Sweet Silken Bondage (57 page)

Reina wasn't sure exactly what Clay had in mind,
and she wasn't about to wait around to find out.
With a stubborn lift of her chin, she decided to be
the aggressor. She would discourage him and get rid
of him, just like she had Nathan.

"Why are you here?"

The coldness of her statement startled him. "Because we need to talk. There's a lot that needs to be
settled between us before we get married."

"Married? I'm not marrying you, Clay Cordell."
It was a definitive statement.

"Reina..." he began again. "We have to talk.
You have to let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain. I don't want to
marry you."

"You're pregnant with my child! It's only fitting
that we marry as soon as possible."

His words pierced her heart. It was just as she'd
expected. No words of love, no declarations of devotion, just an obligation. It was something he felt he
had to do, because of the child.

"That is the worst reason in the world to marry
someone."

"I don't think so," he argued. "I intend to be a
father to our baby. I want this child. Reina..." He
lowered his voice to make his point. "You know
how determined I can be when I decide to do
something."

For one minute, Reina let herself believe what he
was saying, but then reality intruded again.

"I said no," she insisted, not giving any ground in
their argument. She moved aside, giving him a clear path to the door. "Now, why don't you just
leave?"

She made a mistake in shifting positions for in
doing so, he caught sight of her damaged cheek.

"Dear God, who hit you? Not your father...?"
Clay was outraged as he quickly grabbed her by the
upper arms and hauled her to him. She tried to
wriggle free of his gentle, yet restraining hold, but
he would not let her go. With one hand he tenderly
touched the bruised flesh.

"No! My father would never lay a hand on me!"
she quickly defended Luis.

"Nathan..." he breathed his name in a curse.

"Yes, it was Nathan, but it doesn't matter any
more. He's out of my life forever."

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you," Clay said
softly.

"I don't need your protection, Clay. I handled
Nathan just fine on my own."

"So I see."

"It's not that bad. In fact, it was worth it just to
be done with him. I hope I never see him again as
long as I live."

"You won't." Clay replied with certainty. Then
unable to resist, he cupped her chin and tilted her
face up to his. Without saying a word, he bent and
kissed her injured cheek. "Once you're my wife, I'll
see to it that nothing ever hurts you again."

The touch of his lips on her cheek sent a shiver
of delight through her. She struggled to ignore it as
she fought to deny any claim he might put on her.

"I am not going to be your wife," she declared,
and when she tried to pull away from him again, he
let her go.

"Reina, I love you. I want to spend the rest of
my life with you"

"Why don't I believe you?" she taunted, her sarcasm hiding the pain in her heart. He'd finally said the words she'd been longing to hear; the only
trouble was, it was too late. She was certain he was
only saying it as a way to convince her to marry
him. If he'd really loved her, he wouldn't have let
her go that morning.

"Look, I have no intention of leaving here until
you agree to marry me." Clay was growing exasperated. He had never been in love or proposed before. He'd waited until he'd found the one woman
he treasured above all others-Reina. He thought
she loved him. After all she'd just told him so on
the boat that morning. But now here she was,
turning him down, refusing his marriage proposal.
He was confused, to say the least.

"Then you're going to be here for a long time,"
she retorted angrily. "Because I have no intention of
marrying you or anyone else!"

"You can't mean to raise my child by yourself?
Don't you realize what that would do to your reputation, not to mention how the child would suffer?"
He was horrified that she could have such a radical
idea.

Inwardly, Reina groaned. Why couldn 't this man just
leave her alone? How in the world had she gotten herself
into this mess? "It'll have me and my father."

11 'It,' Reina? You're talking about our son or
daughter," Clay said persuasively.

Bitterly, Reina realized how deeply she'd dug herself into this hole of lies and that the only way out
of it was by telling him the complete truth. "Damnit! Why did you come out here, anyway? I didn't
want this to happen!"

"What are you talking about?" Clay feared she
was growing despondent over her pregnancy.

"I'm talking about my lies.. .all of them."

"Lies? What lies?"

"You want the truth, Clay? Well, here it is! I'm
not pregnant, and I never was. I just made it up to get rid of Nathan, and it worked. The only thing
that went wrong was that you got dragged into the
middle of it."

"You mean you lied about being pregnant?
You're not carrying my child?"

"That's right. So you can just go back to your
saloon and celebrate. You don't have to marry anybody." She turned away from him, hoping that he
would leave without another word.

"What about this morning on the boat, and what
about what your father told me on the ride out here
from town? He said that you'd told him you loved
me. Were you lying then?" Clay had to know the
truth of her feelings. If she loved him, it didn't
matter if she was pregnant or not. He loved her,
and he wanted to make her his wife.

"What do you think?" she bit out caustically. "As
desperate as I was to keep from marrying Nathan, I
was ready to try anything. I am my father's daughter, you know." She kept her back to him, so he
couldn't see the hurt in her eyes. She wouldn't
marry him just because he thought he was obligated
to do it.

Reina waited, her heart wishing and praying that
he would take her in his arms and declare his love.
She wanted him to sweep her off to the altar, telling
her that it didn't matter if she was pregnant or not,
that he loved her and that nothing else was important. Her mind, however, was telling her to prepare
herself, because he was going to walk out and never
come back. That he'd only come to her because
he'd thought she was in trouble, and now that he
knew she wasn't pregnant, he was going to go off
on his merry way, without giving her another
thought. The minutes ticked by as she waited to see
what he would do next.

Clay stared at her, seeing the stiffness and defiance in her stance, and nearly unbearable pain shot through him as he accepted her truth. She'd been
lying. The whole thing had been a lie. She must have
loved having him dancing to her tune this way.
He'd made a damned fool out of himself, but he
realized miserably that it really didn't matter. Nothing mattered right now. Nothing. He thought of his
mother, and the cruelty she'd wreaked in his and
his father's lives. It was a galling, agonizing comparison.

"Yes," he finally said slowly, "you most certainly
are a lot alike." And as he said it, he wasn't sure if
he was comparing her to her father or to his
mother. "How will you explain to your father that
we're not going to marry?"

"Don't worry about it. My father loves me. Now
that he knows what kind of man Nathan really was,
he'll understand when I tell him the truth."

"I see," he replied tightly, the ache in his chest
expanding to almost excruciating proportions. "Well,
I'm glad everything worked out so well for you."

"Yes, it has, and now that you know everything
you can go on and go. I'm going to be just fine."

"I'm sure you are, Reina."

She heard him leave the room, and her tears
began to flow. As his solitary footsteps echoed down
the hall, she whispered, "Good-bye, Clay."

Luis was in his bedchamber when he heard the
sound of a rider on the drive. He frowned, wondering who'd left. He'd expected Clay to stay on so
they could make the necessary arrangements in the
morning. Curious, he left his room to find out what
was going on.

The sight of the study door standing ajar caused
him to pause. He hurried forward to push it wider
and found his beloved Reina, sitting in one of the
leather wingchairs, crying brokenheartedly.

"Reina! What's happened? Where's Clay?" he
asked as he rushed to kneel before her.

She raised tortured, tear-filled eyes to his. "He's
gone."

"Gone?" Luis was totally perplexed. "Where did
he go?"

"I sent him away."

"You sent him away? Why?" Luis stared at her in
bewilderment. "He did propose to you, didn't he?"

"Yes," she managed in a choked voice, "but I
turned him down."

Now he was really baffled. "Why, in God's name
did you turn him down? He wanted to marry you.
He told me so."

"He only wanted me because he thought I was
pregnant, Father, and I didn't want him under those
circumstances."

Luis heard something in her words that troubled
him. "Because he `thought you were pregnant'?" he
repeated back to her.

"Yes..." she confessed sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, I
know I shouldn't have lied to you. I should have
told you everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"The truth, Father. I'm not pregnant.. .or at
least, I don't think I am," she admitted humbly.

"You're not..." He digested that bit of surprising news slowly.

"No. You see, I made it up because of Nathan
... of what he threatened to do to me."

Though he was still a bit angry over her lie, this
was the first he'd heard of any threats from Nathan.
"Just what did Marlow threaten to do to you?"

Reina quickly went on to tell him of his need to
confirm her innocence before their marriage.

"That son-of-a-bitch! It's a damned shame Clay
didn't kill him while we were in town."

"What?" she asked amazed.

"Clay didn't tell you that he ran into Nathan at
the Perdition Saloon?"

"No."

"It must have been quite a one-sided fight judging from the way Nathan looked when Clay got
done with him."

"Clay beat up Nathan?"

"Soundly, and, in defense of your honor, I might
add. He loves you very much, Reina."

"No. He doesn't love me," she denied, not believing that it could be true.

"I think you're wrong. He loves you. I'm sure of

Her expression turned downcast again. "And I'm
just as certain that he doesn't."

"Why? After all he's done to prove to you that he
does, why do you refuse to believe it?"

"Because of this morning..."

"What happened this morning?" he urged her to
tell him what was bothering her.

"It was right before you showed up at the boat to
bring me home. I was scared. I didn't want to go to
Nathan. I knew I couldn't marry him, feeling as I
did about Clay, so I told Clay the truth. I told him
that I loved him, and I begged him not to take me
back to you, but it didn't matter."

Luis's heart was breaking as he listened to her.
Hearing the very real anguish in her voice he stood
and drew her up from the chair into his warm,
loving embrace. He soothed her, just as he had for
all the years of her childhood, holding her close,
enfolding her with his fatherly love.

"Didn't he offer to explain?" he finally asked,
when she'd calmed.

"Explain? What was there to explain?" she countered heartbrokenly. "If he loved me, he would have
done anything for me"

"Sometimes, there are situations in life when things are not as simple as they appear. Did you
give him a chance to tell you about his friend?"

"He said there was a lot he wanted to explain to
me, but I told him I didn't want to hear it."

"I think you should hear it now...from me."
Luis had the good grace to look a bit shame-faced.
"I had more than a little to do with what happened
this morning. Don't judge Clay too harshly."

"I don't understand."

"You will. You see, I was the reason Clay
couldn't just tell you that he loved you and run off
with you this morning. I had Clay trapped. He had
to turn you over to me. There was nothing else he
could do."

At her questioning look, he went on.

"When you first disappeared, I was frantic. At
first, I searched everywhere myself, but when I
couldn't find you, I became desperate. That was
when I attempted to hire Clay to track you down.
Initially, though, he refused me. He wanted no part
of searching for a runaway girl. Even after I told
him that he could name his price, he was adamant."

"So he didn't do it for money?"

"No. Obviously, money isn't very important to the
man."

This thrilled Reina, but she still didn't understand
what had forced him to take the job. "If it wasn't
the pay, then why did he finally agree to do it?"

"He forced me to become more inventive in finding a way to `encourage' him to take the job."

"What did you do?" She knew her father, and she
was horrified as she realized what lengths he'd gone
to, to get Clay to bend to his will.

"The details aren't important," Luis glossed over
his more dastardly deeds, and Reina knew better
than to ask. "The important thing was that his
friend, Dev, was in jail. He'd been arrested, accused
of Pedro Santana's murder, and he looked to be pretty guilty. I made it my business to personally
assure Clay that his friend would be safe in jail, but
only if he agreed to locate you and bring you
home."

"You blackmailed him!"

"Yes, I did," he told her, not at all proud of his
actions now.

Reina was amazed as she began to see Clay's
words and actions in a whole new light. He couldn't
save her from her father because he was afraid his
friend would die. Her heart sang as she realized
that he really might love her.

"He told you he loved me?" she asked, needing to
hear it confirmed again.