‘Thank you for trusting me, Nick,’ she said softly, her fingers stroking the taut muscles supporting the pride which would still have him stand alone if he had to. ‘Thank you for explaining the truth of how it was. It matters a lot to me.’
She knew intuitively he would retreat from her if she didn’t show her belief in him. Now was the moment to capture an intimacy they hadn’t reached before. ‘I’m sorry I listened to your mother. She conjured up things that have plagued my life and although I tried to look past them, I needed you to set them aside for me, to make me feel right with you again.’
‘Have I done that?’ he asked with urgent intensity.
‘Yes,’ she answered emphatically. ‘Yes, you have.’
A fierce triumph blazed from his eyes. ‘Good! Because you are right for me, Tess. So very right in every way there is.’
It would be easy now just to revel in the rightness he felt with her, to hold him to herself and let no one else into their private little world, but Tess knew she would never feel right with herself if she did that. Love was about giving, not taking. Nick wanted his brothers. He might well have come to her and Zack eventually, but the thought of his brothers had brought him much sooner, giving Zack his father, giving her her husband…until death.
Nick had meant the vows.
There would be no walking away.
Ever.
She totally believed that now.
She took a deep breath and lifted a hand to his face, her eyes begging a stay in judgement. ‘Do you think it’s right to shut out your brothers when they’ve done whatever your father demanded of them in order to meet you, Nick? All these months, wanting a connection with you…’
‘More likely wanting the inheritance,’ he cut in with harsh cynicism.
‘What if they’re like you and don’t care about the inheritance?’ she swiftly argued. ‘What if they’ve made their own way in life and been just as successful as you in their chosen careers, yet they’ve always felt alone and disconnected with the rest of the human race?’
He grimaced over her description, his eyes flashing a savage irony as he said, ‘They may not be like me at all, Tess. I may have absolutely nothing in common with them.’
‘But you do, Nick. You share a father who didn’t care enough to make himself known to you in life, but who challenged the caring in all three of his sons after he died. It seems to me he was saying to each one of you…how much caring do you have in your hearts?’
‘More than he ever had.’
‘But you’re letting that lack in him block your path to your brothers, Nick, and you’ll be on the losing end again if you do that. This is your chance to break free of the blight your father cast over your life. It’s the way to move past it.’
He frowned as though he wasn’t grasping the logic of her argument, or grasping its significance all too strongly.
‘You have a choice here,’ Tess plunged on. ‘You can hold out your hand to your brothers or turn your back on them. If you turn your back, Nick, if you reject the chance of meeting them and getting to know them…’ She lifted her other hand to cup his face and plead earnestly with the heart and soul behind his eyes. ‘…you will be just like your father.’
‘No!’ His head jerked out of her hold in emphatic negation. He stepped back, his hands moving to close around her upper arms, maybe wanting to shake her out of a contention which was so violently offensive to him.
‘Yes!’ she pressed, reckless in her determination to resolve this issue. ‘It’s what he did to you. What he did to them. And they’re going to Rio de Janeiro to meet you. Your blood brothers, Nick. The other two outcast illegitimate sons. They’ll be there in Javier Estes’ office at four o’clock in the afternoon of February the fourteenth…’
‘How do you know this?
‘I asked.’
‘Why?’ His fingers dug into the soft flesh below her shoulders. ‘Why would you care whether I meet them or not?’
‘Because you care…’ She took a deep breath, and riding the wave of wildly heightened emotion that swirled from him, gave up her most secret truth. ‘…and I love you.’ Her mouth twisted into a wry little smile at her own helplessly stated confession. ‘Quite simply, Nick, I want the best for you.’
‘You love me.’ He repeated the words as though he was amazed by them. The pressure of his fingers on her arms eased. His eyes searched hers with an incredulous expression that moved slowly into a wondrous joy, spilling into a smile that caused her heart to pitter-patter all around her chest. ‘You love me,’ he intoned again, obviously relishing the sound of it and the sense of it.
‘Don’t start thinking you can take advantage of that,’ she warned, reacting to a spurt of panic. ‘I’ve got a highly developed sense of what’s fair, Nick Ramirez.’
‘And fair’s fair,’ he agreed. ‘I’d like to have that absolutely established before I admit I love you, my beautiful Tess.’
It sucked the air right out of her lungs. She had to gasp for breath just to weakly repeat, ‘You love me?’
‘Hmmm…’ His eyes narrowed in consideration. ‘Maybe a mutual enslavement can work. It’s the love factor being out of balance that causes misery and mayhem.’
She slammed her hand against his chest to force his focus back onto her. ‘You actually do love me?’
‘To distraction,’ he answered in mock exasperation. ‘Terrible distraction. I suspected it would happen if I let you get really close to me and here I’ve been, fighting like crazy to get you to trust me, desperate to convince you that you’re at the centre of the world I truly care about, ready to do anything…’
‘Anything?’ she inserted giddily, her mind swimming in a cocktail of happiness.
He looked edgy. ‘Almost anything.’
She slid her hands up around his neck and stepped closer. His eyes glinted with suspicion and some swiftly developing wicked plans of his own. Tess thought how amazing it was that he could so quickly excite a build-up of sexual awareness, of desire for fast and flagrant physical intimacy.
‘So are you going to Rio for the fourteenth of February?’ she quickly slipped in.
‘If you come with me,’ he decided without any trouble at all.
‘I’ll be with you,’ she promised.
He nodded. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not sex that glues a marriage together. What really makes it stick is loving each other.’