Exotic Nights

He’d never looked sexier to her. She could imagine him being so tender and good with his own child, and her heart ached. She loved him, and she could never give him that.

A pain throbbed in her breastbone. He didn’t want that kind of life with her anyway. This was not a true marriage, and she was not a true wife. She’d been so incredibly stupid in not keeping an emotional distance from this man.

But how could she have done so? Each new thing she learned about him was like a nail in the coffin of her determination not to like him.

She’d failed, and she would pay the price when the time came.

Marcos perched on the thick wooden coffee table in front of the couch. “And you said you were scared of children.”

“I’d never been around them, is all,” she replied, stroking Armando’s soft curls. Her eyes filled with tears. She tried to hold them back, but one spilled down her cheek regard less.

Marcos leaned forward, his brows drawing together as he caught a teardrop on his finger. “What is this, querida? You have told me to have faith. Do you not take your own advice?”

“It’s not that,” she whispered, suddenly overwhelmed with all she wanted to say. With all she wanted to share. “I-I was pregnant once.”

Shock rocked him back. “Pregnant?”

She nodded, unable to look at him, her heart throbbing. “I lost the baby at six months. There was a robbery at the store, and I was beaten. They killed my baby.”

“Francesca, my God—”

“She was a girl. Jacques cared for me when all I wanted to do was die as well. It wasn’t just physical, either. He saved me from myself.”

“Your mother? Your sister?”

She shook her head. “He called them, but they’d disowned me. Because of the Corazón del Diablo.”

“Madre de Dios,” he breathed, visibly shaken. “When did this happen? What did they do to the men who did this?”

“It was four years ago, soon after Robert and I split. The men were caught. One of them died in prison, but the other two are still there. There’s one more thing.” She drew in a deep breath. “I can never have children of my own. The doctors say the damage was too great.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HE DIDN’T KNOW what to say. Shock, outrage—even despair—were the emotions crashing through him at the moment. He stared at his wife in disbelief. Francesca’s head was bowed, her attention focused on the toddler sleeping so peacefully in her arms. She stroked his hair with a shaky hand.

She could never have children—no wonder she’d been so uncomfortable when Armando had first appeared. She’d told him she had a headache, that she needed to lie down. But what she’d needed, he realized now, was escape.

He wanted to destroy the men who had done this to her. Wanted to destroy the man who’d left her to face the future alone while she was pregnant with his child.

He shot to his feet, overwhelmed with hot emotion, ready to do battle for her and slay the demons of her past. Yet it was too late, as he well knew.

She gazed up at him. Tears slid freely down her cheeks now and she swiped them away with the backs of her fingers while she tried not to awaken Armando.

He was so gripped with feeling, with emotion he didn’t understand. He needed to escape, at least for a few moments. He needed time to regain his perspective.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.”

He couldn’t move. He wanted to go, but he couldn’t. “Understand what?”

“You’re angry, probably even horrified. And you’re glad we have a contract, because we both know this is ending in three months. You aren’t saddled with a barren wife for real.”

As long as she lived, she would never forget the way he was looking at her right now. His expression was hard, angry. The scar on his face was white, and she didn’t think he realized that his hands were clenched into fists at his side.

Perhaps she should have waited to see what he would have said, but the truth was she couldn’t bear it. So she’d said it for him, because she was certain he would not. He would have told her how sorry he was, how sad, and then she would have been forced to murmur her thanks, all while holding this precious baby, who almost looked like he could belong to Marcos, in her arms.

She couldn’t bear it, so she’d given him his out.

“Francesca, that’s not at all what I was thinking.”