The Billionaire Bundle

by Michele De Winton

  Relaxing in the shade of a cool vine-covered restaurant terrace, Helen lifted her sunglasses and propped them on top of her head. He’d promised at breakfast to bring her somewhere she’d simply love that morning, and she hadn’t been disappointed. Her first sightseeing tour of the island had been exhilarating and now she was looking forward to a good lunch. “It’s been fabulous, although I must say the drive up that mountain was pretty hair raising.”

  “Monte Toro?” Ricardo laughed and his eyes twinkled with mischief. “It’s only the highest mountain in Menorca.”

  “Yes, so you said as I was cowering with fear on the way up! A mere three hundred and fifty seven meters, wasn’t it?”

  “Well remembered. But you did get to see the entire island from up there, so you mustn’t complain.”

  “Not complaining. Very impressed. You even arranged for it to be a beautifully cloud free day.”

  He feigned a cough. “And the breeze helped blow the last of Tino’s smoke out of our lungs.”

  “Good job too. You snored last night…”

  “I shall ignore that. Now what would you like to drink. Beer? Wine? It’s a limited tariff but all sourced from around here, local and very good.”

  “White wine would be nice.” Helen ran her fingers over the scrolled edge of the table and picked up a white plastic covered menu. She turned it over in her hands curiously. “This is an intriguing place, you’d never know it was here. No sign outside, tucked away in a side street through a low archway. I thought it was someone’s house.”

  “It is someone’s house. Antonio’s house. It’s not listed anywhere, doesn’t need to be. His reputation as a chef is legendary on the island, one of our best kept secrets.” Ricardo winked. “He doesn’t speak a word of English, and if Antonio doesn’t like the look of you, you won’t be served. So best behavior, please.”

  Helen formed her mouth into a silent O and resisted the naughty urge to poke her tongue out. As Ricardo disappeared through an archway into the dark and mysterious interior of the old town house she looked around the empty terrace full of neatly set tables. They must be the first customers of the day. She certainly hadn’t been expecting this gem in the middle of nowhere. The little town at the foot of the mountain was unremarkable, but quaint and pleasant, off the tourist trail, though, if Ricardo’s description of it was accurate. The former hometown of a notorious gangster, where sunbathing and mini-skirts were frowned upon. So not like Ibiza and Marbella.

  Ricardo returned, carrying an ice bucket in one hand and two large, chilled glasses in the other. Helen watched him approach, the fabric of his white shirt stretching over hard knots of bicep as he moved. Just looking at him made her heart beat faster, and those long, muscular legs and narrow hips in black chinos made her mouth feel suddenly dry. The man was driving her to drink.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but Antonio insists on preparing us a selection of today’s specialties.” Ricardo filled their glasses from the condensation-beaded wine bottle. “I don’t think we’ll be disappointed.”

  “I’m not going to question Antonio after what you’ve told me. I’m hungry and don’t want to find myself out on my ear.” She took a sip of the golden liquid and shivered with pleasure as its sweet freshness trickled down her throat. “Although I’m really going to have to start easing up on the food out here. Lucia’s pastries every morning are bound to start taking a toll.”

  “I forbid you to even think about going on a stupid diet,” Ricardo said sternly. “Not only do we have some of the best food in the world here, but I have plenty of money to pay for it out here in the sunshine. So enjoy it all while you can. In three months you can go running back to your baked beans or whatever you normally eat in the rain in England, and all this will be a distant memory.”

  Helen appreciated the sentiment. Her nose suddenly picked up some intensely savory aromas. “Baked beans? Black cabbage, if you don’t mind. And a vast assortment of root vegetables.”

  “Exactly.” Ricardo folded his hands into a tepee shape and rested his chin on the points of his fingers. A small smile flickered across his lips as a young boy arrived with a wooden serving trolley. “Besides, I can’t think how you’re possibly going to be able to resist any of this.”

  “You may well have a point.” Helen felt her mouth begin to water as she scanned the delicacies being placed on the table in front of them.

  The shy-looking boy gestured towards a steaming bowl of gondola-shaped pasta with scampi, rocket and cherry tomatoes, cortecce, and then swept his long, thin arm grandly towards the second. “E benfatti.”

  Helen closed her eyes for a second and breathed in the unctuous steam coming from the plates. “Oh my God, they both smell amazing. Which one’s mine?”

  “We’re starry-eyed lovers. We share.”

  “Thank God I don’t have to make a decision.” Helen eyed the shiny pile of creamy linguine hungrily and breathed in the delicious aroma.

  “Smoked Monte Toro goat’s cheese, honey mushrooms, and basil from the back garden,” Ricardo said, as if he had been reading her mind.

  “So you really have been here before,” she said and adjusted her cutlery as Ricardo served them a large helping of each dish.

  “Of course,” he said with a crooked smile. “I know that all the pasta is freshly made by Antonio’s Italian wife and daughters. If you pop inside later, you’ll see them making it on a great big wooden table in the hall. It’s cool in there, so nothing dries out too quickly.”

  The boy scuttled off at the sound of a woman’s raised voice from indoors, and Helen took her first bite of food. The benfatti melted in her mouth and left a lingering tang of pungent wood smoke on her palate. It would be impossible not to eat the lot.

  “Good?” Ricardo speared a dark, silken mushroom with his fork.

  “Unbelievable.” Helen closed her eyes in reverence to the sweetest shellfish she had ever eaten. The flavors burst on her palate and sung of the sea and the pine forests. “I’m going to be the size of a semi-detached house in three months at this rate.”

  “Just make sure you make a fuss of Antonio when he comes out.” Ricardo chuckled. “He responds very well to praise, and he’s a devil when it comes to the ladies.”

  Helen shot him a cheeky look. “Aren’t you all?”

  “Some worse than others.” He tore open a crusty bread roll. “And I’ll go to extraordinary lengths to get a reduction on the bill, so lay it on thick.”

  Helen giggled as she examined the pea-pod shaped piece of pasta on the end of her fork. “This is lovely.” She bit slowly and thoughtfully on to the saucy morsel. “I’ve quite a long-standing interest in pasta, actually, so I’d really like to visit the kitchen later, if I may.”

  “I’m fascinated,” Ricardo said sardonically. “I thought pasta only came in tins in the UK.”

  “Ignoramus.” Helen frowned at him. “There’s durum wheat growing not far from our house I’ll have you know.”

  The young boy returned to collect their plates that had been wiped clean with pieces of rustic bread.

  “Don’t rush off, Pirro,” Ricardo said in Spanish. “Say hi to Helen. She won’t bite.”

  Pirro’s foal-like eyes flickered from Ricardo to Helen and back again. Then a shy smile spread across his face.

  “How’s school these days?” Ricardo winked at him. “Still turning up for your lessons, I hope?”

  Pirro nodded and his black hair trembled endearingly as he took the empty plates and put them on the bottom shelf of the trolley. “Papa got me a bike, so I can ride like the wind down the back lane, Tio Ricardo.”

  Ricardo eyes widened with drama. “And back up it again?”

  Pirro giggled and sneaked a quick glance at Helen. “Sometimes, but I usually cheat. Senor Garcia lets me hop on his bus when no one’s checking, just as long as I remember to bring him one of Mama’s cakes for his afternoon coffee.”

  Ricardo laughed and ruffled the boy’s head until he squeaked with protest. �
�Lazy toad! Let’s hope all that soccer practice is keeping you in shape, then!”

  Pirro puffed out his chest like an opera singer. “I am team captain, Ricardo,” he said proudly. “I told you I’d make it!”

  “Good lad! I knew all that hard work would pay off. Bravo!”

  Helen watched as the man and the boy became ever more animated, cuffing each other and joking like the old friends they obviously were, until a woman’s voice called out for the third time. Impatience was creeping into her tone.

  “You’d better scoot or Maria will be out to tell me off again,” Ricardo said as he took the new steaming plates Pirro had uncovered on the trolley and was now quickly handing to him.

  “Like a couple of weeks ago!” Pirro laughed over his shoulder as he trotted back towards the kitchen.

  Helen propped her chin on her hands and watched as Ricardo served them both from two enormous platters. One was filled with a plait of white fish on fried potatoes, scattered with walnuts and rosemary oil. The second was a fillet of pork on what looked like cottage cheese, drizzled with a sage cream.

  “Wow! Things just get better and better.”

  “I’m glad you’re impressed,” Ricardo said as he piled up their plates. “So tell me about Ibiza. What were you doing in town before Antonella got her shiny claws into you?”

  “A short-term contract in a salt company’s office. They needed translation support done on some promotional material. I think I managed to get in because my Spanish and computer skills are passable, and I was in the right place at the right time.”

  “So you said your contract was terminated. A bad girl, were you?”

  “You wish. No. Financial problems somewhere along the line, apparently. The office needed to be relocated to the mainland, that’s all I was told. Along with adios.”

  “It happens,” Ricardo murmured as he concentrated on his food. “How many languages do you speak? Spanish, Mandarin, Russian…”

  “A bit of Italian, French and a few words of German.”

  “Quite the achiever! It sounds like your talents were wasted in the Ibiza salt mines anyway.”

  Helen flicked away an insect. “It sounds impressive, but my degree was in Spanish, French, and Agriculture. The rest are what I’ve picked up on the side, just for the fun of it. There’s very little money in it, but languages come easily to me. Mum says I must have been a parrot in a previous life.” She shrugged and opened her eyes deliberately wide. “See? I’m chattering on and boring you silly without even trying.”

  “On the contrary. I’m fascinated.”

  He shot her a suggestive look and she couldn’t be sure if he was being sarcastic or if he really meant what he’d said, but either way her mind had now melted into jelly. “So you must come to this restaurant often?”

  He smiled. “Yes, as often as I can. The food is excellent, no one is nosy or sticking a camera in my face. It’s like being Mr. Average Anonymous for once. Sometimes there are definite downsides to being rich, influential and, dare I say it, an Almanza.”

  “It must be difficult guarding your privacy.”

  Ricardo stared into his wine for a moment. “I also like to visit often to keep an eye on Pirro. Poor kid had a really tough start in life. I’ve known him since the beginning. But Antonio and Maria have brought him up well—fresh air, freedom and honest work. The odd clip around the ear too, I expect.”

  “Never did you any harm, eh?” Helen said, her composure returning.

  “Sadly not. My papa was never around long enough to deliver the discipline. He’d always be back from business with gifts and kisses. Mama used to get very angry. But of course, we adored him for all that indulgence. He was more of a grandfather figure than a dad, I suppose. It was great at the time, but—” He thoughtfully ran a finger up the stem of his glass. “I don’t think it did us much good in the long run. Having to accept the word no is one of life’s hardest lessons. I still don’t like it.”

  “I could make a sarcastic remark, but I won’t.”

  Ricardo began to laugh as Pirro arrived with their desserts. “Got a girlfriend yet?” he asked as the boy put down the glass dishes.

  Pirro giggled and a color rose on his shiny round cheeks. “Not yet, Ricardo, but…” He leant to whisper something in Ricardo’s ear while pretending to rearrange the cutlery, until Ricardo sent him packing back off to the kitchen whooping with laughter.

  Helen’s eyebrows rose questioningly.

  “He said he likes the look of my girlfriend.”

  “Serves you right.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “For being such a dreadful man.” She took a spoonful of turrón ice cream and grinned. “Although you do seem a lot more relaxed and cheerful in Menorca. Or is that my imagination?”

  “It’s the wine, querida,” he said with a lethal grin and refilled her glass. “So let’s have some more.”

  Helen watched appreciatively as the wine bubbled into her glass, sparkling with hints of lime green in the sunshine. “Thank you.”

  “I think you’re pretty nice all the time,” he said quietly before scooping cinnamon mousse onto a sweet wafer biscuit. “Now that you’ve stopped snarling at me, that is.”

  “Have I ever done that?” Helen replied cautiously. “Snarled at you?”

  He gave her a serious look “It’s felt like it at times, considering we’re just helping each other out.”

  “Then I apologize.”

  “No need. I probably deserved it anyway.” He wiped his fingers on a napkin and then scraped back his chair. “I’ll get these back to the kitchen and see how my other favorite ladies are getting on. I won’t be long.”

  She watched as he walked back towards the house, dishes in hand, his dark head held high. Every movement he made sent bolts of awareness shooting through her. She shivered with the delicious sensation. No man had a right to be so damn attractive.

  She saw a gray-haired woman in the shadows of the main building entrance, presumably Maria, wipe her hands on a blue-and-white-striped apron. Ricardo bent down to kiss the top of her head and her short, shaky forearms reached up to cup his face. He submitted totally as the old lady fussed over his clothes, his hair, and if Helen wasn’t mistaken, she could hear Maria berate him for being too skinny and in need of a decent wife to feed him up.

  After a few minutes, Ricardo sauntered back towards Helen carrying coffee and briefly looked back over his shoulder. Maria and three young women were peering around the white stone doorway and giggled as they waved in Helen’s direction. Turning his attention back to her, his smile widened.

  “I told them. I hope you don’t mind, I just couldn’t help myself,” he whispered.

  “Told them what?”

  Ricardo leaned across the table and covered Helen’s tiny hand with his. “That we got married.”

  Helen winced. “Ah, that. They didn’t know? Are they angry with you? I’ll bet they hate me!”

  “Not a bit of it. They had no idea about us, no interest in celebrity gossip outside the village, but they’re ecstatic. Maria wants to bake us a special cake.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell her I could cook.”

  “The subject never arose. They’re all just happy I’ve finally found someone.”

  Helen felt herself being drawn into the amber fire of his eyes, and her heart skittered dramatically for a few seconds as his words sank in. She was married to this incredibly attractive, totally masculine, virile male. He was perfect husband material on the surface—older, wiser, stronger, and unapologetically dominant. She knew she should will away the sudden and irrational longing for their marriage to be real. She’d felt that way before, and knew it was dangerous.

  Her voice sounded husky. “Finally found someone? Someone like me?”

  “Why not? In another time, another place and in different circumstances it might have happened anyway.”

  “It?”

  He smiled and looked down into his coffee cup as it swirled around
a silver spoon. “Us.”

  “Highly unlikely, we live in different worlds. And, besides, you said the last thing you ever wanted to do was to get married.”

  “So did you.”

  A burst of sadness made her feel weak. The cold truth had intruded on their intimacy. The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them, an attempt to build a wall around her heart. “And I still feel the same.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I’m sure I want to go straight home, back into bed with you. Sure, I want to feel the hot weight of your body on mine. Sure, I’d have your babies if you wanted me to because…I’m falling in love with you.

  She pasted on a false smile. “Of course I’m sure.”

  She was shocked at the way her mind had rambled into forbidden territory. It had to be the wine, the sultry atmosphere…or just Ricardo and the lust he invoked. Torturous heat intensified between her tightly clamped thighs. He could suggest anything to her at that moment, and she would agree. She wanted him so badly again it hurt.

  Ricardo had never needed to pay her the extra million. He was destined to have her anyway. From that very first moment, as he stared down at her spread-eagled on the Condesa’s bed. The flashing citrine and jet of his eyes had made her heart stall. The sensuous curve of his lips, the angry flare of his nostrils, and the intense power of his hands at her throat were instantly thrilling. She’d been ready to submit to him there and then, within a minute of their worlds colliding. Facing up to the naked truth about how she felt about this man was deeply disturbing.

  She realized she was under his spell.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Do you remember the day we met?” Helen asked later, as they stood on the balcony of his bedroom, watching the sunset after another perfect honeymoon day.

  “How could I possibly forget?” he murmured into her hair, his arms winding around her slim waist as he stood behind her. “You were like a trapped animal in that room. An animal with a very attractive behind.”

  “Even in my horrible work pants?”

  “I’ve ripped them off in my fantasies many times, don’t you worry”