She hugged her tiny waist and he resisted the urge to draw her into his protective embrace. She was his weakness. His Achilles’ heel. ¡Dios mio! Would he always be plagued with concern for this woman?
Her spine went stiff and her features tensed. “Do you bring your women here?”
He just barely bridled his muscles from snapping taut. How dare she ask him that! He stared at the woman he’d vowed to honor until his dying day and swore under his breath.
“Come now, there’s no reason to lie—”
“On occasion,” he interrupted smoothly.
She looked away, as if the sight of him sickened her, as if hurt by the thought of him bringing another woman here. Strange reaction for the wife who’d taken a lover behind her husband’s back. But then their marriage had grown strained the month before Cristobel’s birth.
“What of you, querida? Did you bring your lover here?”
“How dare you suggest such a thing!”
Her eyes flashed fire even as she seemed to shrink in on herself. Rebellious yet withdrawn. Those two opposites she affected with ease. Those two qualities had lured him to her from the beginning a lifetime ago.
“The only lover I entertained here was you.” Her chin came up, her lush lips trembling a fraction before thinning into a disagreeable line. “And do remember you lost the right to call me your darling six months ago.”
¡Dios mio! She dared speak to him of rights? She’d shut him out of her life to take up with her lover, then returned to Cancún to portray the affronted one?
He moved in on her, forcing her against the pristine-white wall, bending close to bracket his hands on both sides of her narrow shoulders that quaked despite their rigid lines.
Beads of unease pebbled over her skin, and he just barely caught himself from running a finger over her cool, smooth flesh. Damn, but this woman tied him in knots!
“You should use care before you remind me of what I’ve lost,” he said.
“I’ve lost, too, Miguel. Surely you realize that!”
She looked away before he could come back with a stinging retort, and it was then that he realized she still clutched the photo of their niña. ¡Hostias! Was that a sob she made?
He pushed away from her like she was poison and dragged his fingers through his damp hair, raking his scalp. He would not feel compassion for her. He would not wish to know she’d suffered a moment, for it would be nothing but lies. He would not care one bit for her. He would not!
Miguel knew the truth. When he’d confronted Loring Vandohrn regarding the whereabouts of his wife, her uncle had informed him that she’d gone on holiday with her lover. He’d suggested Miguel seek a divorce.
It would have been the simplest solution. But a divorce robbed him of vengeance. It did not punish his wife whose recklessness took their child’s life. It did not assuage the angst Miguel had lived with for months when he searched for his wife only to be thwarted at every turn.
He looked down at the woman who’d turned his life upside down and wondered why she’d decided to seek a divorce now. Did she wish to marry her lover?
The bead of moisture clinging to her full upper lip confirmed she didn’t like him this close to her. God knew it was a mistake for him to tempt fate as well.
It would be so easy for him to dip his head and lap that salty bead of moisture off her mouth. So inviting to trace the lush, provocative bow of her upper lip with his tongue.
Her enticing floral scent teased him with the memory of how much he’d enjoyed making love with this woman—and the countless times since she’d left when he’d reached for her in his sleep.
He hated that weakness for her, that after all that had happened his body still yearned to mesh with the sweet warmth hers offered. The darkening of her pupils proved she wasn’t averse to him, either.
Sí, she wanted a divorce? Fine, he’d grant her one after he satisfied his revenge.
“Please, Miguel, just leave me be,” she said and turned her face from his.
That would be the sane thing to do. Walk away and not look back. Grant her a divorce and let her have her closure.
But that wouldn’t satisfy his vengeance. She’d denied him the satisfaction of confronting her six months ago. Now she’d returned and he’d not be deprived of his just due.
“If that was your wish,” he said as he trailed a finger down her pale cheek and felt a shiver of awareness rock her body, “then you should have stayed with your lover.”
Her blue eyes snapped with a curious mix of anger and hurt. “Why do you persist in believing the worst of me?”
“You ask that after what you did?”
He pushed away from her then, because he’d never seen her look so miserable.
It was the image he’d tried to envision of her, but seeing it twisted something deep inside him. He hated these feelings she wrought in him. Hated her for making him feel something besides animosity toward her.
“I’ve had enough. If you won’t leave, then I will,” she said.
“Running away already?” he asked. “What of this closure you’ve returned for?”
“I’ll never have that as long as I’m subject to your ill temper.” She turned away from him and gave a frantic scan of the room, wavering slightly. “Where is the phone?”
“In the bedroom.”
She pushed past him without looking at him, seeming not to be looking at anything at all. Though her course was straight, he caught the slight warble in her legs.
He was reminded again by how much weight she’d lost. “Who are you going to call?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said.
“It is if you’re using my phone.”
“Very well. I intend to ring for a taxi.”
“I will take you where you need to go.”
Did she think she could shack up with her lover in Cancún? The paparazzi would have a field day with that gossip.
“I prefer a taxi and a hotel that isn’t under your control,” she said.
“Then you should have stayed in England.”
That brought her facing him again, and this time there was no mistaking her shock. “You’ve acquired that much power?”
“Sí, and I will not have you flaunt a lover under my nose!” He stalked her as a jaguar would a weakened prey, toying with her, knowing he had time to pounce.
She laughed, the sound bitter. “I assure you I do not have a lover here or anywhere.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
She whirled on him, her blue eyes snapping with anger now. “I don’t care if you do or not.”
“You should care, querida, for I hold your future in my hands.”
Her chin came up, but he caught the slight tremor in it. “Is that a threat?”
He hiked one shoulder in a careless shrug. “A promise. You want a divorce? I’ll grant you one.”
The wariness was back in her eyes again. “Are you serious?”
“Sí. I don’t wish to remain married to an unfaithful wife any longer.”
“I never broke my vows,” she said, seeming angry that he’d insinuate she’d cheated on him.
He smiled, no more than a show of teeth. “Sí, you did. I have proof of your infidelity.”
“That’s impossible!”
“No, querida,” he said. “I have pictures, and witnesses.”
And now he had the satisfaction of seeing her face leach of color.
CHAPTER TWO
ALLEGRA stared at Miguel, scarcely believing they were having this insane conversation.
“I have spent the past five months in a private sanitarium,” she said, remembering every facet of the bland room and the benign gardens visible out her window, painfully mindful of the hours ticking by without word from her husband.
One day smoothly blended into the next, counting off weeks. Months. She knew the sparse staff by serene face and finally by name. Knew what times of the day to expect the doctor, and knew each session would be a struggle to remember t
he simplest things.
She knew when Sunday rolled around because she’d have a brief visit from Uncle Loring.
That had been the extent of her memory until one month ago. She certainly hadn’t had a lover there, or anywhere else for that matter.
“It is called Bartholomew Fields,” she said, and meeting his hard gaze, she challenged, “Look it up.”
His laugh was a whiplash to her nerves. “So now you are accusing your uncle of lying.”
“Of course not. Just what are you insinuating?”
“Your uncle told me you’d gone off on holiday with your lover, querida.”
That couldn’t be. “Why would he say such a thing?”
“Because it is the truth,” he said, the dangerous hiss in his voice raising gooseflesh.
“No, it’s not.”
After five months, she’d come out of her sleep and begged to see Miguel and her beautiful daughter. That’s when the doctor had told her about the tragedy.
Cristobel had died in the auto accident. She’d barely survived herself, losing her memory and her ability to conceive again.
Miguel prowled the room, and she knew he would spring at the slightest provocation. “He suggested I divorce you.”
She shook her head, more confused than before. Uncle Loring had been painfully clear in telling her that Miguel held her totally to blame for their daughter’s death. He could not bear the sight of her. He wanted nothing more to do with her.
Yet Miguel claimed he’d come after her. Who was she to believe?
The slow, steady thud of her heart told her Miguel was telling the truth. True, her uncle had never liked Miguel, but that was no reason to lie to him about her health.
He was her husband. Then more than ever, she’d needed him at her side.
Instead Miguel had gone back to the Yucatán believing the worst of her. While she’d been locked away at Bartholomew Fields grieving for all she’d lost—her child, her marriage, her sanity.
She’d actually had no desire to go on, until her uncle’s health broke and she had to rally her own wits to care for him. It was then that she realized she must heed the doctor’s advice and return here for closure.
“I want to see this proof you claim to have,” she said, daring him to reveal his hand.
“I will when we reach Hacienda Primaro.”
A sliver of fear whispered over Allegra and she shivered. “I’ll pass on a visit to your family home.”
One dark eyebrow arched high over an eye that glittered hard and unyielding. “It wasn’t an invitation, querida. You want to see the proof of your indiscretion? It is there in my office. You wish to visit our daughter’s grave? She rests in the cementerio adjacent to the hacienda.”
She looked away and hugged her middle that pulsed with a hollow ache. The trepidation of returning to the hacienda unnerved her.
Something dreadful had happened there, for the apprehension dancing over her skin was real. But what? That memory was lost in the black void, and willing it to become clear in her mind only left her with a dull headache.
“Fine,” she said, capitulating without argument. “I will visit the hacienda and Cristobel’s grave, then return here.”
“No.” The single word cracked with finality, defying argument.
Her gaze shifted to Miguel standing tall and imposing in the sala. For the first time she noted the changes in him. He’d put on more muscle in his shoulders and torso, making him look formidable. Dangerous even.
He was not a man to be crossed.
Yet she didn’t fear him.
No, there was a mystique in his dark eyes that drew her. But though she’d fallen into his arms before, she’d not make that mistake again.
Never again would she allow herself to be shut out of her husband’s life. She certainly wouldn’t push her heart out there to be trampled again.
“You can’t order me about,” she said.
He inclined his head in arrogant agreement. “I would not attempt to, but if you wish to have an uncontested divorce, you will agree to my proposal.”
The dread in her stomach quivered and knotted, for his threat was clear—agree with him or spend years litigating her divorce. She didn’t have the funds for that and he knew it.
Still, she wasn’t about to capitulate immediately. “I can’t imagine why you’d wish to draw this out.”
His flash of teeth warned her she’d not like his answer. “Let’s call it equitable compensation for the fortune in jewelry you stole.”
She blinked, certain she hadn’t heard him right. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you would deny it.” He prowled the room with lazy insouciance, though his glittering eyes continued to skewer her to the spot. “I will admit this was partly my fault, for I gave you the combination to the safe. I trusted you.”
The accusation she’d stolen anything from him fired her anger. Though the memory of the hours surrounding the accident remained a blur, she knew she’d not availed herself of anything stored in the safe before she’d left the hacienda.
She felt certain that wherever she was going hadn’t warranted her wearing a fortune in jewelry. “All that I took with me that day were my wedding rings.”
He stared at her bare left hand. “Did you hock those as well?”
“I didn’t pawn any jewelry,” she said, hurt and angry that he continued to believe the worst in her.
“You still have them then?”
“I told you all I had with me were my wedding rings.”
He loosed a raw laugh. “Which you no longer wear.”
She stared at the stubborn man she’d lost her heart to and weighed her actions. Really, there was no choice.
“In this, I take delight in proving you wrong,” she said.
Allegra pulled on the gold chain hidden under her blouse until the diamond and emerald engagement ring and gold wedding band that had been created for her dangled free. “I lost a good deal of weight and feared I’d lose these.”
His long, lean fingers closed over the rings that were warmed from nestling between her breasts. A quicksilver glint of longing lit his dark eyes then vanished under his shrewd scrutiny.
“You expect me to believe you wear these all the time?”
“I couldn’t care less what you believe!” She gave the chain a tug, and he released the rings as if they burned him. “Perhaps it was silly of me to continue wearing the tokens of your troth when it is clear you no longer wanted me.”
“I never said I didn’t want you, querida.” A slow rapacious smile curved the lips that had once ravished every inch of her body, and despite her annoyance with Miguel a tingling heat skittered over her body.
“Enough arguing,” she said. “Our prenuptial agreement details my settlement. I’ve no desire to contest it.”
“It would be a waste of time and money to do so.”
A fact she was well aware of. “Fine,” she said again when she felt anything but fine. “What is your proposal?”
“I want you.”
Those three words sucked the breath from her. Surely he couldn’t mean it like that. But as the seconds pounded by and he failed to explain, she suspected this was indeed intended to be a sexual connotation.
“Want me how?” she asked anyway in case her foggy mind was imagining things.
And right now her imagination was running horribly wild. Just the idea of falling into his strong arms again was a temptation she found difficult to reject.
The carnal glint in his eyes threatened to melt her remaining resolve. “As my wife. My lover.”
His words flowed through her veins in a thick, warm rush of need. She should be offended he’d suggest such a thing—at the very least she should be angry he’d demote her to the role of mistress.
But the idea hummed through her senses and made her feel more alive than she had in months. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a solid argument to throw out there.
In fact
she was suddenly having difficulty dragging her gaze away from the solid expanse of his bare chest. Her fingertips tingled with the need to trace the hard slabs of muscle liberally sprinkled with black hair.
His bronzed skin would be warm and the hair soft as down. Her gaze tracked the hair that narrowed into a thin band and disappeared under his swim trunks that he wore indecently low on his lean hips.
For the first time since the accident, moisture gathered in the juncture of her thighs. Yes, she’d missed her husband. She’d missed the unbridled sex they’d shared. Missed lying in his arms afterward listening to the steady drum of his heart.
“A farewell fling then,” she said, and cringed at the reedy pitch to her voice that seemed to scream of her own need. “What if I refuse?”
“Then the deal is off. I’ll drag the divorce out and slap a lien against your beach house.” He crossed to her, each step slow and measured and tightening her nerves until she thought they’d snap.
Her mouth dropped open, and a sick feeling expanded in her belly to pop her sensual bubble. “You’d do that to me?”
“In a heartbeat,” he said with arrogant assurance of his power. “What will it be?”
There was only one choice and he knew it. The only difference was her reason for bending to his will—she wanted closure badly enough to put her heart through an emotional wringer with Miguel again.
“When do we begin?”
“Tonight. I invited a norteamericano businessman to dinner tonight to show my gratitude for the property we have successfully negotiated.” He ran a finger down her flushed cheek and she had to lock her knees to keep from bowing into him. “The El Trópico in Playa del Carmen would be the perfect place for dinner and drinks.”
She pulled back and stared at his arrogantly handsome face, expecting a glint of reluctance or hopefully humor after tossing out that name. But his features were too remote for her to read.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “The Quinta Avenida at night is a swarm of tourists, celebrities wishing to be seen and paparazzi.”
He smiled and not a kind one. “Afraid your lover will see us together on the cover of a slick rag, querida? Or has your romance with Amando Rivera ended?”
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