Exotic Nights

“My parents disappeared during the military junta. That was a time when people who were suspected of not supporting the government were quietly taken away and never seen again.”

“You don’t know what actually happened to them?”

He shook his head. He’d tried to find out, but the records from that time were not complete. The government had wanted no evidence of their crimes. “They were killed, Francesca, like so many thousands of others. And Magdalena and I were sent to an orphanage. When I was ten, I ran away. I lived on the streets for the next six years. Fortunately, she did not share my fate.”

Her hand was cold where

it grasped his. She squeezed hard, and though he did not want to accept her comfort, he found himself squeezing back.

“This is why you are so passionate about the children. It’s very wonderful, what you do.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, but it can never be enough.”

Though he’d set up the Reclaim Our Children Foundation, funded it when it was still in its infancy, made hundreds of speeches soliciting donations, and had the satisfaction of seeing children helped through the work his vision had created, it still affected him deeply each time he spoke as he had tonight.

He told himself he didn’t care why wealthy people got involved, so long as they did. For some, it was the satisfaction of helping the less fortunate without actually doing anything themselves. For others, there was a true passion and desire to help the children have decent lives.

For him, it was the burning need to save every last child he could from his own experience on the streets. But he couldn’t save them all, and that’s why he felt so emotionally drained after these events.

“Marcos, my God,” she said, straightening suddenly and leaning toward him with determination. “What you do is important. Never say it’s not enough. You are making a difference in children’s lives. Even if you can’t help them all, saving just one from the fate you talked of earlier is extraordinary.”

Marcos pressed the intercom button and spoke to the driver. Then he turned to Francesca. “I want to show you something.”

She nodded, the emeralds at her throat winking in the streetlights. He reached out and touched the teardrop at the top of her cleavage. “I knew these would suit you. It’s why I bought them, though perhaps you will think me quite shallow once you’ve seen what I am about to show you.”

The pulse in her neck thrummed. He wanted to press his lips to it, but he did not.

Soon, the car slid into streets that weren’t lit. Streets where garbage lined the sidewalks, graffiti covered the walls, and people scurried away like rats when the car crept through the alleys.

“This is where it happens, Francesca. Where they live.”

Up ahead, another car was stopped and a youthful figured leaned against the window, talking to someone inside.

“That is either a drug deal, or someone looking for cheap sex,” he said.

He could hear Francesca’s breath catch. “Can’t you put a stop to it?”

“No.”

She turned to him, her eyes rimmed with tears again. “But you said—”

“This is what I meant,” he replied, his voice harsher than he intended. “I cannot save them all. No matter how I try, there are those I cannot reach.”

He tapped on the glass separating them from the driver, signaling the man it was time to go. The car accelerated and they were soon leaving the barrio behind and returning to the lit streets and vibrant life of the city.

“I know this shocks you,” he said in the quiet stillness of the car.

“What shocks me,” she replied in a hushed voice, “is that you are so much more amazing than I had ever realized.”

Her words jolted him. In them, he glimpsed the eighteen year old with stars in her eyes. She’d wanted him for all the wrong reasons back then. He would not allow her to do so again. No matter how much he’d revealed to her, no matter that no other human being had ever learned as much about him as she, he would not lose sight of the fact that this was a temporary arrangement between them. There was nothing to build a future on. Nor did he want to.

Nothing was as she’d expected it to be. Francesca paced the confines of her room, her mind refusing to quiet and let her sleep. All her expectations and beliefs about Marcos had been turned upside down. Yes, she’d loved him blindly once, and only because he was handsome and paid attention to her when no one else did.

Those were not good reasons to love someone, of course.

Tonight, however, she’d been shown a side of Marcos Navarre that she’d never have guessed existed. After he’d left her eight years ago, taking the Corazón del Diablo with him, she’d believed he cared only for himself.

She’d blamed him for everything that had gone wrong in her life, yet in the space of a couple of days, she’d been forced to consider alternative views. First, that the Corazón del Diablo had always rightfully been his. That her father had killed himself not because of anything she’d done, but because he couldn’t face what he had done.