ONE MONTH LATER Amara Villafuerte POV “Your son grows strong.” Manfred’s housekeeper, Anna, smiles at me as she places the sandwich, she’s made me, on the coffee table. She’s never really spoken to me before, so it comes as a surprise, it's an even bigger shock when she takes a seat beside me and places her palm, flat beside where mine rests on my stomach. “Do you feel him wriggle yet, Miss Amara?” She smiles. “No, the books said it could be any time now, but I don’t feel him yet.” I’m starting to get a little anxious about it. This past month my stomach has gotten much bigger, there is no hiding the fact I’m pregnant, now. We had an appointment with Dr. Jonathan Ferrero last week and heard his heartbeat again, and now I’m desperate to feel him move. “Soon enough.” She taps my bump, lightly, before she gets back up and heads into the kitchen. I look at the sandwich she’s left behind and sigh when I think about eating it. Despite what Dr. Jonathan Ferrero, and the books, have said
Amara Villafuerte POV I notice the bowl of lasagne that I figure is what I left at the dinner table, earlier. I’d managed to persuade Manfred that the salad and four new potatoes, I’d eaten, had filled me, and as tasty as Anna’s home cooking is, it’s not what I’m looking for, now. I find the punnet of strawberries and pull them out, popping one in my mouth as I place them on the counter, and search for more things that appeal to me. I figure whipped cream will come in useful and I check the coast is clear before I take that out, shake it, and spray it directly into my mouth. The satisfaction it brings makes me smile, and after I’ve gotten myself a little collection of random things to experiment with, I hoist my ass up onto the kitchen counter and start to tuck in, using the glow from the open refrigerator door. Strange ideas for the food in front of me start to combine themselves in my head, and I can’t resist dipping my fingers into the pickle jar and pulling one out. The smell do
Manfred Valderrama POV I watch Amara in the reflection of my gym mirror, while I lift the dumbbells in my hands. Since I looked more into the article she was reading, the other day, about the benefits of yoga during pregnancy, I’ve had a mat brought up here so we can do our morning workout together. She looks hot as shit in the training bra and yoga shorts she’s wearing and the bigger her stomach grows, the more I seem to become obsessed with it. I feel a lot more relaxed, now that the list of people Villafuerte’s investigator thought could be a threat to her is dead; even more so now that she seems to have found her appetite, again. I swear that girl finds something new to dip a pickle into every day. “You look real sexy when you're working out.” She stares at me from the other side of the room like a vixen, then abandoning her mat she moves to sit on the weight bench beside me. I love how happy she looks when she leans back on one arm and the hand from her other strokes over her
Amara Villafuerte POV Something is troubling Manfred. I can tell by the way he keeps smiling at me. It’s not like him, and it’s not convincing at all. I take the sparkling water from the stewardess on his private jet and smile at her awkwardly while Manfred fixes the safety belt across my lap like I’m a child. “I am capable of doing that myself you know,” I remind him. “I know, but if I do it, I can be assured that it’s safe. He presses a kiss on my cheek and taps my tummy before looking up at the stewardess. “That will be all,” he dismisses her, taking my hand in his and looking out of the tiny window beside me. “You never mentioned having a jet, or an island.” I try to strike up a conversation in the hope that it might ease his tension, “I don’t visit it often.” His lip curls like he has a nasty taste in his mouth. “My father has an island too…but you already knew that, huh?” I look out the same window and inwardly curse myself when I realize I’m not helping the situation at all.
Amara Villafuerte POV “I can’t.” He shakes his head, straining his neck when he looks up at the ceiling like he’s praying to God to give him the power of resistance. “You won’t hurt me and I promise, if you did, I’d tell you. I just want you to fuck me the way you used to. I miss it and, right now, you need it.” “Amara, I can’t,” he answers through gritted teeth. His fingers starting to become a little less gentle as they fuck me. “Please, Manfred. I need it too.” I hear him growl in frustration when he moves away from the bed, and just when I think he’s going to storm off, he shocks me when he roughly unbuckles his belt. I smile victoriously as I watch him undress and see the harsh threat on his face as he comes back toward me. “You make me go against my better judgment,” he tells me, looking between my legs. “Look at this pussy.” He tilts his head and admires what's laid out in front of him before he forces my knees even further apart, “weeping so desperately over my bed sheets
Amara Villafuerte POV Manfred meant what he said when he told me he’d make our marriage happen, it’s only been five days since he proposed to me at the waterfall, and today the beach is all set up for our private ceremony. Daniel is flying to the island with the marriage certificate he somehow arranged for us, and, since Manfred is insistent that we do things right, he’s bringing a priest with him. I’ve never had him down as the religious type, but I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of girl. “Are you nervous?” Greta asks as she adds a few more pins to my hair. “Not at all, it’s not like there's a lot of people here for me to mess my vows up, in front of.” I smile back at her through the mirror, as she places the pretty, purple orchid among the neat up-do she’s given me. “Oh, sweetheart, marriage is about far more than just the vows. It’s about a love in your heart that overflows. It’s perseverance against all odds. Marriage is not easy. Especially, to a man like Manfred Valderrama.” She
Manfred Valderrama POV “What are you doing out here all alone?” I turn my head away from watching the ocean when I hear her voice come from behind me. I thought she’d be flat-out asleep after all the different ways I’ve made love to her since our guests left the island. “Couldn’t sleep.” I shrug, continuing to watch the waves slide onto the sand and drag back out, again. “We could talk about whatever's on your mind?” She sits down beside me, burying her feet in the sand as I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Some things are better left unsaid.” I kiss the top of her head and smell her hair, despite the coconut undertone of her shampoo, she smells of me, and I love it. “I disagree, I think whatever it is that’s on your mind would feel much better if you shared it. Are you scared about my father being in Manila?” “I’m not scared of your father, Amara.” I shake my head. “I told you, I’m figuring all that out.” Amara called Steven last week and the fact he hasn’t told her he’s in
Amara Valderrama's POV “Everything is progressing perfectly.” Dr. Jonathan Ferrero finishes pressing his hand into my pelvis to check the baby’s position and steps over to the dresser, where his notes are. I can’t imagine how much it must have cost Manfred to fly him out here, it seems over the top considering there are perfectly good doctors less than an hour's boat ride away, on the mainland. “But…” “What do you mean ‘but’?” Manfred stands himself up straight from where he’s been resting his shoulder against the patio door frame, watching my examination, sternly. “Unless you plan on having this baby here on the island, which I wouldn’t recommend, you will have to start making plans for a return to the mainland.” He clears his throat as if he can sense it’s not what Manfred wants to hear. “Amara is only five weeks away from her due date, it’s not recommended that a pregnant mother fly any less than four,” he adds, causing Manfred to run his finger across his lip and nod like he