﻿

“Hello, Amber,” he said, with dark, steely mockery in his tone.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped, her heart contracting into a shrivelled ball. “How did you find me?”

His expression changed slightly, as if she’d just satisfied him in some way. “We must talk.”

He took her arm but she shook off his hand. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said, trying to sidestep him, but this time he caught her arm in an unshakeable grip, trying to walk her along with him.

“Come—we cannot discuss anything here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. Let go of me or I’ll scream.” She opened her mouth and he dropped his hand from her arm, looking grimly amused.

“And I will tell people you are attempting to deprive me of my legal rights by fraud and deception. I wish to talk about your sister.”

Her sister? Of course. He’d called her by her own name, which she’d automatically reacted to. Not Azure’s. How much did he know? “How did you find out where I work?”

“I hired an investigator,” he said calmly.

“You…?” For a second she was stunned as well as angry. The idea of a stranger prying into her life gave her the creeps. “How dare you?”

“How else could I discover the truth? You lied to me.”

Daphne Clair lives in subtropical New Zealand, with her Dutch-born husband. They have five children. At eight years old she embarked on her first novel, about taming a tiger. This epic never reached a publisher, but metamorphosed male tigers still prowl the pages of her romances, of which she has written over thirty for Harlequin Mills & Boon®, and over sixty all told. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and short stories, and she has won literary prizes in New Zealand and America.

Readers are invited to visit Daphne Clair’s website at www.daphneclair.com

SALZANO’S
CAPTIVE BRIDE

BY

DAPHNE CLAIR

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

CHAPTER ONE

AMBER Odell had just washed up after her solitary evening meal when the doorbell sounded a long, imperative ring.

She closed a cupboard door with a click of the old-fashioned catch, hastily hung the tea towel on its rail and hurried along the short hallway.

The rimu floorboards beneath the faded carpet runner creaked under her bare feet. The old building in a once-fashionable Auckland suburb had endured a chequered career from grand home to orphanage to boarding house until, towards the end of the twentieth century, some crude renovations had converted it into flats. Amber was lucky to have leased one on the ground floor at a reasonable price, in return for some badly needed redecorating.

She switched on the porch light and hesitated at the sight of a large, dark shape behind the blue-and-red stained glass panes on the top part of the door. After a second or two the shape moved and raised a hand to rap on the wooden panel between the panes.

Cautiously she opened the door, braced to slam it shut again.

The porch light shone down on glossy waves of night-black hair combed back from an arresting olive-toned face with high cheekbones and a commanding nose. The forbidding features and uncompromising, beard-shadowed jaw were at odds with a sensuous male mouth, even though at the moment it was stubbornly set and unsmiling.

Vaguely she was conscious of broad shoulders, a pristine white T-shirt moulded over a toned chest, and long powerful legs encased in olive-green trousers. Casual clothes that somehow managed to convey a sense of style and expense.

But most of her attention was riveted by a nearly coal-dark gaze, burning with what looked like anger.

Which didn’t make sense. She’d never laid eyes on the man in her life.

Not that he wasn’t worth laying eyes on. She was perturbed by a stirring of unbidden female response to the potent aura of masculinity that invisibly cloaked him.

Pushing back a strand of fine, fair hair that flowed over shoulders bared by her brief tube top, she opened her mouth to ask what he wanted.

Before she could say anything, a comprehensive, searing gaze traversed downward over the wide strip of ribbed cotton hugging her breasts, and lingered on the pale flesh between the top and her blue shorts before quickly taking in the length of her legs and then returning to her face.

Amber went hot all over with anger of her own—and shock at the way her pulse points had leapt to life under the bold inspection. Lifting her chin—as she needed to anyway to look the man in the eye—she was about to ask again what he wanted when he forestalled her with the abrupt query “Where is he?” issued in a low, grating voice.

She blinked, startled. “I think you’ve—” Made a mistake, she’d been going to say, but she was cut off.

“I said, Where is he?” the man rasped. “Where is my son?”

“Well, certainly not here!” Amber told him. Maybe he was looking for one of the other tenants. “You’ve got the wrong place. Sorry.”

She began to close the door, but the man reached out and with apparent ease pushed it back again and stepped into the hallway.

Amber instinctively retreated, then realised that was the worst thing to do as the intimidating stranger kicked the door shut behind him, and when she turned to flee along the passageway—not that it would do her much good—a hard hand clamped about her arm and swung her to face him.

She opened her mouth to scream, hoping the two students next door or the journalist in the flat directly above hers would hear and investigate.

All she got out was a choked sound before the intruder put his other hand over her mouth and crowded her against the wall. She felt the warmth of his lean, hard body almost touching hers, and smelled a faint whiff of leather with a hint of newly cut grass. Aftershave? Although he looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days.

He said, moderating his voice with its slight foreign accent in an apparent effort to reassure her, “Don’t be foolish. You have no need to fear me.”

Now he looked exasperated rather than angry. Amber contemplated kneeing him, weighing her chances of disabling him and escaping, but suddenly he let her go and said, “Now let us be sensible.”

Yes, let’s! Amber thought grimly. “The sensible thing is for you to leave before I call the police!”

A frown appeared between his dark brows, and a flash of temper lit his eyes again. He said flatly, “All I ask is to see my son. You have—”

“I told you—” Amber raised her voice “—your son is not here! I don’t know why you should think—”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look—” she edged towards the door and kept talking “—you’ve made a mistake. I can’t help you, and I’m asking you to leave.”

“Leave?” He seemed affronted. “After flying from Venezuela to New Zealand? I have not slept since—”

“That’s not my problem,” she informed him.

She reached out to open the door again but he put a hand on it, holding it shut and looking down at her through narrowed eyes. “If he is not here,” he said quietly, as though struggling to control himself, “what have you done with him?”

A new expression had appeared in his eyes—surely not fear? Or at least genuine anxiety.

“Nothing!”

Again the black brows drew together. Lucifer must have had that same terrible, ferocious male beauty.

She shivered, and he said, the harsh note back in his voice, “What are you up to?” His eyes made another hostile survey of her. “If you ever had a child it certainly does not show.”

Amber gaped. “I’ve never had a child!” She reminded herself that most mentally ill people weren’t dangerous.

Then he grabbed her upper arms and she thought, But a few are! and forced herself not to kick and hit. That might trigger him into real violence. If she kept calm maybe she could talk him into leaving. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like swearing in Spanish. White teeth showed as his lips curled back in a near-snarl. “What devil’s game are you playing?” he demanded. “Why did you write to me?”

“Write to you?” Amber’s voice rose in disbelief. “I don’t even know you!”

His hands tightened until she winced, and he dropped them, his tawny skin darkening. “In a sense that is true,” he said with an air of hauteur, his eyes almost hidden by lowered lids that had the longest, thickest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. “But for a short time we knew each other intimately. That you cannot deny.”

About to do so in no uncertain terms, she hesitated as a fantastic suspicion slithered into her mind. Venezuela. South America.

No. She shook her head to dislodge the shameful notion. The guy was raving.

“Very well,” he said, impatient again and misinterpreting her action. “It is a matter of semantics. It was not…an emotional intimacy. But whatever you call it, you have not forgotten. What did you expect when you wrote that letter? That I would send money and put it out of my mind?”

“Wh-which letter?” Was it possible…? No!

“Were there others?” he asked, the lift of those almost satanic brows expressing cynical doubt. “The one,” he continued with exaggerated patience, “that asked for a contribution towards the welfare of the child you had borne, apparently to me.”

For a moment Amber felt dizzy, sick, and her hand involuntarily flew to her mouth to stop an exclamation escaping. Her voice shaking, she said, “I never sent you any letter, I swear.”

Maybe she’d got through to him at last. He appeared briefly disconcerted, then his expression hardened again. “You were desperate, it said. Was it simply an attempt at extortion and there truly is no child?”

She breathed in, thinking, and slowly said, “Would you believe me if I told you that you have the wrong woman?”

His brows shot up again and he laughed. Not pleasantly. “I know I had far more wine that night than was wise, but I was not so drunk that I don’t remember the face of the woman I shared a bed with.”

Feeling sicker still, her heart pounding erratically, Amber couldn’t speak.

Not that she’d have had a chance. His lips curling in a sneer, he asked, “Do you make a habit of asking men to pay you off after…I believe you would call it a one-night stand.”

“I don’t do one-night stands,” she flashed, “and neither—” caution intervened “—neither do I try to blackmail…anybody.”

“I’m the only one so privileged?” he asked, the harsh, accusative tone turning dark and silken, which paradoxically made her feel even more threatened. “And if it was not a one-night stand I’m not sure what you think it was. You yourself have denied any real connection between us, and we have had no contact since—until you claimed to have borne me a son.”

“I haven’t claimed anything of the sort!” Amber snapped. And as he made a move towards her, fright and anger sharpened her voice. “Don’t you dare come near me!”

He stopped dead, as if she’d shot him. “I will not hurt you,” he said.

“Oh, really?” She hoped her derisive tone didn’t set him off, but she couldn’t help adding acidly, “I expect I’ll have bruises on my arms tomorrow.”

To her surprise, a look of chagrin crossed his face. Stiffly, his accent stronger, he said, “If that is so, I apologise. I was…not thinking.”

Not hard to guess he wasn’t accustomed to apologising.

The change in him was at least marginally reassuring. Encouraged, Amber tried again, even more forcefully. “You’re not listening to me, are you? I don’t know—”

“Why should I listen to lies?”

“I’m not lying. You’ve got it all wrong!”

The sound he made in his throat was akin to an animal growl, alarming her again. He reached out, and long fingers closed about her wrist. “Then show me he is not here.”

She wanted to snap at him again, but perhaps it would be safer to humour the man, persuade him he’d made a mistake, and he might leave. Or to distract him so she’d have a shot at escaping. “All right,” she said finally. It wouldn’t take long—the flat had only three small rooms besides the kitchen and bathroom. “Feel free to look around.”

His gaze suspicious, he tugged at her imprisoned wrist. “Show me.”

She wasn’t going to be given a chance to flee outside and call for help.

Amber shrugged, hiding the fact that her heart was thumping, and led him to the doorway of her cosy sitting room, reaching aside to switch on the light.

A soft, cushioned olive-green sofa faced the fireplace, in front of which she’d placed a Chinese jar filled with white plumes of native toe-toe.

Two armchairs with calico slip-covers hiding their shabby upholstery were set at right-angles to the sofa, a couple of bright-red wooden boxes serving as end tables. Her TV and sound system sat in the chimney corners, and on the mantel a row of books was held by the South Island jade bookends she’d inherited from her grandmother.

The man glanced over the room without entering, and Amber took him across the hallway to her bedroom.

The bed was covered in white broderie-anglaise, and thick sheepskin rugs lay on the varnished floor. This time the man walked into the room as she tugged her wrist from his grip and stepped to one side, leaning with folded arms against the curve of the second-hand Queen Anne style dressing table.

The man threw her a glance that gave a silent warning and strode to the mirror-doored wardrobe, briefly looked at the clothes hanging there and closed it again. When his gaze went to the dressing table drawers she looked back at him defiantly and said, “You are not going through my underwear drawers. Are you some kind of pervert?”

For an instant fury flared in his eyes, then she thought he almost laughed, and she could see he was weighing whether he should ignore her ban before he headed for the door. Amber breathed a little more easily.

“Sure you don’t want to look under the bed?” she inquired as he snagged her wrist again.

He didn’t respond to the sarcasm, merely striding down the hall to the door opening into the minuscule bathroom.

Obviously no one was lurking in the shower cubicle behind its clear plastic curtain printed with coloured fish, or hiding in the cupboard beneath the washbasin.

Next was her office-cum-spare room, hardly large enough for the single guest bed, her filing cabinet, a compact desk that held her laptop computer, and the crowded shelves of reference books along one wall.

That left the narrow kitchen with a small dining area at one end. The man opened the back door onto the little walled and paved patio, saw the potted plants and the wrought-iron table and chairs for two, and on closing the door allowed her to free herself of his grasp and retreat against the sink counter.

He turned to the bank of cupboards on the opposite wall, and the counter below that held her toaster and bread-bin. Amber noticed how the glossy black hair was allowed to flow past his nape and curl at the neckline of his T-shirt.

Wondering if she could make a dash along the passageway to the front door, she saw his shoulders stiffen, his entire body go utterly still. Had he stopped breathing?

He reached for something, making a hissing sound between his teeth, and turned abruptly to face her. “If you have no child, what is this?”

Oh, Lord! she prayed, staring at the baby’s pacifier in his broad palm. How do I get out of this? “My…my friend must have left it when she brought her baby to visit.”

His hand closed over the small object, then he dropped it onto the counter and began opening cupboard doors, shifting jars and bottles and tins, cups and plates, until in a lower cupboard he found a basket filled with small stuffed toys, a board book, rattles, a toy xylophone and a jumble of plastic blocks.

“For visiting children,” she said. “Some of my friends have babies or toddlers. You won’t find anything else. I keep telling you, you’ve made a mistake!”

He whirled then, fixing her with a glittering, hostile stare. “My mistake was almost two years ago, when I was estúpido enough to let cheap wine and a pretty tourist send my good sense and disciplina to the winds.”

Bristling at his dismissal of the “pretty tourist” as on a par with “cheap wine,” Amber said, “Whatever your problem is—”

“It is our problem,” he argued, “if what was in that letter is true. No matter how often you deny it, or how distasteful I find it.”

Distasteful? If that was how he thought of his supposed offspring, what sort of a father would he be?

The thought validated her caution. “Look,” she said, making her denial as authoritative as she could, “it wasn’t me. And I don’t feel well.” Brushing another strand of hair from her cheek, she realised her hand was trembling. Her stomach was battling nausea and her knees felt watery.

His eyes searched her face with patent distrust. “You are pale,” he allowed grudgingly. His mouth clamped for a moment before he said, “Tomorrow then. I will come back. And I warn you, if you are not here I will find you again.”

“How did you…?” Curious as to how he’d landed on her doorstep, she paused to reword the question. “You can’t have had my address.” She’d been too confused and alarmed to think about that.

A hint of that menacing sneer again distorted the firm male mouth. “It was not difficult. The post office box given as the return address was in Auckland, New Zealand. And you are the only A. Odell in the telephone book.”

“I don’t have a box,” she said. “And not everyone is in the phone book.” Which was lucky for them. It kept scary foreign men from pushing uninvited into their homes and flinging wild accusations.

She put a hand on the counter behind her. Her legs were still unsteady, and her voice lacked any kind of confidence when she said, “Please would you leave now? I…really can’t talk to you any more tonight.”

He took a step towards her, the Lucifer frown reappearing. “Are you ill? Do you need help?” One hand moved as if to touch her, but she shrank from it.

“All I need is for you to go!” And now she sounded shrill, dammit.

To her infinite relief he nodded curtly, but said, “You will be here tomorrow.” As if he could order it. “In the morning?”

He was trying to pin her down. “I have to work,” she said. “Some people do, you know.” While some could afford to fly across the world at the drop of a hat—or a letter. “Tomorrow evening,” she suggested randomly. “Eight o’clock.” It seemed the only way to get rid of him, and next time she’d make sure she wasn’t alone.

Another nod, and he turned to leave. Amber heard his footsteps recede down the passageway, and the door closing. Slumping against the counter, she felt as if she’d been picked up by a hurricane and dropped back to earth.

She straightened and made herself a cup of hot, black coffee, added a generous spoonful of sugar and took it to her bedroom. Sitting on the bed, she downed several steadying sips, before picking up the phone and keying in a number.

The ringing went on for a long time, but she didn’t hang up. When it finally stopped and a voice as familiar as her own answered, she said without preamble, “Azzie, what on earth have you done?”

CHAPTER TWO

MARCO Enrique Salvatore Costa Salzano wasn’t accustomed to being brushed off by women, much less being evicted from their homes.

But neither was he in the habit of forcibly invading those homes.

He’d spent the day brooding over last night’s debacle even while he made a time-killing exploration of Auckland city and its environs, ending with a stroll on the waterfront path that curved in and out along several bays overlooked by well-kept houses wherever steep cliffs didn’t border the road.

He’d found an underwater aquarium that featured such sea creatures as huge stingrays and even medium-size sharks swimming freely behind glass above and around the visitors. A short trolley ride in a fake Antarctic section allowed them to come eye to eye with king penguins. The animals were in every way a world apart from those he was accustomed to and to which he devoted a large part of his time. Yet they were sufficiently fascinating that for a short while he’d almost forgotten the mission that had brought him to the South Pacific.

Now the sun was inching downward and the eye-watering blue of the sky over the Waitemata Harbour had gradually softened to a paler shade while he paced the thick carpet of his hotel suite. The hands of his watch crawled towards seven-thirty so slowly that he wondered if the several thousand dollars he’d paid for its world-renowned brand reliability, expensive platinum casing and flawless design had been misspent. There was still more than half an hour to his appointment with the woman who last night had inexplicably denied knowing him.

When he’d finally arrived in New Zealand after a seemingly endless flight, perhaps he shouldn’t have left the hotel as soon as he’d had a hurried shower and pulled clean clothes randomly from his bag. Jet-lagged though he was, he hadn’t been able to tolerate another night of angry anticipation mingled with regret and self-castigation—and something he refused to name as confused hope.

After all that, and despite her having appealed for his help in a way that suggested she and his son were suffering imminent if not actual penury, the woman had tried to shut the door on him!

Unable to conceal his simmering rage, he knew he had made her nervous. Although she’d mounted a valiant effort to hide that, standing up to him and threatening to call the police.

He almost smiled, recalling the defiant flash of her eyes—he hadn’t remembered she had such striking eyes, truly jade green ringed with amber—and her determined efforts to oust him from that matchbox of a home. She’d deliberately goaded him with sarcasm and insults despite her slight though very feminine build and the fact that the top of her head barely reached his chin.

When he’d silenced her attempt to scream, and blocked her escape with his body, her hair had been soft and silky against his throat and smelled of apricots with a hint of fresh lemon.

That scent had unexpectedly aroused him, as had the tantalising way her breasts rose and fell with her frightened breathing, under the scanty piece of cloth that barely covered them. He’d quickly stepped back, not wanting to add fear of rape to her perplexing reactions. It was not in his nature to terrorise women.

Admittedly last night’s confrontation had been no ordinary visit. Perhaps he could have been less impetuous, but that letter had been a bombshell, coming long after he had written off the Carnaval incident as a lapse in judgement that, fortunately, had had no serious consequences.

Why be afraid of a man she’d happily allowed to take her to an unknown destination in a foreign city to have sex when they’d only met a couple of hours before? And why deny she’d sent that letter? Any logical reason eluded him.

Unless the story had been a lie. His fists clenched and he stopped pacing to stare moodily at the harbour, now calming into a tranquil satin expanse at odds with his chaotic thoughts. If this whole thing was a fabrication, he’d wasted his time making a long, time-consuming journey at great inconvenience to himself, his business and his family.

And the woman he’d done it for deserved no respect and no consideration.

Her apartment was old and the rooms cramped, her furnishings simple, but he’d seen no sign of true poverty. He wondered if New Zealanders knew the meaning of the word.

No one was dressed in rags, and although occasional buskers performed, and a few street sellers displayed cheap jewellery or carvings, no whining beggars or persistent thin-faced children had accosted him.

Again he consulted his watch, seemingly for the hundredth time in the last hour, then left his room and took the elevator to the main entrance, where the doorman hailed him a taxi.

A couple of minutes before eight Amber’s doorbell rang in the same imperious way it had the previous night.

All day her nerves had been strung to screaming point.

She loved her job as a researcher for a film and TV production company and usually gave it her all, but today her mind had kept straying to an exotic-looking, disturbing and driven male who would be on her doorstep again that night. During a team meeting she’d realised she hadn’t heard a word for the past five or ten minutes, and the end of her ballpoint pen showed teeth marks where she’d been absently chewing on it.

And Azzie had been totally immovable about joining her tonight, leaving Amber to deal with the formidable Venezuelan on her own.

At the sound of the doorbell, she finished tying the white-and-green wraparound skirt that she’d teamed with a sleeveless white lawn top fastened with tiny pearl buttons. She slipped her feet into wedge-heeled casual shoes that gave her a few extra inches, and hastily pinned her hair into a knot while walking to the door.

The man who stood there was as striking as she remembered, but now he wore dark trousers, a cream shirt open at the collar, and a light, flecked cream jacket. The barely contained fury of last night had abated. He looked rigidly contained and rather chilly when she stepped back and said, “Come in, señor.”

His black brows lifted a fraction as he stepped into the hallway. “So formal,” he said, “after having my baby?”

Amber bit her lip. “We…we can’t talk here.” She gestured towards the living room and he nodded, then placed a hand lightly on her waist, guiding her into the room ahead of him. A startling quiver of sexual awareness made her move quickly away from him to one of the armchairs, but she remained standing. Trying to match his self-possession, she offered, “Can I get you a coffee or something?”

“I did not come here for coffee. Please sit down.”

Not expressing her resentment at being told to sit down in her own living room, she perched on the edge of one of the armchairs and waited while he took the opposite one.

Figuring that getting in first was the best plan of attack, Amber broke into speech. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but that letter was a mistake. I—”

“So you admit writing it?”

“It should never have been sent,” she said, choosing her words as if picking her way through a minefield. “I’m sorry if it misled you.”

His lips tightened, and for a moment she thought she saw disappointment in his eyes. “Misled me?” he said, and now she could see nothing in the dark depths but condemnation.

Her fingers clasped tightly together against a childish urge to cross them behind her back, she said, “The letter didn’t say the baby was yours. Did it?” she added, trying to sound authoritative.

“The implication—” he started to say before she hurried on.

“I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear, but it was written in haste and…and a silly panic. You had said in Caracas—” she paused to ensure she was quoting exactly “—‘If you have any problem, contact me.’” Despite herself she felt her cheeks growing hot. Would he recall exactly how he had couched the offer?

A flash of incredulity crossed his controlled features.

Amber ploughed ahead. “The letter was just a stupid impulse. It wasn’t necessary for you to come all this way. That was quite—” disastrous “—unexpected. So you can go home and forget about it. I’m sorry,” she repeated under his hostile stare.

He stood up so suddenly she jumped, and stiffened her spine to stop herself shrinking from him.

Even though he didn’t come nearer, his stance and the renewed anger in his blazing eyes, the stern line of his mouth, made her heart do a somersault. “Go?” he said. “Just so?” He snapped his fingers and again Amber flinched.

“I know you’ve come a long way,” she said placatingly, “and I’m really sor—”

“Do not tell me again that you are sorry!” he snarled. “You claimed to have given birth to a baby boy nine months after we…met in Caracas. What was I supposed to think? And what did you think? That I’m the kind of man who would pay off the mother of my child and then wash my hands of them both?”

Amber swallowed hard. “I don’t know what kind of man you are,” she admitted. “Except that you’re…” wealthy, aristocratic, and apparently some kind of power in his own country. Besides having a temper.

“That I have money?” he finished for her scornfully. “And you thought you could milk me of some of that money without giving anything in return. Was that why this letter promised never to bother me again?”

“It wasn’t like that!”

He surged forward, gripping the arms of her chair, and now she instinctively drew back. “If there ever was such a child,” he said, not loudly but in an implacable voice that sent a shiver down her spine, “where is he?”

Unable to meet his accusing eyes, she stared down at her entwined hands. “As I said last night, I’ve never had a baby.” Despite doing what she’d been convinced was the right thing, she had a ghastly sense of wrongness.

“You wrote that you had debts you were unable to pay, that you were on the point of losing your home. It seemed my son was being thrown onto the street.”

“Um,” she muttered. “It wasn’t as bad as that, exactly. Things are improving now.”

“How? You found some other poor fool to fall for your tricks?” He lifted one hand from the chair arm, only to grasp her chin and make her look up at him.

“No!” she said. “Nothing of the sort.”

His eyes, filled with accusation, were inches away. “The problem with liars,” he said, “is that one never knows when they are telling the truth.”

She forced herself to look straight into those dark eyes. “I did not have your baby. And I’m not lying.” I’m not, she assured herself. “You saw last night there’s no baby here.”

He scrutinised her for what seemed like minutes. Then abruptly he released her chin and straightened, stepping back but still watching her with patent mistrust. “Are you a gambler?” he asked.

“What?” She didn’t understand the switch of subject.

“Was that why you needed money?”

She shook her head. “It isn’t important now.”

“You have put me to a great deal of trouble and some expense. I think I have a right to ask why.”

“I’m sor—” He lifted a warning hand and she stopped the apology leaving her tongue. She said instead, “If you want your airfare reimbursed…” It seemed only fair to offer.

The twist of his lips was hardly a smile, although he seemed to derive some kind of sardonic amusement from her reply. He made a dismissive gesture. “That is not necessary, even if it is possible.”

She had been rash to suggest it. He’d probably travelled first class, and after paying off the student loan that had got her through university with degrees in history and media studies, and finally being able to afford her own place instead of grungy shared digs, her savings were on the lean side of modest. As for Azzie—no use even thinking about it.

Growing bolder, she stood up, still finding him much too close. Her knees were watery. “Thank you. I think you’d better go now. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

“You mean there is nothing more you wish to tell me.”

Amber shrugged. What else could she say without arousing further suspicion? And she needed him to leave. Marco Salzano’s presence was unnerving in more than one way. While his scorn and disbelief were intimidating, he was a powerfully attractive man, and her female hormones ran riot every time he came near. She was beginning to have a new understanding of what had taken place in Venezuela.

Marco turned and took a couple of steps away from her. She inwardly sighed in relief, but then he stopped and faced her again. His gaze sharpened and he tilted his head. “Why,” he said slowly, “have I a…a sense that you are hiding something? Perhaps something I should know?”

Her mouth dried and she said in a near-whisper, “There is no reason to involve you in my troubles.”

As if on impulse he plunged a hand into an inside pocket of his jacket, took out a leather wallet and pulled a bundle of notes from it.

They were New Zealand notes. Reddish, hundred-dollar ones. Amounting to more money than Amber had ever seen anyone handle so casually.

“Take it,” he said, holding the cash out to her, his expression unreadable. “Let us say for remembrance of a pleasurable encounter.”

Amber recoiled. “I can’t take your money!”

A gleam of surprised speculation lit his eyes and she knew she’d made a mistake. “But that is exactly why I am here,” he said softly, “is it not?”

“I told you, everything’s all right now.” She fervently hoped so. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her mouth set in stubborn refusal.

He studied her as if she were a puzzle he had trouble figuring out, even while he tucked the notes back into the wallet and returned it to his pocket. Unnerved by the scrutiny, Amber lifted a hand to brush back a wayward strand of hair that was tickling the corner of her mouth.

His eyes tracked the movement, and when she made to lower her hand he suddenly covered the space between them in a stride, catching her forearm near the elbow so that it remained raised while he inspected the inside of her upper arm. Following his gaze, she saw a thumb-shaped bruise marring the tender skin.

Her cheeks warmed and she tried to pull away, but he retained his firm though careful hold. She saw him take a breath, and his mouth compressed. She guessed he was keeping back some vivid language.

In a low voice she’d not heard from him before, he said, “Is that my mark?” He was still looking at the bruise, as if unwilling to meet her eyes. The moment lengthened unbearably. She could smell again that subtle leather-and-grass aroma, mingled with a combination of male skin scent and freshly laundered clothing.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Totally unexpectedly the dark head bent and she felt his lips touch the blue mark.

She almost choked on an indrawn breath, biting her lip fiercely to stop an involuntary sound escaping from her throat, where her heart seemed to have lodged.

His hair swept against her skin, and the sensation was like a lightning bolt arrowing through her body.

What was that? Did Marco Salzano’s surprisingly soft hair hold an electrical charge like the one that made her own hair crackle sometimes when she brushed it?

He lifted his head and the glitter in his eyes made her pulse roar into overdrive.

Slowly he lowered her arm, slipping his hand like a caress down to her wrist. “Such delicate skin,” he murmured. “Forgive me.”

Unable to speak for the rioting of her senses, Amber dazedly wondered how a mere fleeting touch could arouse such an extravagance of feeling. No one had the right to effortlessly exude that much sex appeal.

He seemed a tad bemused himself. His jaw went tight, and the taut skin over his cheekbones darkened further.

Gathering her wits from wherever they’d dispersed themselves, Amber pulled at her imprisoned wrist, and with apparent reluctance he released it, thrusting his hand into the pocket of his trousers.

“I did not remember what a desirable woman you are,” he said. “It is not so surprising I lost my head that night, and stepped outside the bounds of my normal behaviour.”

Had he? “You weren’t the only one,” she told him dryly. And then warned herself, Shut up!

He looked at her consideringly. “The woman I took to my bed in Caracas was no spotless virgin, I think.”

Amber snapped, “That doesn’t make her a slut!” Momentarily she closed her eyes. Had she blown it with that automatic defence?

Apparently unperturbed, he said, “I did not mean to imply such a thing. Merely that I assumed you were a woman of the world. Capable of protecting yourself from any…inconvenience. You yourself assured me of that afterwards, if you remember.”

That jolted her. “I…don’t remember,” she claimed truthfully, hoping to close the subject. “Now would you—”

“Had you had so much to drink?” he queried, frowning again. “I don’t knowingly take advantage of drunken women. You appeared well aware of what you were doing. And I believe from your reactions at the time that you very much enjoyed our…brief encounter. You remember that?” The gleam that had entered his eyes intensified, and his mouth curved a little at the corners.

Heat rose again to Amber’s cheeks. Desperately she said, “No. Now—”

“No?” Faint annoyance showed for an instant, and she supposed she’d offended his machismo.

The way he let his gaze roam over her body didn’t help her flush subside. “Perhaps,” he said in a reflective tone like a tiger’s purr, “I can refresh your memory.”

The sound she made when he swiftly closed the space between them again was something between a gasp and a squeal, but before she could say anything coherent he had his arms around her and had pulled her close, her body arching against the solid masculine warmth of his. Even as she opened her mouth to protest he covered it with his own, tipping her head back, his breath mingling with hers.

His lips were gentle but questing, moving across her startled ones even after she raised her hands to push at him.

The tip of his tongue was tracing an erotic path along her upper lip, igniting a shocking flare of answering desire before she rallied enough to clench her hands into fists and shove them against his chest.

His hands fell, and Amber shakily stepped back.

A glittering gaze met hers, and she swallowed before saying in a voice unlike her own, “I want you out of here right now.”

As if he hadn’t heard, he said, “I also seem to have forgotten much.” She didn’t know whether to be pleased or alarmed that he looked nearly as stunned as she felt. “You taste of honey…and passion,” he said. “Something else I failed to remember.”

He probably remembered nothing but wine, but she didn’t want to go into that. Nor did she want to fall under the spell he’d woven with that oh-so-sexy, devastating kiss. “I said I want you to go,” she stated precisely. “Please.”

His expression became baffled, but he gave a jerky little bow of his head and said, “If you truly wish it.”

“Yes.” Not trusting herself to say more, she marched past him to the hallway and flung the front door open. “Our business is finished,” she said as he passed her.

He turned then, a half-amused, half-rueful smile on his lips, his eyes making another leisurely, perhaps slightly perplexed examination of her entire body before he gave a brief shake of his head, then descended the shallow steps and strode away.

Tempted to yell a rude word or two after him, she resisted and instead closed the door with a snap and leaned back against it until her legs regained some strength.

Never in her life had she imagined being caught in a trap like this.

One day she’d stop feeling so damned guilty, because wasn’t it all for the best?

Of course, she assured herself. For him as well as for…well, everyone.

She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true.

A flimsy excuse. But she ought to be happy at emerging unscathed and just forget the whole thing ever happened.

Forget?

She lifted the back of her hand to scrub at her lips, which still tingled with the memory of Marco Salzano’s kiss.

CHAPTER THREE

THE following day, instead of driving home after work, Amber took the route to her sister’s home.

The seventies house that Azure and her husband, Rickie, were gradually restoring with Amber’s occasional help was in an outer suburb where real estate was less horrendously expensive than in more fashionable areas.

Sitting at the scarred auction-bargain table in the big kitchen, Amber sipped at the cheap wine her sister had poured. Azure was on her second glass, and was now smiling at the plump, rosy-cheeked baby on her knee—a smile so special it caught at Amber’s heart—but the baby, unimpressed, wrinkled his face up and whimpered crossly.

Azure handed him over to his aunt while she poured milk into a plastic sippy cup.

Amber bent to kiss the amazingly smooth, warm skin of the baby’s temple and studied him while he looked at her interestedly with round eyes so dark she couldn’t determine their colour, and he babbled in his own private language interspersed with the odd Mama and Dada and even Namba which Amber hoped was his effort at Auntie Amber.

Rickie’s eyes were dark too, inherited from his Maori grandfather along with the black curls that Benny’s soft fuzz promised to duplicate.

In the baby’s blob of a nose, chubby face and tiny pouting little mouth there was certainly no hint of the man who had filled Amber’s flat with his utterly adult male presence and striking features.

Seeing his mother approach with the cup, the little boy wriggled to the floor with a demanding “Ma!”

“At the table,” she said firmly, perching him again on her own knee as she sat down.

“Azure,” Amber felt driven to say, “you’re sure there’s no chance he’s Mr. Salzano’s baby?”

She recognised with a sinking feeling a flicker of fear in her sister’s guileless eyes, belying Azure’s defiant, “I told you, he misunderstood my letter. I never said that!”

“But you did have sex with him.” Unbelievable though it seemed, Azure had confessed to that when Amber pressed her about the mysterious Venezuelan.

“Once. Oh, don’t remind me!” Azure wailed. Benny stopped drinking his milk and began to wail too.

She soothed him, and when he settled again she said, “I didn’t stop taking the pill until after that night. Once Rickie and I had decided we’d get married when we came home it didn’t seem important. And I’ve never slept with anyone but Rickie before or since. So it can’t be—”

“You did use a condom that night?” Something she’d assumed when she’d cornered her sister the day previously.

Azure shrugged. “What does it matter?” she muttered, her eyes fixed on the baby.

Amber was horrified. “You took an awful risk with a stranger!”

“We weren’t thinking. Too much wine, I guess. He was mortified when he realised… It’s okay, I had all kinds of tests when I found out I was pregnant. I don’t want to talk about it any more, now Benny’s safe. You didn’t tell Marco about him, did you? You promised!”

Amber had promised in the end despite huge reluctance, faced with an hysterical but persuasive sister whose reasoning seemed fireproof, and who fervently swore there was no way her baby’s father could be anyone other than the man who was now her husband. “No. But if there’s any chance Benny’s his—”

“Everyone says Benny looks like his dad. You did!”

Amber had, before a dark-haired, dark-eyed man appeared on her doorstep with a fantastic accusation that Azure had later convinced her wasn’t possible.

Amber closed her eyes—a mistake. The shadowy figure lurking in the back of her mind became a full-blown living-colour picture of a tall, gorgeous man with a blaze of anger in his almost-black eyes and a mouth that, despite its seductive contours, expressed an unbending will when it wasn’t twisted in contemptuous disbelief.

A mouth that could also be gentle, persuasive, despite his suspicion of her and his angry frustration—a mouth that had wrought some kind of erotic magic on her senses.

And though his eyes had blazed in fury, they had shown unwilling but genuine concern when he’d seen she felt ill.

Opening her own eyes, she demanded, “Why ask Marco Salzano for money, then?”

“Like I said before,” Azure retorted, “money’s nothing to people like him. His family made a fortune mining gold and diamonds way back—and later, oil.”

“He told you that?” Boastful on top of everything.

“Sort of. He was so casual about it I knew he wasn’t having me on. And I picked up some information later about the family. They’re big landowners, well-known and still seriously rich. You should have seen the place he took me to.” Awe momentarily lit Azure’s eyes, then she blushed. “And that was just his city pad.”

No sleazy by-the-hour hotel, then. Of course not, for a man with his innate male elegance and what her and Azure’s grandmother would call breeding, undiminished by the rough beard shadow and his cavalier attitude towards Amber. He had, after all, mistaken her for her sister.

Despite the three years’ difference in their ages, people often mistook one of the Odell girls for the other.

Azure said, “It was lucky you hadn’t told him who you really were. I’m sorry you had to get involved. I know you hated the idea.”

Maybe, Amber thought, she should have stood firm in her initial shocked refusal, but Azure’s denials had been very convincing, and since childhood Amber had taken seriously her role of elder sister, warning her younger sibling to look both ways when crossing the road, defending her in schoolyard scraps, and forever getting her out of trouble. A hard-to-break habit.

Benny pushed away the sippy cup, tipping it over. Righting it, Azure continued, “I’m really, really grateful you made him go away, Ammie.”

From what Amber had seen of the man, it would take a team of wild horses to make Marco Salzano do anything. Whereas she herself had allowed her sister’s reasoning to override her aghast objections, her deeply held principles and her better judgement.

The baby, who had been playing with his mother’s hair, turned to Amber with a heart-melting dimpled grin.

A clutch of fear for him gave her a taste of Azure’s terror when she’d learned of Marco Salzano’s visit. “You could get a DNA test,” she suggested.

Azure flatly vetoed that. “Rickie and I have only just got back together again. I daren’t rock the boat. He’d go ballistic if he knew Marco was here. I can’t ask him to take a test now!”

Amber had to concede the potential complications were horrendous. Surely Benny’s welfare was the most important thing. “You didn’t miss any of your pills before…?”

Azure didn’t answer, apparently absorbed in adoring her son, making kissing noises that he tried to copy.

Amber’s voice sharpened. “Azzie?”

Azure looked up impatiently. “Not really. Only it’s difficult to keep track when you’re travelling, changing time zones and everything. Do leave it alone, Amber!”

Amber bit her tongue. Too late now to berate her sister. It would only end in tears. Refusing another glass of wine, she was about to leave when Azure’s husband came in, his good-looking face lighting up as Benny broke into a delighted chuckle, wriggled down to the floor and took a couple of shaky steps, then held up his arms to be lifted, and planted a sloppy kiss on Rickie’s cheek.

They were so alike, surely Azure’s certainty was justified. And with any luck Marco Salzano was already on his way back to Venezuela.

In fact M-arco was in the bar of his hotel, having a couple of measured drinks and tantalised by the memory of the previous night.

After leaving the cramped flat with its cheap but rather charming décor and its infuriatingly inconsistent occupant, he’d almost booked a flight home. Something held him back, a niggling doubt that he couldn’t quite pin down.

He’d tried to dismiss the persistent image of wide, startled eyes closing as his mouth found sweet feminine lips, and the memory of how surprisingly soft they’d been beneath his—an image not conducive to clear thinking.

The woman had lied the first night and been evasive on the second. She was a good actress—her bewilderment and fear when he’d brushed aside her futile pretence of not knowing him had seemed almost convincing, now that he thought about it. At the time he’d been preoccupied with finding his son.

He was inclined to believe the baby was fictitious—ridiculous to feel a pang of grief. Unless she’d had it adopted. Or worse, ended the pregnancy before the child was even born. Her figure was perfect, the skin between the skimpy top and shorts taut and unmarred by stretch marks. Anger heated his blood, along with another emotion aroused by the memory of her body, half-naked as it was, briefly coming in contact with his.

Deliberately he quelled both reactions. Emotion interfered with logical thought.

Why, after that begging letter, had she refused his money with something like horror? Nothing added up. In his experience two and two always made four. If not, he wanted to know why, and invariably something in the equation was wrong—a mistake or a deliberate obfuscation.

He had told the desk clerk he was extending his stay—a decision readily accepted. Marco Salzano didn’t flaunt his wealth but he had never been ungenerous with it.

After spending the morning making expensive telephone calls and checking his e-mail, he had studied the phone book in his room and later interviewed a private investigator.

Marco had given him as much information as would be needed to do a background check on Azure Odell, vaguely suggesting she was suspected of fraud.

“Can’t do much today, but I’ll get onto it tomorrow,” the detective promised, “since you say it’s urgent.”

And since Marco had laid down a handsome initial fee. Now all he could do was wait.

Moodily he swilled the wine in his glass, ignoring the chatter in the crowded hotel bar and avoiding the eyes of two women perched on high stools that showed off their legs, who had been covertly inspecting him for some time.

For almost two years he’d put out of his mind the memory of that single night shared with a stranger, scarcely remembering the details. Yet now, after meeting her again, his body seemed to have a memory of its own—and an inconvenient desire to repeat the experience.

She was an attractive woman, even beautiful. But the women of his own country were renowned for their beauty. There was something else about her, some indefinable quality that eluded his mind yet appealed to his senses. Something he’d missed during that first casual encounter. Because now he couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind, couldn’t stop his body growing hot and restless.

He scowled at an open portfolio of papers lying on the table in front of him, a clear sign that he was working and didn’t want company, but for fifteen minutes he’d stared at the printed sheets without comprehension. Idly scanning the room again, his gaze chanced upon the two women at the counter. Neither evoked a flicker of interest.

Next morning he breakfasted early before returning to his room. It was too soon to expect a call from the investigator, but that didn’t stop him staring balefully at the light on the phone that refused to obligingly blink.

He killed time checking e-mail and researching the New Zealand beef industry on his computer, noting possible contacts if he should be here for a few more days. It was afternoon when the man contacted him. “The lessee of the address you gave me is an Amber Odell,” he said. “Single, twenty-seven, works for a film and TV company in the city. She does apparently have a sister named Azure, but—”

“A sister?” Marco queried sharply.

“Yeah. She—the sister—doesn’t live at that address.”

“A twin?”

“Uh, don’t think so. I could find out, get her address. It might take a bit longer if she’s married and changed her name, but which woman are you interested in? Or is it both?”

“Yes—no.” There was a faster way. “You have the address of this…Amber’s…workplace?”

After putting down the phone Marco swore in his mother tongue, left his chair to pace the floor and swear some more, opened the bar fridge, then slammed it shut. This whole thing had started because for once he’d gone over his usual strict limit. He had to think. To control his first instinct, which was to find the woman, whatever her real name was, and wring her smooth, graceful, deceitful neck!

He wouldn’t, of course, do that. But, he vowed, disciplining his hot, out-of-control rage to a contained, ruthless anger, he would see that she paid in full.

No one played Marco Salzano for a fool and got away with it. Not even a beautiful woman who set his blood on fire.

He consulted a map and found the street address the investigator had given him for the film studio. Marco’s lip curled. Wasn’t the film industry notorious for its casual attitude to sex? Like sister, like sister. Amber Odell had probably had dozens of lovers.

His gut tightened. Why should it matter how many men she had slept with? Especially if he wasn’t, after all, one of them? The only reason for his driving need to see her was to find his son. Who surely did exist. Obviously the two sisters had cooked up that charade he’d been subjected to.

Leaving the Filmografia building in central Auckland, Amber stopped dead when Marco Salzano loomed in front of her, his face looking as if some sculptor had chiselled it out of unyielding rock. In his eyes was the banked fire of the anger he’d displayed at their first encounter.

“Hello, Amber,” he said, with dark, steely mockery in his tone.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped, her heart contracting into a shrivelled ball. “How did you find me?” She looked about her, but most of her colleagues had either already left or were still working. Filming wasn’t the kind of business where working hours were cast in stone.

His expression changed slightly, as if she’d just satisfied him in some way. “We must talk.”

He took her arm but she shook off his hand. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said, trying to sidestep him, but this time he caught her arm in an unshakeable grip, trying to walk her along with him.

“Come, we cannot discuss anything here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. Let go of me or I’ll scream. Someone will call the police and I’ll tell them you’re stalking me.” She opened her mouth and he dropped his hand from her arm, looking grimly amused.

“And I will tell them you are attempting to deprive me of my legal rights by fraud and deception. I’m not stalking you. I merely wish to talk about your sister.”

Her sister? Of course, he’d called her by her own name, which she’d automatically reacted to. Not Azure’s. How much did he know? “How did you find out where I work?”

“I hired an investigator,” he said calmly.

“You…?” For a second she was stunned as well as angry. The idea of a stranger prying into her life gave her the creeps. “How dare you!”

“How else could I discover the truth? You lied to me.”

“I didn’t,” she protested unconvincingly, her conscience stabbing. “I told you over and over you had the wrong person.”

“Sí. The first time I came to your apartment. But the next evening you did not deny you had slept with me, written to me.”

“What would be the point?” she said, pushing away a wildly inappropriate mental picture of herself and Marco in the same bed. “You’d jumped to a conclusion, and trying to set you straight hadn’t worked before. I figured nothing I said was going to convince you.”

“You did not say, My sister slept with you in Caracas and had your baby.”

“How do you know there’s a baby?” Her stomach went hollow.

Marco said, “Why else would you have played out that absurd pretence?”

Oh, hell! “Azure’s married.” Surely he could understand that no married woman wanted a previous lover turning up on her doorstep?

He said, “To the boyfriend who abandoned her in a foreign city full of men who had been drinking heavily?”

“It was a misunderstanding.” She was tempted to remind him that by his own admission he’d been one of those men.

Carnaval in Caracas is just so wild! Azure had said. People dancing on the streets wearing fantastic costumes, and drinking like there’s no tomorrow. We were in an outdoor bar, and this skank in nothing but make-up and a few feathers dragged Rickie up to dance. He didn’t even resist. And enjoyed it far too much. We had a fight and he went off in a huff, but I was sure he’d be back as soon as he calmed down. I was sitting there all alone with a bottle of wine, and a guy in a devil costume came on to me, wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was getting scared when Marco came along and got rid of him. I knew Marco was someone important because the staff treated him like he was a lord or something. And we…started talking.

And more. Amber shut that part off.

“Her fiancé walked off to calm himself down,” she relayed to Marco, “but then he got lost in the crowd and couldn’t find his way back.” Or even remember the name of the bar, and had been both contrite and frantic when in the early hours he and Azure were finally reunited at their hotel. “They shared their cell phone, so he couldn’t call her.”

Two hours after Rickie went off, Azure had told her, I was still waiting and I was so mad at him! Marco’s a very sexy man. We’d polished off another couple of bottles of wine and, well, one thing led to another.

“She made a mistake,” Amber told him now.

“You too made a mistake,” he accused her. “Don’t imagine I will be so easily deceived again.”

“Please—she’s happy now and the baby’s happy.”

“I will be happy also, if she proves it is not mine.”

“She said she’s certain he isn’t!”

“And you believe her?”

Amber hesitated for a fatal second and saw his eyes narrow, his jaw tighten. She said, “Surely she should know?”

Two young women came out of the building. “Hi, Amber,” one said, and they paused, obviously angling for an introduction. “We’re going to Cringles for a drink with the usual crowd. Want to come along and bring your friend?”

Amber was unwillingly fascinated by the way Marco Salzano’s demeanour instantly changed. He gave the other women a dazzling smile and a slight inclination of his head. “You are kind, but please excuse us,” he said. “Amber is about to join me for a drink and a private discussion.”

They looked both smitten and disappointed, and one mouthed Lucky you! at Amber as they turned away.

Marco had taken her arm again and he said rapidly under his breath, “Your sister cannot avoid me forever. This time you will tell me the truth.”

Amber stiffened but remained mute. He loosened his hold. “If you prefer we will talk in a public place. My hotel is within walking distance. There is a small bar there that I have noticed is not crowded at this time.”

Amber allowed him to steer her to the street. Somehow she had to persuade him to leave Azure alone. Her brain was telling her this was Azure’s problem. She should just say so and tell her sister to sort it out. But it wasn’t only Azure who would pay for her brief folly. “All right,” she said at last.

At the hotel Marco headed for a bar tucked discreetly into a corner on the ground floor. Only a few people were sitting in tub chairs at the round tables.

Amber asked for a glass of white wine and sipped it cautiously as Marco picked up his red. He’d also ordered a plate of taco chips with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce and gestured for her to help herself before he took one.

Amber’s taste buds awoke at the sight of the platter, and as Marco washed his mouthful down with a sip of wine she thought how oddly intimate it was to share food with a man she couldn’t help thinking of as the enemy.

He put down his glass and regarded her with his head tipped slightly back, his eyes hooded. She recalled the smile he’d directed at her friends, not at all the way he looked at her, glaring with anger and suspicion.

She said, “My sister didn’t say her baby was yours.” Surely Azure hadn’t lied to her about that.

His lip curled. “If she did not intend me to think so, why did she suggest I would be willing to give her thousands of dollars for the sake of the child?”

Amber inwardly winced. Azure did tend to rush into things without thinking. Her family had hoped that marriage and motherhood might temper that trait. “Desperation,” she suggested.

“So?” he said scornfully.

“She…she’d told her husband about what happened in Caracas, and he was upset…angry.” Sometimes Amber thought Azure and her husband were too alike. It hadn’t been the first time in their long relationship that they’d temporarily split after a quarrel. But she supposed no other had been caused by such a devastating revelation. Certainly none had lasted so long.

Marco frowned. “Is he violent?”

“Oh no! No. But he left her and she panicked.”

He said Benny might be anybody’s, Azure had sobbed, finally confessing to her sister why Rickie hadn’t been around for a while. Previously she’d told her family he was working out of town. The big industrial electrical firm that had employed him covered a wide area, and it wasn’t unusual for him to be away for a few days. He said he wasn’t coming back. His family say they don’t know where he is. He even left his job.

“Then her marriage is no more?” Marco asked sharply. “The child is without a father?”

“No. He missed her, and the baby. He loves them both so much. After almost two months he came back. Azure asked if he wanted a DNA test and he said no.”

Thinking she saw a flicker of disbelief in Marco’s expression, she said passionately, “He’s the only father the baby’s ever known, and they’re good parents. It would be cruel to take Benny from them. Cruel to him. And it would break my sister’s heart.” She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice, her eyes from stinging.

Azure’s greatest fear was not losing her husband again, although Amber knew she’d be devastated, but that Marco Salzano would want to take Benny from her. People with that much money can do anything! she’d cried. Pay top lawyers. Even kidnap him! Kidnapping’s a business in South America.

It was true other children had been spirited off illegally to a different country, some never returned.

Amber too loved Benny, and the thought of him being snatched away made her own heart ache unbearably. How much worse would it be for her sister?

Marco said, “The boy is very young. I have a right—” apparently confirming her worst fear.

“He has rights too! Who knows how a tiny baby feels about being torn from its mother’s arms, taken from everything he’s used to—what long-term effects it has?”

“You are being melodramatic. I don’t mean to—”

Amber ignored that. “You can’t possibly feel the same way they do. You’ve never even seen him.” Repeating all the arguments Azure had used to persuade her to go along with Marco’s mistaken identification of her sister.

“That is why I’m here,” he said. “To see him. And should he be mine—”

“He isn’t yours! If Azure hadn’t written that stupid letter you’d never have known he existed.”

“If she didn’t want me to know, why did she write it?”

Momentarily Amber closed her eyes. If only… But it was spilt milk now. “Her husband had gone, she thought forever, maybe to Australia or further, and he hadn’t paid the mortgage installment due on their house. Every cent they had—” Amber knew that hadn’t been much “—went into buying it. My parents helped, and they guaranteed the loan. If the bank foreclosed, they would have lost their home too.”

His frown deepened. “It was foolish of them to do so.”

Her voice sharpening at the criticism, she said, “Parents will do anything for their children. Or grandchildren. Even if they’re not lucky enough to have a family fortune.” Her father had retired and sold his country house and farm contracting business after a heart attack, moving into a small town house that ate up nearly all the proceeds. “You don’t know what it’s like not to have a lot of money. Or how it would feel to lose a child.”

A spasm seemed to cross Marco’s harsh features. He took a moment to compose himself, rearrange his face into a grim mask. “You are wrong,” he said, his voice almost expressionless. “I have lost a child. My seven-year-old son died some years ago, along with his mother, my wife.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.