God, Carin thought, how much longer did she have to tolerate this? She despised Raphael Alvares. His ego. His arrogance. His insufferable certainty that the world revolved around him.
Had she really dreamed about this man? No, she thought coldly, what she’d dreamed about was sex, and the only reason images from that night had haunted her was because it was the first time she’d felt like a woman since Frank had dumped her.
So, yes, she’d dreamed of Raphael Alvares, but that was all over. Coming face-to-face with him again, hearing him accuse her of lying, watching him as he sought ways to avoid responsibility for his very own flesh and blood, was all the proof she needed that she’d been right not to contact him.
The sooner she got him out of her life, and her baby’s, the better.
“Did you hear what I said?” Rafe clasped her shoulders. “I demand a paternity test. It is my right.”
“Your right? Your right?” She laughed and wrenched free of his hands. “You have no rights. Get that through your head.”
“Your family would not agree.”
“My family doesn’t make my decisions.”
“Will you tell her this, when she is grown? That a man you say was her father came to you and asked you to prove his paternity, and you refused?”
“What I’ll tell her,” Carin said coldly, “is that she was better off not knowing you.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to beg for this,” he said softly. “I’d prefer to do this quietly but if you refuse me…”
“I have refused you. You just don’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“A judge would grant me the right to such a test.” He jerked his head towards the telephone. “If you don’t believe me, call your stepbrother, the one who’s an attorney. I’m sure he’ll confirm it.”
She stared at him for a long minute. Then she felt behind her for the bed, and sank down on its edge.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
“I told you, I wish to do the right thing. If this child is mine, I want her raised properly. Would you deny her that?”
“I would deny her nothing. It’s you I’d deny, senhor.”
A vein began to throb in Rafe’s temple. “The choice is not yours to make. This discussion is ended. I’m not asking you to take this test, I’m telling you to take it.”
“Maybe that approach goes over big where you come from, but it doesn’t mean a thing here.” Carin got to her feet and took a step towards him, face flushed, eyes hot. “Get out,” she said furiously. He didn’t move, and she jabbed a finger into the middle of his chest. “Get out, dammit! Get out!”
Rafe caught her wrist, trapped her hand against his chest. “Do not point your finger at me, senhora. I don’t like it.”
“And I don’t like being given commands!”
“In my country,” Rafe said grimly, “women know their place.”
“Oh, I’ll just bet they do. Speak only when spoken to. Walk two paces to the rear of your lord and master. And, when night comes, be sweetly compliant, in bed—” The angry tirade caught in her throat as his gaze fell to her mouth.
“Compliant,” he said, in a voice gone low and rough, “but not in bed.”
Suddenly, the few inches that separated them seemed charged with electricity. The seconds dragged past and then he let go of her hand and stepped back.
“I came here because I thought you had asked for me,” he said coldly.
“And if I had?” Her heart was racing, and all because of the way he’d just looked at her. Knowing it, knowing that he could still have that effect on her, made her even angrier. “What would you have done, then?”
What, indeed? He thought of how he’d dropped the phone after talking with Amanda, of how he’d run to tell his pilot to ready the plane…
“I would have done exactly what I’m doing now,” he said. “I would have demanded answers.”
“I’ve already given you answers. The fact that you don’t like them is your problem.”
“Why didn’t you contact me, once you learned you were pregnant?”
“What for? Would you have believed me any more then than you do now?” Her eyes glittered with defiance. “I’m nothing to you, Rafe, and you’re nothing to me. Let’s leave it at that.”
“If we created a child together, that changes the equation.”
Was he right? In her heart, she knew there was validity to what he’d said.
“I—I admit, I thought about getting in touch with you, but—”
“But?”
“But…” She hesitated, remembering her shock when she’d learned she was pregnant, the one moment when she’d reached for the phone and then thought of the impossibility of telling a man she didn’t know, a man who lived thousands of miles away, who had turned away from her and never looked back, that she was carrying his child. “But,” she said, with a little shrug, “I decided against it. You and I—we’re strangers. I couldn’t imagine turning to you for help.”
“Strangers who came together,” he said coldly, “and made a baby. That’s what you’d like me to believe, isn’t it?”
“It’s the truth!”
“Is it?” Rafe shrugged his shoulders, walked to the window and leaned his back against the wall. “A test will determine that.”
Carin sat down on the side of the bed. She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it away from her face.
If only he hadn’t come. If only Amanda hadn’t sent for him. She didn’t want him here, confusing things. Her life had taken a turn that had, at first, terrified her, but she’d accepted it. Once she’d felt the first flutter of life in her womb, she’d welcomed it. She’d looked ahead, planned things…
And now he was turning it all upside down…but he was right. Her baby was entitled to the same truth Rafe was seeking. She was the one being selfish this time, not he.
She looked up. “Very well,” she said quietly, “I’ll take your test.”
He nodded slowly, his expression giving nothing away.
“I’ll take your test because it’s true, my daughter has the right to know the name of her father, and because I wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”
He gave a sharp, unpleasant laugh. “Of course you would, querida. You are a woman accustomed to her freedom, and now you have an unplanned child in your life. What will happen to that life, if you have to spend your days working and your nights at home, rocking a cradle?” His lips drew back from his teeth in a predatory grin. “We both know I can change all of that.”
Carin lay back against the pillows. The robe fell open; she saw his eyes drop to her breasts, full and rounded with milk, to the softly clinging cotton gown that covered them. She wanted to drag the robe closed but she knew that would somehow give him the advantage. Instead, she brought the lapels together slowly, as if she were alone.
“You’re wrong. About everything.”
“Really.” Rafe tucked his hands into his pockets and walked slowly towards her. “How am I wrong?”
“I don’t live the kind of life you seem to think I do. And I have a job. A career. It pays me well.”
“You mean, you had a career.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are a mother now.”
“So?”
“So, your career is ended.”
Carin laughed. It was the first time she’d really laughed in longer than she could remember and it felt good.
“Excuse me, senhor, but perhaps no one’s pointed it out to you yet. This is the twenty-first century. Women work and raise children at the same time. I’m sure that’s news to you, but—”
“Women who must, do so. Women who have a choice, do not.”
Her chin lifted. “Then it’s a good thing I have a choice.”
“Your confidence is amusing, querida.” He paused beside the bed. “But then, you are confident about everything. About this child, for instance.”
“I don’t believe it,” she said wearily
. “Are we back to that? I said I’d take your test…”
“I was only with you the one time. Do you know what the odds are of becoming pregnant from such an encounter?” A muscle flickered in his jaw. “You came to me from another man’s bed. You will regret it, I promise you, if this is the child of your lover and you’re trying to use me, once again, to do what you wish he would do.”
“I hate you,” Carin whispered. Tears rose in her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. “Damn you, Rafe, I hate you!”
“That isn’t what you told me that night,” he said coldly, “not while I was deep inside you.”
His head dipped to hers; he kissed her, his mouth crushing hers, his fingers tangling in her hair and tilting her face up to his. She made a soft sound, half protest and half something that might have been surrender. It drove his blood straight to his groin and he pulled back, hating himself, hating her, hating whatever cruel twist of fate it was that had brought them together.
“You—you bastard!”
He thought of telling her that she was right, that he was exactly what she’d called him, and that he was here only because he would see to it that his child—if this were his child—would carry his name, but she had no need to know such a personal thing about him.
“I carried her in my womb.” Carin’s voice shook with emotion. “I gave her life, almost at the cost of my own. And I’ll make the choices that will define her life. You’d better accept—”
“We come from different worlds, querida. In yours, morality is a game. In mine, women know their place. Men rule their homes, their lives, and their women.”
“How unfortunate for the women.”
He laughed, but the sound was flat and cold. “So you may think now, minha dona, but if the test results prove that I am, indeed, the father of your child, you will learn that there are advantages to such a life.” His gaze dipped to her lips, then lifted and met hers. “An obedient woman has nothing to worry about. She is well cared for.”
“So is my neighbor’s cat, but none of the women I know would choose to trade places with her.”
“Ah. But, you see, that is an excellent analogy. A cat learns its place, learns to obey simple commands and stay close to home, and it is rewarded. It’s stroked and petted. It’s given baubles and gifts. And, if it is very, very good, it’s permitted to spend its nights in its master’s bed.”
Carin felt a chill race along her skin. “What are you talking about? What does any of this have to do with me, or with my daughter?”
Rafe smiled. Carin watched the curl of his lips, the flatness of his eyes, and suddenly a chasm seemed to open before her.
“It’s late.” Her voice sounded thin and reedy and she cleared her throat. “Please leave now, Rafe. I’m very tired.”
He could see that she was. Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent; there was a fine tremor to her mouth. He imagined taking her in his arms, not to make love to her but to hold her close and soothe her, which only proved how good she was at making a man blind to reality.
The rest of what he had to tell her could wait until after the tests—if the tests showed that she was telling the truth.
“Sim. Rest, by all means. You will leave the hospital soon and once you do, your life will change. It’s best you prepare for it.”
“Of course my life will change,” she said quickly. “I know that. And I’m ready for it.”
Rafe paused, his hand on the door knob. Slowly, he turned and looked at her. “I hope so, querida,” he said softly. “But, somehow, I doubt it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
NEW YORK had been enjoying a warm, sunny Spring but the weather took a sudden change.
It was raining on the morning Carin was to be discharged from the hospital. The gray downpour suited her mood as she sat in a chair across from a representative from Bio Tech Labs. The rep had brought her the results of the tests she, Rafe and the baby had taken.
Rafe was her child’s father.
Carin had known what to expect but seeing the information that would affect three lives printed out in stark black letters sent an emotional shockwave reverberating through her system.
She tried not to show what she was feeling but she knew she wasn’t doing a very good job of it because the rep paused in the middle of a sentence.
“Are you all right, Ms. Brewster?” the woman asked. “Shall I send for the nurse?”
Carin shook her head. “No. No, I’m fine. It’s just—all the rain…It’s cool today, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” the tech said, “it is,” but the look in her eyes said she’d seen it all before, the disbelief in a woman’s face when she read words that confirmed what she already knew, that the last man on earth she wanted to deal with was the father of her child.
When Carin thought she could speak and not have her voice quaver, she folded the report, carefully inserted it back into its envelope and held it out. The Bio Tech rep shook her head.
“Oh, no, Ms. Brewster. That’s your copy. Keep it, please. Now, before I leave, is there anything you didn’t understand, or you’d like me to explain?”
Yes, Carin thought. How could one night’s mindless passion lead to such a mess? Not to the birth of her daughter. Already, with her baby not a week old, she knew how much she adored her. The thing she didn’t comprehend was how Rafe had suddenly become a part of her life.
In the blink of an eye, he’d gone from being a stranger to being a man demanding participation in her child’s future. It didn’t matter that she wanted nothing from him, that she’d have given anything to banish him from her world. He had plans that somehow made hers secondary. Like it or not, she was going to have to deal with him.
“Ms. Brewster?”
Carin looked up.
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“No. None, thanks. The report is—it’s very clear.”
“Yes, well, we pride ourselves on clarity.” The woman shut her briefcase, got to her feet and held out her hand. “The best of luck to you, then. We hope that our services have been of help.”
“Thank you.” Carin shook the woman’s hand, watched as she walked to the door. “Actually—actually there is one thing…”
“Yes?”
“Has Senhor Alvares received a copy of the report, too?”
“Certainly. Yesterday, in fact. It was too late to bring it to you but he’d requested the information as soon as—”
“Thank you. I understand.”
Except, she didn’t.
The door swung shut. Carin stared at the report lying in her lap. If Rafe had seen the proof he’d demanded, why hadn’t she heard from him? He’d been so filled with stiff-necked speeches about responsibility and obligation. Was the reality more than he could accept? Until the end, he must have clung to the hope that Frank was her baby’s father.
Carin bit back a moan. If only she could go back in time, change things, not have called out for him…
The baby, lying in a small portable crib next to her chair, made a soft sound in her sleep. Carin reached into the crib and gently touched one tiny hand.
“Not you, dumpling,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t change you for the world…but your father is a different story. I wish I didn’t have to deal with him.”
But she did.
Rafe’s arrogance infuriated her; his refusal to believe that he’d made her pregnant insulted her. And the way he’d looked at her last night, when he’d talked about changes in her life, terrified her.
What did he know that she didn’t? He’d insisted on proof that he was her baby’s father. Okay, he had that now, along with his name on the birth certificate. She hadn’t waited for the paternity report; she’d known what the results would be and last night, she’d instructed the hospital to list him as “father.” She’d also named her baby.
Her daughter would be called Amy.
“Amy,” Carin said softly, and took the baby from the crib just as Marta Baron walked
briskly into the room.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Marta said, beaming happily at her daughter and granddaughter. “Amy. Such a charming, old-fashioned name. Does Rafe like it?”
“I have no idea.” Carin’s voice was cool. “I didn’t consult him. It isn’t his business.”
“Now, sweetie, I know you’re angry at him, but—”
“Angry? At a man who demanded a test before he’d acknowledge he’s my baby’s father?” Carin laughed as she rose to her feet. “That’s not really the right word, Mother. Which reminds me…the results are in.” Her voice hardened. “Rafe has the proof he wanted. He’s Amy’s father.”
“Well, of course he is,” Marta cooed, as she reached for Amy. “Hello, precious. And how is my lovely little girl this morning?”
“She’s fine, and she wants to go home. So do I.”
“Not yet, sweetie. We have to—to wait. For—for the nurse.” Marta smiled brightly. “You can’t just walk out of a hospital. They have to take you out, in a wheelchair.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair,” Carin said, and hated herself for sounding like a spoiled twelve-year-old. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.”
“Don’t be so impatient. Besides, I promised Rafe…” Marta caught her lip between her teeth. “I’ll go find the nurse.”
“Wait a minute.” Carin grasped her mother’s arm. “What did you promise Rafe? And when did you talk to him?”
“Oh…” Marta waved her hand in the air. “A while ago.”
“He’s here? In the hospital?”
“No. Not yet…” Marta flushed. “Oh, dear, I’m saying too much!”
“You aren’t saying enough. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
It was such a transparent lie that Carin would have laughed, except for her mother’s refusal to look her in the eye.
“Mom,” she said softly, “what aren’t you telling me? What could you and Rafe possibly have to talk about?”
“For goodness’ sake, Carin, don’t be like that. The man is the father of your child.”
The Alvares Bride Page 6