Claimed For The De Carrillo Twins

He watched as they walked back into the crowd, and it wasn’t long before they left for the evening—without saying goodbye. Rio might have shown Cruz a chink of vulnerability by revealing his financial problems, but if anything that only demonstrated how much Trinity had got to him—because he’d never before allowed his brother to see a moment’s weakness. Cruz’s sense that his determination to see Rio treated fairly had been futile rose up again—he had never truly bridged the gap between them.

Cruz stood at the window in his drawing room and watched his brother handing Trinity into the passenger seat of a dark Jeep in the forecourt outside the house, before he got into the driver’s seat himself.

He felt grim. All he could do now was be there to pick up the pieces of Rio’s financial meltdown and do his best to ensure that Rio got a chance to start again—and that his wife didn’t get her grasping hands on another cent.

At the last second, as if hearing his thoughts, Trinity turned her head to look at Cruz through the ground-floor window. For a fleeting moment their eyes met, and he could have sworn he saw hers shimmer with moisture, even from this distance.

He told himself they had to be tears of anger now that she knew she’d been found out. She was trapped in a situation of her own making. It should have filled Cruz with a sense of satisfaction, but instead all he felt was a heavy weight in his chest.

Rio’s Jeep took off with a spurt of gravel.

Cruz didn’t realise it then, but it would be the last time he saw his brother alive.

CHAPTER ONE (#uac26a3de-0806-5935-aa85-5d681109255b)

Three months later. Solicitor’s office.

TRINITY’S HEART STOPPED and her mouth dried. ‘Mr De Carrillo is joining us?’

The solicitor glanced at her distractedly, looking for a paper on his overcrowded desktop. ‘Yes—he is the executor of his brother’s will, and we are in his building,’ he pointed out redundantly.

She’d been acutely aware that she was in the impressive De Carrillo building in London’s bustling financial zone, but it hadn’t actually occurred to her that Cruz himself would be here.

To her shame, her first instinct was to check her appearance—which of course she couldn’t do, but she was glad of the choice of clothing she’d made: dark loose trousers and a grey silk shirt. She’d tied her long hair back in a braid, as much out of habit when dealing with small energetic boys than for any other reason. She hadn’t put on any make-up and regretted that now, fearing she must look about eighteen.

Just then there was a light knock on the door and it opened. She heard Mr Drew’s assistant saying in a suspiciously breathless and awestruck voice, ‘Mr De Carrillo, sir.’

The solicitor stood up, immediately obsequious, greeting Cruz De Carrillo effusively and leading him to a seat beside Trinity’s on the other side of his desk.

Every nerve came to immediate and tingling life. The tiny hairs on her arms stood up, quivering. She lamented her uncontrollable reaction—would she ever not react to him?

She sensed him come to stand near her, tall and effortlessly intimidating. Childishly, she wanted to avoid looking at him. His scent was a tantalising mix of musk and something earthy and masculine. It was his scent now that sent her hurtling back to that cataclysmic evening in his house three months ago, when she’d realised just how badly Rio had betrayed her.

The shock of knowing that Rio obviously hadn’t told him the truth about their marriage was still palpable, even now. And the fact that Cruz had so readily believed the worst of her hurt far worse than it should.

It had hurt almost as much as when he’d looked at her with dawning horror and self-disgust after kissing her to within an inch of her life. It was an experience still seared onto her brain, so deeply embedded inside her that she sometimes woke from X-rated dreams, tangled amongst her sheets and sweating. Almost two years later it was beyond humiliating.

Trinity dragged her mind away from that disturbing labyrinth of memories. She had more important things to deal with now. Because three months ago, while she and Rio had been driving home from Cruz’s house, they’d been involved in a car crash and Rio had tragically died.

Since that day she’d become lone step-parent to Mateo and Sancho, Rio’s two-and-a-half-year-old twins. Miraculously, she’d escaped from the accident with only cuts and bruises and a badly sprained ankle. She had no memory of the actual accident—only recalled waking in the hospital feeling battered all over and learning of her husband’s death from a grim and ashen-faced Cruz.

Gathering her composure, she stood up to face him, steeling herself against his effect. Which was useless. As soon as she looked at him it was like a blow to her solar plexus.

She’d seen him since the night of the accident—at the funeral, of course, and then when he’d called at the house for brief perfunctory visits to check that she and his nephews had everything they needed. He hadn’t engaged with her beyond that. Her skin prickled now with foreboding. She had a sense that he’d merely been biding his time.

She forced herself to say, as calmly as she could, ‘Cruz.’

‘Trinity.’

His voice reverberated deep inside her, even as he oozed his habitual icy control.

The solicitor had gone back around his desk and said now, ‘Espresso, wasn’t it, Mr De Carrillo?’

Trinity blinked and looked to see the older gentleman holding out a small cup and saucer. Instinctively, because she was closer and because it was good manners, she reached for it to hand it to Cruz, only belatedly realising that her hand was trembling.

She prayed he wouldn’t notice the tremor as she held out the delicate china to him. His hand was masculine and square. Strong. Long fingers...short, functional nails. At that moment she had a flash of remembering how his hand had felt between her legs, stroking her intimately...

Just before he took the cup and saucer there was a tiny clatter of porcelain on porcelain, evidence of her frayed nerves. Damn.

When he had the cup she sat down again quickly, before she made a complete fool of herself, and took a quick fortifying sip of her own cup of tea. He sat down too, and she was aware of his powerful body taking up a lot of space.

While Mr. Drew engaged Cruz De Carrillo in light conversation, before they started discussing the terms of Rio’s will, Trinity risked another glance at the man just a couple of feet to her left.

Short dark blond hair gave more than a hint of his supremely controlled nature. Controlled except for that momentary lapse...an undoubtedly rare moment of heated insanity with someone he’d seen as far beneath him.

Trinity crushed the spike of emotion. She couldn’t afford it.

Despite the urbane uniform of a three-piece suit, his impressive build was apparent. Muscles pushed at the fabric in a way that said he couldn’t be contained, no matter how civilised he might look.

His face was a stunning portrait of masculine beauty, all hard lines and an aquiline profile that spoke of a pure and powerful bloodline. He had deep-set eyes and a mouth that on anyone else would have looked ridiculously sensual. Right now though, it looked stern. Disapproving.

Trinity realised that she was staring at him, and when he turned to look at her she went puce. She quickly turned back to the solicitor, who had stopped talking and was now looking from her to Cruz nervously, as if he could sense the tension in the room.

He cleared his throat. ‘As you’re both here now, I see no reason not to start.’

‘If you would be so kind.’

Trinity shivered at the barely veiled impatience in Cruz’s voice. She could recall only too well how this man had reduced grown men and women to quivering wrecks with just a disdainful look from those glittering dark amber eyes.

The half-brothers hadn’t been very alike—where Rio had been dark, with obsidian eyes and dark hair, Cruz possessed a cold, tawny beauty that had always made Trinity think of dark ice over simmering heat. She shivered...she’d felt that heat.

‘Mrs De Carrillo...?’

Trinity blinked and flushed at being caught out again. The solicitor’s impatient expression came into focus. He was holding out a sheaf of papers and she reached for them.

‘I’m sorry.’ It still felt weird to be called Mrs De Carrillo—it wasn’t as if she’d ever really been Rio’s wife.

She quickly read the heading: Last will and testament of Rio De Carrillo. Her heart squeezed as she thought of the fact that Mateo and Sancho had now lost both their parents, too prematurely.

As bitter as her experience had been with Rio in the end, after Trinity had been sickened to realise just how manipulative he’d been, and how naive she’d been, she’d never in a million years have wished him gone.

She’d felt a level of grief that had surprised her, considering the fact that their marriage had been in name only—for the convenience of having a steady mother figure for the boys and because Rio had wanted to promote a more settled image to further his own ambitions.

Trinity had agreed to the union for those and myriad other reasons—the most compelling of which had to do with her bond with the twins, which had been forged almost as soon as she’d seen them. Two one-year-old cherubs, with dark hair, dark mischievous eyes and heart-stopping smiles.

Her heart had gone out to them because they were motherless, as she had been since she was a baby, and they’d latched on to her with a ferocity that she hadn’t been able to resist, even though she’d known it would be more professional to try and keep some distance.

She’d also agreed because Rio’s sad personal story—he had been all but abandoned by his own parents—had again chimed with echoes of her own. And because he’d agreed to help her fulfil her deepest ambitions—to go to university and get a degree, thereby putting her in a position to forge her own future, free of the stain of her ignominious past.