powerless boy from Mexico, the despised son of his evil rich white father anymore.
Jet had the towel around Ritz’s arm now and was squeezing. “It’s just a scratch. You’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Thank you,” Ritz whispered brokenly. “I—I think I need to go upstairs and lie down.”
“—didn’t shed a single tear at the wake,” came the unstoppable Mrs. Beasley.
“I did, too!” Ritz whispered. “When I was chopping onions…for Mother Evans’s caviar.”
Just then Roque’s dark, masculine eyebrow flicked upward in sardonic mockery.
“Shh,” Jet said.
“I promised Josh I would cry. That’s why I chopped….”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jet said, pulling her gently away from the others.
“No…not that way…” she pleaded when Roque stepped in front of them.
But it was already too late.
“I’ll take it from here,” Roque said, blocking their path. His jaw was square, his fierce eyes dark emerald. The cut on his cheek blazed.
Everybody held his breath, but anyone who expected a scene was disappointed. Jet stepped meekly aside. And Ritz let herself be led by Roque Blackstone upstairs to her bedroom.
Not even Irish attempted to rescue her.
The minute they were in her room Roque closed the door, his eyes zeroing in on the pile of slashed strips of black fabric scattered messily all over the floor and then on her open suitcases spread across her bed.
Ritz went white. Why hadn’t she thought? She should have directed him to any other room. But she’d been too upset to think.
Roque knelt and lifted a scrap of black wool and then another of silk and waggled them beneath her nose. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing.” She took a breath. “While you amuse yourself, I’ll go brush my teeth.”
Next he leaned across her bed to finger a lacy bra and a pair of sheer panties that spilled out of her suitcase. “Nothing? Taking a trip?”
Her cheeks heated. “Give those to me!” When she tried to snatch her panties from him, he held on, stretching the elastic.
“Nice panties,” he said. “Fit for a princess.” He let them go with a snap.
“I—I…went to the closet to hunt for a black dress…to wear today,” she began in a rush, wadding her panties, throwing them at her suitcase.
“Really?” he drawled even as he absorbed every detail about her, every nuance of expression—reading her.
She turned her back on him and headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She wasn’t about to tell him she’d been like a crazy woman last night. That suddenly she’d been snipping, first her best black silk, then her favorite black wool jersey, not that she could have worn anything that hot today.
She’d cut and torn—until she had piles of tiny squares that she couldn’t cut any smaller. Even then she’d started shredding the remnants.
Hours later, Jet, who was a fancy lawyer now, had found her in the middle of the bed, yanking at the tangles of black threads like a madwoman.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t cry and I’m supposed to wear black. Only I cut up my best black dresses,” Ritz had said. “Even my slinkiest black nightgown.”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to wear a slinky nightgown to a funeral.”
Ritz had started laughing and hadn’t been able to stop.
When Ritz came out of the bathroom, Roque’s face was hard. Every muscle in his body was like a coiled spring. No, Ritz couldn’t tell him any of that.
Suddenly she burst out laughing just as she had last night with Jet.
“Get a grip,” he said quietly, rushing toward her. “It’s a good thing you’re packed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re pregnant with my child.”
“No….”
“A very simple test will prove me right.”
“You wouldn’t….”
His hard eyes lingered on her belly. “I would do anything to protect my unborn child this time—even marry you.”
“I…I’m never ever getting married again.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Very soon. To me, querida.”
“No!” Blood pounded in her head. This couldn’t be happening!
“Why, are you doing this…You…you…don’t love me….”
“You couldn’t get pregnant by your fancy husband, could you?” he whispered, his low voice dangerously smooth. “Or by any of your other lovers? You needed a stud. Someone you knew for sure could get you pregnant—even if I am a Mexican.”
She began backing away from him toward her bed.
“You slept around on him, didn’t you?”
Her stiff steps were awkward, but she didn’t deny what he accused her of.
“Didn’t you?” he demanded in a harsher tone. “I was nothing to you. Then you went back to him so you could pass my kid off as his.”
“No….”
“How many others did you sleep with…before you crawled into my bed?”
“That’s not what happened and you know it.”
He grabbed her, crushing her arms as he pulled her into a tight embrace. “Don’t lie to me—ever again.”
Her breathing was rapid and uneven.
“You still think you’re the princesa and I’m the Mexican lowlife.”
She couldn’t look up at him, not even when his hand lifted her chin and she felt him stripping her with his eyes.
“You used me as a stud—Well, querida, this Mexican stallion comes with a stud fee. And that fee is marriage…to me.”
“But you don’t want this baby. You just want the ranch.”
He drew a long contemptuous breath. “Do you ever think about that little grave with all the buttercups on top of it?”
She whitened.
“You’re not killing another baby of mine.”
His voice was so sharp and hate-filled; his words cut her like blows.
She gasped. “You’re crazy.”
“Yes, I am,” he murmured, drawing in a harsh breath as he pulled her closer. “Kiss me and we’ll seal this crazy deal.”
“What?”
“We’re going to be married. Man and wife. And all that that means.”
“I—I just want to be myself. Me. For once. Not somebody’s wife. Never yours!”
“You should have thought about that before you used me to get pregnant.”
She mistrusted the look in his eyes and the hardness in his voice. But before she could twist free, he crushed her body into his. Even as she fought him, his lips covered hers.
There was domination as well as the desire to punish in his devouring kiss. Always before he’d been so gentle, so infinitely tender.
And yet, even as his mouth ravaged hers, underneath this assault, surely this brutal