“Water, please,” the little boy said. She smiled at him and poured a small glassful for him.
“You from New York,” his sister said.
“Yes. Have you ever been?” Sidney asked.
“No. I want to go one day. Tio Drigo has many pictures from New York. If I can make it there, I make it anywhere.”
“That’s right.” Sidney smiled and the two kids started giggling again.
Branca came to the doorway and put her hands on her hips. “Leave her alone,” she said in a stern voice. “Come on, children. We go now.”
“They’re fine. It’s okay,” Sidney said as the children hurried out.
Branca paused. “You’re very kind. They can be very nosy.”
“They’re adorable,” she said, unable to keep the wistful note out of her voice.
“They are demanding, but Rodrigo knows how to manage them. He’s playful but firm at the same time. He would make a good father.” She said it as if trying to sell Sidney on his finer qualities. In the background, she heard his voice in the living room with the children squealing and laughing.
“Sounds like he’s very busy out there.”
“Always,” Branca said with a laugh. They both walked out to the living room to find the children jumping all over him.
Branca clapped her hands and spoke in a strong voice. “We have to go so Tio Drigo and his friend can have dinner.”
The kids preceded their mother to the door, dragging their feet and pouting. A look passed between Branca and Rodrigo, and Sidney wondered what it meant. Seconds later, Branca said goodbye and the three of them left.
The apartment became very quiet afterward, an almost eerie silence without the sound of children laughing and playing. They went to the kitchen and worked quietly together. While Sidney prepared the salad, he set the dishes in the oven to warm.
“Everything okay?” he asked into the quiet.
“Sure.” She poured them both glasses of wine. “I have something to tell you.”
She’d been thinking and decided to come clean with Rodrigo. Watching him with the children earlier brought home the fact that he would, in fact, make a great father. If there was any chance of them moving forward after these few days together, she had to tell him the truth. He deserved to know.
“I have something to tell you first,” he said. He turned to her, his eyes earnest and his expression as grave as she’d ever seen it. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure, but spending time with you has made me think about how things could be. I still want to marry you, Sidney. I want you to rethink my proposal.”
Oh god. “Rodrigo, wait, before you—”
“Shh. Listen to me.” He took her hands and looked into her eyes. “I know you came here for business, but I think fate brought us together because neither of us expected to see each other again. My father is ready to bring you into the family and my sister likes you, too. She feels you have a good spirit, a good aura, and that’s a lot coming from her. She doesn’t like anyone right away.”
He gently squeezed her hands and continued. “I still want to marry you, and I want us to have a family together. I know you love your family, and they would be welcomed here any time they want to visit. I could find a job for you at Moda, working in sales or buying—whatever you feel comfortable with. I’ll do whatever it takes, because I want you to be my wife. To be the mother of my children.”
Her stomach muscles tightened painfully. Maybe if he hadn’t said the last part, she would have told him what she’d started to say before he’d interrupted. Then she would tell him yes, she would be his wife, because ever since he’d asked her a year ago, she hadn’t stopped thinking about it. But hearing him mention children again was crushing and she lost her nerve.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Chapter 10
The hopeful expression in his eyes died. “I don’t understand. I know you love me. I can see it in your eyes, and the way we make love, you cannot fake that.”
She nodded and pulled her hands away, withdrawing in the same way she’d done the first time he’d proposed. “The truth is, I do love you, but I can’t marry you because I want you to be happy, and I can’t give you what you want.”
“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.” A muscle in his jaw rippled. “Does our relationship mean nothing to you?”
“Our relationship means the world to me.”
“Then how could you just end it, again?” he demanded. “I have been living in a mental hell for the past year, because I can’t forget your laugh. I can’t forget the way we made love, the way you gave yourself to me. Whatever your reason for not wanting to marry me, you just admitted it’s not because you don’t love me. We can work through it.”
“It’s not that easy, Rodrigo.”
“Yes, it is. When you love someone—”
“Love is not enough.”
At a standoff, they stared at each other. The conversation was getting heated and they simultaneously took calming breaths.
“What obstacle is so large that love cannot surmount it?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Sidney took another deep breath. “You want children so desperately, but what if we don’t have any?”
“Why wouldn’t we? We’re both young and healthy, and we talked about it before. I told you how close I am with my family, and I want the same.”
She shook her head. “You talked about starting a family,” she reminded him. “Not me.”
“Are you saying you don’t want children?” he asked in shock.
“I’m saying, could you be happy if we don’t?”
“That’s a ridiculous question.” He paced away from her, running his hand through his hair.
“Answer it,” Sidney insisted. She had to know.
Rodrigo faced her again, his brow wrinkled. “I want children. I always have, and you know that. I want to be a father. I do not want to be Tio Drigo forever.”
Sidney swallowed and somehow managed to keep her face from crumpling. Just like her ex-husband, Rodrigo had a passionate desire to be a father. How could she rob him of that possibility when she knew what a wonderful father he would be? Her ex hadn’t been interested in adoption, and with the closeness Rodrigo shared with his blood relatives, she knew he’d feel the same. He’d want a child with his DNA, who had his features, his love of sports and his business acumen.
“That’s what I thought.” She looked down at her fingers. “This won’t work.” She started out of the kitchen.
“Sidney—”
She ignored him and hurried into the bedroom before she fell apart. He followed, watching her pack up her clothes.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” he demanded.
“You want a marriage and babies. It’s better this way.”
“And you don’t?”
She didn’t answer.
“What about your precious contract?” Rodrigo asked, bitterness in his voice.
She stopped and swung around to face him. Her heart thumped fearfully in her chest. “You wouldn’t withhold that, would you?”
“It’s obvious that’s all you care about,” he said.
“That’s not true.”
“No?” He laughed mirthlessly. “Fool me twice…” He walked out.
Sidney sank onto the bed, clutching clothes she hadn’t yet stuffed into the suitcase. “That’s not all I care about,” she said to the empty room.
Two days later, Sidney woke up miserable. She’d spent the day before in her room instead of going down to the beach or enjoying the hotel’s amenities as she’d planned.
She’d tossed and turned all night the night before, and just when she was on the verge of falling asleep, she was forced to acknowledge the morning when a courier knocked at the door and brought by the executed contracts. She should be pleased Rodrigo hadn’t withheld the order from her, but for some reason it made her feel like crying. The finality of his decision to give her what she wanted meant there was
no going back now. She barely closed the door before tears blurred her eyes.
“You’re letting her leave?” Rodrigo’s father stood in front of his desk at Moda headquarters.
“I couldn’t keep her, Father. She’s free to go.”
“But you love her and she loves you.”
Rodrigo carefully laid his pen down and sat back. “You seem certain.”
“That’s why I brought her here.”
Rodrigo sat up with a start. “You did what?”
“Don’t look at me like that. You’ve been sulking since you returned from the States and I had to do something to boost your spirits. Having a heart attack and leaving you to run the company on your own certainly didn’t help.”
His father had collapsed in a board meeting, causing quite a scare. The resulting shock waves had rippled throughout the company and the business community at large. Coming so soon after his return from the States, Rodrigo had spent much of his time maintaining order in the company while helping his younger siblings tend to his father’s care at the same time.
“About six months ago,” Gualtiero said, “one of the Belo buyers mentioned Haute Moderne fashion house and some of the pieces in their collection. We were already in negotiations to buy their stores, so that’s where the idea came from to use them as a way to lure her down here.”
Rodrigo ran his hand over his face. Now he understood why his father had changed his mind about him marrying someone from their culture. Because of his romantic nature, his father had intervened again. While his planning had worked for Branca—she’d ended up marrying the man their father had connected her with—his interference in Rodrigo’s love life had proven to be a waste of time.
“You made a mistake this time,” Rodrigo said. “Sidney is completely uninterested in marriage or staying here. You were wrong.”
“I’m never wrong,” his father insisted.
“You are this time.”
Gualtiero leaned on his hands on the desk. “She told you she doesn’t love you?”
“She refuses to marry me. What more proof do I need? She turned me down twice.”
Gualtiero frowned. “Hmm…perhaps I was wrong,” he mused. “But I had this sense…I was so sure…”
“Let it go, Father. I have plenty to do before I catch my flight this afternoon, and this conversation is very distracting.” And disheartening, Rodrigo added silently. He continued signing the documents in front of him. “You missed the mark this time. I wish you hadn’t, but you have.”
Chapter 11
She had to tell him. She couldn’t leave him with doubts about her love for him.
Sidney gnawed on her lip as she stepped off the elevator. Today, a receptionist greeted her.
“Is Rodrigo Serrano in? He’s not expecting me, but if you tell him Sidney Altman is here, he may be willing to see me.” The receptionist didn’t say a word, perhaps wondering how she thought she’d be able to see the head of the company without an appointment.
The woman held up her finger. “One minute.” She spoke into the mouthpiece of the phone and then hung up. “I’m sorry, madam, but Senhor Serrano is out of the office on business and won’t be back until next week. Would you like to set an appointment for then?”
She was too late.
Sidney’s stomach plummeted in despair. “No,” she said quietly. “That won’t be necessary.”
Head bent and heart heavy, she took the elevator to the bottom floor. With nowhere else to go and nothing to do since she’d already checked out of the hotel, she decided to go straight to the airport.
On the way there, she made one last call to his cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. Before she lost her nerve, she let the words rush out.
“I know you’re on another business trip, and the last thing you expected was to hear from me, but I wanted you to know that I came by your office to tell you the truth. I do love you, and I’ve never stopped. And I would love to marry you. I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t want that. I—” Her voice broke and grew thicker with the pain she carried. “I want to give you those beautiful babies, but I can’t, and it’s not fair to you. I can’t have children, Rodrigo. If you get this message and you think…” No, she was being selfish. “Goodbye.”
Hours later, Sidney sat at the airport with the phone to her ear, talking to her mother.
“At least you told him,” Agnes said. “Honesty is always the best policy, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Sidney sipped her soda through a straw. “He hasn’t called back,” she said glumly. She’d been watching her phone to see if he’d called, but, nothing.
“Maybe he’s tied up.”
“He couldn’t handle it, just like my ex couldn’t.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and listened as they called her flight for boarding. “Mom, they’re boarding. I have to get on the plane soon.”
“Bye, honey. Have a safe flight, and when you get home I’ll have a pint of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream waiting for you.”
Sidney smiled through her teary eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”
When they called her zone, she boarded with the other passengers and buckled in. She pulled the flight magazine from the seat pouch in front of her and flipped through the contents, but there was nothing in there that captured her interest. Gazing out the window, she felt an overwhelming sadness at losing Rodrigo for a second time.
Even though she hadn’t wanted to tell him the truth, she didn’t have any regrets now. The burden of her infertility was off her mind, and at least now she could say she’d come clean. She looked at the photo of her soon-to-be daughter, Alana, and managed a bittersweet smile. Soon, she’d be holding her in her arms, and she had Rodrigo to thank for that. He could have denied the contract, but he hadn’t, and with such a large order, she was ensured a huge commission and financial stability to put the adoption agency’s mind at ease. She looked forward to taking adoption maternity leave to bond with her new baby girl.
“Excuse me, Senhora Altman?” The flight attendant looked at her with concern, leaning over the man beside her and speaking quietly. “There is a problem with your passport. They have asked me to escort you off the plane.” A burly man stood behind her, as if they thought she’d resist.
“My passport? What’s wrong?”
“We must discuss this off the plane. An airline representative will greet you when you disembark.”
Sidney’s co-passenger let her squeeze out, and the burly male took her carry-on and walked with her off the plane. She felt like a criminal and didn’t even know what the charges were.
Another flight attendant greeted her at the gate. “Please wait here,” the woman said. “We are waiting for an official to arrive.” She then walked away to speak to the large man who’d escorted her off the plane.
Sidney sat in the almost empty area of the gate. Surely they hadn’t confused her with someone on the no-fly list. She’d never been stopped before, but she’d heard horror stories about identification mix-ups, where passengers were detained because security thought they were terrorists or criminals.
She called her mother, eyes sweeping through the crowd of passengers walking down the moving sidewalk and those rushing to their gates. “Mom, I don’t know what’s going on, but I just wanted you to know I won’t be on the flight. There’s something wrong with my passport, but they haven’t told me what’s wrong. Everyone’s speaking in Portuguese, so I don’t have any idea what they’re saying. I hope—”
In the crowd, a familiar dark head appeared, dark eyes and a dark suit coming across the terminal toward her. Her heart started racing, and all she could do was stare.
“Sidney, what’s wrong?” Her mother’s voice was sharp with alarm.
“Let me call you back, okay?” She disconnected the call and watched as Rodrigo came closer.
He stopped only a few feet away. Her heart was beating so fast she wasn’t sure if she could speak. Slowly, she rose to her feet.
�
�How could you leave a message like that and then run off?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how.” She bit her bottom lip. “My ex-husband, he couldn’t handle not being able to have children. I felt so empty and useless…and ashamed.”
“And you thought I’d be like your ex-husband,” he said, a grave sadness in his voice. “You didn’t trust me. You didn’t trust my love for you.”
“I wasn’t only concerned about you. What about your family? It’s obvious how much they want you to be a father, and even if we married, I—I didn’t want your family looking at me with indifference. I’ve experienced that before and…I hated it.”
“Do you care more about what they think about you than you do about being with me?”
When he put it that way, it seemed ridiculous to forego happiness because of what others thought.
“No,” she whispered.
“I still want to marry you, Sidney.” His face softened. “You should have told me.”
“I know, but because of what happened before…”
“With your ex.”
“Yes.”
He walked closer, coming within a hairbreadth but not touching her yet. “Luckily I was at the airport and have some pull.” He touched her face and she leaned into his hand. “I don’t care that you can’t have children. I love you, and that’s all that matters. If our marriage only includes the two of us, I’ll be happy.”
“Well, it might not be just you and me until the end.” Tears blurred her vision. “I’m going to adopt a little girl, and she has the biggest, most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen.” With trembling fingers, she took out the photo and showed it to him.
He took the photo and smiled at the image of Alana. “I can’t wait to meet her, and I can’t wait to marry you.”
“Are you proposing?”
“It depends. What would be your answer this time?”
“Yes!” She flung herself into his arms, and he lifted her into a bear hug.
Heartbreak in Rio Page 6