Exotic Nights

“It would be odd if I did not, Francesca. Surely you can get through a few hours with them. No one will become so attached to you that they will be devastated once we divorce. It’s a simple visit. And Magdalena will be far more focused on her new baby than on us, I can assure you.”

“Of course,” she said, her head dipping, her voice flat and emotionless. “If that’s what you want, I suppose I have no choice but to comply.”

She was married. Again. The ritual had been quick, sterile. Say a few words, repeat in the appropriate places, and then Marcos slipped a ring on her finger and brushed his lips against her cheek.

The office staff offered their congratulations before Marcos ushered her from the building and back into the limousine.

Francesca stared at the three-carat rock on her finger and felt numb. It wasn’t as large as she’d expected, yet it was the perfect size for her. She wouldn’t have wanted anything bigger, and though Marcos hadn’t asked her opinion, he’d still managed to pick the ideal ring for her.

Odd to think it wasn’t real, this marriage. Or that the perfect ring was only temporary. A Band-Aid to shield a wound, nothing more.

The stone shot fire as the light reflected off its facets. The platinum band was inset with diamonds. The matching wedding band was also diamond-encrusted. Though Francesca wouldn’t tell a soul, she loved beautiful things. Always had, which is why her inability to please her mother with her looks and minimal grace had hurt so much. Francesca had wanted the beautiful clothes that Livia wore so elegantly. She’d wanted the jewelry, the poise, and the grace to match.

Though she was older and far wiser now, she still felt like the awkward teenager beside Marcos’s smooth elegance. She hadn’t worried over her looks in years, had thought they were perfectly adequate for the life she led with Jacques—but Marcos’s arrival in her life had turned everything upside down again. He’d said she was lovely. But did he really mean it?

She shoved the thought aside brutally. She did not care what Marcos Navarre thought of her. Not any longer. The girl who’d desperately wanted his approval was buried in the past.

Marcos sat beside her now, his voice musical in her ears as he conducted business on his cell phone while they rode back to his home in Recoleta. Their home.

No, as beautiful as the French-style mansion was, it would never be her home. She was a temporary resident only, and she would not grow attached to the beauty of the place, the serenity of the cool courtyards with their fountains and thick foliage. She had a home in New York, with Jacques, and she would return to it as soon as Marcos let her go.

She prayed it would be sooner rather than later, but she knew Marcos was determined to fulfill some agenda that only he knew. And so long as he held the keys to Jacques’s treatment, she would remain.

The visit to his sister would surely test her in ways she dreaded. She’d not been around babies since she’d lost her own. She refused to hold them, to play with them, to spend time with them. It wasn’t that she didn’t love babies; it was simply that being around them made her ache for what could never be.

Once, long ago, she’d thought Marcos would be the father of her children. But even if they’d married for love this time, that was impossible.

How would she survive being around a woman with a newborn?

One day at a time, Francesca.

It’s how life was lived, how she’d survived the worst of the dark days in her past. One damn day at a time.

“We are attending a reception tonight,” Marcos said smoothly as he tucked his phone away.

Francesca struggled to concentrate on what he was saying. She felt like she was being ripped apart inside, and he was informing her about a social event?

God help her.

“You will wear the Corazón del Diablo,” he continued.

“I’d rather not.”

His expression grew chilly. “Reneging already, Francesca?”

“The necklace is yours, Marcos. I see little point in asking me to wear it.”

The idea of donning the necklace now, after all it had cost her, seemed completely foreign. And unnecessary. She had no doubt he knew it. He simply wanted to prove his mastery of her.

“I don’t believe I asked,” he said, his voice as smooth as aged whiskey. “You will wear it because it is mine, because you are mine.”

Francesca drew herself up, her emotions whipping higher. “You don’t own me, Marcos. You bought my cooperation, not me.”

“You are still very foolish, aren’t you?” he said softly.

Francesca felt the burn of anger—and the heat of embarrassment—skating over her body in twin spirals.

Yet she wouldn’t back down. He might own her cooperation, might own her promise to fulfill her end of the bargain. But she was adamant that he did not own her. No man did. If she’d learned anything in the past few years, it was that her life was her own.