by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie
Cecily lifted her gaze expectantly to the attractive brunette as she sat down, knots tangling her stomach.
“Did you find him?”
Victoria nodded. “There was a slight issue, however. Colt Banyon does not exist.”
Cecily shook her head, confused. “But you just said you found him.”
“I found the man who was posing as Colt Banyon.” Victoria set her gray-blue gaze on Cecily. “There are no Banyons in New Mexico with any connection to the man who worked here. The man who worked for you fabricated his identity. A very sophisticated fabrication I might add.”
Bemusement wrapped her brain in a gray haze. Why would Colt do that? What had he needed to hide? There had to be a logical explanation for it.
“I ran the photo you gave me from the party through my database,” Victoria continued, “minus the facial hair. Colt’s real name is Alejandro Salazar. He—”
The crash of china reverberated through the café, attracting stares from the clientele. Cecily looked down at the broken pieces of her cup littering the floor, then back up at Victoria, her brain frozen. There must be some mistake. It was not possible Colt could be Alejandro Salazar, the billionaire heir of her family’s greatest rival. He could not have been working at Esmerelda.
There was no mistake, Victoria assured her as the girl from the shop came by with a broom to clean up her mess. She’d tracked Alejandro Salazar’s movements during that time. He’d been in Kentucky. Colt was Alejandro.
She sat there in a daze after Victoria left, the world tilting on its axis. She was pregnant with Alejandro Salazar’s baby. It was utterly, completely incomprehensible. She’d seen pictures of him of course, years ago, but he’d been clean shaven at a society event, nothing like the man who’d worked at Esmerelda.
Clasping her fingers around the new cup of tea the shop girl had insisted on bringing her, she fought to make sense of it all. What had Alejandro been doing here? Why had he been posing as a groom?
She’d never understood the ridiculous feud their two families were embroiled in. Had asked her parents about it multiple times only to be told the crazy rumors that Zeus’s line had somehow been stolen from the Salazars were all in Adriana Salazar’s delusional head.
Her heart dropped, fingers curling tight around the cup. Had Alejandro’s presence here had something to do with that? Was he out to hurt her family?
Betrayal, hot and debilitating, slid through her. She’d thought she’d known him. That he’d cared about her. That he’d wanted her for who she was. When was she going to learn?
Davis had convinced her he’d wanted her too. She’d been so sure, so convinced he’d loved her she’d swanned all over town picking out china patterns, sending out rose-embossed wedding invitations, before she’d found out three weeks before the wedding from his drunken best man that her fiancé had a mistress he intended to keep. That instead of being the love of Davis’s life, she had been a politically advantageous match chosen for her name and fortune.
Don’t be so naïve, he’d raged at her when she’d broken things off. Marriages have nothing to do with love. Apparently she had been that naive, because it turned out she was the only one who hadn’t seemed to know about her fiancé’s dalliances.
Her teeth sank into her lip, the salt tang of blood staining her mouth. She’d promised herself she’d never let anyone hurt her that badly again. Use her that way. She’d let Colt—Alejandro—in for the precise reason she’d believed he was different.
Once again, she’d been a fool.
She moved a numb gaze to the manila folder on the table. She should go home right now and tell her father. God knew what Alejandro Salazar’s intentions were. But she couldn’t do that—not with the explosive secret she carried. Not when her entire future depended on finding out what the truth was.
The only place she was going to find that was in New York.
CHAPTER SIX
“I HAVE YOUR PROOF.”
Alejandro unfolded himself from his chair, stood, cell phone pressed to his ear and prowled to the floor-to-ceiling windows of his Manhattan office, a spectacular view of the Hudson River spread out before him.
“How accurate are your results?” he asked Stavros.
“Indisputable.”
Satisfaction warmed his veins. “Courier them to me?”
“Already on the way.” His friend took a sip of what was undoubtedly a double espresso served extra hot by his ever efficient PA. “Does this mean you’ll have more time to devote to your friends now? At this rate it’ll be Sebastien’s thing before I see you.”
Alejandro scowled. “It’s his fault I’m so snowed under. If this damn party was anything but his anniversary celebration, I’d be saying thanks but no thanks.”
“Aren’t you even the least bit curious to meet my wife?”
Immeasurably. Meeting the woman who had somehow maneuvered Stavros into marriage was at the top of his personal priority list. Unfortunately, his hellish work schedule was derailing that plan.
“My curiosity will have to wait a couple of weeks.”
“Kala.” His friend took another sip of java. “I have a name to run by you. Guy by the name of Brandon Underwood—an old acquaintance of my wife’s. He’s in the race horse business.”
Alejandro’s lip curled. “Old money. Brandon’s a spoiled rich boy with aspirations to follow in his senator daddy’s footsteps. The Underwoods keep the rug swept so clean, you know there’s dirt underneath.”
“Good to know.”
“You jealous of boy Underwood?”
“Hardly.” Stavros shrugged the inquiry off as he always did anything that went more than surface deep. “You planning on bringing a plus-one to Sebastien’s thing?”
He hadn’t decided that yet. Given he was the only one flying solo, it had been tempting to pick up the phone and call the lawyer he’d met at the gym a few weeks ago, a beautiful brunette who’d made it patently clear she was waiting for his phone call. But he couldn’t seem to do it.
Not even a vision of Brigitte’s chic, chin-length bob, svelte figure and endless legs could strip his head of a certain voluptuous blonde who’d ridden him to within an inch of his life and left him wanting more. His body still seemed programmed for tiny, stacked females with an attitude.
“Might fly solo,” he murmured absentmindedly, as his PA, Deseree, stuck her head in his office and gave him a five-minute signal. “I have a board meeting, I have to go. See you next week.”
Stavros signed off. Pocketing the phone, Alejandro rifled through the papers on his desk. A frown creased his brow. “Des—” he called, walking to the door, “I can’t seem to find that European market report. Can you scare up a—” the words froze in his mouth as he recognized the woman standing in front of his PA’s desk.
Clad in a cream dress made of some soft material that hugged every memorable curve, a sky high pair of stilettos, her honey blonde hair a smooth silk curtain that fell over her shoulders, Cecily looked every bit New York chic. Gorgeous. But it was the icy glitter in her beautiful blue eyes that commanded his attention.
Por amor a Deus. She knew.
Dust in his throat, gravel in his mouth. What the hell was she doing here?
Deseree stared at them with unabashed fascination. He snapped his stunned brain back into working order. He needed to defuse this…fast.
“Tell my father to start the meeting without me.”
Deseree’s jaw dropped. Salazar board meetings were a sacred thing. His father, Estevao Salazar, the Chairman of the Board, was known for his legendary temper tantrums over the tardiness of its members to his strictly laid out quarterly meetings. A true professional, however, Deseree didn’t miss a beat, simply picked up the phone and started dialing.
Alejandro gestured toward his office. “After you.”
<
br /> Cecily turned on her heel and stalked inside. Her back a band of pure iron, fire sparking from every inch of her tiny frame, her amazing backside set off to perfection in the form fitting dress, she sent a wave of lust coursing through him that defied rationality. Now was not the time.
He closed the door with a soft click. Faced the firebrand in front of him. Hands clenched by her sides, a flush staining her cheeks, she was clearly furious. He thought he might start with an apology.
“Eu sinto muito, Cecily,” he murmured, holding her gaze. I’m sorry. “I never intended to hurt you. I tried to take a step back, you know I did.”
Eyes darkening, she lifted her hand and slapped him across the face. Hard.
“I deserved that,” he said evenly, jaw reverberating with the force of it. “I deserve your anger. Now let’s sit down and be rational about this. Let me explain.”
“Rational?” She planted her hands on her hips. “You would like me to be rational? You came to work for my family under false pretenses. You lied to me and everyone else who trusted you, cared about you. You’re lucky I haven’t gone to the police.”
He forced himself not to smile at how cute police came out in her feminine southern drawl. That would not help matters. “I haven’t broken any laws,” he returned smoothly. Well, maybe one or two small ones. “I applied for a job, was accepted and carried out my responsibilities.”
“Why? What were you doing there?”
He leaned a hip against his desk. “Your family stole something from mine. I came to get proof.”
She frowned. “Are you talking about Zeus? Does this have something to do with that crazy rumor you mentioned on our picnic?”
“It’s not a rumor. Your grandfather illegally bred his mare Demeter to Diablo when Diablo was on loan to an American breeder, which means the whole backbone of your showjumping line is based on a lie. I have proof.”
The color drained from her face. “What kind of proof?”
“I had Bacchus’s DNA tested. He is irrefutably of Diablo’s blood, not Nightshade’s.”
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered, skin a chalky white. “My parents told me it wasn’t true.”
“The testing was done in an internationally respected lab. There is no doubt as to its veracity.”
She turned and walked to the window. Palm pressed to the glass, her slight shoulders stooped, body vibrating with emotion, he had to bite back the urge to touch her, to comfort her, because he couldn’t do that anymore. He was the enemy.
She turned and leaned against the sill, those dark bruises in her eyes he hated. “Even if this is true, it happened decades ago. It’s ancient history. Why can’t you let it go?”
“Because your family stole something from mine and built a legacy around it. You profited immeasurably from it not only financially but in reputation, while I might add, throwing it in my family’s face. It was a crime. It needs to be paid for.”
Her mouth twisted. “Adriana is operating on bitterness. She and my grandmother had the biggest rivalry in the business. Adriana could never accept that my grandmother ended up on top. But she is dead now, Alejandro. There is no more skin to flay.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Your family is still profiting from what it stole. My grandmother should have owned that glory. She will never rest until history is corrected.”
“Why didn’t she just move on?” She shook her head. “She had as many opportunities to breed Diablo as we did. Maybe we just did it better.”
He flinched at the typically superior Hargrove response. “Diablo fell ill when he returned to Belgium.” The words left his mouth on a scalpel’s edge. “He was never able to sire any more offspring. Zeus was his last.”
The blue of her irises expanded. Clearly she hadn’t been privy to all the history—the depth to which her family had so completely destroyed his grandmother’s legacy.
“What do you intend to do?”
“Take it to court. Extract all the damages my grandmother is due. Make it known the Hargrove legacy is built on a lie.”
Her eyes darkened. “My father will never allow it. All it’s going to do is create a media furor and drag both our family’s names through the mud, only to be left with a truth that no longer means anything.”
His blood heated. “It’s a question of honor, something your family would have little idea of.”
“Honor at what price?”
She looked so small, shaken, vulnerable, his heart contracted. “I’ve insisted Bacchus be left out of it. I will not see you two separated. That’s the best I can do.”
“How big of you.” Her mouth curled. “You will save Bacchus while you destroy my family.”
He studied her. Noted the dark shadows underneath her eyes. They were new—making her look even more bruised. Since he knew she’d finished in third place in Geneva, had checked the standings, he wondered why they were there. Why did she look as if a burst of air might blow her away?
“Why are you here?” he asked softly. “How did you know?”
“I hired a PI.” She stared at him for a long moment, as if waging an internal battle, then losing the war as a breath escaped her. “Was any of it real? Who you are? The way we were together?”
It was his chance, he knew, to restore sanity to the situation. To cut this off now. To let her think it hadn’t meant anything to him to make it easier for both of them in the long run. But he was as incapable of hurting her now as he had been from the beginning.
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “What we had was real, Cecily. But it was a mistake on my part. It never should have happened.”
“That’s right,” she countered, hurt radiating in those big eyes. “I begged you to take me to bed and you are such a man, you kindly obliged me.”
He took a step toward her. “That’s not how it was.”
She held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Just to set the record straight—in case you think I was pining away for you, so love struck after that memorable night you gave me, I couldn’t stay away—perhaps I should tell you the reason I hired a PI to find you. I am pregnant, Alejandro. How would you like to deal with that? How does that fit into this revenge plan of yours?”
His stomach dropped. “That’s not possible. We used condoms.”
“Condoms fail.” Her expression was utterly flat. “Clearly they do because two pregnancy tests and a doctor have now confirmed it is possible.”
His knees went weak. He wasn’t about to question if it was his because he knew it was. Knew her.
The room swayed around him in a dizzying array of colors, his life as he knew it unraveling so fast it was like he’d lost control of the delicate rigging on his boat and was plunging fast toward a murky bottom.
“This is clearly a development we need to discuss.”
Her eyes morphed to a deep, dark blue. “You think so? You intend on destroying my family, Alejandro. You lied to me from the first moment I met you. Why in the world would I have a civilized discussion with you about our baby? Seems to me, this conversation is over.”
“Cecily—”
She backed up, eyes on his. “I don’t even know who you are. How can I trust you with anything?”
Face shattering, she turned around, flung the door open and left.
* * *
Feeling as if a stiff whiskey was in order, Alejandro took himself to the executive conference room down the hallway instead, where the board meeting was in progress. But not before he dialed his driver and told him to follow Cecily when she left the building. Letting the little spitfire loose in New York with her explosive news wasn’t a risk he was willing to take with a potential scandal in the making.
His father held court delivering the opening remarks as he slipped silently into his seat. Estevao Salazar stopped talking as he did
, his piercing dark stare directed at his son. Alejandro ignored it and motioned for him to continue, head spinning too much to contemplate delivering the agenda.
“Soliciting unnecessary grief?” Joaquim murmured from beside him.
He gave his brother a black look, the irony of the remark sinking deep. How could he have been so stupid to have risked something like this with Cecily? He had told himself it wasn’t a good idea to get involved with her. Had known the thin line he was walking. And what had he done? Let his lust and weakness for a blonde with big blue eyes and a vulnerable streak a mile-wide override his better judgment.
Maldita sea. Damn it to hell.
His father moved on to the first agenda item. He sat back in his chair. This was a disaster. Not an exaggeration when his grandmother refused to step foot in a room with a Hargrove. When Stavros had just delivered him the proof he needed to bring Cecily’s family to its knees.
What was his family going to say when he casually announced he’d fathered a child with a Hargrove? What was Clayton Hargrove going to say when his daughter revealed she was pregnant with his child?
If he was in a mess, Cecily was in a worse one. She couldn’t ride in the world championships now—at least she wouldn’t if she were wise. A massive blow when she’d finally made it back to where she needed to be.
He wondered how she was handling it. Not well, he ventured, recalling her pale face. Those dark shadows ringing her eyes… She’d been carrying this around with her, no doubt trying to figure out what to do, his deception compounding the problem.
He shifted in his chair, the room feeling excessively hot. Loosened his tie. They would have this baby, of course. He might be one of the most commitment phobic creatures ever to roam this earth, but this was his flesh and blood. His heir. Becoming a father was a responsibility he would never shirk, particularly given the poor example his own had been.
Estevao Salazar had only ever been interested in raising a successor, not a son. His insatiable lust for power and the adulation that came with it had torn his family apart, his father’s affairs driving Alejandro’s mother across the ocean to pursue her riding career when their marriage disintegrated, leaving he and Joaquim to fend for themselves in their American boarding school.
