“But you also knew she’d need a little incentive to fall into your arms. That’s when you hit on your investment scheme. As much as I hate to admit it, it was brilliant.” Alex’s scowl returned. “In fact, I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
To Rebecca’s relief, aside from a low growl, her father remained silent. She shot him a warning look.
“As I told you before,” Rodriquez said. “The greedy pig couldn’t get enough. Even when the investments went under, he came back for more. It was so easy to set up.”
“Serves him right,” Alex murmured.
“Exactly! He deserves everything coming to him.” Rodriquez gestured around him. “Soon all his possessions will become mine, including his daughter.”
“You were right, you know,” Alex admitted. “If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with having Rebecca again, I’d have been on board a lot sooner. Just think of it, Paulo. A pair of hermanos from the barrio owning two of the richest spreads in all of Maverick County. We’ll be members in the same club, rubbing elbows with people who years ago wouldn’t have given us the time of day.”
“And the woman?” Rodriquez demanded through narrowed eyes. “What of her?”
Alex grinned. “She’s all yours. You’ve earned her as your reward.”
Triumph glowed in Rodriquez’s dark eyes. “Yes, I have, haven’t I?”
“There’s just one thing I don’t get.” He gave a self-deprecating shrug. “I guess my mind just doesn’t work like yours.”
“It never did.”
“And never will,” Alex conceded.
“Tell me what you don’t understand. I will explain it to you,” Rodriquez offered expansively.
“I just don’t get the arson fires. Why the hell did Huntington have Gentry set them? Were they just a distraction, so all the club members would be at each other’s throats?”
A flash of anger exploded across Rodriquez’s face and Rebecca went perfectly still, terror creeping up her spine. “You think that cabrón has the intelligence to plan something like that? You insult me!”
Alex’s eyebrows shot upward in amazement. “You planned the arson fires? You had Gentry set them?” His anger rose to match Rodriquez’s. “You burned down my barn? What the hell for?”
“To set Huntington up. To give me extra leverage when the time came to close my trap around him.” Paulo attempted to placate his friend. “I apologize, amigo. I wouldn’t have done such a thing to you if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary.”
Alex steamed for a few seconds before shrugging it off. “I suppose if you can let bygones be bygones, so can I,” he said grudgingly.
“Agreed.” He wagged a finger in Alex’s direction. “I did not like being at odds with you. Don’t let it happen again.”
“You’re right. My mistake.” He closed the distance between them and offered his hand. “What do you say we start over.”
Paulo grinned and gripped Alex’s hand. “I’d like that.”
The instant the two men connected, Alex’s left hand plowed into Rodriquez’s jaw, the movement so fast it was little more than a blur. El Gato’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped like a stone, out cold. Before Gentry could do more than jerk to attention, Sebastian snatched the burl wood lamp off his desk and smashed it over the top of his ex-foreman’s head. Then he turned to glare at Alex.
“I hope to hell you’re wearing a wire, Montoya.”
“That’s Mr. Montoya to you. And yes. I’m wearing a wire.”
Sebastian’s jaw worked for a moment then to Rebecca’s shock, he nodded. “Mr. Montoya. I’m man enough to admit when I’ve made a mistake. I’ve been wrong about you and wrong in my treatment of you and your family.” He crossed the room and stuck out his hand. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
Alex hesitated for a split second before taking Sebastian’s hand in a firm shake. Then he turned to Rebecca. For a long moment he simply looked at her. Then he opened his arms. With an inarticulate cry she exploded from the couch and threw herself against him. He held her in a grip that spoke of pain and love and relief, all wrapped up in one.
“I’m also man enough to admit when I’ve made a mistake,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m sorry, dulzura. I was wrong the other night. About everything.”
“And the bet? You never had a bet with Rodriguez?”
“Never.” Tenderness filled his expression. “I could never do such a thing to you.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I should have known. Maybe if I hadn’t been so young and foolish, I would have.”
Suddenly the room was crowded with people. “You do know you’re still being recorded, right?” Darius Franklin asked drily.
Alex never took his gaze off Rebecca. “So long as you have Sebastian Huntington’s apology on tape and make me a half dozen copies, I don’t give a damn.”
And then he lowered his head and kissed her. Kissed her world right. Kissed his way home. Kissed her with all the passion of a man who understood where his heart lay and with whom. When they finally pulled back, it was to discover the room deserted.
He cupped her face, his thumbs sweeping away tears she hadn’t even realized she’d cried. “I love you, Becca. I have since the moment we first met.”
“And I love you.” She hesitated, one final cloud casting a shadow on her happiness. “You realize your reputation will be linked with mine and my father’s?”
“I was a fool,” he said simply. “And I’m more sorry than I can possibly express. I’d be honored to have my name linked with yours and be part of your family.”
It was all she needed to hear. With a contented sigh, she surrendered to the inevitable…a life with Alex, filled with laughter, passion beyond imagining and a love that would last them for the rest of their lives. “Take me home, Alex.”
He swept her into his arms, allowing love to wash away the bitterness of the past and provide a pathway toward their future. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Epilogue
The small mission church was crowded to capacity, the beautiful stone building decorated for the Christmas Eve wedding ceremony in fresh greenery and red and white roses that combined their perfume with the delicate scent of candle wax. A soft prelude echoed off the walls and rafters as Alicia and Justin’s bridal party made its way down the aisle.
Cara, in her role as matron of honor, reached the altar just as the sweet herald of the Trumpet Voluntary sounded. And then Alicia appeared, glorious in a fitted ivory gown that swept into a long train. She clung to her brother’s arm, tears glistening from beneath the beautiful lace mantilla-style veil that framed her exquisite features. Beside her, Alex looked more handsome than Rebecca had ever seen him. While all eyes were riveted on his sister, his gaze never wavered from hers.
Once he’d given away the bride in traditional fashion, he crossed to where Rebecca was seated in the front pew. As the clock edged from Christmas Eve toward Christmas Day, the ceremony proceeded at a stately pace.
Through it all, Alex held her hand, their fingers interlaced. It couldn’t have been more perfect. While Justin and Alicia exchanged their vows, their love for one another unmistakable, the other couples who’d recently found a love just as deep and enduring exchanged looks of joy and passion. And then it was over. The newly married couple shared a lingering kiss while tears of happiness glistened in the eyes of those who watched.
Trumpets began the recessional, the familiar strands of Ode to Joy accompanying the bridal party’s departure. While the guests began a general exodus of the church, Alex gathered Rebecca into his arms.
“It’s been a long, hard road for us, hasn’t it, dulzura?”
“At times,” she conceded.
“Maybe because it’s been so hard, it makes this moment so much more meaningful.”
She smiled and asked, “This moment? Why this moment?”
“Listen.” Around them the bells tolled the midnight hour. “It’s the first m
inute of Christmas and my final responsibility to my family has been discharged.” He took her hand in his and slipped a ring onto her finger. “I can’t think of a better time to tell you that I love you more than life itself and to ask if you’ll marry me.”
A gorgeous diamond solitaire captured the flickering candlelight and threw it outward in rainbow rays of hope. “Oh, Alex.” It took her a moment to gather her self-control enough to respond. “I’ve loved you since the minute I first saw you.”
His gaze grew tender. “Is that a yes?”
She answered him with a kiss, a kiss that held all the passion their life together would bring and echoed the love that had filled the church that evening. When she pulled back, the expression in her eyes was beyond anything he’d ever see before.
“Yes, Alex. It’s definitely a yes.”
ANN MAJOR
TO TAME HER TYCOON LOVER
One
Some women are impossible to forget no matter how a man tries.
Logan Claiborne was frowning, and not because the sun was in his eyes as he sped down the narrow, twisting road that led to the antebellum mansion where he’d grown up.
He should be concentrating on Mitchell Butler and the merger of Butler Shipyards and Claiborne Energy, or on how he was going to deal compassionately with Grandpère once he arrived at Belle Rose.
Instead, his grip tightened on the steering wheel as he remembered the open, trusting, dark eyes of the voluptuously proportioned swamp brat he’d seduced and then jilted nine years ago to save his twin brother, Jake.
Until this morning, Logan had told himself that his grandfather had been right, that Cici Bellefleur didn’t belong in their world; that he’d had to save Jake from the same sort of disastrous marriage their father had made to a poor girl, their mother, whose extravagant dreams of grandeur as well as her need to impress had nearly wrecked the family fortune. He’d continued to tell himself that he’d been right to do what he’d done even after he’d secured the family empire, even after Cici had made a name for herself with her camera and had proved herself a woman of talent and worth.
Then his grandfather had called him this morning and had stunned him by acting as thrilled as an infatuated kid when he’d mentioned Cici had come home again and they were giving tours of the house together.
Why had she, a famous photographer and writer, really come home? What did she want?
“Nine years ago you were dead set against her because of her uncle,” Logan had reminded him. Grandpère had always distrusted Cici’s uncle.
“In a long life, a man makes a few mistakes. Remember that. I made more than a few. Someday you may have a stroke that leaves you with too much time to dwell on the past. You may regret some of the things you’ve done. Well, I regret blaming Cici for her uncle Bos. It wasn’t her fault he fought cocks, ran with a wild bunch and operated a bar.”
“Do you remember that nine years ago you didn’t want her anywhere near Jake or me, especially Jake, who was running pretty wild back then?”
“Well, I’m sorry for that, if I did.”
“If you did?” It was still difficult to reconcile the grandfather he had now with the domineering individual who had raised him.
“Okay, I was wrong about her. I was wrong to be so tough on you, too. It’s my fault you’re so hard.”
A pang of guilt had hit Logan as he’d run his hand through his rumpled, chocolate-brown hair.
“I was too hard on Jake, too.”
“Maybe you’re being too difficult on yourself.”
“I’d like to see Jake again before I die.”
“You’re not going to die…not anytime soon.”
“Cici says the same thing. She thinks I’m getting better every day. She thinks maybe I could stay here instead of…” His voice trailed away.
The mention of Cici and the hope in his grandfather’s voice had convinced Logan he had to check on his grandfather at once. Since his stroke, his grandfather had gone from being a strong, commanding man to a clingy, depressed person Logan barely knew. This was why Logan had decided his grandfather couldn’t live independently at Belle Rose any longer and needed to be moved to New Orleans near him. The old man needed looking after.
Unfortunately, the dense forest with its vines and wild vegetation was so thick beneath the brooding sky, Logan was almost past the familiar turn to his childhood home before he saw the gatepost. At the last moment, he spun the wheel of his Lexus to the right too fast and skidded. No sooner had he righted the car than he saw the pillared mansion at the end of the oak alley. As always, the ancient home with its graceful columns and galleries aglow in the slanting sunlight seemed to him the most beautiful of houses, claiming his heart as no other place could.
How could he blame Grandpère, who’d become more childlike and emotional since his debilitating illness, for wanting to stay here? Logan remembered the first time he had mentioned the possibility of moving him to the city. Grandpère had given him a scare by disappearing for several hours.
Cici has no business convincing the old man he’s getting better so he’ll think he doesn’t have to move.
But was that really her motivation?
The mere thought of his grandfather’s worsening condition was upsetting. Logan, not Cici, had Grandpère’s best interests at heart. The last thing he needed was Cici meddling and making him feel guilty about a decision he’d been forced to make. He didn’t want to make Grandpère unhappy, but he couldn’t run Claiborne Energy and be down here with his grandfather at the same time.
His thoughts in a snarl, Logan braked too sharply. His tires spun in the damp gravel as he stopped in the deep shade beneath the wide alley of the spreading oaks some anonymous Frenchman had planted a hundred years before the antebellum house had even been dreamed of. Beyond the house, fields stretched to a line of brooding cypress trees draped with moss that edged the wilderness of the swamp.
Logan flung the gleaming door of his late-model Lexus hybrid open and stepped out of the luxury sedan. After having his tall frame jammed behind the wheel for the two hour drive over bad roads from New Orleans, it felt good to stand up and stretch.
Despite the huge live oak trees, the heat was unbearably steamy for this early in March. He inhaled the thick, syrupy air, which to him smelled of home.
Little green frogs croaked. Bees hummed in azalea blossoms. Wood ducks made music. Did he only imagine lusty bull alligators roaring for their mates?
He smiled. How Cici used to love the dark, moss-hung wilderness that bordered the plantation when she’d been a kid. Whenever he’d been home and had put a foot outside, she’d followed him everywhere as eagerly as a devoted puppy. Their relationship had been so simple then. She’d been eight years younger than he and Jake, so Logan hadn’t taken her crush on his brother seriously until the summer he’d returned home from law school and discovered that his grandfather was right about Cici not being a child any longer.
Shutting his mind against those pleasant memories that included Cici, he began to regret he was out of the air-conditioned car.
Maybe because he dreaded seeing Cici so much, Logan took the time to rip his tie off and unbutton his collar. Shedding his custom-made suit jacket, he opened the door and tossed his jacket and tie onto his plush, leather seat.
He wished Alicia Butler, his girlfriend of the past four months, had been able to come with him. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so haunted by the past. Or so tempted to remember Cici.
Unlike Cici, Alicia was sleek and elegant. He’d met her because they’d been thrown together due to his ambition to merge his company with her father’s. A brunette, her shoulder-length, straight hair made her slim face seem even more regal. She knew how to dress, how to carry herself. Heads turned at fundraisers whenever she was at his side, and not only because of her beauty and stylish attire, but because of her fortune.
Other men, ambitious men, envied him. Not that that was the only reason he felt such a sense of pride that she would soon be
his.
Poised, she approached life deliberately, as he did. She was civilized, polished and, therefore, as appropriate for him as his wife, Noelle, had been before her untimely death.
Alicia spoke French and Italian. She set a beautiful table. She never ate too much or drank too much or wore an inappropriate outfit.
Not even when she was angry did she raise her voice. She was equally controlled in bed, too.
As Cici had not been, sprang the wayward thought. For an instant his blood pounded as he remembered Cici wild with pleasure, writhing beneath him.
But Alicia would warm up after they were married. He would be patient. He understood not trusting enough to ever let go. Together he and Alicia would build a life together as he and Noelle, his recently departed wife, had, a life that everyone would envy. They wouldn’t quarrel horribly and tear each other to pieces because their passions got in the way.
Briefly he remembered Noelle’s sad eyes in that last week before she’d died. Then, quickly as always, he ruthlessly checked the forbidden image. He would make Alicia happy. History would not repeat itself.
“I’m sorry I can’t come with you and meet your grandfather, darling,” Alicia had said when he’d called her this morning. “But Daddy needs me at the office.”
“Okay. I understand.”
Mitchell Butler, Alicia’s father, was a domineering shark, at least in business, but since Logan and he had this huge merger between their businesses pending, Logan didn’t want to cross him over something as minor as a personal issue. He would see Alicia tonight.
“Darling, I’m sure you’ll know exactly what to say and do to make your grandfather understand why he may not be able to stay at Belle Rose,” Alicia had said. “After all, it’s your family. He’s your grandfather. You love him and want only the best for him.”
If she only knew what a mess he’d made of things, Logan thought grimly. He’d made everybody unhappy. His family remained divided, as a result.
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