreciated, to give them much-deserved comforts.
He’d picked this boat after reviewing dozens of Amazon-faring riverboats because it was the only one that had a suite, separate from the rest of the accommodation, occupying the fore of the third deck with its own covered and uncovered sundecks. He’d planned to have it himself, for keeping apart from the rest of his colleagues. From her. That no longer appealed. The only thing that did appeal now was for her to share it with him. But he had to keep her here first.
He bounded the steps onto the lower deck, followed the trace of soap and woman and clean sweat. Her unique scent. It maddened further, quickened his stomping impatience to the cabin, where it intensified. He shoved the door open.
His heart swelled with stimulation when she whirled up from her bent pose over an open suitcase. A thrill coursed down his spine as she snarled, “Get out, Roque.”
“No.” He advanced into the cabin, clearing one bed, snatching the suitcase out
of her reach. “I’m not getting out. And neither are you.” Then he took her by the shoulders.
He’d intended to tell her she wasn’t backing out now that she wasn’t getting her way, was seeing this through, his way.
Then she filled his hands and everything that had happened since she’d left him ceased to matter. Nothing existed but her stunned eyes confessing equal awareness, her flesh humming with their resurrected affinity, her gasping breath filling his lungs with an overdose of the scent he’d homed in on. And now he had to have the taste.
He bent to get it and she stumbled backwards, lost her balance, grabbed his arms involuntarily, and missed.
He caught at her tumbling body and it dragged him down, plummeting them both to the carpeted deck. He managed to twist before they hit it, cushioning her. He lay beneath her until their momentum was spent. Then he tumbled her around.
Deus, he’d missed her feel beneath him. He’d craved it, burned for it. He let all the savoring out in a long, ragged groan, wallowing in the turbulent deadlock of their gazes, the fusion of their panting breaths. Then her lips moved, mouthing his name. There was only so much he could stand.
He took his unuttered name from her lips, and they both jolted at the contact. So it was still the same, the shock to the system any level of intimacy with her elicited. The addictive reaction nothing and no one else had ever come close to imitating. He went after more, glided against her moist softness, probed then plunged, strained to drain her of each breath and sound that lay unformed deep within her.
He growled for her reciprocation, and as if his fierceness ignited hers, she opened for him, took his tongue, buried him in her response, in her scorching velvet and taste.
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