Salzano's Captive Bride

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.