Because he had been too afraid to lose her when she found out about his lies, he had damaged her.
His eyes slowly fluttered shut. The only thing he could hope and pray for was that the strength that was naturally imbedded deep inside Theodora would help her get through the pain he caused.
And to think he had once believed he could make her happy.
The shrill sound of the phone ringing cut through his thoughts. He ignored it. He wasn’t talking to his parents. He couldn’t face their depressed looks and concern. And his friends had long ago given up on trying to make him talk about Theo.
After a few moments the answering machine picked up the call. Alejandro stilled at the sound of Katarina’s voice. For a moment he considered picking it up. He discarded the idea when he remembered how his last meeting with the raven haired beauty had ended.
As far as he was concerned she had interfered enough.
It had been a week since he had seen Theodora, a week filled with painful memories. Memories of the things they had done together, the emotions he had experienced with her, and the love she had elicited inside of him.
Within that week, Alejandro had discovered that his feelings for Theodora were a lot stronger than he had originally believed. He loved her.
Alejandro strode from the room, trying to outrun the ghost of their relationship.
He headed straight to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. It was his third that day and it wasn’t yet noon. Lately he had been drinking more and more of his calories.
He had just pressed his lips to the bottle when the sounds of Katarina’s second message filtered through the kitchen.
“Damn it, Alejandro. Pick up the fucking phone. I need to talk to you. I’m coming, sweetie,” she yelled at the top of her lungs to someone. “You good for nothing cowardice bastard, pick up the damn phone. Theodora needs you, Alejandro. She’s in trouble.”
He snapped the phone up from the holder and growled into it. “What exactly are you calling for now? She doesn’t want me, remember? We’re through.”
“Shut up and listen for a moment. This is not about you. This is about Theodora.”
Alejandro paused, caustic words on his tongue, at Katarina’s tone when she spoke of Theodora. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“What the hell is going on? What’s wrong?”
“You need to come over right now, Alejandro.”
* * * * *
Alejandro stood a feet few away from the darkened doorway to Theodora’s bedroom and glared down at Katarina. “We’re no longer together. She hates my guts. I’m not sure I’m the best one to ask for help.”
Katarina pushed past him, grabbed the knob, and turned, throwing the door open. “Get your tight ass in there now,” she growled. Before Alejandro could open his mouth, Katarina pushed him inside the shadowy room.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. When they did he saw that Theodora was huddled in the middle of her bed, a ball covered with a pile of blankets.
“I’m not hungry.”
Alejandro’s heart caught in his throat at the pain-tinged sound of her voice. There was so much emotion, so much pain, so much desolation in those simple words. Words that broke his heart.
“And I’m not here to feed you.”
Even as he said the words he knew he was lying. He was there to feed her. But the sustenance he wanted to give her was more than food, more important than water.
He wanted to feed her hope.
Theodora turned and peered out from her cotton cocoon. “What exactly are you here to do?”
Alejandro’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his mind emptied of all thought. What exactly was he doing there?
“I want to share your pain,” he whispered before sitting on the bed, sliding beside her. He pulled Theodora toward him until she lay under his arm. After a few moments, the soft rise and fall of her breasts told Alejandro that she had fallen asleep.
Hours later, long after the sun had set, Alejandro woke to the feel of Theodora moving against him.
He stilled when he heard her sniffle. Alejandro wondered if Theodora had slept for minutes or hours.
How long had he slept through her tears?
“Everything will be all right, Theodora.”
She groaned and moved closer into the curve of his body. He could feel her breath on him, feel it moving over his skin, and he was ashamed of the fact that his body responded to the simple, innocent caress. He tried to pull back, knowing what he was starting to feel, going to feel was wrong and improper.
His querida needed his care, his attention, maybe even his affection, but not his lust.
But he when he tried to move away from her, she followed, snuggling closer, so close that he knew he had lost the fight before he entered the ring. It had been so long, and he craved her touch.
“Don’t lie to me. I can handle it, but I don’t want to be lied to.”
For a moment Alejandro had no idea what she was talking about. Then his mind latched onto the threads of his last statement. “I’m not lying. Everything will be all right,” he whispered softly, as one hand cradled her jaw and lifted her face so her deep gaze bore into his. “I would never lie to you.”
Her gaze dropped. “Then don’t tell me everything will be okay. Everything won’t be fine…I won’t be fine.”
Alejandro was so shocked by her softly spoken statements that it took him a moment to respond. “You will be fine,” he finally got out. “You will be fine and you will get pregnant again and you will have a beautiful, healthy child.”
“But it won’t be the same. It won’t be yours.”
For a moment Alejandro thought he had misheard her. Theodora’s words had been so low, so whispered he couldn’t trust his hearing.
But then she repeated her last words. “It won’t be yours.”
“Theodora…”
“I wanted to have your baby and now it’s gone. I won’t be fine. It won’t be all right. Your baby is gone.”
He swallowed thickly and let the tears he had been holding back fall.
Chapter Fifteen
Lick of Sweet Passion
Theodora flipped the switch and bathed the large, spacious empty room in blinding white light. She had never noticed just quite how bright the lights in the Candy Drop Sweet Shoppe were until that moment. As she looked over the room for the last time she realized that there were a lot of things she had never noticed about the small enclave that had been her home away from home, her sanctuary.
She walked into the room and danced the fingers of one hand across one of the pale pink cloth covered tables. When she reached the middle of the dining room she stopped, hands on her chest, right above her heart and stared with unseeing eyes.
She had not been expecting the pain. Relief, yes. But not the pain that came when Theodora realized that tomorrow morning the Candy Drop Sweet Shoppe would be just another acquisition for Alba Coffees, Inc. It would no longer be hers. Never again would it be her sanctuary.
Alejandro had called her several times since that night. The night she spent in his arms. The night they’d spent together sharing the pain of her miscarriage.
It had been over a month, and the memory of the emotions his comfort had elicited still got her through the night.
Even though Alejandro had called her too many times to count, Theodora had never once picked up. She hadn’t even bothered to listen to half of the messages, erasing them almost the moment she heard his voice. She figured he wanted to restart their “relationship,” and she wasn’t ready for that. She had lost a child and gained a broken heart. She was definitely not ready to get back on that ride.
She needed time. She needed forever.
Theodora stilled, hands on the counter at the sound of movement. Someone was in the Candy Drop Sweet Shoppe with her.
For a moment she wasn’t sure what to do. She eyed the door trying to figure out how she could make it across the room without alerting her gu
est.
First thing, she bent and took off her shoes. She would never make it quietly across the linoleum floor in her heels.
“I kind of prefer them on. They do dangerous things to your legs.”
Theodora whirled around to find Alejandro standing in the doorway to her back room.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He smiled, giving her a flash of white teeth before turning and heading into the back room. Theodora followed him, grumbling. “Look, I know you think there’s something we need to talk about, but there is nothing left.”
“I’m not deaf. I heard you the first couple of times you said that.” He spoke without turning around. That irritated Theodora to the point where she had to grind her teeth to keep from screaming.
Oh, he’d heard her all right. Too bad he hadn’t listened to a word she said. “Get out.” She poked his shoulder to emphasize her point.
Alejandro turned around so quickly that her jaw dropped. He captured her hand in a tight grip. “I’m not leaving,” he growled in a menacing voice that danced down her spine. She shuddered and stared him straight in the eye.
“You must leave.”
He leaned low, so close that Theodora feared he would kiss her. She didn’t dare let his full, lush lips touch hers. Theodora stepped back and fell onto the island. She was trying to right herself when Alejandro grabbed her hands.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she yelled, trying to fight his hold. If anything, his grip tightened.
“I waited a year to get you in my bed.” He crossed both arms at the wrist.
“And then you back out because things are getting too hot, too soon, and I’m not ready for marriage.” Alejandro held both wrists with one hand and pulled something out of his back pocket. He knotted it around her wrists.
Belatedly, Theodora realized it was a tie.
She struggled against him with renewed enthusiasm.
“Am I right, querida?”
She watched his face, trying to figure out where she’d lost the thread of the conversation. Her brain had started short-circuiting the moment he’d placed his hands on her skin.
“Excuse me?”
He flashed her a wicked grin that did dangerous things to her nether region. She swallowed thickly.
“Always so polite, querida. I asked if I gave you an adept description of your flight.”
“My flight?”
“Hmmm, yeah,” he said as he lowered his head and nuzzled her. “You keep running ’cause you think I’m going to hurt you like those corporate bastards did.”
She stared at his dark head in horror. “What…who?” She clamped her lips closed when she realized only one woman would be so bold as to tell Alejandro about her past lovers. She was going to murder Katarina.
“Tell me, do you really think I’d leave you for someone younger, skinnier, and flashier?”
She turned away. “Every man does.”
“Believe it or not I’m not every man.”
“I’m much older than you, Alejandro. It’s natural for you to want someone your age…or younger.”
“I have given you everything. My heart. My soul. My every being. I think that’s all the nature I need.”
He spread her legs until she was totally open to him. Her skirt had hiked up around her hips so that she was baring her panties to him. Theodora stared at Alejandro from her precarious position, horrified. She tried to scoot off the island, only to find his strong fingers around her thighs, holding her immobile.
“Alejandro, don’t do this.”
His gaze snapped to hers. The smoldering darkness in his deep amber eyes made her belly jump. “Do this? Do what? Remind you of the pleasure you found in my arms, in my bed? Remind you of what is between us, what you’re hiding from?”
“I am not hiding from you.”
“Aren’t you?” Alejandro challenged. “Tell me you don’t love me.”
Theodora’s gaze slid away. “I don’t want you.”
His grin widened. “That’s not what I asked you, love.”
She jerked against the bindings. “Damn it, Alejandro.”
“Theodora, you may not want me, but you need me…and I need you,” he whispered before capturing her full lips in a drugging kiss. He nipped her bottom lip with the sharp edge of his teeth before suckling the flesh, caressing it with the soft, velvet feel of his tongue.
Theodora broke off the kiss. “Alejandro, we can’t…we can’t do this. We can’t even be here. I no longer own the Shoppe.”
“No, you don’t. I now own the Candy Drop Sweet Shoppe. You’re looking at the new owner, sweetie.”
Theodora stared at him in shock. What he was saying made no sense. “Damn it, Alejandro. Stop playing games. The new owner is supposed to collect the keys tonight. He will be outraged when he finds us here. Listen to me.”
“I am listening. And the new owner is outraged. He’s pissed as hell at you.” Above her face, Alejandro held up a mass of papers and shook them out. “Does this look familiar?”
Theodora stared at the sheets for a few seconds. Then recognition settled. It was the contract she had signed with Alba Coffee. She had reflected briefly on the fact that the company purchasing her dessert shop shared the same last name as her lover, but had chalked it up to a coincidence.
Because it couldn’t be anything more than that.
“What the hell are you doing with that?”
“Well, it’s my own personal copy. We each get one.”
“We?”
“Ah, querida, didn’t you read the fine print? I’m the new CEO of Alba Coffee.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it, querida? Don’t tell you haven’t suspected that I had a little more money at my disposal than I let you assume.”
Theodora gasped, remembering all the times that she had wondered where Alejandro got the money for the random, exquisite items he owned. He dressed a little too well and the one time she’d spotted his car, she’d thought it had been a high-class German import. When she’d asked Alejandro about it, he’d murmured something about getting it for a steal. She hadn’t pried further.
And the little trinkets she saw… She knew how much Alejandro earned working for her. She had assumed they were gifts, but…
She thought back to their first dinner at one of the city’s most expensive restaurants…the afternoon at the drive-in movie theater, and finally, where he lived.
If she had looked closely she would have realized Alejandro’s story didn’t add up.
“My father is Alberto Alba, the notorious Prince of Coffee. My grandfather, Antonio, the King started the company.” He pointed to a bold, masculine signature. Right there in black ink was his name sprawled on the contract.
“Oh my God.” Theodora stared at Alejandro dumbfounded. She had watched enough television to know exactly who Alberto Alba was. He was famous for the growth of the company he had taken over from his father.
Alejandro even looked a little like Alberto Alba.
“You lied to me.”
He gave a smile that was devoid of all emotion. “Like you didn’t lie to me, sweetheart. You told me you didn’t love me, that our relationship was just business. Consider us even.”
“Alejandro…”
The hands on the inside of her thighs moved higher, edging closer to the heat that ached between her legs. She attempted to move away, but his grip tightened. Her gaze caught his. A fire flamed in his cognac eyes.
“Are you scared of me, querida?” he murmured, never breaking the mesmerizing hold his hot gaze had over hers. His palm slid up her thighs, callused skin caressing every inch of her sensitive flesh.
Her teeth bruised the tender flesh of her bottom lip as she watched the ascent of Alejandro’s hands. After an infinity they reached the edge of her boy cut panties. Alejandro pushed her skirt higher up her waist until he fully bared the lower half of her body.
His fingers moved under the elastic band around her thigh. Her face
heated when he touched her. Theodora knew he could feel the moist evidence of her desire.
Alejandro palmed her through her panties, large hand cupping her cunt as she shuddered beneath his touch. He moved suddenly, grabbing the fabric at her hips and pulling her panties down her thighs. He threw them clear across the room. “You won’t be needing those,” he murmured.
He grabbed her skirt and pulled it down her hips. Next, came the suit jacket, blouse, and bra until she lay across the island naked.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
“Alejandro…”
He shook his head. “You will listen to what I have to say. And I do mean listen.” He paused, waiting for her assent.
Theodora licked her suddenly dry lips. They both knew she wasn’t going anywhere. That she did not want to be anywhere else. She nodded her agreement. Still, he didn’t speak. He wanted her to say the words. “I will listen, actually listen.”
“Good. I love you, Theodora. I’ve loved you for over a year, since that first moment I saw you. I came in to ask you a few questions and ended up working for you.” He cupped her breasts. His callused fingers strummed her nipples, brushing against the tips, making her breasts burn with pleasure. “I want to spend forever with you. I want to have children with you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life making you happy.” He pinched the turgid dark buds. “I want you and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Her body bowed, breasts reaching for his tantalizing touch as Theodora moaned Alejandro’s name.
His hands slipped between her legs and spread her thighs wider. Long, callused, golden fingers dipped between the fleshy folds of her sex. His fingers traced the inner slit of her sex, testing her readiness, spreading her cream. Theodora closed her eyes as pleasure ripped through her at the single, intimate touch. It had been so long since he had touched her. She felt like a fiend who had gone through withdrawals getting her first taste of her drug of choice.
And Alejandro was premium grade.
Theodora barely stifled the urge to growl when Alejandro’s hands were no longer brushing against her skin. She looked up to find him bending over, reaching at something on the floor beside the table. She jerked when he stood back up with a grin on his handsome face.
Sugar Mama Page 13