Dante frowned. “What’s going on here?”
“Why, the auction, of course,” de Souza whispered. “Of the ranch. By the bank.” An expressive shrug. “You know.”
No, Dante thought furiously, he did not know. His father had sent him into a situation without giving him any of the necessary facts. He grabbed the lawyer’s arm, dragged him into a corner.
“Juan Viera is selling the place?”
The little man’s eyebrows lifted. “Juan Viera is dead, senhor.”
Dead? Dante took a breath. “His son, then? Arturo is selling it?”
“Arturo is dead, too. Is that not why you are here? To bid on Viera y Filho?”
“Well, yeah, but I had no idea that—”
“You must be prepared to bid strongly, senhor.”
Hell. This was not a way to do business.
“What’s the place worth?”
The lawyer quoted a figure in Brazilian reals, quickly amended it to its U.S. dollar equivalent.
“That’s it? Fifty thousand is all?”
“That will cover the money owed the bank.” De Souza hesitated. “But if you bid, you will have to go much higher.” His voice fell to a whisper. “There is another interested party, you see.”
Dante had been to auctions before. He’d bought a couple of paintings at Sotheby’s. There was often another interested party but Sotheby’s hadn’t been like this. There was a sense of something not just competitive but raw in the air.
“Okay. What’s the bid up to?”
The lawyer listened. “Twenty thousand reals. Half what the bank wants.”
Dante nodded. This wasn’t his money, it was his old man’s. Spend what you must, Cesare had ended up telling him, up to half a million bucks. That gave him significant leeway—and the sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave.
“Bid one hundred thousand.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. Called out the amount in reals. The room fell silent. Everyone looked first at Dante, then at the big guy in black who slowly turned and looked at him, too. Dante held the man’s gaze until he shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and showed all his teeth in what no one in his right mind would ever call a smile.
“Two hundred thousand dollars, U.S.,” the man said, in lightly accented English.
There were audible gasps from the others.
What was this? A contest over what looked like a place that would suck in tens, maybe hundreds of thousands to put right? Maybe Cesare was nuts, Dante thought, but he wasn’t, and hadn’t his father said he was handing this off to him because of his business expertise?
Dante shrugged. “You want it that bad,” he started to say…
And then a voice as soft as the petal of a rose said his name and he knew, God, he knew who it was even before he turned to the stairs and saw her.
Gabriella’s heart was pounding.
It was Dante. But it couldn’t be. He was a bitter memory from another time, another place…
“Gabriella?”
Deus, he was real!
Almost a year and a half had gone by and yet everything about him was familiar. His broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled body. The hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes, the palest shade of blue.
And his mouth. Firm and sensual, and even now she remembered the feel of it against hers.
He was moving toward her. She shook her head, stepped back. She knew she could not let him touch her. If he did, she might crumple. All the nights she’d thought of him. Willed herself not to think of him. Told herself she hated him, that she hoped and prayed she would never see him again…
True, all of it.
And yet, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing, listening as her fate was decided by a group of faceless men, she’d heard his voice and reacted with the predictability of Pavlov’s dog, her heart racing, her lips readying to curve in a smile.
She drew a deep, unsteady breath.
Those days were gone. She had no reason to smile at this man. She felt nothing for him. Not even hatred. The sight of him had stunned her, that was all…
Unless…unless he had come for her. In the darkest hours of the darkest nights, even despising him, she had wept for him. For his touch. And sometimes…sometimes, she had dared to dream that he had discovered her secret, that he was coming to her, coming for her…
“What are you doing here?” he said.
His bewildered question shattered the last of those ridiculous dreams. Reality rushed in and with it, the cold knowledge that she had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Her heart was racing again, this time with trepidation, but the recent changes in her life had brought back the ingrained habits of childhood, and she drew herself up and met his confusion with calm resolution.
“I think a far better question is, what are you doing here?”
He looked surprised. Well, why wouldn’t he? He was a man who never had to answer to anyone.
“I’m here on business.”
“What kind of business would bring you to the end of the earth?”
“I came to buy this ranch.”
She felt the color leave her face.
“Viera y Filho,” he said impatiently, “and you still haven’t answered my question.”
A sigh swept through the room, followed by the sound of a man’s unpleasant laughter. She saw Dante turn toward Andre Ferrantes and she felt a rush of panic. Who knew what he would say?
“Something about this amuses you?” Dante said coldly.
Ferrantes smiled. “Everything about this amuses me, senhor, including this touching scene of reunion.” Ferrantes cocked his head. “I only wonder…how well do you know the senhorita?”
“Dante,” Gabriella said quickly, “listen to me…”
Ferrantes stepped forward, elbowing another man aside. “I ask,” he said softly, “because I know her well.” Gabriella gasped as he wrapped a thick arm around her waist and tugged her to his side. “Intimately, one might say. Isn’t that correct, Gabriella?”
Dante’s eyes went cold and flat. They locked on Ferrantes’s face even as he directed his question to her.
“What is he talking about?”
She had heard him use that tone before, not long after they’d met. They’d been strolling along a street in Soho. It was late, after midnight, and they’d heard a thin cry down a dark alley, the thump of something hitting the ground.
“Stay here,” Dante had told her.
It had been a command, not a request, and she’d obeyed it instinctively, standing where he’d left her, hearing scuffling sounds and then thuds until she’d said to hell with obedience. She’d run toward the alley just as Dante had reappeared with an old man shuffling beside him. A street person, from the looks of him, saying “Thank you, sir,” over and over, and then she’d looked at Dante, saw that his suit coat was torn, his jaw was already swelling…saw the look in his eyes that said he had done what he’d had to do…
And had enjoyed it.
“Gabriella, what is he talking about? Answer me!”
She opened her mouth. Shut it again. What could she possibly tell him? Not the truth. Never that. Never, ever that!
“Perhaps I can help, senhor.” It was the lawyer, looking from one man to the other and smiling nervously. “Obviously, you and the senhorita have met before. In the States, I assume.”
“Senhor de Souza,” Gabriella said, “I beg you—”
“You could say that,” Dante growled, his eyes never leaving the big man who still stood with his arm around Gabriella. Her face was as white as paper. She was trembling. Why didn’t she step away from the greasy son of a bitch? Why didn’t she call him a liar? No way would she have given herself to someone like this.
“In that case,” the lawyer said, “you probably knew her as Gabriella Reyes.”
Dante folded his arms over his chest. “Of course I know her as—”
“Her true name, her full name, is Gabriella Reyes Vi
era.” De Souza paused. “She is the daughter of Juan Viera.”
Dante looked at him. “I thought Viera had only one child. A son.”
“He had a son and a daughter.” De Souza paused, delicately cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps—perhaps we should discuss this in private, Senhor Orsini, yes?”
“Indeed you should,” Ferrantes snarled. “There is an auction taking place here, advogado, or have you forgotten?”
“Let me get this straight,” Dante said, ignoring him, his attention only on the attorney. “The ranch, which should be Gabriella’s, will be sold to the highest bidder?”
“To me,” Ferrantes looked down at Gabriella. The meaty hand that rested at her waist rose slowly, deliberately, until it lay just beneath her breast. “Everything will be sold to me. So you see, American, you are wrong. There is no business here for you, whatsoever.”
Dante looked at him. Looked at Gabriella. Something was very wrong here. He had no idea what it was, no time to find out. He could only act on instinct, as he had done so many times in his life.
He took a deep breath, looked at the auctioneer. “What was the last bid?”
The auctioneer swallowed. “Senhor Ferrantes bid two hundred thousand United States dollars.”
Dante nodded. “Four hundred thousand.”
The crowd gasped. Ferrantes narrowed his eyes. “Six.”
Dante looked at Gabriella. What had happened to her? She was as beautiful as in the past, but she had lost weight. Her eyes were enormous in the weary planes of her face. And though she was tolerating Ferrantes’s touch, he could almost see her drawing into herself as if she could somehow stand within the man’s embrace and yet remain apart from it.
“Gabriella,” he said quietly. “I can buy this place for you.”
The crowd stirred. Ferrantes’s face darkened, but Dante had eyes only for the woman who had once been his lover.
“No strings,” he said. “I’ll buy it, sign it over to you and that’ll be the end of it.”
She stared at him. He could see her weighing her choices but, dammit, what was there to weigh?
“Gabriella,” he said, urgency in his tone, “tell me what you want.”
Ferrantes pushed Gabriella aside, took a menacing step forward. “You think you can walk in here and do anything you want, American?”
Dante ignored him. “Talk to me, Gabriella.”
She almost laughed. Talk? It was too late for that. They should have talked that terrible day when her life had changed forever. She had been so alone, so frightened, so in need of her lover’s strength and comfort. She’d phoned his office, found out he was away. He had not told her that. She saw it as a bad sign, but when he called the next evening and said he was back and wanted to see her, her heart had lifted. And that night, when he said he had something to tell her, she’d been sure fate had answered her plea, that he was going to say that he had gone away not to put distance between them but to think about her and now he knew, knew what he felt…
But what he had felt was that he was tired of her.
She would never forget the small blue box. The exquisite, obscenely expensive earrings. And his oh-so-polite little speech including that guilt-driven assurance that if she ever needed anything, she had only to ask.
The pain of his rejection had been momentarily dulled by his sheer arrogance. She could not have imagined ever wanting anything from him.
But the world and her life had changed.
“The fazenda is mine,” Ferrantes growled, “as is the woman.”
Gabriella dragged a steadying breath into her lungs. “Sim. Please. Buy…buy the fazenda for me.” Her words were rushed and desperate. “I will pay you back. It will take time but I’ll repay every dollar.”
Dante never hesitated.
“Five million dollars,” he called out. “Five million, U.S.”
The crowd gasped. Ferrantes cursed. The auctioneer swung his gavel.
And Dante took Gabriella in his arms and kissed her.
CHAPTER THREE
DANTE’S kiss was the last thing Gabriella expected.
The last thing she wanted.
Once, his kisses had meant everything. Tender, they’d been soft enough to bring her to the verge of tears; passionate, they’d made her dizzy and hungry for more.
And it hadn’t been only his kisses that meant everything. It was the man.
Deep inside, she’d known it had not been the same for him. She’d never been foolish enough to think it was. He was rich, powerful, incredibly good-looking. Many of the models she knew dated such men. She never had…
Until him.
His initial interest had been flattering. Exciting. She had thought, Why not? She’d promised herself dating him would be nothing serious.
And then, despite everything, she had fallen in love with him. Deeply, desperately in love.
Dante had been magic.
But the magic was gone, lost in the cold reality of the past year. Completely gone, she told herself frantically, when she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, the tightening of skin over bone, the all-too-familiar signs that said he was going to take her in his arms.
“Don’t,” she said, slapping her hands against his chest, but he was not listening, he was not listening…
“Gabriella,” he murmured, saying her name softly as he used to when they made love. His arms tightened around her, he drew her against him…
And kissed her.
The room spun. The crowd disappeared. All that mattered was the sweetness of his kiss, the hardness of his body, the strength of his arms. Her foolish, desperate heart began to race.
“Dante,” she whispered. The hands that had tried to push him away rose and slid up his chest, skimmed the steady beat of his heart and curved around his neck. She rose on her toes, leaned into him, parted her lips to his just as she’d done in the past.
She felt him shudder with desire at her touch.
He wanted her, still.
Wanted her as if nothing had ever separated them.
The realization shot through her like a drug, and when he groaned, thrust one hand into her hair, slid the other to the base of her spine and angled his lips over hers, his kiss going from sweet to passionate as if they were alone, alone in that perfect world his lovemaking had always created, a world in which he had never abandoned her…
A meaty hand clamped down on her shoulder, fingers biting hard into her flesh.
“Pirhana!”
The foul Portuguese curse word was followed by a stream of profanities. Her eyes flew open as Ferrantes yanked her out of Dante’s arms, a stream of words even worse than whore flying from his lips.
Dante shot into action, grabbed Ferrantes’s arm, twisted and jerked it high behind the man’s back. Ferrantes hissed with fury and pain.
“I will kill you, Orsini,” he said, spittle flying from his lips.
“Dante,” Gabriella said desperately, “Dante, please. He’ll hurt you!”
Dante pushed her behind him and brought his lips close to Ferrantes’s ear.
“Touch her again,” he snarled, “and I promise, you bastard, I’ll be the one doing the killing!”
“She is a witch! She makes a fool of you. That you do not see it—Ahh!”
The big man yelped; his face contorted with pain as Dante forced his arm even higher.
“Listen to me, Ferrantes. You are not to speak to her. You are not to speak of her. You are not to so much as look at her or so help me God, you’re a dead man!”
Dante was dimly aware of the room emptying, men rushing for the door, footsteps hurrying across the veranda, truck and car engines roaring to life outside, but he never took his eyes from Ferrantes.
“You hear me? You’re to keep away from her. You got that?”
The big man’s breathing was heavy. At last he gave a quick jerk of his head in assent.
Dante let go, took a step back, and Ferrantes spun around and swung at him. His hand was the size of a ham but t
here had been many things to learn in the wilds of Alaska, including how to defend yourself in some of the roughest bars in the world. Dante danced back; Ferrantes’s fist sailed harmlessly by his face and when the big man came at him again he grunted, balled his own fist and jabbed it into the man’s solar plexus with the force of a piston.
Ferrantes went down like a felled tree.
Dante stood over him for a long moment. Then he looked up, saw de Souza, saw the auctioneer…
But Gabriella was gone.
De Souza was staring at the motionless hulk on the floor as if it were a rodent. Dante grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
De Souza gulped, looked from Ferrantes to Dante. “You have made a bad enemy, senhor.”
“Answer the question, man. Where is Gabriella?”
The advogado shrugged. “She is gone.”
“I can see that for myself. Where?”
De Souza licked his lips. “Listen to me, Senhor Orsini. This situation is—how do you say—more complicated than it might at first seem.”
Dante barked a laugh. “You think?” His eyes fixed on the lawyer’s. “Where did she go?” he demanded. “Upstairs?”
“Not there,” de Souza said quickly. He gave another expressive shrug. “She fled with the others.”
Dante ran from the house. Only three vehicles remained in the clearing: his, a gold Caddy he figured was the lawyer’s and the big, ugly black SUV that surely belonged to Ferrantes.
He sagged against the veranda railing.
Gabriella was gone.
And maybe that was just as well.
He’d come here to buy this place for his father. Instead, he’d bought it for a woman who had once meant something to him but no longer did. Yes, he’d kissed her. And, yes, that one kiss had damned near consumed him, but so what?
He was a normal, healthy male. She was a beautiful woman. They had a shared history. But that was it.
He looked around him at the weed-choked corral, the dilapidated outbuildings. He’d dropped five million bucks on this place—his money, not Cesare’s—but so what? The truth was he had a lot of money. An obscene amount of money, and he’d made every penny on his own. Losing five million dollars was nothing. And Gabriella didn’t owe him anything. Hadn’t he promised her there would be no strings? Hadn’t buying the fazenda for her been his idea?
Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child Page 3