Brazilian Escape: Playing the Dutiful Wife / Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child

‘I’ve been bailed while they take some time to review new evidence.’

‘Well, after the way you spoke to me last night I need some time for a review too,’ Meg answered. She refused just to go back to loving him. He had hurt her too much. And she could not find out if she was pregnant while he was near. She needed to do that part alone.

‘Come here …’ He moved to pull her into his arms.

‘Just leave.’ It took everything she had to shake her head. ‘Just go, Niklas. I’m doing as you told me. I’m going to Hawaii …’

‘You’re upset.’

‘Why do you keep saying that? Of course I’m upset!’ she flared. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t be? How the hell do you justify speaking to me like that?’

‘Meg …’

He walked over and she did not want him to take her in his arms, did not want him to melt her all over again.

‘I say stupid things at times. You know that …’

‘Stupid things?’ There were so many other ways she could describe his words. ‘It was more than stupid, it was foul …’ She would not be fobbed off. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why did you speak to me like that?’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

‘No, you haven’t, and you’re clearly not as sorry as I was to hear it.’ She went to open the door, to tell him to get out of here, but he stopped her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Meg just stood there, tears rising, remembering the love they had made and all the ways he made her feel. But she could not go back there. ‘Get out!’ She pushed him off her. ‘I mean it, Niklas …’

‘Meg …’ His mouth was on her cheek and she pulled her head away. His hands were in her hair but she brushed them off.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘can you just leave me? I’ll call you later. I’ll—’

His phone rang then, and it annoyed her that he took the call. Yes, of course he was busy, she knew that, and maybe she should be flattered that he had come straight to her, but it annoyed her that in the middle of a row he could just stop and take a call. It made her even more angry, and she was tired of making excuses for him. She wanted him gone and she told him so when he ended his call.

‘You are cross …’ He smiled at her. ‘You look beautiful when you are cross …’

He aimed his phone at her and she blinked at the flash. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I’ve missed things like this. I want to capture everything …’

‘I just you want you to leave.’

But he simply refused to listen. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘A walk?’

The last thing she wanted was a walk. She wanted him to leave. She looked at his lips and not even his beautiful mouth could silence her doubts now. She just wanted him gone.

‘A walk to clear the air …’ Niklas said.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m waiting for the travel agent to ring me back.’

‘She’ll call back if you’re not here.’ He shrugged. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I want to taste the fresh air. I want to feel the rain …’

She looked out of the window. Yes, it was raining, and she realised that he wouldn’t have felt the rain in a long time. She was relieved that he wasn’t all over her, trying to kiss her back to confusion as he so often did, but she didn’t feel she knew him at all.

‘Meg, after all we have been through will you at least come for a walk with me?’

‘You hurt me last night.’

‘I apologise.’ His black eyes met hers. ‘Meg, I truly apologise. We can start again, without all this hanging over us …’

But she was stronger than she’d thought she could be.

She looked into his eyes and quite simply no longer wanted him—didn’t want to get back on the rollercoaster ride beside him. It was then that she made a decision that was surprisingly easy; she looked at the man who had broken her heart and knew that he would break it all over again. She simply refused to let him.

It was over.

Whatever the pregnancy test told her, Meg knew it was far better that she find out well away from him. She would fly to Hawaii today, search for the clarity he so easily clouded and make better decisions alone.

‘Come …’ he said. ‘I want to taste my freedom.’

Maybe it would be easier to tell him that they were finished while they were walking. Maybe it would prove easier out there. Because she knew his kisses made her weak. So she nodded and she went to get her jacket, to comb her hair.

‘Don’t worry about that …’ he said. ‘Your hair is fine …’

Niklas was right. Her hair really didn’t matter right now—it was her heart Meg had to worry about. They rode down in the lift together and Meg looked at him more closely. She hated her swollen eyes. Even more she hated that she had let him cause them.

They headed out through the foyer and into the street and she felt the warm rain that was so regular here. His hand reached for her, but she pulled hers back, refusing to give this man any more chances. He’d already used his last one with his filthy words to her the previous night and now his pathetic attempt at an apology.

‘I’m ending it, Niklas.’ He kept on walking. ‘I’m going to file for divorce.’

‘We’ll go to a bar and talk about it.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss.’ Meg stopped—which wasn’t the most sensible thing to do on such a busy street.

There were moans from a few pedestrians and he took her hand and they kept walking. She really was sure that she was making the right choice, because she did not know him, and he did not know her, and a walk would not clear the air. Only his kiss could possibly have given them a chance, because sex was the only thing they had going for them. Maybe she was mad for thinking it, but shouldn’t that be the way a man celebrated his freedom? If he loved her, if he wanted her, wouldn’t the first thing he wanted be taking her to bed, not out for a walk?

‘There’s a bar up here that I know,’ Niklas said. ‘It’s not far—just a couple of blocks away …’

‘I don’t want to go to a bar …’

‘The street is too noisy. Come on, we can talk properly there.’

‘I don’t want to talk.’

Meg was starting to panic now, and she didn’t really know why. His hand was too tight on her wrist, and he was walking her faster, and she had the most appalling thought then that he hadn’t been bailed at all. There was an urgency in the steps he was taking. She looked over to him and his head was down, and it dawned on Meg that maybe he had escaped from jail. She recalled the screams of the police cars and bikes. They were screaming in the streets even louder now. She remembered too the pharmacy staff all huddled around the television, saying his name. Maybe it was because Niklas Dos Santos had escaped. Still he walked her ever faster.

‘Niklas …’

She could hear the thud of music as they turned into a side street, could hear the clang of triangles and the smell of pamonah. There were so many people around; surely she was safe. She pulled her hand from his and stopped walking, but he turned and put a hand to her cheek. She shivered, but not with pleasure. There was something dark and menacing in his eyes. She was a fool to have got involved with this man, a fool to follow her heart, for look where it had led her—to a dingy side street in Brazil with a man she was now terrified of.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We will talk about where our relationship is going later. Right now I want to celebrate my freedom and I want you to celebrate it with me.’ His hand was tight on her arm. ‘You wouldn’t deny me that?’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘And I want you to let me go.’

‘Don’t spoil this day for me, Meg—it’s been a hell of a long year for both of us. Now we can drink cachaca, unwind, dance. Later we can talk, but first …’

He lowered his head to kiss her, but it was too late for that and she moved her head back from his, suddenly confused. Because Niklas didn’t dance. It was one of the few things that she did know about him—or had that been just another of his lies? Suddenly she was scared, and with real reason now.

Meg turned to go but he pulled her roughly back and pushed her against the wall. Then he opened his jacket and she saw that he had a gun.

‘Try to run and it will be the last thing you do …’

‘Niklas …’ she begged, and when Meg heard her own voice she heard the way she sounded when she pleaded for her life. She was trying to show him that she wasn’t panicked, trying to reason with a man she absolutely didn’t know, trying to get away. ‘Why do you need me?’ she said. ‘If you’ve escaped …’

People were turning to look at them, maybe alerted by the panic in her voice even though she wasn’t screaming. Or perhaps it was that if he had just escaped then his picture would be everywhere, being flashed over the news. Perhaps that was why he lowered his face to her.

‘Why do you need me with you?’

‘Because you’re my last chance.’

And his mouth came down on hers.

She could hear a car pulling up beside them and Meg knew this was her last chance to get away. She knew instinctively that when the car doors opened she would be shoved in, that that was why he had taken the call—to arrange all this. Terrified, Meg did the only thing she could think of to survive. She bit hard on his lip with all she had—took that beautiful mouth and bit it as hard as she could. In the second when he recoiled, as he cursed her in Portuguese and reached for his gun, Meg ran—ran as she never had—ran and ran faster as she heard gunshots.

She kept running till rough arms grabbed her and pulled her down, slamming her to the ground. She felt her cheek hit the pavement and the skin leave her leg as she rose to run again, heard another volley of gunshots and looked behind her. She saw police cars screeching up. Whoever had shielded her from him had gone. Then she stared at the body on the ground and it was the only thing she could see.

‘Niklas!’ she screamed, and tried to run back to him, for she hated the man but it was agony to see him lying dead and riddled with bullets.

She could not stop screaming. Not even when other arms wrapped around her and her face was buried in rough prison denim and she smelt him again—not his cologne, but the scent of Niklas, her drug of choice, a scent that till now had been missing. She heard him saying over and over that she was safe, that he was here, that now it would all be okay, but she still did not believe it was him—until he lifted her face and she met his eyes, saw that the beautiful mouth had not been bitten and knew that somehow it was him.

That she was safe.

It was just her heart that was in danger again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MEG DID NOT get to see him again. Instead she was taken to a police station. There were press clamouring outside as she was taken in to give a statement, and while she was waiting for a translator Rosa arrived.

Meg gave her statement as best she could. They kept talking about twins, and although she had already worked that out when she was being held in Niklas’s arms, her brain was so scrambled and confused that even with a translator she could hardly understand the questions, let alone answer them.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw Niklas—or rather the man she had thought was Niklas—lying there dead. The raw grief and panic, the knowing in that moment that she would never see him again, that the man she had fallen so heavily in love with was now dead, was not a memory or a feeling she could simply erase.

Fortunately Rosa had told the police she would return with Meg tomorrow, but that for now she needed peace, and thankfully they accepted that.

‘We will return at ten tomorrow,’ Rosa told her.

They stepped out into the foyer and she saw him standing there, still dressed in prison denim. He took her in his arms and she knew then that she had to be careful, because the one thing she had worked out before this embrace was that she wasn’t strong around him—that she’d only been able to break up with Niklas when it hadn’t actually been him.

‘I’m still angry with you.’

‘I thought you might be.’ He kissed her bruised cheek and didn’t let her go as he spoke. ‘We can row in bed.’

Which sounded a lot more like the Niklas she knew. He held her tight and pressed his face into her hair and she could feel his ragged breathing. For a moment she thought he was crying, but he just held her a moment longer and spoke into her hair.

‘The press are outside so we have to go out the back. I am taking you far away from here. I need to stay in the city, but—’

‘Não,’ Rosa said.

Meg heard the word amanhã again, and realised Rosa was telling him that Meg must return to the police tomorrow.

‘I’ll ring Carla, then.’

With his arm still around Meg he took Rosa’s phone and started to dial the number. Whilst he was occupied Meg stepped out of his embrace, and a little later, when they climbed into a waiting car, she sat on the back seat far away from him, needing some time alone.

Even though they went out the back way the press still got some photos and it was horrible. They scrambled over to the car and blocked their exit, but the driver shook them off. Niklas told her it might be like this for a while, and that he was taking her to a hotel. He saw the start in her eyes.

‘We’re not going back there—I’ve asked Carla to book us into a different one.’

Us.

So easily he assumed.

They entered the new hotel the back way too, and were ushered straight to a waiting lift where Niklas pressed a high number. They stood in silence till Meg broke it.

‘Did you get off?’

‘I’ve been released on bail.’

‘So why are you still wearing …?’ And then she shook her head, because she was simply too tired for explanations right now.

They stepped out of the lift and there was hotel security in the corridor—’For the press,’ Niklas said, but it felt a lot like prison to her, and no doubt to him too, but he said nothing, just swiped open a door, leading her into a plush suite.

Meg stood there for a moment, only knowing for certain the city she was in and that Niklas was alive. She remembered her feeling at seeing him dead, and the fear that had gripped her in the moments before, and started shaking.

‘I wanted to take you away from the city tonight, but because we need to go back to the police station tomorrow it is better that we stay here. I’ve had your stuff packed up, but it is in the other place … you’ll have to make do for now …’

It was hardly ‘make do’; there was food and soon she would take a bath, and then she sat and had a strong coffee. Niklas offered her cachaca—the same drink she had been offered a little while ago—and she shuddered as she remembered. He opened the fridge and opened a bottle of champagne instead.

Which seemed a strange choice and was a drink she hadn’t had it in almost a year.

Not since their wedding.

It was the drink they had shared on the day they had met, and he poured her a glass now, kissing her forehead as they chinked glasses and celebrated that somehow they were both here. It was a muted celebration, and there was still so much to be said, but Niklas dealt with the essentials first.

‘You need to ring your parents.’

‘I don’t know what to say to them,’ Meg admitted. She felt like crying just at the thought of them, was dreading the conversation that had to be had—and how much worse it was going to be now, after not telling them anything.

‘Tell them the truth,’ Niklas said. ‘A bit diluted.’ He nudged her. ‘You need to speak to them now in case they hear anything on the news, or the consulate might contact them. Have they tried to ring you?’

‘I didn’t even bring my phone with me,’ Meg said.

‘It will be at the other hotel,’ Niklas said. ‘For now they just need to know you are safe. I will speak to them if it gets too much.’

‘No.’ She shook her head—not at phoning them, but at the thought of him talking to them. She knew how badly things were going to go. ‘I’ll do it …’

‘Now.’

‘I still don’t really know what happened.’ But she took the phone, because he was right. They needed to know she was safe. ‘Leave me,’ she said, and was glad that he didn’t argue.

Niklas headed into the bedroom and she dialled the number, then looked out of the window to a very beautiful, but very complicated city. She held her breath when she heard the very normal sound of her mum.

‘How’s Brazil?’ Ruth asked. ‘Or is it Hawaii this week?’

‘Still Brazil,’ Meg said, and because Ruth was her mum straight away she knew.

‘What’s wrong?’

It was the most difficult of conversations. First she had to tell her how Vegas had been and how she had married a man she had only just met. She diluted the story a lot, of course—an awful lot—but she still had to tell them how, the morning after their wedding, Niklas had upset her, how she had been trying to psyche herself up to divorce him.

And her mum kept interrupting her with questions that her father was shouting—questions that weren’t really relevant because they still didn’t know half of the story. So she told them she was here to visit him, that he had been arrested a while ago, but was innocent of all charges. Her mother was shouting and sobbing now, and her dad was demanding the phone, and they were simply getting nowhere, and then Niklas was back and she was so glad to hand the phone over to him.

She found out for certain then just how brilliant he was, how clever he was with people, for somehow he calmed her father down.

‘My intention when I married your daughter was to take proper care of her. I was on my way to tell you the same when I found out that I was being investigated.’

He said a few more things, and she could hear the shouts receding as he calmly spoke his truth.

‘I was deliberately nasty to her in the hope she would divorce me—of course she was confused, of course she was ashamed and did not feel that she could tell you. I wanted to keep her away from the trouble that was coming—in that I failed, and I apologise.’

They didn’t need to know all the details, but he told them some pertinent ones, because as soon as they hung up they would be racing to find out the news for themselves. So he told them about the shooting, but he was brief and matter-of-fact and reiterated that Meg was safe. He told them that they could ring any time with more questions, no matter the time of day or night, and that he would do his best to answer them. Then he handed the phone back to Meg.

‘You’re safe,’ her mum said.

‘I am.’

‘We need to talk …’

‘We will.’

When she hung up the phone she looked at him. ‘You could have told me the truth that day.’ She was angry that he hadn’t.

‘What? Walk back in and tell you that I am being investigated for fraud and embezzlement? That the man you met twenty-four hours ago is facing thirty-five years to life in jail …?’ He looked at her. ‘What would you have said?’

‘I might have suggested you didn’t go back till you found out the case against you …’ she flared. ‘I might not be the best one in the world, but I am a lawyer …’

‘My own lawyer was telling me to get straight back.’ He kicked himself then, because had he confided in her—had he been able to tell her—he might not have raced back, might have found out some more information before taking a first-class flight to hell.

‘I had to return to face it,’ Niklas said. ‘Would you have stood by me?’

‘You never gave me that chance.’

‘Because that was what I was most afraid of.’ He was kneeling beside her and she could hear him breathing. ‘You never asked if I did it.’

‘No.’

‘Even when you visited … even when you rang …’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Did you believe I was innocent?’

‘I hoped that you were.’

‘There was too much love for common sense,’ Niklas said.

She sat there for ages and was glad when he left her alone and headed to the bathroom. She heard his sigh of relief as he slipped into the bath water and thought about his words—because while she had hoped he was innocent, it hadn’t changed her feelings towards him and that scared her. After a little while she wandered in to him.

‘I am so sorry.’ He looked at her. ‘For everything I have put you and your family through.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But still, I have scared you, and nearly cost you your life …’

And then he looked at her and asked the question the police had asked her earlier.

‘Did he do anything to you?’

‘Apart from hold a gun at me …’ she knew what he meant ‘… no.’

She watched him close his eyes in relief and knew then that he had cried.

‘He wanted to walk,’ Meg said. ‘That was when I started to worry.’ She gave him a pale smile. ‘Not quite the Niklas I know.’ And then there wasn’t a pale smile. ‘I’m still cross about what you said on the phone.’

‘I wanted you to leave,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to be so angry, so upset, that you got on the next plane you could …’

‘I nearly did.’

‘Do you want me tell you what happened?’

She wanted to hear it now, and he held his hand out to her. Yes, he assumed she would join him—and for now he was right. Her clothes and her body were filthy, and she wanted to feel clean again, to hear what had happened, and she wanted to hear it as she lay beside him. So she took off her clothes and slid into the water, with her back to his chest, resting on him, and he held her close and washed all her bruises and slowly he told her.

‘There was bedlam in court,’ Niklas said as he washed her gently. ‘The place erupted when I asked for a new lawyer, and then Rosa presented the evidence implicating Miguel. He was arrested immediately, but of course I had to go back to prison … I knew they were never going to release me just like that. I told them that you were in danger, but they would not listen, and then, as they were taking me back, he made contact with Carla, asking for money. He said that he had my wife and texted a photo. The police only believed me then that I had a twin.’

She frowned and looked up to him. ‘You knew you had a twin?’

‘I guessed that I did last night, after I spoke to you.’

‘How?’

‘It made sense. I knew I was innocent.’

‘But how did you work it out?’

‘I swear in several languages …’ She smiled, because that was what he did. ‘I was angry after speaking to you—worried that you would not leave—and I swore in Portuguese. The guard warned me to be careful, he called me Dos Santos and I heard the derision in his voice, in his tone. I thought he was referring to me having no one, and I swore again, and then he said something about you. I went to curse again, but in Spanish …’

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