Postcards From Rio. Tina Beckett
savagery, aware that their captor walking just ahead of them could overhear. ‘Do you know what a bad time my conscience gave me when I discovered you were...a virgin?’ he said harshly.
He was furious with her for making him feel a fool, although her air of innocence hadn’t all been an act, he brooded, remembering how she had gasped at the moment of penetration, making him realise, too late, that it was her first time.
‘Is that why you had disappeared when I woke up this morning? You felt guilty, so you cleared off.’ Clare’s initial feeling of relief that Diego had gone from the cave when the kidnappers arrived had gradually turned to anger that he hadn’t even woken her to say thanks for their one-night stand, which, of course, was all he had wanted from her.
‘I didn’t clear off. I was on my way to the waterfall to take a shower when I was ambushed and knocked unconscious.’ Diego removed his hat that he’d been wearing with the brim pulled low over his eyes, and Clare made a choked sound when she saw a purple lump on his temple.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been involved. A week ago my sister was snatched while she was on a modelling assignment in Rio, and the kidnappers demanded a ransom for her release. I was instructed to take the money to a cave by a waterfall near to Torrente and was warned that if I went to the police or asked anyone for help Becky would be killed.’
‘You should have told me what you were doing.’
‘I didn’t know if I could trust you.’
‘If you didn’t trust me, why did you give yourself to me?’
Clare told herself she had imagined a faint note of hurt in Diego’s voice. ‘It was just sex. It wasn’t as if it meant anything to either of us.’ She assured herself that her emotions had not been involved, and she was certain it hadn’t meant anything to Diego. ‘What happened after you were brought here?’
‘I must have been knocked out cold and when I came round I was lying on a bed and a beautiful woman, who I’ve just learned is your sister, was leaning over me.’ He grinned. ‘For a couple of minutes I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.’
‘I doubt you would be allowed in,’ Clare muttered, feeling a hot surge of jealousy because Diego thought Becky was beautiful.
‘Becky told me she had been kidnapped, but I didn’t make the connection between the two of you because I believed your story that you were a nun going to teach at a Sunday school.’ His expression hardened. ‘You don’t look at all like your sister.’
‘Which explains why Becky is one of the most photographed models in the world and I’m an accountant,’ she muttered.
Enzo halted outside a door and knocked. He looked nervous, and Clare’s heart jumped into her throat. ‘I wonder who Rigo is,’ she whispered.
‘His name is Rodrigo Hernandez and he heads the biggest drugs cartel in western Brazil, with smuggling routes across the borders into Colombia and Peru,’ Diego explained in a low voice. ‘He also operates a huge prostitution racket, has been linked to several high-profile kidnappings and has a reputation for extreme violence.’
‘Quiet,’ Enzo growled, before he opened the door. ‘Rigo will see you now.’
Clare was aware that her life and Becky’s depended on the outcome of her meeting with the dangerous man inside the room. She felt sick with fear and her feet seemed to be rooted to the floor so that she could not move. A hand grasped hers and she jerked her eyes to Diego’s.
‘All right?’ he asked softly. He squeezed her fingers when she nodded. ‘That’s my girl.’
As they walked into Rigo’s office, Clare gained an impression of walnut-panelled walls, a richly patterned carpet and heavy velvet curtains that were drawn across the windows and blocked out the daylight. The stark white light from a lamp illuminated the spirals of smoke that rose up from the tip of the cigar that the man sitting behind the desk held clamped between his lips.
Rodrigo Hernandez was dressed in a sober grey suit and tie and looked more like a well-to-do lawyer than a violent drugs lord who was one of the most wanted men in South America. But his black eyes were pitiless, Clare thought, and his cold smile sent a shiver through her.
‘Miss Marchant. I see you have brought a friend with you. Take a seat, both of you.’
‘Diego agreed to drive me to Torrente, but I didn’t tell him the real reason for my trip. He’s not involved in any of this and you should let him go.’
‘Should is not a word I am familiar with,’ Rigo said in a pleasant voice that was somehow utterly terrifying. Clare looked into the black holes of his eyes and sat down abruptly before her legs gave way.
‘I have the money you asked me to bring.’ She put the briefcase on the desk and, at a nod from Rigo, one of his henchmen opened it and took out a number of prayer books. ‘Oh.’ She had forgotten about the books and blushed at the reminder of how she had deliberately misled Diego into believing she was a nun. She avoided looking at him. ‘I meant to deliver them to the Sunday school.’ She picked up the book of Keats’s poems that she had put into the case for safekeeping and slid it on to her lap.
‘Five hundred thousand pounds,’ Rigo’s assistant confirmed when he finished counting the money.
‘Now you know that all the money is there, will you allow my sister to go free as...as was agreed?’ Clare’s voice faltered when Rigo stood up and walked around the desk. She held her breath as he touched her hair and wound a long auburn curl around his fingers.
‘Such a beautiful colour,’ he murmured. ‘I sense, Miss Marchant, that you have a fiery temperament to match your hair. Men will pay a lot of money to bed a woman with spirit and passion. Your sister is free to leave, but I have decided that you will stay here and work for me.’ He tightened his fingers on her shoulder and laughed when she could not repress a shudder. ‘I may even decide to keep you for my own pleasure.’
* * *
Diego clenched his hand until his knuckles whitened. Rage burned inside him, but he knew he could not slam his fist into the slimeball Rigo’s face and force him to take his hands off Clare. In order to protect her he must show no reaction. Act cool—that was what he had learned in prison. He couldn’t allow Rigo to know how much he wanted to grab Clare and keep her safe. His only chance of saving her from being forced into prostitution, or forced to become Rigo’s mistress, was to offer the drugs lord the thing he prized more than anything else. Money.
‘It’s my experience that spirited women are more trouble than they’re worth,’ he drawled. ‘Miss Marchant will be more valuable to you if you demand a ransom for her.’
Clare shot him a sideways look. ‘My father won’t be able to raise enough money to pay another ransom,’ she said in a fierce whisper. ‘I don’t think you’re helping, Diego. Let me handle this.’
She looked across the desk at Rigo. ‘I came to Brazil in good faith that you would allow me to pay for my sister’s freedom and it is only fair that you should let us both go.’
Diego groaned silently when Rigo frowned. He wished Clare would let him deal with the situation but he could not help but admire her bravery and determination to rescue her sister. Most women would have gone to pieces by now, but not Clare. Some of his anger at the way she had lied to him about her identity faded, and he begrudgingly acknowledged that he understood why she had dressed as a nun to protect her from the ruthless men who had kidnapped her sister.
Rigo ignored Clare and spoke to Diego. ‘Are you prepared to pay a ransom?’
‘I am.’
Clare flashed Diego a rueful smile. ‘It’s kind of you to offer, but I don’t suppose a gold prospector earns much money.’
‘That’s very funny.’ Rigo laughed. ‘I recognised you from the media’s fascination with your personal life, Mr Cazorra. You are one of the richest men in Brazil and I would do better to demand