I’m going to take her from you.
DIOGO STARED DOWN AT the note in his hands.
He’d shrugged off the notes at first. The first one, in his briefcase when he returned from a business trip to New York in early June. The next on his private plane in September. Now this one, tucked in the car that his wife and daughter used in Rio.
Guilherme swore he didn’t know how the notes got into the Bentley, and Diogo believed him. So how had they gotten there?
But he already knew who’d sent them, knew it down to his bones. Timothy Wright. The ruined lawyer had gone underground, hunted by the American police—and now apparently determined to take his revenge against the former boss who’d given evidence against him.
How was Wright leaving notes like this, in Diogo’s private, protected world? In spite of all his bodyguards? Was the man a ghost—a demon?
I’m going to take her from you.
Diogo crumpled the note in his hands and tossed it into a trash can on the street outside the Carlton Palace.
His men would track Wright down. But why was it taking so long? Diogo couldn’t protect his family if he couldn’t find his enemy. He’d had enough, he thought with a growl. It was time for him to call all his men—and call in some favors.
He wanted the bastard found.
Getting out of the elevator on the ninth floor, he gave his waiting bodyguards instructions. Pedro promised he’d take extra care, but Diogo was still tense as he pushed open the door into the penthouse.
Two pairs of feminine eyes looked up at him happily from the kitchen. Catia wore a fancy pink dress and a tiara. Next to her, Ellie was heavily pregnant, gorgeous and radiant wearing a simple black knit maternity top and straight-legged pants.
“Papa, you’re home just in time!” Catia chortled. “I made dinner all by myself!”
He raised an eyebrow, glancing from his pretty, glowing wife to his daughter. Ellie was due to have the babies any day, while Catia had really blossomed from the five months in her care. Her young face sparkled beneath her tiara.
“Dinner smells delicious,” he told her. “I’ve never had a princess cook my dinner before!”
“Oh, Papa. The dress isn’t for cooking your dinner,” the little girl giggled. “I’m a princess for Beatriz’s party!”
Diogo dimly recalled that a Brazilian general’s daughter was having a slumber party for several friends from their private school. Halloween was increasingly celebrated in Rio—Cariocas always on the lookout for another excuse for a party.
“Do you like my tiara?” Catia reached up on her head to touch it. “Mom and I glued on the rhinestones ourselves!”
“It was fun,” Ellie said, hugging the little girl and tousling her hair affectionately. She glanced up at Diogo with a sudden laugh. “Oh, I just spoke with my grandmother…”
“Yes?” he said innocently.
“She got the birthday present you sent, and she’s the envy of all her friends. You really don’t fool around when you give presents, do you?”
“The grandmother who raised you deserves the best.”
Ellie’s blue eyes glowed. “I can’t imagine what possessed you to send a seventy-year-old woman a yellow Ferrari, but she’s been joyriding all over Pennsylvania.”
“I saw that orange lipstick, and knew it would take a lot to impress her.”
“Gran says she’s never had so much fun in her life. She really wants us to move back.” She paused. “She sent me a link to all these great schools in New York…”
Not this old argument again. Irritated, he shook his head. “There are good schools here.”
“I know. I know. But New York…” Her voice trailed away wistfully.
“Mom!” Catia wailed. “It’s burning!”
Ellie helped her stir the sauce, then handed Diogo the spoon. He tasted it with gusto. “Estava delicioso! Meus cumprimentos ao chefe.”
“My compliments to the chef,” Ellie translated easily.
“Your Portuguese is improving!”
“Obrigada,” she said with a grin. “I’ve had a good teacher.” Ellie’s eyes met his over the stove impishly. “By the way, I let Luisa have the night off,” she said with studied innocence. “While Catia’s at her slumber party, I’m afraid we’ll be all alone…”
“We will, eh?” The sexy, mischievous look in her eyes sent a thrill through his body. Even at nearly nine months pregnant, she was the sexiest woman in the world to him. They made love every night. And with Catia at her friend’s house, the whole evening stretched before them, hours and hours to laugh and play in the most adult way possible…
I’m going to take her from you. His jaw clenched. He looked over the penthouse with critical eyes. Ellie had made many changes over the last few months. The white walls, hard furniture, and steel-and-glass artwork were all gone. The walls were now a creamy yellow. The tables were glossy wood with bowls of flowers, and the sofas were plush and comfortable. Pictures of their family, of Catia in front of the Statue of Liberty on a recent trip to New York, of the three of them laughing together at the beach house last month, now lined the walls.
It felt like his home in a way it never had before. He loved it anew. Not because of the large windows and gorgeous view, but because of Catia… and Ellie.
But the windows are too large, he thought now with a scowl. Even with the bodyguards outside and on the floor below, the building had the public access of a hotel. Security might be breached. It was too vulnerable by half. He had to find Wright. Now. “I’ll be back,” he told Ellie abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” she said, looking at him with piercing eyes.
Maldição, he had a hard time lying to her. But he wanted her greatest concern to be shopping for baby clothes and playing with Catia. Not worrying about some crazed man from their past who wished them harm.
It wasn’t that he thought Ellie was too weak to deal with it. On the contrary. He’d realized her strength when he saw her coming down those stairs in Leblon holding Catia’s hand. She’d achieved the impossible that day—done something that Diogo could not do no matter how hard he’d tried.
She’d brought their family together.
In many ways, he thought, his wife was far more powerful than he was. Bearing children, giving constant unconditional love, being the emotional heart of a home—they all demanded strength and courage that most men, including Diogo, couldn’t possibly comprehend.
But protecting them was Diogo’s job.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said evenly. “Everything is fine.”
Turning away before she could ask more questions, he went to his study and got on the phone. He called in some favors from friends in various government agencies, including Interpol. But hanging up the phone, he still felt unsettled.
His men would find him, Diogo told himself, but he was distracted all throughout dinner. After the delicious meal, he hugged Catia farewell and Pedro, his most trusted bodyguard, carried her little suitcase and accompanied her to the waiting car downstairs. The general’s compound was notoriously tight with security; Diogo knew that Catia would be safe there.
“I can tell something’s bothering you.” He felt Ellie’s arms wrap around his waist. “You might as well just tell me. Don’t make me lure it out of you,” she said teasingly.
He turned to face her and growled, “My only problem is that it’s been too long since we’ve been alone together.”
Pulling her into the bedroom, he made love to her with almost frantic intensity, ripping off her clothes, pulling her over him, thrusting inside her deeply as she rode him until they both were sweaty and gasping. Then he held her all night. She slept cradled in his arms. But for him, sleep was impossible. He stared up at the ceiling, then rose from bed before first light.
“Where are you going?”
He’d thought she was still asleep. He looked at her on the bed. She was leaning back against the pillows, naked from the waist up, looking so impossibly lush and beautiful that it made his heart hurt.
He clenched his jaw. “I need to get to work. The Vahlo acquisition…”
“Forget work,” she grumbled good-naturedly. “Stay home with me and play.”
“The sure way to the poorhouse.”
“I think we could manage with a few million less.”
“It’s Wright,” he heard himself blurt out. “He’s threatening to take you from me.”
To his surprise, Ellie just laughed aloud. “Timothy? Of course he wants me. At nine months pregnant, I’m so very beautiful, so irresistible to men,” she teased.
“You are, “ he insisted. He leaned over her on the bed, kissing her lips softly. “He’s sent me anonymous notes.”
“If they’re anonymous, how do you—”
“I know,” he said grimly. “And I should have killed him when I had the chance. Until he’s caught, you must never leave the penthouse without Pedro. Do you understand me?”
She shook her head, then reached out to playfully muss his hair. “Why don’t you just admit it?”
“Admit what?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “You love me.”
He stared at her. Sweat rose to his forehead. “What?”
She sat up straight on the bed. “You love me, Diogo. Just as I love you. I’ve been in love with you for ages. I think since the first time you called me into your office, demanding for me to take a memo on the Trock deal.”
His jaw clenched and he stood back from her. The intimate mood was suddenly gone.
Love her?
Love was for women who didn’t know better.
Love was for men who were too weak to control themselves.
Love made a man stupid. Made him vulnerable. Left him helpless.
And he couldn’t be helpless. Not with so much at stake.
“You love me,” Ellie whispered. Her clear blue eyes met his. “Please. I need to hear it. All these months, I’ve been waiting and praying to hear it. I thought that if I showed my love for you in a thousand small ways, giving you a loving home, you would know—”
“Ellie, I can’t deal with this now.” His whole body felt tense as he turned away. “I need to take a shower.”
“Diogo?”
He turned on her fiercely. “I don’t love you, all right?”
She went pale. She licked her lips, tried to speak, couldn’t.
“I don’t,” he insisted. “And if you love me, I’m very sorry. I never wanted your love. We have a partnership, querida. A friendship. An intense connection in bed. A wonderful family. That’s all. But for God’s sake, that should be enough!”
“I don’t believe that,” she responded passionately. “The way you kiss me. The way you want to protect me…”
He abruptly left the bedroom, heading toward the bathroom. “I need to get ready.”
He took a thirty-second shower and quickly got dressed. When he came back, he saw her sitting on the sofa in the front room, wrapped in his robe. Dawn was flooding the room with soft pink light. She was hugging herself, staring down at the floor.
Something lurched deep inside his heart.
“Ellie…” He took a deep breath. “We can talk more later.”
“Right,” she said dully. “Later.”
Ellie didn’t look up as he left. He would deal with her later. Right now, he had more pressing concerns. He went to his modern office building on the Avenida Rio Branco. He met with Andrew MacCandless, his company’s chief of international security, then got reports on Wright’s most recent sighting yesterday—traveling to São Paulo from New York on a borrowed plane. He’d apparently promised a wealthy childless couple on Park Avenue that they would soon receive newborn twins for the price of four million dollars.
Newborn twins.
I will find him, Diogo told himself with a haggard breath. He told his chief of security to bring in a private army if that was what it took. The man was threatening his family. He had to be brought down.
Just as the man grimly left to execute his orders, his secretary spoke in Portuguese over the intercom.
“Your wife is here, sir.”
“Here?”
“I just got the call from downstairs reception. Shall I have them send her up?”
He paused. He didn’t want to see Ellie now. There was no point in talking. She loved him, and he didn’t love her.
Seeing her pain killed him. Distracted him.
Still…
Ellie had never come to his work before. He couldn’t turn her away. “Send her up.”
As he paced his office waiting for her to arrive, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. His beautiful, warm wife, the mother of his children. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone threatening to take her from him.
Diogo had known what Wright was capable of. Why had he let the man go?
If anything happened to Ellie, it would be Diogo’s fault.
He clenched his hands. He couldn’t let anything happen. He wouldn’t. He would die first.
The stealthy thought brought him up short.
It was true she had changed his life completely. His existence had once been cold. Going from one woman to the next, filling his life with business deals and empty pleasures, he hadn’t realized at the time how miserable he’d been—or how alone.
But Ellie had changed everything. She’d turned his cold house into a home. Taught his daughter to love and trust again. Made his whole life bright with color and rich and warm. Somehow he’d come to value her opinion and her strength more than anything…
Was that love?
He couldn’t go to sleep at night without making love to her. He couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without kissing her and seeing her bright face. He couldn’t imagine coming home if not to her….
Maldição. He was in love with his wife.
How was it possible that he hadn’t known?
How was it possible it had taken him so long to realize that he’d gotten everything all wrong? Love wasn’t to be feared. It didn’t leave a man vulnerable. To the contrary. Knowing that he loved her, and she loved him back, made him more fearless and determined than he’d ever been in his life….
He heard a knock at the door. His wife entered, her face wan and pale.
“Ellie.” He went to her immediately, reaching for her, desperate to hold her in his arms. “Meu amor. I’m so glad you’re here. I have to tell you—this morning, when I—”
She backed away. “Don’t touch me.”
He froze in place, unable to look away from her face. Her expression was so distant and strange. Not like Ellie at all.
“I’ve come to say goodbye,” she said. “I’m leaving.”
“What?” he whispered.
Her china-blue eyes crackled like frozen ice beneath the sea. “You’ve made it clear you’ll never love me. So I’m going home. Back to New York.”
“No.” Grabbing her fiercely, he looked down at her. She wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t. Not now—not when he finally had realized he loved her!
“Ellie, you have to listen,” he said hoarsely. “I should never have said those things to you this morning—”
“I’m glad you did,” she said, cutting him off. “It was time I faced the truth.”
“You are my wife. Pregnant with my children.” He swallowed. “I do not want you to leave. Ever.”
She looked away miserably. “I have no choice.”
“But, Ellie, I…” He took a deep breath. I love you. He licked his dry lips, and tried again. “I…” But unlike when he proposed, these strange words stuck in his throat. “You do have a choice,” he whispered. “I’m not ordering you to stay. I’m asking you,” he said in a low voice. “Please. Stay. For me.”
She shook her head, and he saw tears in her eyes. “I can’t.” She wrenched away. “I want a divorce.”
“A divorce?”
His hands clenched on empty air. He could barely breathe over the enormous lump in his throat. “But—why?”
“I’m in love with someone else.”
He sucked in his breath. “Who?” he demanded fiercely.
He gaped at her, not understanding.
“You never treated me like I wanted,” she said. “You never bought me flowers or read me poetry. You don’t know anything about love. Timothy does. He’s the man I want.”
Every word she spoke was like a stab in his body. He felt every slice of the knife keenly. Down to the bone.
Then anger rushed through him. “Timothy Wright is a monster. You could not possibly love him.”
“But I do.” She blinked rapidly. “We can share custody,” she offered. “The babies will have your last name. But I will have my divorce.”
“No.” He grabbed her angrily, his hand gripping her arm hard enough to bruise. “No, Ellie, damn it, no! I won’t let you go!”
“You’re hurting me!”
Hurting her? It was nothing compared to what she’d done to him. But when she winced beneath his grip, he let her go.
“Timothy Wright will never come near my children,” he bit out. “He’s made a fortune over the last two years ruining innocent lives. I will not allow mine anywhere near him.”
Her eyes widened. “I will protect them—”
“You? You can’t protect anyone. You’re every bit as weak as I first thought. No loyalty to your children, or to…” Orto me. A new thought rushed through him, almost too painful to bear. “What do I tell Catia?” he said, barely able to speak over the jagged pain in his throat. “What am I to tell her—that another mother has left her?”
“Tell her…” Ellie closed her eyes in pain. “Just tell her I love her. And that all I wanted to do was to keep her safe.”
“No.” He couldn’t believe this was really happening. Anguish ricocheted through him, cutting more savagely than he’d ever been hurt before. “You’re my wife, Ellie. We need you.” He took a deep breath. “I need you.”
“Diogo—”
Sweeping her up in his arms, he showed her his heart with a powerful kiss. It was a deep kiss, fierce and true, and tangy with the salt of her tears. Her large belly was between them, creating a perfect circle of family.
When he pulled away, he searched her face, desperate for a sign of everything he’d come to love and trust.
But her eyes remained closed, as if she were trying to savor this kiss forever.
“And me?” he whispered. “What do you have to say to me?”
She finally opened her eyes, shining with tears. “All I have to say to you is—goodbye.”
With an audible growl, he opened his mouth to tell her that he had no intention of letting her go. She was his wife. The mother of his children. He would force her to stay. She belonged to him.
Then he realized: Ellie didn’t belong to him.
They belonged together.
If she wanted to be free, he couldn’t force her to stay. He couldn’t chain her to the bed. He couldn’t ignore her feelings for the sake of his own. Not anymore.
He loved her.
Diogo took a deep breath, struggling to get his old power back. To pick her up and toss her into the Bentley. To drive her home and kiss her senseless. To lock her up and force her to stay until she saw sense.
But he couldn’t.
A hard Brazilian curse fell silently from his lips. Love had made him weak, just as he’d always feared.
Without Ellie, they would not be a family. Without her, he lost everything he’d come to love.
But because he loved her, he had no choice but to let her go.
His hands clenched. “Until the babies are born, Pedro will constantly be at your side,” he said coldly. “After that, you can do whatever the hell you want. I’ll give you your divorce.”
She shook her head. “Pedro is already waiting for me.”
“Good,” he choked out. He turned away as tears pricked the back of his eyes. “Sai fora, Ellie. I’m sick of the sight of you. Don’t leave Rio. My lawyer will be in touch.”
Her whole body went tense at the word lawyer. She turned to go, then stopped at the door. Without meeting his eyes, she spoke her final words.
“Goodbye, Diogo,” she whispered. “I will always love you.”
He sat heavily down at the desk after the door closed. He sank his head in his hands. He’d been stupid to give his heart. It had all been a trap. All the warmth and comfort and trust and love had been nothing but an illusion to make him weak. To make him believe…
He’d trusted her. Loved her. And he’d been so sure she loved him in return.
I love you. He still remembered the way Ellie’s face had glowed that morning when she spoke the words, as if alight with the brilliant fire of the Brazilian sun. I thought that if I showed my love for you in a thousand small ways, giving you a loving home, you would know.
He pressed his knuckles hard against his closed eyes. He’d been a fool. She’d never loved him, really. It had just been…
It just…
It just… didn’t make sense.
He slowly opened his eyes.
Just tell her I love her, Ellie had whispered. And that all I wanted to do was to keep her safe.
Catia.
He snatched up his phone from his desk. Pacing back and forth across his office, he called first Ellie’s cell phone, then Pedro’s. No answer. He called security downstairs and was informed that Mrs. Serrador and the bodyguard were long gone.
Diogo’s hands shook as he called his men at the hotel. None of them answered, even though he let it ring. Finally, he called his chief of security and got an answer.
“I just reached the Carlton Palace, Mr. Serrador,” the Australian said grimly. “It looks like someone knocked out all the bodyguards by putting something in the coffee. No one died, but I just found Guilherme stuffed into a utility closet on the back staircase. He’s barely breathing—looks like he was chloroformed from behind. Ambulance is on the way.”
“And Catia?” Diogo demanded, barely able to breathe.
“Haven’t seen her, Mr. Serrador,” MacCandless replied. “We’re searching the building. But Pedro Carneiro was with her when she left the general’s compound this morning.”
Diogo took a hoarse breath, closing his eyes. Pedro.
The trusted bodyguard who protected his wife and child. The brother of his old rival in the favela—the man who’d never forgiven him for leaving to succeed in a better world.
Diogo knew how he’d been betrayed. How the threatening notes had gotten into his home, his office, his car.
Pedro.
A roar rose from deep in his throat as he told his security chief, “Pedro Carneiro has betrayed us. He’s working for Wright. Find him and we’ll find Catia—and Ellie.”
But even as his body broke out into a cold sweat, he gloried in one small realization. Ellie still loved him. She’d been trying to protect them—trying to protect them all.
Diogo rose to his feet.
Protecting his family was his job.
Love hadn’t made Diogo vulnerable. It gave him the power and strength of steel. He would die to protect his family.
And the baby-selling lawyer would not live to see another dawn.