A Touch of Temptation(56)
In the wake of that crushing realization came waves of roaring fury and unrelenting pain. He was damned if he’d let her go.
He would move heaven and earth to drag her back into his life. He would spend every last dollar he had and more on suing her for custody, using any legal means he had to tie her to him. He would destroy everything he had built—destroy himself if that was the price to make her his again.
He wanted her back in his life. And he would fall as low as needed.
* * *
He had just hung up with his lawyer when Miguel entered his office. He cast a long look at Diego, threw a file on his table, switched on the flatscreen TV and left.
Diego was about to turn off the TV when a familiar sight stopped him in his tracks. The pristine white beaches, the turquoise waters as a background, with Miguel in the forefront, were here—on the island.
Stunned, he settled into the couch.
The documentary started with Miguel being asked questions about his past life. Diego could see the resentment in his face, past hurt playing shadows in his dark gaze, the effort it cost him to answer those questions.
He shivered as he realized it was Kim answering the questions. She walked Miguel through every tough question, her tone gentle as he revealed his horrible past
The questions then focused on his current life. His chest tightened and a warm energy flew in Diego’s veins as she probed Miguel on how Diego had taken Miguel out of the street gang in Rio di Janeiro, how Diego had worked long days to get through to Miguel that violence wasn’t the answer, how Diego had brought him to this island...
Tears burned in Diego’s eyes as the short feature went on. As Kim interviewed the other two kids who had joined them last week.
And then it was her smiling face that filled his huge screen.
“The world should know of Diego Pereira’s efforts to get these kids out of violent street gangs and toward a better life.”
Her statement reverberated within him, shaking the rigid fear at the core of him loose.
He switched the television off, his heart pounding. She thought the world should know what he was doing. But he had never wanted the world’s applause, the world’s validation.
He had wanted it from her, had craved it. He had wanted to be worthy of the strong, brilliant, beautiful woman she was.
Feeling as though he was coming apart, he opened the file that Miguel had tossed at him.
The contents of the file blew him away. There were detailed plans for the infrastructure required to run a shelter for kids recovering from drug problems. There was a list of healthcare workers who had expertise in working with kids like Eduardo. A list of legalities and forms that needed to be fulfilled in order to begin such a program right there on the island.
It was detailed, precise and exactly what he had had in mind when he had bought the island. He had never revealed his plans to her. She couldn’t have created a file that made her loss more apparent.
Every inch of him ached at the emptiness he felt. Had she been horrified by what he had driven Eduardo to?
Seeing Eduardo’s body, seeing his own father, whom he had hated for so many years, his hatred blazing just as ever, had broken the hold he had kept on himself—had shown him what he couldn’t achieve through wealth or power, however hard he fought.
All his life he had fought for everything he had. But he hadn’t been able to make his mother happy before she died, he had never received his father’s acknowledgment or praise and he hadn’t been able to save Eduardo.
If he did anything to manipulate Kim now, if he fell any lower—even if it was because he loved her—he would probably only destroy her, as he had done Eduardo, and she had already suffered enough.
He closed his eyes and threw his head back. Grief scratched at his throat, and his muscles were burning with the need to fight, to bring her back into his life.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t force her to love him—not as he loved her. With every breath in him. With every cell in him. And letting her go meant letting go of the dream he had looked for with her and his children.
He had no doubt she would love their babies, whatever her fears.
In the end, after everything he had done to get to this stage in life, he was terrifyingly powerless again—and alone with it all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“ARE YOU GOING to avoid me for the rest of our lives?”
Kim drew a sharp breath, her fork freezing midway to her mouth, as Liv’s words flew across the lounge like loaded missiles. She had been back in New York for a week now and had been dreading confrontation. But this wasn’t one she had prepared herself for.
She had forgotten that Liv still had a key to her apartment. And she had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even heard the front door being opened.