The Bride Tamer (5 page)

Dios.
Women weren't supposed to care about size, but she wasn't displeased at the way he looked. Big men, big hands, big… Big. Period. Okay, so she wasn't politically correct, big turned her on.

Somehow he took up way more space than he physically occupied. Then he grinned, and she really felt bowled over.

She fought not to stare down there again—fought and failed. His aura of virility filled the room, hotly flooding her senses and making every nerve ending buzz.

Somewhere she'd heard you had to get crazy people and criminals talking.

“Oh my God. I can't believe… You're naked.” Her voice was squeaky. She sounded like a mouse.

“Big deal.” His voice hadn't changed a bit. “I said we're even a while ago. Relax.”

“Relax?” Someone else had used that word recently.

Her shaking hand went to her throat where she could feel her rapid pulse. “Right, relax,” she said in her mouse's voice. “Relax—with you naked.”

His hard face softened as he took a step toward her.

She jumped a foot and then scooted backward fast, bruising her big toe when she slipped and stumbled over a pair of shoes.

“Don't you dare take another step toward me. Don't you dare try to touch—”

His white grin widened. “I think you want me to touch you. And I will…if you invite me to.”

“No. No!”

Then he pointed to the floor at a puddle of blue denim. “Can I get dressed now?”

Somehow she made her head bob her assent despite acute disappointment.

He leaned down and scooped up a pair of jeans. Then he stepped into them, slowly, one long, lanky leg at a time. She watched, mesmerized.

He zipped his jeans, slowly, oh, so slowly, careful not to catch anything important. “There. Feel all better now? I saw you. You saw me. Now we can move on.”

Maybe he could move on, but she was stuck. She kept seeing his big brown body. She couldn't get him or that image out of her mind.

Her skin felt as hot as fire. Her heart was still tripping over itself. “Th-this didn't happen.”

His green eyes drilled her. “Yeah, it did. And for me, it was a life-changing moment.”

“I was never here.”

“We got naked together, Vivian. And it was fun. The most fun I've had—”

He stopped, and she saw the pain in his eyes. He'd lost his wife and his little girl. She didn't want to remember anything that made him seem more human and real.

“I didn't have fun,” she insisted.

He grinned, a lopsided, charming grin. His black eyebrows quirked above his beautiful eyes. And his pain that made her feel so vulnerable vanished.

“Right.”

“Whatever you do, don't you dare tell Isabela about this. I love her. She's like a sister. I can't be here with you…like this.”

“What do you take me for?”

“Women down here are insanely jealous,” she said as she moved toward the door.

“Can I hope she has something to be jealous about?” he whispered, his eyes going so deep and dark, she shivered.

“What?”

“I told you—for me this was a life-changing moment.”

When he didn't look away, she was aware of something hot and dangerous filling the air. He wanted her. He didn't want to let this go any more than she did.

But she loved Isabela.

“No,” she whispered. “You have to get over it. We have to forget it. For
her
sake.”

“What a shame,” he said at last, but he continued to study her. “Okay. Then it was a dream, and we both woke up. Okay. Your secret is safe with me.”

Vivian dashed for the door. “No way, not in a million years, can I meet your eyes over breakfast—not with Isabela watching! I'll feel like I betrayed her.”

“You didn't. We didn't do anything.”

Yet.
“Look, I've gotta go!”

“Sweet dreams,” he whispered. “Which reminds me—you never did tell me your dream.”

“Don't hold your breath.” She flung the door wide.

“I got naked for you.”

“And that was such a huge sacrifice for you, I'm sure.” She licked her lips. “You were showing off.”

He beamed. “Must've been some dream,” he said, “to get you down here in the middle of the night anxious for a chilly swim. Knowing you, it had to be about sex.”

“You don't know me!”

“Did you dream about sex or not?”

Heat washed her neck and face.

When he laughed, she ran before he could ask any more questions.

“Don't let anybody see you in that bathrobe. It's inside out,” he yelled.

C
ash slammed the pool house door behind him and squinted in the brilliant sunshine. He felt disoriented and not himself.

He'd just gotten off the phone with Isabela. He didn't want to think about why he'd deliberately put the engagement ring back in his suitcase and left it in the pool house, when only yesterday he'd been so sure about the new direction he wanted his life to take.

And after Aphrodite, Cash was in no mood to share another meal on the patio with the vivacious, super-sexy Isabela, but she had already called him twice.

“Your
huevos motuleros
are nearly ready,” she'd murmured.

“You remembered.” He'd developed an enthusiasm for Marco's favorite breakfast when they'd brought Marco home from the hospital the last time they'd all been together.

“I remember everything we did in the city and everything we said.” When she paused, he heard her breathing. “I can't wait to see you.”

“Likewise.”

“Likewise?” She'd sounded confused.

“It's an American expression.”

“Not a very romantic one—”

He'd hung up on her too abruptly. He was blowing it.

Damn you, Aphrodite! You're the wild card thrown down onto green felt after I've already played a good hand very badly.

Isabela was perfect for him. He rubbed his temples and squinted again. The bright light, the drone of the bees buzzing in the purple bougainvillea that dripped from the roof, the red and blue walls, the vivid green lawn—all set a million little hammers pounding painfully in his brain.

Every time Isabela had come on to him last night, he'd swigged down more alcohol, until he'd barely been able to stagger to bed. He now had the hangover from hell.

He was smoothing his white collar down and sliding his Ray-Bans on when the dark, skinny kid he'd seen playing soccer outside with a maid and a gardener earlier grinned from ear to ear and shouted to him.

“Hola! Señor—”
The kid grinned again.

The smile softened something inside Cash, and he went instantly on full alert. Usually he avoided kids, especially extraordinarily appealing ones like this one, because they made him think about Sophie.

“Hola,”
he said, striding even faster as he headed for the patio at the far edge of the spacious lawn. Spot trotted along after him.

The kid switched to English. “Have you seen my mommy?”

The question stopped Cash cold. The vision of those sweet, young curves he'd longed to touch and taste and smell played like a rerun in his mind. Aphrodite's body and those tangles of liquid copper curls flowing over her shoulders would doubtlessly be imprinted forever in some deep, primal part of his male brain. Again he saw her ruby-red nipples, her swol
len breasts, her flushed cheeks, her long-lashed, blue eyes. Most of all he remembered the longing in her eyes.

When Cash didn't answer, the kid grinned again and lowered his voice to a plaintive stage whisper. “She's not upstairs. She's not anywhere. And I'm scared of the bees.”

Alarm flashed through Cash. “She has to be somewhere.”

“She keeps her bathing suit in the pool house. I thought maybe she'd gone there looking for it or something.”

Cash felt a wave of heat flash beneath his collar. “Haven't seen her…er…lately—”

“Usually she swims with me or watches me swim.”

“She likes to swim, does she?” Cash replied, moving again, away from the pool because the kid was staring at his face with laser-bright eyes and smiling that smile that cut through all his defenses.

“Do you have a kid?”

“What?” Cash turned, feeling trapped.

The boy's expression was eager, rapt.

“A little girl,” Cash admitted.

“Why isn't she with you?”

The muscles in his shoulders bunched. “She…couldn't come….” Cash felt numb, dead in the center. He should run. He stood where he was—paralyzed.

“Oh.” There was a pause, and the boy's smile faltered. “Are you divorced?”

“No.”

The maid and the gardener sitting in lawn chairs on the opposite side of the pool were watching them curiously.

“What's her name?” the boy said.

“Who?”

“Your kid.”

Cash's lips barely moved. “Sophie.”

“Mine's Miguelito, and my mommy takes me everywhere.”

“Except not this morning,” Cash said, hoping to end this impossible conversation.

Miguelito's mouth puckered. “So will you watch me swim till she comes?”

“You have people watching you already—”

“Pedro and Lisa,” the kid said, waving to them and yet never taking his eager eyes off Cash.

The servants waved back reassuringly. When the kid's black eyes, eyes too like Isabela's, continued to drill him pleadingly, Cash felt even more trapped, just like he had last night by the kid's aunt. The Escobars came on too strong.

“I want you because I'm scared of the bees,” Miguelito said simply but in that engaging child's whisper that made Cash feel big and important.

“Bees?” he asked, remembering the droning.

“They keep drinking out of the pool. One stung me yesterday.” He pointed to his shoulder.

“Your shoulder looks okay to me.”

“There's a little red dot where it bit me.”

“You know you're a lot bigger than a bee.”

“But it really hurts.” Miguelito glanced worriedly at the bougainvillea. “Stay—please.”

Much to his surprise, Cash stalked to the pool and sat down. The kid grinned, and Spot came up and lay down beside Cash.

He was
her
kid. He was cute and friendly, maybe too friendly, but he made Cash feel needed…just as Sophie used to. Maybe he could do this.

Grinning again, his dark eyes flashing with self-importance now that he'd increased his admiring audience, Miguelito climbed out of the pool, and then ran, spattering water all over the red tiles.

“No corras,”
the maid screamed when his small, wet feet slid out from under him and he nearly fell.

Miguelito slowed for a second, regained his balance, shot Cash another big grin and then sped up again. He leaped up the chrome stairs to the diving board as agilely as a baby
monkey. “Watch me dive,
señor!
” Fearlessly he jumped up and down at the end of the board. “Can your little girl dive?”

Sophie hadn't lived long enough to learn to swim.

When Cash choked, the kid grew still as if he sensed something was terribly wrong. Then he yelled, “Watch me!” He dove, feet splayed too widely apart, sloppily, slamming onto his belly with such force that waves splashed out of the pool.

Cash jumped up as the kid went under, sinking deeper and deeper. Just as Cash was about to fling himself into the pool, the kid's black head bobbed to the surface like a cork. The little daredevil shot Cash a quick smile and shook his wet hair out of his eyes.

For someone so little, the kid was one hell of a swimmer.

Sophie…

Don't think about her.

There were so many triumphs Cash would never get to share with Sophie. He remembered her wide smile and the way she'd run to the door on her short chubby legs, brown curls flying, every night when he'd come home, and thrown her arms out, signaling she wanted to be picked up. If he hadn't done so, she'd climbed him, searching his pockets for the little presents he often brought her, as he carried her to find Susana.

Something hot and wet splashed Cash's cheek, and he brushed the dampness away as if it were acid.

“Watch me do another one!”

The kid grinned at him so trustingly that Cash's heart ached. Sophie's grin had been like that.

It had been a mistake to sit down, to watch Miguelito. Cash had broken his rule and let his guard slip. The mortal wound was too raw still. He swallowed, and his throat seemed to tighten. He brought a fist to his lips. When would the grief ever quit eating him alive?

Why didn't I know how much I loved them before it was too late? If only I'd been home….

“Gotta go, kid. I'm late.”

Miguelito's smile faded.

Cash bolted to his feet. Spot stood up too, tail wagging so hard it thumped Cash's leg.

“What about the bees?”

“Your aunt— I'm supposed to eat—”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing!”

Cash loped toward the opposite side of the lawn with Spot hot on his heels. He was glad to get away, until he saw Isabela sexily posed on a yellow-and-white chaise longue beneath thick dripping curtains of orange bougainvillea. She lifted a glass of iced tea, saluting before putting her red lips to the glass's rim and sipping.

The urge to run nearly overpowered him even as he reminded himself that she was perfect for him. She was flamboyantly beautiful. She understood his kind of life. Men would envy him as they'd envied him Susana. But what if he never came to love her?

Isabela's tight red shorts and low-cut white T-shirt clung to her voluptuous curves. When she licked a droplet of condensation off the side of her glass and smiled at him again, guilt made the little hammers in his head pound even harder.

Damn—why wasn't his blood zinging the way it had when he'd been awakened by shy, gorgeous Aphrodite?

If only he'd proposed last night, maybe Isabela and he would have had this damn mating ritual behind them and they could relax and enjoy each other at her beach house today.

Blast Spot for going berserk under Vivian's infernal balcony last night. When Cash had followed the damn dog, he'd sensed something or somebody up there. Then Isabela had told him the balcony was Vivian's. Isabela had gone on to tell him more than he'd needed to know about her sister-in-law.

As he'd listened, he'd felt sympathy toward this woman he hadn't even met. Ever since Vivian had appeared stark naked first thing this morning, his thoughts about her had gotten a
powerful grip on his imagination. Just the thought of her was enough to make his body throb.

Again, as if Isabela sensed something amiss she got up and padded toward him. When he didn't take her into his arms, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

Strangely, the heat of her half-naked breasts pressed into his chest just made him feel uncomfortably sweaty. Then she kissed him, and her kiss was as practiced and perfect as any man could wish for. Her lips clung, her long fingernails caressed his nape.

He sighed heavily. The urge to escape intensified. Last night when she'd kissed him after they'd danced under Vivian's balcony, he'd felt a little sick. The music had seemed too loud, the wine too strong, his jet lag too wearying. All those damn candles had begun to blur…and her hands, all over him, had made him dizzy.

Funny, he'd liked her enthusiasm in Mexico City.

“You smell good,” he whispered, his voice cool as he let his arms fall away. “I'm starved,” he said, backing away from her. “I can't wait to see the beach house. Marco designed it too?”

“Yes.” With a little frown, she held up her hand and signaled a maid. “I saw you with Miguelito,
mi precioso
—at the pool.”

“Your nephew, right?” He sat down, thankful to have a table between them.

“Vivian's little emperor,” she said.

“Where is she, by the way, your Vivian?”

“I—I'm afraid she can't make it down to breakfast.” Isabela frowned.

Faking indifference, he leaned back in the chair, his long legs sprawling beneath the table. His heart actually ached.

“Don't be hurt.” Isabela sat down opposite him. “Vivian can be, well, I hate to say this about someone I love so much…but exasperating and unpredictable.”

That was easy to believe.

“She does her own thing, if you know what I mean.”

Like popping into my room naked?

“When she isn't teaching, she works in a Mayan village, helping the women,” Isabela continued.

“How?”

“She teaches them crafts—so they can be independent.” She sighed. “I think the men in the village wish she'd go away and stay away. She's giving the women ideas.”

Cash stared at Vivian's empty chair at the table and felt increasingly gloomy that she was avoiding him. “You said Vivian was from New Orleans.”

“She was an archaeology student. Very intense until she fell so madly in love with Julio. You should have seen them. They were on fire for each other.”

Cash shook his head, not liking the image her words conveyed. “You said she was very artistic too.”

“That's why she went downtown to the market.”

“Downtown?”

“She had to help this Mayan artisan arrange his straw products. Like I said, she works in the villages a lot. When I reminded her she'd promised to meet you, she ran out the door.”

“She ran?” He hoped Isabela missed the appalling rasp in his voice.

“It isn't you. The divorce changed her. She hasn't liked men much—or the idea of marriage—since Julio. She's even been strange about you. The first time I showed her pictures of you, she said such odd things.”

A weird pain mushroomed in Cash's heart. “You said Julio cheated on her?”

“Men will be men. At least in Mexico. She's too sensitive. But then her parents died when she was very young. Afterward she went to live with an uncle nobody approved of and a friend of his, a dancer I believe. From what I gather it was an…unconventional household—perhaps not entirely appro
priate for a young girl. Still, she loved her uncle very much, and she took his death hard too.”

Cash's heart softened toward the young orphaned girl.

“Her parents had been very much in love. I'm afraid they left her with a highly romanticized notion of marriage.”

“So, you think it's okay for men to cheat?”