The Alvares Bride
Auteur
Sandra Marton
Lezers
18,7K
Hoofdstukken
13
Harlequin
HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
New York CitySaturday, May 4
CARIN BREWSTER clutched her sister’s hand and wondered how the human race had managed to survive if every woman who’d ever borne a child had to go through agony like this.
She groaned as another contraction racked her body.
“That’s it,” Amanda Brewster al Rashid said. “Push, Carin. Push!”
“I—am—pushing,” Carin panted.
“Mom’s on the way. She should be here soon.”
“Great.” Carin bit down on her lip. “She can tell me she knows the right way to—ohhh, God!”
“Oh, sweetie.” Amanda leaned closer. “Don’t you think it’s time you told me who—”
“No!”
“I don’t understand you, Carin! He’s the father of your child.”
“Don’t—need—him.”
“But he has the right to know what’s happening!”
“He—hass—no—rights.”
Carin grimaced with pain. What rights did a man have, when he was almost a stranger? None. None at all. Some of the decisions she’d made over the past months had been difficult. Whether to keep her baby. Whether to turn to her family for help. But deciding not to tell Rafe Alvares that he’d made her pregnant had been easy. He didn’t give a damn about her; why would he want to know? Why would a man who’d spent an hour in her bed and never tried to contact her again, want to know he was going to be a father?
The contraction subsided. Carin fell back against the pillows.
“He’s not important. The baby’s mine. I’m all that she’ll need. Just…” She groaned, arched from the bed. “…just me.”
“That’s crazy.” Amanda wiped her sister’s forehead with a cool washcloth. “Please, Sis, tell me his name. Let me call him. Is it Frank?”
“No!” Carin grasped Amanda’s hand more tightly. “It’s not Frank. And I’m not going to tell you anything else. Mandy, you said you wouldn’t do this. You promised. You said—”
“Madame al Rashid? Excuse me, please, but I need to speak with your sister.”
Carin turned her head. Sweat had run into her eyes and her vision was blurry but she could see Amanda step back to make room for Dr. Ronald.
He sat down next to her and took her hand.
“How’re you doing, Carin?”
“I’m…” She hesitated. “I’m fine.”
The doctor smiled. “You’re one tough cookie, that’s for sure. But we think you’ve been at this long enough.”
Somehow, she managed a weak grin. “Try telling that to this baby.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’ve decided to take you down the hall and get this kid into the world. How’s that sound?”
“Will it hurt my—”
Another contraction gripped her body. Carin groaned and the doctor squeezed her hand. “No. On the contrary. It’ll conserve energy for the two of you. It’s the best thing to do, I promise.”
The doctor rose to his feet and moved aside as two white-coated attendants came towards the bed.
“Don’t you worry, missus,” one of them said. “You’ll be holding that baby of yours before you know it.”
I’m not a missus, Carin thought, but everything was happening quickly now. Gentle hands lifted her; Amanda hurried alongside as she was rolled down the long corridor, her eyes fixed on the endless lights that shone from the ceiling. A pair of doors swooshed open just ahead, and her sister bent down and kissed her damp forehead.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey,” Carin said softly.
“I love you, Sis.”
“Me, too,” Carin said, and then she was through the door and in a room with white tile walls, staring up at a light as bright as the sun.
“Just relax, Ms. Brewster,” a voice told her, and there was a sudden burning sensation in her arm, where an IV needle already snaked under her skin.
“Here we go,” her doctor said, and Carin spun away.
Minutes passed, or maybe an hour; she couldn’t tell. She was drifting on a sea of soft clouds as she waited for the sound of her baby’s cry, but the doctor saying something in a sharp tone and then other voices joined in, calling out numbers, demanding five units of blood, stat.
Carin forced her eyes open. The light was blinding now. A nurse bent over her and she tried to speak because suddenly she wanted someone to know what had happened, that her child had a father, that she could not forget him or the hour she had spent in his arms…
And then everything faded to black, she was tumbling down a deep, deep tunnel, and suddenly, it was a hot August night instead of a warm Spring morning. She was at Espada, not in a hospital, and her life was about to change, forever…
* * *
He was tall and good-looking, and he’d been watching her ever since she’d entered the room.
His name, Carin figured, had to be Raphael Alvares.
“The Latin Lover,” she’d dubbed him, when Amanda had done everything but handstands to convince her she just had to meet the man.
“He’s a friend of Nick’s, and he’s here to buy horses from Jonas,” Amanda had confided as she sat in the guest room, watching Carin brush out her long, dark hair. “And, of course, Mother invited him to stay for the weekend.” She grinned. “Matchmaker, matchmaker,” she began singing, and Carin covered her ears.
“Stop!” She sighed with resignation. Well, it wasn’t a surprise. She should have known her mother wouldn’t give up the idea of marrying off her remaining two daughters. Samantha was safely out of range, flitting around Europe somewhere, which left Marta free to concentrate all her efforts on Carin, even though she’d vowed never to get involved with a man again. Marta had no way of knowing that but even if she had, it wouldn’t have stopped her.
“He’s gorgeous,” Amanda gushed, “and rich, and incredibly yummy. Well, not quite as yummy as my Nicholas, of course, but he’s really something special.”
“How nice for him,” Carin said politely.
“His name is Raphael Alvares. Isn’t that sexy?”
“Actually,” Carin said, even more politely, “I think it’s Spanish.”
Amanda had giggled. “Brazilian,” she’d replied, in an exaggerated accent, “wheech, my ’usband says, means zat he is zee Senhor Alvares, and not zee señor.”
She’d laughed, and Carin had grinned, and that had been that.
Carin had half expected her sister to drag her off to meet the man right there and then, but Amanda had apparently decided on a more subtle approach.
Instead of pointing Carin at Raphael Alvares, she’d pointed him at Carin.
At least, she must have, because the man who had to be the senhor from Brazil kept staring at her. Once in a while he smiled, as he was doing now. She smiled back, because it was the polite thing to do, but he wasn’t her type. No man was her type, anymore. To put it more accurately, she wasn’t the type for any man. Not now, maybe not for the rest of her life.
She lifted her wine goblet to her lips and took a drink so that she wouldn’t have to go on smiling when smiling was the last thing she felt like doing, and turned her back on the senhor.
The wine went down smoothly, maybe because it was her second, or was it her third, glass. She didn’t drink red wine, as a rule, not even one like this which had, undoubtedly, come from the Espada wine cellar and probably cost almost as much as she’d paid in rent on her first apartment in New York six years ago, but the first waiter she’d seen had been carrying a tray filled with glasses of red wine.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she’d quipped, and snatched one from him.
It was for false courage, she knew, but then, this was a weekend that called for it. Screamed for it, she thought, and drank more of the wine.
Her mother thought she was here because of the anniversary party for Tyler and Caitlin. At least, she was pretending she thought that was the reason, which was sweet of her.
“I can’t come, Mother,” Carin had said, when Marta phoned.
She’d been genuinely regretful, too. The gathering of the clan, all the Barons and Kincaids and al Rashids, was always a noisy, impossible, exciting event, and then there were all those adorable babies her stepbrothers’ wives and her very own sister were popping out, as if “fecundity” were their middle names.
“I wish I could,” she’d added, “but I’ll be at a wedding that weekend.”
That, of course, had all changed.
Latin Lover was staring again. She could almost feel his eyes on the exposed nape of her neck.
“Wear your hair up,” Amanda had urged, and she’d done it, except now her neck felt naked, which was dumb, but there was something about the way Raphael Alvares kept looking at her that made her feel uncomfortable. She thought about turning around and staring back but that might give him the wrong idea, which would be stupid. And she’d had quite enough of being stupid for a while.
Instead, she took another sip of the wine. It didn’t taste as bad as it had, at first. Well, who knew? Maybe red wine had to grow on a person, the way extended families did.
The idea was so silly it made her giggle. A woman standing nearby looked around.
“Nothing,” Carin said, when the woman smiled and raised her eyebrows questioningly. “I just thought of something, and…”
The woman nodded and turned away. Carin buried her face in her glass again and drank more deeply.
Yes, even if she wasn’t mingling, as Amanda had urged her to do, maybe it was a good idea that she’d come tonight, even if the reason sounded too ridiculous for words.
The man she’d been seeing for almost six months had been seeing one of her best friends at the same time he’d been dating her. It was such a clichéd, sad little tale that it would have been quite unremarkable—except for a minor deviation.
He wasn’t just dating Iris, he’d become engaged to her. The wedding date was set, the arrangements all made…and Carin was to be one of the bridesmaids.
“I can’t believe I’ve never met that fiancé of yours,” she’d said to Iris once, with a little laugh, and Iris, as ignorant of the truth as Carin, had explained that he traveled a lot.
Carin finished her wine just as she spotted another waiter with a tray of drinks.
“Waiter,” she said briskly.
There were no glasses of wine on the tray, only cocktail glasses filled with a colorless liquid and onions or olives impaled on tiny plastic swords.
“Cute,” she said, and smiled as she swapped her empty glass for a full one that held an onion and then, because the drink looked small, she shifted her evening bag under her arm and took a second glass that contained an olive.
The waiter lifted an eyebrow.
“Thank you,” Carin said, as if she drank two-fisted every day of her life. She took a sip of the glass that held the onion. “Wow,” she whispered, and took a second sip.
It was true. Frank had, in fact, traveled a lot. What neither she nor Iris knew was that the traveling he did was mostly between their two apartments. Thinking back, remembering how naive—no, how stupid—she’d been she almost laughed.
A month ago, it had all come apart. Frank must have realized he couldn’t keep up the act much longer, not with things like the rehearsal dinner and his marriage vows staring him in the face. So he’d phoned one evening, sounding nervous, and said he had to see her right away; he had to tell her something important.
Carin had hurried down to the corner wine shop, bought a bottle of champagne and popped it into the fridge. He was going to propose, she’d thought giddily…
Instead, he’d told her that he’d trapped himself in a nightmare. He had, he said, become engaged to another woman. And while she was staring at him in horror, trying to digest that news, he’d told her who the woman was.
“You’re joking,” Carin had said, when she could finally choke out a coherent sentence.
Frank had shrugged, grinned sheepishly—grinned, of all things—and that was when she’d lost it, when she’d gone from gasping to shrieking and screaming. She’d thrown things at him—a vase, the waiting wine bucket—and he’d run for the door.
Carin took a deep breath, raised her glass to her lips and drank down half of the martini.
She’d survived, even managed to put it all in perspective. Frank was no great loss; a man like that, one who couldn’t remain faithful, was not a man she’d want for a husband. All she had to do was get through the wedding that loomed ahead—the wedding between the woman who’d been her friend and the man who’d been her lover—and she’d be fine. She wouldn’t attend the wedding, of course, but that didn’t mean she’d mope.
No, she’d told herself firmly, no moping. No sitting around feeling sorry for herself. She’d order in pizza, drink the bottle of champagne she’d put in the fridge that horrid evening. To hell with Frank. Iris could have him.
Everything was fine, or almost fine, until an invitation to the wedding arrived along with a note from Iris asking, very politely, if she’d mind passing along her bridesmaid’s gown to the girl who’d be taking her place.
Carin had ripped the note and the invitation into tiny pieces, stuffed them back into their envelope and mailed it to the happy couple. Then, because it was time to admit she’d never get through the wedding weekend alone without either crying or screaming or maybe even going to the wedding and standing up to make a public announcement when the minister got to the part where he’d ask if anyone present knew a reason the marriage shouldn’t take place, she’d phoned Marta and said, as gaily as she could, that there’d been a change in plans and she’d be flying in for the party, after all.
“With Frank?” her mother had asked and when Carin said no, no, he wouldn’t be coming, Marta had said “oh” in a tone that spoke volumes. If she knew more now, if Amanda had told her anything, she hadn’t let on, except to hug Carin tightly when she arrived and whisper, “I never liked him, anyway.”
Carin sighed.
Nobody had liked Frank, it was turning out. Not her secretary, who’d wanted to kill him almost as much as Carin. Not Amanda, not Nicholas, not anybody with half a brain—except her. She’d been so dumb…
“Canapés, miss?”
Carin looked up, smiled at the white-gloved waiter, put the empty martini glass on a table and plucked a tiny puff pastry from the tray.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Lobster, I believe, miss.”
Lobster, indeed, and decadently delicious, Carin thought as she popped the little hors d’oeuvre into her mouth and crunched down. All that it needed was another swallow of whatever was in the glass with the onion to make it perfect…except, the glass was empty.
How had that happened? Well, it was a problem easily solved. She put the empty glass beside the other and set off through the crowded room in search of a drink.
“Mizz?”
The voice was masculine, heavily accented, and right behind her. She took a deep breath, pasted a smile to her lips and turned around. As she’d expected, it was the Brazilian Bombshell.
Up close, he wasn’t quite so good-looking. His jaw was a little weak, his nose a little long. Actually, he looked a lot like Frank.
“Mizz,” he said again, and took her hand. He bent over it, brought it to his lips, planted a damp kiss on her skin. Carin snatched her hand back and fought against the almost overwhelming desire to wipe it on her gown.
“Hello,” she said as pleasantly as she could.
“Hello,” he said, and smiled so broadly she could see a filling in his molar. “I ask who is the beautiful lady with the black hair and the green eyes and I am tell she is Carin Brewster, yes?”
“Yes,” Carin said. Was this what a Portuguese accent sounded like? “I mean, thank you for the compliment, senhor.”
“Senhor,” he repeated, and laughed. “Is amusing you should call me that, Carin Brewster.”
“Well, I know my pronunciation isn’t very good, but—”
She babbled her way through a conversation that made little sense. The Latin Lover spoke poor English and she spoke no Portuguese. Besides, she really didn’t want to talk with him. She didn’t want to talk to anybody, especially not a man who reminded her, even slightly, of Frank.
Frank, that no-good rat. That scum-sucking bottom crawler. That liar—but then, all men were liars. She’d learned that, early. Her father had lied to her mother. To her, too, each time she’d climbed into his lap and begged him not to go away again.
“This is the last time, angel,” he’d say, but that was never the truth.
What was wrong with the Brewster women? Hadn’t they learned anything? Their father had lied. From the stories she’d heard, Jonas Baron had turned lying into an art form. Yes, there might be exceptions. She was hopeful about her stepbrothers, and about Amanda’s new husband but still, as a rule—
“…a funny joke, yes?”
Carin nodded her head and laughed mechanically. Whatever joke the senhor had told, it couldn’t be half as funny as the one she’d thought of.
Question: How do you know a man is lying? Answer: His lips are moving.
Frank had fed her lies, said he loved her, and now he was in New York, standing at an altar and saying “I do” to another woman.
Enough, Carin thought, and in the middle of the senhor’s next joke, she took his hand, pumped it up and down and said it had been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure. Then she let go of his hand, tried not to let the wounded look in his puppy-dog eyes get to her, and made her way out of the living room, through the massive hall and into the library where a string quartet sawed away in direct opposition to the country fiddler holding court in the dining room.
A white-jacketed waiter was threading his way through the crowd, a tray of glasses balanced on his gloved hand.
“Hey,” she said to the waiter’s back.
It was an inelegant way to draw his attention; she knew her mother would have lifted her eyebrows and told her so, but it worked. The waiter turned towards her and Carin plucked a glass from the tray. This glass was short and squat, filled halfway with an amber liquid and chunks of fruit. She lifted it to her nose, took a sniff, then a sip. “Yuck,” she said, but she swallowed another mouthful, anyway.
Amanda came floating by in her husband’s arms. “Careful,” she sang softly, “or you’ll get blot-to.”
“Thank you for the sisterly advice,” Carin said as her sister sailed off.
Amanda was right. She would get blotto, if she weren’t careful. The only one of the three Brewster sisters who could hold liquor was Sam, and Sam wasn’t here. She was in Ireland, or France, or England. Wherever, whatever, Sam was probably having fun.
Well, she’d be careful. She didn’t want to get drunk. This was, after all, a social event. Not for her, maybe, but for everybody else. For Caitlin, certainly, and for her husband, Tyler Kincaid. She didn’t want to spoil their party. Her sister’s party. Well, not exactly her sister. Catie was her stepsister…Wasn’t she?
Carin drained the last of the amber stuff from the glass and plunked the empty on a table.
The falimial—familial—structure of the Barons, the Brewsters, the Kincaids and now the al Rashids, was complicated. She hiccuped, grinned, and made her way through the library on feet that felt encased in foam rubber.
“Better watch yourself, kid,” she whispered.
If she couldn’t think “familial,” much less say it, it might just be time to slow down the drinking…but not yet.
The hell with it. She was thirsty, and she was an adult. She could drink as much as she wanted.
She hiccuped. Loudly. She giggled, clapped a hand to her mouth and said, “’Scuse me,” to nobody in particular.
Somebody laughed. Not at her, surely. People laughed at parties, that was all. Most people came to parties to laugh. To have a good time. Not everyone came to try and forget what a complete ass they’d been made to look, and to feel.
What she needed right now was some fresh air. A cool breeze on her flushed cheeks. Carin made for the doors that led outside.
The thing of it was, Frank had claimed he didn’t want to get married. Not ever. She’d told him that was fine and it had been, at first, because what was marriage except two people making vows they never intended to keep? Not the man, anyway.
She slid the doors open, stepped out onto the middle level of Espada’s waterfall deck, and drew the soft night air deep into her lungs.
As for sex—how could marriage improve something that wasn’t so terrific to start with? Sex was sex, that was all, not the light-up-the-sky stuff people made it out to be.
Still, after a few months she’d started to think it might not be so bad, getting married. Companionship, at the end of the long day spent in her Wall Street office. Someone with whom to share the Sunday paper.
As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one who’d changed her mind. Frank had, too. Actually, it was pretty funny. He’d decided he wanted to get married, all right. Just not to her.
Carin swallowed hard.
She had to stop thinking about that. About him. About whatever it was she lacked that he’d found in Iris.
What she needed was something to eat. She hadn’t touched food in hours, except for that lobster thingy. And there was a marvelous buffet laid out in the house. Clams, oysters, lobster salad; prime ribs, poached salmon and quail.
What was on the menu at Frank’s wedding? She made a face. Snake’s belly, most likely, to suit the groom.
What was that? A prickle, on the back of her neck again. Uh-oh. He’d followed her, the Brazilian Bozo. She didn’t have to look; who else would it be? She wouldn’t even give him the satisfaction of turning around. Let Senhor Wonderful try his charms on some female who was interested in playing those games.
Frank had been above game-playing. That was what she’d thought, anyway. It was what she’d initially liked about him.
They’d met at a fund-raiser, and what a revelation he’d been! At least half a dozen men had come on to her that night, all of them using the oldest pickup lines in the world, everything from “Excuse me, but haven’t we met before?” to “I just had to tell you, you’re the most beautiful woman in the room.”
Frank had walked straight up to her, offered his hand and his business card and said he’d heard about her from one of his clients.
“He described you as one of the best investment advisors in New York.”
Carin had smiled. “Not one,” she’d said. “I am the best.”
That had been the beginning of their relationship. They saw each other often but she had her life and he had his. That was how they’d both wanted it. Separate existences, no dependency—they’d discussed things honestly and pragmatically. No keys exchanged, no toothbrushes left in either apartment, his or hers.
Had he left a toothbrush in Iris’s bathroom?
“Hell,” Carin said, and planted her fists on the teak railing.
She was thirsty again. Surely, there was a bar out here. Hadn’t Jonas said something about a barbecue on the deck? Was that hickory smoke she smelled, wafting up from the first level? If there was a barbecue, there’d surely be a bar.
Carin headed for the steps. They were wide and straight; she’d never had trouble with them before but tonight, for some reason, she had to hang on to the railing to keep from tripping over her own feet.
“A glass of sauvignon blanc, please,” she told the bartender when she found him.
Actually, her tongue tripped the way her feet had. What she said sounded more like “A grass of so-vee-on brahnk, pease,” and she almost giggled but the bartender gave her a funny look so she looked straight back at him, her brows lifted, her gaze steady. “Well?” she said, and waited.
At last, he poured the wine and gave the glass to her but her hand was, for some reason, unsteady. The pale gold liquid slopped over the side. She frowned, licked the wine from her hand, drained what remained and held out her glass.
“Again,” she said.
The bartender shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“Red, then, if you’re out of the white.” She smiled, to make it clear she really wasn’t particular. He didn’t smile back.
“I really am sorry, ma’am, but I believe you’ve had enough.”
Carin’s eyes narrowed. She leaned forward; the simple action made her woozy but why wouldn’t it? This was summer in Texas, even if this was hill country, and the night was warm.
“What do you mean, you think I’ve had enough? This is a bar, isn’t it? You’re a bartender. You’re here to pour drinks for people, not to be the sobrie—sobree—not be the ‘too much to drink’ police.”
“I’ll be happy to get you some coffee.”
He spoke softly but everyone around them had fallen silent and his words seemed to echo on the night air. Carin flushed.
“Are you saying you think I’m drunk?”
“No, ma’am. But—”
“Then, pour me a drink.”
“Ma’am.” The bartender leaned towards her. “How about that coffee?”
“Do you know who I am?” Carin heard herself say. She winced mentally, but her mouth seemed to have taken on a life of its own. “Do you know—”
“He knows. And if you do not shut that lovely mouth, so will everyone else.”
The voice came from just over her shoulder. It was masculine, low-pitched, and lightly accented. The Latin Lover, Carin thought, and turned around.
“I suppose you think this is your big chance,” she said, or started to say, but she didn’t finish the sentence.
In spite of the accent, this wasn’t the man. This was someone she hadn’t seen before. Tipsy or not—and hell, yes, okay, she was, maybe, a little bit potted—she’d have remembered him.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, bigger by far than the guy Amanda had tried to set her up with. His hair was the color of midnight, his eyes the color of storm clouds, and his face was saved from being pretty by a square jaw and a mouth that looked as if it could be as sensual as it could be cruel.
Carin caught her breath. Sober, she’d never have admitted the truth, not even to herself. Tipsy, she could.
He was the stuff of dreams, even, once in a very rare while, the stuff of hers. He was gorgeous, the epitome of masculinity…
And what she did, or said, was none of his business.
“Excuse me?” she said, drawing herself up. Big mistake. Standing straight and taking a deep breath made her head feel as if it didn’t actually belong to the rest of her.
“I said—”
“I heard what you said.” She poked a finger into the center of his ruffled shirt, against the hard chest beneath the soft linen. “Well, let me tell you something, mister. I don’t need your vice. Voice. Advice. And I don’t need you to censure—center—censor me, either.”
He gave her the kind of look that would have made her cringe, if she hadn’t been long beyond the cringing stage.
“You are drunk, senhora.”
“I’m not a senhora. I’m not married. No way, no how, no time.”
“All women, single or married, are referred to as senhora in my country.” His hand closed on her elbow. She glared up at him, tried to tug free, but his grasp on her tightened. “And we do not savor the sight of them drunk, making spectacles of themselves.”
His voice was low; she knew it was deliberate, so that none of the curious spectators watching the little tableau could hear what he was saying, and she told herself to take a cue from him, keep things quiet, walk away from the bar, but, dammit, she was not going to take orders from anyone tonight, especially not from a man.
“I’m not interested in your country, or what you do and don’t like your women to do. Let go of me.”
“Senhora, listen to me—”
“Let—go,” she repeated, and, when he didn’t, she narrowed her eyes, lifted her foot and stepped down, hard, on his instep.
It had to hurt. She was wearing black silk pumps with spiked, three-inch heels. In the self-defense course she’d once taken, the instructor had taught his students to put all their weight and energy into that foot stomp.
The stranger didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he reached out, swung Carin into his arms and, amidst laughter and even a smattering of applause, strode across the deck and down the steps, away from the brightly lit house into the darkness of the garden.
“You—you bastard!” Carin shrieked, beating her fists against his shoulders. “Just who in hell do you think you are?”
“I am Raphael Eduardo Alvares,” he said coldly. “And you, Senhora Brewster, are the epitome of a spoiled—”
* * *
“Rafe?” Carin’s eyes snapped open. She stared, blindly, at the light. “Rafe, where are you?”
“We’re losing her,” a voice said urgently, and then there was only silence.
