‘We need food,’ Damián slurred.
Emiliano hiccupped. ‘Eating’s cheating.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what the Brits say.’
‘Oh.’ Damián flopped back down, took another swig out of the bottle of Scotch then passed it over.
It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen anything of Damián’s lady friend since the party five days ago. ‘Where’s your Brit gone?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Home.’
‘Which home?’
‘Give me the bottle.’
He pressed the bottle against his chest. ‘Not until you tell me which home. One of yours or hers?’
‘Hers. Now give me the bottle.’
He passed it over. ‘Why her home?’
‘She doesn’t live with me.’
‘How long have you two been together?’
‘We’re not together.’
‘You looked like you were together.’ He snatched the bottle out of Damián’s hand.
‘I paid her.’
‘What?’ Emiliano missed his mouth and spilled amber liquid over his chin. ‘I thought she was an actress?’
‘She is an actress. I paid her to pretend to be in love with me.’
‘Why?’
‘I needed help finding Father’s will. I thought you’d hidden it somewhere.’
On that score, Emiliano had been right. He didn’t blame Damián for thinking that. ‘I guessed Celeste had taken it.’
‘Did you?’
‘You were hardly likely to have hidden it, were you?’
Damián shrugged. ‘I can’t believe she burned it.’
‘I can.’ Now Emiliano shrugged. ‘You’re single-minded when you want something. She knew you’d find it if she didn’t destroy it.’
Five days had passed since they’d discovered the extent of their mother’s wickedness. She’d disappeared after they’d confronted her with the evidence on the night of the party, escaping on her friend’s helicopter. But there would be a day of reckoning for her. On this, as on so many other things now, the Delgado brothers were united. Together, they’d handed all their evidence to the Monte Cleure police and an arrest warrant had been duly issued. They didn’t expect her to be charged, not just because the evidence was all circumstantial, but because Celeste knew too many secrets about Monte Cleure’s ruling class and wouldn’t hesitate to remind those in power of it. The woman who’d taught her sons to always think like chess players, to anticipate and mitigate all eventualities, was the greatest strategist of all.
But should she step foot on Monte Cleure soil again, which she would eventually have to do as the villa was the only home in her name, all the other assets being held in their father’s name, she would have the indignity of being arrested. Emiliano fervently hoped the world’s press were there to witness it and report that the great Celeste Delgado was suspected of murdering her own husband.
‘Do you know what else I can’t believe?’ Damián slurred.
‘What?’
‘That I’m sitting here and getting drunk with my brother.’
‘Strange, huh?’ Emiliano passed the bottle back. ‘We should do this more often.’ In the drunken fog of his mind, a part of him ached at all the wasted years spent loathing his brother. He didn’t want to rewrite history by dissecting the past. Things had been said that could never be unsaid. The guilt in his guts was something he would have to learn to live with but, for the first time, he wanted the brotherly relationship he’d always denied them.
Despite all the alcohol he’d drunk, he felt cold. Snatching the bottle, he took another long swig and tried not to let his mind slip back to the night his body had been chilled to the bone and the woman who’d warmed him.
Other than to pass his boys between them, he’d seen nothing of Becky since she’d ordered him out of her staff lodge. With so many things of a business and personal nature to sort out with his brother, not thinking of her had been easy by day. Only drinking stopped him thinking of her by night too. He didn’t want the time or space to think—not about Becky, not about Celeste, not about his adoptive father and all the things he would never get to say to him for good or ill.
But Becky refused to stay hidden. For the little he’d seen of her, she managed to be everywhere. He knew it was his mind playing tricks on him but he would see a figure in the distance and his heart would lunge.
And, just as Celeste would soon face her day of reckoning, for the sake of his liver and the hundreds of staff he employed, he must soon sober up and face the new reality of his life. His mother was a killer and there was the real possibility he’d got one of his employees pregnant.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TOOT OF the car horn made Becky’s stomach clench tightly. Calling the dogs, she pulled her handbag over her shoulder and opened the front door. The dogs went tearing to the car, where Emiliano’s driver was putting the suitcase she’d left out front in the boot.
She managed a tight smile when she got into the back and found Emiliano there. She’d hoped he would travel up front.
His smile was equally taut. ‘You have everything?’
She nodded and looked away, but not before she’d taken a proper look at his face and found herself shocked at how dishevelled and crumpled his appearance was. She’d hardly seen anything of him since the party six days ago, opening her front door at designated times to either let the dogs out to him or receive them back, rather as she suspected warring parents did for small children. She’d hoped their lack of contact would make being with him again easier to endure but the painful drum of her heart proved that assumption a fallacy. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all since the party. She doubted he’d shaved.
Mercifully, the dogs chose to plonk themselves between the two humans so keeping a good distance from him was made easier.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he informed her once the car had set off, his gaze fixed ahead. ‘We’re going straight to Buenos Aires.’
‘Erm... The rest of my stuff’s in England.’
‘You can collect it when you go back.’
‘When will that be?’
‘When you’ve worked your notice. I’ll buy whatever you need until then.’
‘Have you looked for a replacement for me?’
‘I’ve been busy,’ he said shortly.
She stifled a frustrated sigh. ‘My notice is up in less than three weeks.’
‘I know how a calendar works.’
‘I was just...’
‘Reminding me.’ Clear brown eyes suddenly locked onto hers. ‘Reminding me that you’re counting down the days until you leave me.’
Taken aback at the way he made it sound as if she were ending a relationship rather than leaving a job that had only been temporary, and stung at his tone, Becky rested her hand on Barney’s head for comfort and looked out of the tinted window in silence until they arrived at the airport.
It was less easy to ignore him on the eighteen-hour flight. The flying time would have been shorter but they made a couple of stops so the dogs could stretch their legs. How Emiliano was able to arrange such things was beyond her, and something she’d stopped being in awe of within days of working for him. Being the possessor of a great fortune, she’d quickly learned, meant the world bent itself to your will rather than the other way round.
It was dark when they landed in Argentina. An hour after leaving the airport and circumnavigating much of the main city itself, the twinkling lights of Luján, a province of Buenos Aires, greeted them from a distance. They reached Emiliano’s home before the twinkling lights revealed any of their secrets.
The entire seven hundred hectares of land that made up his estate was fenced off from intruders. Security guards on patrol acknowledged their arrival.
Soon they pulled up outside an illuminated sprawling ranch-style mansion. Of the many mansions Emiliano owned, this was the one he considered home.
The stillness of the night was incredible. With the vast black skies covering them and the scent of eucalyptus filling the air, Becky was struck by a sense of wonder that such peace and such space still existed in the world. If she closed her eyes, all she’d hear was nocturnal wildlife, but there was no time for such indulgence as a woman in her mid-thirties stepped out of the front door. Emiliano introduced her as his housekeeper before having a brief conversation in his native language while his driver removed their luggage from the car.
‘I’m going to walk the boys to the stables,’ Emiliano then informed Becky in a much stiffer tone than he’d addressed his housekeeper. ‘Paula’s prepared a meal for you. She’ll show you to your quarters.’ Then he tapped his thigh and strode off, the dogs bounding after him.
Becky exchanged an awkward smile with the housekeeper before following her inside.
Internally, the ranch was even bigger than she’d expected. Treading over terracotta flooring past a vast split-level living space, she was surprised when Paula went up a flight of stairs, beckoning her to follow. Who had their dining room on a different floor to their kitchen?
That question was answered shortly, when Paula opened a door to reveal a large, beautifully appointed bedroom. ‘Your cases been brought up for you,’ she said in English. Pointing to a door, she added, ‘You living area. Other door bathroom. You like dinner here or downstairs?’
‘I think there might have been a mistake. I should be in the staff quarters.’ She’d never been housed under the same roof as Emiliano before and knew he had plenty of staff accommodation here.
Paula smiled. ‘No mistake.’
‘Does Emiliano know?’
‘They his orders.’
Exhaustion meant Becky didn’t wake until mid-morning. The first thing she did was check her phone to make sure she had no missed calls from Emiliano. He’d messaged her before she’d gone to bed, telling her he’d keep the boys with him that day.
He hadn’t tried to contact her while she slept.
Rolling onto her back, she closed her eyes. She’d dreamed of their baby. Only fragments of it remained and, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t bring the rest of the dream back.
A rush of protectiveness crashed through her and she placed her hand on her belly, thinking again of the tense conversation she and Emiliano had had the morning after, and with it came the realisation that neither of them had mentioned the pill that could be taken to prevent conception if an accident happened.
Why had that been?
Her emotions had been so erratic back then that she couldn’t say if she would have taken it, knew only that if she were to be offered a safe and effective pill now she would refuse it. For all that her hard-worked-for future could be ripped apart, there could be a life growing inside her, a precious, precious life. A baby to share her lonely life and shower all her love on...
Knowing it was dangerous to think like this when there was no way of knowing if she’d conceived, she threw the covers off and headed to the bathroom.
After showering and dressing in her uniform of jeans and shirt, adding an oversized cardigan to the mix as Argentina was currently much cooler than the baking temperatures of Monte Cleure, she headed downstairs in the hope of finding food.
This was the first time since working for Emiliano that she hadn’t been given her own cooking facility. It felt strange to be reliant on someone else to be fed.
The ranch was so vast and she’d seen so little of it that, for a moment, she found herself disorientated and unsure in which direction to head. Paula came to her rescue, appearing suddenly to whisk her off to the kitchen.
‘You like medialuna?’ she asked as she poured Becky a coffee.
‘What’s that?’
‘Breakfast pastries.’
‘I love pastries, so yes please.’
Twenty minutes later, Becky was to conclude that she liked pastries a little too much and made a mental note to get the recipe before she returned to England. A cross between a croissant and brioche, the medialunas had a subtle hint of lemon and vanilla to them and she devoured three of them on the bounce and could easily have devoured three more.
She wished she were one of those women who lost their appetite when stressed or unhappy. Becky’s appetite only increased, as was evidenced by the roundness of her hips. The past seven years had seen her go from a top-heavy skinny thing to someone with curves to match her breasts.
‘What time you like eat lunch?’ Paula asked when Becky had finished all the flaky crumbs on her plate.
‘That’s very kind but I don’t want to put you out any more than you’ve already been. If you show me where everything is, I’ll make myself something.’
‘You guest. Guest no feed self.’
‘I’m not a guest. I’m the dog-sitter.’
‘Emiliano say you guest and dog-sitter.’
It was the first time his name had been mentioned between them and Becky’s heart skipped a beat to hear it. ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Are you sure he meant it like that?’
‘Am sure.’
‘Very strange... I don’t suppose you know where he is, do you?’ She asked this as casually as she could.
‘He gone see tenants.’
Becky remembered him telling her that he owned adjoining farmland to his estate that he rented out. But that had been in the time before things had become so awkward and tense between them. He seemed to be avoiding her as much as she avoided him, which only made his decision to house her under his roof the stranger. ‘Am I okay to explore the estate?’
‘Sure. What time lunch?’
‘Actually... I don’t suppose you have any of those medialunas left I could take with me, have you? Saves you having to bother with lunch for me and, if I’m being honest, I could bury my face in a plate of them and inhale the lot.’
Paula beamed with pride. ‘I put in bag for you.’
Becky’s long walk ended up being much shorter than anticipated when she found the stables, home to over a hundred and fifty of Emiliano’s horses. There, she found many familiar faces from England, who’d recently flown in with the polo horses on specially adapted jets, and ended up sharing her precious medialunas with a couple of the grooms.
‘Why aren’t you in Greta’s old rooms?’ Louise asked. ‘She used to share with us here.’
She shrugged. ‘No idea. Are they still free?’
‘We assumed you’d be taking them. You should speak to Emiliano about it. It’d be great to have you with us.’
The stable staff, as friendly and down-to-earth as they were, were such a tight-knit group that Becky flushed with pleasure at the inclusion. In fairness to them, they’d included her from the start but, awkward around new people, she’d initially found it hard to reciprocate. That she’d never had that initial awkwardness with Emiliano had been wholly down to their immediate bonding over his dogs. Besides, his good-humoured nature meant he could befriend the grumpiest hermit. She missed that Emiliano.
And she missed having friends. They used to come so easily to her, but then her happy world had been torn apart and she’d sought solace in her academic work, hardly noticing how insular she’d become. Until she’d started working for Emiliano, she hadn’t made a single real friend since her school days. It saddened her to realise she hadn’t even noticed.
Her lightening mood lifted some more when she spotted Bertie being walked out of his stable. A former polo horse who’d lost his speed after an injury, Bertie had been kept by Emiliano because Don Giovanni, the most intuitive of his polo horses, pined when separated from him.
Louise must have noticed her joy for she said, ‘He needs riding if you fancy it?’
Becky
had never ridden a horse prior to working for Emiliano. She’d been wary, frightened of entrusting her safety to such huge creatures, but the grooms had been so kind and supportive that she’d felt compelled to try. Bertie had been the first. He had such a gentle nature and was so intuitive that by the end of her first ride all her fears had disappeared and she’d come to love being on horseback and being at the stables. She’d ridden many of Emiliano’s other horses since but Bertie remained her firm favourite.
In no time at all she was astride the stallion in borrowed riding boots and hat. Setting off at a pace as gentle as Bertie himself and with the sun warming her face, the angst that had turned her belly into a mass of knots loosened.
Deciding to explore, she soon found the equestrian circuit, where the dressage and eventers practised and which was used in competitions. A short trot from that were the famous polo fields, six in total, along with practice and schooling areas. Polo fields always looked massive with the players and horses hurtling around them but unoccupied, bar a groundsman on a ride-on mower, they seemed magnified. Vibrant green grass stretched almost as far as her eye could see. After exchanging hand greetings with the groundsman, she figured it was time to turn back.
The stables were as busy as they’d been when she’d set off but a tall figure amongst all the activity immediately caught her attention and her lighter mood plummeted.
Emiliano was back.
The closer she rode, the greater the beat of her heart. The closer she rode, the clearer his features. The clearer his features, the clearer the anger etched on them. She had the distinct impression that anger was directed at her.
Keeping a good distance so she could avoid him until she could be reasonably certain he wouldn’t rip her head off, she rode straight to Louise and dismounted before finding the groom who’d loaned her the riding boots.
She was lacing her own boots when a shadow fell over her.
‘Enjoyed your ride, did you?’
Taking a deep breath, she lifted her face to his. Somehow she managed to speak over the clatter of her heart. ‘Is something wrong?’
The Cost Of Claiming His Heir (The Delgado Inheritance, Book 2) Page 5