“I have spent the past five months in a private sanitarium,” she said, remembering every facet of the bland room and the benign gardens visible out her window, painfully mindful of the hours ticking by without word from her husband.
One day smoothly blended into the next, counting off weeks. Months. She knew the sparse staff by serene face and finally by name. Knew what times of the day to expect the doctor, and knew each session would be a struggle to remember the simplest things.
She knew when Sunday rolled around because she’d have a brief visit from Uncle Loring.
That had been the extent of her memory until one month ago. She certainly hadn’t had a lover there, or anywhere else for that matter.
“It is called Bartholomew Fields,” she said, and meeting his hard gaze, she challenged, “Look it up.”
His laugh was a whiplash to her nerves. “So now you are accusing your uncle of lying.”
“Of course not. Just what are you insinuating?”
“Your uncle told me you’d gone off on holiday with your lover, querida.”
That couldn’t be. “Why would he say such a thing?”
“Because it is the truth,” he said, the dangerous hiss in his voice raising gooseflesh.
“No, it’s not.”
After five months, she’d come out of her sleep and begged to see Miguel and her beautiful daughter. That’s when the doctor had told her about the tragedy.
Cristobel had died in the auto accident. She’d barely survived herself, losing her memory and her ability to conceive again.
Miguel prowled the room, and she knew he would spring at the slightest provocation. “He suggested I divorce you.”
She shook her head, more confused than before. Uncle Loring had been painfully clear in telling her that Miguel held her totally to blame for their daughter’s death. He could not bear the sight of her. He wanted nothing more to do with her.
Yet Miguel claimed he’d come after her. Who was she to believe?
The slow, steady thud of her heart told her Miguel was telling the truth. True, her uncle had never liked Miguel, but that was no reason to lie to him about her health.
He was her husband. Then more than ever, she’d needed him at her side.
Instead Miguel had gone back to the Yucatán believing the worst of her. While she’d been locked away at Bartholomew Fields grieving for all she’d lost—her child, her marriage, her sanity.
She’d actually had no desire to go on, until her uncle’s health broke and she had to rally her own wits to care for him. It was then that she realized she must heed the doctor’s advice and return here for closure.
“I want to see this proof you claim to have,” she said, daring him to reveal his hand.
“I will when we reach Hacienda Primaro.”
A sliver of fear whispered over Allegra and she shivered. “I’ll pass on a visit to your family home.”
One dark eyebrow arched high over an eye that glittered hard and unyielding. “It wasn’t an invitation, querida. You want to see the proof of your indiscretion? It is there in my office. You wish to visit our daughter’s grave? She rests in the cementerio adjacent to the hacienda.”
She looked away and hugged her middle that pulsed with a hollow ache. The trepidation of returning to the hacienda unnerved her.
Something dreadful had happened there, for the apprehension dancing over her skin was real. But what? That memory was lost in the black void, and willing it to become clear in her mind only left her with a dull headache.
“Fine,” she said, capitulating without argument. “I will visit the hacienda and Cristobel’s grave, then return here.”
“No.” The single word cracked with finality, defying argument.
Her gaze shifted to Miguel standing tall and imposing in the sala. For the first time she noted the changes in him. He’d put on more muscle in his shoulders and torso, making him look formidable. Dangerous even.
He was not a man to be crossed.
Yet she didn’t fear him.
No, there was a mystique in his dark eyes that drew her. But though she’d fallen into his arms before, she’d not make that mistake again.
Never again would she allow herself to be shut out of her husband’s life. She certainly wouldn’t push her heart out there to be trampled again.
“You can’t order me about,” she said.
He inclined his head in arrogant agreement. “I would not attempt to, but if you wish to have an uncontested divorce, you will agree to my proposal.”
The dread in her stomach quivered and knotted, for his threat was clear—agree with him or spend years litigating her divorce. She didn’t have the funds for that and he knew it.
Still, she wasn’t about to capitulate immediately. “I can’t imagine why you’d wish to draw this out.”
His flash of teeth warned her she’d not like his answer. “Let’s call it equitable compensation for the fortune in jewelry you stole.”
She blinked, certain she hadn’t heard him right. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you would deny it.” He prowled the room with lazy insouciance, though his glittering eyes continued to skewer her to the spot. “I will admit this was partly my fault, for I gave you the combination to the safe. I trusted you.”
The accusation she’d stolen anything from him fired her anger. Though the memory of the hours surrounding the accident remained a blur, she knew she’d not availed herself of anything stored in the safe before she’d left the hacienda.
She felt certain that wherever she was going hadn’t warranted her wearing a fortune in jewelry. “All that I took with me that day were my wedding rings.”
He stared at her bare left hand. “Did you hock those as well?”
“I didn’t pawn any jewelry,” she said, hurt and angry that he continued to believe the worst in her.
“You still have them then?”
“I told you all I had with me were my wedding rings.”
He loosed a raw laugh. “Which you no longer wear.”
She stared at the stubborn man she’d lost her heart to and weighed her actions. Really, there was no choice.
“In this, I take delight in proving you wrong,” she said.
Allegra pulled on the gold chain hidden under her blouse until the diamond and emerald engagement ring and
