Alexandre thrust a hand into his hair. He was pissed that Carlos thought he could summon him any time of the day and he would go running.
“We need to talk now, son.”Son. Alexandre’s breath hitched. Carlos had never called him ‘son’ before. “I’m waiting in your office.”
He acquiesced reluctantly. Riding to his office, Alexandre couldn’t help but feel like a naughty child summoned to the principal’s office. Whenever Carlos summoned him, it was to castigate him for some misdemeanor or other. And he’d always enjoyed their verbal sparring. But tonight, he didn’t know what he’d done to be summoned urgently.
At his office, he was let in by the night guard. Dismissing his assistant who’d stayed behind after office hours to keep Carlos company, he took a chair facing his grandfather.
“Raquel came home for lunch today.”
“She did?” Alexandre couldn’t hide his surprise. He’d spoken to Raquel that morning, and she hadn’t mentioned anything about visiting Carlos. She usually kept him updated on her whereabouts, so it seemed odd that she’d chosen not to tell him about meeting Carlos.
“Yes. We...” Carlos took a deep breath. “We spoke about... you.”
Alexandre frowned. “Me?”
Carlos nodded. “Your wife... she is a good woman to have in your corner. She told me things...”
Alexandre scowled as a frisson of unease raked down his back.
“She opened my eyes today,” Carlos continued, his eyes boring into his, his face twisted with pain.
“What are you talking about?” Tired of his roundabout way of speaking, Alexandre cut to the chase. “What could she possibly have told you about me?”
“I have wronged you, Alexandre. Forgive me, my son.”
****
Raquel was in bed whenAlexandre’s voice rang in the hallway.
“Raquel!”
She immediately sat up, not only surprised by his early return, but his flinty tone, too. After returning from the Monteiro mansion, she had retired to her bedroom where she’d lain with a heavy heart.
All evening she’d worried about her meeting with Carlos. How was she going to tell Alexandre about it?
She got out of bed just as he came into the room, looking disheveled. He looked haggard, his eyes were dark orbs in his face, and his hair was mussed, like he’d run his hands through them multiple times.
“You’re home early,” she said, approaching him gingerly, uncertain why he looked like he’d been through a wringer.
“How could you betray me?” His expression turned thunderous, and she understood then that he’d learned about what had transpired at the Monteiro mansion. “Why did you tell Carlos everything I told you in private?”
The pain in his voice, the vulnerability in his eyes sliced through her. “I didn’t betray you, Alexandre,” she replied, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
“I bared my soul to you,” he slapped a hand on his chest, his eyes flashing with pain, “I trusted you with all my secrets and you—,” he pointed a finger at her—accusing, “spilled my innermost secrets to my grandfather. Why?”
“Because he needed to know the truth!” she cried, trembling at the force of his accusation.
“No!” he shot back. “You needed to exercise control over yourself! My secrets are mine to reveal. I told you everything because I believed you cared about me. I trusted you to guard my every secret.”
“I do care!” she confessed, stepping toward him, entreating him to understand, her hands reaching for him, but he held up his hands. Her heart clenched inside her as she cowered at the violence of his words. She couldn’t lose courage now—he needed to understand why she had done what she had.
Yes, she had spilled his secrets to Carlos, but she’d done so because his grandfather needed to see that he had been punishing Alexandre for his father’s sins.
“I trusted you and you...” His voice cracked, and he looked away, his face botched with anger, his body trembling with rage. “I’ve known all my life that Carlos merely tolerated me only because I shared his DNA. No matter how much I wanted him to accept me as a Monteiro, I knew it would never happen.
“My grief, my disappointment was my own. You know why I didn’t beg for more? Because I had my pride. It was the only thing I clung to when I was handed over to Carlos. My pride kept me alive in that prison of a mansion, and it was my pride that made me walk away from my father’s family when I realized that I would never be anything more than my father’s bastard.
“But you...” he faltered as his expression tightened with fury. “You know what Carlos told me? That I was lucky to have a wife who stood up for me. But I think he is wrong.”