Daphne Clair - Salzano's Captive Bride

“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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