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Rafael took Maggie’s hand to draw her close. “My mother, Carlotta Mondragon, or whatever she’s calling herself now.”
Carlotta dismissed Maggie with a hasty glance and turned the full force of her charm on her son. “One name is as good as another, but my husband is Orlando Ortiz. I only wanted to see you, Rafe, to make certain you’re well. Surely I deserve a few minutes of your time.”
“When you had no time for me and MaLou? No, go home and continue pretending you have no son, or do you have others with Ortiz?”
Carlotta looked down and glanced up at him through her thick false lashes. “You do have two younger brothers. Wouldn’t you like to meet them?”
“No, why would I?”
She wrung her hands. “I sent money to your grandmother for you and your sister whenever I could.”
His voice sank to a threatening whisper. “My grandmother and sister are dead.”
Her eyes filled with huge tears. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“Too sorry to visit me while I was in prison?”
She took an unsteady step back, and the chauffeur moved forward to catch her elbow. “You expected me to share in your disgrace?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You’re the only disgrace in our family. Luckily, I thought you were dead and forgot you.”
“Well, I missed you. When I saw you in the bullring last Sunday, I couldn’t believe my eyes. You’d wanted so badly to become a matador, and you’ve succeeded.”
“So now you’re proud of me and want to be my mother? You’re too late. Go back to Ortiz’s penthouse and stay there.”
He turned his back on her, grabbed their luggage from his car’s trunk and followed Maggie up the stairs to his apartment. Once inside, he locked the door and leaned back against it. “All these years, I thought one of her men had slit her throat and tossed her body in the sea, and she’s been chauffeured around in a limousine. Ortiz is one of Spain’s wealthiest men, but clearly he has no taste in women.”
Maggie couldn’t argue with his observation. She picked up her bag and set it on the sofa but lacked the energy to unpack. “She’s younger than I thought she’d be.”
“She was only fifteen when I was born. I’d no idea I’d ‘disgraced’ her.”
Maggie sat on the sofa rather than approach him while he was so angry. She didn’t blame him when Carlotta had selfishly sacrificed the children who loved her to improve her own lot. She breathed deeply and waited for him to calm down enough to say more.
He lifted the curtain to check the front of the building. “She’s gone. Rather than break up the furniture, I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back later and take you dancing.”
“We don’t need to go out if you’d rather not.”
His voice held a convincing depth. “Believe me, I need to dance.”
When he left, she called Santos for Dr. Moreno’s telephone number and contacted his office to make an appointment. When she gave her name, his receptionist offered her sympathies, and while Dr. Moreno did not usually see patients on Saturday morning, he made an exception for her. Maggie thanked her and hoped her questions wouldn’t stun the physician as they had her father.
Unable to sit and worry, she got up to make herself useful and prepare dinner by the time Rafael returned. There wasn’t a morsel to cook in the kitchen, but there was a little market on the corner, and after making certain he owned a few pots and pans, she walked there and bought pasta, fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, zucchini and ground beef. She had to make a second trip for a few spices but soon had a thick vegetable sauce simmering and began making meatballs.
She heard Rafael close the door and stepped out of the kitchen. “I hope you like spaghetti.”
His mouth nearly fell agape. “I can pay for our dinner. You don’t have to cook.”
She understood why the ability to pay was so important to him, and wondered if women had ever done anything for him out of bed. “I love to cook, so please do me a favor and pretend to like spaghetti even if you don’t.”
He came to the kitchen door. “I love spaghetti, but you really don’t have to–”
She kissed him, taking care not to touch him with sticky hands. “Can we please let life slow down for an evening?”
“You mean sit here and pretend we’re normal people, even if we aren’t? I should apologize for that scene with my mother. I didn’t introduce you, and she would have been thrilled had she known you were Miguel’s daughter.”
“No apologies are needed. Frankly, I admired your restraint. She deserved a lot worse.”
He laughed and tried to hug her without getting bits of ground beef in his hair. “I have the awful feeling I haven’t seen the last of her. My grandmother made excuses for her, blamed her youth every time she stayed out late and left us to fend for ourselves. She’s the kind who give Gypsies a bad name.”
