‘I wanted to tell you from the first moment, but I didn’t trust you. I needed to be sure you weren’t a danger. You know who my father is—you know what he would do if he knew that not only are you alive but I had also given birth to your son. I was protecting us both. Protecting Liam.’
Her voice cracked on the last word—the first genuine loss of control he’d seen in her. She bit down hard on her lower lip, holding back the obvious emotion welling in her eyes.
‘My son is my first priority. He didn’t ask to be born into a world of danger and constant threat. It’s my duty to keep him safe.’
‘You think I would allow any harm to come to my own child?’ The words felt both strange and right as he spoke them aloud. His child. His son. ‘I deserved to know. All this time we’ve spent together...’
She looked up at him, her face a mask of barely controlled pain. ‘I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I think that’s why I was delaying the inevitable.’
‘That was not your choice to make.’
‘It was better than having no choice at all.’
She spoke quietly, but he heard a thin thread of steel as it wound into her voice.
‘Duarte, I’ve handled this poorly, but you need to understand that I was the child of a wealthy man who believed he knew what was best. My mother almost died trying to protect me from my father’s enemies. Trying to keep him from taking me away once she decided to leave him. I know all too well what it means to be beholden to a man with power.’
‘Don’t you dare compare me to him.’ He breathed hard.
‘I’m not.’ She shook her head, briefly touching his sleeve. ‘You are nothing like my father, and I know that now. But when you came back...’ She shook her head and walked away a few steps. ‘At the end of our month together, after my father found out about us, and he went to find you. You know he put my safety on the table. Threatened to punish me for defying him with you.’
‘He offered you to me like a prize,’ Duarte said, the memory as clear as day.
‘And you made it quite clear you didn’t feel anything for me. You said I was nothing to you.’
Duarte froze, watching her closely. ‘Did he hurt you?’
She looked away. ‘Not physically. He always preferred emotional torture. I had to watch them take you, Duarte. My father forced me to go to that Avelar Foundation dinner the night of your kidnapping. He made sure I saw them take you. I screamed and I fought, but I was restrained and taken back to my father’s house. He locked me up so I couldn’t get help.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, looking away from him. ‘It was there, during that week, that I felt so sick...so tired and so faint. I calculated my dates and realised that I was carrying your child.’
‘Did he know?’
‘He called a doctor, who confirmed it. He was furious, but then...’ Nora shivered, her eyes haunted. ‘Then he smiled. He said now he had another thing over you... That night, I knew my father was at an event with his politician friends. I knew my time was limited, so I demanded to
be taken to hospital for fluids, because I couldn’t keep anything down. At the hospital I managed to slip away from my guards, borrowed a phone and found out where they were keeping you and Valerio. I sent a message to Angelus Fiero, praying he would get there in time. But when I got there you had already been shot.’
‘You told me...’ Duarte heard himself speak as the dreams he’d had all those months during his recovery finally made sense. ‘You told me to live for you both.’
She nodded.
Duarte felt emotion tighten his throat but he pushed it away, turning from her and trying to get a grip on his thoughts, on the memories that swirled around like loose waves, intensifying his aching temples. She sounded as if she was telling the truth, but something within him resisted her words—resisted the belief that she was a victim just like he was.
How could he believe what she said? She had planned to keep this from him; she had lied.
He steeled his voice. ‘Does your father know about Liam?’
‘When I believed you were dead, I told him I’d lost the baby. I think his guilt over that was the only reason he let me go, let me leave the organisation. I was afraid he would try to use an heir as leverage against your estate, somehow. I kept my pregnancy hidden while I tried my best to finish my final semester, and then I made my plan to leave Rio. You know the rest.’
‘I’ll need a paternity test.’
He heard himself speak and saw her flinch at the words before she nodded silently, but he didn’t care. Not when the memory of how they’d conceived their child was playing in his mind and tying him up in knots.
She had lied to him. She’d had all these memories that he was only now getting back, and still she had been able to pretend they were strangers.
She had believed him to be cruel and controlling—perhaps it was time he showed her just how heartless he could be.
‘If he’s my son...’ Duarte felt his jaw tighten at the words, at the emotions they evoked within him. ‘I won’t be kept from him, Nora.’
‘I know.’