Brazilian Escape: Playing the Dutiful Wife / Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child. Carol Marinelli

she started, but he soon interrupted.

      ‘I was right the first time.’ He turned to look at her face—the face he had first seen on a plane. ‘You talk too much. And I don’t want to talk about me.’ But before he moved to kiss her he allowed himself the luxury of just one question. ‘Are you still working for your parents?’

      ‘I resigned …’ Meg said. ‘I’m trying to choose my course at the moment …’

      ‘Good,’ Niklas said. He should push her hand down to where he was hardening again, but first there was something else he wanted to know. ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Are you happy?’

      ‘Working on it.’

      ‘Do your parents know you are here?’

      ‘They know that I am in Brazil …’ he saw tears pool in her eyes ‘… they don’t know I have a husband that I’m visiting in prison.’

      ‘You need to get away from here,’ Niklas said. ‘As soon as this visit is over.’

      ‘I fly to Hawaii tomorrow.’

      ‘Okay.’ Tomorrow should be okay, he told himself, but he wasn’t sure. ‘Maybe change it to tonight …’

      ‘I fly out at six a.m.’

      He saw her grimace at the thought, remembered the first time they had met and the conversation they had had.

      ‘How was your landing?’ And for the first time he smiled. He didn’t care how much they’d paid her, that she’d flown into Congonhas was enough for him to know that this had nothing to do with money.

      ‘It wasn’t so bad …’ she attempted, and then told him the truth. ‘I was petrified. I thought I was going to throw up. Although,’ she added, ‘that might have been the gin!’

      He laughed, and so did she. He hadn’t laughed for almost a year, but this afternoon he did. She kicked him and they fought for a bit—a nice fight, a friendly fight—and he took her back to when they’d been lovers so easily, far, far too easily. But, given this was the last time she would be here, she let him. No one could kiss like he did. It was quite simply perfect, and the feel of him hard in her hands was perfect too.

      This time he would be gentle, Niklas decided, worried that he had been too rough before. He didn’t just kiss her mouth, he kissed her everywhere—her hair and her ears and down to her neck, breathing in her scent. He kissed down to her waist and then further, to where he wanted to be. He had been too rough, for she was hot and swollen, but Meg lay there and felt his soft kiss and was lost to it.

      When he couldn’t hold on any more he reached for the condom that was a requirement in here. Her hands reached for it too, and he let her put it on, but before she did she kissed him there, and he closed his eyes as she did so. Two hours could never be enough for all they wanted to do. She slid it on. He should roll her over and take her, but he let her climb on top of him, because if he looked up to her hair and her body for a little while he could forget where he was.

      And she looked down as she moved on him and knew exactly why she was here. She loved him. Still. Her real fear at coming here had nothing to do with the flight or the prison or the danger, it was him—because she’d known all along that this was the only way she would ever be over him.

      She should be grilling him about his involvement in the charges, insisting she find out, or just lying on her back martyred as he took her, ready to get the hell out once he’d finished. Instead she’d told him she cared about him. Instead she was riding him, and his hands were busy elsewhere, roaming her body. He was watching her. She was moaning, and he told her to hush, for he would not give the guards the turn-on of the sounds that she made. He put his hand over her mouth and she licked it, bit it, and he pushed his fingers into her mouth. He was coming, and so was she, and when the moment finally came she folded on top of him, buried his face with her hair, and he felt the silent scream inside her as she clutched him tightly over and over till it ended.

      That was when she told him she loved him.

      ‘You don’t know me,’ he said.

      ‘I want to, though.’

      ‘Divorce me,’ he said, still inside her, and pulled her close. ‘Send the papers to Rosa and I’ll sign them.’

      ‘I don’t want to.’

      ‘You do.’

      She didn’t.

      ‘I can see you again in three weeks …’ She was drunk on him. ‘I can come to the trial.’

      ‘You are to leave!’

      ‘I can ring you on Wednesday each week …’

      He was scared now as to what he’d unleashed. Scared not of her passion, but that she might stay.

      ‘No.’

      ‘I can. I’m allowed one phone call a week.’

      He looked up at her and all he knew was that she was not coming back here. With his own lawyer working against him he was probably done. Here was where he would always be and he would not do this to her. Even with new lawyers, trials took for ever in Brazil. Even with the best legal team he would be here for years at best. He lifted her off him and swore in three languages when he saw the condom was shredded. ‘Get the morning-after pill and when I speak with my new lawyers I will have them file for divorce …’

      ‘No …’

      ‘You are to go to Hawaii.’

      ‘Niklas—’

      The guards were knocking at the door. Their time was up. He stood and threw her clothes at her, telling her to dress quickly for he did not want them getting one single glimpse of her. She continued to argue with him as he picked up her bra and clipped it on her, before lifting each leg into her panties, followed by her dress, and even as he zipped it up still she argued.

      ‘We’re finished,’ he told her.

      And he wasted time telling her that they had to be over when he should have told her how dangerous this was, just how little he knew about what was going on, and that he was scared for her life. But the guards were here now and he could not say.

      He gave her a brief kiss, his eyes urging her. ‘Have a safe flight.’

       CHAPTER NINE

      SHE DIDN’T WANT to lie on a beach in Hawaii.

      There could be no healing from him.

      She wanted to be close to him, wanted to be there for his trial hearing at least. She hoped for a miracle.

      He would not want her there. Meg knew that.

      But he was her husband, and she could at least be here in the city for him. Could watch it on the news, could be close even if he didn’t know it.

      And then she could visit him again before she left. She did not want a divorce from him now, and she wanted one more visit to argue her case.

      She was probably going insane, Meg realised as she cancelled Hawaii and stayed on in Brazil, but that was how he made her feel.

      She ventured out onto the busy streets and toured the amazing city. The sights, the smells, the food, the noise—there was everything to meet her moods.

      And without Niklas she might never have seen any of this—might never have visited the Pinacoteca, a stunning art museum, nor seen the sculptured garden beside it.

      At first Meg did guided tours with lots of other tourists around her, but gradually she tuned in to the energy of the place, to the smiles and the thumbs-up from the locals and ventured out more alone. She was glad