The charged atmosphere was interrupted by the arrival of the smiling new cook bearing two plates heaped with fragrant food. Fresh agony streamed through Anna at the memory of her mother doing just that. The cook stopped, perhaps caught off guard by Anna’s stricken face.
“Filet of sole in a dill sauce, with new potatoes and a medley of seasonal-”
“Thank you, Vicki. It looks delicious.” Naldo cut off her increasingly quavering announcement.
Vicki, who was young, plump and pretty, placed the plates in front of them and shot a sympathetic glance at Anna.
She tried to smile back.
When Vicki left, closing the door discreetly behind her, Anna stared at Naldo. “She never said anything. I had no idea.”
“Perhaps she knew it was wrong.” He stabbed his fish with a silver fork.
“But why wrong? Your father was a widower. She wasn’t ever married. They were both consenting adults. Middle-aged ones, at that.”
“My father made a commitment to my mother.” His mouth set in a grim line.
Anna expelled an exasperated breath. “Marriage is ‘until death do us part.’ I don’t doubt that he loved your mother with all his heart, but that doesn’t mean he had to die along with her. Didn’t you want him to be happy?”
“He was happy.” His intense stare pricked her skin.
“Yes.” She inhaled slowly. “Apparently he was happy with my mother.” It infuriated her that Naldo had planned to keep the whole affair a secret from her. What else was he keeping secret? “Is that why you were snooping around the house this morning? Were you looking for evidence to destroy?”
A frown line appeared between Naldo’s brows.
“You left footprints all over the house. Upstairs.”
He studied her for a moment, then sat back in his chair. “I was looking for something, yes.”
“What?”
“Some jewelry. Family heirlooms that my father gave to your mother.”
A cold sensation crept up her spine. “He gave my mom gifts and you thought you’d just take them back?”
“All of them have been in the family more than a century. They are part of the family legacy. They should be restored to the estate.”
“Are they worth a lot?”
“Yes. Naturally I intend to compensate you for their full value.”
“Oh, do you?” She didn’t believe him for a second. “If you meant to pay, why not just ask for them?”
“Because then you would wonder how they came to be in your mother’s possession.”
“And you didn’t want me to find out about your father’s relationship with my mom.” She frowned. “He must have truly loved her if he gave her a lot of valuable jewels.” A funny feeling in the pit of her stomach accompanied a sudden image of the brusque and lordly Robert De Leon and her funny, gentle mother.
How much fun they’d had choosing those trees for the grove by the cottage. Why had it never occurred to her before that they were intimate?
“It was a relationship of convenience, nothing more.” Naldo crossed his arms over his chest.
Irritation stiffened her spine. “I see it clearly now. You are the reason your father left the land and the cottage to my mom. He knew you hated their relationship, and that you wouldn’t want her here to remind you of it. He figured that when something happened to him, you’d make her leave-just like you’re trying to get rid of me.” Her voice shook on the last words. “Your father didn’t want my mom to be forced out of the home she loved.”
“She could have bought a much nicer home with the money.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars doesn’t go too far these days.”
Naldo’s eyes simmered with an emotion she couldn’t quite read. “All right. Four hundred thousand dollars.”
Ice trickled through her veins as she saw the determination in the set of his jaw. He wanted to be rid of her that badly? “Does that include the cost of the jewels?” Her voice sounded as cold and hard as a faceted diamond.
“The jewels can be valued and the price negotiated.”
“But you haven’t found them yet. Perhaps my mom sold them already.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“No? You don’t seem to think much of her, so what makes you think she’d cherish them rather than sell them for cash?”
The door opened and Tom came in to remove the plates. They’d barely touched their food. Dinner with Naldo didn’t encourage an appetite.
A tense silence accompanied Vicki’s appearance with two plates of a fresh fruit torte with whipped cream. The family had always liked the cook to serve the food herself so they could admire her presentation and inquire about ingredients and technique. They enjoyed close and warm communication with everyone who worked there. Now, though, Naldo said nothing beyond a polite thanks.
“The staff must have all known,” Anna said once Vicki was gone.
“Perhaps.”
“And Isabela. It’s not quite the secret you hoped.”
Naldo turned and looked up at the portrait on the wall. Anna’s eyes followed his, and the cool beauty in the painting seemed almost to raise an eyebrow at her in challenge.
“I’m sure I can count on your discretion.” Naldo narrowed his eyes as he looked back at Anna. “Neither of us wants our parents to be the subject of prurient gossip.”
“Oh, really? Perhaps your father gave my mom those jewels to buy her silence. Paid her to be invisible, a nobody. A secret mistress.” She rose to her feet, heart pounding, and threw her napkin on the table next to her untouched dessert. “Well, I’m ashamed to know any of you. My mother was a wonderful loving woman who was treated shamefully by my father and apparently by yours, too.”
“You don’t understand the situation.” Naldo’s icy voice chilled her.
“I understand all I need to. My mother was good enough to sleep with, but not good enough to marry.” Tears threatened, and she gulped air trying to keep them at bay. It wasn’t fair that men could use women and take what they wanted without making any promises in return. Why did women let them get away with it?
Fists clenched against the onslaught of all she’d learned and couldn’t even begin to process, she rushed from the dining room. She strode past a startled Pilar, tugged open the heavy front door and flew down the stone steps.
Her van was back at the cottage.
Her heels would be ruined by the time she got home, but she’d have to walk.
Naldo didn’t come after her. She’d hardly expect him to. He knew she’d be back for her money.
She knew it, too. And that only made the long, dusty moonlit walk back to the cottage more grueling than ever.
Naldo stood at his bedroom window looking out over the dark shadows of the groves in the predawn hours. Why couldn’t Anna just make this easy?
A light shone in the distant upstairs window of the cottage, and his groin stirred as he watched her stretch, as sleepless and restless as himself.
She would sell. There was nothing to keep her here. It was simply a matter of agreeing on the price. What difference did it make that their parents had been lovers? That was in the past and had no bearing whatsoever on the business between them.
Anna lifted her hair off her neck. Though he was too far away to see details, he had a flash of insight into exactly how that action would stretch her flimsy T-shirt over those high, firm, full breasts.
He wheeled away from the window, desire thickening inside him. It struck him as ironic that his father probably stood at that same window looking out at his own lover.
His chest tightened. His father had been a good man. A caring and affectionate man. And he’d loved Letty Marcus like a wife.
Was it fair for him to let Anna think he’d merely used her? His barbed remark at dinner-that theirs was nothing but a relationship of convenience-dishonored his father’s memory as well as her mother’s, and left a bitter taste in
