Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (55 page)

He stood apart while Ciara’s family hugged her good-bye. Her mother looked with exasperation between Ciara and Juan.

“Juan is a good match for a woman your age,” Mrs. Alafita said loud enough so Bryce overheard.

“Mama, I wish you’d stop inviting men over when I’m here. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“You force me to do it,
m’hija
. You will not look for a husband on your own.”

“You know why I won’t, Mama.”

“You are still angry. Your brothers and sister married. They are not angry.”

“Maybe they were extremely lucky to find people who believe in fidelity. Or maybe they don’t care. I do.”

“Maybe if you forgave your papa you wouldn’t be so angry.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me about that,” Ciara hissed.

What the hell? Every fine-tuned sense of Bryce’s went on alert. He took a step forward. Ciara seemed to realize she and her mother had been overheard. She drew herself up and two spots of color blazed in her sculpted cheeks.

“Thank you for inviting me, Mama.”

“He’s still your papa, Ciara.” Her mother’s face looked strained.

Ciara’s sister and brother-in-law put their arms around Mrs. Alafita and turned her back into the yard. The undercurrents in this family were strong. From what Bryce had overheard, it had something to do with Ciara’s father and her relationship with him. She’d lied about wanting to be with her family. She was angry with her parents and somewhat uncomfortable at family gatherings.

Ciara would have to be a cold, heartless bitch and a great actress to hide her true nature from Bryce. But he’d been fooled before. He saw facile liars in his line of work all the time.

He clenched his fists. When this Steele situation was resolved — if he survived — he was getting out of this life. Maybe he’d take a long sabbatical someplace far away to cleanse the filth from his soul.

Ciara strode past him towards her car. She hid her secrets well. Most men wouldn’t look past the beautiful package, the lush lying lips.

But he wasn’t most men.

“You lied about your family,” Bryce accused after he closed his study door so Agent Andrews wouldn’t hear.

Ciara jerked and looked guilty. She swallowed. “I didn’t lie.”

“Yes you did. You said you missed them and wanted to be closer to them. But I thought you and your mother were going to come to blows before we left.”

“Families are complicated, you know that.”

“No, I don’t. You were very angry. I want to know what’s going on.”

“It’s personal. You said you didn’t want to discuss personal matters at work.”

“Then you shouldn’t have taken me to a family function. I’m making it my business because you lied about it.”

Ciara wandered to his study window. It was several moments before she spoke. “My father is a philanderer.”

It was the last thing Bryce expected to hear. He felt poleaxed.

“I don’t know if he was ever faithful to my mother, but she accepted it as her due.” Ciara turned to him. The skin on her face was taut, her color heightened by anger. “She’s of that generation of Latin women who were taught to expect their Latin husbands to sleep around.” Her words were deeply bitter. “I found out in my late teens and it sickened me. But when I told her, she wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t even angry. She just accepted it.”

Ciara began to pace. “My own father.” She spat the last word. “Their marriage was a farce. I couldn’t get far enough away from it, so I went away to college. I took a job in the AG’s office. If she wouldn’t leave him, at least I wouldn’t see his infidelities. I thought I’d run far enough.”

Bryce braced himself. The hurt throbbed off her.

Ciara crossed her arms across her chest. “His latest whore got pregnant and decided to have the baby. My
brother
.” She sneered the word. “My mother cried for weeks when she found out. My father spent time with both his families. I couldn’t stand for my mother to be humiliated any longer. I’d been telling her for years to leave him, but she wouldn’t. She honored her wedding vows even though he had no idea how to be a husband.

“I told my sister my mother would listen to her if she asked her to leave him. My sister is the perfect daughter in every way that I’m not.” Again, a slight bitterness tinged her words. “She was newly married and wildly in love with her husband, but she and her husband begged my mother to come live with them. And she did.

“I filed for her legal separation. But she won’t divorce him because it’s against her religion.”

If ever a witness spoke the truth, it was Ciara. If not, she deserved an Academy Award for that performance. But Bryce’s gut said it wasn’t a lie. She’d seen an injustice and moved to correct it. But she hadn’t been completely successful.

She was angry with both her parents. Bryce sensed her father’s actions had colored the way she saw life, the way she felt about relationships, maybe even the way she felt about men.

She was hurt. Bryce wanted to hold her and soothe away her pain. He wanted to show her he understood what she was feeling.

What power did Steele wield over her to make her come so close to the source of her pain? “Yet you came home.”

Ciara’s eyes widened a fraction. “I told you why.”

“You’ve just told me why you shouldn’t have.”

Ciara turned back to the window. Whatever she said next would be a lie or a half-truth. “I’m tired of being angry.”

Bryce hated the lies. He stepped forward and grabbed Ciara’s arm, spinning her to face him. “Tell me the truth.”

“I am. I have to deal with this. It’s affecting me.”

He sensed the evasion in her answer, but couldn’t pinpoint its source. His anger surged again. “You’re free to make your own choices.”

“I’m not.”

Did she mean Steele? Bryce gripped her arms and tried to read the truth in the dark pools of her eyes. She was so beautiful, a flame to his ice, so passionate, yet as pessimistic about marriage as he was. If she wasn’t Steele’s tool, maybe together they could forge their own truth about men and women.

The light scent of strawberries teased his nose. He felt the warmth of her body so close to his, and the strength of her arms under his. His body yearned to be closer.

“Bryce?”

Ciara studied him as he studied her. Did she see the same cynicism in his eyes? Did she see the core of ice inside him? Could he make her understand that she could confide in him?

“My parents didn’t love each other either,” he admitted in a quiet voice. “Their marriage was sterile, loveless, and cold. Money marrying money is often like that. I don’t think they loved me, either.”

He released her and waved a hand around the study. “This was their house. I lived here with them for twelve years, yet I felt like they were strangers. I knew my nanny better than I knew them. There wasn’t much of a difference when I was shipped off to boarding school. There the people who cared for me were just as impersonal.”

“Oh, Bryce, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s no big deal. Lots of rich kids go to boarding school. I fit in there.” He shrugged. “But I wonder if I’m capable of feeling anything anymore. My parents were like plastic people, all surface and no depth. I think they must have molded me like them.”

Ciara grabbed his arm. “No, Bryce, that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? I’d like to test that theory.”

He took her in his arms. She didn’t resist. Slowly he lowered his face to hers giving her every opportunity to avoid him. Her eyes widened. Her body stilled. But her lips parted and he felt their warmth as his touched hers. He forgot about the lies she spoke with them. He savored their passion as she responded to him.

His kiss became hard, urgent. She responded with equal urgency. He had to absorb her passion into himself. He’d been frozen for so long, only coming alive in the courtroom. His hands slid around her waist to bring her body flush against his hungry one. And he was starving. He craved her soft, giving flesh. He needed the strong, slender arms that bound him tight. He felt the tremor in her soft body and knew she craved him too. Need was a flame that heated his loins where they pressed against her feminine flesh. He ached to fill her body, to meet with equal thrusts, to meld into one.

He’d glimpsed her passion and yearned to yoke it to him, to reawaken what he used to be before he became jaded. He could lift her bright sundress, open his shorts, and find the connection he craved.

But then what? He still didn’t have answers. Steele was between them even now. Making love wouldn’t change anything, not when he didn’t trust her. Not when she wouldn’t tell him the truth.

Bryce broke the kiss and eased from Ciara’s arms. Her dark eyes were glazed with passion, her full lips red and moist from his kisses. He fought the urge to take her to the floor and mount her. His cock ached with fullness.

Ciara touched her fingers to her lips, a telling gesture.

“I want to make love with you,” he said.

“I … ”

He saw the interest in her eyes before her gaze dropped to survey the bulge in his shorts. He felt it like a touch. She licked her lips. She wasn’t unaffected.

But he read her answer when she looked up again.

“I can’t.”

He wasn’t really surprised. After hearing her family history, he hadn’t thought she’d give herself easily. Well, he didn’t either, and for similar reasons.

Ciara walked to the door. With her hand on the knob she faced him. “Maybe the answer won’t always be no.”

Bryce watched her leave, part glad but part regretful she’d said no. If they made love, they’d resolve nothing but their physical discomfort. As much as he wanted that with her, he needed the truth more. How could a woman who abhorred her father’s dishonesty practice deceit? The question gnawed at him.

He returned to his desk to work on Steele’s case, but Ciara’s face kept swimming into his thoughts. The way she’d looked when he’d pulled away — like a woman ready for loving — kept him semi-aroused.

Bryce knew little about love and relationships. He knew he was capable of love because he loved his friends. But that was completely different from what he assumed he should feel for a woman.

Ciara had reminded her mother about why she didn’t marry. Ciara was haunted by her parents’ example just as Bryce was by his. She would never fulfill her passionate promise until someone unlocked her from the prison of the past. Saving her would be a challenge worthy of him. Could he get her to trust him enough to tell him the truth about Steele?

• • •

Could Ciara get Bryce to trust her with the truth about Steele? She sat in her living room with the TV muted while she mulled over what had happened in his study. If she’d been another woman — one of her father’s many bedmates — she could have been Bryce’s sexual plaything today and learned the truth in the aftermath. Her lower body clenched with need. She’d felt his hard arousal pressed against her. His long length would fill that empty place inside her.

She’d thought him cold. But he was anything but cold. His lips had fired her passion. His hard body had awakened her need. She was sure making love with him would be an experience unlike any other.

But he’d held back. Somehow he’d sensed her mission. He was trained to read people, to sense lies and dig for the truth. If she wasn’t careful, she’d give herself — and Baisden — away. Before that happened she had to unearth Bryce’s secrets.

But how? She’d found nothing in Bryce’s files, heard nothing while with Bryce, seen neither Steele nor anyone who worked for him. All she’d seen was Bryce and he was not the man she’d thought he was. She couldn’t even give Baisden concrete evidence that Bryce was trustworthy. All she had were feelings, and she’d shown the AG her feelings were biased.

How could she kiss Bryce and think about making love with him when she couldn’t prove he was honest? She’d resisted men, and sex, for years. Now all she wanted was to go back to Bryce so they could finish what they’d started.

Ciara had to get herself under control and find Baisden’s proof — one way or the other — as soon as possible so she could get back to her life in Lansing. Odd how the thought of leaving Bryce caused a pain in her chest.

Her cell phone rang and she grabbed it off the coffee table, glad to interrupt her painful thoughts. “Hello?”

“It’s Carmen. Papa called and Mama answered.”

Ciara’s muscles tensed to the point of pain. She sat up straight. “What did he want?”

“As soon as I realized it was him, I got on the other phone. He wants her back, of course. He says he misses her enchiladas.”

Anger burned in Ciara’s veins. She stood and paced the room. “The bastard. His woman probably caught him cheating on her and threw him out.”

“He played the Latin card, how a wife’s place is with her husband, how she’s making him look bad.”

“He made himself look bad.”

“He made her cry. She’s so lonely, Ciara.”

Ciara closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “She wouldn’t be lonely if she divorced him. She could try to find a man who’d love her and treat her right.”

“I know. Esteban has an uncle. When he sees Mama he gets tongue-tied. But he respects her wedding vows. Can’t you do something, Ciara?”

“Carmen, Mama won’t listen to me about divorce. Maybe if you and Esteban broached the subject?”

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to Esteban about it. Ciara, I can’t help remembering how much Papa loved me when I was a little girl.”

Ciara barely remembered the golden days before she learned the truth — her father tossing her in the air when she was a child while she squealed with joy, her father calling her his little princess, her father teaching her to ride a bike. The memories hurt with his betrayal.

“And?” she prompted.

“He’s good with my children,” Carmen said. “They love their visits with him. I think I still love him, despite what he’s done to Mama. Is that so wrong?”

Ciara wanted to rant that yes, it was wrong to love a man who hurt you, who hurt other people you loved. It was wrong to love a man who broke your heart and shattered all your little-girl dreams of a perfect papa.

It was wrong for her father to shower his children and grandchildren with affection, but not his own wife. But Carmen wasn’t angry with him like Ciara was. Her sister’s ideals had held firm until a few years ago.