by Abby Green
Cruz stood at the window in his drawing room and watched his brother handing Trinity into the passenger seat of a dark Jeep in the forecourt outside the house, before he got into the driver’s seat himself.
He felt grim. All he could do now was be there to pick up the pieces of Rio’s financial meltdown and do his best to ensure that Rio got a chance to start again—and that his wife didn’t get her grasping hands on another cent.
At the last second, as if hearing his thoughts, Trinity turned her head to look at Cruz through the ground-floor window. For a fleeting moment their eyes met, and he could have sworn he saw hers shimmer with moisture, even from this distance.
He told himself they had to be tears of anger now that she knew she’d been found out. She was trapped in a situation of her own making. It should have filled Cruz with a sense of satisfaction, but instead all he felt was a heavy weight in his chest.
Rio’s Jeep took off with a spurt of gravel.
Cruz didn’t realise it then, but it would be the last time he saw his brother alive.
CHAPTER ONE
Three months later. Solicitor’s office.
TRINITY’S HEART STOPPED and her mouth dried. ‘Mr De Carrillo is joining us?’
The solicitor glanced at her distractedly, looking for a paper on his overcrowded desktop. ‘Yes—he is the executor of his brother’s will, and we are in his building,’ he pointed out redundantly.
She’d been acutely aware that she was in the impressive De Carrillo building in London’s bustling financial zone, but it hadn’t actually occurred to her that Cruz himself would be here.
To her shame, her first instinct was to check her appearance—which of course she couldn’t do, but she was glad of the choice of clothing she’d made: dark loose trousers and a grey silk shirt. She’d tied her long hair back in a braid, as much out of habit when dealing with small energetic boys than for any other reason. She hadn’t put on any make-up and regretted that now, fearing she must look about eighteen.
Just then there was a light knock on the door and it opened. She heard Mr Drew’s assistant saying in a suspiciously breathless and awestruck voice, ‘Mr De Carrillo, sir.’
The solicitor stood up, immediately obsequious, greeting Cruz De Carrillo effusively and leading him to a seat beside Trinity’s on the other side of his desk.
Every nerve came to immediate and tingling life. The tiny hairs on her arms stood up, quivering. She lamented her uncontrollable reaction—would she ever not react to him?
She sensed him come to stand near her, tall and effortlessly intimidating. Childishly, she wanted to avoid looking at him. His scent was a tantalising mix of musk and something earthy and masculine. It was his scent now that sent her hurtling back to that cataclysmic evening in his house three months ago, when she’d realised just how badly Rio had betrayed her.
The shock of knowing that Rio obviously hadn’t told him the truth about their marriage was still palpable, even now. And the fact that Cruz had so readily believed the worst of her hurt far worse than it should.
It had hurt almost as much as when he’d looked at her with dawning horror and self-disgust after kissing her to within an inch of her life. It was an experience still seared onto her brain, so deeply embedded inside her that she sometimes woke from X-rated dreams, tangled amongst her sheets and sweating. Almost two years later it was beyond humiliating.
Trinity dragged her mind away from that disturbing labyrinth of memories. She had more important things to deal with now. Because three months ago, while she and Rio had been driving home from Cruz’s house, they’d been involved in a car crash and Rio had tragically died.
Since that day she’d become lone step-parent to Mateo and Sancho, Rio’s two-and-a-half-year-old twins. Miraculously, she’d escaped from the accident with only cuts and bruises and a badly sprained ankle. She had no memory of the actual accident—only recalled waking in the hospital feeling battered all over and learning of her husband’s death from a grim and ashen-faced Cruz.
Gathering her composure, she stood up to face him, steeling herself against his effect. Which was useless. As soon as she looked at him it was like a blow to her solar plexus.
She’d seen him since the night of the accident—at the funeral, of course, and then when he’d called at the house for brief perfunctory visits to check that she and his nephews had everything they needed. He hadn’t engaged with her beyond that. Her skin prickled now with foreboding. She had a sense that he’d merely been biding his time.
She forced herself to say, as calmly as she could, ‘Cruz.’
‘Trinity.’
His voice reverberated deep inside her, even as he oozed his habitual icy control.
The solicitor had gone back around his desk and said now, ‘Espresso, wasn’t it, Mr De Carrillo?’
Trinity blinked and looked to see the older gentleman holding out a small cup and saucer. Instinctively, because she was closer and because it was good manners, she reached for it to hand it to Cruz, only belatedly realising that her hand was trembling.
She prayed he wouldn’t notice the tremor as she held out the delicate china to him. His hand was masculine and square. Strong. Long fingers...short, functional nails. At that moment she had a flash of remembering how his hand had felt between her legs, stroking her intimately...
Just before he took the cup and saucer there was a tiny clatter of porcelain on porcelain, evidence of her frayed nerves. Damn.
When he had the cup she sat down again quickly, before she made a complete fool of herself, and took a quick fortifying sip of her own cup of tea. He sat down too, and she was aware of his powerful body taking up a lot of space.
While Mr. Drew engaged Cruz De Carrillo in light conversation, before they started discussing the terms of Rio’s will, Trinity risked another glance at the man just a couple of feet to her left.
Short dark blond hair gave more than a hint of his supremely controlled nature. Controlled except for that momentary lapse...an undoubtedly rare moment of heated insanity with someone he’d seen as far beneath him.
Trinity crushed the spike of emotion. She couldn’t afford it.
Despite the urbane uniform of a three-piece suit, his impressive build was apparent. Muscles pushed at the fabric in a way that said he couldn’t be contained, no matter how civilised he might look.
His face was a stunning portrait of masculine beauty, all hard lines and an aquiline profile that spoke of a pure and powerful bloodline. He had deep-set eyes and a mouth that on anyone else would have looked ridiculously sensual. Right now though, it looked stern. Disapproving.
Trinity realised that she was staring at him, and when he turned to look at her she went puce. She quickly turned back to the solicitor, who had stopped talking and was now looking from her to Cruz nervously, as if he could sense the tension in the room.
He cleared his throat. ‘As you’re both here now, I see no reason not to start.’
‘If you would be so kind.’
Trinity shivered at the barely veiled impatience in Cruz’s voice. She could recall only too well how this man had reduced grown men and women to quivering wrecks with just a disdainful look from those glittering dark amber eyes.
The half-brothers hadn’t been very alike—where Rio had been dark, with obsidian eyes and dark hair, Cruz possessed a cold, tawny beauty that had always made Trinity think of dark ice over simmering heat. She shivered...she’d felt that heat.
‘Mrs De Carrillo...?’
Trinity blinked and flushed at being caught out again. The solicitor’s impatient expression came into focus. He was holding out a sheaf of papers and she reached for them.
‘I’m sorry.’ It still felt weird to be called Mrs De Carrillo—it wasn’t as if she’d ever really been Rio’s wife.
She quickly read the heading: Last
will and testament of Rio De Carrillo. Her heart squeezed as she thought of the fact that Mateo and Sancho had now lost both their parents, too prematurely.
As bitter as her experience had been with Rio in the end, after Trinity had been sickened to realise just how manipulative he’d been, and how naive she’d been, she’d never in a million years have wished him gone.
She’d felt a level of grief that had surprised her, considering the fact that their marriage had been in name only—for the convenience of having a steady mother figure for the boys and because Rio had wanted to promote a more settled image to further his own ambitions.
Trinity had agreed to the union for those and myriad other reasons—the most compelling of which had to do with her bond with the twins, which had been forged almost as soon as she’d seen them. Two one-year-old cherubs, with dark hair, dark mischievous eyes and heart-stopping smiles.
Her heart had gone out to them because they were motherless, as she had been since she was a baby, and they’d latched on to her with a ferocity that she hadn’t been able to resist, even though she’d known it would be more professional to try and keep some distance.
She’d also agreed because Rio’s sad personal story—he had been all but abandoned by his own parents—had again chimed with echoes of her own. And because he’d agreed to help her fulfil her deepest ambitions—to go to university and get a degree, thereby putting her in a position to forge her own future, free of the stain of her ignominious past.
Rio hadn’t revealed the full extent of his ambitions until shortly before the accident—and that was when she’d realised why he’d taken such perverse pleasure in marrying her. It had had far more to do with his long-held simmering resentment towards his older half-brother than any real desire to forge a sense of security for his sons, or to shake off his playboy moniker...
The solicitor was speaking. ‘As you’ll see, it’s a relatively short document. There’s really no need to read through it all now. Suffice to say that Mr De Carrillo bequeathed everything to his sons, Mateo and Sancho, and he named you their legal guardian, Trinity.’
She looked up. She’d known that Rio had named her guardian. Any concerns she’d had at the time, contemplating such a huge responsibility had been eclipsed by the overwhelmingly protective instinct she’d felt for the twins. And in all honesty the prospect of one day becoming their guardian hadn’t felt remotely possible.
She realised that she hadn’t really considered what this meant for her own future now. It was something she’d been good at blocking out in the last three months, after the shock of the accident and Rio’s death, not to mention getting over her own injuries and caring for two highly precocious and energetic boys. It was as if she was afraid to let the enormity of it all sink in.
The solicitor looked at Cruz for a moment, and then he looked back to Trinity with something distinctly uncomfortable in his expression. She tensed.
‘I’m not sure how aware you are of the state of Mr De Carrillo’s finances when he died?’
Trinity immediately felt the scrutiny of the man to her left, as if his gaze was boring into her. His accusatory words came back to her: ‘You’ve single-handedly run through almost every cent my brother has to his name in a bid to satisfy your greedy nature. Now you’re realising Rio’s fortune isn’t a bottomless pit...’
She felt breathless, as if a vice was squeezing her chest. Until the evening of Cruz’s party she hadn’t been aware of any such financial difficulty. She’d only been aware that Rio was growing more and more irrational and erratic. When she’d confronted him about his behviour, they’d had a huge argument, in which the truth of exactly why he’d married her had been made very apparent. Along with his real agenda.
That was why Trinity had wanted to talk to Cruz—to share her concerns. However, he’d comprehensively shut that down.
She said carefully now, ‘I was aware that things weren’t...good. But I didn’t know that it was linked to his financial situation.’
Mr. Drew looked grim. ‘Well, it most probably was. The truth is that Rio was bankrupt. In these last three months the sheer extent and scale of his financial collapse has become evident, and it’s comprehensive. I’m afraid that all he left behind him are debts. There is nothing to bequeath to his children. Or you.’
Trinity hadn’t married Rio for his money, so this news didn’t have any great impact on her. What did impact her, though, was the realisation that Cruz must have been putting money into the account that she used for day-to-day necessities for her and the boys and Mrs Jordan—the nanny Rio had hired once Trinity had married him, when her job had changed and she’d been expected to accompany him to social functions. Something she’d never felt comfortable doing...
The solicitor said, ‘I’m sorry to deliver this news, Mrs De Carrillo, but even the house will have to be sold to cover his debts.’
Before she could absorb that, Cruz was standing up and saying, in a coolly authoritative tone, ‘If you could leave us now, Mr. Drew, I’ll go over the rest with my sister-in-law.’
The solicitor clearly had no issue with being summarily dismissed from his own office. He gathered some papers and left, shutting the door softly behind him.
Trinity’s mind was reeling, as she tried to take everything in, and revolving with a sickening sense of growing panic as to how she was going to manage caring for the boys when she didn’t have a job. How could she afford to keep Mrs Jordan on?
Cruz walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the large desk, showcasing an impressive view of London’s skyline.
For a long moment he said nothing, and she could only look helplessly at his broad shoulders and back. Then he turned around and a sense of déjà-vu nearly knocked her off her chair. It was so reminiscent of when she’d first met him—when she’d gone to his house in Holland Park for an interview, applying for the position of maid in his household.
She’d never met such an intimidating man in her life. Nor such a blatantly masculine man. Based on his reputation as one of the world’s wealthiest bankers, she had assumed him to be older, somewhat soft... But he’d been young. And gorgeous. His tall, powerful body had looked as if it was hewn from pure granite and steel. His eyes had been disconcertingly unreadable...
‘Miss Adams...did you hear my question?’
She was back in time, caught in the glare of those mesmerising eyes, his brows drawn into a frown of impatience. His Spanish accent had been barely noticeable, just the slightest intriguing inflection. She’d felt light-headed, even though she was sitting down.
‘I’m sorry...what?’
Those eyes had flashed with irritation. ‘I asked how old you are?’
She’d swallowed. ‘I’m twenty-two. Since last week.’
Then she’d felt silly for mentioning that detail—as if one of the richest men in the world cared when her birthday was! Not that she even knew when her birthday was for sure...
But she’d survived four rounds of intense interviews to be there to meet the man himself—evidence of how he oversaw every tiny detail of his life—so Trinity had gathered her fraying wits, drawn her shoulders back and reminded herself that she had hopes and dreams, and that if she got this job she’d be well on her way to achieving a life for herself...
‘I have to hand it to you—you’re as good an actress as you were three months ago when you first feigned ignorance of Rio’s financial situation. But you must have known what was coming down the tracks. After all, you helped divest my brother of a small fortune.’
The past and present meshed for a moment, and then Trinity realised what Cruz had just said.
She clasped her hands tight together on her lap. ‘But I didn’t know.’
‘Did the accident affect your memory, Trinity?’ His voice held more than a note of disdain. ‘Do you not recall that illuminating conversation we had befo
re you left my house on that fateful night?’
She flushed, remembering it all too well. ‘I don’t have any memory of the accident, but, yes, I do recall what you said to me. You’re referring to your accusation that I was responsible for Rio’s financial problems.’
Cruz’s mouth compressed. ‘I think ruin would be a more accurate word.’
Trinity stood up, too agitated to stay seated. ‘You’re wrong. It’s true that Rio spent money on me, yes, but it was for the purposes of—’
Cruz held up a hand, a distinct sneer on his face now. ‘Spare me the details. I looked into Rio’s accounts after he died. I know all about the personal stylist, the VIP seats to every fashion show, the haute couture dresses, private jet travel, the best hotels in the world... The list is endless. I curse the day that I hired you to work for me—because, believe me, I blame myself as much as you for ruining my brother.’
At that damning pronouncement Trinity felt something deep inside her shrivel up to protect itself. She had not been prepared for Cruz’s vitriolic attack.
But then, this was the man who had wiped her taste off his mouth and looked at her with disgust when he’d realised that he’d lowered himself to the level of kissing his own maid.
Trinity bitterly recalled the intimate dinner party he’d hosted the following evening—when the gaping chasm between them had been all too apparent.
Cruz had welcomed a tall and stunningly beautiful brunette, kissing her warmly on both cheeks. As the woman had passed her fur coat to Trinity, not even glancing in her direction, Trinity had caught an expressive look from Cruz that had spoken volumes—telling her to forget what had happened. Telling her that this woman was the kind of woman he consorted with, and whatever had happened between them must be consigned to some sordid memory box, never to be taken out and examined again.
