The Disobedient Virgin

“The mood you’re in? You fool! Do you ever think that the great Joaquim Ramirez can be wrong?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“My name is—”

“I know your name,” she huffed. “The question is, what do you know? For instance, do you know that maybe, just maybe, you misinterpreted what you saw and what Lucas said?”

“Oh, right. It was such an easy scene to misinterpret,” Jake snarled, lowering his head until they were eye to eye. “You in Lucas’s arms. Him drooling at the thought of you agreeing to sleep with—” She swung at him again. Jake grabbed her arm and jerked it behind her back. “Hit me again,” he warned, “and you’ll regret it.”

Tears of anguish and of fury—at Jake for misjudging her, but mostly at herself for the foolishness of her own stupid heart—rose in Cat’s eyes.

“What I regret,” she said, “is falling in love with you!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, let me tell you something, senhorita, I—” Jake blinked. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Cat replied, twisting against his hand, “you were dead wrong about Lucas.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“Never mind what I said!” Cat blew a curl off her forehead. “We’re talking about Lucas, and how you managed to jump to conclusions the size of Sugar Loaf Mountain!”

“I know what I saw. I know what Lucas said. I know what you agreed to do.”

“You don’t know a thing,” Cat huffed. “Damnit, Jake! Let go of me!”

“Not until you tell me why I shouldn’t trust my ears and eyes.”

“I would, but you’re probably too thick-skulled to believe me.”

“Try me.”

“Lucas asked me why I was husband-hunting, to use your charming phrase. I told him about my inheritance, and that I had to find a suitable Brazilian husband and marry to gain it.”

“And?”

“And he said he’d been thinking things over, that perhaps it was time he found a wife. He said he’d be honored if I’d agree to be that woman. So I told him the rest. How I wanted to marry and then file for divorce. How I—I didn’t want the intimacy of marriage.”

“I’ll bet he just loved that.”

“I said,” Catarina

continued, her eyes narrowing, “that you would give him that land in Maui if he agreed to my terms.”

“And?”

“And, he said he didn’t want the land, he wanted me.”

“At least he’s not a complete fool,” Jake snapped. “So, what next? You just said, ‘Okay, fine. I’ll sleep with you’?”

He could feel the tremor of anger that rippled through her. “You’re a horrible man. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Only you, baby.”