2
Rourke spent the night getting drunk. He was out of his mind from his father’s revelations. Tat had loved him. He’d pushed her away, for her own good, but in doing so, he’d damaged her so badly that he’d turned her into little better than a call girl.
He remembered her in Barrera, her blouse soaked in blood that even a washing hadn’t removed, the stitches just above one of her perfect small breasts where that animal, Miguel, had cut her trying to extract information about General Emilio Machado’s invasion of the country.
Rourke had killed Miguel. He’d done it coldly, efficiently. Then he and Carson, a fellow merc in the group that helped Machado liberate Barrera, had carried the body to a river filled with crocodiles and tossed it in. He hadn’t felt a twinge of remorse. The man had tortured Tat. He would probably have raped her if another of Arturo Sapara’s men hadn’t intervened. Tat, with scars like the ones he carried, with memories of torture. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He’d protected her most of her life. But he’d let that happen to her. It was almost beyond bearing.
He got up, nude, and poured himself another whiskey. He almost never drank hard liquor, but it wasn’t every day that a man faced the ruin of his own life. He’d been protecting Tat from a relationship that was impossible, because he’d been told that there was blood between them, that Tat was really his half sister. And it was a lie.
He’d never even questioned her mother’s revelation. He’d never dreamed that the religious, upright Mrs. Maria Carrington would lie to him. She loved Tat, though. Loved her dearly, deeply, possibly even more than she loved Matilda, her second child. The woman had been a pillar of the local church, never missing Mass, always there when anyone needed help, quick with a check when charity was required. She was almost a saint.
So when she told him that K.C. had seduced her in a drunken stupor, he’d believed her. Because he believed her, he pushed Tat away, taunted her, humiliated her, made her hate him. Or tried to.
But she wouldn’t hate him. Perhaps she couldn’t. He put the whiskey glass against his forehead, the cold ice comforting somehow. When he’d gone with the others to invade the capital in Barrera, Tat had pulled him to one side and linked the cross she always wore around his neck, asking him to wear it for luck. The gesture had hurt him. He wanted to pull her against him, bury his hard mouth in hers, let her feel the anguish of his arousal, show her how much he wanted her, needed her, cared for her. But that was impossible. They were too closely related. So he’d worn the necklace, but when he’d given it back, he was deliberately cold, impersonal.
When he’d left Barrera, what he’d said to her had shuttered her face, made her turn away, hurting. He’d hurt her more with his venomous comments at the airport in Johannesburg after he’d taken her out of Ngawa.
And that, all that, was for nothing. Because there was no blood between them. Because her mother had lied. Damn her mother!
He barely resisted the urge to slam the glass of whiskey through his bedroom window. That would arouse all the animals in the park, terrify the workers. It would bring back memories of another night when he got drunk, the night after Maria Carrington’s revelation. He’d gone on a week-long bender. He’d trashed bars, been in fights, outraged the small community near Nairobi where he lived. Even K.C. hadn’t been able to calm him, or get near him. Rourke in a temper was even worse than K.C. They’d stood back and let him get it out of his system.
Except that it wasn’t out. It would never be out. He finished off the whiskey and put the glass down on the bureau. The tinkle of ice against glass was loud in the quiet room. Outside a lion roared softly. He smiled sadly. He’d raised the lion from a cub. It would let him do anything with it. When he was home, it followed him around like a small puppy. But let anyone else approach him, and it became dangerous. K.C. had said he needed to give it to a zoo, but Rourke refused. He had so few amusements. The lion was his friend. There had been two of them, but a fellow game park owner had wanted it so desperately that Rourke had given it to him. Now he had just the one. He called it Lou—a play on words from the Afrikaans word for lion, leeu.
He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. Tat would never forgive him. He didn’t even know how to approach her. He imagined Tat’s mouth under his, her soft body pressed to his hardness, her hands in his thick hair as he loved her on crisp, white sheets. He groaned aloud at the arousal the images produced.
And just as quickly as they flashed through his mind, he knew how impossible they were. He’d spent eight years pushing her away, making her hate him. He wasn’t going to be able to walk into her home and pick her up in his arms. She’d never let him close enough. She backed away now if he even approached her.
He thought of her with other men, with the scores of them he’d accused her of sleeping with. His fault. It was his fault. Tat would never have let another man touch her if she’d ever really belonged to Rourke; he knew that instinctively. But he’d pushed her into affairs. Her name had been linked with several millionaires, even a congressman. He’d seen photos of her in the media, seen her laughing up into other men’s faces, her body exquisite in couture gowns. He’d pretended that she was only playacting. But she wasn’t. She was twenty-five years old. No woman remained a virgin at that age. Certainly not Tat, whom he’d baited and tormented and rejected and humiliated.
But he had to get near her. He had to know if there was any slight chance that she might not hate him, that he could coax her back into his life. She’d never let him in the door in Maryland, where her home in the US was located. She had security cameras—he’d insisted on them—placed all around the house she owned there, the house that had belonged to her father.
Tat’s father had worked for the US Embassy. His people had been wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. He’d married Maria Cortes of Manaus, a woman who had Dutch and highborn Spanish heritage who was also an heiress. It had been a marriage of true love. They had houses in Africa and Manaus and Maryland. Tat had inherited the lot, and their combined fortunes. Tat had loved her mother. It had devastated her when Maria died of a fever she caught nursing a friend.
He knew how Tat revered her mother. How could he tell her what the woman had done? It would shatter her illusions. But he would have to tell her something, to try and explain his behavior.
How to get near her, near enough to make her listen, that was the problem. His eye fell on an invitation on top of the stack of mail one of the workers had left on the bureau for him to go through. He frowned.
He picked it up and opened it. Inside was a formal invitation to a gala awards ceremony in Barrera. It was a personal invitation from General Machado himself. Now that his country was secure once more, all the loose ends tied up, it was time to reward the people who had helped him wrest control away from the usurper, Sapara. Machado hoped that Rourke could come, because he was one of several people who would be so honored. He went down the list of names on the engraved invitation listing the honorees. Just above his name was that of Clarisse Carrington.
His heart jumped. Machado had promised that she would be recognized for her bravery in leading two captured college professors to safety and giving the insurgents intel that helped them recapture Barrera’s capital city and apprehend Sapara.
Tat was going to be in Barrera, in Medina, the capital city. She would certainly go to the awards ceremony. It was a neutral place, where he might have the opportunity to mend fences. Certainly he was going to go. The date was a week away.
He took the invitation back to bed with him, scanning it once more. Tat would be in Medina. He put the invitation on the bedside table and stretched out, his hands behind his head, his body arching softly as it relived the exquisite memory of Tat half-naked in his arms, so many years ago, moaning as he touched her soft breasts and made the pretty pink nipples go hard as little rocks.
The memories aroused him and he moaned. Tat in his arms again. He could hold her, kiss her, touch her, have her. He shuddered. It would take time and patience, much patience, but he had a reason to live now. It was the first time in years that he felt happy.
Not that she was going to welcome him with open arms. And there was the matter of her lovers, and there had to have been many.
But that didn’t matter, he told himself firmly, as long as he was her last lover. He’d bring her here, to the game park. They could live together...
No. His expression was grim. Despite her diversions, Tat was still religious. She would never consent to live with him unless he made a commitment. A real one.
He got up from the bed and went to the wall safe. He opened it and took out a small gray box. He opened it. His hand touched the ring with tenderness. It had belonged to his mother. It was a square-cut emerald, surrounded by small diamonds, in a yellow gold setting. Tat loved yellow gold. It was all she wore.
He closed the case, relocked the safe and tucked the ring into the pocket of a suit in the closet. He would take it with him. Tat wasn’t getting away this time, he promised himself. He was going to do whatever it took to get her back into his life.
He lay back down and turned out the lights. For the first time in years, he slept through the night.
* * *
Three days later, K.C. came into the living room, where Rourke was making airline reservations on a laptop computer.
“You’re going to Barrera, then?” K.C. asked.
Rourke grinned. “You’d better believe it,” he chuckled. “I’ve got my mother’s engagement ring packed. This time, Tat’s not getting away.”
K.C. sighed and smiled tenderly. “I can’t think of any woman in the world I’d rather have for a daughter-in-law, Stanton.”
Something in the way he said it caught Rourke’s attention. He finished the ticket purchase, printed out the ticket and turned toward the other man.
“Something up?” he asked.
K.C. moved closer. He was looking at the younger man with pride. He smiled. “I knew all along. But the doctor just phoned.”
Rourke’s heart skipped. “And...?”
K.C. looked proud, embarrassed, happy. “You really are my son.”
“Damn!” Rourke started laughing. The joy in his eyes matched the happiness in his father’s.
K.C. just stared at him for a minute. Then he jerked the other man into his arms and hugged him. Rourke hugged him back.
“I’m sorry...about the way it happened,” K.C. said heavily, drawing back. “But not about the result.” He searched Rourke’s face. “My son.” He bit down on a surge of emotion. “I’ve got a son.”
Rourke was fighting the same emotion. He managed a smile. “Ya.”
K.C. put a hand on Rourke’s shoulder. “Listen, it’s your decision. I’ll do whatever you want. I was your legal guardian when you were underage. But I would like to formally adopt you. I would like you to have my name.”
Rourke thought about the man who’d been his father, who’d raised him. Bill Rourke had loved him, although he must have certainly thought that Rourke didn’t favor him. Bill had been dark-haired and dark-eyed. The man he’d called his real father had been good to him, even if there hadn’t been the sort of easy affection he’d always felt for K.C.
“It was just a thought,” K.C. said, hesitating now.
“I would...like that very much,” Rourke said. “I’ll keep my foster father’s name. I’ll just add yours to it.”
K.C. smiled sadly. “Your father was my best friend. It tormented me to think what I did to him, to your mother. To you.”
“I think it tormented her, too,” Rourke said.
“It did. She loved me.” His face hardened. “That was the worst of it. I had nothing to give her. Nothing at all. She knew it.”
Rourke’s one good eye searched his father’s. “Nobody’s perfect,” he said quietly. “I have to confess, I wished even when I was a boy that you were my real father.” He averted his eye just in time to miss the wetness in K.C.’s. “You were always in the thick of battles. You could tell some stories about the adventures you had. I wanted so badly to be like you.”
“You’re very like me,” K.C. said huskily. “I worried about letting you work for the organization. I wanted to protect you.” He laughed. “It wasn’t possible. You took to it like a duck to water. But I sweated blood when you left me and went with the CIA.” He shook his head. “I agonized that I’d let you get US citizenship, even though you kept your first citizenship.”
“It was something I wanted to do.” Rourke shrugged. “I can’t live without the adrenaline rushes.” His good eye twinkled. “I must get that from my old man.”
K.C. chuckled. “Probably. I still go on missions. I just don’t go on as many, and I’m mostly administrative now. You’ll learn as you age that your reaction time starts to drop. That can put your unit in danger, compromise missions.”
Rourke nodded. “I’ve had so many close calls that I’ve been tempted to think about administrative tasks myself. But not yet,” he added with a grin. “And right now, I have another priority. I want to get married.”
K.C. smiled warmly. “She’s really beautiful. And she has a kind heart. That’s more important than surface details.”
Rourke nodded. His face hardened. “It’s just, the idea of those other men...”
“You’ve had women,” K.C. replied quietly. “How is that different?”
Rourke looked vaguely disturbed. He turned away with a sigh. “Not so very, I suppose.”
“Tell Emilio hello for me,” K.C. said. “I knew him, a long time ago. Always liked the man. He’s not what you expect of a revolutionary.”
Rourke chuckled. “Not at all. He could make a fortune as a recording artist if he ever got tired of being President of Barrera. He can sing.”
“Indeed he can.”
Rourke turned at the door and looked back at the man who was the living image of what he’d be, in a few years.
He smiled. “When I get back, maybe you could take me to a ball game or something.”
K.C. picked up a chair cushion and threw it at him. “Get stuffed.”
Rourke just laughed. He picked up the cushion and tossed it back.
“You be careful over there,” K.C. added. “Sapara has friends, and he’s slippery. If he ever gets out of prison, you could be in trouble. He’s vindictive.”
“He won’t get out,” was the reply. “Just the same, it’s nice that my old man worries about me,” he added.
K.C. beamed. “Yes, he does. So don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t. Make sure you do the same.”
K.C. shrugged. “I’m invincible. I spent years as a merc and I’ve still got most of my original body parts.” He made a face as he moved his shoulder. “Some of them aren’t up to factory standards anymore, but I get by.”
Rourke grinned. “Same here.” He searched K.C.’s hard face. “When?”
“When, what?”
“When do you want to do the paperwork?”
“Oh. The name change. Why not get it started tomorrow? Unless you’re leaving for Barrera early?”
“Not until Thursday,” Rourke replied. His face softened. “I’d like that.”
K.C. nodded.
Rourke went back to his room to start packing.
* * *
The paperwork was uncomplicated. The attorney was laughing like a pirate.
“I knew,” he said, glancing from one to the other. “It was so damned obvious. But I knew better than to mention it. Your old man,” he added, to Rourke, “packs a hell of a punch.”
Rourke fingered his jaw, where there was only a faint yellow bruise to remind him of his father’s anger when he’d accused him of being Tat’s real parent. “Tell me about it,” he laughed.
K.C. managed a bare smile. “I need to have a few classes in anger management, I guess,” he sighed.
“No, Dad,” Rourke said without realizing what he’d said, “you’ll do fine the way you are. A temper’s not a bad thing.”
K.C. was beaming. Rourke realized then what he’d said and his brown eye twinkled.
“Nice, the way that sounds, son,” K.C. said, and his chest swelled with pride.
“Very nice.”
“Well, I’ll have this wrapped up in no time,” the attorney told the two men. “You can check back with me in a few days.”
“I’ll do that,” K.C. said.
* * *
Rourke walked out the door of his house with a suitcase and a suit bag, in which he had a dinner jacket, slacks, shirt and tie. He was going to look the best he could. He was so excited about the day to come that he hadn’t slept. Tat would be there. He’d see her again, but not in the same way he’d seen her for eight long years. Tomorrow night was going to be the best of his life. He could hardly wait.
* * *
The flight to Barrera was long and tedious. Rourke caught the plane at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. It was sixteen hours and eight minutes to the Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus. He tried to sleep for most of the flight, only fortifying himself with food and champagne in between. He was impatient. He had to conduct this like a battle campaign, he thought. Tat wasn’t going to be welcoming, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d spent years tormenting her.
Finally the plane landed. The tropical heat hit him in the face like a wet towel, and it was something he wasn’t accustomed to. Kenya was mild year-round.
He went through passport control and customs, with only the carry-on bag and his suit bag. He always traveled light. He hated the time spent waiting for luggage at baggage claim. Much easier to travel with only the essentials and buy what he needed when he arrived. He didn’t advertise it, but he was quite wealthy. The game park kept him in ready cash, from tourism. Not to mention what he’d made for years as a professional soldier, risking his life in dangerous places. It was wonderful that K.C. was his father, but Rourke didn’t need his father’s financial support. He’d made his own way in the world for a long time.
He walked through baggage claim and looked for the appropriate sign, which would be held up by a limo driver he’d hired from Nairobi on his cell phone. He could easily afford the fees and he hated cabs.
The man spotted him and grinned. Rourke, dressed in khakis, tall and blond and striking, with the long ponytail down his back could never be mistaken for anyone except who he was. He looked the part of an African game park owner.
He smiled as he approached the man.
“Senhor Rourke?” the small dark man asked with a big grin.
Rourke chuckled. “What gave me away?” he asked.
“You do not remember?” the little man asked, and seemed crushed.
Rourke had an uncanny memory. He stared at the man for a minute, closed his eye, smiled and came up with a name. “Rodrigues,” he chuckled. “You chauffeured me around the last time I was in Manaus, just after the Barrera offensive. You have two daughters.”
The man seemed to be awash in pleasure. “Oh, yes, that is me, but, please, you must call me Domingo,” he added, wringing Rourke’s hand. Imagine, a rich cosmopolitan man like this remembering his name!
“Domingo, then.” He drew in a breath. Jet lag was getting to him. “I think I need to get a hotel room for the night. I’m flying out to Barrera in the morning. General Machado is having an awards ceremony.”
“Sim.” The man nodded as he climbed in under the wheel. “Several people are to be honored for their part in overthrowing that rat, Arturo Sapara,” he added. “My cousins were tortured in Sapara’s prison. I danced with joy when he was arrested.”
“So did I, mate,” Rourke replied solemnly.
“One lady from Manaus is to be awarded a medal,” Domingo said with a smile. “Senhorita Carrington. I knew her mother. Such a saintly lady,” he added.
“Saintly,” Rourke said, almost grinding his teeth as Domingo pulled out in traffic.
“Creio que sim,” Domingo replied, nodding. “She was kind. So kind. It was a tragedy what happened to her husband and her youngest daughter, Matilda,” he added.
Rourke drew in a long breath. “That was truly a tragedy.”
“You know of it?” Domingo asked.
“Yes. I’ve known Tat...Clarisse,” he corrected, “since she was eight years old.”
“The senhorita is a good woman,” Domingo said solemnly. “When she was younger, she never missed Mass. She was so kind to other people.” His face hardened. “What that butcher did to her was unthinkable. He was killed,” he added coldly. “I was glad. To hurt someone so beautiful, so kind...”
“How do you know her?” Rourke asked.
“When my little girl was diagnosed with lymphoma, it was Senhorita Carrington who made arrangements for her to go for treatment at the Mayo Clinic. It is in the United States. She paid for everything. Everything! I thought I must bury my daughter, but she stepped in.” Tears clouded his eyes. He wiped them away, unashamed. “My wife and I, we would do anything for her.”
Rourke was touched. He knew Clarisse had a kind heart, and here was even more proof of it.
“You will see Senhorita Carrington in Barrera, yes?” Domingo asked with a wise smile.
Rourke nodded. “Yes, I will.”
“Please, you tell her that Domingo remembers her and he and his family pray for her every single day, yes?”
“I’ll tell her.”
Domingo nodded. He pulled up at the best hotel in Manaus and stopped. “What time shall I come for you tomorrow, senhor?”
“About six,” Rourke said. “I’ve got a ticket for the connecting flight to Medina.” He yawned and signed the slip Domingo handed him, retrieving his credit card and sliding it back into his expensive wallet.
“Sleep well,” Domingo said as he carried the bags to the bellboy’s station inside the luxury hotel.
“Thanks. I think I will.”
* * *
Rourke had strange dreams. He woke sweating, worried. There had been a battle. He was wounded. Tat was standing far away, crying. Tears ran down her cheeks, but not tears of joy. Her face was tormented, the way it had looked at their last meeting. She was pregnant...!
He got up and made coffee in the small pot furnished by the hotel. It was four in the morning. No sense in going back to bed. He swept back his hair, disheveled from the pillow. He took off the hair elastic and let his hair fall down his back.
Absently, while the coffee was brewing, he ran a brush through it. Probably he should have it cut completely off, he was thinking as he looked at himself in the mirror. He’d worn it that way for years, partly out of nonconformity, partly because he shared some beliefs with ancient cultures that there was good medicine in long hair. He’d been superstitious about cutting it. But he looked like a renegade, and he didn’t want to. Not tonight. He was going hunting, for lovely prey. Perhaps cutting his hair might show Tat that he was changing. That he was different.
* * *
He postponed his flight for five hours and had Domingo take him to an exclusive hair salon. He had his hair cut and styled. He was impressed with the results. It had a natural wave, which fell out when his hair was halfway down his back. The wave was prominent. The cut made him look distinguished, debonair. It also made him look amazingly like K.C., he thought, and chuckled as he studied himself in the mirror.
Domingo raised both eyebrows when he walked out of the salon.
“You look very different,” he said.
Rourke nodded.
Domingo smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. He opened the door of the limo for Rourke, and then climbed in under the wheel.
“What’s bugging you?” Rourke teased.
“It is that you have cut your hair,” he remarked. He laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry.”
“You think I’ve damaged my ‘medicine,’” Rourke said with pursed lips and a twinkling eye.
Domingo flushed over his high cheekbones. “I am a superstitious man. What can I say? But you are a modern man, senhor,” he laughed. “You do not believe in such things, I am sure. Now we go to the airport, yes?”
Rourke was feeling something similar to Domingo’s apprehension as he ran a hand through his short, thick hair. In all the years he’d been a merc, there had been precious few close calls. He’d been shot a few times, never anything serious, except for the loss of his eye. He’d always felt that his hair had something to do with that. It was a primitive superstition, though. He was sure he was just being dumb.
“Yes, Domingo,” he said, and smiled. “To the airport. I have a busy day ahead.” And a busier night, he was hoping, if he could coax Clarisse into bed with him.
His hand felt in his pocket for the ring. It was still there. He knew she wasn’t going to be easy to convince, especially about the bed thing. But he had an ace in the hole. He was going to propose first.
He hoped he wasn’t going to have to go back to Nairobi alone. But, then, whatever it took, he was going to do it. If he had to follow her back to Manaus and court her like a schoolboy, he would. He was never going to let her get away from him. Never.
* * *
Medina, Barrera’s capital, was like most other South American cities, cosmopolitan and remote at the same time. The people were a mixture of races, and the official language was Spanish.
There was a regional airport and a bus terminal. There were no limousines here. Not yet. The general was only beginning to repair the damage to the infrastructure that Sapara had caused. The usurper had done a lot of damage during the time he’d been in power. Most of the money had gone into his own pockets and he’d spent lavishly on himself. The presidential mansion was worth many millions. Machado had wanted to tear it down, but the grateful populace, much of which he’d rescued from Sapara’s prisons, wouldn’t hear of it. Powerful foreigners would come here to help rebuild the country, one of his advisers had said. A luxurious presidential residence would reinforce the notion that Barrera was worth aid.
He didn’t agree at first, but he finally gave in. If he demolished it, he’d have to spend the money to rebuild it. He did, however, have all the solid gold fixtures that Sapara had imported melted down and minted. That had earned him much praise, especially in light of the social programs he’d implemented to give free health care to the poor. Machado was a good man.
Rourke checked into the only luxury hotel in the city. He wondered if Tat would be staying here, too. He hoped so.
He put his suitcase down and unpacked his dinner jacket. He smiled as he thought of the evening ahead. It was going to be the best night of his life.
* * *
Five doors and a floor away, Clarisse Carrington was looking at the dark circles under her eyes as she thought about the night to come. Rourke’s name was on the list of honorees, but she was certain that he wouldn’t show up. He hated society bashes, and he was a modest man. He wouldn’t be interested in having people make him out to be a hero, even though he was one.
Clarisse had hero-worshipped him from the age of eight, admired his courage, loved him to the point of madness. But Stanton Rourke hated her. He’d made it crystal clear for years, even without the horrible things he’d said to her when he got her out of Ngawa.
He was never going to love her. She knew that. But she couldn’t help the way she felt about him. It seemed to be a disease without a cure.
She studied her face in the mirror. The bullet wound had left evidence of its passage in her scalp, but a little careful hair-combing hid it well. The scars on her left breast were less easy to camouflage. Sapara’s henchman, Miguel, had put a knife into her, over and over again while trying to make her tell about General Machado’s offensive. She hadn’t talked. That was why she was getting a medal tonight. For bravery. Because she’d survived the torture and rescued not only herself, but two college professors, as well. They said she was a heroine. She laughed without humor. Sure.
She was standing there in a long slip. It would go under the elegant white gown she’d bought from a boutique for the event. It had simple lines. It fell to her ankles. The bodice wasn’t even suggestive. It was high enough to cover the scars on her breast. It had puff sleeves that reminded her somehow of a gown she’d seen in a period movie about the Napoleonic era. She looked good in white.
She thought how Stanton would have laughed to see her in the color. He would think it should be scarlet. He thought she was little better than a call girl. That was ironic, and it would have been amusing except that it was tragic.
She’d never been with a man in her life. She’d never been intimate with anyone, except Stanton, one Christmas Eve long ago, when she was seventeen. She’d loved him then and every day since, despite his antagonism, his mockery, his taunting.
She knew he hated her. He’d made it obvious. It didn’t seem to make any difference, though. She couldn’t get him out of her mind, any more than she could permit any other man to touch her.
She’d made a play for Grange, the leader of Machado’s insurgent troops. But that had been an act of desperation, and mainly due to antianxiety drugs that she’d taken after the tragic deaths of her father and her little sister, Matilda. Her life had been shattered.
Rourke had come running, the minute he heard about it. He’d handled the funeral arrangements, organized the service, done everything for her while she walked around numb and brokenhearted. He’d put her to bed, holding her while she sobbed out her heart. He’d called a doctor, her doctor, Ruy Carvajal, and had him sedate her when the crying didn’t stop.
She thought of Ruy and a question he’d asked her before she came here. She’d invited him to come, too, just on the chance that Rourke might show up. He’d had to go to Argentina, to treat a longtime patient who was also a friend. But he’d asked her to consider marrying him; a marriage of friends, nothing more. He knew how she felt about Rourke, that she couldn’t permit another man to touch her. It wouldn’t matter, he assured her, because he’d been badly wounded in a firefight on a mission with the World Health Organization. Because of the wounds, he could no longer father a child. He was, he added solemnly, no longer a man, either. He was unable to be intimate with a woman. This had led to many suspicions among his people, who revered a man’s ability to beget children above all other attributes.
He would be happy to put an end to the gossip. He could give Clarisse a good life. If she was certain, he added, that Rourke would never want her.
She told him that she’d consider it, and she had. Rourke didn’t want her. She couldn’t want anyone else. She was twenty-five, and Ruy was kind to her. Why not? It would give her some stability. She would have a friend, someone of her own.
It sounded like a good idea. She thought she might do it. It might sound like an empty life to some people. But to Clarisse, whose life had been an endless series of tragedies, the prospect of a peaceful life was enticing. She didn’t need sex. After all, she’d never had it. How could she miss something she’d never experienced?
She mourned Rourke, but that would end one day, she thought. She gave her reflection a grim smile. Sure it would. When she died. She turned and went to put on her gown for the gala evening.