Virgin Mistress(47)

He pressed his knuckles hard against his closed eyes. He'd been a fool. She'd never loved him, really. It had just been…

It just…

It just…didn't make sense.

He slowly opened his eyes.

Just tell her I love her, Ellie had whispered. And that all I wanted to do was to keep her safe.

Catia.

He snatched up his phone from his desk. Pacing back and forth across his office, he called first Ellie's cell phone, then Pedro's. No answer. He called security downstairs and was informed that Mrs. Serrador and the bodyguard were long gone.

Diogo's hands shook as he called his men at the hotel. None of them answered, even though he let it ring. Finally, he called his chief of security and got an answer.

“I just reached the Carlton Palace, Mr. Serrador,” the Australian said grimly. “It looks like someone knocked out all the bodyguards by putting something in the coffee. No one died, but I just found Guilherme stuffed into a utility closet on the back staircase. He's barely breathing—looks like he was chloroformed from behind. Ambulance is on the way.”

“And Catia?” Diogo demanded, barely able to breathe.

“Haven't seen her, Mr. Serrador,” MacCandless replied. “We're searching the building. But Pedro Carneiro was with her when she left the general's compound this morning.”

Diogo took a hoarse breath, closing his eyes. Pedro.

The trusted bodyguard who protected his wife and child. The brother of his old rival in the favela—the man who'd never forgiven him for leaving to succeed in a better world.

Diogo knew how he'd been betrayed. How the threatening notes had gotten into his home, his office, his car.

Pedro.

A roar rose from deep in his throat as he told his security chief, “Pedro Carneiro has betrayed us. He's working for Wright. Find him and we'll find Catia—and Ellie.”

But even as his body broke out into a cold sweat, he gloried in one small realization. Ellie still loved him. She'd been trying to protect them—trying to protect them all.

Diogo rose to his feet.

Protecting his family was his job.

Love hadn't made Diogo vulnerable. It gave him the power and strength of steel. He would die to protect his family.

And the baby-selling lawyer would not live to see another dawn.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



“I DID IT,” ELLIE said quietly in the dark room. “I told him I wanted a divorce because I was in love with you. Now uphold your end of the deal. Let her go.”

Timothy smiled at her. His same cheerful, thin smile that he'd had for years. But everything else about him had changed. He'd once been tidy, slender and pale in wire-rimmed glasses. But he hadn't shaved for months. His clothes were dirty and baggy.

He was nearly unrecognizable, and not just in appearance. Ellie had never imagined he would hold a six-year-old girl as hostage for revenge. Looking at Catia's wide-eyed, tearstained face as the scared child clung to her teddy bear, Ellie could hardly believe that she'd once felt desperately sorry for the way she'd treated Timothy Wright.

“Nice work,” he said with a satisfied nod. “I knew you just needed the right motivation to get rid of him.”

Ellie looked at him with narrowed eyes. “So let the girl go.”

“Sure. Fine. I never much liked kids anyway.” He pushed Catia toward Pedro, who was waiting by the door. “Take her home. Or as close as you can get without being caught.” Timothy turned back to Ellie with a bright, benign smile. “See? I'm not a bad person, Ellie. You've just forced me to do bad things.”

Catia gave a little sob. Ellie fell to her knees in front of the girl, hugging her tight. “It's all right,” she whispered, holding her close one last time. “You'll be safe. He's going to take you home.” She turned fiercely to Pedro. “If you hurt her—”

“I won't. I'm just in this for the money.” The man's eyes flickered at her, then Timothy. “Besides, I'm not the one you should be worried about, senhora. Tchau.”

As they left, Ellie closed her eyes, praying for the little girl's safety. Diogo would find her. He would surely have realized by now that Ellie would never divorce him. Not when she'd told him she would love him forever…

“Alone at last,” Timothy said with a sickly sweet smile.

Looking around the old concrete house with ragged curtains, tucked deeply inside the maze of the favela, Ellie felt her belly tense into another hard contraction. She'd been feeling contractions all morning. She'd felt the first one right after Diogo told her he didn't love her, and they'd only increased since Pedro had given her Timothy's note.

Now, she looked at the man she'd nearly married on that lovely spring day so long ago.

“Why did you do this?” she asked. “Why did you have me say those horrible things to Diogo?”