The Valquez Bride

Alejandro still couldn’t place her. But then he met a lot of people during polo events. His brother played on the field while he worked the business end of things. Sponsors and corporate kings often pushed their daughters under his nose but he was always careful to keep business and pleasure separate. She had obviously taken it as a slight that he hadn’t singled her out in the past. But then why would he? She was as far away from his usual type as could be. ‘You must have been quite young at the time.’

‘Sixteen.’

So that made her twenty-six now. A plain Jane single woman sliding down the slippery slope to the big three-oh, so Daddy had agreed to set her up with a mail order groom.

Alejandro’s gut curdled with bitterness. Why had she chosen him? Why not some other guy who could stomach the thought of matrimony? Or was this some sort of payback for snubbing her in the past?

‘Is there somewhere we could talk?’ He threw a glance at the hovering butler, who looked as if he’d just stepped off a film shoot on a period drama. ‘In private?’

‘This way.’

Alejandro frowned as he followed her. She had a pronounced limp that made the action of walking look not only awkward but also painful, in spite of the use of the stick. One leg dragged slightly as if the muscles weren’t strong enough to take her full weight. Not that she was heavy or anything. She looked as if a gust of wind would send her into the next county. Was it a recent injury? He tried to recall if he had read anything about her in the press but he came up with zero. Perhaps she wasn’t the press magnet type.

He felt a flicker of interest spark and fire in his brain. Not in-your-face beautiful and broken too. Interesting. Was this why she was being packaged in the marriage deal? Did she or her father—or both—think she couldn’t get a husband any other way? She might not be billboard stunning but he could see the classical lines to her face, the porcelain skin that looked as soft and smooth and creamy as a magnolia petal, the unusual colour of her eyes that made him think of a winter lake. She had a quiet beauty that sneaked up on you without you noticing. It was the sort of beauty that would suddenly appear and snatch your breath.

She turned and faced him once they were in the library. Her expression was masked, like a puppet face that hadn’t been animated. ‘Would you care for a drink?’

‘What happened to your leg?’

She pinched her lips together, pride flashing across her features as fast as the flick of a whiplash. ‘I have whisky or brandy or cognac. Wine too. Red. White. Champagne.’

‘I asked you a question.’

Her eyes clashed with his, the chips of blue in hers striking in amongst the sea of grey. ‘A rude one.’

Alejandro gave a careless shrug. He didn’t care if he was rude. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to get out of the stranglehold of her father’s machinations. He wanted that land. He would do anything for that land.

But not this.

Not the M word.

He nailed her with a hardened look. ‘I’m not here to drink wine and talk about the weather. I’m here to put a stop to this nonsense.’

Her expression remained composed. Determined. Implacable. ‘I’m not marrying you.’

‘Damn right you’re not.’

‘I have no intention of marrying anyone.’

‘Couldn’t agree more.’

‘Which brings us to the rather vexing terms of my father’s will.’

Vexing? Was she stuck in a time warp or something? She talked as if she had stepped out of the pages of a Brontë sister’s novel.

Alejandro watched as she poured herself a glass of soda water. The silence was so intense he could hear the bubbles spitting and fizzing against the sides of the glass.

She had delicate hands, slim and long-fingered and milky-white like the rest of her skin. Her nails were short but not manicured that way. They were bitten down to the quick, one of them looking red and painful near the cuticle.

With her awful clothes and the absence of make-up and any other adornment such as jewellery, he suspected it had been a deliberate choice to make herself as unattractive as possible. Intriguing thought. Why would she do that? She stood to gain the most out of this deal. Or lose the most. Her inheritance rested on her agreement to the terms. A distant relative would get everything if she didn’t comply with her father’s wishes. What young woman would turn her back on an inheritance worth several millions? Marlstone Manor and its surrounding estate was a property developer’s dream. And then there was her father’s investment and property portfolio that would leave her without money worries for the rest of her life.

He studied her for another beat or two before he asked, ‘You didn’t know he’d planned things this way?’

‘No.’

She had the amazing ability to say a lot with one word, Alejandro thought. She could communicate an entire library of words with a look. And right now she was looking at him as if he had come into her neat-as-a-pin sitting room with his back hunched and his knuckles dragging.

He wasn’t used to women despising him on sight. He was used to women fawning over him and worshipping him. It came with the territory of Having Money. Everyone loved money. Especially women. It opened more bedroom doors than anything else.

He found her ice maiden approach refreshing. Delightfully entertaining. He hadn’t felt this level of interest in a long time, if ever. He could feel the little tick in his blood. The tempo raising just enough to make him aware of the physical needs he had been neglecting of late, due to the pressure of juggling work and his responsibilities at home. There was nothing he liked more than a challenge—the harder the quest the better. It made claiming the victory all the more satisfying.

He knew he could have her if he made a play for her. He could have any woman he wanted. Vanity had nothing to do with it. He could look as ugly as sin and he would still be able to draw a woman into his sensual web.

Ever since his broken engagement he had made it his business to select and seduce. He never stayed with a lover more than a couple of weeks. He was a sexual grazer. He took what was on offer and moved on before expectations made things messy.

‘What do you plan to do about this...er...vexing situation we find ourselves in?’ he said.

Her chin was thrust at a pugnacious height, her eyes glittering with such defiance and spirit he felt a tingling sensation at the base of his spine. ‘I’m seeking legal advice.’

‘Good luck with that.’

Her forehead puckered. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Alejandro wandered over to the bookshelves to see what her taste was in reading. All the classics were there. No surprise. There was a scattering of modern works, mostly thrillers and adventure and a larger selection of romance. Interesting. Did Miss Uptight Teddy Marlstone have a secret desire to be wooed and won?

‘I said, what’s that supposed to mean?’

He smiled as he pushed the spine of the book he’d inspected back in alignment with the others. Now he was getting somewhere. Getting under that starchy façade to see who she really was when she wasn’t trying to be a pain in the butt. He slowly turned and ran his gaze over her assessingly. ‘In my experience, lawyers drive expensive cars paid for by their clients.’

Her throat moved up and down like a small creature under a rug, the only crack so far in her cool composure. ‘So?’

‘Are you sure you can afford it?’

Two spots of rosy pink stained her cheeks but her gaze was as caustic as ever. ‘I haven’t sponged off my father, if that’s what you’re implying. I have my own source of income.’

‘As a children’s book illustrator, right?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘I’ve never seen any of your work.’

Her eyes pulsated with dislike. ‘I can assure you I’m quite popular with whom it counts.’

Alejandro suppressed a smile. He was enjoying their verbal stoush much more than he’d expected to. She was prim and proper and yet fiercely proud. He liked someone who could stand up for what they believed in. Who wasn’t intimidated or put off by others’ egos or agendas. She wasn’t fazed by him or by his reputation. She was making no attempt to disguise her dislike of him. He liked that. He liked it a lot. ‘We have a month to decide what to do.’

Her chin came up again and stayed up. ‘I have already decided.’

So had he...or so he’d thought.