His Suitable Bride

by Cathy Williams/Abby Green/Kate Walker

  ‘One Montague bride is as good as any other when this was only meant to be a dynastic marriage …’ The callous words came back to haunt her from the night of the wedding that had never been.

  ‘I’ve come for you,’ he had said. And she had refused to believe that he had meant it. She’d even allowed herself to think, to dream, that he might actually be starting to feel something for her. That he had opened up to her because …

  ‘No!’

  Alexa slammed her clenched fist against her mouth to hold back the cry of distress that almost escaped her.

  No, there had to be some way out of this. She was not going to let this happen. One thing she was damn sure of was that she was not going down without a fight. Santos might think that he had what he wanted on a plate, but she’d see about that. Somehow.

  But first she had to get dressed. There was no way she could face the arrogant, manipulative swine while just wearing the blue robe that clung to her figure rather too tightly, the material so well-worn in places that in a certain light it was practically transparent. And she had nothing at all on underneath.

  A fact of which Santos, of course, was only too well aware. Alexa felt a hot tide of embarrassment flood her body at the thought of how easily he had been able to do exactly as he pleased with her. How he had had no problem at all in enticing her into bed. If she was strictly honest with herself, then she had to admit that she had practically done all the work for him. She had flung herself into his arms, into his bed …

  OK, into her bed, taking him with her. She had given herself to him without a thought. He must have thought that all his birthdays had come at once. And that his ruthless plan for a marriage of convenience had worked so perfectly.

  Well, she’d see about that, she told herself as she made her way upstairs to dress. If there was any way out of this she was going to find it. Santos Cordero had to learn that he couldn’t just walk in and take over people’s lives. Someone had to stand up to him …

  But why, oh why did it have to be her?

  She wished that she could have a shower, longed to stand under the hottest water and scrub her body hard in the vain hope that she could erase the memory of his touch, the imprint of his caresses and his kisses that she felt she wore like a brand that had been seared into her skin, marking her out as his like some slave girl of long ago who was her master’s property for life. But she didn’t dare to linger, knowing that if she stayed up here too long then Santos would get curious, and then impatient, and she feared that he would then come upstairs, following her to find out just what she was doing.

  He might arrive while she was still dressing and, even if she had the time to pull on her clothes before he arrived, just the thought of being in her bedroom, with the bedcovers still tangled from their passion of the night before, the sheets and pillowcases still holding the imprint of his body, the scent of his skin, was almost more than she could bear.

  And she had thought that she loved him!

  Her own foolish thoughts came back to haunt her as she made her way back down the stairs. How could she have believed herself in love with a man who manipulated people in this way? Who effectively bought a wife without ever offering her any sort of emotional commitment?

  A man who, when marriage to one wife had not materialised, simply turned to the next person on the list of prospective partners?

  ‘I’ve come for you …’ Well, she’d see about that.

  Outside the kitchen door, Alexa drew in a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and lifting her head, tilting her chin defiantly before she marched into the room.

  And knew immediately that she was only fooling herself if she tried to deny her feelings for this man. The sudden clenching of her heart at the sight of him where he sat at the small dining table, his black hair still crisply damp from his shower, his blue shirt hanging loose over the waistband of his jeans, his long legs stretched out and his bare feet crossed at the ankles, told its own story. There was no way on earth that she could deny the way she felt about this man. Feelings that at any other time would have led her to accept oh, so willingly the idea of marriage to him.

  Feelings that she must fight to suppress, to put right out of her mind if she was to be able to cope with the situation she now found herself in.

  ‘At last,’ Santos greeted her casually.

  ‘I wanted to get dressed.’ Alexa’s tone was stiff with the effort she was making to control it. ‘I feel better like this.’

  The look he slanted her from those pale eyes, skimming over her appearance in a clean pair of denim jeans and a soft green sweater, questioned her need to get dressed at all so clearly that she could almost guess at exactly what he was thinking. Why put on any clothes when he had every intention of taking them all off again very soon? that expression said, and determinedly Alexa set herself to ignore it. They were not going to be heading for bed at any time in the near future—never again if she had her way. When her weak and traitorous body cried out in protest and her eyes drank in the sight of him, long and lean and whipcord-strong as he lounged at the table, she forced herself back under control with a vicious effort and lifted her chin a touch higher, defying him to put his thoughts into words.

  But Santos either didn’t notice or decided not to comment if he did.

  ‘Your coffee’s over there …’

  He waved a hand in the direction of a mug that stood on the nearby worktop.

  ‘I poured it when I heard you on your way back down so it’s quite fresh.’

  Alexa marched over to the mug, snatched it up and, twisting round, emptied the contents sharply into the sink, watching with a mixture of satisfaction and regret as the brown liquid whirled around the plughole and then disappeared down the drainpipe. She would have loved a nice, reviving mug of coffee—in fact, there was nothing she would have liked better—but she felt that a gesture needed to be made and besides, there was the suspicion that the drink would choke her if she so much as attempted to swallow.

  Santos watched her actions with narrowed eyes, just one eyebrow slightly raised to question her response.

  ‘Something wrong with that?’ he drawled lazily, but the gaze that he fixed on her face was anything but indolent. Behind those thick black lashes, the pale eyes gleamed so intently that she almost felt the burn of them on her skin.

  ‘This isn’t going to work, Santos!’ she declared, deciding to jump straight into confrontation rather than dance around the topic for a moment.

  ‘What isn’t going to work?’

  ‘This scheme you’ve come up with to get yourself a wife by blackmail.’

  ‘You’ve talked to your father.’ It was cold and flat and hard.

  ‘Yes, I’ve talked to my father—that is what you advised yesterday if you recall …’

  Just why had he done that? Why had he not come right out and explained the situation, enjoying the power game, as she might have expected? Because she wouldn’t have believed him? Or could there be some other possible reason?

  ‘So now I know what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘What your father has been up to,’ Santos corrected, cold and stiff and totally impassive. The atmosphere in the room had iced over as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees or more so that she almost expected to see her breath steam in the air as it did outdoors.

  ‘Well, yes, what he did was very wrong, and of course he can’t just get away with that. But I know why he did it. He did it for Petra. He always was a fool where she was concerned and he could never refuse her anything. She never understood about the burden of death duties when Grandpa died, and she just went on spending and spending. The money will have to be paid back.’

  ‘You say that so very glibly.’ Santos put his own mug down on the table and leaned forward, watching her intently. ‘Did your father happen to mention just how much money was involved?’

  ‘It was obviously a lot.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Santos drawled and named an amount that had her mout
h dropping open in horror as she grabbed at a nearby chair for support. ‘You really didn’t know?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Do you really think that I would concern myself with anything less?’

  ‘I …’ Alexa tried again but her mind was spinning in shock and dismay. She felt as if the ground she was standing on had suddenly started to crumble beneath her and large cracks were opening up, threatening to send her flying into some dreadful great cavern.

  Of course, she should have known—or at least suspected. It was no wonder that her father had been looking ill and grey. The evidence was there in the hysteria that had gripped Petra, the pallor of Stanley’s drawn, worried face on the wedding day. And before that it had been in the impossibly extravagant lifestyle her father, stepmother and half-sister had been living over the past couple a years. A lifestyle she hadn’t thought to enquire into. But then, deep down, she knew that if she had asked no one would have told her anything. Just as they hadn’t told her anything about the circumstances of the wedding. Not until now, when they thought that she could do something to help.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed at last. ‘I never realised it was as bad as that. But do you really think that any amount of money justifies playing with people’s lives? Manipulating them into marrying you whether they want to or not?’

  Santos sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, flexing his shoulders as if to ease some intolerable tension there.

  ‘When I said that you should talk to your father, I had thought that you would get confirmation of the truth. I did not manipulate your sister into marrying me. She made it plain that she was attracted to me, and that my wealth was no small part of that attraction. She was the one who suggested marriage.’

  If he’d told her this on the day of the wedding, she would have refuted it angrily, Alexa acknowledged. Now she no longer had the luxury of doubting it.

  And that forced her to look back at the things that Natalie had said that had pushed her into action.

  ‘I thought I could do this, Lexa,’ her sister had said. ‘I really wanted to—but it just isn’t going to work now. If John hadn’t come into my life I would have gone ahead … but he did … and meeting him has changed everything.’

  Natalie had never really told her the full truth. She’d never fully admitted how one part of her loved the prospect of being Santos’s bride. The thought of the money and the celebrity, the excitement of being in all the lifestyle magazines. But meeting the man she really cared for had brought her up short, making her realize she needed so much more—emotionally—if she was going to commit herself to marriage.

  ‘She knew that I wanted heirs to my fortune, and that being linked with the Montague name would open doors in society where money would not. And she wanted the lifestyle she’d always had. So she suggested a plan that would be of mutual benefit.’

  And not believing in love—believing himself to be unlovable—Santos had found in that proposition the answer to everything he wanted.

  ‘I would have been good to her, Alexa. She would never have wanted for anything. And of course, if she was my wife, then I could hardly prosecute my father-in-law. But I would have him where I could see him and I’d be able to keep a very close eye on anything he and his wife got up to.’

  ‘Not prosecuting him—that wasn’t part of the bargain?’

  She read the answer in his face, but he obviously needed to confirm it.

  ‘I don’t even know how much Natalie was aware of her father’s position. She knew he had money troubles, but I doubt if she knew just how they’d come about.’

  ‘But in the end that wasn’t enough for her. Not when she met John.’

  ‘No, she surprised me there,’ Santos admitted thoughtfully. ‘This new man must be something special.’

  Just for a moment Alexa wondered if he might actually take that thought a little further, if he would use the word ‘love’ as the one thing her sister had wanted more than money. But when Santos spoke again she knew a terrible sense of disappointment.

  ‘But it left me with a problem. Your father still owed me the money.’

  ‘And so you decided, quite cold-bloodedly, that I could replace my sister. No?’ she questioned when he shook his head slowly.

  ‘No, Alexa. Never that. Can’t you see that there is never anything I do where you are concerned that is cold-blooded? The truth is the exact opposite. You heat my blood until I can’t think straight. You make me do crazy things.’

  Now Alexa really needed the chair she was holding on to. Her legs had turned to cotton wool beneath her and she had to sit down before she fell down. But as she sank into the seat opposite him Santos pushed his chair back with a rough, scraping sound and got to his feet, swinging away to pace restlessly around the kitchen. And that felt far worse than before because, sitting down, she was so much more aware of how big and dark and dangerously imposing he was.

  ‘Wh-what sort of things?’

  ‘Things I would never have imagined were possible. Things like coming here to return a pair of shoes that I hated the sight of because they reminded me of how badly they had damaged your feet.’

  ‘You said you had come for me.’ Her voice shook with the combination of laughter and tears that that last sentence had created.

  ‘And I had. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I wanted you so badly that I couldn’t stay away. And I knew that you wanted me too. Of course, it also solved the problem of your father …’

  ‘Of course,’

  Alexa’s voice was low, shaken. But then what else had she expected?

  Had she really thought that there would be a wild declaration of love after all this? That Santos would suddenly find that most vital emotion had been locked away in his heart all that time? He didn’t believe in love, didn’t even know what it was, so how could he feel it? He wanted her, that was all. It might be enough for him. But it wasn’t enough for her.

  She loved this man desperately. But could she love enough for the two of them? She didn’t think so.

  She might love him now but without being loved back, without anything to feed it then would that love be strong enough to survive? Could she love this man for the rest of her life and know that he did not love her without it destroying her, leaving her empty and broken because she was getting nothing in return?

  Nothing but the burning passion which was all he felt now. And which one day, inevitably, must surely burn itself out.

  ‘And so you came here to demand that I marry you.’

  ‘Not demand. It was what you wanted too.’

  ‘No.’

  She forced herself to say it and knew from the way that he suddenly stopped pacing, the way he spun on his heel, whirling round to face her, that she had shocked him almost as much as she had shocked herself by flinging the single syllable out into the room, splintering the atmosphere with its force.

  ‘No,’ she managed again but with less strength this time. Deep inside she could feel the way that the tension in the atmosphere had started to reach her chest. It was constricting her lungs, making it almost impossible to breathe, and there was a terrible sensation as if some hard, cruel hand had reached in to take hold of her heart, crushing and twisting it brutally, threatening to rip it right in two.

  She had to say this because it was the only way she could survive in the long run, but saying it right here and now was almost more than she could bear. It was destroying her, smashing her self and her love into tiny little pieces, and yet she had no alternative but to do it.

  ‘No?’

  If she had reached out and slapped him right in the face then Santos could not have sounded more stunned, more shocked. His pale eyes were so clouded that the soft grey was almost opaque and she could read nothing of his thoughts in them.

  With a huge effort of will Alexa forced herself to her feet, making herself face him, look into those shuttered eyes, though the expression in them made her tremble all over, her mouth drying painfully over the words sh
e needed to force out.

  ‘No, I don’t want to marry you.’

  ‘Liar.’ It was low and soft but deadly, like a striking snake. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Oh, but I do.’ Somehow she found the strength to say it. ‘I don’t want to marry you, not when it is just a way of paying my father’s debts, saving him from being prosecuted …’

  ‘All right!’

  Santos flung up his hands in a gesture that almost looked like defeat.

  ‘All right—let’s take your father out of this. Let this just be between you and me.’

  If her head had been spinning before, now she felt as if it might actually explode from the pressure of trying to contain the number of wild, whirling and totally contradictory thoughts within it. He couldn’t mean what he seemed to be saying—he just couldn’t.

  ‘I don’t understand—what do you mean?’

  ‘We will forget about your father—’

  ‘I can’t! What he did was wrong. I’ve accused you of using people—but he can be just as bad. I know that he told you where to find me.’

  Those silvery eyes were strangely gentle as if he understood just what she was going through—which, of course, he did.

  ‘That was his poisonous wife. He only stood back and let her do it.’

  Putting his palms and fingers together as people did when they were praying, Santos used both his hands to emphasise his words as he spoke.

  ‘I will forget about the money your father stole from me. I’ll write off his debts—forget the idea of prosecution—clear the whole thing. I’ll find it far harder to accept that he was prepared to use you to save his own skin. I doubt if I will ever forgive him for that. But if you ask me to then I will—if you’ll marry me.’

  Accept it! Alexa’s heart screamed, desperate to agree. Accept it, you fool; it’s as much as you’re going to get. Accept it and don’t ask for more. You can be happy with this.

  Happy for now.