Plain Return (The Plain Fame Series Book 4) (22 page)

The sarcastic tone in which he said her nickname did not go unnoticed, and without warning, tears began to well up in her eyes. The way that he looked at her, with such contempt and anger, frightened her. Why couldn’t he see that touring on the road was no place for a child? The situation was not ideal; she could admit that much. But this was not something that they had planned. All of their plans had changed overnight when Isadora entered their lives. But responsible parents put the needs of their children ahead of their own.

“Do not cry,” he warned and pointed a firm finger at her. “
You
are making this choice. You have no right to cry.”

As soon as he said those words, Amanda lifted her hands to her face and covered her eyes and cheeks. She turned her back to him and let the tears fall. Even if she were able to speak, she wouldn’t respond to his words, which were so cruel and out of character. This ugly side of Alejandro threw her off. How could this man who she loved so much speak to her in such a way?

She moved away from him and started to head toward the bedroom to collect herself and her thoughts. Words spoken in anger create wounds that cannot heal, she reminded herself. This was just one more of the wise adages she had been taught by her mother. The harshness with which Alejandro had spoken to her just now would take a long time to forget.

As she walked away from him, she suddenly felt Alejandro’s firm grip on her upper arm. In one fluid movement, he spun her around and pushed her backward so rapidly that she gasped in surprise. Her tears immediately stopped as he pinned her against the wall and, maintaining a firm grip on her wrist, held her arm so that she could not escape.

“Alejandro!”

She tried to push him away, pressing her free hand against his shoulder. He responded by tightening his hold on her other wrist. Her surprise turned to anger. She had caught glimpses of his temper before, but it had always been directed elsewhere. She had never thought that he would treat her in such a rough manner. In hindsight, she knew that the tension between them had been building, and that it had created a divide that neither one of them knew how to cross.

This, however, is not the way, she told herself.

“Don’t,” she snapped at him. She tried to free herself, but it did no good. When she realized that her determination was no match for his physical strength, she stopped fighting him. She looked up at him, ready to say something else when she saw that his blue eyes no longer held rage and fury. No, those emotions were gone and had been replaced by a new one: panic.

“Amanda,” he said. The softness in his voice contrasted with his sharp tone from moments before. “I cannot leave here without you.”

“Let me go. You are hurting my arm, Alejandro.”

Immediately, he loosened his hold on her, but kept her pinned against the wall. She didn’t like the feeling of being restrained but knew better than to fight him.

“You don’t know what it was like,” he whispered, lifting his hand so that he could wipe the remnants of tears from her cheeks. His fingers paused at her mouth, and then he brushed his thumb against her lower lip. “Knowing you were here. Knowing you didn’t need me.” He shut his eyes as if pained by the memory. “Maybe you don’t, Amanda, but I need you. Even if you are only back in the hotel, I need to know that you are there.”

The rapid shift in his tone, anger turned to anxiety, was almost as startling as the way he was restraining her against the wall.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I am your husband,” he responded, his voice trembling just enough so that Amanda knew that he was holding back his emotions. “Bring Isadora, Amanda. Bring your family. Anything you want. I’ll provide for them all.” His thumb fell from her mouth, and he cupped her chin with his hand. “Just come with me,” he said, lowering his eyes and looking at her lips. “Be with me, not because you want to but because you need to.”

She shut her eyes and pictured the scantily clad dancers onstage with Viper, the screaming women in the audience, the workers swearing behind the scenes whenever things went wrong. She felt the weariness in her body caused by traveling from country to country and the weariness in her soul caused by the barrage of fans, paparazzi, and reporters. How could she do all that with Isadora? How could she help this child adjust if change was the only constant in her life? To uproot her from the farm, especially after the past few weeks, would be to shatter her trust in all people. Amanda knew that she couldn’t do that to Isadora.

Just as important, Amanda realized that she couldn’t do it to herself.

“I . . .” She opened her eyes but could not finish speaking. The words wouldn’t come, and she knew, as he surely must, what her answer would be. Neither of them wanted to hear her say it.

“Shh,” he whispered, pressing a finger against her lips. When he released her hand, slipping his own down her back and cupping her waist, she felt the warmth of his skin through the material of her shirt. Her body relaxed a bit as she leaned against him.

“Don’t say anything, Amanda.” His eyes sought hers, but there were no answers there. The answers remained unspoken, and as if to ensure that it remained that way, he relaxed his hold on her and kissed her, gently at first but then more intensely, until she felt the full urgency of his driving need to possess her: mind, body, and soul.

She realized that his urge to possess her had always been there. While she often let him take control of situations and her, she hadn’t permitted him to change who she was as a person. And lately she had been standing up to him more frequently, especially now that she was responsible for Isadora. Amanda wondered if her increasing independence was the driving force behind him coveting both her attention and her affection: he couldn’t have one without the other. The only problem, she realized, was that neither could she. And, as of late, she wasn’t getting either.

In the early-morning hours of dawn, she felt Alejandro get out of bed. The mattress shifted under him, and she heard his bare feet on the floor. She rolled over, tucking the sheet under her chin. The sun wasn’t up, and she had no idea what time it was. Certainly long before he should have arisen.

“You are awake?” he whispered, his voice soft in the quiet of the room. She could see his silhouette in the darkness as he stood by the side of the bed, looking down at her in the gray-blue glow of morning. “Go back to sleep, Princesa.”

She stretched her hand toward him. “Come back to bed, Alejandro. It’s cold here without you.”

He shook his head and held a finger to his lips. She heard him slip on a pair of pants and bend down to retrieve the rest of his clothing that was scattered across the floor. He tried to be quiet as he slipped out of the bedroom. Moments later she heard the water running in the bathroom.

Sighing, she reached over and retrieved his phone to check the time. Four thirty. He never got up this early. Amanda wondered why he had gotten dressed. Surely he wasn’t planning on helping Jonas and Harvey. Alejandro needed his sleep, and everyone on the farm knew it.

She got out of bed and pulled on her robe, padding across the floor and opening the bedroom door. The cold air chilled her, and the floor felt like ice under her bare feet. She hoped that Isadora had enough blankets covering her, and for a split second, she contemplated checking on her.

“Go back to bed,” her husband said when he saw her standing there. He buttoned the front of his shirt and avoided her eyes.

“What’s going on, Alejandro?” She took a step toward him and covered his hand with hers. The warmth of his skin caused her to remember the previous night and his words of love. She felt light-headed and wanted nothing more than to linger in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against her back and to smell the musky scent of his skin as he held her. “Why are you up? You need sleep.”

He shook his head, one of his dark curls, still damp with water from the sink, falling over his forehead. “My car is picking me up at five.”

“Your car?” She removed her hand and stepped backward. “What do you mean your car?”

He finished buttoning the shirt and began tucking it into his waistband. “I told you yesterday, Amanda, that I am leaving. I meant it.”

“But . . .” She couldn’t even form words to speak. He was leaving? It was the furthest thought from her mind, especially after his declarations of love to her during a magical night spent in each other’s arms.

His shirt now tucked in, Alejandro tightened his belt. “I need to be in Los Angeles for the weekend.”

“What about us?”

He paused and looked at her. “I told you once that my world was not like here. That it is ugly and not good. That you would find reasons to hate me for bringing you with me.”

“It’s not all ugly,” she said. “Look at the good that you do. The people you touch.”

He made a scoffing noise.

“It’s true. You bring so much joy to so many people, Alejandro.”

“Amanda,” he said sharply. “This is where you belong. This is where your life is. It is not with me. Not on the road, not with the paparazzi and the fans.” He gestured toward the staircase that led to Isadora’s small bedroom. “And that is certainly not the life for her.”

“You’re leaving us?”

He gave her a noncommittal shrug. “You already left me, Amanda. Remember? The tabloids announced it to the world.”

“I left you for two weeks,” she retorted. “To take care of your daughter.”

“It was your choice to do so.”

Her heart began to race, and she felt a sense of panic build inside her chest. “It wasn’t my
choice
, Alejandro. It was my
responsibility
. Let me wake her. Let us come with you to Los Angeles.”

He lifted his hand, stopping her. “You left me and you returned to Lancaster,” he said. “You are happy here, Amanda, and so is she.”

“I’m happy where you are, and she’ll be happy anywhere. We just need to be together.”

Alejandro leaned over to kiss her. “I’m headed to Los Angeles and then Europe. It’s clear we have a lot to think about, Amanda. Choices to make. It’s better to not procrastinate.”

She stood there, stunned that he was actually leaving. She realized that had she not awakened, he would have left her without saying good-bye. That wasn’t like her Alejandro, the man she had fallen in love with and married. Even though South America had ended on a bad note, she knew that it was because of the stress and not because of lost feelings on either side.

“You’re pushing me away on purpose,” she said. “Don’t do that. Please, Alejandro.”

He paused and for the slightest moment she held out hope that he would change his mind. He reached out his hand and brushed his fingers across her cheek. Feeling desperate, she clasped his hand and clung to it, her eyes shut and her heart aching.

“I love you, Amanda Diaz,” he said softly. “And I’m leaving because of that very reason. You once asked me if there was any part of me left for me.” He squeezed her hand. “There is, and that is the part of me that loves you. But I love you enough to know that there will be no part of you left for you if I let you change my mind. It is better here, on the farm, for you and Isadora. What happens later, time will tell.” He kissed the back of her hand and then, abruptly, released it. He turned his back to her. “We have choices in life, Amanda. You chose to leave the tour with Isadora
despite
your love for me, and I . . .” His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath. “I am choosing to leave you here
because of
my love for you.”

Without another word and without looking back, he walked out the door. Amanda stood in the center of the room, feeling as if the walls of her world were caving in around her. She ran to the door and flung it open just in time to see him approach a waiting car. Not once did he look back. She saw the headlights of the car turn on as he opened the passenger door and disappeared inside. And then, as quietly as it had slipped into the driveway, the car rolled away, turning before it disappeared around the side of the barn. The illumination of the headlights faded away, and she knew that Alejandro was gone.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. He loved her, yet he had left her under the cloak of darkness, having not even intended to say good-bye. He had spoken of choices, for both of them . . . decisions that had to be made that would be best made apart and not together. He had spoken of the happiness she felt being back in Lancaster, not realizing that she could not be happy without him.

A wave of panic washed over her once she realized that Alejandro had just left. The idea of not seeing him for six weeks was more than she could handle. She leaned against the doorframe and slid down to the floor, her heart racing and her mind whirling as she replayed everything in her head, from the moment Isadora had been turned over to their care until the night before, when he had told her that he was leaving.

And she realized that he had been right, that she
had
made a choice: a choice between him and Isadora. She would not doubt her decision, not now or ever. What she did doubt was his ability to realize that she had done the right thing for the sake of his child.

The sound of little feet running down the wooden stairs and across the linoleum floor of the kitchen redirected her anxiety. She wiped at her eyes, hoping that in the darkness of the early morning Isadora wouldn’t notice that she had been crying.

“Gut mariye
, Mammi
!”
Isadora whispered, wrapping her arms around Amanda’s neck and sliding onto her lap.
“Gut mariye!”

Amanda shut her eyes, feeling the warmth of Isadora’s skin against hers and inhaling the scent of lavender from her hair. She held the little girl close to her heart and rocked her back and forth, just enough so that Isadora fell back asleep within minutes. As Amanda sat in the doorway and watched the sun rise over the field, Isadora sleeping in her arms, Dali’s words echoed in her ears:
Your strength is given to you from God. He will not lead you anywhere that you should not be.

Pushing thoughts of Alejandro’s departure out of her mind, Amanda focused on those words. She had put too much worldliness before God over the past few weeks. It was time to return to him and let his plan unfold. She realized that if Alejandro was part of that plan, God would make that known.