Enamored (10 page)

“And you blame me for leaving you at her mercy,
¿Es verdad?
”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” she replied, looking up. “You never allowed me to explain. You automatically convicted me on circumstantial evidence and set out to make me pay for what you thought I did. And I paid,” she added icily. “I paid in ways I won’t even tell you.”

“But you had your revenge, did you not?” he returned with an equally cold laugh. “You took a lover and had his child.”

She forced a smile to her pale lips. “You’re so good at getting at the truth, Diego,” she said mildly. “I’m in awe of your ability to read minds.”

“A pity I had no such ability when you left the hospital without even being discharged and vanished,” he replied. “There was a military coup the same day you left, and there were several deaths.”

As he spoke she saw the flash of emotion in his black eyes. She hadn’t noticed before how haunted he looked. There was a deep, dark coldness about him, and there were new lines in his lean face. He looked his age for once, and the old lazy indifference she remembered seemed gone forever. This remote, polite man was nothing like the man she’d known in Guatemala. He’d changed drastically.

Then what he had said began to penetrate her tired mind. She frowned. “Several deaths?” she asked suddenly.

He laughed bitterly. “During the time the coup was accomplished there were a few isolated fatalities, and one of the bodies could not be identified.” His eyes went cold at the memory. “It was a young girl with blond hair.”

“You thought it was me?” she exclaimed.

He took a slow, deep breath. It was a minute before he could answer her. “Yes, I thought…it was you.”

Chapter Six

D
iego’s quiet confirmation took Melissa’s breath away. She knew about the coup, of course. It was impossible not to know. But at the time her only thought had been of escape. She hadn’t considered that depriving Diego of knowledge of her whereabouts might lead to the supposition that she was dead. She’d only been concerned about hiding her pregnancy from him.

“I find it very hard to believe you were concerned.”

“Concerned!” He turned around, and the look in his black eyes was the old one she remembered from her teens, the one that could make even the meanest of his men back away. His eyes were like black steel in his hard face. “Shall I tell you what that young woman looked like,
niña?
”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I can imagine how she looked,” she said. “But you’ll never make me believe it mattered to you. I expect you were more angry than relieved to discover that it wasn’t me. How did you discover it?” she added.

“Your father told me,” he said, moving restlessly to the window. “By that time you had successfully made it into the United States, and all my contacts were unable to track you down.”

She wanted to ask a lot more questions, but this wasn’t the time. She had other concerns. The main one was how she was going to manage living with him until she was fully recovered. And more importantly, how she was going to protect Matthew from him.

“I don’t want to go with you, Diego,” she said honestly. “I will, because I’ve no other choice. But you needn’t expect me to worship the ground you walk on the way I used to. I’ve stopped dreaming in the past five years.”

“And I have barely begun,” he replied, his voice deep and soft. His gaze went over her slowly. “Perhaps it is as well that we meet again like this. Now you are old enough to deal with the man and not the illusion.” He got to his feet with the easy grace Melissa remembered from the past. “I will return later. I must check on Matthew.”

She turned under the sheet to keep her restless hands busy. “Tell him I love him and miss him very much, and that I’ll be home soon, will you?”

“Of course.” He hesitated, feeling awkward. “The child misses you, too.” He smiled faintly. “He said if he could be allowed to visit you he would kiss the hurts better.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and suddenly she felt terribly alone. She dabbed at the tears with the sheet, but Diego drew out a spotless white handkerchief and wiped them away. The handkerchief smelled of the cologne he favored and brought back vivid memories of him. Her eyes lifted, and she gazed at him. For one long instant, time rolled away and she was a girl with the man she loved more than her own life.

“Enamorada,”
he breathed huskily, his black eyes unblinking, smoldering. “If you knew how empty the years have been—”

The sudden opening of the door was like a gunshot. Melissa glanced that way as a smiling nurse’s aide came into the room to check her vital signs. Diego smiled at the woman, his expression only slightly strained, and left with a brief comment about the time. Melissa clutched his handkerchief tightly in her hand, wanting nothing more than the luxury of tears. She was in pain and helpless, and she was much too vulnerable with Diego. She didn’t dare let him see how she felt or make one slip that would give away Matthew’s parentage. She had to bank down her hidden desire and hide it from him—now more than ever.

She was grateful Diego had left, because the look in his black eyes when he’d held that handkerchief to her eyes had brought back the most painful kind of memories. He still wanted her, if that look was anything to go by, even though he didn’t love or trust her. Perhaps that might have been enough for her, but it wouldn’t be for Matthew. Matthew deserved a father, not a reluctant guardian. It would be hardest for him, because of Diego’s resentment. But telling Diego the truth could cost her the child, and at a time when she wasn’t capable of fighting for him. She’d have to bide her time. Meanwhile, at least she could be temporarily free of financial terrors. And that was something.

* * *

Several days later, Melissa was released from the hospital and Diego took her to the hotel where he was staying. He had chartered a plane to take Melissa to Chicago the next day, a luxury she was reluctantly grateful for.

She pleaded to let her come along when he went to Mrs. Grady’s to pick up Matthew, but he wouldn’t allow it. She was too weak, he insisted. So he went to get the boy and Melissa lay smoldering quietly in one of the big double beds in the exquisite hotel suite, uncomfortable and angry.

It only took a few minutes. The door was unlocked and Matthew ran toward her like a little tornado, crying and laughing as he threw himself onto her chest and held her, mumbling and muttering through his tears.

“Oh, my baby,” she cooed, smiling as she smoothed his brown hair and sighed over him. It was difficult to reach out because her stitches still pulled, but she didn’t complain. She had her baby back.

Diego, watching them, glared at the sight of her blond head bent over that dark one. He was jealous of the boy, and more especially of the boy’s father. He hated the very thought of Melissa’s body in another man’s arms, another man’s bed. He hated the thought of the child she’d borne her lover.

Melissa laughed as Matt lifted his electronic bear and made it talk for her.

“Isn’t he nice?” Matt asked, all eyes. “My…Your…Mr. Man bought him for me.”

“Diego,” she prompted.

“Diego,” Matthew parroted. He glanced at the tall man who’d been so quiet and distant all the way to the hotel. Matt wasn’t sure if he liked Diego or not, but he was certain that the tall man didn’t like him. It was going to be very hard living with a man who made him feel so unwelcome.

Melissa touched the pale little cheek. “You need sunshine, my son,” she murmured. “You’ve spent too much time indoors.”

Diego put down the cases and lit a small cheroot, pausing to open the curtains before dropping into an easy chair to smoke it at the table beside the window. “I have engaged a sitter for Matthew, since I will be away from the apartment a good deal when we get to Chicago,” he told Melissa. “Perhaps the sitter will take him to the park or the beach.”

Melissa felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle. Here she’d been the very model of a protective, caring mother, making sure Matt was always supervised, and now Diego came along and thought he could shift responsibility onto a total stranger about whom she knew nothing.

She clasped Matt’s waist tightly. “No,” she said firmly. “If he goes anywhere, it will be with me.”

Diego’s eyebrows lifted. She was overly protective of the child, that was obvious. Mrs. Grady had intimated something of the sort; now he could see that the older woman had been right. Something would have to be done about that, he decided. It wasn’t healthy for a mother to be so sheltering. A boy who clung to his mother’s apron could hardly grow into a strong man.

He crossed his legs and smoked his cheroot while his narrowed eyes surveyed woman and child. “Will you condemn him to four walls and your own company?”

She sat up, wincing as she piled pillows behind her. “I’ll be able to get up and around in no time,” she protested.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed blandly, watching her struggle. “Already you can sit up by yourself.”

She gave him her best glare. “I can walk, too.”

“Not without falling over,” he murmured, watching the cheroot with a faint smile as he recalled her last attempt to use her damaged leg.

“I’ll hold you up, Mama,” Matt assured her. “I’m very strong.”

“Yes, I know you are, my darling,” she said, her voice soft and loving. The man sitting in the chair felt an explosive anger that she cared so much for another man’s child.

“What would you like for dinner?” he asked suddenly, getting up. “I can get room service to bring a tray.”

“Steak and a salad for me, please,” she said.

“Matt wants a fish.” The little boy looked up, nervous and unsure, clinging to his mother’s arm.

“They may not have fish, Matt,” Melissa began.

“They have it,” Diego said stiffly. “I had fish last night.”

“Coffee for me, and milk for Matt,” she said, turning away from the coldness of Diego’s face as he looked at her son.

He nodded, a bare inclination of his head, and went to telephone.

“Mr. Man doesn’t like Matt,” Matthew said with a sad little sigh. “Doesn’t he have any children?”

Melissa wanted to cry, but she knew that wouldn’t solve anything. She only hoped Diego didn’t hear the little boy as she shushed him and shook her head.

Diego didn’t turn or flinch, but he heard, all right. It made the situation all the more difficult. He hadn’t realized how perceptive children were.

Dinner was served from a pushcart by a white-coated waiter, and Matthew took his to the far side of the table, as if he wanted a buffer between himself and the tall man who didn’t like him. Diego sat beside Melissa, and she tried not to smell the exotic cologne he wore or notice the strength of his powerful, slender body next to hers. He was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, and as he cut his steak she had to fight not to slide her fingers over the dark, lean hand holding the knife.

Diego finished first and went to the lobby on the pretext of getting Melissa something to read. In fact he wanted to get away from the boy’s sad little face, with its big, haunting black eyes. He hated his own reactions because they were hurting that innocent little child who, under different circumstances, might have been his own.

He went to the lounge and had a whiskey sour, ignoring the blatant overtures of a slinky blonde who obviously found him more than attractive. He finished his drink and his cheroot and went back upstairs, taking a magazine for Melissa and a coloring book and crayons for Matt.

Melissa had Matt curled up beside her on the couch, and they both tensed the minute he walked in. His chin lifted.

“I brought a coloring book for the boy,” he said hesitantly.

Matt didn’t move. He looked up, waiting, without any expression on his face.

Diego took the book and the crayons and offered them to him, but still Matt didn’t make a move.

“Don’t you want the book, Matt?” Melissa asked softly.

“No. He doesn’t like Matt,” Matt said simply, lowering his eyes.

Diego frowned, torn between pain and his desire for vengeance. The child touched him in ways he had never dreamed of. He saw himself in the little boy, alone and frightened and sad. His own childhood had been an unhappy one, because his father had never truly loved his mother. His mother had known it, and suffered for it. She had died young, and his father had become even more withdrawn. Then, when his father had met the lovely Sheila, the older man’s attitude had changed for the better. But the change had been short-lived—and that loss of hope Diego owed to Melissa’s family, because his father had died loving Sheila Sterling, loving her with a hopeless passion that he was never able to indulge. The loss had warped him and Diego had seen what loving a woman could do to a man, and he had learned from it. Allowing a woman close enough to love was all too dangerous.

But the boy…it was hardly his fault. How could he blame Matt for Melissa’s failings?

He put the coloring book and the crayons gently on the table by the sofa and handed Melissa the women’s magazine he’d bought for her. Then he went back to his chair and sat smoking his cheroot, glancing through a sheaf of papers in a file.

“I’m going to read, Matt,” Melissa said gently, nudging him to stand up. “You might as well try out your crayons. Do you remember how to color?”

Matt glanced at the man, who was oblivious to them both, and then at the crayons and coloring book. “It’s all right?” he asked his mother worriedly.

“It’s all right,” she assured him.

He sighed and got down on the floor, sprawling with crayons everywhere, and began to color one of his favorite cartoon characters.

Diego looked up then and smiled faintly. Melissa, watching him, was surprised by his patience. She’d forgotten how gentle he could be. But then it had been a long time since she and Diego had been friends.

They had an early night. Melissa almost spoke when Diego insisted that Matt pick up his crayons and put them away neatly. But she didn’t take the child’s side, because she knew Diego was right. Often she was less firm with Matt than she should be because she was usually so tired from her job.

She helped Matt into his pajamas and then looked quickly at Diego, because there were two double beds. She didn’t want to be close to her estranged husband, but she didn’t know how to say it in front of Matt.