by Flora Kidd
'You really expect me to believe that?' The curve to his mouth was really cynical now.
'It's true,' was all she could say. 'I… I… found out on that bus ride that I… I… love you in every way a woman can love a man and I want to stay with you, live with you, so I came back.' Suddenly she was down on her knees beside the bed, her feelings for him sweeping aside her pride. 'You've got to believe me,' she whispered, 'you've got to!'
'I don't see why. You didn't believe me when I told you I love you,' he retorted, looking at her with eyes that gleamed with golden light between thick black lashes.
He hadn't forgotten, then. Or had the return to this place where he had confessed his love for her reminded him, cleared his mind of whatever cobwebs the concussion had shrouded it in?
'That was because I didn't understand about Micaela,' she whispered, and he opened his eyes wide.
'Ah, so you understand about her now, do you?' he taunted. 'Yes, Roberto told me all about Armando's mud-slinging campaign and how Micaela followed you about.'
'You listened to Roberto, you believed him,' he said angrily. 'Yet when I tried to explain to you you interrupted me with wild accusations.'
'It was because I was upset and confused… '
'Dios, are we back to that?' he groaned, thrusting fingers through his tousled hair. 'Are you always going to be upset and confused by what I do and say, by what I've said and done in the past? You said when I first asked you to marry me that it was crazy because we come from different cultures and have different values. I knew what you meant, but I hoped,' his voice shook with the intensity of his feelings, 'I dared to hope that we would love one another enough to compromise and overcome those differences. But you made no effort… '
'I did, I have now,' she cried. 'Although I don't think I can compromise with you if you have a mistress. Oh, don't you see, Sebastian? I want to be your mistress as well as your wife!'
The words rang out in the silence of the house and she realised suddenly how alone they were, able to show each other how they felt whenever they liked and wherever they liked, and that was exactly what they were doing, even though to an outsider it might sound like a quarrel to end all quarrels.
'And isn't that what I wanted you to be in the first place, ever since I held you in my arms that night to comfort you after you had nearly drowned?' he countered softly. 'Only I came up against that remarkable innocence of yours and to my own surprise fell in love with you.'
'But only after you'd decided I was suitable to be your wife,' she accused, and then cried out loud as he lunged across the bed, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down onto it. For a few minutes there was a wild struggle as she attempted to break free, but in the end his superior strength won. Pressing her back against the pillows, he loomed over her, his eyes gleaming with menace in a taut angry face.
'So we come always to the same impasse, you little wildcat,' he muttered between set teeth.
'Let go of me! You're hurting me, and the doctor said you're not to… '
Sebastian said something viciously rude about the doctor and in the next moment smothered her mouth with his and at once the flame went dancing along her nerves to light the fuse of desire.
'Are you going to let me finish explaining without any more interruptions?' His voice was a soft snarl and his lips moved against her cheek.
'I'll try,' she gasped, for already his fingers were seeking the sentient hollows of her throat. 'The doctor said you're not to get excited, so yes, I'll listen.'
'Then I'll begin, although it doesn't please me to learn that you're complaisant only because the doctor told you to humour me,' he retorted, and flicked her cheek with a hard admonishing finger as he rolled away from her, but kept a hold on her arm with the long fingers of one hand, fingers which began to move seductively on the thin skin of her wrist even as he began to speak.
'I have told you, chiquita, that I wanted you from that first time I held you in my arms. I've also told you that I have always held to a certain principle in my life, and that was never to sleep with a virgin unless I married her first. I went to Guadalajara believing you might be gone by the time I returned and the problem would be solved for me But you were still here in my house when I came back, and it was then during the days of your sickness that I realised you were someone I wanted to care for and look after for the rest of my life, and I made up my mind that if I could in some way persuade you to stay with me a little longer I would propose marriage to you. The idea of marrying you as a political necessity never entered into it. I was in love, madly and impossibly in love for the first time in my life and I never gave anything else a thought. Do you believe me?'
He rolled back on to his side and leaned over her again, a dark tormenting threat to her peace of mind.
'I want to,' she whispered, and raised a hand shyly to touch his cheek. At once his hand covered hers and he drew it across his face to his mouth to kiss the palm of it and fold her fingers over the kiss.
'Then Sergeant Moreles came and pushed me over the edge of commitment, I proposed to you much sooner than I intended—and the courtship of one rebellious Irish girl by a Mexican macho was on.' His laughter mocked himself. 'Dios, it was hard work for a man like me who has always enjoyed his freedom to court someone like you. I had doubts, as you know, and withdrew, my pride up in arms because of the way you behaved. But if you hadn't come to my room that night I'd have found some way the next day to stop you from leaving and I'd have started courting you all over again. And it seemed to go well after that. I thought we were very close when we came back here and found the Gonzalez' waiting for us.'
'We were, we were. I felt it too,' she whispered. 'If only they hadn't been here!'
'But they were, and our love was put to the test far too soon. I tried to explain to you, but you were too hurt to listen, so I thought that if I took you to find Roberto, showed you I was really willing to help you find your sister, it would be enough to prove to you that I love you, but it wasn't. You ran away and that night I found out the hard way, sweating in torment, alone in the hotel bedroom at Durango, what it is to love a woman in every possible way, and I knew I couldn't let you go. I kept torturing myself with visions of what might be happening to you on that bus, wondering who might be beguiling you as Farley did. I went through hell, and that is why I went to the airport and took off. I had some crazy notion of flying north and intercepting you at the border.' His voice was muffled suddenly as he buried his face against her shoulder. 'You see what you'd done to me? You'd sent me out of my mind! If I'd been thinking in a normal rational way I wouldn't have made that stupid mistake on the runway, I'd have been listening to the air traffic controller and not thinking of you. What more proof do you want that I love you?'
'None, none,' she cried, winding her arms about him. 'Oh, I know about going through hell, too. That night on the bus—I didn't know until then how much it's possible to miss someone, to ache to be with him, hear his voice, touch his hand, so I turned back. But at the hospital you were so cold and indifferent I thought you must have forgotten you'd once told me you love me.'
'I'd forgotten nothing,' he said softly. 'But I was unsure about you. Roberto said you'd come back as soon as you heard I'd been hurt and I didn't want that to be the only reason for your return.'
'It wasn't. I was coming back. Oh, what do I have to say or do to convince you?' she said urgently.
'I'll show you in a few minutes, but first there is something which has to be cleared up between us. If necessary I'll give up politics, if that is what is required to prove to you that I married you for love and only for love. Is it what you want?'
'You would really do that for me?' she exclaimed, drawing back from him so she could see the expression on his face in the lamplight, and his mouth twisted wryly.
'Is it always going to be like this between us, I wonder? Are you always going to be testing me? Si, chiquita, I would really do that for you, as my mother gave up her career to live with my fat
her and he ruined his political career to live with her. Have you forgotten I am a child born of love?'
In silence Dawn stared at him, facing him as they lay on the bed. Once more she was aware of a struggle between them, but it wasn't a struggle to find out who had the superior strength. It was a test of love. Who could love the most, he or she? Could she do what he was offering to do? She could do more. She could love him enough to refuse to let him make the sacrifice. She could love him enough to accept his word that there was no affair between him and Micaela and that he loved her in every way it is possible for a man to love a woman without him having to give up his career to do it.
'No, that isn't what I want, at all,' she whispered.
'Then what is it you want?' he retorted softly.
'To stay with you, live with you and love you.'
'For ever?'
'For as long as you want me.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes.'
'Then convince me.'
Willingly she put her lips to his, eagerly she raised her hands to ruffle the hair at the back of his neck, invitingly she pressed herself against his hard, pulsing body. At once he responded, arms tightening about her, lips bruising hers in passion.
'Now say it,' he whispered. 'Say it after me. Te quiero muchisimo, querido.'
'Te quiero muchisimo, querido. I love you very much, darling,' she said, and again his lips took possession of hers and the torment of their mutual desire swept them along on its flood, obliterating all that had happened in the past from their minds and taking no account of tomorrow. Love was now, in the present, and it was theirs.