I didn't realize I was pregnant until I went for a follow-up appointment for my shoulder, and the doctor asked me the date of my last period. I had thought it was stress-related, or perhaps my cycle was off because I had missed a few weeks of my birth control pills, but the blood test confirmed it. It had been a bittersweet revelation, given that the baby's father and grandfather, Damian and Warren, were embroiled in a ceaseless battle that was being played out in the courts.

Everywhere I went, photographers flashed their cameras in my face. How would they twist the story if they knew I was having Damian's child? If they knew I was in love with my kidnapper? What would my father say? He was convinced I was going through some kind of mental and emotional breakdown. Would he try to coerce me into having an abortion? Failing that, could he have a psychiatrist declare me incompetent? Force me to give up the baby? How would Damian react to the news? He was going to prison. For how long, I didn't know, but I knew that it would only make it harder.

I kept the pregnancy to myself, and as difficult as it was, the thought of a new life emerging out of all the chaos was like a beacon of light that got me through the darkness. I sat through long sessions with Nick and my father, hugging my little secret, while they discussed the charges and legal strategies. I wanted the case wrapped up before I started showing so I went through the motions. Yes to this, no to this, yes to this. I sat through Damian's sentence hearing, four months pregnant, knowing that I had a piece of him, and no matter how wrong or warped or crazy everyone else would think it was, it felt right.

When my father realized I was pregnant, he could not hide his disappointment. He was convinced Damian had used me to get back at him, that getting me pregnant had been a part of his plan, his ultimate revenge against my father. How deluded we become when we start believing that everything in the world is about us. How hard we work to make things fit into our made-up theories. How blindly we follow our worked-up emotions, the good, the bad and the ugly. My father would believe what he wanted. Damian would believe what he wanted. I could either let myself be ripped in half between them, or accept that I would never be able to change their way of looking at things.

At times, I questioned my own sanity. Was I wrong? Had I been naive and trusting? Had Damian played me all along? He couldn't bring himself to kill me, so had he done the next best thing? Drive a wedge between my father and the one person that meant the most to him? Me. Had he really planned to send me back, carrying his child, so my father would have to live with it the rest of his life?

Used, my father said.

I thought of what Damian and I had shared, the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, and I thought no. An absolute, soul-rooted, emphatic no. I couldn't think of anything more beautiful, more life affirming than Damian's lips on mine-his body, my body, melded into one. And now I had a part of him, a part of MaMaLu, to look after, and that's exactly what I did. Damian had hurt me, my father had hurt me, but I loved them both. No doubt, they felt I had let them down too, but I didn't want to stay lodged between them, not when I had a new life to think about.

When someone started undercutting Sedgewick stock by selling significant shares at a lower cost and devaluing the company, I suspected Damian was behind it. Investors panicked and started offloading their stock, alarmed by plummeting figures. It didn't take long for my father to trace it back to Damian, but Rafael had done such a good job of covering up the paper trail that there was no substantial evidence against Damian.

At the time, I didn't know that Damian was reacting to something my father had done. My father had accepted that I was going to have Damian's child, but he was never going to accept Damian in my life, child or no child, so he'd sent him a message in prison, a message that had provoked Damian into replying with one of his own. Theirs was a feud that put one man behind bars and another in his grave.

Sierra was a few months old when my father passed away.

"She has your mother's eyes," he said to me one morning. He'd been uneasy around Sierra for the first few weeks, but that day he bent over her crib and looked at her for the first time. "Yes. Adriana's big, brown eyes."

After a while, he picked her up and gave her three kisses when he thought I wasn't looking. Our relationship had been strained, but he doted on Sierra. Eventually it proved impossible for him to hold a grudge against me for having her. She was the one thing that made him smile when everything else was collapsing around him. I was thankful that he died in his room, with his dignity intact, before we lost the mansion.

With his death, I was truly an orphan. I felt like a three-pronged hole in the wall, with empty spaces where my mother, my father, and MaMaLu had been. People plug in to you, and when they're gone, you stop working for a while. You have to reconfigure yourself, rework your wiring, so you can get out of bed in the morning. Not only had I lost my father, but I had also lost the roof over my head, at a time when I needed it the most-when I had a little one to take care of. My father's assets were long gone, picked over one by one to pay his debts. I collected all my designer clothes and shoes and bags, and dropped them off at a consignment store. Beautiful things are always hard to part with, but between the sales from that, and my jewelry and watches, I had enough for Sierra and I to get by until I figured things out. But first, I had to bury my father.

Nick came through in ways I never imagined he would. Things had changed after he found out I was pregnant. A child wasn't something he had factored in, least of all one that wasn't his. He backed off and stopped pursuing me, but when my father had a stroke, he showed up at the hospital. He tried not to stare at my round, pregnant belly and swollen ankles. He helped me wrap up my father's estate after his death and flew with me and Sierra to Paza del Mar for the funeral.

I broke down as I stood at my parents' graves, clutching Sierra. The soil around my father's site was still fresh, unlike my mother's and MaMaLu's. I hadn't realized the prison lot was in the same cemetery, and seeing MaMaLu's name carved in stone made her death that much more final. I wanted Damian there so I could draw from his strength, so I could lean on him, as he held our daughter at his mother's tomb. We had never made it that day, the day they'd stormed the island and captured him.

How do we end up like this? How do we make a mess of something so beautiful and true?

I felt lost and unanchored, like a ship in the storm. No mother, no father, no MaMaLu, and no Damian. But I had Sierra, and I held on to her tiny body like it was my lifeline.

I visited Valdemoros before we returned to San Diego. I wanted to see the place that had taken MaMaLu, and pay homage to the woman who'd filled my mother's shoes. I took enough "lunch" to earn me an escorted tour.

Behind the ominous barbed wire and bleak, gray walls, hard-faced guards mauled through my bag before letting me in. My footsteps echoed in the dark tunnel that led to the main compound as I followed Daniela, the officer who was showing me around. The central area was all concrete, but it was nothing like the highly regimented place I'd been expecting. It was hard to tell the prisoners from their visitors because they wore no uniforms. Small kiosks were set up around the inner perimeter, selling food and other staples. Mothers carried babies on their hips in the exercise yard. Children weaved through the corridors, chasing each other. There was a makeshift nursery with colorful walls, a maze of swings and slides, and a jungle gym. Tough-looking women eyed me with curiosity, suspicion, or both, and then went back to bouncing toddlers on their knees or weaving or sewing.

Daniela told me that over half of the women had yet to see a judge. "In the meantime, the prison encourages entrepreneurship. Some of the inmates make money running the kiosks. Others sew soccer balls and clothes. They make jewelry, hammocks, picture frames." Daniela pointed to groups of women sitting in circles, working on different projects.

"What happens to these items?" I picked up a hand-stitched leather bag and examined it. It was similar to the one I'd admired in the market, the day Damian and I had gone shopping.

"Sometimes their families will pick them up and sell them in local shops. The more talented prisoners take orders for their goods from outside merchants."

"How much does something like this go for?" I asked, holding up the bag. The leather was robust but soft. It had mitered gusset corners and rouleaux handles.

Daniela quoted a paltry figure.

I put the bag down and looked around, watching as one of the women unrolled a huge cowhide. She cut it following the outline of a rough stencil and started dyeing the exposed edges with a small brush. Another was burnishing the pieces, rubbing them with a soft cotton cloth to enhance the shine. It was an assembly line process, each of the women working on a task and moving it along to the next phase. The finished product was tossed into a pile with the others, under the shade.

As I sorted through the different styles, an idea started forming in my head. I had a degree in fine arts and a flair for designing bags, shoes, and clothes. I knew people who would pay big bucks for the kind of products these women were handcrafting. If I could connect the two, I would be helping these women and perhaps providing them with the tools to stay out of trouble when they got out. Most of the inmates were in prison because they lacked the resources to support themselves, and had turned to crime.

"Who provides the raw materials for these?"

Daniela shrugged. "Sometimes the prisoners pool their money, buy the raw materials themselves, and share in the profit. But it's a risk. No one trusts anyone when it comes to money. Sometimes a merchant will sponsor them and pay them a small portion of the sales when the goods are sold."

"And the women are willing to wait until then?"

Daniela laughed. "They have nothing better to do."

That night, I put Sierra to bed and toyed with the possibility of earning a living while helping the prisoners in Valdemoros. I kept seeing their busy hands cutting and stitching and gluing and sanding. With a little finesse and direction, I was sure they could produce high quality custom products with local flair.

The next morning, I started looking for a place to stay. The money I had would stretch a lot further in Paza del Mar than in San Diego. But that wasn't the only reason I wanted to stay. My roots were here. I felt it when I walked barefoot on the beach with Sierra. The wind played in my hair, laced with salt and seaweed. My feet sank into the sand and I felt soft waves thawing me out.

Home. Come home. Come home, they said.

Nick tried to talk me out of it, but when he saw my mind was made up, he got on the plane and wished me and Sierra well. There was a moment of panic as I watched the plane take off. Everything familiar was in San Diego. I knew where to go, what to do, how to speak, what to expect. Damian was there. In prison, but there.

I felt an ache deep in my soul, a longing to turn back the time so we were the only two people on a little speck of land surrounded by a big, big ocean. In that moment, as the planes lifted off the runway, one after the other, I was overwhelmed by my loneliness. Then I felt my mother and my father and MaMaLu settle around me. An intangible sense of safety and security, of comfort and belonging, came over me, and I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Home was a small, low-rise condo with a balcony that faced an open-air market. It was in the newer neighborhood, between Paza del Mar and Casa Paloma. The bus that took me to Valdemoros stopped across the street. The beach and Sierra's school were within walking distance. The location made up for the ceaseless traffic and noise from the market during the day. At night, when everyone was gone, you could hear the sound of the ocean. Sometimes I closed my eyes and pretended I was lying under gauzy, mosquito netting in a little villa nestled among the trees.

But today, all pretenses were stripped away. Papers lay strewn around me. There was no escaping the reality before me, the reality that was Damian-in my room, in my chair. It was pointless to ask how he'd gotten in. He had picked up more than a few tricks in Caboras, and no doubt, in prison too. What alarmed me was not that he had broken into my place, or that he'd hired a private investigator to look into the last eight years of my life. What alarmed me was that Sierra was sleeping in the next room and I had no idea what Damian's intentions were, now that he had found out about her.

"You should have told me." He got up and walked over to the bed. The air shifted around him, like a force field of barely contained energy.

"What do you want?" I shrank back against the headboard. Being alone in a room with Damian, with all of his attention focused on you was heady and dangerous. "Nick-"

"Nick is in San Diego. Happily married. He was here to help you set up a charity for the women in Valdemoros. Or should I show you his folder?"

Shit. So much for trying to get the man to leave. I had seen the way Damian had looked at Nick. His jealousy had burned like a red-hot spear, ready to gouge the other man's eyes out, before he'd retracted it and left.

"You've done well for yourself, all things considered." Damian sat on the edge of my bed and regarded me, his eyes falling on the strap that had slipped off my shoulder. "The princess who lives among the peasants."

"I did what I had to. No thanks to you."

"I didn't know." He slid the strap back into place and let his fingers linger on the small scar that the bullet had left.

It took every bit of control not to close my eyes. Eight years. Eight long, lonely years. I'd gone out on a number of dates. I'd wanted to fall for someone else, but nothing came close to what Damian's touch did to me. Once you've been loved by a man like Damian, once you've been branded and molded in the fires of that possession, you will never be moved by tepid, impostor kisses.

"I assumed that your father had set up some kind of fund for you, something separate from his finances."

"He did. But I used it to pay for his medical expenses towards the end." I couldn't stop scrutinizing his face. The jaw was more solid. Everything was more set-his brows, his nose, his mouth-like they'd finally found their place. If he leaned any closer, I'd feel his breath on my neck.

"You and Sierra had nothing?" He let go of the strap and tilted my chin, forcing me to meet his midnight black orbs. They glittered with something raw and fierce.

"We managed." I pushed his hand away.

"You should have told me."

"Why?" My temper flared. "So you could swoop in and make things right? You can never make things right, Damian. You can never take back what you did. Maybe I took a page from your book. Maybe I wanted to punish you for destroying my father. Did you ever think of that? Vengeance begets venge-"

He cut off my tirade mid-sentence, one arm around the small of my back, crushing me up against him. He ravaged my mouth, forcing my lips open, thrusting his tongue inside. This was no soft, dreamy kiss. It was a blistering, roaring flame that crackled and fizzed through my veins. The kind of kiss that welds hungry souls together. It was Damian, wild and erratic, like a summer storm. His fingers twisted in my hair, yanking my head back, holding it immobile. There was no escaping him, no denying him. He didn't let up until my body went limp in his arms, until the resistance ebbed out of me.

"You lie," he said, breaking the kiss. "That's not vengeance I taste on your tongue. It's fear. You're afraid of me, Skye."

"Do you blame me?" I spit out. "You shot me. You were going to kill my father. I couldn't stop you. You're ruled by things I can't compete with. Your rage trumps love, and hope, and faith. If you've come back hoping to pick up where we left off, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I've worked too hard to build a life for Sierra and myself. I won't let anything jeopardize that. I won't pin our future on a man who couldn't let go of the past. I don't need you, Damian. I don't need anyone."

"Liar." His eyes raked my face. "Let's try that again. This time without the lies." His mouth hovered over mine, but I refused to close the distance. He laughed. One swift, forward tug and his lips were on me again, gentler this time, but I could sense his restraint. He was like a beautiful Arabian stallion, pure power and drive, reining himself in. The way his fingers trembled as he stroked my arm slowly, up and down, betrayed him. The way his entire body throbbed with a need so deep and palpable, told me he hadn't been with a woman in eons.

My unbridled reaction took me by surprise. Even in remembrance, I had felt the intensity of his kisses, relived them, given in to the wild rush of pleasure that swept through me at the mere thought of him. It was a well-worn track that I had gone over, again and again, the feel of his tongue on that most intimate, hidden part of me, the way his muscles bunched as he moved over me, the pleasure he took in watching me come, the way his movements intensified when he was close.

And now here he was, igniting every switch in that network of erotic memories. Every single one led back to him. He was my pleasure center. Everything throbbed outwards from him.

"Damian," I moaned as he pushed my nightgown aside and caressed my breast with tantalizing possessiveness.

He made a tortured sound as his mouth closed over a taut, dusky nipple. My body arched, driving him insane. He pulled my legs around his hips, letting me feel the full, inflamed length of him, hot and heavy through all the layers between us. We couldn't get close enough, fast enough. My hands were tearing down his zipper, his lips were on the hollow of my throat. We were hot skin and muffled breath, void of reason and logic and consequence. He pushed my hands away, too impatient with my fumbling, and started undoing his pants, his eyes pinned on me the whole time. I knew that he was about to fuck my brains out.

"Mama?"

We jumped apart so quick, I barely had time to blink.

Sierra was standing in the doorway, rubbing sleep-drenched eyes. I couldn't be sure what she'd seen, but she was staring at Damian like she'd seen a ghost.

He was holding a pillow over his lap, trying to catch his breath. Another second and Sierra would have caught us in a compromising situation. I fixed my gown and called her in.

"Everything all right, sweetie?"

"I thought you went away," she addressed Damian.

"I was out of town, but now I'm back. And I'm not going anywhere."

It was the first time they'd spoken since Damian had found out she was his daughter. Every word he said resonated with a deeper meaning.

"Did you miss me?" He smiled.

"Why were you kissing my mama?"

"You . . . saw that. Right. Well . . ." He cast a furtive glance my way.

I'd never seen Damian flustered, but that's exactly what he was, and although I was tempted to let him flounder a little longer, I interceded.

"This is your father, Sierra." I had planned to break it to her gently after Damian showed up at the cemetery, but then he'd disappeared. Now that she'd caught him in my bed, I didn't want to drag it out any longer than I had to. "I didn't know he was out until I saw him on The Day of the Dead," I continued. "He didn't know you were his daughter until then either. I'm so sorry, Sierra. I wanted to tell you, but I wanted your father and I to do it together, properly. I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

Damian and Sierra regarded each other, him gauging her reaction and her considering him in a new light. My heart pounded in my ears as the silence stretched out. I had thought about this moment forever, thought about the two of them face to face for the first time, father and daughter, and no matter what scenario played out in my head, it was never perfect.

"You really are a bandido," Sierra said to Damian.

"I really am." He nodded. "That's why I was in prison."

"Can I ask him now?" She looked at me. I nodded because I couldn't speak, because my throat was clamped tight. I had told her the truth about her father, everything except for why he was in prison. That was for him to tell her. She deserved a clean slate with her father, and he deserved a chance to explain it to her in his own words. Maybe it was a cop out on my part, maybe it had been unfair to keep her in the dark, but that was as far as I was willing to go. She got into scuffles at school because the kids taunted her about the father she didn't know, but she learned to stand her ground early on and if push came to shove, Sierra kicked ass. She was free-willed and strong, but she was just a little girl. My heart ached as she stood before her father, her hair just starting to grow out from the buzz cut.

"What did you do?" she asked.

Damian stared at his hands for a moment. "Bad things," he said. "I hurt your mother. See this?" He picked up my pinky finger and held it up. "I did that. I was angry because someone hurt my mother. I thought getting even would make me feel better. For a while it did, but then it just hurt more."

"Mama said it was an accident." Sierra's gaze was locked on our hands. Damian was still holding on to mine, like he needed me to get through this.

"In a way it was. I was going to do something much worse." He tried to keep his voice steady, but I could feel his agony, his torment, at having to explain things to Sierra, unprepared and unrehearsed. There were no lawyers or judges now, just a father and daughter getting to know each other. When all the chips had fallen, it came down to real people and real moments, to repercussions that stretched far beyond the courts. Damian had served his time, but this was the stuff that really mattered.

"I wasn't always a good person, Sierra," he said. "I don't know if I can ever be the kind of father you'd be proud of, but I hope you'll let me try. Because you make me want to stop being a bandido, and maybe someday . . . maybe someday I'll be the hero that you and your mama deserve."

Sierra's eyes moved from Damian to me. I knew she was trying to process everything she'd learned. She walked over to the bed and traced my stubbed pinky. For a second all three of us focused on the point where our hands touched-Damian's large, rough palm cradling ours. Something in me started cracking open, like a long-frozen surface bearing too much weight.

"Come on," I said to Sierra. "Let me tuck you back in."

She stopped at the door and looked back at Damian. "If she kissed you, it means she likes you."

"Sierra!" I tugged her into her bedroom.

"I bet it hurt real bad," she said as I slipped into bed with her. I needed to collect my thoughts before I faced Damian again.

"What?"

"This." She entwined her perfect little finger with my damaged one and threw her leg over mine. Sierra was a sprawler. She slept claiming all the space she could.

"Sing to me," she said, snuggling closer.

I didn't know what was going through her head. Was she relieved to finally meet her father? Was she disturbed by what he'd done? Whatever her reaction, sleep didn't elude her for too long. Children have the remarkable ability to digest, adapt, and take things in stride. Her arms slackened around me and her breath turned long and peaceful as I sang MaMaLu's lullaby.

I breathed in her scent and closed my eyes, stroking her hair. She was my calm in the middle of chaos, a little piece of innocence untouched by the turbulence of the past. I didn't know how Damian's presence was going to affect our lives, but I knew things were going to change. I'd had her to myself for seven years and all I wanted to do was hold on to that moment for as long as I could, her cheek next to mine, the weight of her leg securing me from leaving.

A floorboard creaked in the room. I opened my eyes and froze. Damian was standing by the door. The expression on his face was so painfully intense, so filled with longing, that the words to the lullaby I was singing left me. It wasn't the raw carnality with which he'd assaulted me earlier. It was much deeper, as if all of his happiness was contained in that one scene before him: Sierra sleeping beside me, while he stood at the threshold, cut off from it all.

A lifetime ago, it had been me, him and MaMaLu, curled up like this.

I didn't have any words, and neither did he. He tried to say something, but his throat clenched, so he turned on his heel and left. A moment later, I heard the soft click of the door as he let himself out.

THE GATES TO CASA PALOMA were open. It looked vastly different from the last time I'd seen it, but I had no time to admire the changes. I marched up to the front door, surprised to find it was also unlocked.

Damian was in the study room, poring over some papers, when I barged in.

"What's the meaning of this?" I waved my bank statement at him.

"Good morning to you too," he said, without looking up.

Seeing him in the space I had always associated with my father was strange. Of course, my father had not been around much back then, and when he was, I knew better than to disturb him in the study. Damian did not seem the least bit perturbed by the intrusion. He let me fume for a few seconds before turning his attention to me.

"It's for Sierra," he said.