The Billionaire Bundle

by Michele De Winton

  The ceremony was quick and few words were spoken. The registrar clearly had time to make up in his busy schedule that morning, and the way Ricardo had bitten out his responses made it obvious that he wanted to get out of the place as quickly as possible. The civil wedding vows were basic and business-like. Their duties and rights as a married couple were set out: family, fidelity, and management of the home, and children’s education. Not once was the word love mentioned, so at least Ricardo was in the clear there. There was no “until death us do part” nonsense, so the whole “celebration” was as contractual as their secret agreement.

  The registrar pronounced them husband and wife, wiping beads of sweat from his brow with undisguised relief and Ricardo’s perfunctory kiss on Helen’s cheek left her with a choking sense of humiliation. What had she expected? That Ricardo had fallen head over heels in love with her overnight? That a miracle had occurred and that all this was for real? As if.

  Helen was cross with herself for weakening the moment she’d seen him that morning. The black suit and arctic white shirt had given him such an astonishing presence that she could almost feel her bones dissolve under his scrutiny. The strong black eyebrows that were knitted together with irritation made her want to reach out and stroke his temple until he smiled, took her in his arms and kissed her. He was dark, menacing and angry, but in spite of all that, she still wanted him.

  She still wanted him even though he had left her side within seconds, not without even a backwards glance. It had been deeply embarrassing, standing there in front of two awkward-looking officials while Ricardo and Jerardo put their arrogant heads together. Where was her pride? She felt as if she’d been dumped already.

  Luisa patted Helen’s hand as she stared stonily towards Ricardo and Jerardo exchanging documents. “He is nervous today, you must understand.” Her tiny brown eyes twinkled anxiously, the atmosphere in the room was tense, hardly one of celebration and joy. It didn’t take a genius to work out that something wasn’t quite right.

  “Why is Jerardo Capella here?” Luisa murmured. “Are you friends?”

  Helen shrugged and looked at the floor. She felt unable to lie much longer so it would be better to say nothing.

  Luisa fussed with Helen’s hair. “He always brings bad luck that one. I could have brought my brother if you needed another witness to the marriage.”

  Helen took an angry breath. “Actually, I’d like to know what he’s doing here as well.” She stalked purposefully towards the two men, who looked up in surprise from the papers they were signing. She held out her hand and shot the stranger a tight smile. “I don’t think you’ve introduced me to your friend, Ricardo.”

  “He’s an uncivilized dog, isn’t he?” the stranger replied greasily, and straightened his back. “Jerardo Capella at your service. We go back a long way, Ricardo and I. When he’s grown tired of you, come round to my place and I’ll show you how a real Spanish man treats a beautiful woman.”

  “Basta! Enough!” Ricardo bellowed, snapping the lid on his pen and throwing it onto the table. “It’s time you left now, Capella. You have an office to clear out, remember?”

  “So true, I almost forgot in my excitement.” Jerardo slid past the desk and snatched at Helen’s hand. His breath was hot, and the sweaty kiss he planted lasted a lot longer than it should have. Revulsion coiled in Helen’s stomach.

  “Get out,” Ricardo said. “Before I damage you.”

  “How does it feel to be traded for a derelict building, Senora Almanza?” He smiled at her confusion and went in for the kill. “He should value your beauty much more highly. You have no idea how much it costs every year to scrape off all the pigeon shit and dog mess from the place…”

  “I think maybe you should do as Ricardo says and leave,” Helen said flatly. She didn’t want the creep to see how deeply he was offending her.

  “I’m not surprised he didn’t tell you. It’s not very flattering for you, is it?” He whipped off his sunglasses, and the black eyes that bored into hers were cruel. “Oh dear, he didn’t tell you he loved you did he? Now that really was unkind…”

  Helen bit down hard on her bottom lip as the sparking pain of tears attacked the back of her throat.

  No, of course he’d never said he loved her. He’d been decent about that.

  Rage blazed in Ricardo’s eyes as he roughly shoved Jerardo away and pulled Helen protectively against him, his arm tight around her waist. “You’ll never get anywhere near what we have together. Now get out, and if I ever discover you’ve been near my wife again I’ll kill you.”

  Jerardo sneered and put his shades back on with a shrug. “It’ll never last, Almanza. You’re cursed.”

  Helen flinched as he slammed the door behind him and the sound echoed around the walls like a round of cannon fire. What we have together? The words stuck like a fiery brand on her mind, poised to give her false hope.

  .

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Ricardo said in a matter of fact way as the limousine drove them both away.

  “Jerardo Capella, you mean?” Helen said smartly. “Or the whole charade?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. There was no need for such unpleasantness. I had tried to dissuade him from attending but,” he sighed heavily, “he’s not a reasonable man.”

  Helen braced herself. She had to clarify what Ricardo had said earlier. “What did you mean when you spoke to Jerardo about what ‘we had together’?”

  Ricardo looked at her incredulously. “Sexual chemistry, of course. What else could I have been alluding to? The extremely devious arrangement we came to purely for exacting revenge on that snake?” He shook his head and smiled. “You don’t think I’d risk letting him in on our deal, do you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re capable of.”

  “I’ve gone to extreme lengths to get back what rightfully belongs to the Almanza family, so I don’t intend risking it all by letting Capella discover our marriage is a sham. Although, I think he was too busy lusting over you to be thinking particularly clearly. He never was the brightest, just downright nasty.” Ricardo grinned and did a little whistle, oblivious to the sharp disappointment that had sliced right through her at his words.

  “So you got everything you wanted?” she said, staring out at the busy marketplace through the smoked glass of the car window.

  “Not everything, Senora Almanza, not yet…” He shot her a look so charged with sexual promise that it took Helen’s breath away.

  “Honor intact now?” She wasn’t going to let him see how much she was hurting, or how bizarrely her heart was pounding at the prospect of their wedding night in spite of his coldness.

  “Oh that,” he said, threading his fingers through hers and lifting their linked hands to inspect the two rings on her left. “Yes.”

  “Care to expand on that? Just how much do derelict, poo-covered buildings go for in this part of the world?” She tugged her hand away. “For more than two million presumably or all of this would be pointless.”

  “You weren’t traded, Helen. Far from it. The deal was for the right to buy the building, not to walk off with the deeds as soon as I married. I had to pay a significant amount more to make it legally mine, believe me. And it’s going to need to be completely gutted.”

  “Am I being dim here? Let me get this clear. You won the bet by getting married before you were thirty, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “So what did you actually win? An option to purchase?

  “Correct.”

  Helen felt slightly dumbfounded. “So what if you lost the bet and forgot all about the crumbling pile of real estate. That way you wouldn’t have had to go through with this grotesque marriage or waste all that money. Or is this really a matter of your stupid, arrogant pride?”

  “Incorrect. To lose Capella’s bet would have meant me breaking the promise I made to my father on his deathbed, a promise to reclaim the Almanza Imperial Department Store and restore the family’
s honor. It was stolen from us effectively via a series of unethical legal maneuvers when my father was…indisposed. In the last ten years Capella has let the building go to the dogs, literally when it comes to the outside of it, and he’s a hopeless businessman. The staff he retained from the old days was given their cards this month, the stock has gone, and it’s all in a real mess. It is my duty to do my best to get it up and running again, not only for future Almanzas, but for the poor people who were such loyal employees. I could never forgive myself if I didn’t give it my best shot. So I had no choice but to give in to Capella’s conditions.”

  “This wasn’t really a bet after all, was it? You let me think you were a shallow, spendthrift playboy who’d made one stupid drunken bet to marry. Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the start?” Helen blinked her eyes with indignation. “Capella is a disgusting little blackmailer.”

  “I can think of more appropriate descriptions, but I wouldn’t want to defile those beautiful, innocent ears of yours,” Ricardo said with a smile. “And as for the truth about why I needed a bride, would it have made any difference to your answer? You only agreed to my conditions when you were totally desperate for the money. You walked out on me in disgust when I first made the offer in Ibiza, didn’t you? Your principles were so high, no way would you be bought, for whatever reason…”

  Helen felt her cheeks flush and she lowered her head in the hope that he wouldn’t notice. “I don’t need to listen to this—”

  “But two million easy euros was too much for you to resist, wasn’t it, darling?” Ricardo picked up her hands again and kissed the tips of her fingers one by one. “And now everyone’s happy. Capella has his cash and the satisfaction of believing I am miserably married. You have your second million in the bank as of midday, and—” He leaned back into the soft leather of the seat and slowly stroked the palm of her hand with his forefinger. “Now it’s my turn to get some reward for all this. Let me tell you, Helen Almanza, I am really, really looking forward to our honeymoon. In fact…” He took her chin firmly between his fingers and turned her face up towards him. His hovered just inches from hers. “I see no reason why we shouldn’t make a start right now.”

  Chapter Six

  “We shouldn’t…not here,” Helen said in a light, shaky voice as his fingers pulled out a hairpin at the nape of her neck. “Not in the back of a car with the driver inches away.”

  “We’re newlyweds and should do whatever we like,” he murmured before pulling her into an intense kiss.

  He silently extracted the remaining pins and she felt her hair tumble free over her jaw and shoulders as he eased her head back into the soft leather of the car seat. Helen clung to the fine fabric of his suit and quivered as his tongue entered her mouth and she matched him stroke for stroke as the kiss deepened. Their first kiss on the Condesa’s terrace hadn’t felt like this. That kiss, the one that sealed their immoral marriage deal, had felt more like a punishment, a warning, a proprietary branding. It had been hard and fierce, but she’d gone up in flames of lust for him even then. This time was different. This time she was melting. She was melting into his blistering kisses, helpless, like an ice cube on hot sand.

  Helen was more than a willing participant. She was now his wife, to have and to hold. And to kiss and to…have sex with for three months. She was lost to his touch and she wanted him to take her more than was sane. The Condesa was right. He would show her the ecstasy of his bed, fill her, empty her, and then destroy her. And she would let him, because there was no way she could resist the way he made her body feel. Her fate was decided.

  His mouth drifted to her neck and she arched with pleasure, her eyes opening as she did so. “Where are we going?” she suddenly asked, blinking to restore her vision. The street they were driving through seemed unfamiliar.

  “Our honeymoon,” Ricardo whispered against the soft skin over her collarbone and began to stroke her thigh beneath the hem of her wedding dress. “We just got married, remember?”

  Her body stiffened as his hand went higher. “But this isn’t the way we came yesterday, and all the road signs to Marbella are pointing the wrong way.”

  “Relax. We’re not going to Marbella.”

  A lance of panic sliced through her. She didn’t like being completely out of control of a situation. She was coming to her senses. “Tell me where we’re going immediately,” she replied sharply. “Or—”

  “Or you’ll scream? Call the police? Again? Honestly…” His tone was exasperated as he pulled back and stared at her. “You’ll notice that we are about to enter the harbor. The exclusive berth where my yacht is docked lies beyond that red and white barrier. Once we’re on board, you can go anywhere you like. She can go five thousand miles without refueling.”

  “Oh…”

  “Problem?”

  “Mal de mer.”

  “What?”

  Her stomach churned. “It doesn’t matter, but…” She dropped her bouquet onto the floor of the car. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Ricardo laughed awkwardly.

  Helen looked up with panic into his incredulous face and felt indignant fury as he did absolutely nothing. “Stop the bloody car,” she gasped. “I’m going to be really ill!”

  Finally realizing that she was serious, Ricardo rapped on the glass partition to get the driver to pull over. Wrenching open the car door, Helen tumbled out and lurched towards the quayside. The sea breeze was strong as it cut across the harbor, but nothing was going to quell the urgent nausea she was experiencing. She threw up within seconds. Between acrid retches, she touched her clammy forehead with shaking fingers. She was aware that Ricardo’s large hand brushed against her, hesitantly at first, then more confidently, rubbing comforting circles between her shoulder blades. He held out a snow-white handkerchief and put it under her nose as she convulsed towards the sea again.

  “I do hope there’s no one down there,” he said lightly. “Or they’re going to get quite an unpleasant shock when your breakfast hits them.”

  “Don’t be a disgusting pig, Ricardo,” Helen said between retches. She was reminding herself of a cat with fur balls, most unladylike. This really was the ultimate indignity.

  “Care to tell me what’s going on?” Ricardo said when Helen finally managed to stand upright. “I can’t believe the thought of being my wife is that abhorrent. Or do I really kiss that badly? You seem to have a daily episode of fainting or general wimpishness lately.” He gripped her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. “Dios! You’ve not turned to the bottle, have you? Bellinis for breakfast?” He made a point of sniffing suspiciously at her mouth.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Helen said, shrugging her shoulders angrily out of his grip. “If you must know, I’ve not been feeling quite right since we came back from England. I keep waking up with headaches, and I’ve had quite a few episodes of feeling sickly, but none as bad as today.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her face and inhaled the cool fresh air slowly. “It’s probably stress and the change of environment. I didn’t have much breakfast either, so it could be that.” She was quick to add, “not that Luisa didn’t do her best. She ordered up enough food for a week.”

  Ricardo took her pale face in his large brown hands. He studied her inquisitively for a moment or two. She was so tiny and delicate, like a seed pearl shining underwater, beautiful yet surprisingly resilient under pressure. He felt an unfamiliar lurch in the pit of his stomach, a twist of something he didn’t understand, and it unsettled him.

  “This is all my fault. I’ve driven you too hard, not noticed you were ill in my impatience to get today out of the way.” His expression was grim as he pulled her head to rest on the crisp white of his wedding shirt. “Let’s get you back in the car. We’ve not far to go and then you can rest. You need to be taken care of.”

  “I’m not sure taking me onto your boat is going to help matters. I was as sick as a dog for a week after my uncle took me mack
erel fishing. I’ve not been on the water since.”

  “Indalo is no trawler,” he muttered. “You’ll be fine.”

  …

  Doctor Romano looked at Ricardo sternly. “I’ve left her to rest now and told her that in no circumstances must she start taking those pills again. In fact, I’ve removed the supply she was prescribed in case she’s tempted.” He tossed the foil sachets into his black case and snapped it shut. “I know how these independent career women can be about such things, trying their best to control nature and events, but in this instance the medication is making your wife ill. It’s uncommon, but the contraceptive pill just doesn’t suit some women.”

  “I knew she should have consulted a decent private physician, not some tourist quack.”

  The doctor shrugged and picked up his bag. “Anyway, you’re married now, so it’s not something any self-respecting Almanza needs to worry about.” He regarded Ricardo mischievously over the horn rims of his spectacles. “So when the Senora is feeling better, enjoy your honeymoon, and give me a call when her period’s late.”

  As the cabin door closed quietly behind him, Ricardo’s fists clenched and his thoughts began to trip over each other in the rush. Subconsciously, the back of his hand flew to his mouth, as if to stifle a roar of anger. His lips made contact with the cool metal of his wedding band and crushing guilt smothered him.

  He was a beast. His pride and lust had cajoled her into a situation she didn’t want. He had behaved in a disgusting manner and was now feeling wretched with self-loathing. He could imagine the contempt Doctor Romano would have for him if he knew it was his big, clever idea to persuade Helen to go on the pill or similar, to satisfy his urgent physical longing for the woman without risk of repercussion. He shuddered as he imagined the old family physician’s reaction. You simply didn’t treat a woman like that.