THEY were sitting outside on the terrace of a fashionable bar in one of the chic neighborhoods backing onto the beach. Some of the wealthier locals frequented it. On the small stage inside was a sultry female singer, backed by a colourful and enthusiastic samba band. Eduardo had told Marianne before they went in that the bar had been a regular haunt of his—a place where he would more than likely en counter friends and neighbours he’d known for years—and had asked if she minded that people might stop to say hello?
Seeing the mixture of concern and doubt in his eyes, Marianne had hastened to reassure him, sliding her hand into his and drawing nearer. Intimacy and love had made her bolder. Inside, a strong desire was growing to let Eduardo see that she would be a support to him for as long as he needed her. She hoped that that might just be for ever, but just knowing that he was at last open to being with people again—would not be shutting himself away through guilt and pain as he had done in England—filled her heart with hope and gratitude for the change.
And, indeed, a steady stream of well-dressed people did stop by their table as they sat companionably listening to the music and sipping their cock tails. Each and every one of them greeted Eduardo as if he had returned from the dead—such was their pleasure and joy at seeing him. They were also extremely respectful towards Marianne—not one of them remotely regarding her as though she were a usurper.
When they finally had a moment to them selves, Marianne leaned across the octagonal wooden table, the gentle sound of samba music still playing in the back ground, and commented, ‘All your friends are so glamorous! I feel like I’ve wandered onto the set of High Society—distinctly under dressed in comparison!’ Glancing uncertainly down at the pale lime linen trousers she’d donned, along with a plain white gypsy-style blouse, she knew that although they were clean and freshly ironed they had definitely seen better days.
‘Brazilians love to dress well—they believe you are what you appear to be, and that the world treats you better if you take pride in yourself.’ Her handsome companion cupped her face, casting his tender gaze over every feature, not hiding his admiration. ‘You have nothing to worry about, my angel… You are easily the most beautiful woman in the room…with or without clothes!’
‘Eduardo…please!’ She blushed hard, in case anyone had over heard, and didn’t see the tall, statuesque blonde wearing a figure-hugging black skirt and blue satin lownecked blouse heading towards their table until she stood right in front of them.
‘Com licença…Senhor De Souza…you probably don’t remember me, but I’m a journalist working for a Rio news pa per on the arts page and I was a friend of your wife’s. My name is Melissa Jordan…originally from New York. We met once at a party in Copacabana.’
Eduardo politely rose to his feet to shake her hand. For an instant Marianne thought she saw a flash of hot colour sweep his jaw—as though he were embarrassed. Whether because he had no memory of the woman or because she’d been a friend of his wife’s she had no clue.
In the next second, Miss Jordan herself cleared up the confusion.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Her tone was shrilly accusing, even unbalanced as she studied Eduardo.
Marianne felt a small shiver of distinct unease roll down her spine.
‘Why should you?’ the woman continued, swaying a little where she stood.
Had she had too much to drink? Worriedly, Marianne realised that she had. ‘We hardly move in the same élite circles, do we? Thank God your wife wasn’t a snob, like you! No wonder she’d had enough of being married to you… I heard she was pretty sick of your philandering too! Who’s this?’ The brittle ice-blue gaze of the blonde swung down to Marianne, who was still seated. ‘Your latest little bedmate? How fortunate for you that your wife died when she did…it saved you having to pay a ton of alimony to keep her quiet about your antics, didn’t it? We wouldn’t want the newspapers printing a story about their best-loved photographer having a less than perfect marriage, now, would we?’
‘I think you have said quite enough for one day, Miss Jordan, and now you had better leave. All you are doing is causing embarrassment to yourself, as well as spoiling other people’s enjoyment of their evening.’ Speaking quietly but firmly, Eduardo put his hand beneath the woman’s elbow, as if to steer her in another direction, but she instantly shook it off and scowled at him.
‘Leave me alone! I know your type…spoilt rich play boy who thinks he can treat women however the hell he likes! I can find my own way out, thank you very much!’
The blonde swayed and stumbled, and would have gone crashing to the ground if Eduardo hadn’t steadied her just in time. By now some of the patrons at the other tables on the glamorous terrace, with the awesome sight of Sugar Loaf Mountain looming in the distance, had turned to see what all the commotion was about. Meantime, Marianne’s body had gone from burning hot to icy cold at the vitriolic content of Melissa Jordan’s horrible little speech.
Catching the barely discernible nod of Eduardo’s head as he turned his gaze towards the part of the restaurant that was under cover, she wasn’t surprised to see the smartly suited manager appear. With a murmured apology to Eduardo and Marianne he escorted the intoxicated journalist from the building.
As he returned to his seat, Marianne saw that the incident had definitely disturbed Eduardo, but he hid his discomfort well. It was only because she was coming to know his every little frown, nuance and guarded look so well that she knew he was shaken at all.
Leaning back in his chair, he took a moment to straighten the cuffs on his jacket and run his fingers round the rim of his shirt collar. His smile at her was brief as well as con trolled, she saw.
‘I truly regret that happened just then,’ he remarked, his voice deliberately lowered. ‘I hope it won’t spoil our own evening.’
‘Did you know her?’ Marianne asked, secretly appalled at the doubt she heard in her own voice. But how could she help having doubts when the things the woman had said had struck right at the heart of her deepest insecurities, causing all kinds of havoc inside her?
‘At first I thought not.’ Sighing, Eduardo leant his arms on the table, casually linking his hands. ‘But when she mentioned the party in Copacabana I realised that I had met her before, and on that occasion too she made a complete nuisance of herself.’
‘So she was a friend of your wife’s?’
‘An acquaintance, that is all. Eliana did not particularly like her, as I recall. But occasionally at those parties and fundraising events we attended there were people on the periphery who saw them as an opportunity to somehow advance them selves. People like Melissa Jordan. She asked me to help her get a promotion by putting in a good word about her to the editor of the paper on which she worked—a man who is a personal friend of mine. I will help anyone who is genuinely in need, but her request was so blatant…demanding, even…that I am afraid I had to put her in her place and decline. She clearly still bears a grudge against me for that.’
‘And the things she said alluding to—to you seeing other women when you were married?’
Marianne was suddenly feeling so distressed that her throat was threatening to close. Eduardo’s calmly voiced explanation sounded both plausible and rational, but how did she know for sure he was telling her the truth? She loved him to distraction, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that love couldn’t make you blind to a lover’s faults.
‘You seriously think I would behave in such an abominable way?’
‘I—I don’t know…I mean, I…’ Miserably Marianne hung her head, her heart pounding so hard that her chest hurt.
‘Come!’ Pushing to his feet Eduardo glared at her, then beckoned a nearby waiter, at the same time throwing some notes onto the table to cover their bill. ‘We will go home. The evening has been ruined after all, and I really have no desire to stay here any longer.’
Standing on the balcony, listening to the Atlantic waves surge onto the distant shore line then away again, Eduardo left the drink in his glass un touched as he stared out at the horizon. The sun had long gone down, and over and over again as he stood there in the moon light he re counted that distasteful scene in the bar. Had Eliana really confided in the pushy journalist that night at the party, telling her that her marriage was in trouble? All it would have taken was an off-the-cuff un guarded comment and someone like Melissa Jordan, with her eye on the main chance and a talent for utilising her spite and making mischief, could have easily assumed that ‘in trouble’ meant Eduardo was seeing other women.
But even during their most trying times together he never would have cheated on his wife. Not even when Eliana had turned on him, threatening to have an affair because he had grown so cold towards her. Eduardo hadn’t meant to be cold. He had just realised that his feelings were not the same any more…that they wanted different things, were pulling in different directions. How could they reconcile that? No, he concluded, Melissa Jordan had probably just made up that sordid little story about him ‘philandering’ because she was miffed at him for not succumbing to her pressure to help with promotion at work.
Bringing his mind firmly back to the present—far more crucial right then than what had happened in the past—Eduardo knew he was anxious to heal the disturbing rift that had so suddenly and shockingly opened between him and Marianne. He should have healed it straight away, on their return from the restaurant, but he had been so disappointed and angry that she would believe for even a moment that he was any of those des pi cable things the journalist had suggested he was that he hadn’t trusted himself to be rational. So when she had declared she was tired and was going to bed he hadn’t stopped her—even when he had seen by her pale, sorrowful face that she was distraught.
He swore…calling himself a not very complimentary name. Surveying his drink, he raised the glass to his lips, tipped back his head, and winced as the aged malt whisky hit the back of his throat and then swirled hotly into his stomach. She was too good for him, he thought miserably, resting the empty glass on the wrought-iron table behind him. He could not exactly blame her for believing the worst about him when from the start he had put up almost in surmountable barriers. It would serve him right if she walked out and never came back.
A spasm of profound anguish criss-crossed his chest and another violent expletive left his lips.
‘It’s such a beautiful night.’
Glancing up in shock, he saw Marianne standing in the patio doorway. She was wearing a knee-length white broderie-anglaise nightdress with delicate puffed sleeves. Her lovely hair was loose down her back and her feet were bare. Everything inside Eduardo tightened with almost unbearable longing at the sight of her.
‘I didn’t mean to disbelieve you back at the restaurant… You should know by now how much I care about you, or I wouldn’t even be here.’ Stepping out onto the balcony, she hugged her slender arms over her chest. ‘But I do want to know about your marriage, Eduardo. How can I stay if there are secrets between us?’
‘You are perfectly right.’ His mouth com pressed a little. ‘There should be no secrets between us. The truth is that before she died Eliana and I had talked about divorce.’
Smoothing his hand over his mildly aching hip, but disregarding his walking cane, Eduardo moved a little closer to Marianne. The scent of Tipuana trees and the baked heat of the day floated on the air between them, even as the gentlest breeze lifted some strands of her hair.
‘We had been married for ten years, and inevitably during that time we both changed quite a lot. My father had a coffee plantation, which I inherited when I was twenty-six and sold when I was twenty-seven. That was when Eliana and I got married. Managing the plantation didn’t interest me, but photography did—so I pursued it as my career and was fortunate enough to make a name for myself. I had inherited a great deal of money from my father’s estate, besides the money from selling the plantation, and I was making a very good living from my photography.
‘Eliana had become a famous soap star, and she loved the good life…parties, fast cars, holidays abroad, haute couture clothes… To cut a long story short, she was becoming increasingly materialistic and ego-driven. Whilst I…’ he paused to give Marianne a self-deprecating shrug ‘…I was becoming more aware of my responsibility as custodian of the great wealth I had at my disposal, and more interested in discovering how best I could help those less fortunate than myself.
‘Eliana grew unhappy at the amount of time I spent in that pursuit rather than attending tedious celebrity parties, or going on holiday after holiday, or accompanying her to the fashion hotspots of the world to see the catwalk shows that she loved… The tension and the rows between us worsened daily, until finally I could take no more. I asked her for a divorce and she agreed.’
Reaching the next part of his story—the part he had the heaviest regret about—Eduardo paused to rub his chest, feeling it tighten un com fort ably. He saw Marianne’s gaze narrow with concern.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I am fine. I will finish telling you everything. I was at home one night at our estate in the country when she came back from a ball she’d attended—hosted by some aristo she’d met at a fashion show—and that night she was like the Eliana I’d known years back, when we first met. She was happy and—and suddenly affection ate towards me, and told me she wanted to talk about a reconciliation.’
Feeling himself colour, Eduardo nevertheless did not flinch from continuing.
‘The inevitable happened. We spent the night together. But the following day when I was back at work I realised that I had not really wanted it to happen at all…that it had been a moment of weakness I was not proud of. I still wanted a divorce. I rang Eliana and told her the decision I had made. To my surprise she accepted it, telling me that she too thought it had been a mistake. The estate was vast enough for us to share residency without constantly bumping into each other, and so we agreed that was what we would do until the divorce came through.
‘Just over a month and a half after that I remembered her birthday was coming up—our relationship had become much more amicable since we’d agreed to divorce—and I asked her what she would like as a gift. She reminded me there was a sports car she had been badgering me to buy her for a while. Some mutual friends were throwing her a birthday party and asked if I would come too…for old times sake. I agreed, and unfortunately that same night—that was when the accident occurred.
‘There is something else I have to tell you…’ He paused. ‘When an autopsy was done on Eliana it was discovered that she was pregnant. Was the baby mine, or that aristo’s? She’d once intimated she had been having an affair with him but I will never know.’ Swallowing down his sadness, then sensing some of the tension in him disperse now that his story was almost over, Eduardo risked a smile. ‘You know the rest…and now I have told you everything. Every word I have said is the truth…as God is my witness.’
‘Eduardo?’
‘Yes?’
‘I have to ask you this. If your wife had lived and given birth to her baby…would you have stayed married to her?’
It was a question Eduardo had reflected on many, many times since the accident. And he would give an honest answer to this woman he now knew without a shadow of a doubt was the woman he loved with all his heart and could not bear to be without.
‘No, Marianne…I would not. If the baby had been mine, he or she would have brought me nothing but joy, I am certain, but if it had been another man’s he might have wanted to take responsibility, and Eliana might have wanted that. I always yearned to be a father, and I adore children. To have had my own son or daughter would have been—’ he swallowed hard ‘—would have made everything else in my life pale into insignificance. But my marriage to the child’s mother would definitely not have survived. We would have divorced, as we had planned, and come to some amicable arrangement about custody if the child had been mine. I am both positive and realistic about that.’
Marianne breathed out…slowly. Not a single doubt remained in her entire being that Eduardo had told her the truth. There was simply too much good in him for deceit. She only had to remember how he had reached out to her—some unknown girl singing on the street—and offered her a job and a home, even when he might have preferred to lose himself in pain and grief instead and ignore the rest of the human race.
‘Thank you,’ she told him quietly, her tongue briefly moistening her lips. She furnished him with a smile. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth.’
‘There is something I need to ask you now,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ At the grave expression on his face, Marianne’s heart thumped.
‘Did you love your husband very much?’
The question took her aback, but she wanted to give him an honest answer.
‘He was a kind, good man—like you, Eduardo… And he was there for me at a time when I was des per ate for a friend. So, yes…I did love him—but only as a friend…not as a woman truly loves a man. Not as I have come to love you.’
Now the man in front of her wore a look that was part joy, part disbelief, Seeing clearly that he didn’t reject her, she felt hope and hap pi ness surge into her heart.
‘Say that again.’
And suddenly he was standing right in front of her, his light blue eyes transfixing her with their burning magnetism, his hands resting possessively at the sides of her waist, his breath skimming her face and making her skin tingle deliciously.
‘I love you.’
‘I can hardly believe it. But, seeing as you have just said the words to me, with a look in your eyes that tells me it must be true, I have no choice but to believe you! But how—how can you love me, Marianne? I am hardly a young woman’s dream, with my bad temper and the way I can some times shut down and retreat into myself. I will probably drive you crazy when we are married, but I—’
Marianne’s hands tightened against the biceps that flexed instantaneously and strongly at her touch. ‘Married?’
‘That is what I said. Will you marry me, Marianne? I certainly do not want you as my companion or my house keeper for good! No…’ His voice was filled with teasing warmth. ‘Even though you could fill both those roles with ease I want you as my wife—my wife and the mother of my children.’
‘I want that too, Eduardo, and it thrills me to hear you say it—but I can’t help but think you’re getting a poor bargain.’
‘How so?’ He frowned in concern.
‘Well…I have no job, no money, hardly any pos sessions. I come from a dysfunctional family, and I’m not remotely interested in fashion, fast cars, or—’
‘Or?’ A dark blond eyebrow was raised in gently mocking amusement.
‘Or football!’ Marianne concluded, her teeth nibbling anxiously at her lip.
‘Why football?’
‘Need you ask? We’re in Brazil, Eduardo! It’s the nation’s favourite game, isn’t it? Even I know that!’
‘Listen…if you ever say even I in that self-deprecating tone again—as if you’re not an extremely bright, intelligent and perceptive woman—then I’ll just have to spank you to knock some sense into you!’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Want to try me?’
‘Seriously, though… Maybe I used to talk about myself in a self-deprecating way…my mother leaving when I was fourteen, and my father being the way he was and eventually leaving too definitely had a bearing on my self-esteem… But back then I didn’t really know who I was or what I was capable of. I didn’t even know what I wanted in life. No…that’s not totally true.’
Meeting his gaze with an unwavering stare, Marianne grimaced.
‘All I’ve ever really wanted is to be loved, Eduardo. Yes…to be loved and not left alone by the people I give my heart to. But now I know that I have to think well of myself too—not keep blaming myself when things don’t work out. I want you to know that I’m not looking for anyone to “complete” me any more. What I want is someone who’ll be a true partner in life…someone who is there for me in good times and bad—as I will be there for him.’ She grinned. ‘Perhaps you’re not getting such a bad bargain after all, now that I come to think of it!’
As he cupped his hands on either side of her face Eduardo’s heart was in his eyes, and his glance lovingly swept over Marianne’s animated features.
‘All I know is that I am a lucky, lucky man to have found you, my angel. Trust me when I tell you I will do everything in my power to ensure you will not be left alone or unloved ever again, so long as I am with you.’
‘I tell you what…’ Drawing nearer, Marianne fingered the buttons on his shirt front. ‘If you ever hear me put myself down in the future…you could always try kissing me instead of spanking me.’
‘You can be sure I will give your suggestion full and proper consideration, Miss Lockwood.’
Chuckling softly, then bending his head—his heart racing with joy—Eduardo kissed his lovely wife-to-be until even the stunning white sweep of Ipanema Beach and the powerful Atlantic Ocean ceased to exist…such was their complete fascination, devotion and love for each other…