The Alvares Bride

That had been lie number two. He had no such expectation but then, he’d been down this road before. Many times, in fact. Mothers, aunts, the wives of his business acquaintances…there were moments he could almost believe that every woman on the planet had a daughter, sister or niece she was certain he’d like.

It went, as the North Americans said, with the territory. He was thirty-four, he was single; he had money and property and, according to the things women said to him in bed, he supposed he had what were known as good looks. The only thing he didn’t have was a wife—but why would he want one?

Still, he hadn’t wished to insult his host, his hostess, his friend and his friend’s wife, all at the same time. So he’d stayed for the party and gone looking for the woman. A polite hello, followed by an equally polite apology for retiring early, had seemed simple enough.

Except, it hadn’t worked out that way.

Rafe reined in the horse and stared blindly into the distance. Instead of finding the woman, he’d found a spitting, hissing, wildcat.

And he’d taken her to bed.

He’d had many women in his life. More than his share, some would say, but never one like her.

The way she had gone into his arms, as if he were the only man she’d ever wanted. The wildness in her kisses. The way her body had hummed with delight under his hands and mouth. Deus, she’d set him on fire. Her climax had made him feel as omnipotent as a god; his, seconds later, had shaken him to the depths of his soul. But when he’d tried to draw her close, she’d pushed free of his embrace, asked him to leave in a way that made it clear he’d served his purposes and was being dismissed.

She had gone into the bathroom. He’d heard the click of the lock and for one insane moment, he’d thought of kicking down the door, carrying her back to bed and showing her that she could not use a man and then discard him as if he were trash…

Rafe’s mouth thinned.

The boy he’d once been might have done such a thing. The man he’d become would not. Instead, he’d dressed in the dark, gone to his room in the silent, sleeping house…

The horse snorted and danced beneath him. Rafe patted the proudly arched neck. Carin Brewster was not simply a distant memory, she was an unpleasant one.

Then, why couldn’t he get her out of his head?

His vision blurred as he remembered that night, how someone had laughed and pointed to Carin, when he’d asked where she was; how he’d stood on the deck of a Texas mansion, watching her make a fool of herself while people smirked, and wondered if he ought to be a gentleman and do something about it or just let the scene play out…

Hell. He wasn’t a gentleman. He never would be.

But Jonas Baron was his host and Nick al Rashid was his friend, which made Nick’s wife his friend, too, and the woman making a fool of herself was Amanda al Rashid’s sister…

Without any more thought than that, Rafe strode towards Carin, scooped her into his arms and carried her down the steps and towards the garden. People saw it happen; they laughed and cheered but nobody tried to stop him—nobody except the wildcat in his arms, who was kicking and cursing and beating at his shoulders with her fists.

That Nick’s wife and her mother would even imagine he’d be interested in the kicking, cursing woman he was carrying deep into the garden, seemed impossible.

Carin Brewster was the very antithesis of the sort of woman he’d someday search out and marry because, yes, he supposed he would marry, eventually. A man needed heirs so that all he’d sweated and struggled to build would not be lost, but the woman he’d choose to be his wife would be compliant and faithful. She would want to devote herself to him and to the children she would bear him.

That was the whole reason for marriage, wasn’t it?

“Are you crazy?” Carin shrieked, as he carried her further from the house. “Put me down!”

No wonder the woman’s family was having such difficulty marrying her off. She was beautiful, yes. She was also sharp-tongued, evil-tempered and self-centered. Rafe could hardly wait to get rid of her.

“You idiot!” She pounded her fists against his chest. “You—you moron! Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yes,” Rafe said coldly, “I know precisely who you are.”

“You can’t just grab a woman and carry her off like this!”

“Ah,” he said calmly, jerking his head back just in time to avoid a wildly thrown punch, “if only you’d mentioned that sooner, senhora. I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You—you—you…”

She called him a name that implied he was related to the scatological habits of canines. He laughed. That only made her more furious. She flailed out with her fists again; this time, her knuckles dusted his jaw.

Deus.

There was a saying in this country about being careful not to catch a tiger by the tail without having a plan for letting it go.

What was he going to do with Carin Brewster?

“You just wait! Oh, you just wait until I get back to the house. I’ll have you thrown off this property so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“I am—how do you say? I am shaking in my boots.”

“Quaking. And you’d damn well better be.” Carin pounded his chest again. “For the last time, put me down!”

“If I do, will you go to your room, ask the housekeeper to bring you a pot of black coffee and drink every drop?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you are drunk.”

“I am no such thing.”

“You are drunk,” Rafe said firmly, “and you were making a spectacle of yourself.”

“If you were correct…if you were correct, it would be my business, not yours. You had no right to interfere.”

“I interfered on behalf of your family, and on behalf of the poor young man you were threatening.”

“That’s pathetic. Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“Actually, I did it for your sister, who thinks a great deal of you.”

“You don’t know a thing about what my sister thinks.”

“On the contrary, senhora. I know that she has false illusions about you, or she would not have assumed I might find you appealing.”

“Yeah, well, she has the same illusions about you, you—you South American Neanderthal. And if you’re really thinking about my family, start concentrating on how they’ll react when I tell them what you did.”

“Nicholas and Jonas would surely agree a gag might be an excellent idea.” Rafe shifted her weight in his arms. She was slender and fine-boned but she wriggled and twisted like a snake. Holding on to her and ducking those flying fists wasn’t easy. He thought of tossing her over his shoulder, thought of all the alcohol he’d seen her consume, and decided against it. “As for your stepbrothers…” He looked down at her, his expression severe. “I have met them. And from what I know of Tyler, Gage, Travis and Slade, they would…”

Rafe came to a halt. There was a clearing just ahead. Teak benches ringed a subtly lighted reflecting pool into which a stone nymph emptied an endless stream of water from a copper ewer.

“They would what?” the warm, sweet-smelling, bad-tempered burden in his arms demanded.

“They would applaud me for what I am about to do.”