After Their Vows

‘Don’t you dare use that woman’s name in front of me!’ she choked out. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t marry her, since you obviously can’t live without h-her.’

‘What you overheard on the terrace this morning was—’

‘Do I look as if want an explanation?’ Angie tossed down at him like an electric thunderbolt. ‘And anyway, it’s too late. I know all about Nadia and her baby. I know you have them neatly stashed away inside your stupid Lisbon apartment.’

His expression changed. She saw the guilty flicker. ‘Angie—’

‘Don’t you dare come up here,’ she said as he started walking again. ‘If you come up here I will kill you, I promise. I don’t want you near me ever again!’

And with that she leapt away from the rail and ran to shut herself in their suite. She wanted to throw herself down on the bed and sob her eyes out, but knowing he could only be a few seconds behind her she locked herself inside her bathroom instead.

When she came out again she was wrapped in her bathrobe, having spent ages just standing beneath the fierce shower jets, pale as milk. The need to shed tears all over the place had gone now. In fact she felt horribly hollow and flat.

There was no sign of Roque, though she did not go looking around the rest of the suite to check. Instead she walked over to the centre island unit, slid open one of the drawers, then lifted out the tissue-wrapped parcel and laid it down gently on the top.

Perhaps it was fated that Roque should approach her right then, with the silent stealth of a mugger. The first Angie knew of his presence was when his hands came from behind her and settled on the top of the unit, effectively trapping her within the circle of his body and his arms. He’d showered too, she noticed as she picked up on the clean scent of his soap. And he was wearing a matching bathrobe to the one she was wearing.

‘Let us get a few things straight while we have some calmness here,’ he murmured, bringing his dark head low enough that his breath brushed her cheek. ‘Nadia is not my mistress.’

With her head dipped, Angie responded with an inelegant sniff.

‘Her baby is not my baby. She does not live in my apartment. She lives in the one below, with the man she married several months ago. He is her baby’s father. He is Brazilian, very rich, quite old, and just out of a nasty divorce in Rio in which Nadia was cited as the adulterous cause—hence their swift move here, away from the hostile backlash.’

Angie hunched her shoulders inside the white towelling and said not a word.

Roque inhaled a deep breath. ‘I know I should have told you about Nadia before now,’ he continued. ‘But I am stupid and arrogant. And three weeks ago I wanted to keep Nadia as a weapon to use against you if you—if you hurt me again. Also, I did not see why I should be forced into defending myself for something I did not do. Since then there has not seemed to be the right moment for me to tell you she is here in Lisbon, so I kept the information to myself—like a coward.’

When Angie still held her silence, even with the deliberate provocation he’d offered her with the coward confession, he invited, ‘Will you say something? Even if it is only I hate you, Roque …’

‘I’m pregnant,’ Angie whispered.

For a few wretched seconds she thought he hadn’t understood her, because he remained so silent and still.

So she tried again. ‘I said I am pregnant.’

‘I heard you,’ he husked.

‘I w-went to Sintra to buy a testing kit, and I am positively, properly p-pregnant … again.’

The last word came out all wobbly. She tried swallowing and found she couldn’t. She tried blinking the moisture out of her eyes but it just swam back in. Behind her she could feel the throbbing power of his tension. Lifting her hands off the white tissue, she

closed them into fists.

‘Explain the again part,’ he said finally.

Angie tried again to swallow the trembling lump in her throat, then just let it all pour out. He did not move a single muscle. He wasn’t even breathing as far as she could tell. When she faltered to a halt, the final thing to tremble from her lips was, ‘Now I’m scared the same thing is going to happen again …’

Trying to drag himself out of the dark place his mind had gone into, Roque blinked his eyes. The one small chink of light he could see in what she had just confessed to him was that at least this time she was standing here telling him, instead of running away to hide.

And she had every right to feel scared. He felt scared. And the same damn issues that had torn their marriage apart twelve months ago were still hanging around, threatening to do the same thing again.

‘I bought the apartment from Nadia’s husband this morning. They have decided to move to Spain.’ he said, not surprised when Angie quivered in front of him. He’d hurt her by ignoring the import of what she’d said. But he was not ignoring it. He was cleaning it. ‘When I explained to him the predicament I was in due to our past dealings with Nadia he was not pleased. He had no idea that she’d done to another marriage what she had done to his own. The difference for him is that he did have an affair with her. She did conceive his child—his only child. His son. And …’ His voice wavered ruefully. ‘He loves her. I saw the evidence in his face because I know how it feels to love someone so badly you are stuck with that one true love for life.’

‘Badly?’ Angie squeezed out.

‘As in bad for me,’ Roque confirmed. ‘I did not want your brother nudging in between us. I did not want your career commitments to take precedence over mine. That kiss with Nadia on the dance floor was me behaving badly. When the result of it blew up in my face and you walked away from me I got what I deserved. I gave you nothing but hassle and heartache.’

‘No …’ At last Angie stopped just standing there, still hiding from him, and swivelled round to wrap her arms tightly around his waist. ‘I was a lousy wife to you. I let Alex nudge in between us. I drove you into Nadia’s arms. I was wildly in love with you but didn’t know how to love you. I’m so sorry,’ she finished helplessly. ‘I should have told you about—about the baby. You had a right to know. Instead I hid away.’