Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child

Chapter Two

HE FLEW to Brazil by commercial jet. Falco was using the Orsini plane.

Based on the way they were dressed, he figured that most of the other passengers in the first-class cabin were going to Campo Grande on vacation. The city was near something called the Pantanal. His travel agent had started gushing about the area’s trails, the canoeing, the amazing variety of wildlife.

Dante had cut her short.

“Just book me into a decent hotel and arrange for a rental car,” he’d said curtly.

He was most assuredly not heading to South America for pleasure.

This was strictly business. His father’s business, and that he’d let Cesare push the right buttons ticked him off no end.

“Mr. Orsini,” the flight attendant said pleasantly, “may I get you something?”

Somebody to examine my head, Dante thought grimly.

“Sir? Something to drink?”

He asked for red wine; she launched into a listing of the choices available and he stopped himself from snarling at her the way he’d snarled at the travel agent.

“Your choice,” he said, before she could ask him anything else.

Then he opened his briefcase and read through the papers his father had given him.

They didn’t tell him very much that he didn’t already know. The Viera ranch ran thousands of head of cattle as well as a relatively small number of horses. It had been owned by the same family for generations.

A vellum business card bore the name, phone number and address of Juan Viera’s lawyer. A note in Cesare’s handwriting was scrawled on the back:

“Deal through him, not through the Vieras.”

Fine.

He’d call the man first thing, maybe even tonight. Brazilians kept late hours; the times he’d been in Sao Paulo on business, dinner never started much before 10 p.m. Whenever he called the lawyer, he would request an immediate meeting. He’d explain the purpose of his visit and make an offer for the ranch.

How long could that take? Maybe not even the two days he’d allocated for it.

He felt his mood lighten. With luck, he might be heading back to New York in no time.

It was midevening when he stepped off the plane.

Thanks to the time change, he’d lost two hours. Too late to phone Viera’s attorney and maybe that was just as well. All he wanted to do after the seemingly endless flight was pick up a car, get to his hotel, shower and eat something prepared by a human being instead of an airline catering service’s assembly line.

The hotel, in the town of Bonito, maybe twenty minutes from the Campo Grande Airport, met the requirements he’d laid out to his travel agent. It was comfortable and quiet, as was his suite. He showered, changed into a pale blue cotton shirt and faded jeans. Room service sent up a rare steak, green salad and a pot of coffee, and Dante settled down to leaf through the documents again.

Maybe he’d missed something the first time.

Ten minutes later he tossed the papers aside. No. He hadn’t missed anything. What he’d hoped to see was something about the filho of Viera y Filho. Why Cesare was so convinced that the son’s stewardship would lead to disaster. A hint as to why his father should give a damn.

But there was nothing.

Dante took a bottle of beer from the minibar, opened it and stepped onto a small balcony that overlooked a moonlit pool. He was exhausted but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. The long flight, the time change, the fact that he was still angry at being here…

If a man carved time out of a busy week to fly more than 5,000 miles, it should be for a better reason than running an errand he didn’t understand for a father he didn’t respect.

Like conducting business for Orsini Brothers. Or kicking back and enjoying a vacation.

Or locating Gabriella.

Dante scowled, lifted the bottle of beer and took a long swallow.

Where had that come from? Why would he want to locate her? For starters, Brazil was an enormous country. He had no idea what part she was from, no certainty she’d returned there. Rafe’s girlfriend, Miss Germany 2000-something-or-other, Rafe’s former girlfriend, a model the same as Gabriella, had once said that was what she’d heard.

Not that he’d asked, Dante thought quickly.

He’d just sort of wondered, out loud, if Rafe’s ex had known her.

Dammit, why was he even thinking about Gabriella? The affair had been fun while it lasted. A couple of months, that was all, and then she’d slipped out of his life or maybe he’d slipped out of hers….

Okay. So it hadn’t been quite like that.

He’d gone away on business, a trip Nick was supposed to make but Nick had had other things going on and Dante had offered to go in his place.

“You sure?” Nick had said. “Because I can just postpone this for a week…”

“No,” Dante had said, “no, that’s fine. I can use a break in routine.”

So he’d flown to Rome or maybe it was Paris, and he hadn’t said anything about leaving to Gabriella because why would he? They were dating, that was all. Dating exclusively because that was how he did things, one woman at a time while it lasted, but dating was all it was.

While he was away it had hit him that the thing with Gabriella had pretty much run its course. He’d gone to Tiffany’s as soon as he got back, bought a pair of diamond earrings, phoned her, arranged to meet her at Perse for dinner.

He’d been uncommonly nervous through the meal. Ridiculous, when he’d been through moments like this many times before. Finally, over coffee, he’d taken her hand.

“Gabriella. I have something to tell you.”

“And I…I have something to tell you, too.”

Her voice had been a whisper. Her cheeks had been flushed. Hell. She was going to tell him she’d fallen in love with him. He’d lived this scene before; he knew the warning signs. So he’d moved fast, put the little box that held the earrings on the table between them and said, quickly, how fond he was of her but how busy things had suddenly become at work, how he wished her the best of luck and if she ever needed him for anything…

She hadn’t said a word.

The flush had left her cheeks. In fact, she’d gone white. Then she’d pushed back her chair and walked out of the restaurant, leaving the earrings, leaving him, just walked, head up, spine straight, never once looked back.

Dante tossed back the last of the beer, exchanged his jeans for shorts and went out for a run. When he returned an hour later, he tumbled into bed and slept, dream free, until the wake-up call from the front desk awakened him the next morning.

Eduardo de Souza, the Viera attorney, sounded pleasant enough.

Dante explained he was the son of an old acquaintance of Juan Viera and asked if they could meet as soon as possible.

“Ah,” de Souza said, on a long sigh. “And your father knows what has happened?”

That Viera was dying? That the man’s son was about to inherit the Viera ranch?

“Yes,” Dante said, “he does. That’s why I’m here, senhor.” He paused, unsure of how the lawyer would react. “My father wishes to buy the place from him.”

Silence. Then de Souza, sounding puzzled, said, “From whom?”

“From Viera. From the estate. Look, senhor, if we could meet to discuss this…”

“Indeed. I can see we have much to discuss…but little time in which to do it. I am, in fact, on my way to the Viera fazenda right now. Can you meet me there?”

De Souza gave him directions, told him to watch for a turnoff about thirty miles from town.

“The sign is gone, I am afraid, but you will know you are in the right place because it will be the only turnoff for miles in any direction. Just drive through the gate. It is perhaps one mile from there to the house.”

Dante found the turnoff without any difficulty. The gate was open, the gravel road ahead pockmarked with holes. After about a mile, a house and half a dozen outbuildings came into view. A corral stood off to one side of the clearing.

Dante frowned. The buildings, including the house, gave off a general sense of neglect. The corral enclosed only weeds. There were some vehicles in the clearing: a few well-used pickups, cars with mud caked on their wheels, and an enormous SUV, all gleaming black paint and shiny chrome. Stupid to dislike a vehicle, Dante knew, but he disliked this thing on sight.

Slowly he stepped from his car. This was a successful ranch? Maybe he’d taken the wrong road…

“Senhor Orsini?”

A short, stout man was hurrying down the steps, patting his sweating face with a handkerchief.

“Senhor de Souza?” Dante extended his hand. “It’s good to meet you, sir.”

“I tried to delay things, senhor, but there was some impatience. You understand.”

Delay what? Dante started to ask, but the lawyer clutched his elbow and hurried him into the house. Men stood in little clusters, arms folded. One man, huge in girth and height, dressed like a movie villain in black and puffing on a cigar that filled the room with its stink, stood alone. Dante pegged him instantly as the owner of the SUV. A wide staircase rose toward the second floor; in front of it stood a guy in a shiny suit, rattling away in indecipherable Brazilian Portuguese. Every now and then, one of the spectators grunted in response.

Dante frowned. “What’s going on here?”

“Why, the auction, of course,” de Souza whispered. “Of the ranch. By the bank.” An expressive shrug. “You know.”

No, Dante thought furiously, he did not know. His father had sent him into a situation without giving him any of the necessary facts. He grabbed the lawyer’s arm, dragged him into a corner.

“Juan Viera is selling the place?”

The little man’s eyebrows lifted. “Juan Viera is dead, senhor.”

Dead? Dante took a breath. “His son, then? Arturo is selling it?”

“Arturo is dead, too. Is that not why you are here? To bid on Viera y Filho?”

“Well, yeah, but I had no idea that—”

“You must be prepared to bid strongly, senhor.”

Hell. This was not a way to do business.

“What’s the place worth?”

The lawyer quoted a figure in Brazilian reals, quickly amended it to its U.S. dollar equivalent.

“That’s it? Fifty thousand is all?”

“That will cover the money owed the bank.” De Souza hesitated. “But if you bid, you will have to go much higher.” His voice fell to a whisper. “There is another interested party, you see.”

Dante had been to auctions before. He’d bought a couple of paintings at Sotheby’s. There was often another interested party but Sotheby’s hadn’t been like this. There was a sense of something not just competitive but raw in the air.

“Okay. What’s the bid up to?”

The lawyer listened. “Twenty thousand reals. Half what the bank wants.”

Dante nodded. This wasn’t his money, it was his old man’s. Spend what you must, Cesare had ended up telling him, up to half a million bucks. That gave him significant leeway—and the sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave.

“Bid one hundred thousand.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. Called out the amount in reals. The room fell silent. Everyone looked first at Dante, then at the big guy in black who slowly turned and looked at him, too. Dante held the man’s gaze until he shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and showed all his teeth in what no one in his right mind would ever call a smile.

“Two hundred thousand dollars, U.S.,” the man said, in lightly accented English.

There were audible gasps from the others.

What was this? A contest over what looked like a place that would suck in tens, maybe hundreds of thousands to put right? Maybe Cesare was nuts, Dante thought, but he wasn’t, and hadn’t his father said he was handing this off to him because of his business expertise?

Dante shrugged. “You want it that bad,” he started to say…

And then a voice as soft as the petal of a rose said his name and he knew, God, he knew who it was even before he turned to the stairs and saw her.

Gabriella’s heart was pounding.

It was Dante. But it couldn’t be. He was a bitter memory from another time, another place…

“Gabriella?”

Deus, he was real!

Almost a year and a half had gone by and yet everything about him was familiar. His broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled body. The hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes, the palest shade of blue.

And his mouth. Firm and sensual, and even now she remembered the feel of it against hers.

He was moving toward her. She shook her head, stepped back. She knew she could not let him touch her. If he did, she might crumple. All the nights she’d thought of him. Willed herself not to think of him. Told herself she hated him, that she hoped and prayed she would never see him again…

True, all of it.

And yet, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing, listening as her fate was decided by a group of faceless men, she’d heard his voice and reacted with the predictability of Pavlov’s dog, her heart racing, her lips readying to curve in a smile.

She drew a deep, unsteady breath.

Those days were gone. She had no reason to smile at this man. She felt nothing for him. Not even hatred. The sight of him had stunned her, that was all…

Unless…unless he had come for her. In the darkest hours of the darkest nights, even despising him, she had wept for him. For his touch. And sometimes…sometimes, she had dared to dream that he had discovered her secret, that he was coming to her, coming for her…

“What are you doing here?” he said.

His bewildered question shattered the last of those ridiculous dreams. Reality rushed in and with it, the cold knowledge that she had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Her heart was racing again, this time with trepidation, but the recent changes in her life had brought back the ingrained habits of childhood, and she drew herself up and met his confusion with calm resolution.

“I think a far better question is, what are you doing here?”

He looked surprised. Well, why wouldn’t he? He was a man who never had to answer to anyone.

“I’m here on business.”

“What kind of business would bring you to the end of the earth?”

“I came to buy this ranch.”

She felt the color leave her face.

“Viera y Filho,” he said impatiently, “and you still haven’t answered my question.”

A sigh swept through the room, followed by the sound of a man’s unpleasant laughter. She saw Dante turn toward Andre Ferrantes and she felt a rush of panic. Who knew what he would say?

“Something about this amuses you?” Dante said coldly.

Ferrantes smiled. “Everything about this amuses me, senhor, including this touching scene of reunion.” Ferrantes cocked his head. “I only wonder…how well do you know the senhorita?”

“Dante,” Gabriella said quickly, “listen to me…”

Ferrantes stepped forward, elbowing another man aside. “I ask,” he said softly, “because I know her well.” Gabriella gasped as he wrapped a thick arm around her waist and tugged her to his side. “Intimately, one might say. Isn’t that correct, Gabriella?”

Dante’s eyes went cold and flat. They locked on Ferrantes’s face even as he directed his question to her.

“What is he talking about?”

She had heard him use that tone before, not long after they’d met. They’d been strolling along a street in Soho. It was late, after midnight, and they’d heard a thin cry down a dark alley, the thump of something hitting the ground.

“Stay here,” Dante had told her.

It had been a command, not a request, and she’d obeyed it instinctively, standing where he’d left her, hearing scuffling sounds and then thuds until she’d said to hell with obedience. She’d run toward the alley just as Dante had reappeared with an old man shuffling beside him. A street person, from the looks of him, saying “Thank you, sir,” over and over, and then she’d looked at Dante, saw that his suit coat was torn, his jaw was already swelling…saw the look in his eyes that said he had done what he’d had to do…

And had enjoyed it.

“Gabriella, what is he talking about? Answer me!”

She opened her mouth. Shut it again. What could she possibly tell him? Not the truth. Never that. Never, ever that!

“Perhaps I can help, senhor.” It was the lawyer, looking from one man to the other and smiling nervously. “Obviously, you and the senhorita have met before. In the States, I assume.”

“Senhor de Souza,” Gabriella said, “I beg you—”

“You could say that,” Dante growled, his eyes never leaving the big man who still stood with his arm around Gabriella. Her face was as white as paper. She was trembling. Why didn’t she step away from the greasy son of a bitch? Why didn’t she call him a liar? No way would she have given herself to someone like this.

“In that case,” the lawyer said, “you probably knew her as Gabriella Reyes.”

Dante folded his arms over his chest. “Of course I know her as—”

“Her true name, her full name, is Gabriella Reyes Viera.” De Souza paused. “She is the daughter of Juan Viera.”

Dante looked at him. “I thought Viera had only one child. A son.”

“He had a son and a daughter.” De Souza paused, delicately cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps—perhaps we should discuss this in private, Senhor Orsini, yes?”

“Indeed you should,” Ferrantes snarled. “There is an auction taking place here, advogado, or have you forgotten?”

“Let me get this straight,” Dante said, ignoring him, his attention only on the attorney. “The ranch, which should be Gabriella’s, will be sold to the highest bidder?”

“To me,” Ferrantes looked down at Gabriella. The meaty hand that rested at her waist rose slowly, deliberately, until it lay just beneath her breast. “Everything will be sold to me. So you see, American, you are wrong. There is no business here for you, whatsoever.”

Dante looked at him. Looked at Gabriella. Something was very wrong here. He had no idea what it was, no time to find out. He could only act on instinct, as he had done so many times in his life.

He took a deep breath, looked at the auctioneer. “What was the last bid?”

The auctioneer swallowed. “Senhor Ferrantes bid two hundred thousand United States dollars.”

Dante nodded. “Four hundred thousand.”

The crowd gasped. Ferrantes narrowed his eyes. “Six.”

Dante looked at Gabriella. What had happened to her? She was as beautiful as in the past, but she had lost weight. Her eyes were enormous in the weary planes of her face. And though she was tolerating Ferrantes’s touch, he could almost see her drawing into herself as if she could somehow stand within the man’s embrace and yet remain apart from it.

“Gabriella,” he said quietly. “I can buy this place for you.”

The crowd stirred. Ferrantes’s face darkened, but Dante had eyes only for the woman who had once been his lover.

“No strings,” he said. “I’ll buy it, sign it over to you and that’ll be the end of it.”

She stared at him. He could see her weighing her choices but, dammit, what was there to weigh?

“Gabriella,” he said, urgency in his tone, “tell me what you want.”

Ferrantes pushed Gabriella aside, took a menacing step forward. “You think you can walk in here and do anything you want, American?”

Dante ignored him. “Talk to me, Gabriella.”

She almost laughed. Talk? It was too late for that. They should have talked that terrible day when her life had changed forever. She had been so alone, so frightened, so in need of her lover’s strength and comfort. She’d phoned his office, found out he was away. He had not told her that. She saw it as a bad sign, but when he called the next evening and said he was back and wanted to see her, her heart had lifted. And that night, when he said he had something to tell her, she’d been sure fate had answered her plea, that he was going to say that he had gone away not to put distance between them but to think about her and now he knew, knew what he felt…

But what he had felt was that he was tired of her.

She would never forget the small blue box. The exquisite, obscenely expensive earrings. And his oh-so-polite little speech including that guilt-driven assurance that if she ever needed anything, she had only to ask.

The pain of his rejection had been momentarily dulled by his sheer arrogance. She could not have imagined ever wanting anything from him.

But the world and her life had changed.

“The fazenda is mine,” Ferrantes growled, “as is the woman.”

Gabriella dragged a steadying breath into her lungs. “Sim. Please. Buy…buy the fazenda for me.” Her words were rushed and desperate. “I will pay you back. It will take time but I’ll repay every dollar.”

Dante never hesitated.

“Five million dollars,” he called out. “Five million, U.S.”

The crowd gasped. Ferrantes cursed. The auctioneer swung his gavel.

And Dante took Gabriella in his arms and kissed her.

Chapter Three

DANTE’S kiss was the last thing Gabriella expected.

The last thing she wanted.

Once, his kisses had meant everything. Tender, they’d been soft enough to bring her to the verge of tears; passionate, they’d made her dizzy and hungry for more.

And it hadn’t been only his kisses that meant everything. It was the man.

Deep inside, she’d known it had not been the same for him. She’d never been foolish enough to think it was. He was rich, powerful, incredibly good-looking. Many of the models she knew dated such men. She never had…

Until him.

His initial interest had been flattering. Exciting. She had thought, Why not? She’d promised herself dating him would be nothing serious.

And then, despite everything, she had fallen in love with him. Deeply, desperately in love.

Dante had been magic.

But the magic was gone, lost in the cold reality of the past year. Completely gone, she told herself frantically, when she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, the tightening of skin over bone, the all-too-familiar signs that said he was going to take her in his arms.

“Don’t,” she said, slapping her hands against his chest, but he was not listening, he was not listening…

“Gabriella,” he murmured, saying her name softly as he used to when they made love. His arms tightened around her, he drew her against him…

And kissed her.

The room spun. The crowd disappeared. All that mattered was the sweetness of his kiss, the hardness of his body, the strength of his arms. Her foolish, desperate heart began to race.

“Dante,” she whispered. The hands that had tried to push him away rose and slid up his chest, skimmed the steady beat of his heart and curved around his neck. She rose on her toes, leaned into him, parted her lips to his just as she’d done in the past.

She felt him shudder with desire at her touch.

He wanted her, still.

Wanted her as if nothing had ever separated them.

The realization shot through her like a drug, and when he groaned, thrust one hand into her hair, slid the other to the base of her spine and angled his lips over hers, his kiss going from sweet to passionate as if they were alone, alone in that perfect world his lovemaking had always created, a world in which he had never abandoned her…

A meaty hand clamped down on her shoulder, fingers biting hard into her flesh.

“Pirhana!”