And the young Camila had been devastated, even though she had done the only thing she could. The alternative—living as an unwed mother under her strict father’s roof in their small, conservative village—would have heaped as much misery and shame on her child’s life as on her own.
Knowing first-hand how it felt to be genuinely unwanted by one’s biological mother, Jordan hoped Xavier would see Camila’s decision not as an act of rejection or abandonment, but one of love.
She waited for him to say something. It was perfectly understandable that he might need a minute or two to process what she had told him. Something like this was—
‘What do you want, Ms Walsh?’
Her thoughts slammed to a halt, the question—not to mention the distinct chill in his voice—taking her by surprise. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Money?’
She stared at him. ‘Money?’ she echoed blankly.
His gaze was piercing, the colour of his eyes the dark pewter of storm clouds under his lowered brows. ‘It is common knowledge that my family is one of the wealthiest in Spain. You would not be the first to claim a tenuous connection in hopes of a hand-out.’
A hand-out? Her head snapped back as if he’d flung acid at her face. She gripped the edges of her journal, shock receding beneath a rush of indignation. ‘That is offensive,’ she choked out.
‘Quite,’ he agreed. ‘Which is why I will ask you again—what do you want, Ms Walsh?’
Jordan felt her heart begin to pound. How on earth could this arrogant, imperious man be her stepmother’s son?
Camila had been a kind, gentle soul, who’d always looked for the best in people despite the heartbreak she’d suffered early in her life.
Jordan looked at the envelope she’d placed with such reverent care between the pages of her journal. She’d carried the envelope halfway around the world and not once had she been tempted to snoop inside it. The letter it contained was private, sacred—the precious words of a dying woman to her son.
Lifting her chin, she looked him in the eye, letting him know he didn’t intimidate her—that she had nothing to feel ashamed about. She held up the envelope. ‘I came here to give you this.’
‘And what is “this”?’
‘A letter from your birth mother.’
‘Camila Walsh?’
‘Yes—your birth mother,’ she reiterated.
A muscle worked in his jaw. His gaze flicked to the photo that lay face-down on his desk, then back to her. ‘A claim which is, at present, unsubstantiated.’
Jordan let her hand fall back to her lap, her frustration so great she wanted to slap her palm against the top of his desk and demand to know why he was being so bloody-minded. Instead, she clamped her back teeth together and waited for the impulse to pass.
She was not someone who flew off the handle at the slightest provocation. She might have been saddled with her mother’s unruly flame-coloured hair but she hadn’t, thank goodness, inherited her fiery personality.
Suddenly she felt as cross with herself as she did with him. Why hadn’t she been better prepared for this kind of reaction? Had she imagined that because she and Camila had been close she would automatically feel some sort of instant kinship with this man?
Sadly, she had. She’d tucked her grief away in a safely locked compartment of her heart, donned those silly rose-coloured glasses she should have learnt to distrust years ago, and set off on her mission to deliver Camila’s letter and scatter her ashes in the homeland she’d left thirty-three years before.
It was the final thing Jordan would be able to do for her stepmom—for the woman whose love and kindness had helped to heal the wound Jordan’s mother had inflicted years earlier with her abrupt, unapologetic departure from her daughter’s life.
And, embarrassing though it was to admit it, Jordan had built up a little fantasy in her head—imagining herself striking up a friendship with Camila’s son, having a kind of stepsibling relationship with him—which, now that she was here, seemed totally laughable.
This was not a man she could imagine having such a relationship with. Girls did not look at their brothers and feel their skin prickle and heat or their mouths go dry.
He wasn’t even the sort of man she liked. In fact he was everything she disliked. Arrogant. Superior. Unfeeling. A self-appointed demigod in a power suit, ruling his kingdom from the top of his gilded tower.
And Jordan knew all about men with god complexes, didn’t she? She’d dated a surgeon whose ego was the size of the Sydney Opera House and then—even worse, because she should have known better—she’d moved in with him and decided she was in love.
Jamming the brakes on her runaway thoughts, she focused on the cold, handsome face of the man in front of her and made a snap decision. ‘I don’t think you’re ready for this letter, Mr de la Vega.’
And in that moment she knew she wasn’t ready to relinquish it—because what if he didn’t treat it with the respect it deserved? What if he threw it away without even reading it?
Stiffening her resolve, she tucked the envelope into her journal, then tore out a blank page from the back, pulled a pen from her tote bag and scribbled down her mobile number. ‘I’ll be staying at the Hostel Jardí across town for a few more days and then I’m travelling to Mallorca and then Madrid.’ She put the piece of paper on his desk. ‘If you want to reach me, here’s my number.’ She bundled her things back into her tote and slung the strap over her shoulder. ‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr de la Vega.’ And she turned to go.
‘Ms Walsh.’
His deep, commanding voice brought her to a standstill and her heart leapt with hope. Had he had an epiphany? Realised, perhaps, that he’d behaved abominably?
Breath held, she turned back...and her heart landed with a heavy thud of disappointment.
He was standing, arm extended, holding out the photo she’d left on his desk—the one of himself as a baby. ‘You forgot this.’
Releasing her breath, she shook her head. ‘It’s yours. Keep it—or throw it away. Up to you.’
She continued on to the door, and for a few agonising seconds her nerveless fingers fumbled with the handle while her nape prickled from the unsettling sensation of his gaze drilling into her back.
But he didn’t call her name again. Didn’t attempt to stop her.
As she walked past his assistant’s desk and the stunning Lucia half rose out of her chair, Jordan held up her palm. ‘I can see myself out, thanks.’
Her chest was so tight it wasn’t until she stepped onto the street forty-four storeys below that she felt able to draw a full, oxygen-laden breath into her lungs again.
But as she set off across the city no amount of deep breathing could lift the weight from her heart.
Damn him.
What was she supposed to do now with her stepmom’s letter?
Copyright © 2018 by Angela Bissell
ISBN-13: 9781488083549
Bound to Her Desert Captor
First North American publication 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Michelle Conder
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