So that was why. His change toward her after the accident, treating her like she was the most precious thing in the world, binding himself to her forever. This explained everything much more convincingly than his claim that he’d loved her all along.
It had all been for his baby.
“Te quiero tanto, Cybele, más que la vida. Usted es mi corazón, mi alma.”
Hearing him say he loved her, more than life, that she was his heart, his soul now that she knew the truth was…unbearable.
Feeling her life had come to an end, she pushed out of his arms and ran.
Rodrigo restrained himself from charging after her and hauling her back and never letting her go ever again with an exertion of will that left him panting.
He had to let her go. She had to have time alone to come to terms with the shocks, to realize that although they’d taken a rough course to reach this point, both Mel and fate had ended up giving them their future and perfect happiness together.
He lasted an hour. Then he went after her. He found her gone.
Consuelo told him Cybele had asked Gustavo to drive her to the city, where he’d dropped her off at a hotel near the center.
He felt as if the world had vanished from around him.
She’d left him. But…why? She’d said she loved him, too.
When his head was almost bursting with confusion and dread, he found a note on their bed.
The lines swam as if under a lens of trembling liquid.
Rodrigo,
You should have told me that my baby was yours from the start. I would have accepted your care for its real reason-a man safeguarding the woman who is carrying his baby. Knowing you and your devotion to family, your need to have your flesh and blood surrounding you, I know you want this baby fiercely, want to give him the most stable family you can, the one neither of us had. Had you told me, I would have done anything to cooperate with you so the baby would have parents who dote on him and who treat each other with utmost affection and respect. I don’t have to be your wife to do that. You can divorce me if you wish, and I’ll still remain your friend and colleague, will live in Spain as long as you do, so you’ll have constant access to your son.
Cybele.
Rodrigo read the note until he felt the words begin to burn a brand into his retinas, his brain.
After all the lies and manipulations she’d been victim to, she had every right to distrust his emotions and motives toward her. From her standpoint, he could be saying and doing whatever it took to get his son.
But he’d prove his sincerity if it was the last thing he did.
If he lost her, it just might be.
Twenty-four hours later, he stood outside her hotel room door, feeling he’d aged twenty-four years.
She opened the door, looking as miserable as he felt.
All he wanted was to take her in his arms, kiss her until she was incoherent with desire, but he knew that might only prove to her that he was manipulating her even worse than Mel had.
He never gambled. But he’d never known true desperation, either. Now a gamble, with potentially catastrophic results, was the last resort he had left.
Without a word, he handed her the divorce papers.
Cybele’s heart stopped, felt it would never beat again.
She’d made a desperate gamble. And lost. She’d owed him the choice, the freedom to have his baby without remaining her husband. She’d prayed he’d choose to be with her anyway.
He hadn’t. He was giving her proof, now that she’d assured him he’d always have his son, that he’d rather be free of her.
Then her eyes fell on the heading of one of the papers.
Before the dread fully formed inside her mind, it spilled from her lips. “You won’t take the baby away, will you? Any court in the world would give you custody, I know, but please don’t-”
He grimaced as if she’d stabbed him. “Cybele, querida, por favor, le pido. I beg you…stop. Do you distrust me that much?”
Mortification swallowed her whole. “No…no-oh, God. But I-I don’t know. Anything. It’s like you’re three people in my mind. The one who seemed to hate me, the one who saved me, took such infinite care of me, who seemed to want me as much as I want you, and the one who always had an agenda, who’s handing me divorce papers. I don’t know who you are, or what to believe anymore.”
“Let me explain.” His hands descended on her shoulders.
“No.” She staggered around before his grip could tighten. She couldn’t hear that he cared, but not enough to remain married to her. She fumbled for a pen by the hotel’s writing pad. The papers slid from her hands, scattered across the desk. Fat tears splashed over the blurring lines that mimicked the chaos inside her. “After I sign these papers, I want a couple of days. I’ll call you when I’m thinking straight again and we can discuss how we handle things from now on.”
His hands clamped the top of her arms, hauled her back against the living rock of his body. She struggled to escape, couldn’t bear the agony his feel, his touch, had coursing in hers.
He pressed her harder to his length. She felt his hardness digging into her buttocks, couldn’t understand.
He still wanted her? But if he was divorcing her, then all the hunger she’d thought only she could arouse in him had just been the insatiable sexual appetite of the hot-blooded male that he was. And now…what? Her struggles were arousing him?
All thought evaporated as his lips latched onto her neck, drew on her flesh, wrenching her desire, her very life force with openmouthed kisses and suckles. She tried to twist away, but he lifted her off the ground, carried her to the wall, spread her against it and pinned her there with his bulk, his knee driven between her thighs, his erection grinding against her belly.
He caught her lower lip in a growling bite, sucked and pulled on it until she cried out, opened wide for him. Then he plunged, took, gave, tongue and teeth and voracity. Wave after wave of readiness flooded her core. She squirmed against him, everything disintegrating with her need to crawl under his skin, take him into hers. His fingers found her under her panties, probed her to a screeching climax. Then she begged for him.
In a few moments and moves, he gave her more than she could take, all of him, driving inside her drenched, clenching tightness. Pleasure detonated from every inch of flesh that yielded to the invasion of the red-hot satin of his thickness and length. He powered into her, poured driven words in an inextricable mix of English and Catalan, of love and lust and unbearable pleasure into her gasping mouth as his thrusting tongue ravaged her with possession and mindlessness.