Duarte's Child

‘Emily…?’ called a bright familiar voice.

It was Bliss, all smiles and self-satisfaction. ‘I’ve arranged a terrific party, haven’t I?’

‘Yes…absolutely.’ Emily plastered what she hoped was a serene smile on to her lips and prayed for an interruption.

Across the room, she glimpsed Duarte, his brilliant eyes centred on both women. Emily smiled so hard at Bliss her face hurt.

‘He’s mine. Just you watch me in action,’ Bliss invited.

‘I trust him…’ Emily didn’t know if she did but it sounded good and strong. What she really wanted to do was lock Duarte up somewhere very secure, just to be on the safe side.

‘When Duarte found you, he was about to instigate divorce proceedings.’

Emily widened her eyes in the desperate hope that that made her look incredulous. ‘I asked for a divorce. He said no.’

‘I don’t believe that for a moment!’ Bliss derided with blistering scorn. ‘We’re lovers. Haven’t you worked that out yet?’

Emily froze. Her heart divebombed to the soles of her feet. Her tummy performed a sickening somersault. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Bliss simply laughed and walked away.

Emily finished her wine with a shaking hand. Lovers! That announcement was not a cue to panic, she instructed herself. In dismay, she watched Duarte move out on to the dance floor with Bliss. Emily wriggled through the clumps of chattering guests round the edge of the floor. Peering under arms for a better view and stretching her neck and standing on tip toe, she kept Duarte and Bliss under close surveillance.

She lifted another glass from a passing tray and watched Bliss press her lithe body into intimate connection with Duarte. But a moment later, Duarte backed off from that contact. Bad move, Bliss, he’s not into intimate displays in front of audiences, Emily thought angrily. But then, when had Bliss ever been able to resist a challenge? Hadn’t Bliss once told her that a clever woman could easily manipulate any man into doing her bidding? Now Bliss was whispering coyly into Duarte’s ear. Duarte flung his arrogant head back and laughed and Emily felt stabbed to the heart and her bravado curdled at source.

If he fell for an Izabel, he could fall for a Bliss. Lovers? While she herself had been in England? Emily didn’t know what to believe. One minute she was suffering agonies of jealousy but the next, she was telling herself that she could not trust anything that Bliss said. Forcing herself to stop spying on her husband and his ‘friend’, Emily turned on her heel.

Only minutes later, Duarte curved an imprisoning hand to her elbow and tugged her back against him to murmur ruefully, ‘The one drawback of those shoes is that I can’t see you in the crowd. Where have you been?’

‘Oh…around.’

Now it seemed it was her turn to be whirled round the dance floor. She snuggled up so close to his lean hard body that a postcard could not have squeezed between them. Duarte tensed a little in surprise.

‘If you push me away, you’re dead,’ Emily swore. ‘It’s bad enough having to smell her perfume on you.’

‘Isn’t jealousy hell?’ Duarte imparted with a silken lack of concern that was just about the last reaction she had expected to receive.

‘What would you know about it?’ Emily snatched in a charged breath and then just stormed right to the heart of the matter. ‘Bliss told me that you were lovers!’

Assailed by that dramatic contention, Duarte responded in the most withering of tones, ‘Que absurdo! Why would Bliss say such a thing? That is not my idea of a joke, Emily.’

‘Are you saying you don’t believe me?’ Emily’s voice rose in volume at the same velocity as her temper.

Duarte tightened the arm he had curved to her rigid spine like a restraining bar. ‘No comment—’

‘If you don’t give me a straight answer, I’m walking off this floor!’

‘You’ve been drinking…you’re upset—’

Emily flung her head back and studied him with tormented aquamarine eyes. No. He didn’t believe her. He was being smooth, evasive, possibly even extremely cunning.

‘Bliss said that you weren’t comfortable with her being here,’ Duarte murmured very drily. ‘Even at a distance of a hundred feet, I could see that too. You really don’t need to make up childishly silly stories as well.’

Emily wrenched herself free of him with a sudden movement that took him by surprise. She felt violent, furious, incredibly bitter. Bliss and her games, always one step ahead. Duarte? If he was innocent, nothing short of a tape-recording would convince Duarte that Bliss had said such a thing. If he was guilty, all he had to do was accuse his wife of being intoxicated and jealous!