The Alvares Bride

“Thanks to temporary insanity,” Carin said coldly.

“He’s determined to do the right thing for your child, and for you.”

“Oh, sure. That’s why he hasn’t even called to apologize for saying I lied, for believing I’d been with Frank when he was the only…” Carin took a deep breath. “This is silly. What Raphael Alvares believes is his affair. Please, let’s go now.”

“All I’m asking you to do is to be fair, darling. To yourself, to the baby…and to Rafe.”

“I don’t believe this. Are you going to defend him?”

“Well, I do think you could have been more open with us, Carin. Why you let us think that the two of you had just spent that one night together…”

Carin stared at Marta, who fell silent. Had everybody gone crazy?

“What are you talking about, Mom? It was only one night. Why would I make that up, if it wasn’t true? I don’t know what fairy tale Rafe’s told you, or why, but—”

“I told her everything, querida, as I should have, from the beginning. It is the best thing to do, for us all.”

Carin swung around. Rafe stood framed in the open doorway. He was wearing a snug black T-shirt, faded jeans and scuffed black leather boots, and he had an enormous bouquet of bright yellow roses in his arms.

He looked incredibly handsome; his smile almost looked real and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought of how it would have been if he’d known about Amy all along, if he were here to gather them both in his arms and take them home…

“Bom dia, Marta.”

“Good morning to you, too, Rafe.”

Marta smiled as he took her hand and brought it to his lips. A look passed between them, one Carin couldn’t figure out. It made her feel like an outsider…An uneasy outsider.

“And Carin.” He turned to her, his dark eyes sweeping her in quick appraisal and she felt a quick stab of anger because he’d suddenly made her aware of how she must look. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, and the dress she’d put on strained across her too full breasts and still-rounded belly. “And bom dia to you, as well, querida.”

“Rafe,” she said carefully.

“You have seen the test reports.”

It was a statement, not a question. She angled her chin up a notch. “Yes.”

“Good.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “This is a very special day for us both.”

“It certainly is. I’m going home. And you’re getting your surname on Amy’s birth certificate.”

“Amy?”

“Yes. Why do you look surprised? Surely, you didn’t expect me to go on referring to her as ‘my baby,’” Carin said with a tight smile.

“Our baby,” Rafe said quietly. “And I only wonder, didn’t it occur to you to discuss the choice of a name with me?”

“Why would it? You wanted to be acknowledged as her father and I’ve accommodated you, but all other decisions are mine.”

“Are they,” he said, though it seemed anything but a question, and then he dipped his head in agreement. “Very well, querida. Amy it shall be.” He smiled, and she could see the steel behind the smile. “I like the name, so it is no problem.”

She thought of telling him the only problem lay in his arrogance but what was the point in arguing with him? Soon, mercifully soon, Rafe Alvares would be out of her life.

“Actually, ‘Amy’ could be thought of as a shorter version of a name I have always loved. Amalia.”

Carin smiled brightly. “I’m sure that some woman in your past would be delighted by that news. Frankly, I don’t care what you love or don’t love. Your tastes are of no interest to me.”

“Carin.” Marta cleared her throat. “Darling, Raphael is only saying—”

“He’s saying far too much. He’s not going to be raising Amy. I am.”

“Ah. Well, I know that’s what you…I mean, that’s how it…Rafe? Don’t you—don’t you want to tell Carin something? I really think—I think you should.”

Carin stared at her mother. Marta was worrying her upper lip with her teeth. She was never easily disconcerted but she was now.

“Tell me what?” Carin said warily. Rafe had gotten his way. Amy carried his name. What more could he possibly want? Visitation rights? Maybe he’d contacted an attorney. She’d been afraid of that, concerned about getting involved in a lawsuit with a man whose resources would be endless.

“Marta,” Rafe said, though his eyes never left Carin’s, “would you leave us, please?”

“Oh. Oh, of course. I just…Carin? Darling, I know you’re still angry but please, try and think of the baby. And of how much you and Rafe cared for each other before all this happened.”

“What are you talking about? We didn’t—”

“Marta.”

Rafe spoke softly, but the single word resonated in the room. Carin felt a sudden clenching in her gut, one that grew more intense when her mother threw her a nervous smile and hurried from the room with Amy in her arms.

Rafe closed the door, turned and folded his arms, and she knew something terrible was going to happen.

“What’s going on?” she said in a shaky voice. “How did my mother come to this amazing conclusion, that you and I have some sort of—of history?”

“She was distressed by the terms of our relationship.” He smiled lazily, though the smile never reached his eyes. “I simply did what I could to alleviate her concerns.”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“We created a child. I know you would prefer not to acknowledge my role in that, querida, but it is a fact.”

“Let’s not argue over who didn’t want to acknowledge what. Just tell me what you told my mother.”

He shrugged again, hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and came slowly towards her. Her heart banged into her throat. She wanted to back away but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“I told her that it was true we’d met that night, at Espada, for the very first time.” He reached out, slid his hand against her cheek. She tried to turn away from his touch but he rested his thumb against her cheekbone, slid his fingers into her hair. “And then I added some details, to make everything else more acceptable.”

“What details?”

His hand was soft against her skin, his fingers gentle as they combed through her hair. Memories flooded through her. He had touched her like this on that night. Gently, at first, then with power and hunger…

“What details?” she repeated sharply, and she took the step back she’d promised herself not to take. “Stop doing that.”

He smiled, closed the distance between them. The foot of the bed hit the backs of her legs; she was trapped.

“I like to touch you,” he said softly. He bent his head, breathed in her scent. “All these months, I remembered how good it was to feel the softness of your skin under my hands and mouth.”

Carin clenched her hands at her sides. She remembered, too, but she would never admit that to him. Never.

“Answer my question. What did you tell Marta?”

Rafe took her face in his hands. “I said that we met that night, at Espada, for the very first time.” His gaze fell to her mouth, then lifted. “I didn’t say it, but I permitted her to think that we were intimate that night.”

“You permitted her to…” Carin gave a hollow laugh. “Anyone who can count from August to May can figure that out for themselves.”

“What they cannot figure out, querida, is that we saw each other many times after that, in New York.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said, but it’s a lie.” She clasped his wrists, tried to keep him from sliding his fingers into her hair. “You never saw me again, Rafe. You never even saw me that morning, at Espada. You had left, without a word.”

His gaze flattened. He let go of her, stepped back and tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Perhaps you noticed my absence eve

n before that, when you finally unlocked the bathroom door,” he said coldly. “Is that your usual behavior with your lovers?” His smile was quick and unpleasant. “Surely, it’s not the way you treated the love of your life.”

“Who?”

“Your Frank. I cannot imagine you put a bolted door between you, after a night spent in his arms.”

Frank had never made her feel vulnerable enough to want to bolt a door, she almost said, but that was another admission she’d never make to this man.

“You can’t be foolish enough to think there’s any comparison between the things I did with Frank and the things I did with you, can you?” He didn’t move but she saw a slight tightening around his mouth. Good, she thought bitterly. She’d hit Rafe Alvares right where he lived. “And it isn’t Frank we’re talking about, it’s you, and the nonsense you fed my mother. Did you think she’d feel better if she believed we’d seen each other in New York? I’ve had a child out of wedlock, Rafe. I know it may not matter to lots of people in today’s world, but—”

“It matters to me. And it matters to your family. That’s why I offered a more palatable story to your mother.”