“So you had a vasectomy.”
He nodded wearily.
She swallowed. It all made sense. “What happened to Yasmin?”
He clawed his hair back. “She tried to support her baby alone, but couldn't do it after she got injured. I found out later she tried to contact me when Catia was six months old. She sent me a letter. But I never got it. Wright saw to that. He threatened her.”
Her jaw dropped. “Timothy?”
His lips flinched into a humorless smile. “Yes.”
“Timothy?” she gasped. “Threatened the mother of your child?”
“When I found out at Christmas, he told me he was protecting me. He wrote Yasmin a letter informing her that if she ever tried to contact me again, he would have her arrested for extortion.” He clenched his jaw grimly. “Instead, he offered to buy the baby from her for ten thousand dollars.”
She gaped at him. “Ten thousand dollars!”
“She was terrified he would steal her child from her, so she never tried to contact me again. But with no family or means of support, she ended up working in Rio as a high-class hooker.” He looked up at her with hollow eyes. “And that's how she died. One of her clients beat her to death at Christmas.”
Ellie sucked in her breath, hardly able to comprehend the horror of it. “And Catia?”
He shook his head. “Yasmin always sent her to a babysitter when she entertained clients. Catia knows that her mother is dead, but not how she died.”
“Thank God,” Ellie said devoutly. “That poor child…”
It was all such a tragedy. Ellie had worked herself into a jealous frenzy over a beautiful mistress who had just been a figment of her imagination.
All along, her rival had been a motherless child.
“Don't worry,” Diogo said coldly, misreading her pause. “I understand that Catia is my child, not yours. Whatever you think of my unreasonable expectations of a bride, I do not expect you to help me raise her.”
Ellie straightened on the sofa.
“Nonsense,” she said crisply. “She's your daughter. She must live with us.”
His eyes widened.
“You would…do that?” he said stiltingly.
“Of course!” She frowned. “What I don't understand is why she's still living in this house with a nanny. Why hasn't she been living with you since you got custody?”
“I work such long hours, and travel so often to New York. I thought it better to let her stay in her home…”
She stopped him with a look. “In the home where her mother was beaten to death?”
“You're right, you're right.” He clenched his fists, pressing them against his eyelids. “The truth is, I want her with me. Every day. But she refuses to leave this place. When I try to pack up her things to take her, she screams bloody murder and clings to Angelique.”
“I don't like that woman, Diogo. I don't trust her.” She wants you for herself, she added silently.
“Catia has lost her mother. She doesn't know me. And I just can't get through to her.” He leaned his head in his hands. “I thought if I gave her a few months to grieve, she would be willing to accept her new life as my daughter. Now I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what to do. Aside from inviting Angelique to live with us, as well.”
Angelique—living with them? She stared at him, aghast. “You just need to be firm.”
“Be firm?” He gave her a gaunt smile. “With a five-year-old child? Drag her kicking and screaming from her home? I haven't the heart, Ellie. I can't do it.” Sounding weary, he added beneath his breath, “God help me, I don't know what to do.”
She stared at him for a moment. Gently, she reached over and stroked his dark hair. He looked utterly beaten. Diogo Serrador, the barbarian of Wall Street and scourge of the steel industry, looked defeated and destroyed.
Ellie stroked his head. Closing his eyes, he gave a sigh, turning his cheek toward her caress.
She had to do something. She couldn't bear to see him suffer like this. Or the poor child, either. She had to fix this. Had to make them whole again.
“I am going to help you,” she said steadily.
Diogo opened his eyes to look at her. His expression looked so vulnerable. Strikingly boyish. And she realized that he blamed himself for everything. For Yasmin's death. For his daughter's pain. The child he hadn't even known existed until a few months ago…
“What will you do?”
She kissed him softly on the forehead. “I'll go talk to her. It's going to be all right, Diogo,” she said. “I promise.”
The terrible hope in his eyes as he watched her go almost broke her heart.