‘My mind may not remember you but my body does. I know that if I kiss a certain spot on your neck you will lose control and your legs will begin to shake.’
Nora gasped, shaking her head in an effort to stop him. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘Stop! No more lies between us.’ His voice was a seductive whisper. ‘I remember touching you, Nora. I remember your beautiful face as you climaxed with the most delicious whisper of a scream.’
He looked into her eyes and Nora was utterly helpless, unable to move under the sensual weight of his amber gaze.
‘I suddenly know all of these things and yet everything else is still in shadow. How can that be?’
Nora wasn’t sure whether he was asking her or himself, but she inhaled a deep shuddering breath and found that the few distraction tactics and acting skills she was able to draw upon had thoroughly escaped her. She felt a mixture of arousal and fear creep up her spine, holding her paralysed and powerless to do anything more than stare at him in damning silence.
‘Am I still mistaken?’
Nora closed her eyes and felt the echo of their passionate whirlwind affair rush through her like a hurricane, destroying all the hopes she’d had of talking herself out of this.
‘It was a casual thing. Barely more than a few weeks until it was over.’ She forced the words out and watched as Duarte’s eyes blazed with triumph, then narrowed on her once again.
‘When?’ The word was a harsh demand.
‘A year ago. Five months before your kidnapping,’ she said, wondering if he was mentally doing calculations.
The idea that he was suspicious enough to ask for that confirmation was more fuel heaped onto the fire of anxiety within her. She had told him the truth. Their short-lived fling had ended the day he’d walked out of her father’s home. But of course there had been that crazy day when he had appeared in the rain outside her university a couple of months later...
An involuntary shiver went down her spine as she remembered the anger and frustration of their conversation erupting into a single desperate explosion of passionate kissing in his low-slung sports car. They’d been parked near the beach in broad daylight, and she had shocked herself when she had moved to spread herself over him and felt Duarte enter her unsheathed.
The madness had only taken them briefly, before they had realised what they were doing and stopped, but apparently that was all it had taken for her to fall pregnant.
She wouldn’t regret it—not when it had given her the greatest gift of her life. Her son.
Duarte took a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak, but just then they were interrupted by the arrival of one of his bodyguards in the doorway. Nora was shocked to see that the man was covered in blood and had a split lip. It suddenly dawned on her that Duarte had told her he’d been in a fight. What had happened?
‘The intruders have been removed, sir.’ The guard spoke quietly but his rasping voice carried on the wind. ‘Senhor Fiero has confirmed that they are members of Novos Lideres.’
Nora felt the ground shift beneath her.
‘There’s been a break-in and you didn’t tell me?’ She gasped, feeling her body begin to shake as she desperately grasped for the baby monitor, half expecting to see her father’s face there instead of her peaceful, sleeping child.
‘Thank you—you can take the rest of the night off.’ Duarte’s mouth was a grim line.
‘That’s not all, boss.’ The guard flashed a glance towards where Nora stood. ‘I don’t think they were here for you. There were months’ worth of surveillance pictures and notes all over their car...photos of her.’
Duarte’s face turned to pure thunder as he instructed the guard to gather the evidence and bring it to his office.
Once the man was gone, he advanced on Nora. He was dangerously still, his arms crossed as he looked down at her like an angry god. ‘Have they approached you since that night in the shipping yard?’
‘I knew I was being watched,’ she answered truthfully.
He closed his eyes, torment in every inch of his face. ‘This is why you fear me. Why you have been so mistrustful of my help. I’ll bet even now you are making plans to run. To disappear from here.’
‘Running is the only defence I have to keep my son safe. Away from the crossfire. From all of you.’
‘All of us?’ His brow darkened with sudden ferocity. ‘You consider me the same as them?’
Nora turned to walk away, but her progress was hampered by a strong, muscular arm against the doorframe. She looked up to find him dangerously close, his eyes twin fires of fury.
‘Don’t ever compare me to that lowlife gangster and his cronies again.’
‘You say you’re trying to help me, but we both know why you’ve really taken me under your protection.’ She steeled herself, determined not to back down in the face of his anger. ‘You’re keeping me here to get information against your enemies. What makes you any different?’
‘I don’t take people against their will.’
‘Well, that’s good news for me.’ She felt her breath expand painfully in her chest. ‘Because I won’t be staying here a moment longer to be used as a pawn in your game.’
‘I have been up-front with you from the start. I do not use women.’ He moved forward, pressing his hand to her cheek and forcing her to look into his eyes. ‘Whatever this connection is between us, it is not some kind of ploy. I didn’t plan that kiss.’
Nora blushed, remembering the heat of his mouth on hers, but she pushed the feeling away. ‘That is another reason I can’t stay here.’
‘You can,’ he said softly. ‘You can choose to be a witness in my case and help bring a criminal to justice. You can choose to trust me to protect you.’
She shook her head, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth. He spoke of trust. What would he do if he knew the truth of her terrible past. Right now, he was assuming that she was an innocent victim, caught in the crossfire of his war. That she could simply go on the witness stand and give evidence without repercussions.
She closed her eyes, thinking of her father and his clever net of spies and his unending power. He would likely pay the judge to throw her in jail while he walked away with a smile on his face. She was simply circling under his net and he was waiting to make his move and catch her. She knew how he operated. She knew that even if he didn’t know about Liam yet, the very thought of his daughter reunited with Duarte Avelar would be enough to tip him over the edge into one of his rages. He would want Duarte dead for sure this time. And he would make sure she watched it happen.
And her son? She shuddered to think of Lionel Cabo using Liam in his games.
Panic edged her voice and she didn’t try to hide it. ‘I can’t be a witness for your case, Duarte. I can’t willingly put myself in danger like that just so you can have your revenge. I have to protect my son. I just want to get away from all of this and raise my child in peace.’
‘Nora, this isn’t about me getting revenge for myself.’ He walked to the window, turning his back to her. ‘Those people almost burnt down a tower block full of apartments with living occupants inside. My tower, that I’d refused to sell to them. They have no morals, no limits when it comes to getting what they want. Those apartments were filled with hundreds of the most vulnerable people in society: elderly couples, people with disabilities and single mothers with their children.’
‘The fire safety scandal...’ She froze, remembering him telling her the reason he’d been in Rio, trying to save his parents’ housing foundation. ‘That was Novos Lideres?’
Duarte nodded. ‘There is proof of a politician’s involvement. A politician who was in Lionel Cabo’s pocket. A friend of mine pursued the evidence and was almost killed as a result. But that politician was our only hope of pinning the crime on Novos Lideres and now he’s dead. Cabo thinks he’s untouchable. One of the
things my business partner Valerio told me about the beatings we endured was that they threatened to kill my sister. They have no respect for human life, Nora.’
His fists pulled tight as he spoke the words and Nora was quiet for a long moment. Up until now her decisions had been solely focused on how to keep herself and her son as far away from this mess as possible. To keep them safe and out of her father’s nefarious clutches. But in walking away would she actually give her father more power? She had evidence that could put him away; she was an eye witness to many of his crimes.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she shuddered out a long breath and stared at the ground. Perhaps if she helped Duarte he might forgive her. More importantly, she might undo some of her own poor choices and finally be able to forgive herself.
Until Duarte, she’d told herself that the effects of her father’s business dealings had only been on the money and power of wealthy men. She had fooled herself into thinking that she wasn’t a true criminal if she wasn’t hurting people. The truth was, every time she’d stolen information before feeding it back to her father it had hurt someone in one way or another. There had been political coups, corporate espionage... But she had never considered that perhaps her father had only ever let her see areas of his business that wouldn’t scare or upset her. She had been unbearably naïve not to realise that her actions had hurt vulnerable people through cause and effect.
Her silence was part of the problem.
When she looked back up Duarte was assessing her with his shrewd gaze. She shivered to think what might be going on in his mind. She was fast realising that keeping her son away from all this was impossible. Perhaps she’d be better off choosing the lesser of two evils and putting her faith in the man in front of her.
‘I don’t want to let them get away with it,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to be afraid any more.’
‘Such a fierce little angel you are.’ His eyes blazed with triumph.
‘I’m far from an angel...’
She heard the hitch in her own voice and felt an urge to tell him everything. Every terrible detail of her sins. She craved his forgiveness. She craved the bond they had once shared—before the reality of her awful family connections had torn it all apart.
‘I have a house a short helicopter ride down the coast. I’ll help you pack now and we can have your nurse flown in for check-ups each day.’
‘Now...?’ she breathed, looking out at the inky blackness of the sky.
‘It’s best if we leave before dawn.’ Duarte’s voice was quiet and filled with sincerity. ‘Let me keep you and your son safe.’
Our son. Something inside her shouted.
She felt a heaviness in her chest in the region of her heart. Tell him, it said. Tell him everything.
But she couldn’t. Not until she was sure of him and of the man he now claimed to be.
An uncomfortable thought flickered in her mind. If he was truly a good man and she had kept his son from him...did that make her a villain all over again?
‘I’m not ready to make any statements yet, Duarte...’ She steeled her voice, trying to muster some strength. ‘But I’ll come with you because I can’t stay here. I want to help you, but I need some time to think about all of this, to make sure my son and I will be safe.’
‘I’m a patient man, meu anjo.’
They both froze at his use of the endearment. Nora’s heartbeat seemed to thump in the region of her ears.
After a prolonged silence she mumbled that she would go and get packed before quickly turning away from the haunting amber gaze that saw far too much.
Duarte walked out onto the terrace and made a quick call to order a helicopter from one of his trusted private firms. Paranoia had his head snapping up at every small sound.
He sat down heavily in the nearest deckchair and rubbed a hand down his face, feeling the dull pain still throbbing in his shoulder. His skin seemed to be on fire after that surprising embrace and the revelations that had followed.
He closed his eyes, remembering the softness of Nora’s hands on his skin.
They had been lovers.
The faint memory of their connection had come to him the moment her lips had first touched his. He’d seen her underneath him...over him... Everything else was still in the shadows, as though the way his body had responded to her wouldn’t let him remember anything else.
The moment she’d admitted the truth he’d immediately thought of the child. But unless she’d had a year-long pregnancy, the dates didn’t match. The boy had even been born early, he reminded himself. He should have been relieved, but something within him had been quietly furious at the thought of her finding pleasure with another faceless man and conceiving a child.
The image of her fiery passion being given to someone other than him made his fists clench painfully. He briefly considered asking his team to find out who the man was, simply so he could land a punch on the bastard’s face for abandoning his pregnant lover...
Duarte might have spent most of his twenties enjoying women in all their forms and wonders, but he had always used protection. And if by chance one of his lovers had ever become pregnant he would have done his duty and cared for his own flesh and blood.
Nora was a mystery to him in so many ways still, but this new knowledge of their intimate history together had changed something within him. He no longer felt adrift and lost in his own body. That single kiss seemed to have created a tether between them, from his solar plexus to hers, reaching out across the house and pulling her towards him. He could feel her presence like a moth being drawn repeatedly to the warmth of a burning flame.
He knew it was a bad idea to want her. He knew there was a chance she would refuse to tell him the truth of how she’d ended up in the shipping yard with him. And yet still he imagined having those soft curves underneath him once more. He imagined hearing her cry out her pleasure in real time and seeing if the vague memory he had did it any justice.
He didn’t know how long he sat, staring out at the blackness of the night sky, but by the time the distant sound of rotor blades sounded around him he had made his decision.
He would have her in his bed again.
As the helicopter began to descend over the small coastal town of Paraty, Nora tried to quell the roiling anxiety in her stomach. In her arms, her son slept peacefully, completely unaware of the upheaval taking place around him.
When they touched down on a sprawling property on the beachfront outside of town, she watched as Duarte set about ordering his guards to secure the perimeter while he escorted her inside. This reminder of the danger she had been in back at his villa made her begin to tremble all over again.
She knew that Duarte’s protection was the safest thing for her and Liam right now, but it was only a matter of time before he figured out that she was hiding far more than just her brief relationship with him.
Nora barely registered her surroundings as he showed her to the large master suite of the house, explaining that his cousin and her husband lived on this historically preserved property year-round, in a separate groundskeeper’s cottage, and sometimes gave guided tours to tourists. He quickly added that the house would be secured and closed for their use for the duration of their stay.
Nora eyed the sumptuously inviting pillows on the large four-poster bed and felt all the tiredness and exhaustion of a sleepless night hit her.
‘Get some sleep.’ Duarte followed her gaze to the bed, his eyes darkening for a moment before he exited the double doors of the suite and left her alone.
Nora felt raw inside, as though all her emotions had been swept up into a swirling storm within her. Liam still slept soundlessly, his cherubic face so serene and innocent she felt her throat tighten with emotion.
She was fast beginning to entertain the idea that Duarte wasn’t as cruel and ruthless as he’d shown himself to be all those m
onths ago. She thought back to that night in her father’s home, when she had arrived to overhear them together, using her as a pawn in the game they’d played.
Her father had told her that Duarte had been playing her all along. That his interest in her had been an attempt at getting inside information on the organisation.
Nora had refused to believe it. She’d fallen in love with a kind-hearted, creative soul. They’d talked about her dreams of travelling as a freelance architect, once she graduated. They shared a passion for design and he’d promised to take her to Europe, to show her some of the beautiful buildings she’d only ever seen in books. It had been real...or at least she’d thought it had been real.
She’d felt sick as she stood there outside the dining room, listening to her father threatening to have her punished for the affair unless Duarte agreed to marry her. And telling him that a stipulation of the marriage contract would be that the Avelar Foundation signed a certain piece of land over to Novos Lideres.
When Duarte had flatly refused the contract, her father had been furious. He’d revealed his ace in the hole, threatening to have Duarte’s jet-setting playboy image ruined by bringing him up on charges of sexual assault. Her own father had told him that he had friends who would enjoy giving Nora some nice big bruises to create photographic evidence, saying that hopefully they wouldn’t get too carried away with their task now that they knew their princess had been deflowered.
Nora had almost fainted with terror and disgust.
She had waited for Duarte’s outrage, waited for him to swear to defend her from such violence, but the silence had been deafening. Then Duarte had dialled a number on his phone and three police officers had entered. The men had been listening to the entire conversation. He’d smiled and spat that nothing would make him marry a mobster’s daughter or hand over his land to such a crook.
His parting words had cut through her like a knife.
‘If you think your daughter is worth anything to me, you’re a bigger fool than she is.’
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