Anger welled from deep within. Slow and determined and gathering momentum until his body vibrated with suppressed energy. How dare they assume they could hoodwink his family? There was one thing he knew they would learn—no del Castillo would ever tolerate being played for a fool. No scandal had previously destroyed them; it had only made them stronger.
He thought for a moment of Abuelo, of his current infirmity and the ever present risk of another stroke. Was that going to be their angle? he thought. Were they going to somehow lure him into trouble and then threaten to expose him to his grandfather? Risk an old man’s health, his fears of an ancient curse and the ghost of a governess who’d been dead three hundred years, for the sake of money?
What was their aim? Did they think they could use their switch to make him look a fool? Engaged to one woman while possibly bedding another? Was that how they planned to use their switch for financial gain? The papers would lap it up, paying huge money for exclusive rights to the story. Or was their aim like Estella’s? To threaten to expose the story in a bid to get more money to keep quiet?
Anyone who knew his family knew that they would do anything to protect their own. And that was exactly what he was going to do. Protect his family—and if that meant ensuring he became a great deal closer to this Sarina Woodville, he’d do whatever it took.
Reynard took another sip of his wine, savoring the flavor, and allowing his mind to roam. Yes, he knew exactly what tack he’d take now that he had the upper hand in this charade the Woodville sisters were employing. They would discover they had met their match, and as his lethal anger came under control, he began to find himself strangely exhilarated by the upcoming challenge.
Rina looked at her reflection through bleary eyes. Last night had been the worst she’d had since arriving on the island. The worst since Jacob had broken off their engagement, actually.
Sara had called late in the night. The line had been bad, reception patchy at best, but her message had been quite clear. Whatever she was going through was taking a massive emotional toll on her and she was relying on Rina to keep things together in Isla Sagrado for her. To keep up the charade until she was strong enough to come back. Wracked with guilt over the kiss she had shared with Rey, a kiss she’d wished could go on forever, Rina had promised she’d do whatever it took.
Her sister had called upon her for help, albeit in typical Sara fashion with all too little notice and even less detail, and Rina had betrayed her. Worse, she’d actively enjoyed it.
Rina pressed her fingers to her lips, the memory of Rey’s mouth against hers still too vivid in her mind. She’d succumbed to his touch as if she’d been made for him and him alone, and in doing so she’d broken every unwritten law of sisterhood. She’d kissed her sister’s fiancé and, God help her, she wanted to do it again. In fact, she wanted more than that. She wanted all of him, over and over again.
She reached for the taps over the white porcelain sink and turned on the cold water with a sharp twist of a shaking hand. This was all wrong. She and Sara had never been attracted to the same man before. They hadn’t even so much as liked the same type, let alone ever had to worry about poaching on one another’s ground.
But she’d done more than poach now and, somehow, without letting the truth come out, Rina had to find a way to step back and prevent anything like last night’s kiss ever happening again. If it did, Rina knew she could never forgive herself.
She bent over the basin and splashed liberal amounts of cold water directly over her face, scrubbing at her skin with her bare hands until her cheeks tingled. She reached for a towel and wiped her face dry before looking at herself in the mirror once more. It was no good. She looked just as tired and disgusted with herself as she had when she’d woken.
The sound of the cottage’s phone ringing in the sitting room stirred her to action. Please, please, let it be Sara calling to put her out of her misery, she prayed silently.
“Hello?” she answered, lifting the near museum quality handset from its cradle.
“Good morning, mi corazon.”
Rey’s voice flooded through the phone, as rich and liquid as warm dark chocolate. Instantly, she felt every nerve in her body react and hone in on the deliciously deep timbre—as if just the sound of his voice could reach through the telephone wires and stroke the surface of her skin.
Her nipples pebbled into tight aching buds against the surface of the old T-shirt she’d continued to wear to bed each night—the soft fabric a caress as light as a lover’s touch against the taut peaks. Heat streaked, like lightning, through her body, centering low and deep in her body. Creating a throbbing need that all the cold water in the world could not extinguish.
“I trust you slept well last night,” Rey continued, oblivious to her traitorous body’s reaction. “I thought that you might like to see a little more of the island today. Perhaps in the late afternoon?”
Rina gathered her scattered thoughts and forced them into words through lips that were suddenly dry and uncooperative.
“Late afternoon?”
“Sí,” he replied. “I will see Benedict this morning for a while, and again this afternoon, but I must also now attend to my office for some hours. I thought to pick you up around four or five and we could drive along the coast before coming back to my apartment for dinner. What do you say?”
His apartment? Dinner? Was that all he asked? She knew that he and Sara had not yet been intimate together; a fact that still surprised her given their engagement. But did he plan to change all that tonight? And if he did, would she have the strength, let alone the will, to discourage him?
“Sara?” he prompted, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“Yes…yes, that sounds lovely,” she finally spoke. At least she would have the day to herself. Time enough, hopefully, to shore up her defenses against her forbidden attraction to him. “Um, should I wear anything special?”
“Good question,” he answered. “We might go out for a drink along the harborside, first, so something a bit dressy, perhaps. What about what you wore the night I proposed? You always look beautiful in that. Until this afternoon, then. Hasta luego.”
Even after he’d hung up, Rina still stood there holding the phone to her ear. Her fingers clenched around the old black plastic, which creaked in protest at her white-knuckled grip. The dress she wore the night he proposed—the dress Sara wore, that is. What on earth was she to do? She had no idea which one it was and, without any contact from Sara, no way of finding out, either.
Numbly, she replaced the phone in its cradle and walked back to the bedroom to throw open the wardrobe doors. Given its rather frugal size, and the number of clothes Sara had kept here, it shouldn’t be impossible to narrow it down—but what if her twin had taken the dress with her?
Rina slumped onto the edge of the bed and stared unseeingly at the contents of her sister’s closet. Her eyes began to burn with unexpected tears. Suddenly this stupid charade was all too much. She loved her sister with an affection that transcended most sibling boundaries—would give her life for Sara’s if necessary—but continuing to masquerade as her twin this time around was taking a toll she’d never anticipated.
Maybe she should come clean. Tell Reynard the truth about what had happened. Let him know that Sara was suffering cold feet and that she’d asked Rina to stand in for her—after all, he deserved the truth. As one who’d been lied to and cheated on, she knew with personal understanding how cruel that type of behavior was.
But Sara had her reasons for wanting to perpetuate this falsehood. Reasons she hadn’t seen fit to disclose yet to Rina. And blood was thicker than water. Rina had never had any cause to doubt her sister’s choices before—had never been in open conflict with her, ever. Regardless of her original intention to stop this charade in its tracks, Sara needed her to do this for her and do it she must, whatever the price, because, if their situation had been reversed, Rina had no doubt Sara would step in for her.
She got up of
f the bed and fingered the clothes hanging neatly in the closet, wondering which dress it was that Sara had worn when she’d accepted Rey’s proposal—or if it was even in here at all. She shook her head. She was being silly. She didn’t have to worry. It would be a simple matter to say the dress was at the cleaners or that she’d spilled makeup on it or something like that.
She could do this. For Sara she could do anything. She just had to remind herself of the mini-adventures they’d conducted when they were younger, standing in for one another. Though, this felt entirely different. This time, for the first time, she wanted what her sister had with a longing she had never experienced with such intensity. Walking away from Reynard after this, and leaving him to Sara, was going to be the toughest thing she’d had to do, ever.
Rina spied her suitcase shoved in the bottom of the wardrobe and knew exactly what she’d wear tonight. The dress she’d bought once she’d made her mind up to come here to lick her metaphorical wounds, supported by her sister’s tender love and care, was an aberration to her usual style. If anything, it was far more like something her party-mad sister would have chosen for herself.
Shorter than the type of dress she’d worn since she’d started going out with Jacob, the dark periwinkle blue fabric skimmed her thighs with flirty layers of hand painted chiffon and the softly draping cowl neck dropped from tiny spaghetti straps to give a hint of the swell of her breasts.
She’d even bought a special strapless bra to wear with it, and in a fit of extravagance, matching G-string panties. The second she’d tried on the dress in the store, she’d known it was perfect for her. She’d instantly felt empowered again, feminine and strong. Certainly not like a woman whose fiancé had only thought to let her know he’d be marrying someone else a week out from their proposed wedding date.
Yes, she might be pretending to be someone else, but she’d be doing it in her own clothes and wearing her own silver-strapped high-heeled sandals at the same time. And she’d do it with all the flair she could muster. Even as she made the decision to be herself, she felt conflicted. In the past, pretending to be her sister had been all about exactly that—being Sara. Was she treading too fine a line now?
Seven
By the time four o’clock rolled around, Rina was just about climbing the walls with frustration. The day had stretched out for what felt like forever and, with the cottage being as isolated as it was, there was little she could do to fill her time.
In the end, she’d taken out her frustration on the weeds along the front wall and in the gardens that bordered the front of the house—moving a sun umbrella along with her as she worked. At least she could see she’d been effective at something through the course of the day. The dry soil had made pulling weeds easy, though, and the job hadn’t taken as long as she’d expected. Not even a long pampering session in the cottage’s bathroom had filled enough hours before she could begin to expect Rey’s arrival.
As the hands on the mantel clock had wound their way slowly between four and five o’clock, Rina found herself straining her ears to listen for the sound of Rey’s car approaching. She smoothed the skirt of her dress for what was probably the twentieth time and checked the mantel clock again.
Finally, as the clock delicately chimed the quarter hour, she heard the muted roar of Rey’s car as it pulled up outside the cottage. She grabbed her silver clutch bag and secured the cottage’s front door before meeting him on the path at the front.
“You’ve been busy today,” Rey commented, looking at the evidence of her work in the gardens.
Rina shrugged. “I had to do something or I’d have gone mad. I’m not used to doing nothing.”
“I thought that was the purpose of a holiday? Especially one on a Mediterranean island,” he said with a quirk of one brow.
Inwardly, she cringed. Sara would never have worked in the garden. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t prepared to work hard at the things that interested her, especially her horses, but gardens? She’d made a terrible faux pas in finding a relief for her boredom today.
Hoping like mad that she could carry it off, she gave Rey a bright smile and waved a hand in the general direction of the garden. “Well, you know me. Once I get my mind fixed on something I won’t let up.”
Rey gave a short laugh. “Isn’t that the truth,” he agreed. “Come here and let me see you properly. I haven’t seen you wear that color before. It really suits you. Especially with the color you’ve caught in your skin today.”
He took one of her hands in his and gave her a gentle twirl—not an easy feat in her high heels on the cobbled path.
“There was a stain on my other outfit, so I improvised,” Rina said, averting her eyes and hoping a telltale flush wouldn’t blotch her chest and neck at the lie.
“I’m glad,” he said giving her a longer, more appreciative look that sent a sizzle of awareness straight through her. “I like this better. The color—” he paused a moment “—is more you.”
Rina felt a trickle of unease creep along her spine. His ever so slight emphasis on the word “you” made her wonder if she’d taken too much of a risk in choosing to wear something that so completely reflected her real personality. Not something that Jacob would have approved of, not something that Sara, in her flamboyance, would have chosen—something that was unmistakably her. But then Rey tugged her hand and pulled her along the path to the car waiting outside the gate and settled her into the passenger seat.
She was being fanciful, she rationalized. Her own guilt at taking advantage of him, and his relationship with her sister, was making her see things in statements that were simply not there at all.
Rina cast a sideways glance at him as he dropped into his seat and put on his seat belt. He was wearing sharply creased black trousers that tautened across his thighs as he eased the car into gear. Beneath the finely woven fabric she could almost make out the delineation of his quad muscles, their lean strength a fluid movement beneath the material. In normal circumstances, as his real fiancée, she’d have the palm of her hand resting just there—be feeling the flex and release of those muscles as he changed gears on the high performance engine.
Her palm tingled just thinking about it, and she forced herself to turn her head away and stare out the side window at the scenery as they passed by. Sara would kill her. It wasn’t part of the plan that she should be so powerfully attracted to him. It made no logical sense at all. He wasn’t her type. He was too…too everything.
She tried to pull a picture of Jacob into her mind, to overprint the finely boned features of Rey’s face and his fascinating hazel eyes with Jacob’s fairer skin, broader forehead and pale blue eyes. It had only been three weeks since they’d shared that last meal together, since they’d ended their plans to marry on such a painfully civilized note.
Rina couldn’t imagine Rey being quite so civilized if the situation had been his. There’d be fire in his eyes, rather than relief that she hadn’t made a scene. There’d be challenge—demand. He wouldn’t have made their five year relationship sound like a board meeting when encapsulating the reasons why he’d found it necessary to have a last minute fling. A fling that had rapidly turned into something more. A fling that had signaled the end of the plans they’d so painstakingly made together.
No, Reynard del Castillo was a different kettle of fish altogether. Rina risked another glance in his direction, and a warm flush of something she didn’t want to name pulsed through her as he met her gaze and gave her a half smile before giving his attention back to the road.
For the first time in days she realized that thinking about Jacob didn’t hurt anymore and that, despite her initial shock and pain, he’d done the right thing in ending their engagement. Of course, his method and timing still left a great deal to be desired, but could she honestly tell herself that a single glance from him had ever—in all the time they’d been together—had the power to elicit a reaction like the one still thrumming through her from Rey’s smile? She’d be lying if she said yes.
Which left her in a very precarious position. Clearly, Sara’s engagement to Reynard had been a fresh new thing for them both. Rina knew full well how alluring Sara could be; she’d watched her in action often enough. But Sara and Rey hadn’t even slept together, for goodness’ sake. Who got engaged on what had apparently been such a platonic relationship to date? Was Sara playing hard to get? Was that what had coaxed the proposal from Rey all along? And if she was having second thoughts, why on earth had she simply not said so to him, rather than indulge in this subterfuge?
Something just didn’t ring true, but until Sara divulged more details, there really was nothing she could do but continue the pretense—no matter the travesty it made of her own feelings.
“You’re very quiet today. Everything all right?” Rey’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“Just thinking, really. Nothing important.”
“We will be at the waterfront soon. We’ll leave the car at my apartment building and we can walk there for a predinner drink.”
“That sounds lovely. I’m looking forward to it.”
“As am I.”
He gave her a slow wink and again that throbbing pulse beat through her, accompanied this time by a pull from deep within her body. She gave herself a mental shake. This wasn’t for her benefit, it was for Sara’s, she told herself sternly. She had no right to feel this way, to react this way, to wish that things could be different and that she could explore these new sensations he elicited in her.
“I don’t know how well these shoes will bear up to much walking, though. I hope it’s not far.”
Rey cast a quick glance at her feet and gave a short laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there to carry you if necessary.”
The thought of his strong arms around her, holding her, carrying her—it was getting to be too much. She forced an answering laugh from a throat that had suddenly grown too tight.
Stand-In Bride's Seduction Page 7
