Plain Again (10 page)

Wondering where her
mamm
would have gotten such trashy newspapers, Amanda quickly handed them back to her, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Ridiculous,” she mumbled, as her
mamm
put the tabloids onto the table.

“That’s all you have to say about this?” Her mother sounded genuinely surprised.

Amanda looked at her mother and shrugged her shoulders. “It’s predictable, I suppose. He’s out there without me. They are going to gossip.” She paused. Gossip was, apparently, not unknown to the Amish, too, she thought wryly, for certainly her
mamm
didn’t purchase these newspapers. And wasn’t the Amish grapevine as potent as any tabloid? “They live for gossip,” she added, not entirely certain to whom she was actually referring.

Clearly, Lizzie was stunned by Amanda’s nonchalance. Taking back the papers, she folded them neatly. It was obvious that they were not going to make it into the garbage bin, the place where they belonged. “And you have joined the Englische world without reservation? A world of gossip and speculation about your private life?”

The irony of the situation was not lost on Amanda, but she remained respectful to her
mamm
. “Oh, there’s always plenty of reservation about their world,” Amanda admitted. “But not about Alejandro.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps not about Alejandro, but what about Viper?”

The question stung Amanda, the words as well as the tone of voice from her mother. In all of her years growing up, Amanda could not remember her mother ever speaking in such a manner. Rather than respond, Amanda lifted her chin and walked out of the kitchen.

The truth was that Amanda was worried about Alejandro. But for different reasons. They hadn’t been able to connect via the telephone for several days. Oh, he sent her a text whenever he could, but he was busy and moving from city to city. She knew that his time in Los Angeles had been spent in meetings with advertisers, endorsers, and the recording studio. While he managed to send her texts, the phone calls had become less frequent.

A small piece of her constantly worried that he had forgotten about her, perhaps even slipped back into his old lifestyle. So the call from Carlos had come at the exact moment when, after a terrible day with grave disappointment in the people she used to consider part of her extended family, she desperately needed to hear from her husband.

Despite not having talked directly to him, she could tell that he missed her. She could tell that he longed for her to join him on the road. And tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough to satisfy her intense longing to be with him once again.

Chapter Ten

I am waiting for you.

The minutes seem like hours.

Text me when the car passes through the tunnel.

V.

He stood at the window, staring down at the street below. Cars were backed up, waiting for the morning traffic to dissipate. November in New York City marked the beginning of maddening rush-hour traffic from commuters and tourists alike. With Thanksgiving around the corner, people were flocking to the Big Apple to window-shop, skate at Rockefeller Center, and gaze at the huge holiday tree with its thousands of lights.

But Alejandro wasn’t concerned with any of that. He had cleared his schedule until later in the afternoon because today was the day that Amanda was arriving. It had been over three weeks. Three long, painful weeks for him. He had traveled to so many cities that he had lost count. Performances, interviews, appearances at clubs. He had even managed to start recording a new song, one that he wrote just for Amanda. But none of it meant much anymore. The luster and the glory had disappeared. Without Amanda by his side, his enthusiasm was simply not there.

Oh, he had seen the tabloids. He hated those photos of Amanda with the hired man. But he had learned to compartmentalize his emotions, for he knew that his Amanda would never be anything but true to him. If the tabloids wanted to sell their papers by telling lie after lie, so be it. The truth was that Amanda was on her way into the city, a car and bodyguard having left at three in the morning to pick her up so that she would be with him before lunchtime.

He glanced around the suite. White roses were everywhere. His assistant had done wonders in following his instructions to have bouquets of gorgeous flowers, all white, in every room of the suite. There was a bottle of champagne chilling in the silver ice bucket by the cream-colored sofa. Despite it being daytime, the lights of the eighteen-armed chandelier cast a soft glow that sent mini-sparkles through the French-cut Swarovski crystals that hung from each of its curved arms.

With his hands behind his back, he turned his attention to the window again. He wore freshly pressed black slacks and a silk black shirt. He was waiting and would not move until he saw the black SUV pull down the street and stop in front of the hotel.

The week was going to be busy, no two ways about it. But facing the constant demands on his time would be so much easier with Amanda by his side. He had already instructed Carlos to work with Lucinda on outfits for Amanda to be coordinated with his based on the next week’s schedule. With satisfaction, Alejandro had noticed just last evening that the closet was filled with outfits, each one with a note tag on it, instructing Amanda when to wear it and with which accessories.

But now he was staring out the window, his heart pounding inside his chest. At the realization that he felt like a schoolboy anxiously waiting for his date to arrive, he chuckled to himself and shook his head. Never in his life had he felt so overwhelmed by a woman. She was all-consuming to him, and he regretted having left her behind on the farm. Yet he was also aware of the fact that, had he not left her there, he would not be so cognizant of how dependent he had become on Amanda’s presence in every aspect of his life.

It was an odd feeling, Alejandro realized. He had never depended on anyone except himself. From the days that he struggled for survival on the streets of Miami to fighting in the clubs just to sing a song onstage, it had only been himself in charge of his success. He wasn’t proud of everything that he had done in order to survive, but he was proud that he made it out alive and with enough decency to try to help others escape the world of gangs, drugs, and crime to which he had nearly succumbed. Unfortunately, Alejandro had learned the importance of self-preservation in a world where people, including himself, often focused more on what they could get rather than on what they could give. His success only exacerbated that problem.

And then came Amanda.

He shut his eyes and, for a moment, leaned his head against the cool glass of the window.

She had been so different, so pure and good in thoughts and deeds. She had wanted nothing from him and that had taken him by surprise. For the first time in many years, he had let his guard down only to find out that the danger in that was love. But he regretted nothing. She was, after all, his true soul mate.

“Alejandro?”

He paused, collecting himself before he glanced over his shoulder at Carlos.
“¿Sí?”

“She’s here.”

That surprised Alejandro. With such bad traffic, the driver must have taken back roads and side streets. “Is she coming up?”

Carlos nodded.

“Send her to freshen up, then bring her to me,” he commanded, dreading even the smallest delay but savoring the anticipation. It was a quality that he had taught himself long ago. The best things in life were always worth working for as well as waiting for. He returned his gaze to the window, his arms behind his back, as he continued to watch the cars moving ever so slightly beneath him on the street.

It was almost twenty minutes later when he heard the door between the rooms of the suite open. It was quiet, the only noise being the sound of the door swooshing open, the bottom of it scraping across the top of the plush white carpet. He refused to turn around, savoring each moment, as his heart pounded inside his chest. He could hear her as she took a few steps into the room, her feet padding across the carpet. But then she stopped and he waited. It seemed like an eternity.

“Alejandro?”

Her voice was soft but full of questions, perhaps even a bit of concern, as to why he kept his back to her. With a deep breath, he shut his eyes and quickly counted to ten in Spanish. Then, he turned around, his eyes taking in the sight of his beautiful wife, who stood fewer than ten feet away from him.

A chill ran up his spine as he felt emotion well up in his throat. He had to calm himself as his blue eyes stared at her, drinking in the vision of Amanda, dressed in a simple navy dress with a belt around her waist. Her hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. His eyes moved over her body, pausing just for a moment at the sparkling ring on her finger.

And then he could take no more.

He crossed the room with long, easy strides and stood before her. He met her eyes and stared as deeply into her soul as he could. Her eyes were dark and beautiful, full of curiosity at his reaction to her presence. But as he reached out for her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her skin ever so sweetly, he noticed that her eyes changed. They softened with emotion and a blush crossed her cheeks.

“Princesa,” he murmured as he gently pulled her toward him. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close, leaving his head resting on her head as he shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. She smelled like lavender, a flashback to the farm. “Oh, what you do to me,” he said, his lips against her hair. He held her tight, feeling her heart beat against his chest. She was so small, so petite. He had forgotten how neatly she fit against his body.

“Alejandro,” she whispered, and he realized that she was trembling.

He pulled back, just enough so that he could look down into her face. With one hand, he tilted her chin so that she was staring up and into his face. His eyes sought hers before he lowered his mouth onto hers, kissing her with all of the built-up passion that he had kept bottled up since the day he had left her at her parents’ farm.

He moved his hand to the back of her neck, gently holding it as he kissed her. Without stopping, he slowly moved away from the sitting room of the suite and pulled her with him toward the bedroom. He felt her trepidation and that added to his desire to reclaim the only person who mattered in his life: his wife.

And as he stepped back to undress her, his eyes never leaving hers, he realized that he had stopped living the moment his car had driven away from the Beiler farm. For three weeks, he had merely gone through the motions, for his life had been on hold until this minute, this very second, as Amanda stood before him, a blush on her cheeks.

He reached up and unpinned her hair. He loved the feeling of the bobby pins sliding out from the bun. Collecting them in his hand, he waited for the cascade of brown hair to fall down her back before he leaned over and placed the pins on the nightstand by the bed. Then he returned his attention to Amanda, lifting his hands to run his fingers through her silky hair that hung down to her waist. He pulled it forward, and with his eyes shut, he inhaled the lavender scent.

Once again, she whispered his name. “Alejandro?”

He caught his breath and opened his eyes. Staring at her, he choked back the emotion that was building in his throat. He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips. “Shh,” he replied, his voice low and an all-too-familiar look in his eyes. “I need you, Princesa,” he murmured, reaching up to unbutton his shirt. “I need to remember you in every way, to know that you are mine once again.”

She lowered her eyes, but he caught the hint of a shy smile on her lips. It maddened him, and he tossed his shirt aside, letting it fall over the back of a chair.

“I saw that,” he teased gently, taking her hand once again.

She lifted her eyes and silently questioned him with a simple look.

“Ay,
Dios
mío,”
he groaned and pulled her toward him, crushing her against his body as he embraced her, his lips on her neck and one hand entwined in her hair. “No more words for you, Princesa. Only this,” he whispered into her ear as he lowered her to the bed and reclaimed his wife in complete silence.

It was close to three in the afternoon when they sat in the sitting room of the suite, Amanda wearing a soft white robe, her legs bare. She sat next to Alejandro on the sofa, leaning against him as though afraid to be apart from him. With her legs tucked under her, she let her head fall onto his shoulder as she savored the memory of his love.

The room was silent, save for the muffled noise of the street traffic. It was a comfortable silence, as though words were not necessary. He kept one arm around her, holding her tight as he scrolled through the messages on his phone. She didn’t mind. As long as she was next to him, touching him, smelling him, she didn’t care what he was doing.

He reached over and placed his hand on her leg, leaning his head back onto the sofa and sighing.

“What is it, Alejandro?” she asked, her voice soft with a hint of shyness.

Despite the intimate and passionate greeting from just a few hours ago, she felt estranged from this man. He consumed her thoughts and her heart, but she realized that the three weeks apart had created a feeling of insecurity in her. She had to remind herself, over and over again, that he was her husband and not a figment of her imagination.

He looked at her, his blue eyes gazing at her face. With his free hand, he reached over and brushed her long brown hair away from her cheek. A smile on his lips countered the sadness in his eyes.

“I have missed you, Princesa,” he said.

“And I, you.”

He shut his eyes for a minute, as though digesting her words. Then, he nodded. “
Sí
, I believe that, Amanda. But you will be returning, no?” He didn’t wait for her response. “I don’t want you to return. I need you here . . . with me.” He lifted his head and turned to face her, putting both hands on her hips and holding her tight in his grasp. “I can’t let you go back.”

She laughed at him. “I just arrived!”

“¡Ay!”
He pulled her closer so that she was almost sitting on his lap. “But the thought of you leaving is tearing me apart. Do you understand?”

She didn’t.

“I have arranged for a nurse to stay with your father after your sister leaves,” he confessed, caressing her hand as he held it in his. “You must not return. I can’t do this without you.”

“You have, Alejandro. For years before me,” she pointed out.

“No!” Releasing her abruptly, he stood up and paced the room, running his fingers through his hair. “You don’t get it, Amanda!”
Aman-tha.
The way he said her name caused a shiver to run down her spine. “You have changed me, and it’s too clear to everyone. If you leave . . . if you return to Lancaster . . . I can’t do this.” He spun around to face her. “Without you, I am nothing anymore. My heart is not in this if I cannot have you by my side.”

While she was touched by the passion in his voice, she was equally concerned by the desperation in it. How could he have changed so much in such a short period of time? Standing up, she straightened her robe before crossing the floor to face him. She reached for his hands, hands that had been caressing her and touching her just an hour before. She shivered at the memory and pressed one of them to her heart.

“Feel this?” she whispered. “It beats for you.” She stared up into his face, amazed at the intensity with which he looked back at her. “I am always with you, Alejandro. Don’t you know that?”

She saw him take a deep breath as he held her hand tightly.
“Te amo,
Princesa
,”
he said, his voice low and sultry.
“Siempre.”

“And I love you, too,” she whispered. “For always.”

The look in his eyes told her what he wanted to do, to take her back into his arms and love her again. But a soft knock on the door interrupted the moment. He groaned, a soft noise that escaped his throat, and he leaned down to place his forehead against hers. She could smell the musky scent of his cologne and shut her eyes, inhaling it so that she would never forget it.

“We must get going,” he sighed, the regret in his voice touching her heart. “I’ll give you a few minutes to . . .” His eyes roved down her body and took in her hair, hanging over her shoulders in long, loose waves. He reached out and tugged at her hair, twirling it around his fingers. “Freshen up, although I prefer you just as you are.”

She lowered her eyes, blushing at the compliment. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to his amorous affection. She had never been raised with displays of emotion. No hugs, no kisses, except on Church Sunday. She had missed his sparkling eyes and playful words; she felt her pulse quicken when she realized just how much.