"Deceived us how?" Emma asked, perplexed.

"I am not who you think I am. I am not Antonio Mendoza Torres. I am a Torres, but my name is Enrique Torres. I am an impostor."

They stared at him in shocked silence. "But how? Why? I don't understand," Emma stuttered.

"I am not proud of it, but it is very simple," he said. "Felipe Torres was my uncle. When he died his son Antonio was named in his will as his beneficiary. When I discovered this, I came here from Brazil and a.s.sumed the ident.i.ty of Antonio, who I believed to be dead."

They gazed at him, their faces mirroring shock and a trace of disappointment that somehow bothered him much more than their obvious surprise.

"I am so very sorry," he said. He gestured apologetically with his hand.

"But why are you telling us this now?" Nicola asked.

"Because the real Antonio Mendoza Torres is very much alive," Anthony said, walking into the living room.

Nicola's face went white, and then was flooded with color. She stood up precipitately. "Anthony! What is this?" she inquired sharply. "Is this some kind of joke?" she asked, turning to look at Enrique. "What is he doing here?"

"I am sorry to tell you that it is not a joke. Nicola, Emma, this is Antonio Mendoza Torres, the son of Felipe Torres."

"Felipe Torres was my biological father. I am the adopted son of the late Sir Robert Astonville and his wife Felicity. My name is Anthony Astonville," Anthony added, for Emma's benefit. Standing in the middle of the living room, his eyes moved from Nicola to Emma and back. As he spoke part of his mind registered how desirable she looked, her tanned arms and shoulders emerging from a simple low-cut cotton dress held up by the tiniest of straps inviting his touch. It was all he could do not to stride across the room and pull her into his arms.

Observing them, everything fell into place for Emma. She knew instinctively that Anthony Astonville had to be the man Nicola loved, whose child she was carrying. She got up and walked over to him.

"I am so very pleased to meet you," she said warmly. He took her hand with a slight bow, then straightened up and looked into her eyes. What he saw there rea.s.sured him. Simultaneously, their heads turned toward Nicola, who was regarding him dumbly.

"It's not true," she whispered. "It can't be. You're just making this up. You followed me, and you're just making this up." Her voice was fragmented.

"Sit down, Nicola," he said gently, going to her and attempting to take her arm. She wrenched it away.

"Don't. Don't touch me," she said sharply.

"All right," he said. "I won't. But please sit while I explain." She remained standing, her face mutinous. Emma went to her and took her arm.

"Sit, Nicola," she said. "Let him explain." She tugged Nicola's arm and the two of them sat back down on the couch to listen to what Anthony had to say.

"My mother was a Colombian woman named Valentina Mendoza," he began. "She was housekeeper to Felipe Torres, a Brazilian who had immigrated to Jamaica in 1951. After she became pregnant by him, he informed her he wished to have nothing to do with the child and that when it was born. She was to keep it out of his sight. I, of course, was that child. I was his son and my birth was properly registered, but apart from that he had no interest in me and never acknowledged my existence. I am his beneficiary simply by default." It was a dry restatement of fact that gave no indication of the pain he had endured because of his father's rejection of him, a pain that he had buried until Nicola Edgerton had resurfaced so unexpectedly in his life.

"When I was about ten, Felipe told my mother he had no further need of her services. He gave her some money and we went to Brazil. I believe she thought Felipe's relatives would be happy to see his son. As it turned out she couldn't have been more wrong."

Anthony set his mouth in a hard line, recalling the months they had stayed in Brazil, months that seemed to last a hundred years.

"I believe that it is time for me to leave," Enrique broke in, rising precipitately, as though he would just as soon avoid listening to the story of the months that Antonio and his mother had spent in Brazil. At the sound of his voice, the three faces turned to him in surprise. They seemed to have forgotten he was still in the room.

"Yes, fine," Anthony said distractedly.

A silence fell as Enrique left the room after bidding farewell to Nicola and Emma.

"Go on with the story, Anthony," Emma said, and he complied, picking up where he had left off.

"We then travelled to Colombia. My mother apparently reconnected with her former employer, the Colombian Amba.s.sador to Jamaica, whose housekeeper she was before she started working for Felipe. This man recommended her to some people called the Daughtys, and it was while we were living at the Daughty residence-in the servants' quarters-that I met the Astonvilles. They persuaded my mother to let them take me to England with them and she agreed so that I could have a better future. The Astonvilles treated me like a son and adopted me when I was eighteen. They died within three days of each other and I became their sole heir. There's not much more to tell," he ended, looking directly at Nicola.

Her eyes were wary, filled with questions, and he felt a wanting then, a need to take her in his arms and explain that by coming into his life she had made his past irrelevant. And regardless of what the future held for him, it would be meaningless without her.

G.o.d, how he wanted to hold her, touch her. He swallowed, his jaw rigid with the effort to control the heat inside him that suddenly flickered into flame.

She must have detected the movement, the corresponding twitch at his temple, because she averted her eyes and he knew she had willed herself to do it.

Emma wiped her eyes. "That is the saddest story I have ever heard," she said, her voice soft with empathy. "And the most romantic."

"Romantic isn't the word I would use to describe my life," he replied wryly.

"What will happen to Antonio...uh, Enrique?" Nicola asked, looking directly at him again, her eyes still wary. He received a distinct impression that she had deliberately put her emotions on hold.

"I'm not sure. The lawyers have advised that it would be better if he moved off the property for the time being, and he has done so. I believe he is staying somewhere in New Kingston."

"Will you be pressing charges?" Emma asked.

"Right now, that is doubtful, for several reasons. The questions are very complex. He appropriated my property, but I do not think he intended to deprive me of it permanently. He a.s.sumed my ident.i.ty, but he believed me to be dead. He believed that had I been alive, I would have supported his actions. Years may pa.s.s before all the legal ramifications, whatever they may be, are sorted out, and I don't think I want to devote years of my life to legal wrangling just to prove that Enrique set out to deceive me. I don't care that much about it, and I have no doubt at all that he is fully prepared to relinquish any claim to Felipe's property.

"But the main reason I would be reluctant to prosecute is because while we were in Brazil, Enrique was the only family member my mother and I could trust. He and I are practically the same age. He was the only friend I had and he behaved toward my mother the way a nephew would or should behave-with respect. She liked him, and in spite of everything, so do I. Several times, when he knew I would be hungry, he secretly brought me food he had taken from his family's kitchen."

At that point Nicola got to her feet. "I don't want to hear any more," she said. "Come, Emma, we have to go. It's getting late." She looked at Anthony. "We owe you a lot of money," she said, endeavoring to sound composed. "I do not think we shall ever be able to repay you. I will advise our lawyer to contact yours about transferring ownership of our estate to you. I think that would be best."

As she walked by him to leave the room he took her arm, restraining her. "It's not your land I want," he said, forcing her to look at him.

"It isn't about what you want," she replied. Something spilled into her eyes, turning them into dark green ponds. "All this time, you knew who I was, you knew everything about me. You spied on me," she said, her voice catching. "You shouldn't have done that to me, Anthony. Don't you see? I will never be able to trust you and I hate you for that," she ended, her voice breaking. She pulled her arm out of his grasp and walked out of the room.

Her words left him momentarily speechless until he caught himself and started after her. Emma reached out quickly to detain him.

"Don't, Anthony. Give her time to get over the shock of everything. Come 'round tomorrow."

He hesitated, torn by reluctance even to let her out of his sight. Then he nodded and released a breath, trying to expel some of the frustrated desire that was consuming him.

After they had driven off in their Jeep, he prowled the house restlessly. He would stay here tonight. It was almost eleven o'clock. The long drive back to Kingston over unfamiliar, winding mountain roads was best undertaken in daylight. It felt odd to be in this house, which had always been forbidden territory and now was his. He moved from room to room, picking up objects, examining them, and putting them back down. There were no photographs of anyone, anywhere. Felipe Torres had cut himself off completely from his past and had never developed relationships that did not involve business. He had been a recluse. Now that he had pa.s.sed away, it was as though he had never even existed. The house held no memories of children's laughter, of the nighttime murmurings of a man and a woman or of their early-morning wakings. Love had never lived here. The house was a lifeless sh.e.l.l of wood and concrete. It was his property now, he owned it, and standing there in it, he felt nothing but a total sense of alienation that he knew he would never overcome. It would never be home to him. Moreover, Jamaica itself would never feel like home to him. Except for his mother, Jamaica held no fond memories for him and he had never been homesick for the place.

Nicola loved Jamaica, he knew, but his home was England, and that was where they would create their own memories. It hadn't even occurred to him to question his a.s.sumption that they had a future together now, because anything else was simply inconceivable. It was his destiny to be with her, in every possible way.

The thought of being with her cut through him like a shard of gla.s.s, leaving him feeling splintered and bleeding all over. He leaned against the foot rail of the iron four-poster bed in one of the bedrooms he had wandered into, wrestling with desire so acute the hair stood up on the back of his neck. It had clawed him from the first moment he walked in and saw her sitting there. He had clamped the lid down over it, because his story had to be told. But now he could feel her, smell her, taste her, and it was consuming him like a fever. He straightened up, swore aloud, and almost ran out of the house.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

Nicola sat up in bed, her arms around her legs, her head resting on her knees. She had told Emma she was tired and that they would talk more in the morning, but every time she lay down he was there, memories of the hard feel of his body invading her mind and her s.p.a.ce and making hers thrum with recognition. She had to forget him because the man she had fallen in love with didn't really exist. The soul she thought she had glimpsed belonged to a figment of her imagination. He had let her come to him, knowing who she was and everything about her, but had kept his own secrets, withheld himself entirely from her.

And yet, listening to his story, her heart had swollen fit to burst at the painful childhood he had endured. She had absorbed his pain, had wanted to go to him, take him in her arms, and shield him from any further hurt, no matter how slight. But he had deceived her cruelly once. She wouldn't run to him again like a trusting fool, handing her heart to someone she didn't even know, even though she still craved his touch, longed for him. She tightened her arms around her legs, feeling fragmented from wanting the touch of this man, this stranger she barely knew.

She heard a knock and lifted her head, thinking it had come from the door. She heard it again, a sharp rap, only it was from the window. Her heart began to race with instinctive knowledge, recognition. He had come. She pulled on a short silk kimono, tied it about her, and went to the window.

He was standing there, on the veranda outside the window, when she opened the curtains. They stood motionless, their eyes riveted on each other, his eyes demanding, hers attempting to deny.

"Open the window, Nicola," he said distinctly through the gla.s.s, not looking away from her. Unable to tear her eyes away she reached out blindly and lifted the latch. As the two sides of the window swung open, he put one leg over the sill and was in the room. He stood still, breathing hard, looking down at her.

"Hate me all you want to, tomorrow," he told her, his voice raw with need, "but tonight, I have to be inside you."

He drew her to him hard, entwined her hair in one hand to pull her head back and ground his mouth over hers. She resisted for one split second before swaying against him, her arms reaching up to hold him, her fingers caressing his hair as his tongue invaded her mouth. She quivered as it danced with hers, then darted across her gums, caressing the lining of her cheeks, the sensitive roof of her mouth. His mouth left hers finally, only to bury itself in the side of her neck, the hollow of her throat, nudging aside the kimono to kiss the soft skin, travel across the delicate collarbone.

Her fragrance filled his nostrils, and seized with impatience to breathe in all of her, he grasped the kimono and pulled it apart. His lips raced hotly across her skin, hurrying to capture her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She sighed, a soft sound of satisfaction, her fingers digging into his scalp as his mouth seized her nipple. His hunger for the feel and taste of it had tortured him during all those days and empty nights since she had walked out on him. He arched her away from him, one hand splayed over the small of her back, and seized her other nipple, sucking and nibbling and making her moan as her s.e.x responded feverishly to the warning of his impending invasion.

He knelt in front of her, his hands around her haunches, and trailed hot kisses over her midriff and navel. He burrowed between the folds of her kimono, murmured something unintelligible into the hair of her mound, and stood up suddenly. He reached behind her to draw the curtains then picked her up in his arms like a child.

"I want to see you properly," he told her, laying little kisses on her mouth. "My eyes are starved for the sight of you."

He carried her over to the bed, laid her down and knelt over her. He kissed each breast gently, dipped his tongue into her navel, and buried his face in the curls of her mound, inhaling deeply. She trembled as he gently parted her with his hands, stroking her bud with his thumb until she was quivering with want. She lifted her head to look down at him and saw that he was completely preoccupied with examining her. As she watched, he spread her folds and his head descended again, his teeth fastening on her bud, sc.r.a.ping lightly. A spasm ran through her, a wave of pure pleasure that engulfed her belly and flooded down toward the source, making her grind against his mouth in mindless primitive response.

He lifted his head again from his pleasurable task, studying the perfection of how she was made, and experienced a kind of frustration at his inability to crawl inside her with his eyes open, to know her, to see, touch, and taste every inch of her.

"Anthony, please," she said despairingly.

He knew what she wanted, needed. He dipped his head, thrust his tongue into her slit, and began to lick her thoroughly, broad sweeps inside her folds, then tugged her bud, feeling it distend between his tongue and teeth.

Her o.r.g.a.s.m arrived in seconds, stampeding through her like a runaway horse, kicking its way ferociously out of her. She juddered as he held on and let her explode against his tongue, reveling in the taste of her.

"Stand up," she said raggedly, even before her involuntary trembling ceased. He stood, shucked his clothes hurriedly, and stood in front of her, his c.o.c.k painfully stiff and rampant. She moved to the edge of the bed, rested her feet on the floor, and reached for him. He groaned as her hands took hold of his b.u.t.tocks and guided him into her mouth. Looking down at himself, thick and hard, sliding in and out of her juicy mouth, excited him beyond belief. She caressed his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, treasuring the soft silky feel of them in her palm. He tingled all over, even on the soles of his feet. She sucked hard on him each time, just before he slipped out, rounded her lips to receive him as he slipped back in. The dual stimulation made his toes curl in delicious agony as he moved his hips rhythmically.

He felt it breaking loose inside him, and he laid his hands on the crown of her head, trying to hold back to protect her even while his b.u.t.tocks jerked frantically, hijacked by his body's mindless rush to s.e.xual fulfillment. "Sweetheart," he groaned, "let me come inside you."

She gave him one final, lingering suck that almost turned him inside out, then lay back, using her elbows as leverage to move her further up on the bed. He fell on her with a moan, and taking his aching p.e.n.i.s in his hand, guided it into the wetness between her legs and thrust. They cried out together then exhaled sharply at the sweet perfection of their joining as her sheath embraced his p.e.n.i.s in a sustained erotic and welcoming kiss.

He gripped her, holding her still like a receptive vessel as he moved rhythmically in and out of her, grunting with each powerful thrust until with a hoa.r.s.e cry, he climaxed explosively, and drenched her with the copious seed of his pent-up emissions.

When their breathing was almost normal again, he flipped over on his back and pulled her over him so that she lay with her head and upper body across his chest. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her, after they had lain quietly for a few minutes.

"That I just had s.e.x with a stranger," she said and waited for his response.

He touched his lips to the top of her head, and stroked her hair all the way to the ends, smoothing it over and over with his palm. "You're wrong on two counts, and I'll tell you why," he said at last. "First, I have never just had s.e.x with you. In the beginning, that first night, I thought that was what I wanted to do, but it never happened. Every time I touched you, I ended up making love to you. And that morning, in Mayfair, when you gave me permission to just f.u.c.k you," he said, his voice becoming a little rough, "that was the most exquisite love making of all, because you understood my l.u.s.t and cared enough about me to indulge it. So no, I will never be able to just have s.e.x with you any more than I could part the Red Sea.

"Second, I'm not a stranger. There are things I have to tell you that I couldn't explain before, things I decided tonight that only you had to hear." He told her then, about all the times he had spied on her, his childhood fixation with her, his determination to leave the estate after her father's car had splashed him with mud.

She turned her face toward him, propping her elbow on his chest, her chin cupped in her palm. "I don't remember it but I'm sorry we splashed you," she said, tracing the line of his jaw with her other hand, a soft smile in her eyes. "Was that why you decided to buy me at the auction? To pay me back?"

"Sort of. Childhood wounds cut the deepest and are the most difficult to heal. But it was more complicated than that. It took a while before I could admit to myself what it was really all about, which was that it was simply going to destroy me if another man possessed you. The idea was intolerable."

"But why couldn't you have told me up front who you were, that you knew who I was?"

"The truth?"

She nodded.

"I couldn't risk your walking out on me. You were the little girl that all little boys dream of. As far as you were concerned I didn't exist. I wasn't in your league, would never have been if not for the Astonvilles, and I didn't want to hear you say it or see it in your face."

"It wouldn't have mattered to me, Anthony. But I wouldn't have walked out anyway. I wanted the money," she said honestly.

He touched her cheek. "I know. And that used to bother me."

"Was that why you hired the detective agency?"

"Partly."

"Does it still bother you?"

"Do you still want the money?"

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't," she said.

His eyes held a somber light as he regarded her steadily. Then he touched her cheek again.

"We'll talk about it some other time, not tonight." She laid her head back down on his chest, and they fell silent again.

"What other things do you want to tell me," she said.

Almost unconsciously, she dropped a kiss on his navel and flicked her tongue into it. He started, and his fingers reflexively tightened their hold on her hair.

"I want to tell you about my biological father," he said, "because whether I like it or not, his blood runs in my veins."

"The reclusive Felipe," she said thoughtfully. She propped herself up again on her elbow, facing him, waiting.

"I never knew anything about him before we went to Brazil. Everything that I found out, I learned from Enrique after we went there. Felipe was not an educated man. He never finished high school. They were too poor. Eventually, he found a job in a textile factory but could barely support himself on his meager wages.

"He fell in love with a beautiful young girl named Consuelo who also worked at the factory and she fell in love with him. But his boss, not the owner of the factory, but his manager, a much older man, had his eye on the girl as well. He started giving her presents, showing her favors, and finally, she began going out with him, thinking he would give her a better life. It made Felipe angry."

"That's why you couldn't bear to listen to Manon Lescaut," Nicola interrupted. "It is your father's story, an older man and a younger man who are bitter rivals over the same young woman."

"Yes," he admitted. "It never fails to depress me. Anyway, in the end this older man got her pregnant, and then he told her he already had a wife and wouldn't have married her anyway and that he wanted her out of the factory. He did nothing to help her. She would have ended up on the street, pregnant and with no means of supporting herself. She couldn't face it so she threw herself off a bridge.

"Felipe was heartbroken. From that day on he was consumed with hate for the manager who had taken from him the only woman he would ever love. Then one morning the manager was found dead in the factory parking lot, his head bashed in by a heavy blow to his skull. Felipe did not turn up for work that day and immediately became the most likely suspect. There were no clues as to his whereabouts, and his family never saw him again. But as we now know, he must have left Brazil right after the manager was killed and ended up in Jamaica. His leaving could have been just a coincidence, but we'll never be certain whether it was he or someone else who murdered the manager. And the rest you know."

"Did you hate him?"

"I used to think I did, but now I think what I feel is simply indifference. I would have given anything when I was a child to have him at least acknowledge my existence in some way and I hated him for not even wanting to know me, his only son. When the Astonvilles adopted me I banished him from my mind, and until I saw you, I had not thought of him for years. Seeing you brought it all back."

His toyed with her nipple, and she stilled it and brought it to her lips, her eyes large and bright with empathy. "Do you know that you never say 'my father' when you talk about him? You always refer to him as your biological father or call him by his name."