Second Chances (6 page)

“No, actually, it doesn’t.
What would make me feel better would land me in prison.”

The chilling words sent a
shiver down her spine. She didn’t doubt he meant it. He hated her.

She had to convince him she
wasn’t the horrible person he thought she was. She had doubts about that night,
wondered if she could have been drugged by Mateo. If he’d just let her explain.
“Renaldo, listen to me. That night—”  

“I should have known,
though,” he said, his face set in hard lines as he stared out the window,
rubbing his thumb across his knuckles. “The first night we met, you came back
to my hotel room.”

Sabrina drew a sharp breath.
“Don’t. Don’t make it ugly.”

“Because your…what do you
call it in English?” His gaze came back to her. “Friend with benefits—yes,
that’s the phrase. He canceled on you, so you easily picked up another man in
the bar.”

“I didn’t pick you up.”

“Is that how you found your lover,
too?” He spoke with unveiled distaste, delivering the words with
contempt-filled eyes.

“
You
came on to
me
.”
She wasn’t letting him twist that night. It had been the beginning of their
love affair. An affair that had changed her life and altered her world.

“You didn’t turn me down. A
complete stranger.”

“We had a connection.”

“We had sex.”

“You’re saying that to hurt
me, and I understand.” Her temple throbbed as her blood pressure rose. “What we
shared was deeper than that, though, and you know it. What I did—”

“What you did was
inexcusable.”

“People make mistakes. I
never planned it. It was one time. I’m not even sure—”

“Do you think that makes a
difference?” he asked with an incredulous hiss. He balled his hand into a fist
and leaned across the table. “You are my
wife.
You let another man inside
of you. Do you know what I wanted to do to you when I saw those pictures? Do
you know what I want to do to you
right
now
?”

She could only imagine. She
stared down into her untouched coffee, feeling the
scalding heat of his rage.

“You
will
move back
into my house, and you
will
report your comings and goings to me at all
times.” When she remained silent, he continued. “I mean it, Sabrina. It is the
only way, because I will not let you out of my sight until this deal is
finalized.”

“You can’t expect me to live
like that. You want to treat me like some kind of prisoner.”

“I don’t care what you think
or what you feel. Anything I ever felt for you is dead. I regret the day I
married you. Am I clear? All I ask is that you behave yourself, or we could
both lose a large sum of money. I don’t care how long you’ve been seeing him.
It ends today. Starting right now, you will behave yourself in a respectable
manner, like the wife you should be. Not like some filthy
puta
who—”

Sabrina bolted from the chair
as her heart rate escalated. He’d called her a whore.

“Sit down.” His eyes glittered with
anger.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t live in
the same house with him again, knowing how he felt.

“I’m leaving. I think we should go back
to letting our attorneys work out the details of the divorce.” Or rather,
his
attorneys, because she really didn’t have one.

“Sit down. You’re making a scene.”

Sabrina glanced around at the other
diners watching them.

“Why? I won’t sit here and be attacked
by you. You want me to move back in so you can make me pay for what I did. I
won’t move back in, Renn—Renaldo. Since you said that’s nonnegotiable, then the
negotiations are over.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She
turned quickly and hurried toward the exit, winding her way through tables and
past curious faces. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she took a fortifying
breath and swallowed the hurt of Renaldo’s words. She couldn’t take his
cruelty. The soft smiles she’d grown accustomed to were long gone. In their
place, his sensual lips had been set in rigid lines and his eyes as hard and
cold as an Antarctic glacier.

Why hadn’t she gotten rid of the photos
right away? The one time she hadn’t immediately destroyed them she’d been
caught in her deception.

Now she’d lost everything. Her home. The
love of her life.

She’d grown too dependent on him. He’d
taken care of her—something she’d never experienced before. She’d always had to
be independent and taken care of herself and Jewel.

She’d lost her anchor and killed his
love.

Suddenly, her thoughts were disrupted by
the searing heat of fingers that clamped around her upper arm like hot steel.

“What are you—”

“Not a word.” Renaldo moved briskly,
dragging her along with him, forcing her to double time it for every step he
took.

Chapter
Five

They moved through the crowded street in
silence with Renaldo clearing a path through the other pedestrians until he
pulled her down an alleyway between two buildings.

When they came to a stop, she yanked her
arm out of his grip. She could still feel the harsh impression of his fingers.
But in the past, those fingers had stroked across her damp skin, made her
throb, ache, and beg for release. She fought down the erotic thought and
summoned the strength to look him in the eye.

He stood before her, a six-foot-five
bronze pillar, making her feel small because of his height, despite the fact
that at five-foot-ten she was over six feet in heels.

He stared down at her, struggling to
keep his anger in check. The planes of his face looked harsh, but none of it
changed the fact that he was the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on. She
missed him and what they’d had so much.

“You never walk away from a negotiation
until every option has been exhausted,” he finally said, anger lending a
rougher edge to his voice.

“I’m not interested in anything else you
have to offer. I just want to get my divorce and leave. You’ve made it clear
how you feel about me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is this your way of
getting more money? Because if it is, I’ve offered you plenty. You know it and
I know it.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this has
nothing to do with money. I’m simply not interested anymore.”

“I don’t believe you. No one walks away
from that kind of money.”

“I don’t care about it,” Sabrina shot
back. “Aren’t you listening?” She wanted to scream at him but kept her voice at
a level to match his.

“What is it then?” His eyes searched her
face. “Is it him? Because I won’t allow you to see him, Sabrina. Do you
understand me? So help me—” He shook with rage, his fists clenched at his
sides.

“No!” Sabrina screamed in frustration.
“It has nothing to do with him or anyone else. It’s you.” She stopped, afraid
to share what she felt, but the words just kept coming. “I don’t want you to
look at me the way you did in there.”

“And how did I look at you?”

She drew a shaky breath. “Like you hate
me.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “And how
would you prefer that I look at you?” he asked in a lowered tone.

She took her time answering, needing to
gain some semblance of control. “The way you used to,” she said huskily, her
voice trembling with emotion.

“With love in my eyes?” Renaldo asked
caustically. “Those days are long gone.”

His eyes roved over her, and she felt it
as if he actually touched her. The tips of her breasts became hard knots
beneath her shape-hugging dress. Her whole body came alive in reaction to the
slide of his dark gaze. She would do anything to touch him again—to have
him
touch
her
—with tenderness and love.

If he wanted to take her against the
wall right this minute, she feared she would aid him by hiking up her dress.
She would do anything to have his muscular thighs slide between hers. To be
pinned beneath him and have him pushing his hard length into her, driving her
to the point of delirium.

 “I no longer want you,” he said, but
she knew he was lying because of the flaring of his nostrils, and his breathing
had become labored, making his chest move up and down beneath his expensive
suit. When his gaze came back to hers, there was a heat in his eyes that hadn’t
been there before. “I know the kind of woman you are now, and I can’t bring
myself to touch you. I can barely look at you without seeing…”

The words had the same effect as a hard
slap to the face, jolting her from her desire-induced haze. Sabrina closed her
eyes, but even with them closed, a sixth sense told her when he’d distanced
himself from her. She opened her eyes and saw that he’d stepped away and was
staring across at the wall of the opposite building with his hands shoved into
the pockets of his trousers. To a person who didn’t know him, they might
mistakenly assume this was a relaxed pose, but she knew him well, and the
tension in his body spoke volumes.

“I know I hurt you,” she whispered, wanting
to stop both of their pain, “but I wish you would let me explain my side of the
story.”

“I already know your side of the story.
I left you alone and you found ways to occupy yourself.”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

He whirled around. “Then explain it to
me. What happened?”

“I’m not even sure…I…I think I was
drugged.” Sabrina faltered. “I know, I know it sounds farfetched, but…I only
had a couple of drinks, and I don’t remember what happened after that.”

“Drugged?” he asked in a mocking tone,
walking slowly back to her. He tilted his head to the side. “First you were
drunk, now you were drugged. How convenient. And you don’t remember how another
man ended up in our bed.”

“It’s the truth. Don’t you see,” Sabrina
said, trying to appeal to him. “I would never have done anything like that
under normal circumstances. I could never do that to you—to
us
.”

“I don’t know that, do I? Our
relationship moved very fast, and we were engaged within a short period. I
didn’t know you at all.”

“You’ve come to know me over the past
year.”

“Apparently not.” His gaze sharpened on
her. “And you gave him money, didn’t you? I saw large withdrawals from your
account. Twenty-thousand
real
on two separate occasions.”

“You were snooping in my account?”
Sabrina gasped. Was there nothing he couldn’t do?

He showed no remorse. “Did you give him
money?”

“It’s not what you think. I had no
choice. He was blackmailing me. Those pictures he took…he promised they would
get out. He promised to send them to you, break up our marriage, and hurt and
embarrass you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

She’d been frantic—petrified. She’d
known once Renaldo saw those pictures, not only would he be hurt, she’d lose
him, so she’d given in to the blackmail.

Renaldo sneered. “So you gave him
forty-thousand
real
? If what you’re saying is true, what do you think
will happen when the money runs out? He’s going to come back again and ask for
more.”

“If he does, it would be pointless,
because you know now. He can’t hold it over my head anymore because our
marriage is already over.”

“But he still has the pictures, Sabrina.
If you don’t give him what he wants, what do you think he will do?”

“I know. I’ve thought about that.” While
Mateo still had the pictures he had control because they could surface at any
time, but she had no way of getting in touch with him. He had always contacted
her, and she hadn’t heard from him in weeks. 

Renaldo appraised her in silence. “What
was it about him?” he asked quietly. “What attracted you to him?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t attracted to him.”

“I find that hard to believe. There were
times—there were times you acted like you didn’t want me to touch you. I
thought you were just overworked, but now it makes sense.”

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want you,
but because of the guilt. Knowing what I’d done and keeping it from you. Sometimes
I couldn’t face you. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t want
to lose you and I thought I could handle it myself.”

“So you lied to me. You deceived me into
thinking that we had a good marriage. I was worried you might be working too
hard, and I thought we should plan some kind of getaway. But the whole time,
you had this secret.”

“I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am.
I would do anything to fix this and take back what I did,” Sabrina said, her
voice distressed. She tried to keep the tears from overwhelming her.

“But you can’t take it back.” He shook
his head in disgust. “It’s never enough, is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that. It
was enough. I was happy.”

“Obviously not.” He paused. “So tell me,
how was he?”