Baby Surprise For The Spanish Billionaire

‘Señor di Marquez has his own accommodation,’ Anna interjected quickly.

Her mother’s smile barely wavered. ‘But we will feed you, I insist, it’s the least I can do. Lunch will be served in just a couple of hours so shall we meet back here at two? I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better.’

Uh-oh. Anna knew exactly what that meant. At least four courses, wine and two hours of the day wasted. Then, no doubt, her mother would suggest a siesta and before Anna had had a chance to make even one list the day would be over. ‘There’s no need for a formal lunch. There’s far too much to do. We can easily just grab a roll and some cheese and work through. It’s only early May. It’s not as if the sun will be too unbearable,’ she finished a little doubtfully as she glanced out of the window at the perfectly blue, cloudless sky.

‘Oh, Anna...’ Her mother couldn’t have sounded more reproachful if Anna had suggested drowning kittens, but her sorrowful protestation was drowned out by Leo, who leaned against the huge scrubbed table, arms folded and a sardonic gleam in his eyes.

‘Skip lunch? Absolutely not. I’m looking forward to it, señora—I mean, Sancia. What’s life without time out for good food and good conversation?’

Narrowing her eyes, Anna stared over at the insouciant Spaniard. ‘I thought you wanted everything to be perfect for your sister’s wedding?’

‘I do, it will be, but there’s no reason we can’t have a little fun while we’re working, now, is there?’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d51a8f51-041b-5141-85bf-848456d9d906)

LEO TOOK A small sip of his coffee and grinned over at Anna. She had become increasingly, obviously impatient as lunch had meandered from course to course: fish soup followed by an excellent soufflé, chicken with garlic-roasted potatoes, and a cheese course, all washed down with a rather good rioja. Sancia Garcia might not know how to run a hotel, but she did know how to employ a good cook and right now, sitting on a sheltered patio with a view of white beaches and an azure-blue sea, Leo felt a stir of that elusive contentment for the first time in months.

Sure, there was an entire island to be renovated and made fit for Valentina’s arrival in just under a month, but the sense of urgency was lessened by the rich dark coffee, the richer wine and the last sliver of cheese temptingly within reach. Lessened by the knowledge he could make a phone call and an army of labourers would be despatched forth to take care of every detail. But mostly lessened by Dr Anna Gray’s palatable disapproval. She had only eaten soup and a little cheese, had refused wine and was very obviously making copious lists proving just how busy she really was.

It was quite adorable. Not that Leo looked for adorable in women. He didn’t really look for anything beyond the very, very superficial. What was the point when he had no intention of getting into anything deeper than casual? He chose carefully, ensuring the women he dated were as uninterested in his inner life as he was in theirs. He needed to be sure that they wouldn’t be looking too closely at him. Too closely into him. That all they were interested in was his blue blood and deep pockets.

Of course here, out of the public eye, the usual rules didn’t apply. It would be an interesting challenge to see just what it took to make Dr Anna Gray put down her pen and notepad, wipe those frown lines off her forehead and smile. Interesting, but all too risky. He’d known Anna for less than three hours and he already knew that she was the type who would always dig deeper—and that made her dangerous. Besides, he was pretty sure she didn’t understand the ‘good time’ rule and that made her absolutely off-limits.

‘Hit me.’ He pushed his coffee cup to one side, propping his elbows on the table as he turned towards Anna. ‘What’s first?’

Anna brushed a lock of dark hair away from her forehead and Leo froze, awareness of her every movement shivering through him. For one endless second she was imprinted on him, her long graceful neck, her sweep of long, wavy hair, the shrewd expression in her clear blue eyes, and the vulnerability he saw behind them, a vulnerability he sensed was usually kept well hidden.

‘First?’

Leo nodded at the notebook Anna carried like a talisman. ‘On your list.’

‘Oh.’ Her hand lay over the page protectively. ‘I’ve put together a list of supplies we need before we can really get started so I think I need to take a trip over to the mainland today. There really isn’t any time to waste.’ She glared meaningfully at his plate. ‘Mama, I’ll need to take your dinghy. Is that okay? Is the car still kept in the same place?’

‘No need to borrow your mother’s boat. I’ll sail you over.’ Leo sat back in his chair and watched Anna try and come up with an excuse to avoid his company.

Anna blinked. ‘There’s no point taking your boat such a short distance.’

‘No, but my dinghy is at your dock.’

Sancia glanced from Leo to Anna, her expression amused. ‘The car is parked in the harbour lot as always, querida. There’s a big store on the outskirts of town, about five kilometres from the harbour. You can’t miss it.’

‘Right.’ Anna pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

Leo didn’t move.

She tapped her foot, her eyes gleaming dangerously. ‘In your own time, señor.’

Sancia sighed, shaking her head at her daughter. ‘Querida, you are in Spain now. The store will be closed for siesta. There’s no point in going now.’

‘A siesta sounds like an excellent suggestion.’ Leo winked at Anna. ‘I’ll see you at the jetty in two hours, Dr Gray. Bring your lists.’ And he stood up. ‘Thank you, Sancia, that was delicious.’ He bowed over Sancia’s hand and tossed another wink in Anna’s direction before sauntering away, fully aware that Anna was glaring at him. His back prickled with awareness; he could almost feel the burn as her eyes bored into him.

Funny to think he had had no agenda this morning beyond popping over to what he had assumed to be a perfectly run luxury resort in order to reassure his sister. Now he had a month’s work ahead of him and a hostile colleague. He couldn’t wait to get started.

* * *

Anna stared down at the bucket of tepid, dirty water resentfully. She’d decided not to waste the two hours her mother and Leo were choosing to spend sleeping and instead had got started scrubbing down the outside of a couple of bungalows. Not that she had got very far. Right now getting the island into any kind of order seemed like a Sisyphean task—especially if long lunches and longer siestas were going to be the order of the day.

Still, at least she had made a start. She would get the groundskeeper and chambermaid to continue while she was on the mainland; but she really needed to talk to her mother and find out when the seasonal staff were due to start, and how many they were expecting. Without adequate staffing they would never get the island ready in time. Luckily the interiors of the bungalows were in a better state than she’d expected. They needed some cosmetic work, a good clean, taps and showers fixing, a quick paint, but the furniture was still good, simple, but well-crafted. A few luxurious touches, new cushions, rugs and accessories should bring them up to date. After all, if Valentina wanted marble and gilt she would have booked a hotel. She was after an authentic Spanish touch and that, at least, La Isla Marina could provide.

Picking up the bucket, Anna tipped the water down the drain. She’d worked her way through several buckets of water, lugging them to the desired spot, sloshing water down her legs as she did so. Her hands were red, two nails already broken. She made a mental note to add gloves to her list.

Had it really only been half an hour of work? It felt like eternity and she had barely started. This morning she’d been full of a sense of purpose, if a little daunted. Now she just felt like Cinderella, toiling away while the rest of the household slumbered, and just because she had volunteered for domestic drudgery didn’t mean she couldn’t help feeling resentful. She wouldn’t mind so much if Rosa weren’t swanking about somewhere, carefree, on the other side of the world, if her mother didn’t look at her as if she were being fussy, if Leo di Marquez hadn’t shown up...

Anna pushed her hair off her forehead, grimacing as she realised just how sweaty she was. What was Leo’s deal anyway? What kind of man just decided to put a month aside for his sister’s wedding with no planning, no notice? Placing the bucket on the floor, Anna tried to stop her mind dwelling on the planes of Leo’s chest, the strong, sensual mouth, his mocking eyes. He knew how attractive he was all right—and there was nothing Anna distrusted more than a man convinced of his own worth, his own desirability. After all, she’d been taken in before, been badly burnt before.

She’d mishandled him from the first, allowing him to put her on the back foot even though he was the trespasser. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen again. She needed weapons, she needed armour, she needed control, she needed facts.

Her mother and sister might rely on intuition and spontaneity, but there was much more comfort in knowledge and plans. That was why she had become an academic, not because of her father’s pre-eminence or because it was expected of her, but because she liked to dig deep, to find out the facts, to draw her own interpretation. If Leo’s sister was some kind of media star then it shouldn’t be too hard to find out exactly who he was, what he was. And then she would be prepared.

Mind made up, Anna headed back to the villa, letting herself through the hidden door that separated the public spaces from the family’s private rooms. The wooden staircase was narrow and dark as she climbed all the way to the top floor and the turret bedroom that had been hers since she was a baby. Nothing had changed: the same iron bedstead stood in the corner, the same pictures hung on the whitewashed walls, the same colourful blankets were heaped on the bed. It was sparse and small, but Anna liked the memories of when they had been a proper family, Rosa in the other turret, her parents nearby, her grandparents still alive.

A pang of guilt hit her at the thought of her father home alone, rattling around their huge Oxford house. She’d left him a schedule, all his pills laid out ready, labelled meals in the freezer for the evenings he didn’t dine in college. And she’d promised to text him reminders every day—he probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone. She bit her lip, his lined, grey face clear in her mind. The only time he had ever relaxed was here on the island, when he would push his research and work aside for a few days, sometimes even weeks. When had he last taken a real holiday? Not since Sancia had left him. Left them.

Her laptop was already set up on the desk, her notebooks stacked neatly by its side, colour-coded by theme. Anna averted her eyes from the notebooks, an all too visual reminder that she still had no book, not even the bare bones of one. The usual wave of nausea swirled low in her stomach, the age-old fear that she would be revealed as an imposter, a fraud, whispering in her mind. Had she really thought that if she ran away to the island her doubts would stay meekly in Oxford? They were just as strong as ever—except when she had been engrossed in painting. Except when she had been sparring with Leo di Marquez... Pushing her notebooks to one side, she switched on her laptop, typed in Valentina’s name and began to read.

Half an hour later Anna sat back and stared at the screen; she still had no idea what Valentina did or why she was famous. Sure, the curvy brunette modelled, but she’d started modelling after she had got famous; for all her prominence she was a little shorter, a little bustier than the usual top models. Valentina seemed to spend her time photographing herself, her friends, her clothes and her food and posting the pictures up for comment. And she received them in their thousands, more, hundreds of thousands. Anna frowned as she looked at the photo posted just this morning, a photo of breakfast laid out on a patio table, every colour popping off the screen. How on earth was this a job? Judging by the lavish apartment, the designer clothes, the parties, it was lucrative even if it made no sense.

Most of the recent posts and tweets focussed on the forthcoming wedding. Anna’s stomach clenched as she read through them; Valentina’s expectations were high and the results would be instantly seen around the world. If they could make it a success then the island’s fortunes would turn around overnight, but if they failed then they would fall very publicly. She had no choice; if there was to be any chance of pulling this off she simply had to work with Leo.

Except not once had she seen his name mentioned. Valentina made reference to growing up on the Barcelona coast, to working in a beach bar, to her mother, who had died a few years back—but there was no mention of a brother or a father. Not one.

Okay, then more research was needed. Anna poised her fingers over the keyboard for a second and then typed in Leo di Marquez y Correa.

‘Bingo,’ she said softly. The picture on the very first link looked very familiar indeed. The same close-cropped dark hair, the same sharp cheekbones set off by stubble too perfect to be completely natural. This Leo was dressed a lot more formally, in a light grey suit, a smiling blonde in a skin-tight dress hanging off his arm. Anna read the caption. ‘Leo’s new model.’ Hmm, it looked as if he was as at home in the gossip pages as his sister.

‘He’s not a pirate, he’s a playboy,’ she muttered as she brought up article after article. Leo on his boat, bare-chested in the sun, Leo in a casino, on a superyacht surrounded by the most glamorous people Anna had ever seen, Leo spraying champagne. Her stomach tightened. ‘Spoilt, rich boys.’ She could taste the contempt, bitter on her tongue.

The facts were there in clear black and white. Not just spoilt, not just rich, but Spanish aristocracy. The only son—only child—of the Conde de Olvares, a haughty grey-haired man, and his even haughtier-looking wife, Leo had been a fixture on the party scene since he was eighteen years old. No job, no occupation beyond sailing, gambling, drinking and women.

Anna stood up and stalked over to the window. From her vantage point high in the tower she could see the jetty and the gleaming boat moored out in the sea. A boat he hadn’t worked to buy, a toy for a pampered princeling. Disappointment twisted her chest and she had no idea why. She didn’t know Leo, and it wasn’t as if she had liked what she had seen after all. Well, not beyond the physical at least. It was just she hadn’t expected anything quite this shallow.

Anna knew the type all too well. They weren’t as prevalent at Oxford as they had once been, but there were still plenty of entitled lordlings, their places secured by their name, their lineage, their education, their futures assured no matter what. They didn’t care what anyone thought about them, didn’t care what the consequences of their actions might be. At eighteen she might have been stupid enough to mistake that arrogant confidence for magnetism, found the frivolity and extravagance glamorous, but not any more. Now she valued work, reliability, sense. Old-fashioned values maybe, but her values.

And not only was Leo di Marquez a playboy, he was a liar. Valentina wasn’t his sister, he was an only child. So what on earth was he doing here?

* * *

Of course he was late. Anna had known he would be and yet she had still arrived at the jetty at the agreed time, her shorts swapped for light cotton trousers, her T-shirt for a loose shirt, her notebook tucked away in a waterproof bag.