Salzano's Captive Bride

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.”

CHAPTER FOUR

AMBER’S breath stuck in her throat. She could feel her face going cold, then hot. Marco had been married? Had a child? Children, perhaps. “I’m so sorry,” she said, stricken. “I had no idea.”

He shrugged, apparently in total control of himself. “How should you? Your sister and I did not talk about such private things during our brief…liaison. But the day we met was the anniversary of their deaths.” Only a slight thickening of his voice suggested emotion. “I had been persuaded by friends to join them for the festival. They meant well, but I was not in the mood, and when we became parted I had no desire to find them and continue celebrating. Instead I kept drinking on my own. A mistake. And continued to drink with your sister—more than I realised at the time. Another mistake.”

“I’m sorry,” Amber said again, “about your family. Do you—did you and your wife have other children?”

“No. She had a difficult pregnancy and the birth was also not easy. I was not willing to see her suffer like that again. But the boy…” His tone softened, and in his eyes Amber saw both pleasure and pain. “The boy was remarkably healthy, quick to learn, but also loving, affectionate, like his mother. And always laughing.” He stopped, and his hand went to his heart for a moment before dropping to the table.

“No,” he amended, shaking his head, “that is not true of any child. Sometimes he wept—even roared.” Briefly amusement mingled with sorrow in the dark eyes. “He had a temper, like his father.” The beautiful male mouth curved self-deprecatingly at the admission. “But that is how I remember him. Laughing.”

Amber was unable to speak. This aspect of Marco Salzano she would never have expected. A loving, grieving father.

Marco picked up his glass and drained it, then turned to signal a waiter for more. “What about you?” he asked, nodding at her half-empty glass.

Amber shook her head, and took a couple of tacos to hide her reaction. They seemed to lodge in her throat so she drank some more wine. She didn’t feel she could ask how Marco’s son and his wife had died. An accident?

He had banished the sadness from his eyes. Now they were neutral, all emotion hidden. Obviously he wanted to dismiss the subject.

But didn’t this change everything?

A man who had lost his only child and then thought he’d been presented with another wasn’t simply selfish and possessive. His insistence on seeing the little boy was understandable.

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