One Night With The Enemy

One Night With The Enemy
ABBY GREEN

In Argentina’s breathtaking vineyards…Nicolás de Rojas and Madalena Vasquez had a stolen affair amongst the Mendozan vineyards – until Maddie discovered a devastating secret about Nic, and left without another word. He will have her once again! Now Maddie is back, having inherited her family’s struggling vineyard, and she’s at Nic’s mercy – right where he wants her.He’s one of Argentina’s most successful vintners, and Maddie desperately needs Nic’s help. But will she agree to his condition? One exquisite night with him…to finish what they started eight years ago…

Nic was tense as he stood in the open-air courtyard in the middle of his hacienda-style home. His focus was on the imposing entrance doorway, which was still admitting a long line of glittering guests who had travelled from all over the world for this wine-tasting.

Hundreds of candles flickered in huge lanterns, waiters dressed immaculately in black and white moved among the guests offering wine and canapés. But all Nic could think was … would Maddie come? And why had he asked her, really?

Nic told himself it was because he wanted her gone. His belly clenched in rejection of that—it went much deeper. And he knew it. Really what he’d wanted since eight years ago, since he’d had that electric glimpse of her in a club in London, was to see her broken and contrite. To see that pale perfection undone.

About the Author

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.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE LEGEND OF DE MARCO

THE CALL OF THE DESERT

THE SULTAN’S CHOICE

SECRETS OF THE OASIS

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

One Night

with the Enemy

Abby Green

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

This is for Michelle Lawlor, wine buff extraordinaire,

with heartfelt thanks. Any errors are entirely my own!

I’d also like to dedicate this book to the memory of

Penny Jordan. I am one of her many legions of fans

who give thanks for her wonderful legacy.

CHAPTER ONE

MADDIE Vasquez stood in the shadows like a fugitive. Just yards away the plushest hotel in Mendoza rose in all its majestic colonial glory to face the imposing Plaza Indepencia. She reassured herself that she wasn’t actually a fugitive. She was just collecting herself … She could see the calibre of the crowd going into the foyer: monied and exclusive. The elite of Mendoza society.

The evening was melting into night and lights twinkled in bushes and trees nearby, lending the scene a fairy-tale air. Maddie’s soft mouth firmed and she tried to quell her staccato heartbeat. It had been a long time since she’d believed in fairy tales—if ever. She’d never harboured illusions about the dreamier side of life. A mother who saw you only as an accessory to be dressed up and paraded like a doll and a father who resented you for not being the son he’d lost would do that to a child.

Maddie shook her head, as if that could shake free the sudden melancholy assailing her, and at the same time her eye was caught by the almost silent arrival of a low-slung silver vehicle at the bottom of the main steps leading up to the hotel. Instinctively she drew back more. The car was clearly vintage and astronomically expensive. Her mouth dried and her palms grew sweaty—would it be …? The door was opened by a uniformed hotel doorman and a tall shape uncurled from the driving seat.

It was him.

Her heart stopped beating for a long moment.

Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas. The most successful vintner in Mendoza—and probably all of Argentina by now. Not to mention his expansion into French Bordeaux country, which ensured he had two vintages a year. In the notoriously fickle world of winemaking the de Rojas estate profits had tripled and quadrupled in recent years, and success oozed from every inch of his six-foot-four, broad-shouldered frame.

He was dressed in a black tuxedo, and Maddie could see his gorgeous yet stern and arrogant features as he cast a bored-looking glance around him. It skipped over where she was hiding like a thief, and when he looked away her heart stuttered back to life.

She dragged in a breath. She’d forgotten how startling his blue eyes were. He looked leaner. Darker. Sexier. His distinctive dark blond hair had always made it easy to mark him out from the crowd—not that his sheer charisma and good looks wouldn’t have marked him out anyway. He’d always been more than his looks … he’d always carried a tangible aura of power and sexual energy.

Another flash of movement made her drag her eyes away, and she saw a tall blonde beauty emerging from the other side of the car, helped by the conscientious doorman. As Maddie watched, the woman walked around to his side, her long fall of blonde hair shining almost as much as the floor-length silver lamé dress which outlined every slim curve of her body with a loving touch.

The woman linked her arm through his. Maddie couldn’t see the look they shared, but from the smile on the woman’s face she didn’t doubt it was hot. A sudden shaft of physical pain lanced her and Maddie put a hand to her belly in reaction. No, she begged mentally. She didn’t want him to affect her like this. She didn’t want him to affect her at all.

She’d wasted long teenage years dreaming about him, lusting after him, building daydreams around him. And that foolish dreaming had culminated in catastrophe and a fresh deepening of the generations-old hostility between their families. It had caused the rift to end all rifts. It had broken her own family apart. She’d realised all of her most fervent fantasies—but had also been thrown into a nightmare of horrific revelations.

The last time she’d seen Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas had been a few years ago, in a club in London. Their eyes had clashed across the thronged room, and she’d never forget the look of pure loathing on his face before he’d turned away and disappeared.

Sucking in deep breaths and praying for control, Maddie squared her shoulders. She couldn’t lurk in the shadows all night. She’d come to tell Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas that she was home and had no intention of selling out to him. Not now or ever. She held the long legacy of her family in her hands and it would not die with her. He had to know that—or he might put the same pressure on her as he’d done to her father, taking advantage of his physical and emotional weakness to encourage him to sell to his vastly more successful neighbour.

As much as she’d have loved to hide behind solicitors’ letters, she couldn’t afford to pay the legal fees. And she didn’t want de Rojas to think she was too scared to confront him herself. She tried to block out the last cataclysmic meeting they’d had—if she went down that road now she’d turn around for sure. She had to focus on the present. And the future.

She knew better than anyone just how ruthless the de Rojas family could be, but even she had blanched at the pressure Nicolás de Rojas had put on an ailing man. It was the kind of thing she’d have expected of his father, but somehow, despite everything, not of Nicolás … morefool her. She of all people should have known what to expect.

With a shaking hand she smoothed down the glittery black dress she wore. Maddie’s meagre budget since she’d left Argentina hadn’t run to buying party dresses. Tonight was the prestigious annual Mendoza Vintners’ Dinner, and she wouldn’t have been able to get close to the place if she didn’t look the part. Luckily she’d found some of her mother’s dresses that her father hadn’t destroyed in his rage eight years before …

At first it had looked modest enough—high-necked at the front. It was only when she’d had it on, aware that if she didn’t leave soon she’d miss her window of opportunity, that she’d realised it was backless—to just above her buttocks. All her mother’s other dresses needed serious dry-cleaning. This one had somehow miraculously been protected in a plastic covering. So it was this dress or nothing.

Maddie just wished that her mother had been less flamboyant—and taller. Maddie was five foot nine and the dress ended around her mid-thigh, showing lots of pale leg. Her unusual colouring of black hair, green eyes and pale skin was courtesy of a great-great-grandmother who had come to Argentina with a wave of Irish immigrants and subsequently married into the Vasquez family.

So now, as she finally stepped from the shadows outside the hotel and the gentle breeze whistled over her bare flesh, she felt ridiculously exposed. Mustering all the courage she would need for this encounter, she valiantly ignored the double-take glances of recognition she drew, and strode into the luxurious marbled lobby.

Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas stifled a yawn. He’d been working around the clock to ensure this year’s grapes would be ready to pick soon. After a mercurial summer, they would either have one of the best vintages on their hands or the worst. He grimaced slightly. He knew bringing in his vintage wasn’t the only excuse for driving himself like a demon. That work ethic was buried deep in his fraught childhood.

‘Really, darling,’ came a dry voice to his right, ‘am I that boring?’

Nic forced his attention back into the room and looked down at his date. He quirked a mocking smile. ‘Never.’

His blonde companion squeezed his arm playfully, ‘I think the ennui is getting to you, Nic. You need to go to Buenos Aires and have some fun—I don’t know how you stand it in this backwater.’ She shuddered theatrically, then said something about going to the powder room and disappeared with a sexy sway to her walk.

Nic was relieved to be immune to this very feminine display, and watched as male heads swivelled to watch her progress. He shook his head ruefully and thanked his lucky stars that Estella’s presence tonight might at least temporarily stave off the more determined of the Mendoza man-eaters. He was in no mood to humour the mercenary women he attracted in droves. His last lover had screamed hysterically at him for an hour and accused him of having no heart or soul. He had no desire to head down that path again any time soon.