“What? No. See, you don’t understand—”
“But I do. I understand perfectly.” She drew her hands from his, gave him the kind of smile that made him understand the true meaning of a tight smile. “You say this wedding is tomorrow?”
“Right. Late morning. It’ll all be over by noon.”
“Excellent.”
“Yes. I thought so, too. Because—”
“My attorney’s name is Peter Reilly.”
Dante blinked. “Huh?”
“His office is on Seventy-second Street. He handled any modeling contracts that were outside the purview of my agency.”
“Gaby. What are you talking about?”
“I have been thinking, Dante. About our…our situation.” Do not cry, she told herself fiercely. Just because he’s confirmed all your worst fears, just because he’d sooner do anything than introduce you to his family, you are not to cry!
“Yes,” he said slowly, “so have I. That’s the reason I just explained things—”
“And a fine job of it you did,” she said, and told herself how well she was doing. “I shall ask Peter a special favor, that he meet with us at his office tomorrow, even though it is a Sunday at, let us say, two in the afternoon.”
“For what?” Dante said, totally bewildered.
This cold little speech, the frigid glare, that was what a man got for telling a woman that as rough as it was going to be, he wanted to take her to his brother’s wedding? Tell his entire family he loved her? Tell them that she’d borne his child, that there would be another wedding as soon as they could get to the clerk’s office Monday morning?
“For what?” he repeated, his eyes searching her face.
“For drawing up a payment schedule for what I owe you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“About resuming my own life,” Gabriella said. “You see, I have been thinking things over. And it is time that happened. This has been very nice but—”
“Very nice?”
“You have been most kind to me. Of course, it would have been better had your attempt to buy the fazenda gone through.”
“Better,” he repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “Buying you the fazenda would have been better than bringing you to live with me?”
“Well, yes. It would have taken me a very long time to repay you but the fazenda was my home—”
“And this is not.”
There was a terrible coldness in his voice. She wanted to put her arms around him, tell him that she had never been happier than she’d been the past days, that she wished, with all her heart, his home could really be her home, too…
“No,” she said, struggling to hold on to what little pride she had left, “it is not.”
They stared at each other while the silence of the chill night built around them.
Then Dante nodded.
“I’ll want my attorney at this meeting.”
“Certainly. I will give you my lawyer’s address and telephone number.”
“Do that.”
He turned on his heel. Walked inside, grabbed his jacket, took the private elevator to the lobby and walked briskly into the night. When he got back, hours and hours later, his bed was empty.
Gabriella was in the guest suite.
Exactly where she should be, he thought grimly, and poured himself the first of the several brandies he figured he’d need before he could tumble into merciful sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SUNDAY dawned bright and sunny.
A perfect day for a wedding, someone would probably say, but Dante knew better. It was a perfect day for a man to wake from a dream and realize he’d come within a heartbeat of putting his head in a noose.
He loved his brother, but better Rafe than him.
Dante showered, shaved, dressed and got out the door without seeing Gabriella. His mood was grim, but he wasn’t sure why it should be, considering he’d barely escaped making the biggest mistake of his life. There was such a thing as carrying Doing The Right Thing too far.
He certainly hadn’t been on the verge of asking her to marry him because he loved her.
Love?
Dante shuddered as he stepped from a taxi outside the unassuming little church in the Village where Rafe’s wedding was to take place. Yesterday he’d done a good job of half convincing himself what he felt was love, but the truth was, love had nothing to do with it. Responsibility. That’s what he felt for her. He was a decent man, she’d given birth to his child.
That was all there was to it.
Dante looked around as he straightened his tie. No cops. No Feds. None he could spot, anyway. Rafe would, at least, be free of the kind of attention Cesare almost always received. This was Rafe’s day, for better or for worse—no pun intended. He’d smile, toast his brother and his bride, then head for his meeting with Gabriella, her attorney and Sam Cohen. He’d phoned Sam at 6:00 a.m., and though Sam had grumbled, he’d said yeah, okay, he’d draw up the necessary documents—child support, child visitation—and hustle over to the two-o’clock meeting.