Returning To Claim His Heir

by Amanda Cinelli

  As he launched into a description of their time in Paraty he felt Nora shrink beside him, the tension rolling off her in waves. After a few minutes she quietly excused herself and turned to move through the crowd away from them.

  ‘Have I said something wrong?’ Renata looked to Duarte for assurance. ‘She seems upset.’

  Duarte cursed under his breath and quickly asked Dani to watch Liam while he followed his runaway fiancée.

  He tracked her down to the rear viewing deck of the ship, which was quiet and empty of any guests. She faced away from him, her arms braced on the rail as she looked out into the distance. He stood beside her, taking her chin between his fingertips to turn her face towards him. Tears streaked her cheeks.

  ‘Is this because of your father?’ he asked softly. ‘I know it must be hard to think of him. To answer questions.’

  She pulled her face free of his grip, folding her arms across her chest and shaking her head softly. ‘I know who my father is. I’ve had a lot of practice in what it feels like to be Lionel Cabo’s daughter.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’ He frowned.

  ‘You and me. That’s what’s wrong.’ She took a deep breath, wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks before she turned back to face him. ‘I can’t marry you, Duarte. I can’t be a wife you’re ashamed of.’

  ‘I’m not ashamed,’ he growled.

  ‘You’re lying.’ She threw the words at him. ‘I’m not prepared to skim over the gritty details of my life just to avoid judgement. You can’t avoid everyone’s questions and hide our history for ever. Your family deserve the truth.’

  ‘I will give it to them...eventually. I want them to get to know you first.’

  ‘You’re trying to control everything—to manipulate them into liking me just so they don’t show the same bias you did when you found out the truth about me. The first time and the second.’ She shook her head, turning away from him. ‘I may have made mistakes, and I may be the daughter of a crime boss, but I refuse to live another day feeling ashamed and hoping that one day you might truly trust me or love me. I refuse to accept the scraps of your affection.’

  ‘That’s what you think of me proposing to you? Trying to create a life with you? That you’re getting the scraps?’

  ‘If Liam hadn’t been a factor in all of this you never would have considered marrying me...’ She spoke quietly, twirling the diamond ring on her finger.

  ‘Of course I would have, eventually.’ he said quickly, frowning at her words and at the dark cloud that seemed intent on pulling her away from him. ‘In Paraty, I felt the connection between us.’

  She shook her head. ‘That was before you found out about everything that had passed between us.’

  Duarte let out a sharp huff of breath, feeling the situation getting away from him. They were both aware that this marriage was to secure his rights over his son, but he knew that wasn’t all. He knew he felt more for her than he allowed himself to admit. But the idea of laying himself bare...

  It wasn’t something that came easily to him. Not after all they’d been through, and not with the swirl of emotions he felt whenever he thought of how she might have left him.

  ‘I know that what I feel for you is more than you’re offering me,’ she said sadly. ‘When I’m with you, I can’t think straight. I think I fell in love with you that first night on the beach in Rio and it terrifies me.’

  ‘You make it sound so terrible.’ He looked away and steeled his jaw against her words, against the bloom of pleasure and pain they created in his chest.

  ‘It’s unhealthy, Duarte.’ She closed her eyes. ‘It’s like I have an illusion of you but you keep everything real locked away, out of my reach. It’s hurting me.’

  When he looked back at her she’d slid the ring off her finger. She took his hand and folded the diamond into his palm. ‘You said you wouldn’t force me.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He heard himself speak as though from far away. He curled his hands into fists by his sides to stop himself reaching out and making her take back her words.

  ‘I’m sorry, Duarte,’ she said quietly, and she walked away, leaving him alone in the darkness of the empty deck with nothing but the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the ship to accompany his turbulent thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NORA STARED BLANKLY out of the open balcony doors of her cabin and watched as the first glimmers of dawn filtered across the waves. She had barely slept, and her tears had continued to flow long after she’d silently collected Liam and returned to her bedroom to hide for the remainder of the party.

  Daniela had come to knock on her door at one point, asking if she needed to talk. She’d remained silent until the woman’s footsteps had disappeared back along the passageway, then she’d let the tears continue to fall.

  She forced herself to get up when the morning light was bright enough. She grabbed her suitcase and began packing her clothes and Liam’s into her small suitcase, inwardly planning what she would say to Duarte when she told him she wanted to leave. She knew she was doing the right thing. She knew she couldn’t live the life Duarte was offering her, no matter how much she wished she could.

  It would only make her grow to resent him. They would hate each other, and she couldn’t raise her son in a home without love and trust. They both deserved more.

  A knock on her door startled her. It opened to reveal Duarte, still wearing his trousers and shirt from the night before. His eyes were haunted and grim as he took in the sight of her and the suitcase open on the bed. She held her breath as she waited for him to speak, her heart bursting at the sight of him, with the need to take everything back and fall into his arms.

  But she stayed still, her hands still holding the clothes she’d been folding.

  ‘You’re leaving.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘I’m going to stay with my mother,’ she said firmly, feeling her insides shake. ‘She hasn’t met Liam yet. After a week or two I’ll get in touch and we can discuss how to manage things going forward as co-parents.’

  ‘I’ll take you there,’ he said quickly, his eyes sliding to where Liam lay kicking his feet. ‘I’ll have the jet readied by lunch.’

  ‘No,’ she said resolutely. ‘I meant what I said last night. I can’t think straight when I’m here...when I’m with you. I need to do this alone.’

  He was quiet for a long moment, his jaw as tight as steel as he ran a hand over the scar on the side of his head. Then he seemed to measure his words, looking at her with a silent question before slipping his gaze away to stare at the open sea behind her.

  ‘If you need anything...’ He spoke the words on a low exhalation of breath, as though he had just finished waging a silent battle within himself. ‘Promise me you will call.’

  She heard the words and knew what it must have taken for him to speak them. He was trusting her to take his son. She felt another pitiful bloom of love for him in that moment, for this broken, scarred man who was giving her such a simple gift and likely didn’t even know how much it meant to her. The gift of freedom.

  It was the first small moment of trust between them as parents.

  ‘I promise.’

  She spoke softly, meaning every syllable. She wouldn’t keep Duarte from his son. She would find a way to make this work.

  With one final kiss on Liam’s forehead, Duarte nodded at her once and left, closing the door softly behind him.

  The rain had finally stopped falling when Nora drove her rented Jeep through the gates of the wildlife sanctuary, her eyes strained from hours of concentrating on the dirt road that followed the bank of the Amazon. She took in the familiar sprawling fields and the tidy rows of fruit trees on the hills. To her, this place had always felt like a world of its own—probably because during the eighteen years she’d lived here she’d rarely left.

 
She’d spent years hating her mother for keeping her here, and the irony was not lost on Nora. She was now returning to beg her mother to let her stay.

  Her mother’s house was a beautiful wooden structure that fitted in perfectly with the tall trees that surrounded it. The architecture student in her took a moment to appreciate her surroundings, how utterly flawless it was in its design.

  Dr Maureen Beckett was a fiercely intelligent woman who could talk for hours about the animals she rescued, studied and reintroduced to the jungle. Yet when it came to her only daughter Nora had always found her mother to be distant and far too heavy-handed with criticism. She was not an unkind woman—quite the opposite—but she was known for her matter-of-fact approach and the fierceness with which she protected the large sprawling animal sanctuary she had founded three decades before.

  Nora knocked on the door, readying herself for a reunion she knew would be anything but joyous. Likely there would be shock, and judgement of her situation. There might even be anger or, worse, that same cool detachment her mother had shown the day she’d announced she was leaving to live with her father all those years ago.

  But when the door opened her mother took one look at her, and the small baby she carried in her arms, and promptly burst into tears, embracing them both in a hug filled with nothing but love.

  Once she was safely inside, Nora finally allowed herself to fall apart, telling her mother everything.

  Maureen was silent, one hand cradling her tiny grandson in her sun-freckled arms as she listened.

  When Nora had finally stopped crying her mother took the seat beside her and drew her into her arms too. Just being held as she cried...being allowed the space to feel everything and not run away...it seemed to make her feel better and worse all at the same time.

  And the thing that finally broke her was her mother revealing the thick envelope that had been delivered there a week before.

  Nora’s results from university.

  She had forgotten that she had given the address of the sanctuary once she’d known she needed to leave.

  She opened the envelope with shaking fingers to see that she had passed. She had her degree.

  Her tears began all over again, until she thought she might never stop crying.

  They talked all night, about all the unspoken things that had stood between them for years. Her mother explained how she’d attempted to follow Nora to Rio, but her father had caught up with her and told her if she ever sent so much as a letter to her daughter she would wake up to her sanctuary in flames. She’d had no choice but to come back and wait, hoping that Nora would get away and come home, even as her absence tore her apart.

  Nora felt a fresh wave of love and understanding for this woman who had raised her—along with enormous guilt that she had compared her situation with Duarte to that of her and her mother. Duarte would never threaten to hurt her that way.

  She found herself telling her mother everything that had happened between her and Liam’s handsome billionaire father, expecting her to be horrified and warn her off.

  Instead, her mother was thoughtful for a long moment. Then, ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.

  Nora shook her head sadly. ‘I do, but he doesn’t love me.’

  ‘Men don’t always know how to say what they feel.’ Her mother pursed her lips. ‘I find his actions are usually the best way to gauge a man’s devotion.’

  That night Nora lay in bed, listening to the gentle sounds of rain on the roof above her, and thought of Duarte. Had his actions shown that he felt love for her?

  Memories of how he’d courted her at the beach house in Paraty made her insides feel warm. He might not have known the truth about Liam then, but he’d known virtually everything else. And even after her revelation, when he’d been consumed with hurt and anger, he’d still shown her small unconscious gestures of affection—making sure she slept well, ensuring she wasn’t uncomfortable around his family. When he’d kissed her, she’d felt love.

  She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life by walking away from him. She knew she was doing the right thing in taking time alone to figure out what she wanted, but it didn’t make being away from Duarte hurt any less.

  Birds sang overhead and the smell of moist earth hung in the air from yet another heavy morning rain. As the sun peeked through the clouds the rain turned to a gentle mist over the fields. Nora paced herself, feeling the burn in her shins and silently thanking her mother for lending her the sturdy walking boots she wore. Even in her white cotton T-shirt and cargo shorts she already felt the effects of the heat.

  In the week since she’d arrived at the sanctuary she’d fallen easily back into the simple life there. Now she reached the office and set about using the computer there to send some more emails, as she had done every day since the first morning she’d woken here.

  She already had some offers of internships in London, but one stood out more than the others. It was near to the town where Duarte’s home was.

  She’d told herself she was tempted to take it for Liam, to make it easier to co-parent. She’d ignored the sound of her foolish heart beating away in the background of her mind. Of course she missed him; she woke up every day and wished he was by her side, but she needed to think practically.

  On her way back to the house, she stopped to talk with some of the staff and once again gently avoided the subject of where she’d been and how long she’d be staying. It was a small community, and she wasn’t eager to become the local source of gossip.

  She took her time, stepping off the track to pick some fresh acai berries. The noise of the animals around her was so loud that she almost missed the sound of car tyres, making their way along the road at a pace much faster than any local would dare to drive. She turned just in time to see a large black Jeep barrel past her, turning at the fork in the track in the direction of her mother’s home.

  Her berries were scattered on the jungle floor, abandoned as she began to walk and then run in the direction of the house. She reached the fence at the end of the driveway just as a tall, dark man stepped out of the Jeep and turned to face her.

  ‘Duarte,’ she breathed, shock clouding her thoughts and rendering her unable to say anything more.

  He looked terrible: his eyes were dark-rimmed, his shirt was wrinkled, and the trousers of his suit had mud splatters on them. But even though he looked utterly out of place, she’d never seen anyone look more imperious as he stood to his full height, looking down at her.

  She came to a stop a few steps away from him, wrapping her arms around herself to avoid jumping into his arms.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Do you want the polite answer or the truth?’

  His voice was a low rasp, his eyes haunted as he raked his gaze over her with burning intensity.

  ‘I think we’ve moved past politeness, don’t you?’ Nora said quietly.

  Duarte nodded, running a hand along the untrimmed growth on his jawline. ‘I’ve been a mess since you left. I told myself I wouldn’t try to push you, wouldn’t try to force you to come back to me, and I won’t.’ He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘But I’ve missed you, Nora. I’ve missed you both so much it feels like I’ve lost a limb. I decided that even if I drove all this way and you told me to leave, it would be enough...and I was right. Because seeing you right now, I’m not sorry.’

  Nora felt a blush creep up her cheeks at the heat in his gaze. She took a step towards him, like a magnet being pulled towards its true north.

  He held out a hand to stop her. ‘You said you can’t think straight around me, and I know what you mean.’ He shook his head. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t start throwing my feelings around and negating the very real concerns you had. But we’ve always had this intense chemistry between us, right from the start. That was never the issue.
You were right to leave me. I was... I was the world’s biggest fool.’

  He took a step away, clearing his throat before he looked back at her and went on.

  ‘I can see now why you wanted to come back to this place.’

  His voice was warm, caressing her skin.

  ‘It really is a paradise.’

  ‘I never appreciated it until I left.’ She took in a deep fortifying breath. ‘But I’ve figured out a lot of things since I came back. Reconnecting with my mother was easier than I expected.’

  ‘I’m glad you got what you needed.’ His voice was rough. ‘I took some time to re-evaluate things too. You leaving gave me the push I needed to make some hard choices. I told Dani the truth about our parents. It was a difficult conversation, but necessary. She asked me to pass on a message to you, to say that she misses you and Liam and she will come and find you if you keep her from him for too long.’

  Nora felt tears build behind her eyes, thinking of Daniela and her wry sense of humour. ‘That must have been hard,’ she said softly, turning to face him.

  ‘I’m just sorry I’d avoided it.’ Sincerity blazed in his golden eyes. ‘I’m sorry for how I handled everything, really.’ He bit his lower lip, shaking his head. ‘I wanted to tell you in person before word spread that I’ve resigned as CEO of Velamar.’

  Nora gasped. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I want to be free to work remotely, with less travel and less of that life in the spotlight, so I can focus on being with Liam. So we can create a parenting plan that considers both our needs and not just mine. Valerio was very understanding; he suggested I become a silent partner so I can focus on my own design firm.’

  ‘That’s...that’s amazing, Duarte.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve thought about where you plan to live...?’

  ‘You’re asking me?’ she said dumbly, hardly believing that he was here, that he was offering her everything she’d never thought possible.

  Everything except himself...