The Secret She Kept from Dr. Delgado
Autore
Luana DaRosa
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CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he said no?’
Even though fury thundered through her at the news she had just received, Celine immediately regretted raising her voice. When it came to Darius, her fuse these days was rather short.
‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’
The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Sebastião, a lawyer Celine had hired on the recommendation of Rafael, her brother-in-law.
‘We tracked him down, sent the papers to him in Peru and now his lawyer just got in touch with me, saying that his client won’t sign the papers like that.’
‘I haven’t seen this man in six years. How can he refuse to sign the divorce papers?’ Nearly six years ago, Celine had made a grave mistake—she’d trusted her boyfriend enough to let him talk her into marriage. His mother, who held the visa for herself and Darius, had decided that it was time for them to leave Brazil. Darius had been in the final year of med school while Celine had just finished veterinary school. They had been seeing each other for two years, and the conversation around marriage had come up before. So when he’d asked her to get married so he could stay with her, she hadn’t hesitated to say yes.
And then he’d left for Peru to sort out his return to Brazil with a new visa—and let her know only two days after his departure that he wouldn’t be coming back and that she shouldn’t contact him any more.
‘I’m trying to dig into this issue with a Peruvian colleague. Clearly, our threatening letter didn’t inspire any action.’ Sebastião went quiet for a moment before he spoke again. ‘Why wouldn’t he want to sign the papers? Because of Nina?’
‘Nina? No, he doesn’t know he has a daughter. And now I’m not sure I want to tell him about her either.’ When his message arrived that he wasn’t coming back, she had tried everything to contact him despite his request not to do so. Celine had called, texted, written letters and tried to get friends to deliver messages for her—had redoubled that effort when she’d realised she was pregnant. But the other side of the line stayed quiet.
‘What do we do next?’ Impatience strained her voice. She had finally summoned the courage to ask for a divorce, burying the last remnants of her love for him, and now he refused to let her go? When he wasn’t even in the country?
‘You can still sue for divorce. It will just take longer. The court will assign you a date to speak in front of a judge, and that’s when Darius will need to defend his refusal.’ Sebastião paused as Celine sighed, frustration bubbling in her chest.
‘All right, thank you, Sebastião. I appreciate your help. Please let me know what I can do to get done as fast as possible.’
‘I’ll be back in touch soon. Hang in there. We’ll get this sorted.’
Celine hung up the phone, collapsing onto the chair in the kitchen. She’d been pacing up and down when Sebastião had called her. Exhaustion clamped its iron fist around her chest, making her feel wearier than she had in the last couple of weeks.
What had driven her to seek a divorce after six years of silence? She’d given up hope ages ago, focusing on her daughter and building a life for her—a life she was proud of, despite the struggles of a single mother.
The answer to her question strolled in through the front door. Her sister, Maria, looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Who ruined your day?’
Celine put her phone on the table and leaned forward, burying her face in her hands as she let out a long groan. ‘Take a guess.’
‘What happened?’ Maria sat down in the chair next to her.
You happened, Celine thought, but didn’t let those words pass her lips. It wasn’t Maria’s fault that she had found someone to share her life with. For the longest time the Dias sisters had shared this house, working alongside each other in their animal rescue and shouldering care for their children together.
Celine had been overjoyed when Maria found Rafael to fill a gap in her life she’d seen more clearly when things were quiet around them. It was their partnership that shone a glaring light on the problem she hadn’t been dealing with in the last six years.
‘Apparently Darius doesn’t want to get divorced,’ she said as she dropped her hands from her face.
Maria sucked her breath in. ‘You spoke to him?’
‘No. His lawyer spoke to my lawyer. Now we have to go to court to get this whole thing sorted out.’ She sighed again, her eyes dropping to her hands splayed out on the table.
Maria frowned, leaning closer to pat her sister on the arm. ‘We’ll get through this. So the selfish jerk added another few months to the dissolution of your marriage. We’ve come so far, we can do this.’
Something inside Celine bristled at her sister’s words. Though she had thought worse things of him, hearing someone else call him selfish set a deep-seated defence instinct loose in her. Even years later, the fragments of the relationship they had shared roared to life at the most unexpected times.
It wasn’t as if her sister was wrong. What else could you call a man who ran away from the woman he had just married?
‘Maybe this is just not worth the effort. I don’t plan on getting married ever again, and I don’t have time to think about men. Thanks to you, our charity has a shot at the future again.’ Though she meant to sound cheerful, Celine couldn’t keep the bitter edge from her voice. Before her sister had met Rafael, the two of them had run their animal charity together. Though that dream had always been more Maria’s than Celine’s. No, she had come here because of the heartache Darius’s sudden desertion had caused her.
With Rafael to support Maria now, Celine had to admit that her role had significantly diminished, and she was more of a consultant than anything else.
‘Don’t give up, Cee. He doesn’t get to hold you to this marriage when he isn’t even a part of your life.’ Maria crossed her arms in front of her chest and huffed out an annoyed breath. ‘Men are twisted.’
‘Oh, look who’s talking—with your perfect husband and cute baby.’ Celine mustered a laugh when a faint blush streaked over her sister’s high cheekbones.
The door opened again and, as if summoned, Rafael stepped in, looking at them with a smile on his face. He was carrying a car seat in his hand, and the second Celine saw the sleeping face of her niece all the anger and frustration sitting in her chest melted away. Rafael set their daughter down and laid a hand on Maria’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze as he brushed a kiss on the top of her head.
This was why she wanted a divorce. She wanted a shot at this.
‘Speak of the devil,’ Celine said, but returned the smile her brother-in-law gave her.
‘Ah, if you are at the part of your evening where you gossip about me, I think that’s a good time to call it a day—or I will never get her out of here.’
Maria laughed and got up from her seat. They both bade her goodnight, and as Maria grabbed the baby carrier from the floor Rafael turned around to look at her.
‘Oh, I almost forgot. Someone came by this morning to see you, but you weren’t in.’
Celine furrowed her brow, thinking. She hadn’t received any kind of message from her patients. While Rafael and Maria worked mainly in their vet clinic, Celine spent a lot of time travelling from place to place, tending to larger livestock in the area. This meant unpredictable work hours and that she might not be around for regular visits to their clinic. But who would even seek her out like that?
‘Did they say what they wanted? I haven’t received any calls.’
Rafael shook his head. ‘No, he just asked to speak to you but wouldn’t say anything else. I told him to try his luck in the evening.’
‘Did he leave a name?’ Who would have reason to visit her unannounced?
Rafael looked away for a second. ‘Sorry, I didn’t ask for the name. We were busy with an emergency when he came in. I just told him to come back in the evening.’
‘I see, thanks for letting me know.’ Celine saw them out and closed the door behind them, thinking about the mysterious visitor Rafael had mentioned. Her patients’ owners never came to visit her here.
Was it someone unrelated to her work? That wasn’t much more likely either. She travelled so much for work, Celine didn’t really have friends in town that would just drop by to see her.
A knock on the door pulled her out of her contemplations, and her gaze darted around for a second. Had they left something behind?
‘I don’t see anything lying around,’ she shouted as she moved to open the door. ‘What do you—’
Her brain stopped working mid-sentence as she stared into a face from the past that had been haunting her for the last six years.
‘Darius...’
A whirl of different emotions tore through Darius as he sat watching the house where his estranged wife lived. When he’d come here to talk to her, he hadn’t imagined being stuck in his car, watching her from afar as he contemplated what to tell her.
Can we please not get divorced for another three months because I need the visa for my job?
That wasn’t going to win him her favour—and he really needed her to help him. Not that he had any favours left with Celine. But he needed to ask her anyway, even though he suspected she would send him packing and all his plans for a future in Brazil would collapse with that.
Not that he didn’t deserve it. The pain of leaving Celine all those years ago had left a hole in his chest that had never closed in the years he’d spent away.
He’d left Brazil intending to come back as soon as he had sorted his spouse visa out, but when he’d told his mother about it she had revealed the real reason they had left. She had initially claimed that it was because of an advantageous business deal back in Peru. After his father’s sudden death over twenty years ago, his mother had founded Delgado Cosmetics to keep her and her son fed. Though she’d initially worked out of their small kitchen, the brand had gained acclaim for its high standard in skincare and had become popular in Brazil—which had been the reason for their move there.
But apparently after years of success, the sales had waned, leading to his mother making riskier investments and borrowing money from people she shouldn’t have. The result had been her fleeing the country from her creditors, and telling Darius that he too was in great danger if he returned to Brazil as the people she had got involved with would not shy away from hurting him—or his new wife, were they to ever learn about that connection.
Fearing what the loan sharks would do to Celine, he had kept quiet, even though it had torn him up inside.
Darius sat up when the door opened and two shadowy figures walked out, waving at the woman standing against the light of her house. Celine.
He gritted his teeth when a flood of ancient emotions broke through parts of the dam he’d erected inside of him to stem any feelings that lingered for this woman. He’d spent a lot of time shutting them away, never to think about them again—but now the culmination of his dreams depended on their marriage. Would she agree to stay married to him just for a while? Would she even hear him out?
The chances were slim, but Darius had to try.
He watched the two people get into their car and drive off. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself into motion, getting out of his car and crossing the short distance between the street to the small building nestled against the back of the main house—the vet clinic her parents had run before they’d retired.
He’d been surprised to learn that she had returned to Santarém to be a part of the charity her family had been running for decades. Her sister, Maria, had been the one with the dream to take it over, but when Darius and Celine had spoken about their future together, Santarém had never once come up. His estranged wife had even said that she wanted to distance herself from the charity to give her older sister the time in the spotlight she deserved.
Had she come back because of him? Because his absence had rendered their future plans obsolete?
Nervous energy trickled through him when he stood in front of the door, staring at a worn wooden plaque with her family name engraved on it. Dias.
He swallowed the lump building in his chest as he raised his hand and knocked on the door. Behind it, he heard her muffled voice calling out, and then the door flew open again. ‘What do you—’
The words stopped as she stared at him—in confusion at first. Clearly, he wasn’t the person she’d expected on the other side. No one really expected their long-estranged husband to suddenly show up one evening.
The moment understanding dawned on her face and he saw the pain flicker alive in her eyes he felt his breath leave his body as he sensed her agony in his own bones.
‘Darius...’ She said his name with a mixture of emotions too complex to unravel. Hurt—so much of it—wrapped itself around each syllable. But as her voice cracked, a sense of long-forgotten longing seeped through as well, matching the ancient memories resurrected in his own chest.
‘Hey, Cee.’ He didn’t know what else to say. He’d flown here from São Paulo, where he worked as the head physician for one of the premier football clubs of the Brazilian league, and had agonised over what he would say when they finally met face to face.
But nothing had prepared him for the visceral reaction that erupted through him as he saw her stand in front of him. Six years had taken the budding beauty he’d seen in her and honed her into a woman so stunning he couldn’t understand what she’d ever seen in him.
For a second her features remained soft, reminiscent of the love they’d once shared, and all the memories of their relationship came rushing back into the space between them. Darius felt a tug on his hand, calling it upwards to touch her cheek. But the moment was fleeting. Not even a heartbeat later, her expression changed into one hewn out of stone.
‘You’d better be here to sign those divorce papers,’ she said, her voice coated in ice so tangible his skin prickled.
‘Yes, that’s why I’m here. I just wanted to talk to you first.’ This was the truth he was willing to go with. She hadn’t asked if he wanted to sign the divorce papers right now. And he was going to sign them as soon as the current football season was over and he could convince the team’s owners to sponsor his visa.
A subject he needed to broach with her today.
‘Now you want to talk? After six years of silence and missed phone calls, you want to have a normal conversation like nothing ever happened?’
Darius bit his lip to stop the sigh building in his chest from escaping. He knew when he’d first arrived that this conversation wouldn’t be an easy one, especially remembering one trait they had in common, which had also fuelled the fire of their relationship—they could both be incredibly stubborn over the most minute things.
‘We’re already not having a normal conversation, and I don’t know when I gave the impression that I thought any of this was ordinary,’ he replied through gritted teeth. ‘If you give me some of your time, maybe I can start grovelling so you can finally find some closure. I’m not here because I want you back.’
He didn’t know if it was necessary to state this, but he wanted to ensure that this question was out of the way. While his heart was pounding against his chest from being so near to the woman he’d desired so fiercely, he knew he couldn’t have her—didn’t want to either. Though he’d believed he had good reasons to stay away from her—his mother’s lies around her financial problems only exposed with her death—he’d been a coward for leaving and he couldn’t forgive himself for that.
And, by the look on her face, she wasn’t close to forgiving him either.
‘I certainly hope so. I’d have to call someone if you told me this is some strange romantic gesture.’
‘Maybe if I can have some of your time...’ Darius left the rest of the sentence unsaid, daring to meet her gaze. He couldn’t help but marvel at the amber of her eyes that was only interrupted by smatterings of dark dots, almost as if they were trying to form a constellation in her iris. Darius had spent countless hours looking into those eyes, counting the little flecks.
‘I can’t talk here,’ she finally said, her gaze darting over her shoulder for a second. ‘How long are you going to be here?’
Darius paused, hope blossoming in his chest. This wasn’t a hard no. He might be able to convince her—to apologise for lacking the courage a real husband needed.
‘I’m on leave for the next week. The team is finishing up the Copa América, so they are training with the national team.’
‘The Copa? What are you—’ Steps shuffling on the far side of the house interrupted her. Celine looked back again before taking a step forward and pulling the door closed behind her. ‘I’m driving to a farm tomorrow to examine some livestock. You can come with me, and we can talk in the car.’
‘Are you with someone?’ The question flew from his mouth before he could contemplate how it was really none of his business, yet the edge in his voice shook him on a deeper level. While they were technically married, Celine had, of course, moved on with her life.
Was that why she had sent him the divorce papers? Because she wanted to get married to someone else? The thought caused a dissonance within him he didn’t want to inspect closer. Darius had been the one to leave—regardless of the good reasons he’d had, he’d left her to pick up the pieces on her own.
‘What if I am? My husband hasn’t really been in the picture for the last six years.’ She gave voice to the inner monologue in his brain when he’d asked the question.
He shook his head, not wanting to delve into this topic. The fury boiling in his veins stemmed from ancient affection that needed to remain long-forgotten for them to have a somewhat civil discussion. Darius wasn’t here because of love. Though he’d never been able to bury his feelings for Celine, he was here to save his dream and give her—and himself—some closure.
He owed her the truth, no matter how painful it was.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said with a nod, not wanting to let the olive branch she extended go. This might be the only chance he had to tell her why he’d left and how he needed more time before he signed the papers.
‘I’m leaving early tomorrow. Be here at six and we can talk. Stay in your car until you see me walk towards mine, then meet me there. I don’t want anyone to see you loitering around my house.’ Her voice was still frosty, but beneath the hurt he could glimpse the Celine who had agreed to marry him so they could be together—even though he’d learned that things weren’t as simple as that.
She was still so much like the person he’d fallen in love with. It was hard to keep the old affection at bay. Darius reminded himself that he’d come here for a purpose, and it wasn’t to fall in love again. No, he needed time to figure his life out, and he prayed that she’d grant him that time.
Three months until the season ended. That was all he needed.
