Proud Revenge, Passionate Wedlock

“Running away already?” he asked. “What of this closure you’ve returned for?”

“I’ll never have that as long as I’m subject to your ill temper.” She turned away from him and gave a frantic scan of the room, wavering slightly. “Where is the phone?”

“In the bedroom.”

She pushed past him without looking at him, seeming not to be looking at anything at all. Though her course was straight, he caught the slight warble in her legs.

He was reminded again by how much weight she’d lost. “Who are you going to call?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said.

“It is if you’re using my phone.”

“Very well. I intend to ring for a taxi.”

“I will take you where you need to go.”

Did she think she could shack up with her lover in Cancún? The paparazzi would have a field day with that gossip.

“I prefer a taxi and a hotel that isn’t under your control,” she said.

“Then you should have stayed in England.”

That brought her facing him again, and this time there was no mistaking her shock. “You’ve acquired that much power?”

“Sí, and I will not have you flaunt a lover under my nose!” He stalked her as a jaguar would a weakened prey, toying with her, knowing he had time to pounce.

She laughed, the sound bitter. “I assure you I do not have a lover here or anywhere.”

“You expect me to believe you?”

She whirled on him, her blue eyes snapping with anger now. “I don’t care if you do or not.”

“You should care, querida, for I hold your future in my hands.”

Her chin came up, but he caught the slight tremor in it. “Is that a threat?”

He hiked one shoulder in a careless shrug. “A promise. You want a divorce? I’ll grant you one.”

The wariness was back in her eyes again. “Are you serious?”

“Sí. I don’t wish to remain married to an unfaithful wife any longer.”

“I never broke my vows,” she said, seeming angry that he’d insinuate she’d cheated on him.

He smiled, no more than a show of teeth. “Sí, you did. I have proof of your infidelity.”

“That’s impossible!”

“No, querida,” he said. “I have pictures, and witnesses.”

And now he had the satisfaction of seeing her face leach of color.

CHAPTER TWO

ALLEGRA stared at Miguel, scarcely believing they were having this insane conversation.

“I have spent the past five months in a private sanitarium,” she said, remembering every facet of the bland room and the benign gardens visible out her window, painfully mindful of the hours ticking by without word from her husband.

One day smoothly blended into the next, counting off weeks. Months. She knew the sparse staff by serene face and finally by name. Knew what times of the day to expect the doctor, and knew each session would be a struggle to remember the simplest things.

She knew when Sunday rolled around because she’d have a brief visit from Uncle Loring.

That had been the extent of her memory until one month ago. She certainly hadn’t had a lover there, or anywhere else for that matter.

“It is called Bartholomew Fields,” she said, and meeting his hard gaze, she challenged, “Look it up.”

His laugh was a whiplash to her nerves. “So now you are accusing your uncle of lying.”

“Of course not. Just what are you insinuating?”

“Your uncle told me you’d gone off on holiday with your lover, querida.”

That couldn’t be. “Why would he say such a thing?”

“Because it is the truth,” he said, the dangerous hiss in his voice raising gooseflesh.

“No, it’s not.”

After five months, she’d come out of her sleep and begged to see Miguel and her beautiful daughter. That’s when the doctor had told her about the tragedy.

Cristobel had died in the auto accident. She’d barely survived herself, losing her memory and her ability to conceive again.

Miguel prowled the room, and she knew he would spring at the slightest provocation. “He suggested I divorce you.”

She shook her head, more confused than before. Uncle Loring had been painfully clear in telling her that Miguel held her totally to blame for their daughter’s death. He could not bear the sight of her. He wanted nothing more to do with her.

Yet Miguel claimed he’d come after her. Who was she to believe?

The slow, steady thud of her heart told her Miguel was telling the truth. True, her uncle had never liked Miguel, but that was no reason to lie to him about her health.

He was her husband. Then more than ever, she’d needed him at her side.

Instead Miguel had gone back to the Yucatán believing the worst of her. While she’d been locked away at Bartholomew Fields grieving for all she’d lost—her child, her marriage, her sanity.

She’d actually had no desire to go on, until her uncle’s health broke and she had to rally her own wits to care for him. It was then that she realized she must heed the doctor’s advice and return here for closure.

“I want to see this proof you claim to have,” she said, daring him to reveal his hand.

“I will when we reach Hacienda Primaro.”

A sliver of fear whispered over Allegra and she shivered. “I’ll pass on a visit to your family home.”

One dark eyebrow arched high over an eye that glittered hard and unyielding. “It wasn’t an invitation, querida. You want to see the proof of your indiscretion? It is there in my office. You wish to visit our daughter’s grave? She rests in the cementerio adjacent to the hacienda.”

She looked away and hugged her middle that pulsed with a hollow ache. The trepidation of returning to the hacienda unnerved her.

Something dreadful had happened there, for the apprehension dancing over her skin was real. But what? That memory was lost in the black void, and willing it to become clear in her mind only left her with a dull headache.

“Fine,” she said, capitulating without argument. “I will visit the hacienda and Cristobel’s grave, then return here.”

“No.” The single word cracked with finality, defying argument.

Her gaze shifted to Miguel standing tall and imposing in the sala. For the first time she noted the changes in him. He’d put on more muscle in his shoulders and torso, making him look formidable. Dangerous even.

He was not a man to be crossed.

Yet she didn’t fear him.

No, there was a mystique in his dark eyes that drew her. But though she’d fallen into his arms before, she’d not make that mistake again.

Never again would she allow herself to be shut out of her husband’s life. She certainly wouldn’t push her heart out there to be trampled again.

“You can’t order me about,” she said.

He inclined his head in arrogant agreement. “I would not attempt to, but if you wish to have an uncontested divorce, you will agree to my proposal.”

The dread in her stomach quivered and knotted, for his threat was clear—agree with him or spend years litigating her divorce. She didn’t have the funds for that and he knew it.

Still, she wasn’t about to capitulate immediately. “I can’t imagine why you’d wish to draw this out.”

His flash of teeth warned her she’d not like his answer. “Let’s call it equitable compensation for the fortune in jewelry you stole.”

She blinked, certain she hadn’t heard him right. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you would deny it.” He prowled the room with lazy insouciance, though his glittering eyes continued to skewer her to the spot. “I will admit this was partly my fault, for I gave you the combination to the safe. I trusted you.”

The accusation she’d stolen anything from him fired her anger. Though the memory of the hours surrounding the accident remained a blur, she knew she’d not availed herself of anything stored in the safe before she’d left the hacienda.

She felt certain that wherever she was going hadn’t warranted her wearing a fortune in jewelry. “All that I took with me that day were my wedding rings.”

He stared at her bare left hand. “Did you hock those as well?”

“I didn’t pawn any jewelry,” she said, hurt and angry that he continued to believe the worst in her.

“You still have them then?”

“I told you all I had with me were my wedding rings.”

He loosed a raw laugh. “Which you no longer wear.”

She stared at the stubborn man she’d lost her heart to and weighed her actions. Really, there was no choice.

“In this, I take delight in proving you wrong,” she said.

Allegra pulled on the gold chain hidden under her blouse until the diamond and emerald engagement ring and gold wedding band that had been created for her dangled free. “I lost a good deal of weight and feared I’d lose these.”

His long, lean fingers closed over the rings that were warmed from nestling between her breasts. A quicksilver glint of longing lit his dark eyes then vanished under his shrewd scrutiny.

“You expect me to believe you wear these all the time?”

“I couldn’t care less what you believe!” She gave the chain a tug, and he released the rings as if they burned him. “Perhaps it was silly of me to continue wearing the tokens of your troth when it is clear you no longer wanted me.”

“I never said I didn’t want you, querida.” A slow rapacious smile curved the lips that had once ravished every inch of her body, and despite her annoyance with Miguel a tingling heat skittered over her body.

“Enough arguing,” she said. “Our prenuptial agreement details my settlement. I’ve no desire to contest it.”

“It would be a waste of time and money to do so.”

A fact she was well aware of. “Fine,” she said again when she felt anything but fine. “What is your proposal?”

“I want you.”

Those three words sucked the breath from her. Surely he couldn’t mean it like that. But as the seconds pounded by and he failed to explain, she suspected this was indeed intended to be a sexual connotation.

“Want me how?” she asked anyway in case her foggy mind was imagining things.

And right now her imagination was running horribly wild. Just the idea of falling into his strong arms again was a temptationshe found difficult to reject.

The carnal glint in his eyes threatened to melt her remainingresolve. “As my wife. My lover.”

His words flowed through her veins in a thick, warm rush of need. She should be offended he’d suggest such a thing—at the very least she should be angry he’d demote her to the role of mistress.

But the idea hummed through her senses and made her feel more alive than she had in months. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a solid argument to throw out there.

In fact she was suddenly having difficulty dragging her gaze away from the solid expanse of his bare chest. Her fingertips tingled with the need to trace the hard slabs of muscle liberally sprinkled with black hair.

His bronzed skin would be warm and the hair soft as down. Her gaze tracked the hair that narrowed into a thin band and disappeared under his swim trunks that he wore indecently low on his lean hips.

For the first time since the accident, moisture gathered in the juncture of her thighs. Yes, she’d missed her husband. She’d missed the unbridled sex they’d shared. Missed lying in his arms afterward listening to the steady drum of his heart.

“A farewell fling then,” she said, and cringed at the reedy pitch to her voice that seemed to scream of her own need. “What if I refuse?”

“Then the deal is off. I’ll drag the divorce out and slap a lien against your beach house.” He crossed to her, each step slow and measured and tightening her nerves until she thought they’d snap.

Her mouth dropped open, and a sick feeling expanded in her belly to pop her sensual bubble. “You’d do that to me?”

“In a heartbeat,” he said with arrogant assurance of his power. “What will it be?”

There was only one choice and he knew it. The only difference was her reason for bending to his will—she wanted closure badly enough to put her heart through an emotional wringer with Miguel again.

“When do we begin?”

“Tonight. I invited a norteamericano businessman to dinner tonight to show my gratitude for the property we have successfully negotiated.” He ran a finger down her flushed cheek and she had to lock her knees to keep from bowing into him. “The El Trópico in Playa del Carmen would be the perfect place for dinner and drinks.”

She pulled back and stared at his arrogantly handsome face, expecting a glint of reluctance or hopefully humor after tossing out that name. But his features were too remote for her to read.

“Are you serious?” she asked. “The Quinta Avenida at night is a swarm of tourists, celebrities wishing to be seen and paparazzi.”

He smiled and not a kind one. “Afraid your lover will see us together on the cover of a slick rag, querida? Or has your romance with Amando Rivera ended?”

“Amando! You can’t believe I’d court his interest.”

His gaze blazed into hers with brutal intensity. “I know you did.”

“No! It wasn’t like that.”

“It was exactly like that,” he said. “I know where and why you secretly met with him. When you left the hacienda that last day, so did he.”

A dark memory of that day teased her mind and was gone, leaving her trembling with uncertainty and fear. Yes, she’d worked with Amando at first to help Miguel.

But it had changed. All she was certain of was she had an intense dislike for the guard Miguel had hired to protect her.

“Wear something slinky,” he said as she passed him on legs that still quaked and entered the bedroom they’d shared.

“I’ve no idea if I have anything suitable,” she said.

He waved a hand in the general direction of the bedroom, the movement sensuously masculine and dismissive as he punched in numbers on his mobile phone. “There is a red gown that would be perfect.”

She went absolutely still as those words replayed in her mind, triggering a memory she’d forgotten. If it was the same dress—But it must be. She’d bought it at Miguel’s insistence.

How could she have let that memory slip from her?

The question pinged her mind as she crossed to the closet, hearing the timbre of his voice rattling off Spanish but too engrossed in having captured a lost memory than to eavesdrop on his conversation.

She ran a shaky hand through her hair, remembering the shopping excursion as clearly as if it’d just happened. He’d taken her to an elite shop nearly one year ago, for the functions he’d be attending that fall demanded that his mistress be decked out to the nines.

Though he never told her what she could or couldn’t wear, it was obvious he preferred elegant fashions over slinky ones. Since she wasn’t comfortable wearing revealing fashions, it was a perfect match.

Until the clerk brought out the red gown and proclaimed it was made for her.

She’d had just enough sips of champagne to take the dare.

And the gown was daring with the front consisting of two gathered swaths of glittery fabric that covered her bosom, and the back bared nearly to the dimples in her bum. It fit like skin, and she’d laughingly told Miguel she’d not be able to wear undergarments with it.

His eyes had blazed so hot they’d chased away her chills.

He’d bought it, and she’d set it aside for the gala that December. But a week later she’d discovered she was pregnant, and by the time the gala came around, her figure no longer fit the daring gown.

“Did you find it?” he asked behind her, his breath warm on her nape.

“Yes.” She took it from the closet where it had hung in its protective bag, and her face burned with embarrassment. Don’t look at him. Don’t let him know how this dress and his closeness affected her.

Allegra slipped another hanger off the rod and draped a deep blue gown with generous drapes over the red one. “In case the red one doesn’t fit.”

“Of course.”

Must he stand so close? Must he smell so incredibly male? Must her body choose now to come out of its deep sleep?

What was she thinking by agreeing to do this?

His indecent proposal should infuriate her. It was an insult to their marriage. To her as a woman.

It reduced their marriage that had begun for her with such hope to a purely carnal level.

She should tell him to go to hell and call his bluff. But she couldn’t force the words out.

Miguel didn’t bluff. He’d drag out their divorce for years, and the emotional toil would ruin her more than the financial loss.

She couldn’t let that happen. Besides, the idea of lying in her husband’s arms again roused the primitive beast in her—a beast she’d thought she’d never witness again.

Only with Miguel, her heart warned.

She met his steady gaze with a tentative smile. “So this is it? There are no other surprises for me agreeing to do this charade?”

“None.” He held his head at an imperious angle, his eyes hooded, his broad shoulders dusted with glittering bits of white sand that she longed to brush off. “I will advise my attorney to begin divorce proceedings tomorrow, and I’ll give you fair market value for the beach house at the end of the week.”

“One week. That’s how long this fling will last?” she asked.

“Sí. Did you expect less? More?”

She shook her head, embarrassed to admit she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She’d agreed to his outrageous offer without knowing the details.

She knew what that said about her, and so did he.

“You will accompany me everywhere, querida.”

He smiled a wolf’s smile and dropped a kiss on her mouth. So fleeting. So brief she thought she’d simply imagined it.

“Day and night,” he said against her lips.

Those last words ribboned through her to tie her emotions in knots. It took every ounce of willpower to keep from leaning into his touch. Just like that and her resolve nearly shattered again.

“Cocktails are at eight,” he said, striding toward the master bedroom. “We leave in two hours. Do not be late.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she got out as he flung his towel on the bed and strode toward the shower, shucking his swim trunks with masculine grace.

Thoughts about her inadequate figure swathed in a gown that left nothing to the imagination left her. Her gaze swept down his beautifully bronzed sculpted body, admiring his muscular back, narrow hips, tight bum and long, long legs.

Warmth spread over her like the first fingers of a new dawn cresting the horizon. Heat as thick and hot as lava flowed through her veins.

As before, Miguel was fire in her veins. She’d never lusted for a man as she had him, and she certainly hadn’t expected to feel the same charged energy course through her again, not after all they’d been through.

But it was there—stronger than before.

She bolted up the stairs to the guest room and blocked everything from her mind but getting through this night. She’d returned for closure and she’d have it. If going through the motions of marriage with Miguel was the only means to achieve it, then so be it.

She’d suffered the worst life had to hand her when her darling daughter had died. She’d managed to push past the grief and remorse.

She could certainly do what Miguel wanted of her and not lose her dignity or her pride. And if he captured her heart again?

Well, she’d been through that, too, and survived.

After a quick shower that refreshed her spirits somewhat, she stepped into the crimson gown and took an appraising look at her reflection. The style was more risqué than she’d recalled, but her weight loss was an asset to the design. She’d never aspired to have a model’s figure, but she had one now.

Fortunately the gown hid the scar marking her surgery. What would Miguel think when he saw it? Would he still want her?

She pinched her eyes shut and loosed a groan of disgust. It didn’t matter what he thought of her body. She was his paramour for one week.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

She ran the brush through her mass of hair, then twisted it into a simple chignon. A bit of makeup and she stepped back to take stock of herself. She heaved a sigh, pleased she’d donned the image of the sophisticated wife of a billionaire.

All she needed now was the courage to carry her downstairs and throw herself into the role of his wife that she’d vowed to assume until her dying day. It should be easy, since she’d discovered one vital thing hadn’t changed.

She was still in love with her husband.

CHAPTER THREE

MIGUEL stood by the window and stared out to sea, but still only saw the hunger in Allegra’s blue eyes when he’d tossed out his proposition. He’d thought she’d balk when she realized he’d set them up to be targets of the gossip rags. He’d expected anger at being forced to do his bidding in order to gain her freedom.

But she hadn’t hesitated long before agreeing to resume the role of his wife, leaving him to believe that she wanted out of their marriage so badly that she’d prostitute herself.

She was a money-grabbing schemer. She’d likely run through the funds she’d gained by selling the jewelry she’d stolen and was desperate to sell the beach house to fund her affair. Was Amando Riveras waiting for her to return to him with a fat purse, or had she taken a new lover?

That possibility was a fresh knife thrust in his heart. He hated her as hotly as he’d once desired her for taking his child when she ran off with her lover, for her defiance ended his niña’s life. He’d been sure her deceit had burned out all feelings in him save vengeance.

But being with her again, drawing in her provocatively sweet scent, being close enough to run his hands through her wealth of hair and glide his palms over her creamy soft skin had reawakened the unbridled lust she’d always ignited in him.

She was the spark to his tinder, and he was powerless to put out the flames of desire.

He prided himself on his steely control—until he’d met her. She was the enigma that slipped past his defenses. She was the waif who stole into his thoughts when he needed his rapier wits about him.

She was the one person who struck fear in him, for the feelings she roused terrified him more than the very real possibility of something ill befalling her.

Even now he caught himself concerned about her drastic weight loss that went beyond her losing her baby weight. He knew well she’d always fussed about being too heavy when he’d thought her perfect.

Now she had the figure to rival a fashion model. The pale fragile complexion was indicative of someone who’d spent an exorbitant amount of time indoors. In bed with Amando?

He swore and ran a hand over his just-shaved jaw as he thought of his wife making love with the man he’d hired to guard her. How long had it taken for the man to seduce Allegra?

The attraction had to have taken root before she gave birth to Cristobel. While her belly was swollen with his child, the man he’d handpicked to guard his wife from a kidnapper had seduced her.

And she’d welcomed Amando’s attentions!

He’d known Allegra was unhappy with their marriage those past few months. She hated living at Hacienda Primaro. She had argued bitterly with his madre. She complained about being shut out of his life and wished to hold a position within his corporation.

“A Gutierrez wife does not work in that sense,” he’d told her. “Your job is your home and family.”

“I’ll go crazy here with so little to do,” she’d insisted.

He refused to be moved. “Then perhaps you should ask Madre what causes you could lend your name and time to.”

She’d said no more about holding a job after that. He’d thought she’d finally understood her position.

But he’d been wrong.

While he was immersed in helping the indigenous people survive a catastrophe, she was stealing a fortune in jewels and leaving him with the man he’d hired to protect her from kidnappers.