Duarte's Child

‘He will be OK…’

Even in the state she was in, the sense that she was now hearing his voice from the end of a long dark tunnel, she picked up on that stress. She might not be OK. She had been fifteen years old when it was impressed on her after an adverse reaction to a bee sting that she must go nowhere without her adrenaline kit. She had been too scared not to be sensible but, as the years passed without further incident, she had gradually become rather more careless. ‘If I die…’ she slurred with immense difficulty because the inside of her mouth and her tongue were swollen, ‘You get Jamie…only fair—’

‘Por amar de Deus, you are not going to die, Emily,’ Duarte cut in savagely, lifting up her head, rearranging her with careful hands because she was starting to struggle for breath. ‘I will not allow it.’

But before she lost consciousness, all she could think about was that it would be only fair if Duarte got Jamie. It was a punishment for her to be near Duarte again. It made it impossible for her to evade her own tormenting memories. Eleven months ago, one instant of hesitation had cost Emily her marriage—Duarte had found her in the arms of another man.

She’d let Toby kiss her and she still couldn’t explain why, even to herself. At the time she had been desperately unhappy and Toby had astonished her when he had told her that he loved her. In her whole life, nobody had ever told Emily that they loved her and she had never expected to hear those words. Certainly, she’d given up hope of ever inspiring such high-flown feelings in her gorgeous but essentially indifferent husband.

While she’d been frantically wondering what she could say that would not hurt Toby’s feelings, Toby had grabbed her and kissed her. Why hadn’t she pushed him away? She’d not been attracted to Toby, nor had she wanted that bruising kiss. Yet she’d still stood there and allowed him to kiss her. She’d been unfaithful to her husband and there was no justifying that betrayal of trust to a male as proud and uncompromising as Duarte. In the aftermath, she’d been so distraught with shame that she had made a total hash of convincing her husband that that single kiss had been the only intimacy she had ever shared with Toby. Convinced that she’d been having an affair, Duarte had demanded a separation, even though she was four months pregnant with their child.

Emily’s eyes opened and she snatched in a great whoosh of oxygen to fill her starved lungs.

The injection of adrenaline brought about an almost instantaneous recovery but she was severely disorientated and she didn’t know where she was. As she began to sit up, scanning the unfamiliar faces surrounding her and recognising a nurse in her uniform, she gasped, ‘What…where?’

‘You just had a very narrow escape. You were in anaphylactic shock.’ The older man gave her a relieved smile. ‘You’re in the cottage hospital. I’m the duty doctor. We administered the adrenaline jab in the nick of time.’

‘Take it easy and lie down for a minute,’ the nurse advised. ‘Do you feel sick?’

As Emily rested back again, she moved her swimming head in a negative motion. After that initial buzzing return of energy which had revitalised her, she now felt weak as a kitten. She was on a trolley, not a bed, and as the cluster of medical staff surrounding her parted because the emergency was over she saw Duarte looming just feet away. She raised trembling hands to her still tender face, felt the swelling that was still there and knew that she had to look an absolute fright. In addition, the very minute that foolish thought occurred to her, she became aware of her own demeaning vulnerability.

For a split second, it was like time stood still. Her dazed aquamarine eyes wide above her spread fingertips connected with his spectacular dark golden gaze. His eyes were rich as the finest of vintage wine but utterly without expression. She could feel her heartbeat quicken, the wretched inescapable burst of liquid heat surge between her slender thighs. He came, he saw, he conquered, she misquoted, shaken to her depths by her own helpless response. From the first moment it had been like that with Duarte.

There had been a wild uncontrollable longing that had nothing to do with sense or caution. Something that had come so naturally to her, something that had been rooted so deep in her psyche that only death could have ended her addiction to him. He’d drawn her like a magnet and, what was more, he had known it from the first instant of their eyes meeting.

But their marriage had been a disaster for both of them, she reminded herself miserably. The more she’d loved him, the more she had become agonised by his inherent indifference. Impervious to her every attempt to breach that barrier, he had broken her heart. She had even been hurt by his satisfaction when she fell pregnant, for it was a satisfaction he had never shown in her alone. The old sick shame filled her as she recalled that fatal kiss which had cost her everything that mattered to her. She had finally broken through Duarte’s reserve only to discover that all she could touch was his pride and his honour.