When he’d hung up, she forced herself to walk into her bedroom, where she picked up the phone and called Joe’s cell.
“Get to the house now,” she said, her voice low and thick. “Bring a gun.”
She hung up before he could ask anything; then she stalked into Rafael’s bedroom and wondered if she was truly capable of murder.
At that moment it seemed more than possible-it seemed likely. She wanted him dead. No, she wanted him in pain. She wanted to see blood and bone jutting through flesh. She wanted him writhing and begging, and she wanted to watch him disappear into a puddle of green slime.
He turned and smiled at her. “Mia. I was just speaking with my father and we were-” He stared at her. “What is wrong?”
She could feel the scream building, but as it hadn’t reached the surface yet, she spoke in a quiet voice, one laced with so much anger, it practically snapped.
“Did you think I was so fucking stupid that I didn’t speak Portuguese?”
He paled slightly. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, you bastard. I heard and understood every damned word. Ironically, I wasn’t paying attention when you were speaking Italian. I wasn’t even listening. But you switched. I guess you thought I could be Grandma Tessa, who also speaks Italian. You sure as hell wouldn’t want her hearing your little plan for my future.”
She felt as angry about his assumption that she wouldn’t understand him as she did about what he’d said. That bothered her for a second until she realized it was safe to be furious about the language he’d chosen. She wouldn’t kill him over that.
“I heard you,” she told him. “I heard every word. You lied. You deliberately lied. How dare you? You’re not here to marry me, you’re here to take my son.”
The scream built and built until it finally burst free. She reached for the lamp on the dresser by the door and threw it at him.
“You fucking bastard. You tricked us all. You came here with your stories and your princely manners and the whole thing was a scam.”
He’d sidestepped the lamp easily. Now he walked around the mess on the floor and moved toward her.
“Mia, calm down. You have misunderstood.”
“Get away from me. I swear, if I had a gun I’d shoot you right now. Right in the gut. Or the balls. You didn’t come here for me. You don’t care about me or my family or anything. You want your son. You want to kidnap him.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Daniel is my heir. It is reasonable for me to-”
“Don’t talk to me about reasonable,” she screamed. “Don’t you dare. You lied. It was all a lie.”
“Daniel is my son.”
“His name is Danny. He’s a little boy. You want to take him away from me, but that will never happen. Never. Do you hear me?” She looked around for something else to throw at him and was frustrated by the lack of vases and lamps.
“He is my heir. My people have a right to-”
“Fuck your people and fuck you. Go to hell, Rafael. You’re never getting him. Never. I don’t care what I have to do. This is all bullshit. Why now? Why did you suddenly show up?”
She pressed a hand against her forehead as she remembered what he’d told her. “My God. The picture in the paper. That damn picture. You saw it and you recognized me and him. The age is right and he looks enough like you.” She paused again and found herself unable to do more than gasp out. “The birthmark. Somehow you saw it.”
“That first morning,” he agreed. “The men in my family have carried it for generations.”
“You didn’t need the DNA test, did you?”
He shrugged. “I knew he was my son after I saw the birthmark.”
“Of course. You saw the paper and knew, so you had to come here. Only you couldn’t just show up. I would get really suspicious if after five years you suddenly appeared in my life. So you…”
She couldn’t believe it. No. This wasn’t happening. “You lied about everything. About being told I was dead, about missing me. You came up with that story as a way to make me trust you. You not coming after me had nothing to do with me being dead or not. You didn’t care. You’d had your fling and then it was time to get back to your regular life. The prince one. You didn’t give me another thought. Then you found out about Danny and suddenly you had an heir to worry about.”
“Mia, you will make yourself sick.”
“So what? I’ll survive. You living through the day seems much less likely.”
“Do not threaten me.”
“Or what? You’ll pretend you care about me so you can trick me into marriage and steal away my son?”
Her eyes began to burn, but she refused to give in to the tears. She couldn’t think, couldn’t believe this was happening.
“I was such a fool. How could you do it? How could you steal my child?”
“You are being melodramatic. Of course I would have allowed you to see Daniel. We would have made arrangements for-”
She heard footsteps on the stairs. “In here,” she yelled.
Joe ran down the hallway and she was pleased to see he held a handgun.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
Rafael stepped into the hallway. “Mia, you are taking this too far. Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?”
She lunged for Joe’s gun, but he easily kept it out of reach.
“Shoot him!” she told her brother. “Shoot the god-damned prick right in the balls. He wants to steal Danny. He tricked me. He tricked us all. He pretended to care, but he doesn’t. He wanted me to marry him so that when we got to Calandria he could take Danny away from me.”
Joe grabbed her and shoved her behind him, then turned the gun on Rafael.
“Get out,” he said quietly. “Get out of this house and take the bodyguards with you.”
“I’m not finished here.”
“Yes you are.”
Rafael stared at the gun, then at Joe’s face. He swore in Italian, then stalked out. As he passed Mia, he paused.
“This isn’t over.”
“It is,” she told him. “More than you know.”
And then he was gone. Mia stared into the empty room and saw the broken lamp. It was as if that shattered bit of ceramic represented all her hopes and dreams.
“Oh God,” she breathed as her muscles began to shake and she felt herself go down.
Joe grabbed her and pulled her close. She went into his arms, feeling his strength and knowing nothing would ever be right again.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“He lied. He tried to take Danny.”
“But he didn’t get him. We’ll fix this, Mia. I swear.”
She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t. It was too horrible.
“Danny,” she said with a gasp. “Where is he? He was in the family room. What if Rafael took him?”
“Mommy?”
She turned and saw the Grands holding Danny’s hands. Her son looked terrified and confused. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms. He rushed toward her and clung so tightly she couldn’t catch her breath.
But that didn’t matter. He was here and he was safe. She was going to make sure that never, ever changed.
They held a family meeting after Danny was in bed. Mia didn’t want to attend. She didn’t want to cry or breathe or eat ever again. Most of all, she didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to keep reliving those horrible moments when she’d found out the truth about Rafael, when she’d realized that everything he’d told her was a lie.
No, she thought as she stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the low voices coming from the family room. His lies weren’t the worst of it. The true pit of her life was that she’d believed him.
Once again she’d trusted a man and he had betrayed her.
If Rafael had come after her, she could have handled it. If he’d wanted to hurt her or kidnap her or even kill her, she would have been able to cope. But he’d come after her child, and she would never forgive him for that.