Valdez's Bartered Bride

by Rachael Thomas

  Had Raul seen them too?

  He couldn’t have seen it. He’d never have calmly left a message to meet her just to sign papers if he had. Would he?

  He is capable of anything.

  That thought echoed round in her mind as her heels tapped out a solitary beat across the elegant lobby towards the restaurant where Raul would soon meet his brother. The fact that he’d arranged to meet her so close to that meeting must surely mean all he wanted was a few papers signed. She clung to that hope as she entered the restaurant, strangely empty of any other dinners. When she saw him sitting calmly waiting for her at a table in the middle of the room, she knew that was a mistaken idea. He was dressed immaculately in a charcoal-grey suit, but nothing could detract from the air of superiority and total control he exuded.

  He rose from his seat and stood waiting for her; the angry set of his handsome face left her in no doubt he had seen the headlines. Her futile hope slithered away, taking with it the remainder of her confidence as his dark eyes glared accusingly at her, his anger palpable even at this distance.

  She walked towards him, her head held high, trying to match his strength, to show he didn’t intimidate her at all. As she got closer her confidence faltered and she stopped halfway across the room, glad now that they were the only people there. She glanced around, just to check.

  ‘I booked the entire restaurant to ensure I had the privacy I needed.’ Raul sounded calm, approachable, but she wasn’t fooled. She could detect the steely edge lurking beneath the surface. Calm he might be, but he was definitely far from approachable.

  She turned to face him, looking into those dark eyes she’d lost her heart to, trying to bring confidence from deep within her. ‘I got your message.’

  ‘And I have seen your salacious kiss and tell in the papers this morning.’ He went straight in for the kill, his voice now harder than the gleam of anger in his eyes, but she remained resolutely still, meeting his gaze and the accusation within it head-on. Inside she trembled but outside she was strong and defiant. The armour that had served her well for many years deflected most of the pain.

  ‘I’m very sorry to disappoint, but I am not the source of your embarrassment.’ She raised her brows at him in a show of high-handedness as she said that final word, then continued before he had a chance to say anything, ‘Surely a man like you is used to sidestepping such stories in the papers.’

  ‘About my lovers, yes.’ He let the barbed words hang in the air and she refused to react, refused to think that one day she too could be linked to him as one of his lovers—exactly what she’d never wanted to be. ‘About my fiancée, no.’

  Fury boiled up inside her. ‘I am not your fiancée. Not any longer. I kept my side of the deal.’

  ‘On that I beg to differ.’ The superiority in his voice rankled but she maintained a stony silence, forcing him to continue. ‘You have shared the story of my half-brother with someone and now it is everywhere. You broke the terms of our contract, Lydia.’

  ‘I have not shared it with anyone,’ she blurted out, hurt that he could accuse her of such a thing after all they’d shared.

  Raul laughed. A cold, cynical laugh, which sent a shiver of worry all over her, chilling her to the core. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that, querida? You were so strong-willed, so against any kind of affair, yet suddenly you changed. You became a passionate woman intent only on desire. You used the mutual attraction between us to drag out more of the story.’

  ‘I did not.’ Indignation fired the retort at him but as he moved away from the table and came towards her, his dark eyes watching her closely, she regretted the outburst. Was that what he thought their weekend affair had been? When she’d been enjoying the gentle truce between them, the deeper understanding she’d gained of him as they’d talked about their pasts, he’d been satisfying a more basic need. How stupid had she been to fall for his act of vulnerability, to feel sorry for him?

  He came very close to her, walking around her, his shoulder almost touching hers, as if they were about to start dancing. Not a slow sedate dance like the night of the party, but a wild passionate dance. A tango filled with anger.

  Quickly she looked away and wished that other diners were here. At least it would stop the intimacy of this meeting, but that was not possible because Raul had, yet again, manipulated the situation to suit him. What kind of man booked out an entire restaurant?

  One in total control—of everything.

  ‘You begged me to take you to my bed.’ The hardness in his eyes didn’t match the silky seductive sound of his voice and a tremor of awareness sizzled over her. Why did she still feel like this? How could he still have such a hold on her—on her heart?

  ‘I felt sorry for you.’ She was shocked at that last thought, her gaze met the fury of his and, once again, she wished the impetuous words unsaid. Still she held his gaze, her chin lifted mutinously in a desperate attempt to hide the real reason she’d wanted to be with him, hide the love that had been impossible to ignore as it had blossomed during those two blissful days.

  ‘So, it was pity sex.’ He turned and walked away from her and she could see the tension in his shoulders as clearly as she could feel it bouncing around the empty restaurant. Then he whirled round to face her. ‘That is even worse.’

  ‘I don’t care what kind of sex it was, Raul; I did not sell your story. Just tell me what was so important so I can go before your brother arrives. I will leave and we will never have to see one another again. You can move on with your life, safe in the knowledge you have safeguarded the company, destroyed my father and kept all you wanted.’

  Around the room the air prickled with challenge as she glared at him. She wanted to tell him it was far from pity sex, that it had been much more about falling for him—falling in love. But that would be futile. This man didn’t want love in his life. Inwardly, she groaned. How had she been so stupid? To think this man could ever feel anything for her?

  ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible, Lydia.’ The tone of his voice had changed again. He sounded dangerous and icily calm as he moved back towards her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ She held her ground, stood firm in the high black patent heels she’d chosen for added height, added confidence.

  ‘What I mean, Lydia, is that you have broken the agreement you signed. The one that stated you would not share any information with anyone else.’ Menace laced every word as he stopped a short distance from her, as if he didn’t dare come any closer. He hated her now. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his words and feel it surrounding her.

  ‘Why would I do that?’ From the moment she’d arrived in Madrid she’d become caught up in Raul’s story and even more caught up in the man himself. She’d wanted to help, wanted to be the one who made a difference to his life.

  ‘You tell me. I have lost a lucrative contract over this and who knows? I may well have lost my brother before I gained him.’ Pain lashed through her. He didn’t care at all that they’d lost the closeness they’d found in Madrid or that they were losing each other with each angry word he spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry, but it wasn’t me.’ Outwardly, she remained strong. Detached. Inside, she was falling to pieces and she wanted this moment to end.

  ‘I don’t need your damn pity—in any form.’ He rounded on her and she closed her eyes against the agony that was ripping her heart into shreds. How had she ever thought it might be possible that one day they could become more than just an affair? She couldn’t stay a moment longer and listen to him, feel how much he hated her.

  ‘And I don’t need this.’ With a toss of her head, her hair flinging out around her, she turned and started to walk away.

  ‘If my brother doesn’t arrive at one as arranged, then all you have done will have been in vain. Your moment of glory—or is it revenge?—will be for nothing.’ Raul’s steady voice halted her steps and she turned to face him. Was he holding her responsible for Max not turning up?

  She looked at her
watch. Less than ten minutes until Max should arrive. But what if he didn’t?

  ‘If my brother doesn’t arrive, your father’s debts will remain unpaid and our engagement deal will stand.’ His words were hard and grating, his handsome face full of anger.

  ‘You can’t force me to marry you.’ She matched his anger as she flung the words at him.

  ‘I can and I will.’

  Lydia looked to the door of the restaurant, hoping to see a man striding through, but nothing. ‘No, I’ve done all I can do. I’ve found him for you. It’s not my fault if he doesn’t show up.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ The accusation was clear. He blamed her. She looked again at her watch. In five minutes she would know her fate. In five minutes she would have lost the man she’d fallen in love with, because whatever happened next she knew, without doubt, that he hated her.

  * * *

  Raul watched Lydia as she looked at the time. He saw the colour drain from her face and a brief wave of compassion surged over him. Savagely, he pushed it back. He didn’t have room for compassion or any other kind of emotion that would make him want to go and take Lydia in his arms.

  Any moment now his brother would walk into the restaurant and he would have to face the man who had taken his place in his father’s affections even before he himself had been born.

  ‘I should go.’ Lydia’s words rushed him back to the present.

  ‘You will stay, Lydia. If he doesn’t turn up then—’ Raul’s words were cut off by the noise of the door opening and his heart thumped as he looked beyond Lydia to see a member of hotel staff entering the room.

  ‘Your guest is here, sir.’

  All he could hear was the beat of his pulse in his ears and then his amazingly calm voice. ‘Show him in.’

  ‘It is just as well you booked the entire restaurant.’ Lydia’s remark gave him an anchorage as he waited for his brother to arrive.

  ‘Sí, I prefer to conduct my affairs in private—unlike you.’ The barb of his reply made those beautiful green eyes widen, just as they’d done that night they’d become lovers when he’d finally slipped the silver dress from her gorgeous body.

  Why was he thinking about that now? He’d known she would be a distraction, which was why he’d let her walk away from him, let her think she had the upper hand. But that damned story she’d sold had changed that. Now she would pay for her loose tongue.

  ‘I didn’t sell that story, Raul.’ Her gaze locked with his and despite the defiance in her stance, in the proud tilt of her chin, he could hear the pleading in her voice, a plea that distracted him from all other thought.

  ‘Then who the hell did?’ A deep male voice crashed into the tension that had built between him and Lydia, as if striking all ten pins on a bowling alley in one fatal blow.

  He heard Lydia gasp and drag in a deep breath as he turned and looked his brother in the eye for the first time. It was like looking at himself and he clenched his teeth hard; the hope that his father had got it all wrong vanished with one glittering look from his firstborn son.

  ‘It certainly wasn’t me.’ Lydia began to speak again, fast bubbling words, which as far as he was concerned underlined her guilt in red, not because she had genuinely wanted to help him because of her deepening feelings for him. ‘I want the debt settled. I want out of your life.’

  ‘Then get out, Lydia,’ Raul snapped without even looking at her. Now was not the time for Lydia’s nervous chatter.

  His brother’s gaze didn’t leave his face, didn’t break the contact and there was no way he was going to back down, give this man the upper hand. It seemed an eternity as he stood there assessing and being assessed by the half-brother who had taken his place in his father’s affections, who’d become the only son he’d ever wanted.

  He should hate him for it.

  Lydia moved closer to him. Every nerve in his body felt it—heightened to even the smallest movement from this woman. It wasn’t right that she had such power over him. He heard the crinkle of paper but remained resolutely locked in eye combat with his half-brother. He couldn’t bring himself to think his name, much less say it. Not whilst the anger and pain of his childhood years surged through him.

  ‘You should have this.’ Lydia’s whispered words finally caught his attention and he looked at her, then at the old, discoloured envelope she held out to him. ‘It’s from your mother.’

  In that moment it was just the two of them—him and the woman who had slipped under his defensive barrier and into his heart, rendering him as weak as a newborn colt. The very same woman who’d betrayed him in the most spectacular way. And it hurt—like hell. He’d watched his mother’s heartache at his father’s betrayal as he’d grown from a boy into a man, seen it all around him and vowed never, ever, to be the victim of such emotions.

  Now he too knew the bitter taste of betrayal from a loved one.

  He took the envelope in a firm, decisive move then looked into those green eyes he’d thought so sexy, so full of something special for him. His lip curled into a snarl. ‘I never want to see you again. Ever.’

  * * *

  Lydia burst through the door of the restaurant, desperate to leave the charged atmosphere of the room. She couldn’t bear to stand there and see the anger in Raul’s eyes, anger that made him despise her.

  She swiped at a tear as it sprang from her eye and pulled all her anger to the fore, smothering the need to cry. ‘Damn Christmas tree.’ She brushed her hair back with both hands and raised her chin as she glared at the offending fir tree, decked out in gold with twinkling lights. ‘What are you looking so happy about?’

  ‘Are you okay?’ A female voice came from behind her and Lydia whirled round to see a woman sitting in one of the large comfortable armchairs of the foyer, looking anything but comfortable if her perched position on the edge of the seat was anything to go by.

  ‘Y-yes. Sorry,’ Lydia stammered, realising how silly she must have looked to the glamorous redhead as she’d rushed out and begun her tirade at the Christmas tree. ‘It’s that time of year for stress overload, I guess.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ the other woman said and Lydia relaxed a little, feeling as if she’d met a kindred spirit. ‘A man?’

  ‘The very same.’ Lydia smiled, noticing how pale the redhead looked beneath her heavily applied make-up, as if she too was trying to hide something.

  The woman smiled, but as raised male voices echoed from the restaurant both women looked at the door. For a moment Lydia wondered if she should say something. Was the beautiful woman waiting for Raul’s brother? She decided against it. Raul was nothing to do with her any more. She’d found his brother and had unlocked the funds that would pay off her father’s debt. She was free to go.

  With that thought racing in her mind she rushed from the hotel, conscious of her hurried footsteps echoing after her and even feeling the redhead’s curious gaze. Or was she just being fanciful? Was she in such a heightened state of emotions she wasn’t thinking clearly?

  The cold December wind took her breath away as she stood on the streets, the London traffic whizzing by, oblivious to the turmoil she was in. People passed her, some bumping her as she walked slowly in a daze of disbelief, not even aware of where she was going. Everyone around her seemed to be caught up in the buzz of Christmas and all she could do was think about what she’d lost.

  The man she loved hated her. She’d seen it in his eyes. There was no doubt.

  Christmas Eve was a week away. Now was no time to be nursing a broken heart. She pulled her coat tighter around her in an attempt to keep the cold at bay, but inside she was already frozen, her heart turned to ice by one look of contempt from Raul, and his last words played in her head like a Christmas carol turned sour.

  ‘I never want to see you again. Ever.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  RAUL COULDN’T COMPREHEND how alike he and Max were. There was no disputing they were brothers. It wasn’t just the dark hair, which Max wore shorter, or the piercingly
dark eyes, but the way he stood. Every line in his body was poised and commanding. Raul had not only met his brother, but his match, of that he was in no doubt, but right now he was far too angry with Lydia for her deception.

  Because of her he’d lost a big deal and she’d caused him and Max unnecessary embarrassment. He wanted to believe she hadn’t sold his story, that she hadn’t used their passionate affair in order to gain all the information she could about the story of his brother and his father’s double life, but it was just too coincidental. She’d gone from not wanting anything to do with him to seeking a passionate affair. He’d thought it had been desire driven, but he’d been wrong. Very wrong.

  ‘Was that necessary?’ his brother’s voice fired accusingly at him. ‘There was no need to be so hard on her.’

  ‘Don’t you dare presume that as my older brother you can tell me what I can and can’t do.’ Raul hurled the angry words back at Max. Thanks to Lydia and her indiscretion, this whole meeting had catapulted out of control. He couldn’t even think clearly at the moment, saying the first thing that came to him in such an uncontrolled way, he didn’t even recognise himself.

  ‘Now we get to the crux of it.’ Max strode towards him, the same purposeful strides he would use if he weren’t rooted to the spot with shock and anger at the sudden realisation that Lydia had gone. Not just left the hotel, but gone. Out of his life for good.

  Focus, he demanded himself. Now was not the time to reminisce over a love affair that had ended. Now was the time to focus on his future, to move forward from the lies his father had inflicted on him—and Max. To do the one thing his father had thought him incapable of—welcoming his brother into his life.