Page 43 of Their One-Night Rio Reunion
Ana pushed it towards him. ‘Look at it.’
He sighed, took it and looked. It was a photo of Luca Fonseca and his wife. She was heavily pregnant and sitting on his lap. They were both oblivious to the camera, looking at each other intently. His hand was on her bump. It was incredibly intimate and it had caught Ana’s eye when Estella had been showing them around.
Ana knew she couldn’t pretend that she was blasé about what had happened and about what she wanted.
She said, ‘That’s what I want, Caio. I want forever. In spite of everything I know, and in spite of everything I witnessed. My own mother walked away from me without looking back. I can’t put myself through that again. Not for an affair.’ She looked at Caio. ‘You were right. We shouldn’t have slept together. But I don’t think you’ll have any problem moving on. Now I’m going to pack and wait for the helicopter to come.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FORALONGmoment Caio just stood in the same spot, looking at the empty space Ana had left, holding the picture in his hand. He looked down at it again, feeling a little numb. At first he hadn’t quite been able to make it out, almost as if it was in another language—as if he literally couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
A couple.Happiness. Intimacy. Family.And something else he wasn’t willing to name.
He couldn’t think straight. Ana’s words‘I don’t think you’ll have any problem moving on’reverberated sickeningly in his head.
The was a massive pressure building up inside him, and he had to move or it would explode. He put the picture down on a table and went back outside, paced up and down.
He’d asked Ana to stay, to continue this affair...and she’d said no. Not something Caio was used to where women were concerned. She’d said,‘I want forever.’But not with him, evidently.
Not that he wanted forever. Ever since he’d been small and he and his brothers had been dominated and bullied by their father, and he’d seen his mother browbeaten and worse, he’d fostered an aversion to the notion of happy families and marriage. It didn’t exist.
But when he’d believed that his mother was going to break away, prove him wrong, Caio had been surprised to find himself thinking that perhaps there could be some hope for a different existence. For choosing happiness.
That hope hadn’t lived long. His mother had chosen to go back into a toxic situation, citing love as a reason. It had solidified Caio’s beliefs that love and marriage spelled nothing but dysfunction.
Forever. What evenwasthat? Ana knew as well as he did that it wasn’t possible for people like them.
But then Caio’s gut twisted. Maybe it was possible for her. Because she wasn’t infected with his cynicism.
The picture of Luca Fonseca and his wife haunted him. He didn’t know them well, so he couldn’t attest to how authentic their union was, but he had a sick feeling that that picture was real, and if it was real, it upended a lot of Caio’s assertions. Shifted the bedrock of his foundation. That he survived better alone. That love and marriage were toxic. That he didn’t need anyone by his side.
You’ve had someone by your side for a year now, a little voice reminded him.
For the first few events it had felt strange, having someone by his side, someone he had to look out for. It had almost felt like an intrusion. But then...it hadn’t.
He thought back to one of their first big events in Europe. London. A gala benefit dinner supporting a charity that helped disadvantaged young people to embrace technology and foster new talent in those who didn’t have the advantages that someone like Caio had had.
Ana had gone to the restroom and the crowd had started to move into the main ballroom for dinner. There had been no sign of her. Irritation had prickled under Caio’s skin. With hindsight, he could appreciate that his irritation hadn’t just been down to the fact that he wasn’t a solo operator any more...it had also been down to the fact that Ana had had her makeover that day, and the shock of her much sleeker and more elegant look had unsettled Caio in a way he hadn’t liked at all.
As he’d waited for her in that hotel his irritation had mounted, and an insidious thought had entered Caio’s head:she’s becoming a distraction.
And then he’d seen her, and she’d been with a young man. Caio hadn’t been prepared for the surge of something hot and volatile inside him.Jealousy.It had only been when they’d got closer that he’d realised the young man was actually a teenager and he looked incredibly nervous.
Ana, clearly putting the young boy at ease, had introduced him to Caio as a huge fan, and Caio had felt the volatility drain away. That evening something had shifted between them. He’d stopped feeling her presence was an intrusion. The distraction had remained, but he’d countered that by using their public appearances as an excuse to touch her. Reaching for her hand. Pulling her into his side.
He recognised now that he’d lived for those moments. He’d engineered them by accepting invitations to events that he wasn’t even interested in. Yet he’d never admitted that to himself before now. He’d been too much of a coward to acknowledge his growing attraction. To admit that his wife of convenience was impacting on him in a profound way.
It had only been in the past month, since it had become harder and harder to remain immune to her, that he’d resisted touching her for fear of revealing himself.
Last night had blasted apart the illusion that he’d ever had any sense of control around Ana. He’d lost control a long time ago. What had happened between them in the last twenty-four hours had been a foregone conclusion for months.Since the moment they’d met.
Much to his shame and disgust, Caio was forced to admit now that Ana had had to be the one to initiate the seduction. Because he’d been in the grip of a desire so intense he couldn’t have contemplated a rejection. So he’d let her come to him, and he’d resisted and resisted until he was sure that he was risking nothing. Except he’d risked everything.
Because for the first time in his life with a woman his emotions were at stake.
Caio stopped pacing as that sank in. As the full enormity of it gripped him.
At that moment he heard a distinctive noise in the distance, and before he could think about what he was doing he acted on an impulse too strong to ignore.
