parents.
She’d begged him to contact them, to let them know that the son they thought they’d lost was alive and well and incredibly happy. She couldn’t bear knowing they existed, had that permanent scar of his loss and would not be given the choice to reconnect with him. He’d finally succumbed to her wishes and called them.
His parents, especially his father, had been distraught.
Asking them not to tell anyone until they figured out a safe way to introduce him to his siblings, he’d asked them to attend their wedding. Both he and Numair had sent their private jets to fetch them from their homes in Fortaleza and Belém. They’d postponed the ceremony to around sunset until his parents could arrive.
Now Rafael was face-to-face with them. Though they’d both known Rafael for the past two years, they’d only known him as his new persona. Now they saw him as their long-lost son come back to life.
It felt surreal to Ellie, meeting his father, Andrés Ríos Navarro, who was also her father’s once-best friend. Bianca Franco Molena, his mother, had once been her mother’s friend, too.
“I’m so sorry...” Andrés blurted out, swallowed, then he burst into tears. Rafael’s mother followed suit.
Rafael pulled his father into a fierce hug. “I’m the one who’s sorry I didn’t tell you before.” He dragged his mother into the hug, and let them weep for all the years of helplessness, dread and heartache as he enclosed them in his power and protection.
When their emotional storm abated, Rafael reached out to Ellie. She rushed to join them in his all-encompassing embrace.
Kissing them all, he smiled gently at his parents, and adoringly at her. “You owe my coming to my senses to my bride, the one who put everything in my life right.”
And Ellie found herself in his parents’ arms, squeezed and kissed and thanked for the miracle of having their son back.
“It’s me who thanks you for giving me the only man I’ll ever love,” she choked out. “But has he told you my full name?”
Both blinked at her uncomprehendingly. After she told them, they gaped. Then they burst out talking at once.
“Teo’s daughter?”
“How is that even possible?”
“Where is Teo?”
“Is he here?”
She hooked her arm into theirs and steered them out to the garden. “He is here, and he’s been waiting all my life to see you again.”
* * *
Their ceremony went without a hitch, and sort of felt like an afterthought. Apart from Rafael’s parents meeting her father, and Rafael pulling her father into his embrace as he gave him her hand, and her father finally exchanging his first kiss with Isabella in jubilation after her and Rafael’s “I dos,” all the monumental stuff had already happened during and after the rehearsal yesterday.
Everyone had retired to their suites after long hours of celebration, and she was in Rafael’s arms again. And she couldn’t hold her tears back again.
“Deus, coração, I can’t see your tears even if they’re ones of joy....” Then he exclaimed, “Those aren’t tears of joy!”
“I’m sorry, meu amor, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish weeping for the boy you were, for what you lost.”
“With what I’ve gained—you, our coming baby, Diego and even more brothers—I am now obscenely blessed. I even got back everything I lost—my parents, with their new broods sure to follow them. And Teo.” He pulled her with him to a reclining position and she burrowed deeper into his chest. “And together we will give our baby and Diego everything I was deprived of, and what even you didn’t have, both a mother and father.” Suddenly he squeezed her tight. “Who won’t let them out of their sights!”
Laughing through the tears, she spluttered, “Don’t you go smothering our baby and Diego with love!”
His lips twisted. “Any complaints yourself?”
“Hmm, you’ve got a point.” She pulled him on top of her. “Smother me some more.”
“Sorceress.” His chuckle poured into her lips.
But as he started making love to her, lightness drained as her hand feathered his scar.
“I wish I had real magic, meu amor. I would have erased this scar, its memory and all the memories of your suffering.”
“You already have. You found me, saw me for what I am. You made me yours and healed all my wounds and erased all my scars.” He joined their bodies, swallowed her cry. “Now you’ll love me forever. You don’t only have magic. You are magic.”
She wrapped herself around him, inside and out, took him to the very heart of her, and whispered, “Look who’s talking....”
* * * * *
Read on for a extract from THE SECRET AFFAIR by Brenda Jackson
Dr. Aidan Westmoreland entered his apartment and removed his lab coat. After running a hand down his face, he glanced at his watch, frustrated. He’d hoped he would have heard something by now. What if…
The ringing of his cell phone made him pause. It was the call he’d been waiting for. “Paige?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Is Jillian still going?” he asked, not wasting time with chitchat.
There was a slight pause on the other end, and in that short space of time knots formed in his stomach. “Yes, she’s still going on the cruise, Aidan.”
He released the breath he’d been holding as Paige continued, “Jill still has no idea I’m aware that the two of you had an affair.”
Aidan hadn’t known Paige knew the truth either, until she’d paid him a surprise visit last month. According to her, she’d figured things out the year Jillian had entered medical school. She’d become suspicious when he’d come home for his cousin Riley’s wedding and she’d overheard him call Jillian Jilly in an intimate tone. Paige had been concerned this past year when she’d noticed Jillian seemed troubled by something that she wouldn’t share with Paige.
Paige had talked to Ivy, Jillian’s best friend, who’d also been concerned about Jillian. Ivy had shared everything about the situation with Paige. Which had prompted Paige to fly to Charlotte and confront him. Until then, Aidan had been clueless as to the real reason behind his and Jillian’s breakup.
When Paige had told him about the cruise she and
Jillian had planned and she’d suggested an idea for getting Jillian on the cruise alone, he’d readily embraced it.
“I’ve done my part and the rest is up to you, Aidan. I hope you can convince Jill of the truth.”
Moments later he ended the call
