charismatic, obviously not without money, it could be said that Luiz Andrade was everything any woman could possibly want. Yet she had left him for a man whose backbone, it seemed, was so weak he had left her lying in the road. It didn’t make sense.
They took a taxi to what appeared at first sight to be a large private residence. Luiz handed over a card in the well-appointed entrance hall, and they were duly signed in to wander at will through rooms devoted to various pastimes.
Luiz ignored the crowded casino, leading the way to a smaller, dimly lit room where couples swayed to the beat of an excellent four-piece combo. There were tables set around the periphery of the room, but he ignored those too, drawing her on to the floor and into his arms.
Held against the hard male body, Karen concentrated on matching her steps to his. She felt his hand warm at her centre back, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. Her mouth was in line with the hollow of his throat, revealed by the open neckline of his shirt; the male scent of him tantalised her nostrils.
All sensations of the present not the past, she told herself. Luiz was a man to whom any woman with an ounce of red blood in her veins would respond. Perhaps if they actually made love…
She rejected the thought immediately. Even if she could bring herself to try such an experiment, Luiz almost certainly wouldn’t with the images he’d spoken of earlier crowding his mind. He had followed her to Rio with the intention of fetching her back because his pride wouldn’t allow him any other course, but that wasn’t to say he’d have been prepared to make love to her again.
‘Could it have worked even if I hadn’t lost my memory?’ she heard herself ask. ‘Forcing me back, I mean.’
It was a moment or two before Luiz answered. When he did speak his tone was unemotional. ‘I would have found it difficult to put your transgressions aside, I admit. Trust isn’t easily restored.’
‘But you still wouldn’t have been prepared to finish it?’
‘No. Marriage, in my eyes, is for life. The reason why I waited so long to find the woman I could live that life with.’
‘Only she let you down,’ Karen said huskily. ‘I can’t tell you how awful it makes me feel to think I’m capable of that kind of behaviour! I still find it hard to believe I could be capable of it.’
‘There was no mistake,’ he said. ‘Only the one you made in choosing a man who cared so little for you that he left you sprawled in the dust.’
Karen rode the hurt as best as she was able. ‘What’s even harder to explain is why a man like that would have abandoned a good job.’
Luiz gave a short laugh. ‘Fear of what would happen to him when I discovered the affair would have been incentive enough.’
‘In which case,’ she pursued, ‘why would he have taken the risk in the first place?’
The laugh came again. ‘You do yourself an injustice. Few men could remain indifferent to you. You were a virgin when we met only because you’d never known one capable of bringing the fires smouldering within you to life. I could have taken you within minutes of our meeting.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ she challenged.
‘Because I wanted more than just your body.’ His voice had softened in reminiscence. ‘I wanted every part of you.’
All thought suspended, Karen felt heat rising through her from a central core, a spreading weakness in her limbs. Her body moved instinctively against him, pressing closer to his hardness.
‘Stop that!’ he said harshly.
She came back to earth with a jolt as reality raised its ugly head again, her face flaming as she looked up into the sparking dark eyes.
‘It wasn’t intentional,’ she stammered. ‘It just…happened.’
His lip curled. ‘The way it just happened with Fernandas?’
‘How can I know?’ she asked wretchedly. ‘How can I know anything for certain? All I have to go on is what you tell me.’
Luiz stopped moving, the spark grown to a blaze. ‘Are you accusing me of lying to you?’
‘No, of course not. But unless this Lucio Fernandas had money of his own, none of it adds up. The money I had on me almost certainly wouldn’t have been enough to take the two of us very far.’
‘So why else would the two of you have been on the same flight? Why else, for that matter, would you have been on the flight at all?’
Karen shook her head, feeling ever more desperate. ‘I can’t answer that. All I do know is…’
‘Is?’ he prompted as she broke off.
What she’d been about to say was that she simply couldn’t visualise walking out on someone who could make her feel the way he’d made her feel just now, but she wasn’t ready to go down that particular road.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Can we call it a day? I have a dreadful headache.’
Anger gave way to concern. ‘The fault is mine for insisting on continuing the attempt. I’ll arrange for a taxi to be called.’
He was solicitousness itself while they waited for the taxi to arrive. Karen hadn’t lied about the headache; it felt as if a hammer was beating at the space between her eyes. And this was just the beginning. There was worse to come. Facing the rest of the family would tax her resources to the limit.
It was coming up to midnight when they reached the hotel. Luiz had the receptionist on duty procure some painkillers and a glass of water for her before taking the lift to their floor.
‘I trust the headache will soon subside,’ he said at her door. For a moment he seemed to hesitate, his eyes on her pale face, then he said a brief goodnight and moved on to the room next door.
Thankful to be alone at last, Karen shed her clothing and took a shower. The bathroom was lined in mirror glass. She studied herself clinically as she towelled dry. Breasts high, waist slim, hips smoothly rounded, her body was, she knew from past experience, a magnet for male eyes, her face, in normal times, an equal draw. She’d had several short-term romances, but had lost hope of ever meeting any man who could make her want him the way he wanted her.
Until coming here to Rio and meeting Luiz Andrade. The very thought of him sent a ripple down her spine. The mistake she’d probably made then was in confusing lust with love. A mistake she must have realised eventually.
Regardless, she just couldn’t imagine herself turning to another man for solace. Especially one like this Lucio Fernandas. Could she possibly have been so desperate that she’d cultivate a relationship with him simply to secure his help in getting away from Guavada?
She was going round in circles again, she acknowledged wearily, and still getting nowhere. The only chance she had of learning the truth was by returning to Guavada. Not that she had any choice in the matter anyway.
Worn out, she slept like a log, awakening to sunlight and a low-pitched ringing that turned out to be the telephone on the bedside cabinet.
‘How are you feeling?’ Luiz
