Bad Blood Collection

by Various Authors

  But that had rarely happened.

  He’d feared he’d always be adrift. Always be the one on the outside looking in at other people’s lives.

  Then he’d met Leila and his hopes had surged along with his passion and love. Such beautiful plans they’d made. And yet when it came time for them to move their relationship to the next level, when having a family was just within their reach, she was too gripped with fear to try.

  She lacked faith in him to believe he’d be there for her, that together they could move mountains. That he’d do whatever was necessary to help her through a pregnancy.

  Though she professed she still loved him, still wanted to be a mother, in the end she had rejected him in favor of returning to her dazzling career. She clung to her fears instead of him and the bright future that was right there in their grasp.

  Dammit! His money could buy anything. Take him and Leila anywhere they wished to go. He could ease the suffering of thousands with his charities. But his riches couldn’t buy the close marriage he’d once envisioned he’d have with Leila. It couldn’t buy her trust. All the wealth he’d accumulated wouldn’t ensure she could have a healthy pregnancy.

  Leila. She was always on his mind. A fever in his blood. Why the hell had she phoned him earlier today? Why hadn’t she left a message?

  The question needled him, for when he’d returned her call much later, there had been no answer. Was she all right?

  He wrapped a thirsty towel around his hips and padded across the white terrazzo floor, calling himself a fool for worrying. Leila likely had a change of plans for her upcoming shoot. Perhaps she’d gotten another offer, one that would tear her away from him for another holiday, he thought sourly.

  A trio of wide steps descended into his spacious living room. He damned sure didn’t want to go on like this, living apart from his wife. Virtually living alone. Putting his dream of a family with her on hold yet again while she struggled to cope with her fears and devoted more and more time to her career.

  If she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take a chance on them, on a family, he could be stuck in this marital limbo for years.

  That prospect rested heavily on him as he drew a bam gelado from the bar cooler, the bottle of beer was so cold that ice coated the outside. At least this small pleasure in his life was perfect!

  He opened it and drank deeply, welcoming the shock to his senses. But when the drink was finished, the quiet penthouse still felt oppressive.

  Rafael cursed loud and long. He had to get out of here before the solitude drove him mad. Maybe he’d hit the clubs along Ipanema Beach tonight, see if he could connect with friends. With life.

  Before he could take an impatient step toward his bedroom, the bell on his private elevator dinged. His brow furrowed in annoyance. Who had the audacity to pay him a visit without calling first? He certainly was in no mood for company.

  But that was exactly what he was going to have, for his elevator was moving upward. Someone was coming. He intensely disliked surprise visitors and this time was no exception.

  Hopefully it was just Nathaniel and his wife needing to crash here. If so, they could have the penthouse for as long as they wanted.

  Certain that was who was paying a surprise visit, Rafael turned to the elevator with a forced smile just as the doors opened. The last person he expected to see stared back at him with huge hazel eyes, her gorgeous reflection caught in the many mirrors.

  “Leila? What in the hell are you doing here?”

  “We have to talk,” she said, and stepped inside the suite, dragging a small overnight case behind her.

  A blast of anger and desire erupted within him, both vying for prominence, both confirming he was far from over her. “You should have returned my call.”

  “I thought about it, but this was something that needed to be said face-to-face.”

  He didn’t like her grave tone or the tension carving lines in her face. Had she, too, made a decision regarding their future? Did she want to end their marriage once and for all?

  “So talk,” he said, striving to be light but failing as the words came out clipped. Sharp. Cold.

  She took a shaky breath. Then another.

  He took an instinctive step toward her, his in-sides twisting with concern now. She looked pale. Tired. Terrified.

  Something was very wrong.

  “Very well,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  RAFAEL prided himself on his iron control of his emotions, but that admission nearly brought him to his knees. His gaze scanned her body with exacting detail, but her loose clothes prevented him from seeing the evidence that proved her claim. Leila was pregnant.

  He’d dreamed of it. Wanted it badly. Yet the realization that she carried his child, that they would be parents, floored him.

  “You are sure of this?” he asked.

  “Positive. My doctor ran blood tests to confirm it,” she said, eyes wide with obvious fright. “According to the doctor, I conceived in March. That’s when we met in Aru—”

  “I remember, querida.”

  Remembered every delicious detail of that reunion.

  He swiped a hand over his mouth, sorting this out in his head. That had been the first time he’d been with his wife in eight long months and he’d been ravenous for her. Hell, they’d been starving for each other.

  He gave a nervous laugh at the tremor that rocked through him. It was unbelievable. It was a dream come true.

  “You are … what? Three months along?” he said, the reality of being a father in less than six months staggering him.

  She nodded. “The reason I got pregnant was because I was taking an antibiotic at the same time as my pill, and it diminished the effectiveness of the birth control.” Her eyes closed on a groan. “This is just such a shock. So much to cope with.”

  “Which you will do with me by your side now that the choice of having a child has been taken from you.”

  That earned him a pointed glare, but he shrugged off her annoyance at his choice of words. Call it a miracle. Fate. Everything he’d wanted was in his grasp. He wasn’t about to jeopardize her health or their child’s.

  That meant he, too, would have to make major changes in his life. Quick decisions.

  A baby changed everything, his life and hers. He hoped Leila came to realize that quickly.

  He crossed to her then and wrapped her in his embrace, the towel falling to the floor forgotten. His heart soared and he longed to shout for joy, but he tempered his excitement in the face of her shock.

  She was unnaturally stiff, and an occasional tremor skittered through her. He had to handle her and this situation carefully.

  “Perhaps it’s as you said in France,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple, her forehead. “Perhaps conceiving in the face of such odds was fate’s choice to make.”

  She took a stuttering breath, her body marginally losing its unbending steel. “However it happened, it was still unplanned. Is still difficult to accept, to face my worst fears.”

  “We will get through this together.”

  He heard her swallow, felt her tension vibrate along his own taut nerves. “There’s more, Rafael.”

  He’d never seen Leila act this serious. This worried. This terrified.

  God, please don’t let there be something wrong with our baby. With Leila. Give us this.

  “Go on,” he urged gently, his own breath held now.

  She took another shaky breath and stepped back from him, though still caught in the circle of his arms. Her worried gaze lifted to his. “The ultrasound I took yesterday revealed there are two babies.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in. “Twins?”

  She gave a wooden nod, looking as if she’d be ill any second. Meu Deus! She’d gone through hell trying to have one baby. How would she cope with bearing two?

  For the first time he felt the sharp talons of fear scrape down his spine. Every complication he’d ever read about was now
twice as dire.

  “It will be all right,” he said, hoping to hell that would prove true.

  “Rafael, I’m terrified.” She took a step backward, her eyes suddenly frantic. “I came here because.” She blinked rapidly, yet tears slipped from her eyes anyway. “I don’t know what to do. I’m so afraid I’ll fail us again.”

  He was at her side in an instant, gathering her close with hands that trembled. “Do not say that. Don’t even think it. Remember that together we can do anything.”

  She trembled in his arms, but this time she clung to him and the fear gripping his heart eased. “You are so arrogantly sure of yourself I want to believe you.”

  “Never doubt I can keep you safe, querida.”

  Since he’d seen Leila in France, he’d endlessly researched the risks attributed to recovered anorexics during pregnancy and he had a better grasp of the inner demons she battled. He had decided then that if she’d give them a chance at this, he’d make sure that not one day went past without him telling her she grew more beautiful to him. More cherished. More loved.

  “I’ll hire the best doctors. You will be fine,” he said, conviction in his voice that he desperately wanted to believe.

  He shoved those doubts away and focused on the woman pressed to him now. His eyes closed and his throat worked.

  She was his wife. Soon to be the mother to his children.

  He was going to be a father. He would have Leila back as his wife. He’d have his family. He’d have everything.

  “We’ll relocate to the fazenda,” he said, knowing a phone call would alert his small staff to prepare for their arrival.

  “I have to return to California first.”

  He was shaking his head before she finished. “There is no need when you can have your things shipped here.”

  “I was afraid you’d do this.”

  She twisted out of his arms and stepped back, far enough that he’d have to take a step to reach her, enough distance to force him to realize that she’d wrestled control of her emotions.

  He spread his arms wide. “I am merely doing what I promised by taking care of you and our babies.”

  “For now. But I know you.” She lifted a hand, holding her thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “You are this close to turning into a tyrant.”

  The lightly said quip was too damned close to the horror he’d lived with all his life. His father had been a brutal autocrat and mentally unstable thanks to an indulgence in booze and drugs.

  Though Rafael had never spent a moment in the man’s company, he’d lived with the fear that those dark traits would show up in him one day. For Leila to suggest such a thing, even in jest, jarred him.

  He took a deep breath, then another, determined to keep a clear head. “Why would you need to fly back to California?”

  “I have a doctor’s appointment that I can’t miss.”

  “There are equally qualified obstetricians in São Paulo,” he said. “Since you will be living here, wouldn’t it be wise to align yourself with one now?”

  Leila frowned and gave the room a quick glance. Looking flustered. Or was that cornered?

  She bit her lip, then huffed a breath and met his gaze. “I also have a shoot next week. My final one that wraps up this contract.”

  Was she crazy? “I forbid you to work now that you are pregnant!”

  “You forbid me? That is not your decision to make, Rafael!” she said, her hazel eyes as hard and glittering as cut ambers now.

  “The hell it isn’t! These are my children you carry and you are my wife!” He raked his fingers through his hair and swore. “My God! You just came here crying, worried sick that you would do something to harm our babies. And yet you insist on working?”

  She pressed her palms to her head and let out a cry of frustration. “Stop it! I’ve discussed the dangers of finishing this contract, and my doctor assures me that I am fine as long as I stay hydrated, am careful to rest between takes and don’t take risks on the set.”

  “I don’t like it, Leila.”

  “I know, but hear me out.” She crossed to him slowly, eyes locked on his. He read the fear and worry and love in her gaze as she slipped her arms around him. “My agent was able to convince the designers to move the dates on the campaign so I could work without great risk at this point. Rafael, the shoot will only last a week, maybe less. I’ll be close to my doctor there.”

  He didn’t like this one bit, but all the arguing in the world was not going to change her mind. Short of locking her in a room, he couldn’t hold her here.

  “All right. When are you flying back to L.A.?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Fine,” he bit out, grabbing his mobile and punching in numbers. Distancing himself from her in space and emotion. “I’ll go with you.”

  “That isn’t necessary …”

  He slashed the air with one hand, cutting off whatever she was about to say. “We will never be apart again, not even for a day. I won’t stand on the outside and watch my family live away from me! My children will know me.”

  “You think I plan to stay there without you?” she asked, her brow drawn. “That I’d separate you from the children?”

  He clamped his jaw tight, his cheeks burning from the memory of his youth. She didn’t know all the details. Couldn’t imagine the hell and shame he’d endured.

  “Rafael, what’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He shrugged off her concern, determined to valiantly keep his shame hidden. “It’s nothing.”

  “Yes, it is. Please. Tell me what is haunting you so,” she coaxed, her hands light on his back, her breath warm on his skin. “I’m your wife. There’s nothing you can’t tell me. Nothing.”

  He hung his head, eyes pinched shut. She was right, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to unburden his soul.

  “You don’t know how hard this is,” he said, afraid to give voice to his fears.

  “Then tell me so I understand.” She slipped her arms around him, and warmth seeped into him, thawing the icy dam holding his past hostage.

  “You know my father disowned me,” he said, his fingers digging into the window casing so hard that they went numb. “That he barred me from setting foot in Wolfe Manor.”

  “I remember you telling me,” she said, her hands soothing. “But your eldest brother defied him and included you with your brothers and sister.”

  He bobbed his head, forever grateful to Jacob for that and so much more. Jacob had done more than include him. He’d left his own inheritance for Rafael upon Rafael’s eighteenth birthday.

  Rafael had used it wisely, eternally grateful to his brother for giving him the opportunity to make a better life for himself and his mother. Rafael had longed to thank Jacob personally, but after William Wolfe’s death Jacob had suddenly left Wolfe Manor without a word. Rafael hadn’t seen his elder brother until a number of years later at a computer and technology conference in Rio.

  Though he’d been unable to catch his brother that night, he’d eventually tracked him down. Their initial meeting after so many years apart had been tense at first.

  But as Rafael had talked about their siblings’ successes and his own rapidly expanding company, Jacob had acted like his old fun self. At least to a degree, he remembered with a frown. For Jacob had shared little of his own life.

  And to Rafael’s frustration, Jacob had refused to take back the fortune he’d given to Rafael so long ago. “Give it to charity,” Jacob had said, sending his love on to Rafael’s mother before he disappeared again.

  One day he’d repay Jacob for his largess. One day.

  He shook off the memory and focused on Leila again.

  “Because of William Wolfe’s refusal to acknowledge me or to even lend financial support, my mother was forced to work two jobs,” he said, again telling her what she already knew as he eased into the subject that tormented him. “She was rarely home. Her solution to keeping me occupied and out of trouble wit
h the wrong crowd was by supplying me with outdated computers to tinker with.”

  It was then that he discovered what he loved most. What he could do better than anyone. It hadn’t bothered him when he discovered those early computers were the castoffs of his half brothers. To him they were golden opportunities to learn, to let his imagination soar.

  “She obviously succeeded,” Leila said.

  He heaved a troubled sigh and faced her then. “She did all she could, Leila. One year she scrimped and saved so she could give me twenty pounds sterling for Christmas, but the real surprise was when she took me to London for a day so I could see the holiday finery and buy whatever I wanted.”

  “That’s a beautiful memory,” she said.

  “It would have been,” he said, the old pain of rejection returning full force. “Except, we walked by Hartington’s, and there in the front window was a lavish Christmas display with the latest toys being enjoyed by my brothers and sister.”

  “Your father’s store.”

  He managed a curt nod, seeing it all unfold as if it were yesterday. The cold. The pristine sprinkling of snow.

  The family he longed to be part of together. Happy.

  Just like then, the pain of rejection and hatred sliced through him with the precision of a honed blade, leaving him emotionally bleeding.

  “My father was there as well, standing to the side of the display, watching his children perform for the crowds gathered outside.” He swallowed hard, but the bitter memory lingered on his tongue, the despondency and wretched exclusion that engulfed him then was still almost unbearable. “When he saw me and my mother standing there in the cold and snow, his eyes glittered with hatred while his hard mouth twisted into a cruel smile.”

  Leila let out a cry of despair. “How could a father treat his child so abominably?”

  It was a question that Rafael had asked himself thousands of times but could never answer. His father had been a victim to violent mood swings egged on by drink and later drugs, he’d discovered.

  That realization kept Rafael from envying his siblings for what they had, for they had to suffer their father’s wrath daily. When Jacob passed his inheritance down to Rafael, his mother had bought him the best computer on the market.