The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (24 page)

“How did you manage this? What did you tell Iva to make her agree to it?”

“You are thinking of the threat I made once to withdraw my business if they did not concur with my wishes, I think,” he said shrewdly. “There was nothing like that. When I spoke to your employer’s wife on the phone this morning, I told her the exact truth. At first she was reluctant either to tell me where you lived or to give you a message asking you to meet me somewhere. Later, when I called again she told me what she had planned. I made no objection. In fact, I was overjoyed.”

“Why?” she asked, anger at the betrayal lending strength to her voice. “What do you want?”

“There are a few matters which need clearing up between us. The first of them is this.”

He took out his wallet and from it extracted a slip of paper which he placed in Anne’s hand.

She accepted it automatically, glancing down at it. The figures on it wavered and became distinct. It was check for a phenomenal amount of money made out to herself.

“What is this?” she asked blankly.

“It is the salary we agreed upon, payment in full for two weeks labor in the role of my fiancée. Your acceptance of this money will dissolve all bonds between us and cancel any further obligation.”

His businesslike tone repelled her. Without hesitation, Anne thrust the check back at him. “It’s too much,” she said, her voice sharp.

He made no move to accept it. A diabolical glint came into his eye. “Am I to take it, then, that you have no wish to see an official end to our engagement?”

“No!” Anne said, jerking her hand back.

“I thought not,” he replied with grim satisfaction.

“Still, I can’t take this much money,” Anne told him, her tone as firm as she could make it.

“Why not? You’ve given back everything else I gave you.”

“This is different.”

“Why? Why is it different so long as I want you to have it?”

It was useless to argue. Anne let her arm fall to her side. Very well, she told herself with a mutinous set to her mouth. She would keep the piece of paper bearing his signature as a memento. She did not have to cash it.

“There is also the matter of a piece of luggage sent to you in Mexico by Iva Metcalf. Abuelita took possession of it when it arrived, it seems, and only yesterday ‘remembered’ where she had directed it to be stored. She meant no harm, only an excuse to allow herself the pleasure of outfitting you as she would any young relative.”

Anne was not surprised. She had suspected a deception of some kind when she discovered from Iva that the suitcase had, in fact, been shipped. But she did not see the piece sitting about, and she had no intention of waiting until it was brought out.

“I am afraid I will have to trouble you to have it delivered to my apartment,” she said, and could not resist adding as she moved toward the door, “I’m sure you will find it easy to persuade Iva to give you the address. Now if that is all...”

His arm shot out, blocking her passage. “That isn’t all,” he grated, allowing his irritation at her defensive attitude to color his tone.

“I fail to see what else there can be,” Anne said and, with a quick twist of her body, ducked under his arm.

She was halfway to the door when a hand on her shoulder spun her around. A hard forearm caught her under the knees and she felt herself swung up against the unyielding planes of Ramón’s chest. He carried her the few steps to a gold velvet sofa, where he dropped her on the soft cushions and then sat down beside her.

She sat up, a tinge of furious color in her cheeks. Before she could swing her feet to the floor, he leaned over her, pinning her in one corner.

Unsmiling, he drawled, “I thought we could discuss the situation in a civil fashion over dinner, but if you won’t have that, we can do it this way.”

Anne’s heart was thudding against her ribs. She was disturbingly aware of his nearness and her helpless position.

“The — the food will get cold,” she protested in small voice.

“To hell with the food. I want to talk to you, and we are going to talk if I have to tie you down to make you listen!”

Anne pressed her lips together, raising her chin. “You could have spoken to me at any time during this past two weeks. I fail to see the reason for your impatience now.”

“Do you?” he said grimly. “Then perhaps I can enlighten you. But first, you have not inquired after my grandmother’s health. Tell me, why is that?”

A pang of fear lent a quaver to Anne’s voice. “Has something happened? Is Doña Isabel ill?”

“No,” he answered with menacing slowness. “Nothing has happened. Abuelita is enjoying her usual robust health, just as she has ever since the day you left. But I only discovered that fact yesterday when I threatened to bring in a specialist to examine her. You, however, according to Abuelita, knew her secret before you left two interminable, unendurable weeks ago.”

Anne, taken aback, thought she saw the reason for the hint of suffering in his choice of words. “I’m sorry you were anxious about her,” she said defensively, “but I could hardly come bearing tales to you about your grandmother.”

“No, of course not,” he replied with a fierce gesture, as though he would push her attempt to explain from him. “Don’t apologize! It is I who should apologize for being so blind. I should have known you would not have run away and left Abuelita when she needed you most. I should have realized you would not have disappeared without a word to anyone unless you had a good reason.”

The air left Anne’s lungs as if she had been struck a blow to the heart. She could not bring herself to meet the raking probe of Ramón’s eyes. “It’s all right,” she said, in a tone heavy with finality.

If he noticed the hint that she would like to consider the subject closed, he ignored it, making no move to let her up from the sofa. Instead, he reached to slip his fingers around her neck, beneath her hair, rubbing the angle of her jaw with his thumb in a gentle caress.

“I can’t help wondering,” he went on as though she had not spoken, “exactly why you did leave. What was it that made you bolt like a frightened rabbit? Was it Irene? Or was it — me?”

Anne flicked a glance at the stillness that had closed over his features, then looked away again. What could she answer that would not betray herself? She could think of nothing. She could not think at all. The gentle movement of his thumb sent shivers of pleasure along her nerves and she grew minutely more aware of an aching need to move into his arms and press herself against him.

His grip became firmer, more insistent. “Look into my eyes, Anne, mi alma, and tell me I did not frighten you with my jealous temper.”

Startled, Anne lifted her lashes. “Jealous?” she repeated.

“Of course,” he replied, a rough edge creeping into his voice. “Insanely, wildly jealous. Don’t you know yet that I love you more than life itself, and that you are mine and I cannot tamely stand by and watch any man put his hands on you. My anger then, querida, was not only that Pépé dared to touch you, but that you could not see that you belonged to me, only to me.”

“You — you love me?” Anne asked, returning with a sense of awe to the most important point.

“Ah, mi vida, more than life itself,” he answered, his voice husky in his throat, his accent becoming more pronounced.

Disbelief still clouded her eyes. “I thought you distrusted me, that you detested the kind of woman you thought I was.”

“I tried, but what could I do? Even if you were the most avaricious witch alive, I had to have you near me. Why else would I hire a fiancée? Am I not man enough to rid myself of a dinging leech like Irene and protect my name from her vicious tongue without resorting to such schemes?”

She should have realized the truth of that assertion long before. Hadn’t she seen evidence enough of the implacable strength of his will?

“Then you didn’t need me, or my help, at all?” she asked in slow comprehension.

Before the words had left her mouth his arms closed around her. They were anything but gentle. The fierceness of his ardor swept over her like a raging fire. He kissed her eyelids, her forehead, her earlobes, trailing fire across her cheek to scorch her lips. She was crushed against him as he foiled any attempt at escape, even if she wished to try. She did not. The certainty of his love spread like healing balm to every corner of her mind. Beneath it her own desire kindled to flame so that her arms stole around his neck and she molded herself to the hard strength of his body.

With a deep, trembling breath, he released his hold. She lay back in his arms petit and breathless. After a moment, he shook his head.

“Why? Why did you run away when I tried before to tell you how much I wanted you, how much I needed you?”

A deeper shade of color flushed Anne’s cheeks. He had just declared their engagement officially null and void. How could she say to him that on that other occasion he had mentioned neither love nor marriage when even now, with words of love on his lips, he had not offered her his name. Still, she had to say something.

“I — I was afraid.”

“You were afraid I intended to possess you without vows of marriage being said between us, were you not? But if that is so, why did you later leave my house rather than agree to be my wife as Abuelita wished?”

The bewildered humility of the question was totally out of character. It hurt her to see him so uncertain. Lifting her eyes, she met his questioning black gaze without evasion. “Because there was no mention of the word love in that marriage arranged by your grandmother, and I could not stand the torture of loving with all my heart a husband who cared nothing for me in return.”

“Querida...” he whispered, drawing her close against him, nestling her head in the curve of his neck. “So you do love me.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “So much I can’t tell you.”

He sighed. “My stupid pride. When I think of the time we have wasted I cannot forgive myself. How can I ask you to forgive me?”

“No, no,” she whispered incoherently, and lifted her lips to his in the age-old benediction, absolving him with a kiss.

Sometime later, Anne stirred. “You are certain Doña Isabel is well?” she asked. As he gave his assent, he went on. “And you are not still angry with her for deceiving you?”

Ramón stretched in lazy relaxation, running his hand along her arm, and with the movement pushing up the sleeve of her sweater so he could press his lips to the soft skin at the turn of her elbow.

“How can I be?” he asked, his breath warm against her skin as he spoke without lifting his head. “It was she who gave me the first indication that under your cool disdain you were not indifferent to me.”

Remembering her admission of love to his grandmother, Anne smiled, touching her fingers to the crisp waves of his hair.

Abruptly Ramón raised his head; pushing her sleeve higher, he examined the skin of her forearm. “These bruises,” he said, a black scowl drawing his heavy brows together. “I made them...?”

She had no choice but to admit it.

With a groan, he brushed the yellowish-purple discolored skin of the old bruise with his lips, then drew her close.

“I don’t wonder that you fled from me,” he breathed, kissing the soft wave of her hair at her temple in an agony of remorse. “But I would never willingly harm you, you know that.”

Happily, Anne nodded.

“Then promise me, my heart, that you will never leave me again?”

Anne drew back, searching his face, her eyes radiant with the glow of love. “Never,” she answered, her voice soft yet firm, “Never in this life — or afterward.”

Since publishing her first book at age twenty-seven,
New York Times
bestselling and award-winning author Jennifer Blake has gone on to write over sixty-five historical and contemporary novels in multiple genres. She brings the story-telling power and seductive passion of the South to her stories, reflecting her eighth-generation Louisiana heritage. Jennifer lives with her husband in northern Louisiana.

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To find out more about Jennifer’s books, see the Steel Magnolia Press website at
www.steelmagnoliapress.com
.