Читать книгу The Dreaming Of... Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 54
ОглавлениеEllie wished it were true the ground split and swallowed people up. She could have used a vanishing act right now.
First, Rafael’s partner ignored her—after a split-second glance that had made her feel that if he ever got her alone, no one would ever find her again.
Then, just as she was trying to pretend to Rafael that his partner’s barely leashed aggression hadn’t knocked the breath out of her, her father pounced on her out of nowhere.
He was now squeezing her breath out. And swamping her in “baby girls,” something they’d agreed he’d never call her in public.
She’d taken the job with his agency over other positions only when he’d promised he’d never give her preferential treatment. But lately she’d been feeling she’d soon be forced to leave, even if she loved her job and was perfect for it. The moment they discovered her boss was her father, no one took her seriously. It was why she hadn’t told Rafael. She’d feared he’d reach the same conclusion everyone invariably did. She’d thought this particular bit of info could wait until he got to know her better.
Too late now. She’d been outed in the most embarrassing way. That taught her to get major stuff out of the way first. Not that she considered that major. Nothing about her was. It was Rafael who had the market cornered on humongous stuff.
Needing to see his reaction, she struggled to turn her head, but she was inescapably mashed into her father’s shoulder. All she could see in her compromised position was Richard Graves. He was striding out of the ballroom, without having that “word” he’d almost dragged Rafael away to have.
At least that reduced the awkwardness. He was one scary dude. She wouldn’t wish to meet him in a dark alley, with fewer than the three hundred people around. And Rafael at her side.
Then another thought hit her, pushing her dismay to the maximum.
What could Rafael possibly be thinking about what was happening right now?
“Daddy, oxygen alert.”
Her father lurched away at her choking protest, still holding her by the shoulders, his feverish eyes roving over her.
“Where have you been? I drove back to your apartment when I kept getting your voice mail, hoping you’d just fallen asleep. I went out of my mind with worry, banging on the door, knowing how lightly you sleep, thinking you’d fallen and injured yourself...until I remembered you gave me a key. I rushed in to find the place empty and your phone dead and hurried back here hoping you arrived but...”
“I’m so sorry you got so worried.” She raised her voice over the cacophony of the ball and his frantic reproach, feeling terrible. He’d done over four hours worth of driving. The whole time she’d been with Rafael. “I just got...uh...lost...”
Which was sort of true. She had for a while on the way, initially. Then she had, totally, in Rafael’s arms.
Before her father launched into another tirade, she turned him toward Rafael, who was looking at him as if he was some revolting life-form. Probably because he didn’t realize who he was. Or found his over-the-top agitation off-putting. Or both.
Wincing at the whole mess, she touched Rafael’s arm, feeling a pang at how absolutely vital he’d become to her, how even this simple touch, in this situation, sent her heart scattering its beats at his feet.
“Rafael, this is my father, Teobaldo Ferreira.”
Rafael’s gaze panned to her and her heart clapped so hard her breath snagged in her throat. There was something in his eyes, something...weird. As if he’d forgotten who she was. Which she had to be imagining. This must be how he looked as his formidable mind processed new situations and variables.
Seeming to gather his wits at last, and even clearly unsure who Rafael was, or unable to believe he was the same man he was desperate to do business with, her father extended his hand to him.
Rafael stared down at her father’s hand.
She winced. She knew he hadn’t wanted to make any contact with his candidates tonight, and her father was one. But right now, this wasn’t about business, but about a simple salute between her overprotective father, and Rafael—the man who’d just demolished the foundations of her existence.
She rose on tiptoe so her words were for his ears only. “Just say hi and leave. I’ll catch up with you.”
She tried to capture his gaze, to exchange the delight of anticipation of the night to come. Her heart fluttered at the heavy-lidded look in his eyes then stumbled in confusion, as without a word or another look, ignoring her father’s hand as his partner had ignored hers, he turned and walked away.
“What was this all about? Who’s that man?”
Tearing her stunned gaze away from Rafael’s receding back, she looked dazedly at her father, her mind racing.
She didn’t want to validate his suspicion about Rafael’s identity. If her father realized she was suddenly on such personal terms with the man whose favor he was so fervently hoping to court, he’d subject her to endless interrogation, or ask to be introduced properly—or both. This didn’t only mean lost time, but more important a premature crop of those complications she’d predicted. And she didn’t want the real world to intervene now, didn’t want them to stop being the man and woman who’d found this pure passion for each other, and become the tycoon and the daughter of a hopeful business partner.
But...how could Rafael just leave like that? If he chose not to shake her father’s hand because he didn’t want any contact with business people tonight, she could understand. It was a bit excessive, stung a little, but she would never bring any issues with her father between them. But the way he’d looked at her, then walked away, even after she’d explained her father’s identity...
Stop. Her mind must be playing tricks on her after all the upheavals of the past hours. She must be beyond exhausted now, operating on pure adrenaline...and other hormones. And those weren’t conducive to rational observations.
Someone must have caught his eye, someone important he couldn’t postpone greeting. Then he’d be back.
“What’s going on with you tonight? Talk to me, querida.”
Blinking, she realized she’d been staring at her father vacantly as her mind churned.
Forcing herself out of her fugue, she gave him a hug, his beloved presence grounding her as it always did. “I’m really so sorry I caused you such worry.” Heat rushed to her face with memories of why she had. “I came as soon as I could to reassure you I’m fine. But I have to go now.”
“You called that man Rafael. Is he who I think he is?”
Her hungry gaze sought out Rafael, found him standing at the entrance of the ballroom. So he wasn’t coming back. He was waiting for her to join him. To begin their first night together.
She turned to her father, urgency coursing in her blood. “Please, Daddy—don’t ask me anything now, okay?” She kissed his lean cheek. “I’ll tell you everything later.”
Looking almost pained with curiosity and anxiety, he stared down at her. “As long as you are fine?”
At his worried question, she nodded as her gaze dragged back to Rafael—and her breath caught.
A woman was approaching Rafael—statuesque, flaming red tresses cascading down to her buttocks, dangerous curves in a strapless black dress. She looked as if she was in a trance. Ellie knew that she must have looked exactly the same as she’d gravitated toward him hours earlier.
Making a conscious effort to breathe again, Ellie absently answered her father’s further demands for assurance, no longer anxious to leave him. She’d better stay put until Rafael sent his admirer on her way.
The woman reached him. Rafael brooded down at her as she talked then he raised his eyes and looked straight at her.
After her heart zoomed at the touch of his gaze, it slowed down to a wary rhythm at the emptiness she saw there. Hoping to reestablish the connection meeting his partner and her father had interrupted, she forced a smile only he would understand on her lips.
It faltered when he continued to cast that blank gaze at her. It froze along with her blood as the beautiful redhead put her arm around him and they turned and walked out of the ballroom.
Tremors invading her every muscle, her mind tripped over rationalizations. He must be trying to get rid of that woman without making a scene. When he did, he’d come back. Or not. He expected she’d follow him out. That must have been what he’d been telling her with that vacant stare.
She turned to her father. “See you tomorrow, okay?”
Before he could say anything, she rushed away.
Once outside the ballroom, she felt as if a thundercloud had descended. Then she saw the source of the darkness.
Richard Graves was leaning a formidable shoulder against the gold-paneled wall, watching people like a bored predator deciding which one he’d pick off first, nursing what looked like a straight whiskey. At the sight of her, he lazily unfolded to his full height, making her feel as if the world had shrunk.
Collecting herself, she nodded. “Mr. Graves.”
“Looking for Rafael?”
Acutely uncomfortable under his laser gaze, but feeling trapped since she didn’t know where to look, she said, “I’ll wait until he comes back.”
“You’ll wait till morning, then. That’s the soonest I see him being done with that redheaded ballistic missile.”
Her heart boomed painfully. It wasn’t what he’d said, she told herself. It was Graves himself. She didn’t get intimidated easily, but this man—she bet he scared monsters. And for some reason, he’d decided he didn’t think much of her.
Not that she cared. She only cared about Rafael’s opinion.
“You’re mistaken, Mr. Graves. Rafael is...” She couldn’t go on. Her throat closed under his pitiless stare and the growing uncertainty and confusion. What was Rafael doing?
“Rafael is with—or rather in—that redhead now.” He had the look of someone taking intense pleasure from pouring acid in an infected wound. “Seems he promised you an intensive exercise in his bed, but had a change of plans. Not to mention a huge upgrade in exercise-mat quality. Me, alas, I don’t have anything better to do for the night. I might be persuaded to accommodate you in his stead.”
She bit her lip to stop it from trembling at his barrage. “Why are you being so...vicious?”
He shrugged. “I’m actually being kind. I’m saving you further embarrassment—if you feel such a thing—and am offering you an alternative, so your night’s...efforts aren’t a total waste.”
Dazed, unable to believe someone would talk to her so offensively, she choked, “I don’t know why you disliked me on sight...”
“Instant judgments. And executions. Just two of my many shining qualities.”
Corrosive heat surged behind her eyes as she searched his caustic stare. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“That Rafael took that redhead to his quarters and is probably having sex with her as we speak? Yes.”
She tore her gaze away, heart flailing as for one last time she silently begged Rafael to come back, prove this cruel man wrong.
But Rafael wouldn’t come back.
And every idealistic rationalization was knocked down, replaced with the sordid truth.
Rafael had probably come out to the ball with her because he wanted to see if there was someone who’d appeal to him more before he wasted the night on her. And he had found a more beautiful woman, no doubt one who wouldn’t dream of asking him to defer his pleasure. And he’d just forgotten about her. He hadn’t even deemed her worth another word or glance, as if those hours of magic hadn’t happened.
But it hadn’t been magic. Not between them. The magic had been all his. A sorcerer casting his dark spells on a willing victim, entertaining himself while he pulled the strings of hundreds of others by remote control.
Graves knocked back the rest of his whiskey before leveling harsh eyes on her. “You’re better off. Rafael is way out of your league.”
She stared at this man of granite who hacked at her with such pitilessness. But what hurt most was that he was right. About everything.
He rolled his shoulders back, seeming to grow even more menacing as he tossed her a suggestive glance. “I’m even more out of your league, but if you’re interested...”
“Enough...please.”
And she ran away, out of this mansion she’d entered what felt like a lifetime ago, undamaged and oblivious. She now left it with a chasm in her heart, one torn open by the wanton cruelty of the only man she’d ever let her guard down with, the first tears of a deluge scouring down her cheeks.
* * *
Ferreira’s daughter.
The two words revolved in Rafael’s head until he felt it would burst.
He’d lost all sense of time, all sense period, since he’d realized who Eliana was. He’d had to get away before he did something catastrophic. But shock and rage only got more out of control the more they sank their talons in his flesh.
Eliana, the woman he wanted with every fiber of his being, who’d stormed his barriers and brought down his defenses, was the daughter of his slave broker.
Rafael, this is my father, Teobaldo Ferreira.
And he’d once been Rafael’s father’s best friend and partner.
He remembered all too clearly when Ferreira had been a constant presence in his family’s life. Her father hadn’t changed much in the twenty-four years since he’d last seen him. As a matter of fact, at sixty-four, he’d aged very well. Contrary to Rafael’s own father, who’d aged beyond his years. Thanks to Ferreira’s heinous crime against him, the man he used to love and trust.
He remembered how he’d loved and trusted him. Tio Teo, he’d called him. His frequent visits had been one of the most anticipated pleasures of the child he’d been.
Then, during his investigations into his abduction, he’d found that just prior to it, his father had dissolved his partnership with Ferreira. Once he’d dug into the events, he’d found conclusive evidence that there had been only one person who could have orchestrated his abduction. Ferreira.
But remembering the man he’d run to greet whenever he’d come visiting, who’d shown him such affection and attention, he’d rejected the evidence, reinvestigated from scratch. He hadn’t wanted it to be him. He’d wanted it to be anyone but him. But every inquiry had led to the same results. And Ferreira’s motivations had been ironclad, too.
Arranging for his abduction would have hit two birds with one stone. Taking revenge on his father, the man he’d publicly accused of destroying him, and accruing enough money to make up for the major losses Ferreira thought he’d caused him. The Organization paid very well for their select subjects. He and his brothers had been the most select and costly of their acquisitions. Whoever had sold them had known their worth, had demanded top dollar...and gotten it. In his case, Ferreira.
After he’d gotten conclusive proof, Rafael had concocted the perfect revenge for him. He intended to initiate a real collaboration with him, giving him a taste of the profits and the boost in status, letting his ambitions and greed soar, before he smashed him down from an incredible height. Then he planned to send Ferreira to prison, as he’d sent him. He didn’t intend for him to ever get out. Not in this lifetime.
Yet he still hadn’t rushed to exact his revenge. The truth was he still struggled with superimposing the image of the monster who’d sold him into slavery onto that of the indulgent uncle he’d loved. He still hadn’t relished a face-to-face meeting.
Then he’d seen Eliana and everything but her had ceased to matter. It was literally the last thing he could have anticipated, for Ferreira to be her father.
A roar tore from his depths.
Something detonated against the wall.
Then the door burst back on its hinges and Richard exploded in, gun drawn and ready to blow any intruder away.
His partner’s all-seeing eyes summed up the scene, before tucking his firearm back into the holster at his side. “Redecorating already?”
Rafael turned to where Richard had pointed, staring at the extensive damage to the exquisite plaster wall and the smashed remains of his executive desk and everything that had been on it. He hadn’t even thought he could lift it, let alone toss it into the wall. He hadn’t gone berserk like that in...ever.
Richard closed the door then approached to circle him. “I thought that redhead would defuse you better than that.”
“What redhead?”
“Forgotten her already? You’re in worse condition than I thought.”
Rafael shook his head, struggling with the adrenaline crashing in his system. He had to get himself under control. Before he had a heart attack.
“How did you find out?” The word Richard had wanted to have with him must have been about Eliana’s true identity. Once Ferreira had descended on them, it had become redundant, and he’d left, letting him deal with it on his own.
“About your fantasy girl being Ferreira’s daughter? How didn’t you? Didn’t you investigate the man to death? The first thing you must have known about him was his family history.”
“I already knew his three sons from his first marriage. The youngest was my age. They were my best friends when we were in and out of each other’s homes, even after he divorced their mother two years before my abduction. I found out he remarried right after it and had a daughter with his second wife, who died three years later. So yes, I know everything about him, but I considered the details of his personal life irrelevant to my plans.”
“That’s the one flaw I see in your plan—that you don’t intend to incorporate damages to his personal life.”
“His children have nothing to do with his crimes.”
“Are you certain about that?”
“I’m certain they had nothing to do with my abduction.”
“Becoming tycoons themselves at such a young age suggests they might have shared their father’s villainy before each laundered his image and history.”
“Like us, you mean?”
“Exactly. Just without our reasons.”
Rafael shrugged. “Regardless of any other transgressions they may or may not have committed, I’m only acting as judge, jury and executioner in the crime pertaining to me.”
Richard gave a conceding head tilt. “Your prerogative. But you’re the man who never misses or forgets a thing, and Eliana isn’t a name you hear every day. Didn’t it ring a bell?”
A million bells could have rung and he wouldn’t have heard them. He’d been that far gone under her spell.
“The only way it didn’t is if she gave you a nickname.”
“She did, but told me her real name almost at once.”
“Did she tell you those as soon as you met?”
“There was no chance for that until much later.”
Richard made a satisfied gesture. “There you go.”
He frowned. “There I go what? What difference does it make if she told me her name at first or later?”
“Timing is the difference. Later you were submerged under her spell and no longer able to add one and one.”
Just what he’d been thinking, even if his view of her spell’s nature and Richard’s were worlds apart.
“How could you possibly assign devious intent to her actions when this whole thing has been a total coincidence?”
Richard looked at him as if his IQ had dropped a hundred points. “I can because she’s Ferreira’s daughter, the woman who works with him, and whom he brought here instead of his senior partners to use as bait for you. And it would have worked spectacularly, if not for the tiny detail they’re oblivious of—who you really are, and that you’re the one reeling him in.”
He waved Richard’s incriminating theories away. “That’s preposterous. You know I’m the one who sought her out and that she didn’t even know who I was.”
Richard’s lip curled. “She knew enough about you to cast a spell in your general direction and wait for you to reveal yourself by going after her.”
He gaped at him. “You actually believe such nonsense?”
Richard shrugged. “The world, especially this part of it, is full of inexplicable things. Just like this compulsion that came over you when she walked in.”
“That’s called attraction. That’s supposed to be an inexplicable magic, at first at least. Then I touched her, talked to her, and all was explained. To me, she’s...perfect.”
It was Richard’s turn to gape at him. “See that? That’s not you talking. I’m starting to think a curse breaker is in order.”
“We’ve progressed from spell to curse? What we shared...”
Richard gave a harsh snort. “Dear Lord—shared? You’ve had what with that woman? Three, four hours?”
“Time is irrelevant when something is that powerful.”
Richard shook his head, regarding him with a mixture of dismay and disparagement. “Seems I’ll have to dig deep to find someone who specializes in such potent curses. And there I’d hoped hers was broken when you took off with that redhead. What did you do with her anyway?”
“What redhead?”
Richard stared at him. “You really don’t remember her?”
Suddenly, he vaguely recalled something. A woman talking while he’d heard nothing but the cacophony of his own thoughts, saw nothing but Eliana across the ballroom. Then the woman was clinging to him and dragging him out of the ballroom. Once outside, he’d shaken her off without a word and stormed to his study from another path that didn’t traverse the ballroom.
“No wonder you don’t remember that temptress who was wrapped around you. You were still wrapped around Ferreira’s daughter’s pinkie even as you walked away from her.”
It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. He’d felt as if his heart was being dragged out of his body with every step he took away from her. Then he’d reached the ballroom’s threshold and had been unable to go farther. Every cell in his body screamed to get away, but screamed louder to stay close, to not lose sight of her. Everything inside him still rioted, demanding that he return and spirit her away to their promised night....
“Lower the volume, mate.” At his start, Richard smirked. “I can hear you thinking of going back for her. But before you go any further down that road, let me underscore that she’s the daughter Ferreira lavished his love on while he deprived you of your family and them of you. He sent you to hell where you could have been killed after untold abuse. You can’t let that daughter interfere with your revenge on him.”
He knew that, but it was all too much to take in....
Richard snapped his fingers. “Snap out of it, mate.”
“Get your hand out of my face, mate.” Suddenly, his fury was back at maximum. “And you actually thought I’d walk away from Eliana and take that woman to bed? Just like that?”
“I would have. But then you’re not me. You’re no longer you, for that matter.” Ice-cold deliberation entered Richard’s eyes. “But this Ferreira’s-daughter thing can work in your favor.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Think about it. What have you learned about her?”
Rafael glowered at him. If he thought he was going to share anything that had happened between them...
Then he realized. Richard was asking about Ferreira’s Eliana, not his.
He exhaled heavily, recalling the details he’d archived in his mind as extraneous about Ferreira’s then-unknown only daughter. “She was born in the States, and her mother, an Anita Larsen, was an American born to Scandinavian parents.” He now understood it was that amalgam of ethnicities that had produced her unique beauty. “Her parents named her Eliana, believing that God had answered their prayers when she was born, after her mother had two early miscarriages....”
He’d said almost the same thing when he’d commented on her name, but hadn’t made the connection then when he should have.
Yet, if he had, would it have made a difference? Would he have aborted their intimacies? Could he have? Or had it already been too late from the moment he’d laid eyes on her?
At Richard’s go-on gesture, he exhaled again. “She attended university in San Francisco, double majored in business management and child psychology, already has an MBA in the first and is earning another in the second.” Which was exactly what she’d told him minus her exact specialties. And he hadn’t had a inkling of realization. “But why are you asking? You must have found all this out yourself.”
“I did. But you’re not mentioning the relevant part. That Ferreira’s wife died, leaving him their three-year-old daughter as all that remained of her. That’s what makes this such a golden opportunity. Using his daughter against him would make your revenge a hundred times more potent.”
Instant abhorrence of the very notion made bile rise to his throat. “If I wanted to involve his family in my revenge, I would have used his sons. They’re the ones who don’t see eye to eye with him.”
Richard again looked at him as if he feared he had permanent brain damage. “You got that in reverse. Those sons are from a loveless marriage of convenience that imploded after years of cold war. They’d long drifted into their own lives and would make very dull blades. But the daughter he had with the only woman he ever loved—his most beloved person in the world—now, that’s a lethal weapon.”
“No.”
At his adamant rejection, Richard shrugged. “I guess it’s just as well you’re vetoing the idea. You probably wouldn’t be able to use her now, not after you took another woman to bed.”
“I did no such thing!”
“Not according to what she now believes.”
Rafael gaped at him for long, mute moments. Then he exploded. “You made her believe that.”
Richard met his apoplectic anger with calm disregard. “When you walked away, I thought your episode of insanity was over and you’d take that woman to bed to cleanse your palate. So when Ferreira’s daughter ran out after you, I took it upon myself to make sure she didn’t try to insinuate herself under your skin again.”
She’d run after him. Even after he’d left her without a word. And Richard had...
“For full disclosure’s sake,” Richard added, “I also offered to have sex with her in your stead.”
The next second, Richard was flat on his back, and Rafael’s hand felt broken.
Coming to stand over Richard, who’d pulled himself to his elbows, he growled with rage and pain, “Stay down.”
Richard struck out one leg, swiping both of Rafael’s from under him. He twisted in midfall, coming down in position to launch into a fight.
Richard did that elastic rebound move that no one his size should be able to do, landing in a crouching stance. The right side of his jaw was already swelling.
“I don’t feel like sending you to intensive care, Numbers, but touch me again and I will.”
“You can try, bastard.”
Richard unfolded to his full height just as Rafael did, his gaze exasperated. “You got it that bad, huh?”
“If you touched her, Cobra, I swear...”
“Please. I just wanted to see how she’d react. She fled from the monster sobbing, predictably.” Richard suddenly took him by the shoulders. “You can’t let her derail you. Forget her.”
“I can’t. I have to have her. Whatever the cost.”
“Even if it is letting her father go unpunished?” Richard asked.
“That’s the one thing I won’t do for her.”
“There’s that at least. But you won’t even consider that she might have come here with an ulterior motive?”
“No. Besides all evidence to the contrary, I can fathom people.”
“Really? Did you fathom her father?”
“I was a child.”
“I meant tonight.”
Rafael gritted his teeth. He hadn’t. Beyond being shocked, beyond knowing Ferreira was a monster, he still hadn’t felt it.
Richard read his answer in his silence. “You seem to have a serious glitch in your judgment where this family is concerned.” A beat. “Did you know that, besides being groomed to be her father’s right hand, she does a lot of charity work and volunteering? And that her main focus is orphanages?”
Rafael’s heart stopped. Then it boomed out of control.
Unable to bear Richard’s presence anymore, he hissed, “Leave.”
Richard gave a shrug that said his work here was done then walked away.
At the door he turned, flexing his jaw. “See to that hand. I hope it’s broken. It should be a reminder of what this woman has cost you—and will continue to cost you if you don’t stay away from her.”
Staring after Richard, the pain in his hand throbbed as he stood over the wreckage he’d caused, in the room where he’d found perfection with Eliana. A metaphor for how everything was in ruins at his feet.
Orphanages and helpless children...this was where he couldn’t afford rationalizations. That could be too much of a coincidence. And the implications could be...gruesome.
Orphanages were a perfect recruiting ground for the Organization, full of children no one would defend or miss. So had Ferreira found his sale too lucrative? Was he still supplying children? Was she working with him, getting to know those children, to pick the best specimens...?
Deus. He couldn’t even contemplate that his Eliana...
But his Eliana might not be real. The only Eliana might be Ferreira’s.
If that were true, if everything he’d felt from her was a perfect facade, if she was her father’s accomplice, he’d crush both of them to dust beneath his feet.
