The South American's Wife. Kay Thorpe
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straightened away from the chest, turning towards the door. ‘Come to the lobby in half an hour.’
Karen stood where she was for several moments after he’d left the room, mulling over everything that had been said. There were still so many questions to be answered, and only Luiz to supply those answers.
But was what he told her the whole truth? Why had she felt the need to turn to another man at all?
CHAPTER TWO
THE limousine Luiz had hired was already waiting for them outside when she went down. He put her into the front passenger seat before going round to slide behind the wheel.
He had shown her the sights this way when they’d first met, he’d said upstairs. If the hotel itself, plus the view from the window, had failed to stir her memory, it was unlikely that this was going to work either, but it was worth a try, Karen supposed. Anything was worth trying!
They headed for the mountains backing the city, leaving the congested streets to enter a world of tropical rainforest where thick lianas hung like pythons from tree branches furry with moss. The tangled canopy far above filtered out the sunlight, casting an eerie green glow over writhing creepers and huge tree ferns. There were flowers in abundance, their colours jewel-like among the foliage.
Karen was mesmerised, hardly able to believe that they were still within the city limits.
‘It’s like another planet!’ she exclaimed, viewing a begonia bush bursting with bright yellow blossom and smothered in bees. ‘What’s making all the noise?’
‘Monkeys,’ Luiz advised. ‘We invade their territory. This is the Terra da Tijuca, Rio’s national park. It spreads over a hundred or more square miles.’
‘It’s wonderful!’
He cast a swift sideways glance at her rapt face. ‘But in no way familiar?’
‘No.’ The enthusiasm faded as reality reared its head again. ‘To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never seen any of this before.’
She sank back into her seat, head against the rest, eyes closed. ‘I feel I’m living someone else’s life!’
‘I can assure you you’re not,’ Luiz responded. ‘Your memory will return when you’re ready to remember.’
Karen stole a glance at the hard-edged profile, feeling the fast-becoming-familiar tension in her lower body. ‘Supposing that’s never?’
His jaw compressed momentarily. ‘Then we accept matters the way they are and live our lives accordingly.’
‘I’m not sure I can accept it,’ she said, and saw the compression come again.
‘There’s no other way.’
It was obvious that any further protest on her part would be a waste of time and breath, Karen acknowledged silently. Whatever she’d done, she was his wife and she was staying his wife.
Topped by the towering white statue of Christ, the granite peak of Corcovado afforded a panoramic view over both city and coastline. The skyscrapers below were reduced in size to toytown dimensions, the beaches of Copacabana and Impanema to curving crescents of white dotted with ants. Karen was overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle.
‘You were equally impressed the first time you saw it,’ said Luiz, watching her face as she gazed at the scene. ‘As you were with everything.’
‘Including yourself,’ she murmured.
‘Including myself,’ he agreed. ‘As I intended you to be.’
‘How long did I hold out?’
Dark brows lifted. ‘Hold out?’
‘Before you got me into bed with you?’
It was a moment before he answered, his tone quizzical. ‘Does it matter to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need to know.’
His shrug was brief. ‘We made love on the first night of our acquaintance.’
Karen swallowed. ‘You must have thought me the easiest conquest you’d ever made!’
‘No such thought entered my mind,’ he denied. ‘We were two people drawn by the same overwhelming force.’
She couldn’t bring herself to meet the dark eyes full on. ‘Would you still have wanted to marry me if I’d had previous experience?’
‘I would have accepted it, yes.’
Karen looked at him then, oblivious to the other people on the platform. An arm resting against the guard rail, head outlined against the sky, he looked at ease in a way she envied. She had a sudden urge to disrupt that equanimity.
‘Tell me about Lucio Fernandas,’ she said with deliberation. ‘Who exactly is he?’
She gained her wish as his face hardened. ‘I prefer not to speak of him.’
‘We have to talk about him,’ she insisted.
Straightened now away from the rail, Luiz studied her for a moment in silence. When he spoke it was in tautly controlled tones. ‘There’s little enough I can tell you of his background. He was employed by one of my foremen. Had I had any notion…’ He broke off, gritting his teeth together. ‘Suffice to say he would have been in no fit state to arouse any woman’s interest!’
Karen’s chest felt tight as a drum. Luiz Andrade was a proud man; it didn’t take intimate knowledge to be aware of that. The discovery that his wife had been having an affair at all would have hit him hard enough, but for her to have become involved with a mere employee!
‘I’m still not convinced it’s the truth,’ she said defensively. ‘What actual proof do you have that there was any affair to start with?’
Amber lights glinted in the depths of his eyes. ‘What proof do I need other than that you provided yourself in running off with him?’
‘There had to be some prior signs, surely?’
‘There apparently were, had I been willing to see them. Beatriz suspected, but failed to warn me.’
Karen put up an involuntary hand to her temple as pain lanced briefly through it. There was an odd buzzing in her ears, a sense of being drawn somewhere she didn’t want to go.
Luiz moved swiftly to catch her as she swayed, arms sliding about her to hold her close. She could feel the strong beat of his heart at her breast, the sun-stoked heat of his body.
‘I’m all right now,’ she managed. ‘Just a bit of a dizzy spell, that’s all.’
He made no attempt to stop her as she pulled away from him. ‘I should have refused to discuss the matter,’ he said. ‘This isn’t the place.’
What attention they’d drawn from those in the vicinity had now been returned to the scenery. Karen tilted her head to let the breeze cool her cheeks, both hands on the guardrail to steady herself.
‘Who is Beatriz?’
Luiz made a curt gesture. ‘As I said, this isn’t the place. We’ll return to the hotel.’
She made no protest. The name had meant something to her, that was obvious, but there was no further break in the curtain.
It was well into the afternoon when they reached the hotel again. Luiz accepted Karen’s plea that she was tired and needed rest rather than food without demur, simply saying that he would see her later.
A shower was a first priority on reaching her room. She luxuriated for several minutes in the glass-walled cabinet, blanking out everything but the feel of the water streaming over her skin.
Towelled dry, she donned the robe provided and returned to the bedroom to extract fresh underwear from the suitcase. There