Virgin Mistress(45)
Something lurched deep inside his heart.
“Ellie…” He took a deep breath. “We can talk more later.”
“Right,” she said dully. “Later.”
Ellie didn't look up as he left. He would deal with her later. Right now, he had more pressing concerns. He went to his modern office building on the Avenida Rio Branco. He met with Andrew MacCandless, his company's chief of international security, then got reports on Wright's most recent sighting yesterday—traveling to São Paulo from New York on a borrowed plane. He'd apparently promised a wealthy childless couple on Park Avenue that they would soon receive newborn twins for the price of four million dollars.
Newborn twins.
I will find him, Diogo told himself with a haggard breath. He told his chief of security to bring in a private army if that was what it took. The man was threatening his family. He had to be brought down.
Just as the man grimly left to execute his orders, his secretary spoke in Portuguese over the intercom.
“Your wife is here, sir.”
“Here?”
“I just got the call from downstairs reception. Shall I have them send her up?”
He paused. He didn't want to see Ellie now. There was no point in talking. She loved him, and he didn't love her.
Seeing her pain killed him. Distracted him.
Still…
Ellie had never come to his work before. He couldn't turn her away. “Send her up.”
As he paced his office waiting for her to arrive, he couldn't stop thinking about her. His beautiful, warm wife, the mother of his children. He couldn't stand the thought of anyone threatening to take her from him.
Diogo had known what Wright was capable of. Why had he let the man go?
If anything happened to Ellie, it would be Diogo's fault.
He clenched his hands. He couldn't let anything happen. He wouldn't. He would die first.
He loved her.
The stealthy thought brought him up short.
He loved her?
It was true she had changed his life completely. His existence had once been cold. Going from one woman to the next, filling his life with business deals and empty pleasures, he hadn't realized at the time how miserable he'd been—or how alone.
But Ellie had changed everything. She'd turned his cold house into a home. Taught his daughter to love and trust again. Made his whole life bright with color and rich and warm. Somehow he'd come to value her opinion and her strength more than anything…
Was that love?
He couldn't go to sleep at night without making love to her. He couldn't get out of bed in the morning without kissing her and seeing her bright face. He couldn't imagine coming home if not to her….
Maldição. He was in love with his wife.
How was it possible that he hadn't known?
How was it possible it had taken him so long to realize that he'd gotten everything all wrong? Love wasn't to be feared. It didn't leave a man vulnerable. To the contrary. Knowing that he loved her, and she loved him back, made him more fearless and determined than he'd ever been in his life….
He heard a knock at the door. His wife entered, her face wan and pale.
“Ellie.” He went to her immediately, reaching for her, desperate to hold her in his arms. “Meu amor. I'm so glad you're here. I have to tell you—this morning, when I—”
She backed away. “Don't touch me.”
He froze in place, unable to look away from her face. Her expression was so distant and strange. Not like Ellie at all.
“I've come to say goodbye,” she said. “I'm leaving.”
“What?” he whispered.
Her china-blue eyes crackled like frozen ice beneath the sea. “You've made it clear you'll never love me. So I'm going home. Back to New York.”
“No.” Grabbing her fiercely, he looked down at her. She wouldn't leave. She couldn't. Not now—not when he finally had realized he loved her!
“Ellie, you have to listen,” he said hoarsely. “I should never have said those things to you this morning—”
“I'm glad you did,” she said, cutting him off. “It was time I faced the truth.”
“You are my wife. Pregnant with my children.” He swallowed. “I do not want you to leave. Ever.”
She looked away miserably. “I have no choice.”
“But, Ellie, I…” He took a deep breath. I love you. He licked his dry lips, and tried again. “I…” But unlike when he proposed, these strange words stuck in his throat. “You do have a choice,” he whispered. “I'm not ordering you to stay. I'm asking you,” he said in a low voice. “Please. Stay. For me.”
She shook her head, and he saw tears in her eyes. “I can't.” She wrenched away. “I want a divorce.”