Bride in a Gilded Cage

Bride in a Gilded Cage
ABBY GREEN

Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.The clipping of the innocent’s wings…The tango is an Argentinian dance of passion and possession…and that’s exactly how aristocrat Rafael Romero intends his convenient marriage to teacher Isobel will be. First he will take her as his bride. Then he’ll lead her to the marriage bed, where he’ll make her his.Isobel may have no choice but to give her hand to Rafael in matrimony, but she intends to stay as free as a bird…not anticipating that her new husband will keep her caged once he discovers he’s wed a virgin…

Panic was like a frantic caged bird beating against her breastbone as they drew closer and closer to the bedroom doors.

Rafael opened his door and turned and picked Isobel up in his arms so fast that her breath caught and she felt dizzy. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Carrying you over the threshold.’ And he did just that, before putting her back on her feet on the other side.

His bed loomed large and threatening through the door of the bedroom just feet away. She put up a hand, panic strangling her voice. ‘Wait—stop,’ she blurted out. ‘I just…I really want to go to bed alone. This has all happened so fast. I’ve barely seen you since we came back to Argentina. Two weeks ago I was living in Paris, yet here I am…It’s a lot to take in.’

Rafael just looked at her, his face unreadable in the shadows of the dark room. Eventually he let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. Tension vibrated off him in waves, enveloping Isobel.

‘I’m not in the habit of forcing unwilling women into my bed, Isobel, and I’ve no intention of starting now with my wife. Please, by all means, go to your own bed. But soon enough you’ll be welcoming me with open arms.’

Abby Green got hooked on Mills & Boon® romances while still in her teens, when she stumbled across one belonging to her grandmother, in the west of Ireland. After many years of reading them voraciously, she sat down one day and gave it a go herself. Happily, after a few failed attempts, Mills & Boon bought her first manuscript.

Abby works freelance in the film and TV industry, but thankfully the four a.m. starts and the stresses of dealing with recalcitrant actors are becoming more and more infrequent, leaving her more time to write!

She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her through her website at www.abby-green.com She lives and works in Dublin.

Bride In A Gilded Cage

By

Abby Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

This is especially for Sinead O’Connor (lovely friend), who brought me to my first tango lesson, which infected me with the tango bug.

This is also especially for Ann Murphy, who enriches my life and my tango world on a regular basis, with much thanks.

And, lastly but not leastly, this is for tangeuros and tangeuras everywhere!

CHAPTER ONE

DON RAFAEL ORTEGA ROMERO looked at the girl standing across the room from him. He knew she would be no different from her social peers in their privileged circles in Buenos Aires: rich and spoilt. She was paler than her contemporaries, but he guessed that came from her English father. Her mother, Maria Fuentes de la Roja, was Argentinian aristocracy through and through. His brain felt slightly fuzzy around the edges and he cursed himself mentally; one shot too many of whisky wasn’t going to help him out of this predicament, or the feeling of entrapment he’d lived with for years.

It was Isobel Miller’s eighteenth birthday tonight, and he’d finally come to meet her face to face. Because this was the woman…He amended that now with a twist in his gut. This was the girl he’d been promised to in marriage since he was eighteen years old.

‘You can’t make me marry you!’

Isobel’s chest rose up and down with her agitated breath. She’d never felt so threatened and intimidated in her life. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and she felt frumpy and awkward in the too tight and fussy satin dress her mother had made her wear for her birthday celebrations that night.

The man across the room just looked at her coolly and said, in a deep voice that sent a disturbing frisson of awareness through her, ‘I’d like to say that your reluctance is refreshing, but I doubt you really mean that—especially when you know you have no choice in the matter. When your grandfather sold your family’s estancia to my father, he rewrote your destiny.’ His mouth thinned into a bitter line. ‘They both got what they wanted—your grandfather got money from the sale with the assurance that the estancia would return to the family through you by walking away with a watertight marriage agreement.’

Isobel struggled to comprehend. ‘You mean…you mean that your father was played? But that’s—’

‘Hardly.’ He cut her off, his voice grim. ‘My father didn’t get played by anyone. He had a bone to pick with your grandfather and he was the only one willing to make an offer on a property too huge for many others to contemplate buying. But he made sure he got what he wanted in return—a dynastic marriage between his son—me—and someone from a suitably impressive lineage—you. Your family fortunes leave much to be desired at this time, but that is neither here nor there. Your family are still considered pillars of Buenos Aires society. Ten years ago, when the deal was done, your grandfather only received half of the estancia’s worth. My father, using his profession as a lawyer to best advantage, made sure that your family would only receive the other half on the day of our wedding—on your twenty-first birthday.’

Isobel reeled. She’d known about this since she’d turned sixteen, known that this day might come. But she’d pushed the prospect away, deep down where she wouldn’t have to think about it, hoping that if she didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t manifest itself. The thought of an arranged marriage to one of Buenos Aires’s scions of industry had been too barbaric to contemplate, and going to secondary school in England and living most of the time with her father’s family there had helped cushion her from the truth.

But the reality was manifesting itself in front of her right now, mocking her paltry hopes that it might never happen. Panic clawed upwards through Isobel’s throat, constricting it slightly. ‘It’s not my fault that my grandfather felt compelled to sell the estancia and broker such a deal.’

It was hard for her to cling onto any sense of reality right now. It had been hard enough to contemplate coming back to Buenos Aires after leaving school in England with the prospect of telling her parents she wanted to go to Europe to pursue her love for dancing. She’d always found the more conservative society of Buenos Aires constrictive—especially after spending time with her more relaxed and down-to-earth English relations, who would frequently debate around the dinner table. They hadn’t known about her arranged marriage, and she’d never mentioned it to them, mortified at how medieval it would sound.

Her years of relative freedom in England had given Isobel an objective view of her privileged upbringing, and she knew with a passion that she could never slot into the life of a pampered millionaire’s wife—which was what so many of her Buenos Aires girlfriends were doing, despite their own schooling in exclusive schools all around the world.

Don Rafael Ortega Romero gave a short sharp laugh now, making Isobel flinch minutely, and she felt her heart kick when she saw a flash of white teeth. ‘Are you really that naive, little Isobel Miller? Our whole privileged society is based on unions of strategy and convenience. Marriages have been arranged for many, many generations. I’ll give you that this particular one seems to be a little more arbitrary than most, but really it’s no different.’

He smiled, and it was devastatingly cynical. ‘If we all believed in true-love matches, the upper echelons would collapse into anarchy in the morning—and believe me, I’ve first-hand knowledge of that.’

In a slightly crumpled tuxedo, white shirt open and bow tie hanging rakishly undone, with a potent aura of raw sexuality surrounding him, the most elusive and sought-after bachelor in Buenos Aires was effortlessly living up to his arrogant and ruthless name. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his expertly tailored black trousers. Rafael Romero was a truly magnificent specimen of virile masculinity.

The threat of no escape and a forced marriage made Isobel’s chest constrict with fear, but she felt a flash of fire in her belly and said through gritted teeth, ‘I’m not little or naive, and it is positively medieval in this day and age to expect people to agree to an arranged marriage like this.’

Isobel had followed her parents into the hall earlier when he’d arrived. The front door had remained open momentarily, along with the back door of his chauffeur-driven car. Isobel had caught a glimpse of a long, sleek leg, a seductively high-heeled shoe, before his driver had shut the door on the view.

Looking at photos of this man in the press had done little to prepare Isobel for his effect on her face to face. His skin was a deep dark olive, his hair as black as midnight, and his eyes were like two pools of dark sin. His face was hard and uncompromising, with an almost cruel aspect that was softened only by the most decadently sensual mouth she’d ever seen on a man—even when it was set in a grim line. She shook herself inwardly. She’d looked him up once on the Internet, with a sick fascination, and had read that his business methods had been praised and lambasted in equal measures for being cutthroat.

He was a rich playboy tycoon, used to riding roughshod over people. She had to stand up to him—make him see that she wouldn’t just succumb like some sacrificial lamb.

He’d dismissed her fawning parents just moments before, with a curt, ‘Leave us. I’ve come here tonight to speak to your daughter alone.’

She hitched up her chin now. ‘Why did you come here tonight? I didn’t invite you.’

His mouth quirked, mocking her attempt at bravado. ‘You must have known that we’d meet sooner or later. Why do you think your parents insisted on your return from England?’

That panic surged back, gripping Isobel tight inside her belly. The fact that her mother hadn’t even warned her that he was coming made her go cold inside. She must have anticipated how Isobel might react.

‘We’re not getting married,’ she denied desperately.

He shrugged minutely, unconcerned. ‘Not right now, no. But in three years’ time we will become man and wife.’

The walls of her life were encroaching around Isobel. This was her worst fear: being marched into a life she had no control over, being forced into a marriage of convenience with someone she didn’t love, and growing cynical and bitter just like her own parents. Her vision of a future in Europe, far away from here, was quickly crumbling.

She could feel the colour draining from her face. ‘But I don’t want to marry you. I don’t even know you.’ She looked at him then, feeling a little wild. ‘I don’t want this life. And I don’t care if you believe me or not. I would be quite happy to walk away right now and never see you, or this house or Buenos Aires ever again.’

She gestured with a shaking hand, horror taking hold now, alongside her escalating panic at the thought of succumbing to a life with this cold man. ‘How can you be so blasé about this? Coming here to meet your future wife when you’re quite obviously in the middle of a date? Does that woman out there know that you’re in here discussing your marriage?’

He smiled again, a hard smile, and drawled, ‘A date? That’s cute. The date you refer to took place earlier this evening, but I can assure you that the woman in my car will be perfectly happy once she’s in my bed and underneath me. She doesn’t care about marriage any more than I do. She’s already been twice divorced.’

‘You’re disgusting.’ And yet his words had sent another deeply betraying quiver of awareness through her body.

Rafael shook his head and came closer to Isobel. She stood her ground.

‘No, not disgusting. Realistic. Two consenting adults coming together to enjoy one another without any of the barefaced lies most lovers indulge in.’ His eyes flicked Isobel up and down insultingly. ‘When you become an adult you might appreciate that a little better than you do now. Clearly you haven’t moved beyond slushy teen romances.’