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When she opened her eyes, he had moved closer. She bit her lower lip, seeing the distaste in his gaze. Then took a deep breath, knowing the moment had come for her to give him the truth he deserved. She only prayed she would be able to take his reaction.
‘Your parents were being honoured posthumously in the Dia da Patria festivities. You came to Rio to accept their honour. I was sent to find you—to get information from you that my father could use against you for blackmail, to make you sign over that land.’
She placed her hands on her knees, avoiding his face, but she heard his swift intake of breath.
‘We danced, flirted, then we walked along the beach and talked. You told me many things I could have used against you. About your sister, about your plans for the future. You were as shocked as I was that you’d given so much away. After our first kiss, I decided to defy my father and pretend my recording equipment had failed. I liked you. I said I was going to the bathroom and disappeared. But the next day you found me at school. I’d mentioned where I went to college and you wanted to return my coat...’
She shivered, remembering the sheepish look on his face when she’d emerged from her lecture to see him leaning against the bonnet of his sportscar, her classmates gawking at such a beautiful specimen of a man.
‘But that’s not the end of it,’ he prompted. ‘I remember...more.’
‘There was more. You stayed in town for a week and we became...intimate. You returned a few days later and we continued our affair. It carried on like that for a month—until my father found out what was going on.’
‘He threatened to hurt you...’ Duarte spoke slowly.
‘He threatened me in order to force your hand but you walked away. He was bluffing.’
‘But my passport records show I took one more trip to Brazil, two months after that.’
‘You tracked me down again, all anger and imperiousness. Still, we never could keep our hands off each other for long. I walked away from you that time. Only...we didn’t use protection.’
Nora watched the realisation enter his eyes, moving into shock and narrowing to a deathly glimmer. He swallowed a few times, his voice seeming to fail him before he spoke.
‘Are you telling me... Liam...?’ His voice was a rasped whisper.
‘I didn’t want to lie to you,’ she breathed, feeling her throat catch.
She had no idea how to make him see why she’d waited. To tell him if she could have gone back in time she’d have told him the moment he’d appeared on that street in the rain. But now it was such a mess...
The space between them seemed to shorten and the room felt too small. It felt as if minutes of silence passed as they simply looked at one another, Nora still frantically trying to voice the truth she waited to give him.
‘You are sure I am his father?’ Duarte’s question was like a gunshot in the silence.
She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall. She would not cry in front of him. She had done enough crying over Duarte Avelar and all the strange, dangerous turns her life had taken since she’d met him.
She had often wondered how an intelligent woman like her mother had ever allowed herself to be controlled by a wealthy man. Why she had feared him. But now, looking up at the cold golden glint of Duarte’s eyes on hers, knowing the sheer power he had at his fingertips, she was afraid.
She felt utterly powerless as she spoke, as if she was putting herself entirely at his mercy. She silently prayed that she wouldn’t regret it.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Liam is your son.’
CHAPTER NINE
DUARTE DIDN’T KNOW how long he remained silent, her words repeating themselves over and over in his mind as he fought to process them.
His son. He had a son.
An infant he had protected from the moment he was born...
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. When he opened them Nora was staring at him, her large eyes so innocent and filled with sadness. He felt anger burn in his gut.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’
He heard the coldness of his voice and saw the way she flinched as he took a step towards her, but he was past caring. His logical side had been overtaken by pure outrage in the wake of her deceit.
‘You don’t understand...’ She frowned, standing and taking a few steps away from him.
Duarte closed the space between them easily. ‘Explain it to me, then.’ He loomed over her, seeing her shoulders curve and her face turn a little paler. He heard his voice explode from him in a guttural growl. ‘Explain why—even after seeing I was still alive, even after I offered you my protection and proved I was not a danger to you—you still decided to keep the knowledge that Liam was my own child from me?’
