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He reached for something, making a hissing sound between his teeth, and turned abruptly to face her. “If you have no child, what is this?”
Oh, Lord! she prayed, staring at the baby’s pacifier in his broad palm. How do I get out of this? “My…my friend must have left it when she brought her baby to visit.”
His hand closed over the small object, then he dropped it onto the counter and began opening cupboard doors, shifting jars and bottles and tins, cups and plates, until in a lower cupboard he found a basket filled with small stuffed toys, a board book, rattles, a toy xylophone and a jumble of plastic blocks.
“For visiting children,” she said. “Some of my friends have babies or toddlers. You won’t find anything else. I keep telling you, you’ve made a mistake!”
He whirled then, fixing her with a glittering, hostile stare. “My mistake was almost two years ago, when I was est?pido enough to let cheap wine and a pretty tourist send my good sense and disciplina to the winds.”
Bristling at his dismissal of the “pretty tourist” as on a par with “cheap wine,” Amber said, “Whatever your problem is—”
“It is our problem,” he argued, “if what was in that letter is true. No matter how often you deny it, or how distasteful I find it.”
Distasteful? If that was how he thought of his supposed offspring, what sort of a father would he be?
The thought validated her caution. “Look,” she said, making her denial as authoritative as she could, “it wasn’t me. And I don’t feel well.” Brushing another strand of hair from her cheek, she realised her hand was trembling. Her stomach was battling nausea and her knees felt watery.
His eyes searched her face with patent distrust. “You are pale,” he allowed grudgingly. His mouth clamped for a moment before he said, “Tomorrow then. I will come back. And I warn you, if you are not here I will find you again.”
“How did you…?” Curious as to how he’d landed on her doorstep, she paused to reword the question. “You can’t have had my address.” She’d been too confused and alarmed to think about that.
A hint of that menacing sneer again distorted the firm male mouth. “It was not difficult. The post office box given as the return address was in Auckland, New Zealand. And you are the only A. Odell in the telephone book.”
“I don’t have a box,” she said. “And not everyone is in the phone book.” Which was lucky for them. It kept scary foreign men from pushing uninvited into their homes and flinging wild accusations.
She put a hand on the counter behind her. Her legs were still unsteady, and her voice lacked any kind of confidence when she said, “Please would you leave now? I…really can’t talk to you any more tonight.”
He took a step towards her, the Lucifer frown reappearing. “Are you ill? Do you need help?” One hand moved as if to touch her, but she shrank from it.
“All I need is for you to go!” And now she sounded shrill, dammit.
To her infinite relief he nodded curtly, but said, “You will be here tomorrow.” As if he could order it. “In the morning?”
He was trying to pin her down. “I have to work,” she said. “Some people do, you know.” While some could afford to fly across the world at the drop of a hat—or a letter. “Tomorrow evening,” she suggested randomly. “Eight o’clock.” It seemed the only way to get rid of him, and next time she’d make sure she wasn’t alone.
Another nod, and he turned to leave. Amber heard his footsteps recede down the passageway, and the door closing. Slumping against the counter, she felt as if she’d been picked up by a hurricane and dropped back to earth.
She straightened and made herself a cup of hot, black coffee, added a generous spoonful of sugar and took it to her bedroom. Sitting on the bed, she downed several steadying sips, before picking up the phone and keying in a number.
The ringing went on for a long time, but she didn’t hang up. When it finally stopped and a voice as familiar as her own answered, she said without preamble, “Azzie, what on earth have you done?”
CHAPTER TWO
MARCO Enrique Salvatore Costa Salzano wasn’t accustomed to being brushed off by women, much less being evicted from their homes.
But neither was he in the habit of forcibly invading those homes.
He’d spent the day brooding over last night’s debacle even while he made a time-killing exploration of Auckland city and its environs, ending with a stroll on the waterfront path that curved in and out along several bays overlooked by well-kept houses wherever steep cliffs didn’t border the road.
He’d found an underwater aquarium that featured such sea creatures as huge stingrays and even medium-size sharks swimming freely behind glass above and around the visitors. A short trolley ride in a fake Antarctic section allowed them to come eye to eye with king penguins. The animals were in every way a world apart from those he was accustomed to and to which he devoted a large part of his time. Yet they were sufficiently fascinating that for a short while he’d almost forgotten the mission that had brought him to the South Pacific.
Now the sun was inching downward and the eye-watering blue of the sky over the Waitemata Harbour had gradually softened to a paler shade while he paced the thick carpet of his hotel suite. The hands of his watch crawled towards seven-thirty so slowly that he wondered if the several thousand dollars he’d paid for its world-renowned brand reliability, expensive platinum casing and flawless design had been misspent. There was still more than half an hour to his appointment with the woman who last night had inexplicably denied knowing him.
When he’d finally arrived in New Zealand after a seemingly endless flight, perhaps he shouldn’t have left the hotel as soon as he’d had a hurried shower and pulled clean clothes randomly from his bag. Jet-lagged though he was, he hadn’t been able to tolerate another night of angry anticipation mingled with regret and self-castigation—and something he refused to name as confused hope.
After all that, and despite her having appealed for his help in a way that suggested she and his son were suffering imminent if not actual penury, the woman had tried to shut the door on him!
Unable to conceal his simmering rage, he knew he had made her nervous. Although she’d mounted a valiant effort to hide that, standing up to him and threatening to call the police.
He almost smiled, recalling the defiant flash of her eyes—he hadn’t remembered she had such striking eyes, truly jade green ringed with amber—and her determined efforts to oust him from that matchbox of a home. She’d deliberately goaded him with sarcasm and insults despite her slight though very feminine build and the fact that the top of her head barely reached his chin.
When he’d silenced her attempt to scream, and blocked her escape with his body, her hair had been soft and silky against his throat and smelled of apricots with a hint of fresh lemon.
That scent had unexpectedly aroused him, as had the tantalising way her breasts rose and fell with her frightened breathing, under the scanty piece of cloth that barely covered them. He’d quickly stepped back, not wanting to add fear of rape to her perplexing reactions. It was not in his nature to terrorise women.
Admittedly last night’s confrontation had been no ordinary visit. Perhaps he could have been less impetuous, but that letter had been a bombshell, coming long after he had written off the Carnaval incident as a lapse in judgement that, fortunately, had had no serious consequences.
Why be afraid of a man she’d happily allowed to take her to an unknown destination in a foreign city to have sex when they’d only met a couple of hours before? And why deny she’d sent that letter? Any logical reason eluded him.
Unless the story had been a lie. His fists clenched and he stopped pacing to stare moodily at the harbour, now calming into a tranquil satin expanse at odds with his chaotic thoughts. If this whole thing was a fabrication, he’d wasted his time making a long, time-consuming journey at great inconvenience to himself, his business and his family.
And the woman he’d done it for deserved no respect and no consideration.
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, se?or.”
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’mnot, 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.
