CHAPTER FIVE
MARCOS SUPPOSED HE should be offended, and yet he found that he was mostly amused. He should still be angry, but everything was going his way and that pleased him.
Francesca clearly did not feel the same. She flashed him a look of pure loathing as he helped her from the limousine that had taken them to the Civil Registry Office. It was rather like a kitten trying to imitate a tiger. She simply couldn’t pull it off, no matter how she tried.
And he found it amusing, though he wasn’t quite certain why.
She smoothed the fabric of the peach silk dress she wore. When she’d come down the stairs in this garment that set off the tawny gold of her hair, he’d been glad she hadn’t chosen to wear white. This color suited her so much more appropriately than white or cream would have done. The only problem was in the cut of the dress. It was shapeless, as if she feared to show her curves. He would need to make sure something was done about that, he decided.
“I’m surprised you didn’t wear black,” he murmured as she accepted his arm and they turned to walk into the building.
“I wanted to, but I somehow failed to pack a black dress in the fifteen minutes you gave me back in New York.”
Marcos chuckled. “So prickly on your wedding day.”
She did not join in his amusement. “It didn’t work out the first time, Marcos. I’m not expecting a vastly different experience the second time. And how did you manage this so quickly? I had read there are no quickie marriages in Argentina.”
“I have influence, querida. Money is a powerful motivator.”
“Lucky me.”
“Lucky you indeed,” he said. “If not for my money, your Jacques would not be receiving the treatment he so badly needs.”
Marcos still hadn’t puzzled out why the old man meant so much to her. He’d asked for a report on her life since he’d last seen her on their wedding night eight years ago, but the information he’d received was sketchy. Shortly after her father had committed suicide, she’d left home for good. She’d gone to work for Jacques Fortier in his small jewelry shop and led an unremarkable life.
A life quite different from how she’d grown up. It made no sense to him, but he’d made enough odd choices of his own over the course of his thirty-four years not to question too deeply why others did the same.
Now she stopped inside the door and turned to him. Her hazel eyes were golden today, shining with moisture. Surprise rocked him. She was on the verge of tears? But for what? Jacques Fortier? Or the inevitability of this marriage?
“I am grateful for your help, Marcos. For Jacques. In spite of your reasons, or this marriage, or anything else, I am grateful you’ve gotten the best treatment for him. It’s more than I’d hoped, truly.” She laughed, the sound nearly breaking on a sob. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, I wasn’t going to do this. Not today.”
The sound was so plaintive he felt his heart constrict in sympathy. He skimmed a knuckle along her cheek because he could not stifle the impulse to do so. “I am not as cruel as you believe me to be, Francesca. No one should die because they cannot afford medical treatment. Jacques is lucky to have you fighting for him.”
“But if I hadn’t taken the Corazón del Diablo, we wouldn’t be here and—”
“These things happen for mysterious reasons.” He’d learned that particular truth on the streets and in the jungle. Sometimes there was no explanation for why things occurred as they did. Why good people suffered. Why children died.
Dios. There were things he didn’t want to remember either, not now.
She looked up at him. “Why do you have to be nice?”
Nice? He hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but if she did, he wouldn’t disabuse her of the notion. “I can cease this niceness if it pleases you.”
“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “I want to see how long you can keep it up.”
“All night if necessary.”
She dropped her gaze, as if she were uncomfortable suddenly.
He tilted her chin up, forced her to look at him. “There is no need to pretend with me, Francesca.”
Tears glittered on her lashes like diamonds. He had to stifle the urge to kiss them away.
“I’m not pretending anything, Marcos.”
“Do you really expect me to believe you aren’t aware of how lovely you are?”
Her eyes widened, her smooth skin flushing pink. For the first time, he began to wonder if he was wrong, if she truly did believe she was still the awkward girl she used to be. Or maybe she was just manipulating him, trying to make him feel sympathy.
“Don’t,” she managed, her voice thready.
“As you wish, mi amor.” He dropped his hand away and she took a deep breath. Collected herself once more.
She’d grown tough in a way she’d not been when he’d first known her. It made him wonder what, besides her father’s tragic death and her family’s loss of status, had happened to make her this way.
Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps she’d simply grown cynical with the passage of years.
“Will anyone from your family be here?” she asked.
“No. Magdalena and her husband are staying at their winery in Mendoza. They could not get away.”
“Magdalena is your sister, right?”
“Sí, she is my younger sister. She has just had her third child and could not get away.”
Francesca’s eyes dropped and she swallowed. Her knuckles, he noticed, were white where she clasped her hands together. “I see.”
“You will meet her soon enough. We must go to Mendoza for a visit now that the baby is here.”
If he’d thought that statement would soothe her, he was surprised to see that it seemed to have the opposite effect. She seemed agitated. And she did everything in her power not to look at him again. Her throat worked, as if she were swallowing back tears.
“You are afraid to meet my sister?” he asked.
She looked up again. “No, not at all. But what’s the point, Marcos? This marriage will be over soon. Why introduce me to your family, make them think this is real when we both know it’s not?”
“It would be odd if I did not, Francesca. Surely you can get through a few hours with them. No one will become so attached to you that they will be devastated once we divorce. It’s a simple visit. And Magdalena will be far more focused on her new baby than on us, I can assure you.”
“Of course,” she said, her head dipping, her voice flat and emotionless. “If that’s what you want, I suppose I have no choice but to comply.”
She was married. Again. The ritual had been quick, sterile. Say a few words, repeat in the appropriate places, and then Marcos slipped a ring on her finger and brushed his lips against her cheek.
The office staff offered their congratulations before Marcos ushered her from the building and back into the limousine.
Francesca stared at the three-carat rock on her finger and felt numb. It wasn’t as large as she’d expected, yet it was the perfect size for her. She wouldn’t have wanted anything bigger, and though Marcos hadn’t asked her opinion, he’d still managed to pick the ideal ring for her.
Odd to think it wasn’t real, this marriage. Or that the perfect ring was only temporary. A Band-Aid to shield a wound, nothing more.
The stone shot fire as the light reflected off its facets. The platinum band was inset with diamonds. The matching wedding band was also diamond-encrusted. Though Francesca wouldn’t tell a soul, she loved beautiful things. Always had, which is why her inability to please her mother with her looks and minimal grace had hurt so much. Francesca had wanted the beautiful clothes that Livia wore so elegantly. She’d wanted the jewelry, the poise, and the grace to match.
Though she was older and far wiser now, she still felt like the awkward teenager beside Marcos’s smooth elegance. She hadn’t worried over her looks in years, had thought they were perfectly adequate for the life she led with Jacques—but Marcos’s arrival in her life had turned everything upside down again. He’d said she was lovely. But did he really mean it?
She shoved the thought aside brutally. She did not care what Marcos Navarre thought of her. Not any longer. The girl who’d desperately wanted his approval was buried in the past.
Marcos sat beside her now, his voice musical in her ears as he conducted business on his cell phone while they rode back to his home in Recoleta. Their home.
No, as beautiful as the French-style mansion was, it would never be her home. She was a temporary resident only, and she would not grow attached to the beauty of the place, the serenity of the cool courtyards with their fountains and thick foliage. She had a home in New York, with Jacques, and she would return to it as soon as Marcos let her go.
She prayed it would be sooner rather than later, but she knew Marcos was determined to fulfill some agenda that only he knew. And so long as he held the keys to Jacques’s treatment, she would remain.
The visit to his sister would surely test her in ways she dreaded. She’d not been around babies since she’d lost her own. She refused to hold them, to play with them, to spend time with them. It wasn’t that she didn’t love babies; it was simply that being around them made her ache for what could never be.
Once, long ago, she’d thought Marcos would be the father of her children. But even if they’d married for love this time, that was impossible.
How would she survive being around a woman with a newborn?
One day at a time, Francesca.
It’s how life was lived, how she’d survived the worst of the dark days in her past. One damn day at a time.
“We are attending a reception tonight,” Marcos said smoothly as he tucked his phone away.
Francesca struggled to concentrate on what he was saying. She felt like she was being ripped apart inside, and he was informing her about a social event?
God help her.
“You will wear the Corazón del Diablo,” he continued.
“I’d rather not.”
His expression grew chilly. “Reneging already, Francesca?”
“The necklace is yours, Marcos. I see little point in asking me to wear it.”
The idea of donning the necklace now, after all it had cost her, seemed completely foreign. And unnecessary. She had no doubt he knew it. He simply wanted to prove his mastery of her.
“I don’t believe I asked,” he said, his voice as smooth as aged whiskey. “You will wear it because it is mine, because you are mine.”
Francesca drew herself up, her emotions whipping higher. “You don’t own me, Marcos. You bought my cooperation, not me.”
“You are still very foolish, aren’t you?” he said softly.
Francesca felt the burn of anger—and the heat of embarrassment—skating over her body in twin spirals.
Yet she wouldn’t back down. He might own her cooperation, might own her promise to fulfill her end of the bargain. But she was adamant that he did not own her. No man did. If she’d learned anything in the past few years, it was that her life was her own.
For better or worse.
“I don’t think so, no. Because I don’t believe for an instant you would withdraw medical treatment from Jacques, not after what you said to me earlier. Unless it was a lie? Unless you only said what you thought I wanted to hear?”
He gazed at her steadily, his face a mask of detachment. Her heart thundered. Had she guessed wrong? Would he withdraw his financial support? Would he let Jacques die?
Had she gambled too much?
Marcos looked so cold, so remote and cruel that she wondered how she’d ever managed to be infatuated with him all those years ago. Why hadn’t she sensed that he was so brutal beneath that layer of charm he wore like a blanket?
Why didn’t she just wear the damn necklace and keep her mouth shut? Jacques’s care meant more than the principle of the thing.
“No,” he said, dark eyes flashing with an emotion she didn’t understand, “I would not stop his treatment.”
She stared at him, her breath shortening at the admission. It was the last thing she’d expected. Marcos Navarre had a human side. A side that cared for more than having things his way.
Francesca bowed her head to hide the strength of her emotional reaction. He didn’t need to know how much his statement moved her. But she would give him something in return, would make sure he understood that she intended to honor the agreement. Francesca d’Oro—Navarre—did not go back on her word once it was given. She had integrity, no matter what he believed about her.
“If it’s important to you, I will wear the Corazón del Diablo.”
Disbelief crossed his handsome face. “You just stated you would not. Most adamantly.”
Francesca shrugged as if it were nothing, when in fact it was everything. “If you had asked instead of ordered …”
“Why does this Jacques mean so much to you, Francesca?”
She met his gaze evenly. “He cared about me when no one else did. Jacques is the truest friend I have.”
“And Gilles? He is your lover?”
Her pulse throbbed in her temples. He didn’t deserve an answer to that, not after the blood test he’d forced her to endure, and yet …
“No. And he never has been.”
Marcos looked puzzled. “You are a beautiful woman. I wonder why this is not so.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Marcos. I think we know where we stand with each other now, don’t you? You married me for the necklace, and I married you for Jacques. Please don’t try and prop up what you assume is my wounded vanity. I know I’m not pretty enough for a man like you. And I don’t care. I’m me, and that’s enough.”
He suddenly seemed amused, which only served to irritate her. It wasn’t the first time this afternoon and she still didn’t understand how he could find humor in any part of this situation. She looked away from him, out of the window at the passing traffic, and tried to concentrate on what it would feel like to be one of those happy tourists strolling along the sidewalk.
“You are quite different from who you once were,” he said. “I like that you fight back. Livia would not get the best of you any longer.”
Her chest felt like someone had turned a vise. She shoved the feeling away. “You would probably have married her back then if not for the necklace.”
Marcos laughed. “You underestimate me, querida. Your sister has never held any attraction for me.”
She whirled around to face him. “Everybody thinks Livia is beautiful. And you can’t tell me you don’t agree.”
“No, she is quite beautiful—or she was eight years ago. And she knew it too.” He picked up her hand, traced his finger along the edge of her wedding band while tingles of pleasure radiated up her arm. “But you have something far better than beauty, Francesca. You seem to know who you are. I like that.”
A pang of hurt throbbed to life inside her. “It’s taken me long enough,” she answered.
His eyes were hot as they moved over her face. “I believe you always knew to a certain extent. But yes, something has sharpened your sense of self-awareness. I wish to know what.”
She pulled her hand away, folded it against her body. “Shall we trade secrets like gossiping old ladies, Marcos? I’d not have guessed that was your style.”
“I think you will tell me before our time is up,” he said. He pronounced it with so much certainty that she wanted very much to prove him wrong, to knock him down a few rungs.
“You have far too much confidence in yourself. Not every woman feels the urge to succumb to your charm.”
“But you will, querida.”
“Not a chance,” she vowed, though her pulse jumped at the look on his face. Where was that hint of anger he always viewed her with? When it was missing, he reminded her of the old Marcos. The Marcos she’d fallen for because he was nice to her.
He arched one dark eyebrow. His scar made the gesture that much more wicked. “You should not have said that, Francesca.”
“Why not? Someone needs to tell you that you aren’t irresistible. Besides, have you ever considered it might be your money and not your sparkling personality that makes women fall at your feet?”
Marcos laughed. The sound was rich, uninhibited. She liked it, much to her dismay.
“Dios, you are stubborn. But I never could resist a challenge.” He leaned in, cupped her jaw in one broad hand, and kissed her before she realized what he was about. “I will enjoy taking you to bed, Francesca. And I will learn all your secrets while we are there, I promise you …”