CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
D OM GROWLED , a low guttural sound of victory, a sound that rumbled into Mari’s bones as he dipped his head to sweep her into his kiss. And this time she went willingly. This time it wasn’t Dom driving the kiss. It was Mari that wanted it. Because she’d been wrong on so many levels—wrong to deny them both the passion and the pleasure she knew they would find together, wrong to waste so much of what little time they had. She took everything that he offered and hungered for more.
He delivered, wrenching his lips from hers to blaze a trail down her throat and setting her flesh alight under his heated mouth. He was hot. So hot, turning her own need to combustible. Dialling up her own desire to the max.
And his hands, his strong hands, were everywhere, cupping her behind and moulding her to him, leaving her in no doubt of his arousal, further ratcheting up her need.
‘Come,’ he said, breathing hard as he took her hand. They half stumbled, half danced their way across the sand, their progress slower than either of them would have preferred, but only because they couldn’t get enough of the touch, the feel, the taste of each other.
Because it was the same as it had been twenty years before, except it was better. Twenty years better. Somehow, they made it to Dom’s apartment building and into the private lift that would take them to his penthouse. Mari found herself wedged in the corner, Dom’s hands busy shimmying her skirt up her legs, his leg inserted between hers, while his mouth and his seeking tongue plundered hers. It could have been uncomfortable—in other circumstances it would have been an outrage—but right in this moment there was nowhere in the world Mari would rather be. The lift rose, taking the temperature of Mari’s blood with it until it was simmering, and she was threatening to combust.
The lift doors opened behind Dom and they spilled out, leaving a trail of clothing as Dom steered her towards the bedroom.
Such a big bed. It was a crime to have waited so long to enjoy it.
Why had she waited so long? Why had she tortured herself? Those questions tumbled through her mind as they tumbled together onto the bed, mouths locked, kisses deepening, the emotions of the past week unleashed in one furious tangle of bodies and mouths and limbs.
And then the questions stopped, and all Mari had the brain space to do was feel.
Hot breath intermingling, their bodies driven by desire, it was a desperate battle to remove what few clothes remained, a frenzied and furious race to achieve skin-to-skin contact.
The feel of Dom’s ribbed chest beneath her hands, the hard-packed belly of his abdomen, the feel of his erection jutting into her as she lay with her leg across him. Her inner muscles clenched with anticipation, muscles long neglected and forgotten for too many years, but muscles that had been merely lying in wait, ready to be awakened again.
And who better to awaken them than the man who’d set light to them in the first place? Dom. Her first love. Her best love.
Her only love .
Dom looked down at her, now naked on the bed, his hand smoothing her hair back from her brow. ‘You’re even more beautiful than I remembered,’ he said. She looked up at him, at his dark eyes still overcome with grief, but now burning with something more urgent, more primal.
She recognised it because she felt it too.
Need.
And then he dipped his head to take one peaked nipple in his heated mouth, drawing her in, his tongue circling her nipple, before he sucked on that bullet point. Exquisite torture, pain and pleasure intermingling as her back arched on the bed. Her other breast was already screaming for equal treatment when he turned his attention there, torturing her further, the buzzing need between her thighs growing more insistent. More needy.
Her hands were in his hair, her fingernails raking his scalp as he rose up to claim her mouth once more.
He slipped a hand lower, smoothing over her belly and lower still, over her mound and between her pulsing lips. Her breath hitched. Because he was touching her there and it was as if every dream she’d ever had of making love with Dom, every memory she’d ever had, was rolled into this moment. It was as if the world began and ended where his fingers shimmied. It was suddenly the most important thing in her life. The only thing in her life.
‘So slick,’ he murmured into her mouth, while one fingertip traced the outline of her opening.
‘Dom,’ she begged, not knowing what she was begging for, knowing that only Dom could give it to her. Before his fingertip alighted on that tightly packed nub of nerves, gently circling, gently toying, each pass, each touch building on the other until there was nowhere to go but to fly.
He barely had time to sheath himself before he was inside her. Inside her and filling her and grinding his hips against hers, lifting one leg higher as he plunged deeply into her. She cried out with the exquisite intimacy of it. Cried out with their perfect fit, their matched rhythm, the memories of the past melding with the newly made experience of now. And still he took her higher until Dom cried out with one final lunge.
Mari came apart in colours, an out of body experience of bright and shimmering light that drifted down from the heights in time with her heartbeat.
She clung to him, her breathing ragged, her senses reeling.
Because she’d had sex with Dominico.
No, she’d made love with Dominico.
And it was perfect.
It was everything she hadn’t wanted and everything she had.
It was agony.
Mari and Dom were both still lying, their limbs intertwined on the bed. It should have been the perfect post-coital moment. That moment of post lovemaking bliss where they just luxuriated in their closeness and the warmth of the intimacy they’d just shared, sharing breath and kisses and the feel of satiated flesh against flesh.
It should have been perfect.
Except Mari knew it wasn’t. Not until she knew.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d gone back to Australia looking for me?’
He stirred next to her. ‘What?’
‘You went back to Sydney.’
He wiped a hand over his face and sighed. ‘My mother told you that?’
She nodded. ‘Why did you go looking for me?’
‘It was a mistake,’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘I quickly learned that.’
And Mari didn’t have to ask him why. Because she knew he’d learned she was married and had so evidently slammed shut the door on her past.
There was no point trying to defend herself. She knew she’d be trying to defend herself against the indefensible.
‘Why are we talking about the past,’ Dom said, reaching for her, ‘when we’re both here now, in the present?’
Again, she thought, so soon? And Mari wasn’t even sure she was in the mood after their latest discussion. Until Dom’s mouth met hers and his hand swept down her side, lighting fires under her skin, and she forgot about the past in the passion of the present.
And Mari gave herself up once again to the pleasures of the flesh. Gave herself up to the pleasures of Dominico. Because that wall of resistance had fallen, and now there was no way she could say no.
Foolishly, na?vely, she’d imagined on a repeat performance, excellent as it had been, that Dom couldn’t take her higher than he had before. She’d imagined that because he was older he would flag. She’d imagined wrongly. She hadn’t imagined a man in his prime who knew how to extract every bit of joy from the act of sex, that he knew how to bestow it. It was like being gifted a masterclass in making love.
It was a gift.
Afterwards she lay panting, the heated passion of their union giving way to the chill of truth. Because now she could no longer fight the truth—the truth she’d been fighting ever since she’d stepped into Dom’s suite at the hotel in Melbourne. The truth that she’d tried to deny by keeping her distance. The truth she’d buried under an avalanche of hatred—hatred that wasn’t entirely as well founded as she’d imagined.
The truth—that there was a part of her that was still in love with Dominico. A tiny part, no more than a smoking spark that had refused to be extinguished, no matter his crimes against her, no matter the passing of the decades. A spark that, if she wasn’t careful, could flicker into life and consume her, as it would if she fell in love with Dominico all over again.
And it terrified her.
Because she knew that it was pointless. That their contract had an end date and that she would be expected to leave. He’d demanded it and she’d been only too happy to agree. She’d promised she would leave him at the first opportunity.
And now she knew she had to, before Dom could get rid of her.
* * *
Marianne was avoiding him. Dom didn’t understand how this could be possible when they spent their nights locked in passion together in his bed. He’d thought things had changed between them since that night on the beach, but time and again Dom went looking for her in the apartment, only to find her missing. At first, he’d assumed she’d gone for walks along the beach. But when he’d investigated further, it was to discover that she’d taken the car to visit his mother. And not just to talk, but he’d learned from her nurse that she’d been reading to his mother too, from the extensive library of books in both Spanish and English that she’d shared with Roberto.
Not that he had a lot of time to worry about Marianne. Between the Brazilian deal coming together and arrangements for the party, Dom had been well and truly occupied.
In fact, it was a miracle they’d been able to pull off the party. Despite the rush, somehow it had all come together—the guest list, the catering and, best of all, the joy of his mother, watching on from her wheelchair. She looked beautiful tonight. Her silvery hair had been gently styled into soft curves that framed her face. Her make-up covered the worst of the dark rings around her eyes and highlighted her noble, high cheekbones. Her lips were painted her favourite shade of red, adding vitality to her otherwise faded features.
The celebration had begun with a ceremony performed by the local priest, blessing the marriage of Dom and Mari. A serious ceremony where the hushed crowd had watched on while they’d exchanged their vows again and the priest had blessed their marriage, hoping it to be full of love and fruitful, and to bear children.
And while Dom knew those words to be empty wishes, through it all, he witnessed his mother looking beatific, sunken eyes and shrunken body in her wheelchair perhaps, but beaming in her lace finery, the party lights reflected brightly in her eyes. She was in her element.
And all the lies and pretence were worth it, he knew. To see his mother this happy, it was right.
He saw Marianne surrounded by a crowd of guests, he saw her smile, saw that she was holding her own, and mentally applauded her for it. And then he saw one woman sidle up to the group: Isabela, a divorcee who’d advertised her availability to Dom every time she’d had the opportunity.
If Isabela had been a shark, she’d be a white pointer, taking no prisoners, and Dom wanted to intervene. Except his mother took hold of his hand and he couldn’t leave her side.
‘Isn’t this the best party ever?’ she said. ‘And now your marriage has been blessed I’m sure that you will be blessed with children.’
‘There’s no rush,’ he said.
‘Of course there’s a rush,’ his mother said. ‘You’re not getting any younger, and your bride is almost forty.’
Dom’s plan hadn’t encompassed children. He’d wanted to see his mother’s dying wish satisfied. He hadn’t thought about what would come after, beyond Marianne going home. But what came after a wedding?
Children.
Of course, he needed to provide an heir to the business his father had begun and that he’d turned into a global powerhouse. He knew that. At least, he knew that in the back of his mind, where he’d parked the concept until he was older.
Except now he was older, and what was foremost in his mind was something else entirely. Because after Marianne left, as she would, what then?
There was no end of women who would sacrifice themselves on that altar, he knew. Finding one that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was the issue. He hadn’t found one in all the years since he’d left Sydney. What were the chances now? Settling with someone who would suffice?
‘It’s so sad that she lost her babies.’
His head swung around. ‘What?’
‘Marianne’s twins. It’s very sad that she lost two babies. I can’t begin to imagine. You have to treat her gently. It’s no wonder that she’d be wary about getting pregnant again.’
The shocks kept coming. Dom had the feeling he’d been sucked out of this world and spat out into a parallel universe. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Oh, you don’t have to pretend. It’s all right, Marianne told me.’
Girl business , Dom remembered. So that was what they’d talked about.
His head swung around to locate Marianne in the crowd. She wasn’t hard to spot. She was luminescent, her beautiful face animated, her emerald-green gown glowing. She was a bright light surrounded by moths all wanting a piece of her, all wanting to find her secret, how she had ensnared Senor Estefan, the most eligible bachelor in San Sebastián.
He’d assumed Marianne had been crying that day because she’d learned that Dom had gone to Sydney looking for her. Because she’d learned that if anyone had cause for grievance it was him.
But… She’d lost two babies? No wonder she hadn’t wanted to talk about her marriage.
Except that didn’t make sense either. Mari had told him that her husband hadn’t wanted any more than the two he already had.
It didn’t mesh. None of it made sense. Unless she’d had a pregnancy after her divorce in a relationship that she hadn’t told him about?
Maybe that was it. Twenty years was a long time. She could have had any number of relationships between her divorce and meeting up with Dom again.
‘But she’s still young enough,’ his mother said.
His head swung back.
He realised she was talking about babies. His mother wasn’t about to settle for a marriage. She wanted grandchildren. Even knowing she was dying, she was wishing him children.
‘I’m sure they’ll happen in due course,’ he said.
‘They may,’ his mother said, ‘but take care of Marianne. It’s going to be hard for her.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Promise me you’ll take care of her.’
He gently squeezed his mother’s hand in return. ‘I promise,’ he said. And he would, knowing Marianne would be departing with another nine million dollars. And sure, she’d be spending a wad of it on a house for her sister, but still, Marianne would be well taken care of.
* * *
Mari felt very much the outsider as she was introduced, very much the odd woman out. A crowd of women surrounded her, all wanting a piece of her. There was one woman in particular who kept glancing at Dominico all the time she was trying to engage with Mari. Finally, she had her chance. ‘So, are you truly married?’
Mari admired her directness—forget congratulations and happy wishes, why not cut to the chase?
‘Dom and I were married this last week.’
‘But in Las Vegas, I understand.’
She made a wedding in Las Vegas sound like something undesirable she had stuck to the sole of her Louboutin sandal.
‘That’s right. At the Bellagio Hotel. Have you been there?’
The woman’s nose wrinkled. Her brow, Mari noticed, didn’t. ‘But Las Vegas. Isn’t it a bit…tacky?’
‘Clearly, you’ve never been to the Bellagio. But of course, when time is of the essence, you don’t care where you make something happen. Just that you make it happen.’
Mari’s answer clearly displeased the woman, not that she was about to give up any time soon.
‘And yet a whirlwind romance, a whirlwind marriage—one might think that this was all an exercise in time is of the essence . I’ve known Dominico for more than ten years. Why would he choose to marry someone nobody knows, unless it’s all make-believe?’
Ouch! How could the woman possibly entertain such an idea?
‘A whirlwind romance, Isabela? Didn’t Dom tell you that we first met twenty years ago? We were at university in Sydney together.’
The woman blinked. Clearly this was news to her. ‘So, you knew each other back then?’
Mari smiled. ‘Oh, yes. But back then we didn’t merely know each other. We were lovers. As, of course, we are again now.’
The woman’s eyes opened wide. She took a step back to regain her composure. ‘In that case, congratulations. I was beginning to think that it would never happen, that Dominico would never marry.’ She made a sound that could almost have been a laugh, if it hadn’t sounded so false. ‘There have been so many women that have tried and failed. I wonder what your secret is.’
Ten million dollars , Mari thought, along with a promise to agree to divorce as soon as his mother succumbed to her illness and Dom didn’t need a fake wife any longer.
Mari smiled knowingly. ‘I guess you’d have to ask Dom that.’
It was an hour later that Dom found her and pulled her aside. ‘Did you tell Isabela that we were lovers twenty years ago?’
‘I did. Why? I figured you wouldn’t want me telling her that you’d paid me ten million dollars for the privilege. I told her the truth after all, though maybe not the whole truth. How did you know?’
He grinned. ‘Because word is getting around. Before the night is out, everyone here will know we were once lovers.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘No, it’s good. Better than good.’ He swept her close with an arm around her waist, swirled her around and placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. ‘It’s actually perfect.’
She laughed, clinging onto his shoulders. This was the Dom she’d known at university. Playful and spontaneous. The arrogant businessman mantle banished. ‘What was that for?’
But the laughter died on her lips, her breath hitched when she saw the way Dom was looking down at her, his dark eyes intense, the same way he’d once looked at her. The way that had awakened her senses and her desire.
‘Dom,’ she whispered, sensing that something had changed. That everything had changed. The sounds of the party evaporated around her, the room shrank until there was just them, his dark eyes above hers and his arms around her, a buzzing in every cell and a humming ache between her thighs.
He was going to kiss her, she knew. He was going to kiss her.
And this time she sensed it wasn’t a performance.
His lips drew closer, deliciously closer. So close. And then they were on hers. Blissfully on hers. Tender. Firm. For a moment she was lost in sensation. The feel of him in her arms, the taste of him in her mouth. It was intoxicating.
She was intoxicated. Carried away on her body’s reaction to the man she’d always loved. The man she’d loved and who she’d believed had loved her.
The man she loved anew.
Oh, hell.
The realisation came as something else intruded on her senses. A noise, rising in intensity. She tried to block it out, to ignore it, too busy with her startling discovery to focus. Because the thing she’d most feared had happened. That tiny spark her heart had nurtured had caught alight, erupting into a blaze that lit up the words burning so brightly across Mari’s mind’s eye. She’d fallen in love with Dominico Estefan again.
Maybe he’d registered the thunderbolt that had coursed through her because he pulled back from the kiss, relaxing his embrace to wave to the crowd.
Applause, she realised, the noise registering. Cheers.
He waved to the cheering crowd while Mari’s cheeks burned. If Isabela had any doubts remaining that they were truly in love, their kiss had put those doubts well and truly to bed.
And there, amongst the crowd applauding, sat Rosaria, beaming. Dom took Mari’s hand and they crossed to her, kissing her cheeks.
‘You’ve made me so happy, my son. Both you and your beautiful wife.’
Late that night Dom stood at a window overlooking the golden-fringed bay, reflecting on the evening. His mother had been almost radiant tonight. So happy. And he wasn’t fooling himself, because it was Marianne who had made her happy. Marianne, and her gentle soul, convincing his mother that she was truly in love with her son.
And it was Marianne, now sleeping quietly in the bed, who had made him feel like it might even be possible. Tonight, his lovemaking with Marianne had moved to a new high. Not just the thrill of rediscovery, but the feeling that he was coming home. And it had felt good. It had felt right.
He had half a mind to make their arrangement more permanent. He didn’t know how it might happen—he knew their contract had an end date, and he knew that Marianne had a responsibility to her sister—but he only knew that he had to try. That he couldn’t let her go. Not again.
The call came in the early morning, just before dawn, the sound rousing Dom out of a restless sleep where he’d tangled with his thoughts as much as he’d tangled with his sheets.
He swung his legs out of the bed and clutched his phone, not bothering to look at the caller ID.
‘Dominico…’ he heard a voice say. Dr Rodríguez.
And ice slid down Dom’s spine. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry to tell you that your mother peacefully passed away in her sleep during the night.’
Dom squeezed his eyes shut. He’d known it was going to happen. Hadn’t he been warned that it could happen at any time? But still, knowing that it could happen was no preparation for the sheer gut punch of when it did. The knowledge that hit him like a blow from a sledgehammer. Rosaria was gone.
‘No,’ he said, because there was comfort in denial. There was hope in not acknowledging that it was true. Even though he knew in his heart of hearts that there was none.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘If it’s any comfort, she died with a smile on her face. I’ve only ever witnessed that one time before. Clearly you made her very happy in her final days and hours.’
The words washed over Dom, all some kind of gobbledegook he’d have to unravel later, because all that mattered now was that his mother was gone. And sure, he’d been by his mother’s side when his father had died, but right now his mind was a blank.
‘Tell me what happens next,’ he said, up on his feet and heading for the shower, unable to think beyond getting over to the villa. ‘Tell me what I need to do.’
Mari slept late, the bed beside her empty and cold. Last night’s party had finally wound down in the early hours of the morning. It had been two a.m. before she and Dom had made it back to the apartment, so clearly Dom was feeling more sprightly than her.
She showered and made her way to the kitchen, the apartment eerily quiet with no sign of Dom. She found María, the housekeeper, there, quietly sobbing as she prepared eggs for an omelette.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, which only sent María into new floods of tears.
‘It’s Senora Estefan,’ she said, sniffing. ‘She died overnight. Dominico is there now.’
Mari collapsed into a chair, a wave of grief flooding down her spine. Closely followed by a wave of empathy. Oh, Dom. He must be devastated. Nobody could have expected that the party to celebrate Dom and Mari’s union was the party to see his mother out.
She remembered Rosaria’s elation last night, her delight at the blessing of their marriage, her strong spirit allowing her to partake in the joy of the celebrations and be part of it. She’d been so happy. So beautiful, her joy lighting up her painted face. And yet suddenly she was gone, a bright light extinguished. It didn’t seem possible.
‘What can I do?’ Mari asked, feeling helpless, moisture leaking from her eyes.
The housekeeper sniffed. ‘Dom said for you to stay here. He’ll be back when the arrangements are made.’
Mari nodded. Of course there would be arrangements to make. Arrangements for the body. Arrangements for a funeral. All to be made while he was still reeling and numb from his loss. Of course, he wouldn’t need Mari there.
He didn’t need Mari anywhere.
The thought slammed into her like a fist into a punching bag. She was his pretend wife. A wife to convince his mother that her son was finally settled down and married, for the term of his mother’s existence. And now his mother was gone. Mari was surplus to requirements, a wife he didn’t need any more, their contract at an end.
She sipped on the strong coffee with two sugars María had insisted she needed and had placed in front of her. María had been right. She needed the coffee’s strength. Right now, she needed to be strong.
Dom would want her gone quickly, she presumed. He would want her out of the way. He would be busy with the funeral and with the legalities of winding up Rosaria’s estate. He wouldn’t need a reminder of the deal he’d made to convince his mother he’d finally found love. He wouldn’t need a reminder of their deception.
And Mari didn’t want to be here. Not now. Not after last night’s realisation. How could she stay, knowing she loved him when he would soon want her gone?
She finished the coffee she hadn’t realised she’d needed. Thanked María for it with a hug. She might not be able to help Dom right now, but at least she could help herself. She might as well make a start on packing.