Chapter Twenty-Six
A lexandre was on the way to the airport when a ping from his phone signaled the arrival of an email. He was in a hurry to get back home and having finished his meeting sooner than expected, he’d booked himself on an earlier flight so he could spend the night in his wife’s arms.
Raquel wasn’t expecting him tonight, and he wanted to surprise her.
He’d wanted to bring her with him, but she didn’t want to miss the violin classes she’d begun for the children at the orphanage.
He couldn’t be more proud of his wife, whose unparalleled compassion touched his heart.
Raquel was truly a woman in a million. Beautiful, caring and kind—and sexy to boot.
His body tightened with anticipation. Three days away from her and he was already craving her something fierce.
As he settled in his first-class seat, his phone kept pinging with incoming messages. He hadn’t spoken with Raquel since that morning, and wondered if it was she who was flooding his phone with messages.
Having naught much to do on the flight, he decided to go through his emails.
There were several—but not one from Raquel.
Several messages from his assistant mentioning Carlos wanted a meeting with him as soon as he got back, which he decided to push to tomorrow.
Tonight, he would spend time with his wife.
However, one email caught his attention—one from his head of security. Frowning, he opened the attached file.
As he read the report, his heart sank. Alisha had leaked the news of his baby to the press!
Anger replaced shock as he tried to remember when he’d last seen the young woman who had been employed at the Club M before being fired for theft.
He recalled speaking with her about the missing funds, which later she’d confessed to have taken for personal needs.
He’d fired her, and soon after Raquel had walked into his office to give him the news of the baby.
It was highly likely that Alisha had overheard his conversation with Raquel that day, because the newspaper article had come out the following day.
The report detailed that Alisha had supplied the news to a local gossip rag, which had in turn, sold it to a national paper for three times the amount she had been paid. Financial statements of Alisha’s bank record corroborated the receipt of money from a notorious gossip rag.
Swiping a hand over his face, Alexandre sat back in his seat.
How could Alisha have betrayed him after all he’d done for her?
He had given her a job, supported her siblings’ education and had even forgiven her once before for stealing.
How could she expose him for a few thousand rupees, not caring about the upheaval the newspaper wrought on his and Raquel’s lives?
It reinforced his belief—people couldn’t be trusted.
Alisha had betrayed him because he had first, said no to her sexual advances, and then, fired her from her job.
Clearly everything he’d done for her, and her family meant naught if she could betray him for money.
She reminded him bitterly of his mother, who had bartered him so she could have a comfortable life.
Angry tears filled his eyes, and he blinked them away. What was done, was done. He couldn’t change the past. But he promised not to be gullible anymore—swayed by a pity story and tales of poverty and misfortune.
He wouldn’t trust another soul ever again—except, Raquel. Her face appeared in front of his eyes, healing the ache in his heart.
Raquel would never betray him, he was sure. She was always candid with him, and he trusted her implicitly. She would never betray him like his mother had. She wouldn’t win his trust only to deceive him like Alisha had.
Pushing Alisha’s betrayal out of his mind, he tried to get some sleep because tonight, he fully intended to wipe away the stench of betrayal with some passionate loving.
****
H ours later when Alexandre stepped out of the terminal, his phone rang. Seeing Carlos’s name on the screen, he wondered why his grandfather was ringing him so late in the evening.
Reeling from Alisha’s deception, he wasn’t in a mood to speak with anyone. But Leandro had hinted their grandfather was feeling poorly lately, so he answered the call.
“I need to speak with you.” There was a strange grimness in Carlos’s voice.
“Can we meet tomorrow? I just got in...”
“No.” Carlos was curt.
Alexandre thrust a hand into his hair. He was pissed that Carlos thought he could summon him any time of the day and he would go running.
“We need to talk now, son.” Son . Alexandre’s breath hitched. Carlos had never called him ‘son’ before. “I’m waiting in your office.”
He acquiesced reluctantly. Riding to his office, Alexandre couldn’t help but feel like a naughty child summoned to the principal’s office.
Whenever Carlos summoned him, it was to castigate him for some misdemeanor or other.
And he’d always enjoyed their verbal sparring.
But tonight, he didn’t know what he’d done to be summoned urgently.
At his office, he was let in by the night guard. Dismissing his assistant who’d stayed behind after office hours to keep Carlos company, he took a chair facing his grandfather.
“Raquel came home for lunch today.”
“She did?” Alexandre couldn’t hide his surprise. He’d spoken to Raquel that morning, and she hadn’t mentioned anything about visiting Carlos. She usually kept him updated on her whereabouts, so it seemed odd that she’d chosen not to tell him about meeting Carlos.
“Yes. We...” Carlos took a deep breath. “We spoke about... you.”
Alexandre frowned. “Me?”
Carlos nodded. “Your wife... she is a good woman to have in your corner. She told me things...”
Alexandre scowled as a frisson of unease raked down his back.
“She opened my eyes today,” Carlos continued, his eyes boring into his, his face twisted with pain.
“What are you talking about?” Tired of his roundabout way of speaking, Alexandre cut to the chase. “What could she possibly have told you about me?”
“I have wronged you, Alexandre. Forgive me, my son.”
****
R aquel was in bed when Alexandre’s voice rang in the hallway.
“Raquel!”
She immediately sat up, not only surprised by his early return, but his flinty tone, too. After returning from the Monteiro mansion, she had retired to her bedroom where she’d lain with a heavy heart.
All evening she’d worried about her meeting with Carlos. How was she going to tell Alexandre about it?
She got out of bed just as he came into the room, looking disheveled. He looked haggard, his eyes were dark orbs in his face, and his hair was mussed, like he’d run his hands through them multiple times.
“You’re home early,” she said, approaching him gingerly, uncertain why he looked like he’d been through a wringer.
“How could you betray me?” His expression turned thunderous, and she understood then that he’d learned about what had transpired at the Monteiro mansion. “Why did you tell Carlos everything I told you in private?”
The pain in his voice, the vulnerability in his eyes sliced through her. “I didn’t betray you, Alexandre,” she replied, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
“I bared my soul to you,” he slapped a hand on his chest, his eyes flashing with pain, “I trusted you with all my secrets and you—,” he pointed a finger at her—accusing, “spilled my innermost secrets to my grandfather. Why?”
“Because he needed to know the truth!” she cried, trembling at the force of his accusation.
“No!” he shot back. “You needed to exercise control over yourself! My secrets are mine to reveal. I told you everything because I believed you cared about me. I trusted you to guard my every secret.”
“I do care!” she confessed, stepping toward him, entreating him to understand, her hands reaching for him, but he held up his hands. Her heart clenched inside her as she cowered at the violence of his words. She couldn’t lose courage now—he needed to understand why she had done what she had.
Yes, she had spilled his secrets to Carlos, but she’d done so because his grandfather needed to see that he had been punishing Alexandre for his father’s sins.
“I trusted you and you...” His voice cracked, and he looked away, his face botched with anger, his body trembling with rage.
“I’ve known all my life that Carlos merely tolerated me only because I shared his DNA.
No matter how much I wanted him to accept me as a Monteiro, I knew it would never happen.
“My grief, my disappointment was my own. You know why I didn’t beg for more?
Because I had my pride. It was the only thing I clung to when I was handed over to Carlos.
My pride kept me alive in that prison of a mansion, and it was my pride that made me walk away from my father’s family when I realized that I would never be anything more than my father’s bastard.
“But you...” he faltered as his expression tightened with fury. “You know what Carlos told me? That I was lucky to have a wife who stood up for me. But I think he is wrong.”
Raquel’s tears ran free as his cruel words thrust into her heart causing her to stumble back against the bed.
“I don’t want someone who will betray me at the first given opportunity.”
“I didn’t betray you, Alexandre,” Raquel defended herself. “They believe you are the reason Erica’s marriage fell apart. They hold you responsible for the infamy your father brought with his misdeeds. I couldn’t stand listening to them blaming you for their misfortunes...”
“So you did it to defend me?” He crossed his arms across his chest, skewering her with an angry stare. “How would you feel if I told your mother that you know the real reason why she hates you, and beg her to love you back?”
Raquel’s heart hammered in her chest as she struggled to breathe. “It is not the same—”
“Isn’t it?” he questioned, stepping toward her, and she stumbled and fell backwards on the bed. “You told me your secret, and I told you mine. I never told another soul what you told me, but what did you do?”
“I was advocating for you, Alexandre,” she pleaded, sitting up, looking up at him with tearful eyes. “Your family needs to know that they can’t punish you for something that isn’t even your fault.”
“It is my battle to fight!” He didn’t raise his voice, but she shivered nonetheless as the gravity of the situation sunk in.
She had tried to fight for him but had inadvertently exposed him to his foe. It was an unforgivable act—a breach of trust, like he mentioned.
“I don’t fight your battles and I certainly don’t want you to fight mine.”
“Alexandre, please!” she cried when he turned to leave.
“I did it for you. I wanted Carlos to know that despite your miserable upbringing, you’ve grown into a wonderful man he should be proud to call his own.
I wanted him to know how much he means to you, and how much you desire to be loved and accepted. ”
He turned around slowly, his eyes glinting dangerously.
He no longer looked like her lover who catered to every need of hers.
He was the man she had encountered in Carlos’s library all those weeks ago, when she had met him at the family home.
He was frightening and—unapproachable. With hands curled into fists and jaw clenched tight, he was wound up tight like a spring.
Any moment now, he would lose his temper and she feared when that happened, she would be obliterated by his rage.
“Don’t you see what you’ve done?” His angry growl made her tremble. “I would never beg for love and affection. By begging on my behalf, you’ve not only unmanned me but destroyed my pride, too.”
“No,” she cried, “I did it because you deserve to be treated like Leandro—a true Monteiro. I stood up for you because I love you.”
“If this is love, then I don’t want your love.”