She heard his breath hiss from between his teeth. ‘You blamed me.’
Cristina stared down at her feet and thought about it. Yes, she concluded, she had blamed him—for not being there when she needed him—but as for the rest…
Luis let out a sigh and moved right away from her. ‘It’s okay. Don’t worry about it,’ he muttered heavily. ‘Right now I am blaming myself.’
‘No.’ Her head came up. ‘I did not tell you this to make you feel guilty about it!’
‘Then why did you tell me?’
‘To make you see why I cannot marry you!’
‘You married Ordoniz knowing you could not give him children. Why not me?’ he bit out roughly.
‘I did not care about him. I care about you.’
Anton pulled in an unsteady breath. ‘The man was childless, Cristina,’ he delivered painfully. ‘Surely he must have married you so that you could give him a son?’
‘I am not that wicked!’ For the first time since this little scene had begun she let her eyes make contact with his. ‘Why do you always have to look for the bad in me?’
She was right; he did. Hell, I’m losing my head here, Anton thought. And he wanted to—
‘Vaasco could not have children!’ she threw at him. ‘He could not have sex! He—the accident,’ she added on a shivering breath, ‘the horse—it damaged him there. And he did not want me because I was young and for everything else I see twisting around in your head!’ she threw at him. ‘He wanted to punish me because I—I caused his accident, and…’ She paused before asking warily, ‘Has your mother explained what Vaasco was to her?’
‘Oh, yes.’ His mother had been totally honest with him—at last.
‘Vaasco never forgave her,’ Cristina said, then released a sudden cold laugh. ‘He forgave Enrique Ramirez for his part in your mamma’s affair because he was a man, and “a man is allowed to sip the nectar if it is there to sip”—Vaasco’s words exactly,’ she explained. ‘He also knew about you and me—my father had told him. He expected you to come back for me. He wanted to watch me hurt you when you did. He wanted you to be hurt in your mamma’s place, by seeing me married to him. He made me stay in Rio with him for a full year, w-waiting for you to come back.’
But he hadn’t come back.
‘You let him do this to you without putting up a fight?’
Her eyes were cold now. ‘He bought me from my father in the same way that you have been trying to buy me. When you sell yourself you lose the right to think for yourself.’
Anton turned away from that coldly honest statement, a hand with decidedly shaky fingers going up to scrape through his hair, then ending up grabbing the back of his neck.
What now? he asked himself as he stood there trying to numb the shockwaves crashing into him. Cristina was right about him. He did always look for the bad in her. He had done it six years ago, when he had taken what she’d said to him without bothering to question why she was saying it. What kind of man did that make him?
He had even come back here to Brazil bent on seeking his revenge on her for what she’d done. He need not have bothered. Cristina had been punishing herself.
He found he was staring at the bed, with its humble picnic, and suddenly he felt the sting of tears attack the back of his throat as he began to see every single thing she had done since he came back into her life for what it really was.
An act of love for him that was so damn hopeless in her eyes she had to be tough afterwards—or how did she let him go?
He turned to look at Cristina next, standing there in his T-shirt and his bowtie and nothing else. His scent on her body, his kisses on her lips. His love was wrapped all around her if she would dare to let herself to feel it.
‘Let’s go back to bed,’ he said.
She stared at him. ‘Have you listened to anything I have said to you?’
‘All of it.’ He nodded. ‘It doesn’t change a single thing.’
‘Oh, meu Dues,’ she sighed, as it all flared up again. ‘Luis, I know about Enrique’s last will and testament!’ she cried. ‘I know why you need to marry quickly and produce a child! You have half-brothers you need to—’
‘Don’t talk about them,’ he uttered. They did not belong here—not in this room with this situation and this woman who had sacrificed so much! Well, he was about to learn what it felt like to sacrifice something he wanted badly. Because from this moment on he had no half-brothers. How could he have when—?
God, he did not want to go there right now. He could not allow himself to if he was going to get through the rest of this.
‘We have to talk about them,’ Cristina insisted. ‘The only way you can meet them is by marrying s-some woman who can give you a baby…’