That word machismo echoed again, and Cristina’s lovely mouth stretched into a bitter, wry smile. The men in these parts did not defer to their women. Her father had preferred to turn a blind eye to what was happening around him and wait to die rather than hand a single decision about Santa Rosa over to her.
‘You need big investment to put this place back on its feet again,’ Rodrigo continued. ‘And you need it urgently. The Alagoas Consortium offer is more than generous for your purposes, querida.’
‘At an impossible price.’
The consortium wanted to scythe off a whole section of Santa Rosa, which would give them access to part of a subtropical forest that was of particular natural beauty—not that this was what interested them. The forest blocked the rest of the world from mile upon mile of white sandy beaches, making them impossible to reach by land at present. They aimed to buy the tract of land, then bulldoze the forest and build a road link to the Atlantic, where they planned to build skyscrapers along a beautiful and rare stretch of untouched coast.
‘When is there never a price?’ Rodrigo posed sadly. ‘You of all people should know this.’
Because she had paid a heavy price once before to save Santa Rosa. That ‘price’ was dead now, thank goodness. Along with the man who had been content to sell his daughter to gain a few extra years of comfort in his blindness to what was happening. Now here she stood with her eyes wide open, seeing all too clearly who must pay the price this time around. If she did accept the offer, the land, the people who lived on it and the forest would become the sacrifice.
‘How long do I have to make a decision?’ It stuck in her throat to ask the question and it showed in the husky tone of her voice.
‘They want the deal badly enough to wait only a little while,’ Rodrigo answered.
Cristina turned and nodded. ‘Then keep them hanging on for their—little while,’ she instructed. ‘And I will make one last plea to the banks for help.’
‘You have done this several times already.’
‘And I will do it as many times as it takes until time runs out for me.’
‘It is running out, Cristina,’ Rodrigo said heavily. ‘The wolves are already baying at your door.’
‘I must still keep trying.’ Dark eyes and soft mouth firm in their stubbornness, Cristina turned back to the window. Behind her, Rodrigo studied her too-slender figure with a kind of pained exasperation tinged with genuine but useless respect.
She was beautiful—exquisite—the kind of woman who at only twenty-five years old should have had the whole world lying at her feet. Indeed, she had once been that favoured person.
Then something had happened in this house to make her run away, and she had not been heard of again for over a year. When she eventually had come back she’d been a different person, hardened and cold, as if someone had snuffed out the burning light that had made her the wildly beautiful creature she had once been. She’d walked back into this house and within weeks out of it again, as the wife of Vaasco Ordoniz, a man as old as the father who had happily sold her to him.
For the next year she had lived in Rio as a rich old man’s beautiful ornament. She’d outfaced her critics and their bitching cruelty without a hint of her true feelings showing on her face. When Ordoniz had taken sick and retired from society to his isolated ranch he’d taken Cristina with him, and neither had been seen or heard of for the next two years. Then Ordoniz had died, and the mocking laughter had truly been heard when it had come to light that he’d been quietly gambling his wealth away, leaving his fortune-chasing wife so penniless she’d had to move back to her father’s house to become unpaid servant and nurse to yet another sick, money-squandering old man.
Yet her stubborn chin had never faltered. Those beautiful eyes had always looked out on life with defiance and pride. Rodrigo admired her for those things and respected her refusal to give up on life no matter how many bad things it threw at her.
‘Okay, we will give it one more try,’ he heard himself utter, and wondered straight away if he was being cruel to offer her a small chink of light? ‘I think we will enlist some help this time. Gabriel knows all the right people.’ He did not add that his son had already been approached by some anonymous businessman looking for new investment in Brazil. Rodrigo did not want to raise her hopes. ‘Gabriel just might be able to get you a hearing with those who would not listen to you before.’
Still, when Cristina turned to look at him, her hopes were already rising in the new shine in her eyes.
Rodrigo heaved a sigh. ‘Gabriel might run in the right circles, Cristina, but money men are notoriously ruthless. They will not invest in you without demanding something solid back in return.’
CHAPTER TWO
ANTON saw him as he was crossing the hotel foyer, and on a single heavy thump of a heartbeat he came to an abrupt halt.
It had been happening a lot since he’d been told he had two half-brothers out there. He would glimpse a man with dark hair, or with something about his physical appearance that reminded him of himself, and this thump at his heart would stop him in his tracks.
It was the not knowing that made it impossible to deal with—the deep-boned fear that he could be standing right next to his own flesh and blood and not have a single clue.
He hated it. He hated this sudden leap his heart would make just before the thick sinking rush that paralysed him.
And the need—he hated feeling this need he hadn’t known was there until he’d received that damn—
‘Anton…?’
Kinsella’s questioning prompt jolted him back to his surroundings. The stranger had gone, disappearing into one of the lounge bars and out of Anton’s sphere of temptation to just go up to him and ask outright if his father had been a rich polo-playing Brazilian who’d left bastard byeblows in just about every port!
Anger set him moving again, though it did not show on his face. They hit the lifts, four of them in all, the two junior executives looking limp with jet-lag while Kinsella, his new personal secretary, who had only recently been promoted through the Scott-Lee ranks, still looked as smooth and fresh as she had all day.
Anton glanced at her and she thoroughly jolted him by offering him one of those smiles that said I’m available if you want me. She was a great-looking blue-eyed blonde, with the kind of figure guaranteed to fire up most men’s heat. Until now she’d been good to have around because she was easy on the eye and her secretarial skills were unquestionable—but sex with the boss as a sideline?
He lowered his eyes and pretended he had not noticed the invitation—or the sudden tension that leapt around the confines of the lift. Apart from the unbroken rule that he never bedded his employees, he hadn’t wanted to touch a woman since the day when his life as he’d known it had been put to death.
The lift doors slid open. His two junior executives quickly stepped out into the corridor, eager to find their rooms, but Kinsella left it a couple of telling seconds longer before she did the same.
Once again Anton ignored the little hesitation. Eyes half hidden behind the low sweep of his eyelashes he said, ‘Get some food inside you, then sleep off the jet-lag. I’ll see you all for breakfast in my suite at seven-thirty prompt.’
The boss playing the boss, he noted wryly, as three heads nodded, getting the message, one looking faintly flushed now. Serves you right, Kinsella, he thought, without a twinge of regret.
‘Goodnight,’ he said, and the lift doors slid shut across their three murmured replies.
Anton yawned, stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and leant back against the lift wall as it took him up to the penthouse suite on the top floor, where not only did he get the best in accommodation that was available, but he also got adjoining offices and a conference room in which most of his business day would be spent.
He preferred working from his hotel when he made an unannounced spot-check on one of his international branches. That way he could sweep into the bank and take everyone by surprise, so
that they did not have time to pull any cover-ups. He would then put every department head through a major grilling before sweeping out again, with his entourage in tow, and returning to his hotel to hold his post mortem, leaving his quivering staff to recover from the fallout of his unexpected invasion. They would call him a few tasty names to each other, enjoy a collective sigh of relief that he’d gone. Then they would start urgently boning up on what they’d thought they knew inside out but, after one of Anton’s interrogating sessions, had now realised they knew nothing at all.
Ruthless but necessary methods to keep his multinational army of employees on their toes, he judged without a qualm.
The lift doors slid open again. Levering himself upright, he crossed the private foyer and unlocked the door. The suite was much like any other hotel suite he had used over the years, with luxurious living space, two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, and a connecting door which led directly into the all-singing, all-dancing working environment business tycoons expected from their accommodation these days.
His luggage had arrived. Ignoring it, Anton made directly for the drinks cabinet to check that the hotel had provided him with a bottle of his favourite Scotch whisky. He poured himself a measure, added some bottled water to the mix, then took it with him to a pair of French doors which led out onto a terrace beyond.
The moment he stepped outside, the sights and sounds of Rio hit his senses, stirring them to a quickened rhythm only someone with Latin blood running through him would understand.
That quickened rhythm should be filling him with pleasure, but it wasn’t. In fact he resented the hell out of it. It was six long years since he’d last looked out on the Bay towards Sugarloaf, and if he’d had his way it would have been another six years before he’d look out on it again—if ever.
He took a sip of the whisky, the shape of his sensually moulded lips barely altering their grim tilt as they parted to receive the drink. Heat rolled over his tongue and fired up his increased pulse-beat. He’d used to love Rio de Janeiro. This beautiful, exciting city had once been like a home from home to him during his childhood, when he’d used to visit here regularly with his mother, and later, when he’d spent a full year working at the Scott-Lee Bank branch here.
With hindsight, he mused, he would have been better staying put in England, then he would not have met Cristina and spent that whole year in love with a lie.
Another lie.
That hot surge of anger he’d been nurturing for weeks now began to pump through his system. Going back inside, he closed the door on the sights and sounds of Rio, chose a bedroom at random to use, then set about removing his clothes. Ten minutes later he was shutting down the taps gushing water into a huge sunken bathtub.
The tub needed to be big to accommodate a man with his impressive framework. He stood six feet two in his bare feet, and every inch was made up of hard muscled bulk. And lean, he was very lean, but that leanness did not take anything away from the fact that, stripped to his natural golden skin, he presented the kind of masculine sight that could make women gasp. Wide shoulders, long torso, narrow hips, the lot supported on long and powerfully corded legs. Then there was the pelvis that cradled one of the major weapons in his sexual arsenal. He was built to seduce, built to guarantee hours of untold pleasure. He knew it—just as his women knew it.
Not that he cared about any of that right now as he stepped into the bath and sank down into its hot steamy depths. He was tired and fed up and still wishing himself elsewhere. Easing his wide shoulders back against the bath, he closed his eyes on a sigh.
If it wasn’t enough that he’d seen the interior of too damn many transit lounges as he’d criss-crossed the world to get here, he’d spent most of that time obsessively studying every tall dark guy that ventured into his vicinity, hunting for signs that one of them might be related to him.
He hated the not knowing.
He more than hated Rio.
If he’d been given the luxury of choice he’d rather be anywhere else on this earth than here. But choice was something snatched away from him by the simple insertion of a name.
Cristina Marques…
The satin gold muscular formation of his wide shoulders shifted, black silk bars for eyebrows drawing together across the bridge of his nose. Parting the grim tension holding his lips together, he gritted his teeth and wished to hell that other parts of his body would stop responding to that name.
Another sigh had him lifting a wet hand to swipe it over his tired face. The refreshing sting of hot water made his skin tingle, but did nothing to ease the discomfort of a twelve-hour beard growth. He should have shaved before he got in here, he mused grimly. He should have cleaned his teeth.
The second thought sent his hand reaching out in search of the glass of whisky he’d had enough sense to replenish before he climbed in here. Sipping the Scotch was a darn sight tastier than any toothpaste, and did a whole lot more to ease the tension from his aching muscles—though not from other parts.
What he needed was a woman—any woman. He hadn’t had one in way too long. He’d been too busy losing himself in work and bad temper and setting up this trip. A woman right now might just be the medicine he needed to effect the cure for the one woman he did not want to want.
Maybe he should have broken his own rule and taken Kinsella up on her offer, he mused idly. Maybe a slender, sleek, blue-eyed blonde would be the perfect cure for what was ailing him. But—
No. He might have closed the door on the sights and sounds of Rio, but its innate beat was still vibrating through his blood, and the only woman who would satisfy it would have to be one of the warm, dark, passionate kind. One who would know instinctively that all he wanted her to do was to climb naked into this bath with him and seduce him to one of those exquisite near death experiences.
A half smile touched the edges of his mouth, his shoulders beginning to relax as he let his weary mind drift. She would have a pair of decent-sized breasts that would weigh heavy in his hands but still be firm enough to pout. Dark nipples…he loved dark nipples…and a silky, slippery golden body that would arch over him in pleasure as he suckled to his heart’s content.
His mouth received attention from the whisky. It wasn’t nearly the same as the glorious sense-tugging taste of a woman, but he savoured it all the same while behind closed eyelids his fantasy woman began to take real shape.
Dark eyes…she’d have sultry dark eyes the colour of hunger, and sweeping black eyelashes that would half hide the glow of sensual relish she would experience as she aroused him while he lay back and enjoyed. Ebony hair, he decided, with a sexy hint of a twist to it that would trail over his chest and shoulders as she leant down to offer him a kiss from her gorgeous, greedy, voluptuous mouth, practised in the art of pleasing as she took him inside her with the…
‘Hell—’
The curse raked his throat and he sat up so abruptly he spilled whisky into the bath. He’d been describing Cristina. He’d been lying here flirting with fantasy and building himself the perfect replica of the one woman he was supposed to be blocking out!
Tell that to your body, he thought darkly, and rid himself of the glass, then rubbed his wet hands over his face again. Tension had hold of him in a manacle. Standing up, he dripped water from taut rippling muscles as he stepped out of the bath. As he hooked up a towel to dry himself, it accidentally brushed across that part of him that was an aching agony of untamed want. With an indrawn quiver of cursing contempt, he tossed the towel aside and headed for a cold shower instead.
He didn’t want to want Cristina. He did not want to remember how she was. He wanted to be utterly turned off by reality, and hoped that when he eventually came face to face with her she’d have turned into a complete hound dog!
And he would come face to face with her, he vowed as he stepped out of the shower cubicle feeling more like a man in control of himself. The wheels to make it happen were already turning, and very soon he would have his confrontation with Cristi
na Marques.
The telephone began ringing as he was finishing shaving. Walking naked out of the bathroom, he picked up the receiver.
‘I have tracked her to Rio, senhor,’ a distinctly Brazilian male voice informed him. ‘She is residing with Gabriel Valentim. He will be escorting her to the charity gala tomorrow evening, as hoped.’
She was hooked; the sting was on. The hot burn of satisfaction that flung itself down his body excited a sexual arousal he had thought he’d brought under control.
‘Good,’ he said, as cold as an English winter. ‘Tell me the rest tomorrow.’
‘Before you go there is something I have discovered that I think you should know, senhor!’ Afonso Sanchiz put in hurriedly. ‘It was not mentioned in the profile you sent to me—but six years ago the lady in question married a man called Vaasco Ordoniz. She is widowed now, and has reverted to using the Marques name, but…’
Cristina did not want to be here. Partying while her life was tumbling down around her placed a very bad taste in her mouth. But Gabriel insisted it was the only way. The best deals were struck in the social arena, not across a desk in some bank.
So here she was, standing in the foyer of one of Rio’s top hotels, dressed to kill in sparkling black silk. Her hair was up in an elegant twist and her late mother’s diamonds sparkled at her ears and throat.
She would have sold the diamonds if they’d been worth anything, but she’d found out the hard way that they were not. They were fakes—very good fakes, but fakes all the same. She did not know when her father had cashed in the genuine articles and replaced them with paste, but she had little doubt that he had done so. In fact, she’d discovered over the months since he died that there was very little left in Santa Rosa that was not a copy of its original. She now lived with the hope that when Lorenco Marques met his art-collecting ancestors on his way up to heaven they’d give him a swift push in the other direction.
And, yes, she told that shocked part of her that did not like what she was thinking, she felt that bitter and that bad.
The Brazilian’s Blackmailed Bride - The Ramirez Brides 02 Page 2