The Alvares Bride

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!”