Eleven

      Eliana had agreed to resume their wedding plans.

      But it seemed her faith in his feelings was still damaged, or at least hadn’t recovered yet. There had been no return to intimacy between them.

      Rafael couldn’t push. Not when everything inside her felt doused, no matter how passionate and attentive he was. All he could think was that she still thought everything he did for her was self-serving, that she continued to think herself an instrument to serve his purposes. First vengeance and now the child he couldn’t wait to have, a child to give the life he’d been deprived of.

      There was nothing he could do but continue to love her and hope time would prove to her what pledges never could.

      * * *

      Ellie rushed through Rafael’s expansive, exquisite mansion, inspecting the guest suites for readiness.

      The wedding was tomorrow. And her half brothers were flying in from the States, while all of Rafael’s brothers were coming over for the wedding rehearsal. They’d all be spending the night in the mansion.

      Rafael had left it up to her to distribute their guests. He continued to give her carte blanche with everything. Not that this made her feel anywhere near the lady of the mansion. While before she’d felt at least at home here, she now felt like a trespasser, and wondered if that feeling would ever go away.

      For now she had to focus on making sure everything was ready for their families’ arrival. She’d assigned the poolside suites to them. Some of the suites had panoramic views of the ocean, gardens, waterfalls and the hillside plunging deeply into Ferradura Bay. Others were tucked away, opened to the lush botanical gardens, sparkling lagoons and cascading waterfalls.

      But none had the stunning three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views, open-air shower, sundeck and spa of Rafael’s master suite. What used to be theirs, and would be so again starting tomorrow night.

      But how could she share his personal space and bed again? Although he’d said he’d consider new evidence, how could she possibly find any? And even with him putting his revenge plans on hold, what kind of life would they have with all of this between them? His initial duplicity, his unresolved animosity toward her father, her unabated fear he’d act on it?

      Unable to think any further than today, she went about the mind-emptying chores of stocking all the suites with Rafael’s legion of hired help.

      Starting tomorrow night, the rest of her life as Rafael’s wife and the mother of his child would begin. And the idea struck her at once with joy...and despondence.

      * * *

      In the southern gardens overlooking the Atlantic, Rafael stood watching Eliana as she walked toward him down the aisle with her father, the man who’d sentenced him to hell.

      It was only a rehearsal. Only the people who had a role in the ceremony were there. Others, like her half brothers and Ferreira’s PA, Isabella Da Costa, would be coming tomorrow. But everything with her always felt like the real thing. The only thing that mattered.

      And as she approached him in her flowing pistachio dress, her hair swept up in that ponytail it had become one of his life’s keenest pleasures to undo, he felt his being well up with love for her.

      Her eyes embraced his all the way, so much emotion filling them. He was beside himself being unable to read it all. Then she was a breath away, and that man he’d hated for so long, even before he’d known his identity, was giving him her hand.

      He looked at Ferreira for a long moment...and suddenly realized.

      He was no longer angry.

      He no longer cared about anything. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Nothing but her.

      Though this rehearsal was about going through the motions, getting the sequence flowing smoothly, and he wouldn’t be saying his actual vows until tomorrow, he couldn’t wait until then to share his epiphany with her.

      So he took her hands to his lips, to his heart. “Eliana, my every answer to my every prayer...I’m letting go of everything, my heart. I cling only to your love, want nothing but your happiness and peace of mind, meu coração.”

      * * *

      Rafael’s pledge had been the last thing Ellie had expected from him. It had been reverberating inside her ever since, knocking down every barrier, ending every uncertainty.

      Unable to wait to be alone with him, she gazed at him as the rehearsal came to an end, her heart shedding its sluggish despondence, back to the hammering of anticipation.

      As he hugged another three men, the rest of his brothers—minus one all were loath to talk about—she couldn’t really see anything but him.

      Dressed in all black, he’d lost weight in the past two weeks. It only made him seem taller, his shoulders and chest even wider in comparison to the sparser waist and hips. His face was hewn to sharper planes and angles, his skin a darker, silkier copper, intensifying the luminescence of his eyes. The discreet silver in his luxurious raven hair, that testament to his absolute love, added the last touch of allure.

      Then she was swept up in his arms among his brothers’ hoots and hollers that he was disgracing them by anticipating the wedding night. Not in a condition to be embarrassed, she clung to him all the way to their quarters.

      But the moment he placed her on the bed and came down beside her, her disquiet returned.

      Twisting her ponytail around his wrist, harnessing her by it, ferocity barely leashed by gentleness, he tilted up her face. “No more distance, minha vida, ever again.”

      “That’s not it...I just—just... Oh, God, please, Rafael, show me your evidence against my father.”

      His face settled in adamant lines. “I have given this up. I consider anything I’ve been through the path to finding you. You remember when you said you’d compensate me? Finding you is more compensation than I’ve ever dreamed I could have.”

      “But what you have against him is airtight, right?”

      “This is what I was afraid of, for your faith in him to be irrevocably damaged, causing you this much pain.”

      Her chest ached, her eyes burned. “Everything in me rebels against believing any such thing of my father, but it isn’t why I’m in agony. It’s for you. What you suffered was unthinkable.”

      “It’s in the past.”

      “But this is the present and future. How can I share my life and body and baby with you if there’s even the slightest possibility my father committed such an unforgivable crime against you? Even if he had done so under unspeakable duress? Throwing you in hell while he lavished his love on me?” She released a shuddering breath. “Even if you’ve decided to look the other way for my sake and that of our lives together, I can’t. I can’t live believing one of the two people my life has been built around did the other such unimaginable injury, for whatever reason.”

      After a long moment, he said, “Do you believe in your heart your father didn’t do it—or at least was forced to do