Tender Triumph Read online

  His granite features were an impenetrable mask, and Katie was too nervous to notice anything about his mood except that he was tensed, ready to spring at her. "I—I didn't want to go," she stammered. He stepped forward and Katie stepped back. "Padre Gregorio says he'll marry us," she told him quickly.

  "Oh, is that right?" Ramon said in a low voice. He started toward her and Katie started backing away.

  "I—I'll take back everything I paid for," she volunteered as he stalked her through the bedroom doorway and into the living room.

  "Will you, now?" Ramon breathed softly.

  Katie nodded vigorously, backing into the sofa and moving around it. "I—I saw Rafael's scrap-book," she explained breathlessly. "If you'd only told me who you really are, I would have under­stood why you didn't want me to pay for anything. I would have obey—" she choked on the word "— obeyed you."

  "I see you have learned a new word," Ramon mocked.

  Katie bumped into the lamp table and scooted sideways around it. "I'll fill the whole house with plants and ruffles and children," she promised desperately. The backs of her legs hit the chair, blocking any further retreat, and uncontrollable panic welled in Katie's throat. "You have to listen to me! I was afraid to marry you because I knew that you were hiding something from me, but I didn't know what it was, and David had—"

  Ramon closed the distance and Katie put her hand out trying to fend him off. "Please listen to me," she cried out. "I love you!"

  His hands gripped her shoulders pulling her against him with enough force to snap Katie's head back. For the first time she was close enough to see the expression in those smouldering eyes, and what she saw was not anger. It was love—a love so intense that she was humbled by it.

  "You love me," he repeated in a strangely gruff voice. "And I suppose you thought that if you told me you love me, I would forget everything else and forgive you?"

  "Yes," Katie whispered. "I thought you might. J—just this once."

  "Just this once," he murmured in tender amuse­ment, and his hand trembled as he laid it against her cheek, slowly running it back to smooth her hair. He made a sound that was half groan, half laugh as his fingers sank into her hair. "Just this once?" he repeated as if it were the greatest of understatements, and his other arm crushed her to him, his mouth cap­turing hers in a deep devouring kiss.

  With joy and relief bursting like fireworks in her heart, Katie slid her hands up his hard chest, around his neck, and welcomed his tongue into her mouth. She arched herself against his rigid thighs, and Ramon shuddered with pleasure, his hands rushing over her shoulders and back, then lower, pulling her hips tighter to him.

  He tore his mouth from hers and brushed scor­ching kisses over her temple, her forehead, her eyes and her cheek. "Say it again," he ordered hoarsely. "I love you," Katie told him with a throbbing ache in her voice. "And I need you.. .and I want you...and I...."

  Ramon's mouth opened ravenously over hers, silencing her words and sending her spinning off in­to a world where nothing existed but the fiery de­mands of his hands and mouth and body. He kissed her again and again, until Katie was moaning and moving against him, her body racked with fierce, wild jolts of desire.

  He took his mouth from hers, and gazed down in­to her glorious, sultry eyes. "Come to bed, querida," he murmured hotly.

  Katie spread her flattened hands inside the open front of his shirt, her fingers moving over his hair-roughened chest, but to Ramon's frustrated disap­pointment, the beautiful woman in his arms said very softly, "No."

  "Yes," he whispered, already bending his head with every intention of kissing away her objections, but this time she shook her head.

  "No," she repeated. Smiling with wistful regret, she explained. "Eduardo didn't want me to con­front you alone. The only reason he let me come was because he was positive you weren't here. I didn't come right back, so he's bound to have started up here on foot—to defend me from your wrath." Ramon's brows drew together in annoyance, and Katie smoothed her fingers over his heart, her smile widening. "And there are two other reasons why I'd like to wait. One is that we need to talk. You asked me for honesty, insisted on it, and then you de­liberately misled me. I would like to understand why you did."

  Ramon's arms loosened slightly, reluctantly. "What is the other reason?" he asked gently.

  Katie ruefully looked away from him. "Tomor­row is our wedding day. We've waited this long already, and, well, Padre Gregorio—"

  Ramon burst out laughing and swept her up into his arms. "When we were young, Eduardo, Miguel and I believed that if we did something wrong, Padre Gregorio would look into our eyes and he would know it." He carried her over to the sofa and settled her on his lap, his arm around her waist.

  "Did it keep you from doing anything wrong?" Katie teased.

  "No," Ramon admitted with a grin. "But it kept us from enjoying it."

  In the dimly lit quiet of the living room she had decorated for him, Ramon explained to Katie why he had misled her and then, as simply as he could, he explained how the events of the day had drastically altered the prospects for their future. She listened to the story of Sidney Green, her face alight with laughter, her quick, intelligent mind easily com­prehending the pressure Ramon had brought on Sidney Green and the havoc he had wrought on Green Paint and Chemical. Yet when he was finish­ed, Katie's excited elation faded slightly. "Katie, what is wrong?" he asked her softly.

  Katie looked around at the cozy room where they sat. "Nothing really. It's just that I'll miss this house; I could have been very happy here."

  Ramon touched her chin, turning her face up to his. "You will like your other houses much better." Katie frowned in puzzlement. "I thought you said the houses and the island were going to be taken away by the banks."

  "It is still possible," Ramon said, "but it is not likely. Banks are like scavengers. When they scent a failure, they are quick to close in to ensure that they get their share of what is left. But if the 'failure' suddenly shows signs of recovery, they are just as quick to back away. They will wait and watch. They will consider how much more they have to gain if I should prosper, as I have in the past. My St. Louis lawyers tell me that Sidney Green has been crying to everyone from St. Louis to New York that I have been manipulating his stock and driving him out of business. The banks will hear that, and they will wonder if perhaps they have underestimated my in­fluence. They will continue to circle, and to watch, but they will begin backing further away. When I resume construction of the St. Louis high rise, the Chicago bank will scent a profit and they will decide to reconsider loaning me the money to finish the Chicago high rise.

  "So you see," he concluded, "you will have your houses and servants and—"

  "—and nothing to do," Katie finished with a wan smile. "Because you think a woman's place is at home."

  Ramon's eyes narrowed. "A moment ago, you said you could have been very happy here. Why can you not be happy in a more luxurious home?"

  Katie, bracing for an argument, moved off his lap and walked over to the windows. She could feel Ramon's eyes on her back as she parted the cur­tains and stared out into the darkness, trying to think of a way to make him understand. "I said I could have been happy living here," she said quietly, "and I could have been—because we would have been working to build a life to­gether. I would have felt useful and needed. I could still feel useful and needed, but you won't let me," she said.

  Behind her, she heard Ramon get up and start toward her, and her voice gained determination. "You're going to begin rebuilding Galverra Inter­national, and my background is in personnel. I'm familiar with hiring practices and wage scales and government regulations and payroll procedures—I could help you, but you won't let me."

  His hands settled on her shoulders, but Katie refused to turn as she continued. "I know how you feel about a woman working outside the home— you made that very clear the day of our picnic. You said that when a woman takes a job, it shows the world that what her husband can p