Pandora's Box (9 page)

“I’m here.” Her voice came from the bedroom.

He paused at the door frame, watching her swallow a pill and some water. “Headache?”

“Forming.” She gave him a small smile when he sat by her side.

It will get worse
. “
Mo chridhe
, we have to go back.”

“Anything wrong at the bank?” she asked concerned, immediately raising from the bed to pack.

“Nae.” He put his hands on her waist and seated her on his thigh. He turned her face to his and said softly, “Sophia, Gabriela is fine and no one is hurt. I don’t want you to get nervous.” Her face paled instantly. “But you’re needed back in London. Your in-laws—”

“No!” Panic flared through her and she fisted his T-shirt in her hands. “No. I won’t let them take—”

He put a finger on her lips. “Listen to me. They just want to see her. Davidoff is taking care of it. He is trying to set a private meeting with their lawyers—”

“You don’t know him. He’s a manipulator, evil. He’s doing this out of spite. She… She’s terrified of him.”

His arms went around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. “He may be. But you and Gabriela have a team by your side. Davidoff, Leonard, Tavish Uilleam, my father, all of your Cambridge friends, your lawyers. And, of course, leading them all, me. I’m sure Rose is innocuous. Put yourself in her shoes, Sophia.”

“Rose, I can stand, but not him,” she whispered.

“Both to start with. Hopefully, in time, he’ll lose interest in her.”

“I will—”

“Nae,” he stated firmly. “You’re not doing anything. Nothing. You have a steady home with a loving husband. You’re Sophia MacCraig now. I won’t let anyone touch a strand of your hair. Let alone hurt your feelings. There is nothing they can do to take Gabriela away from you.”

“I’m not so sure…”
But I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to open my house to the man that killed Gabriel.
However, Sophia knew that they had her cornered now. She sighed, defeated. “I don’t want to see him. Every time I do, I lose it. I want to call him every foul word I know, to scratch his eyes out, to rip his beating heart out of his chest.”

He almost smiled at the image she was drawing. “I’m going to the meeting on your behalf and I’ll be at your side when you meet them. Let me help you this time and I promise you, you won’t regret it. We’ll face it together and win. Proudly, without lowering ourselves to Alberto Leibowitz’s level. Promise?”

She nodded, still subsided. “I promise.”

This time, he smiled at her. “Seems we have been exchanging a lot of promises these last few days.”

“Yes, it does,” she whispered, “I hope they last.”

“They will. And our honeymoon need not be a once in a lifetime experience either. We can do it over and over again, every time you come back to these magical islands. And we’ll bring Gabriela next time.” He sealed the assertion with a soothing kiss on her forehead. “Now, move, we have to get back.”

London, Kensington, Kensington Palace Gardens.

Atwood House.

2.13 p.m.

Alistair was sitting on Gabriela’s bed watching Sophia zip up her daughter’s dress and sit her on the light pink plush chair of her vanity table.

Sophia was tense.

He could see her fighting it as she bit her lower lip with so much force that he worried she was going to split it. This was the only sign that her nerves were wound tight.

For Gabriela’s sake, she was behaving extremely well since they had arrived in London at twenty past twelve in the afternoon.

In fact, she didn’t say or do much on their nine hour
flight back.

He didn’t try to push her either. He held her in his arms on the stateroom bed and comforted her as best as he could until she fell into a serene slumber for the last few hours.

Now she was recounting every story she could remember about their trip to Gabriela.

“The capitals we visited, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Min are like ants nests, with millions of people moving around; on motorbikes, bicycles and cars, and they don’t seem to follow any traffic rules.”

“Really, Mama? Why? Are they crazy?” Gabriela asked, stretching one tiny foot. Sophia slipped on a short frilled cotton sock and then a lovely white shoe with white gauze roses on the cap, repeating the process on the other foot.

“Oh, no. It’s as if the streets are alive. With people literally living there - eating, sleeping and chatting with their neighbors.”

Gabriela’s eyes widened. “They live in the streets? They don’t have houses?!”

Alistair laughed at that. “No, Fairy. They have houses from where particular and delicious smells come out. It is more like your mother’s spicy and hot peppers. More like the unknown powders she puts in her cauldron when she is doing magic in her kitchen, understand?”

“I don’t have a cauldron.” Sophia made a face at Alistair.

He looked at Gabriela and whispered, “Careful, she is a witch.”

Gabriela’s giggles filled the room. She asked, “Does she fly on a broom too?”

“There,” Sophia said, smiling, after she tied a silk ribbon on her daughter’s blonde ponytail. “What do you think, Alistair Connor?”

“My fairy princess is enchanting,” he answered.

Gabriela did look cute in her sleeveless Dior bluish-gray and pink striped printed dress. But no dress, shoes or ribbon could mask the fear that suddenly reappeared in the little girl’s sky-blue eyes.

He knelt beside Sophia and picked up Gabriela by the waist, lowering her from the chair to stand face to face with them. She seemed so little and afraid that he could relate to Sophia’s wish to spare the child from the visit.

He grabbed her small hands in his, fixing her with a soft gaze. “It’s just a visit. Your grandparents miss you.”

“I don’t miss them, Daddy. I hate them.” Her mouth transformed in a lovely pout.

“Now, now, my angel,” Sophia said firmly. “This is not what we have agreed to. Maria will be with you and they will behave because she understands Portuguese and English.”

“And if they talk French? She won’t understand.”

Sophia sighed. “They won’t speak French in front of her and you don’t know French enough to keep a steady conversation.”

Gabriela had been concocting all possible excuses not to see her grandparents. From a stomach ache to feeling feverish; from not remembering them anymore to feigning sleep.

Sophia almost gave up the whole thing when her daughter started crying and sobbing under the shower, gripping her neck and babbling that they would take her away again.

“Gabriela, you don’t need to be afraid. Maria, Zareb and Devon will be at the garden, your mother will be in the kitchen baking our favorite chocolate cake,” Alistair raised his eyebrows playfully at her, “and I’ll be just inside the home office, by the glass window. Anything at all, you just signal to any of us, all right?”

But not even the mention of the chocolate cake made a smile appear on her face. She stretched her chubby arms to Sophia and hugged her neck fiercely. “I don’t understand. Why can’t Mama be with me?”

Sophia sighed for the umpteenth time that long morning, rising from the floor with Gabriela in her arms.
Because they don’t like me and I don’t like them.

“Because they want to have all their time only with you,” Alistair answered.

“My angel, they are your father’s parents. Gabriela… Do it for him. He’ll be happy.”

The little girl looked at her mother with confusion in her eyes. “Do you think Father will know? That he will be happy?”

“I’m sure,” Sophia nodded. “Your father will be very happy if you like his mother, Grandma Rose.”

Alistair cleared his throat and discreetly shook his head at his wife.

Sophia unwillingly completed, “And your grandfather, Alberto.”

2.42 p.m.

“I don’t like manipulating her,” Sophia said as she watched Gabriela through the window of the home office.

Christ, Sophia!
“Manipulating?! You didn’t manipulate her.”

“I told her Gabriel would be glad to see her with his parents. Do you have another name for it?”

“I call it love.” His hand squeezed her shoulder with so much affection that she leaned on him and wound her arm around his waist. “You smoothed what was hard for her and kept Gabriel’s memory alive. She’ll be okay. She’s an intelligent girl. And Alberto, he’s more like a tree that falls.”

What?
She looked up at him quizzically.

“A tree that falls makes a lot of noise. But a woodland that grows and spreads its roots, does it quietly.” He slowly turned his face to look into her eyes. “He is the tree, Sophia. You are the woodland.”

A faint breath came out of her mouth as she turned fully and embraced him. As she put her head on his chest she could hear the steady and strong beat of his heart. “It’s a beautiful and powerful image, Alistair Connor. I wish I believed you.”

“This is what my mother taught me. Anyone making too much noise has no strength and is trying only to mask one’s fear.”
I had forgotten this lesson for such a long time.

His arms went around her as he eyed Gabriela and Rose playing with her dolls in the garden as Alberto just sat and watched from a bench. “I have learned to read your signs. Your strength and your love are quiet but they are inside you. Don’t doubt it. Gabriela has the same resilience; the same easy, loving manner. Every time you need your strength, look inside your heart
.
It’s there you are going to find the will to keep going.”

She didn’t say anything, but she wondered when Alberto fell how many he would take with him.

Chapter 5

France, Saint Symphorien le Château,

Château d’Esclimont.

2.33 p.m.

Ethan jumped down from his helicopter and then helped Barbara out. He turned to the pilot. “Thank you, Meredith. As always, a perfect flight.”

“Thank you, sir. Will you be returning on Sunday?”

“No. We are going to Paris by car on Sunday morning. Have a safe trip home.”

A bellboy arrived to pick up their luggage. Ethan offered his arm to Barbara and smiled charmingly at her as he directed her around the castle to reach the reception door at the back.

They didn’t notice an older couple having lunch under an umbrella, squinting their eyes at them and whispering maliciously under their breath.

In spite of being the replacement for another woman in Ethan’s bed, Barbara had never had so much fun in her whole life than in those months with him.

She knew she was walking disastrously near the edge, but she didn’t care anymore, especially when Ethan was in such a good mood.

She stopped in the middle of the room, awestruck, and looked around while Ethan tipped the young man who brought their luggage.

The Junior Suite had a full view of the pond and the park. Ethan closed the door and stepped behind her. Putting his arms around her waist, he pulled her to his body.

She leaned fully onto him. She thought they made a beautiful pair together as she caught their reflection in the window. She was taller and larger than Sophia but he was a very tall and broad man, still towering over her.

When Scott had showed her Sophia’s wedding photographs, she said Sophia had looked ridiculously short and fragile next to her giant hunk of a husband. Deep inside though she knew it was all envy.

“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to Versailles and the day after to Chartres. I have a full weekend planned for us.”

With a joyful sigh, she turned her head, offering her lips for a kiss, her eyes half-closed. She rubbed her ass on his crotch and felt a bit ashamed at how eagerly she offered herself to him but she couldn’t avoid it.

He smiled down at her, amused. “Already?”

She licked her lips and let herself get lost in the azure of his gaze. “No. Not already. Always.”

Ethan bent his head and softly touched his lips to hers.

He closed his eyes as the love in her voice scratched his soul. He was not devoid of compassion and feelings as he knew many thought. His tongue traced the seam of her lips. For now, he would be gentle with her because he knew deep inside that soon he would break her apart.

For a brief instant, he analyzed how selfish he was acting, how much like his grandfather and his parents he was turning out to be, but the thoughts jumbled when Barbara turned inside his arms and dipped her fingers in his hair.

Taking control of the kiss, she cupped him with one hand, delighting when he went hard for her.

Ethan’s last coherent thought was that he wished he had never met Sophia.

Atwood House.

4.39 p.m.

Alistair finished the conference call with a wide smile on his face. They were all set to buy one of Brazil’s largest banks with branches in all of South America.

His eyes scanned the garden for Gabriela, finding her sitting on her small wooden table serving tea to Rose and two of her favorite dolls. Alberto hadn’t moved from his place on the bench under a cherry blossom tree, having only switched his crossed legs. Alistair smiled devilishly at how uncomfortable the man looked in spite of the cozy and pleasant place he was sitting.

There was a delicious smell spreading through the house and he knew that Sophia must be baking Gabriela’s and his favorite chocolate cake.

His mouth watered as he walked to the kitchen.

“Soph—” Aghast, Alistair halted on the threshold. He had never seen their kitchen in such a mess.

There were pots and utensils waiting to be cleaned in the sinks. More than three covered pans were on the stove and Sophia was busy opening one of the ovens to load it with what he supposed was the cake, while a delicious chocolate smell came from a small pan on the electric stove. Sophia’s hair was pinned in a tight low bun, covered with a skewed scarf and there was flour on her forehead.

Alistair looked at their cook, Aisha, who was sitting on a chair by the table. She just shrugged, as surprised as he was, and continued taking delicate tartlets out of very small pans and arranging them on a crystal tray. Lucy, their housekeeper, was filling them with a mouthwatering vanilla cream. Precisely chopped strawberries and all kinds of berries were waiting to decorate them.