Duarte's Child

‘Are you ready?’ Duarte asked from the dining room doorway, making her jerk and return to the present.

Emily breathed in deep, steadying herself. She would make no comment; she would say nothing. There was probably nothing whatsoever in what she had seen. It was only her own insecurity playing tricks on her imagination. Crazily she pictured herself standing up at a divorce hearing and saying ‘Duarte smiled at her…that’s my evidence.’

In the lift that took them down to the ground floor, Emily stole a glance that spread and lingered to encompass every visible inch of her tall, dark and absolutely gorgeous husband. She loved him. They were back together…weren’t they? He was making an effort to repair the great yawning cracks in their marriage, wasn’t he? So what if most of the effort he was putting in was bedroom-orientated? Did that matter? Did that make him less committed? Had he ever been committed to her?

Engaged in such frantic and feverish thoughts, Emily tripped over a metal bin to the side of the exit, skidded across the floor and came down on her bottom.

‘Meu Deus!’ Duarte exclaimed and immediately reached for her to help her to her feet again. ‘Are you all right?’

‘So…s-so,’ she stammered, refusing to massage the throbbing ache assailing her bruised hip.

‘Didn’t you see it?’ Smoothing her down, Duarte focused on the bin which was about four feet tall and hard to miss.

Emily clambered into the limousine on wobbly legs. She would keep her tongue between her teeth for the whole drive home. Just then, she recalled that odd little scene she had witnessed at the airport between Duarte and Bliss. The way he had taken a few extra minutes to speak to Bliss in private before joining Emily in the car, the tension she’d witnessed between them. What had he been saying to Bliss to make her freeze and turn red? Exactly how intimate were they?

‘When did you get so friendly with Bliss Jarrett?’ That demand just erupted out of Emily’s mouth and she was horrified at herself, at the clumsiness of that leading question, not to mention its undeniably accusing tone.

There was one of those truly awful laden silences.

Duarte elevated a sardonic brow and his spiky black lashes partially screened his dark deepset gaze. ‘I don’t think that’s a subject we should open.’

What the heck was that supposed to mean? An evasive response was the very last thing she needed, in the mood she was in, but she really did try very hard to let the subject stay closed. She bit down on her tongue so hard, she tasted her own blood. She told herself that she ought to trust him but, the trouble was, she knew she no longer trusted Bliss. And even though Duarte was emanating sufficient vibes to warn her off, she ignored them.

‘It’s natural for me to be curious.’

‘I’m not sure that you’ll be grateful for my explanation. Bliss was very embarrassed when she realised that you had had an affair with her cousin and she offered to resign,’ Duarte advanced in a glacial tone.

‘Did she really?’ Emily whispered shakily, feeling like he had just dropped a giant suffocating rock on top of her.

‘After those developments, it would have been a little difficult for us to return to our former working relationship as though nothing had happened. I have great respect for Bliss both as an employee and a personal friend. I would appreciate it if you would keep that fact in mind.’

‘I’m not really sure what you’re saying,’ Emily mumbled although she was dreadfully afraid that she did. She was also horribly tempted to say that, in terms of personal friendship, Bliss spread herself around behind other people’s backs, but it sounded mean and petty and she stopped herself just in time.

Duarte angled his proud dark head back and viewed her with chilling dark eyes without the smallest shade of warmer gold. ‘You have no right to question me. You had an affair. You broke up our marriage. You then vanished and it was seven months before an investigator even picked up on your trail—’

‘Duarte…’ she broke in jaggedly, her voice breaking under that onslaught.

‘Throughout those months I didn’t know whether you were dead or alive or even whether or not I was actually a father. It was a very difficult time for me. During that period, Bliss became something more than just an employee—she became a supportive friend.’ His beautiful dark eyes were like a card-player’s eyes, remote, cool, but disturbingly challenging.

She wanted to kill him. Then she wanted to strangle herself. He was telling her the cruellest thing. He was telling her that her own behaviour, her stupid immature vanishing act and all those months of silence had laid the foundations of what he termed a ‘friendship’. Was he telling her that Bliss was his mistress and that he wasn’t giving her up? And was it unjust and melodramatic of her to suspect that Bliss might have a far more ambitious agenda than mere friendship in mind? Hadn’t Bliss frightened Emily into leaving Portugal and then made use of that opportunity to increase her own standing with Duarte? Or was, Emily asked herself, she trying to justify her own mistakes and blame Bliss for the fall-out?