Bought Bride For The Argentinian (Conveniently Wed!)

by Sharon Kendrick

  He didn’t answer for a moment and when he did his words sounded as if they’d been dipped in some corrosive liquid. ‘Like I said, I’d been growing disenchanted for some time and the blade attack was the last straw. The cuts those men inflicted on me took a long time to heal—which meant it would be even longer before I could get back to match fitness. And I’d had a severe life shock in learning that my mother was a prostitute. I needed something different to think about. A new direction. And so I left the sport which had devoured my every waking thought for as long as I could remember and went into business instead.’

  ‘And no one stopped to question why?’

  She was a public relations officer, Alej reminded himself—of course that would be the first thing she thought of. He turned away from the window and stared at her. ‘No. There were no more matches and it was nearly Christmas. I took myself off to the Caribbean to recover and people just thought I was recuperating. It was while I was there that I got an email from the guy who had come up with the idea of the MiMaté drink, asking if I wanted to invest some money in his venture, and, seamlessly, my business career was born.’ His mouth twisted. ‘And ironically I discovered that fame—or notoriety—still had me in its clutches. That making vast amounts of money breeds its own kind of celebrity.’

  ‘And that was the end of it?’ she persisted. ‘You weren’t scared of being attacked again?’

  He shook his head. ‘I took courses in martial arts. I learned how to protect myself. Put it this way—I never went into a backstreet bar ever again.’

  ‘And did you talk to your mother?’ she questioned slowly. ‘About the accusations?’

  She was looking puzzled and Alej wondered if she guessed he was holding something back or whether he was crediting her with more astuteness than she actually possessed. But even though he was still questioning his sanity in having started all this, he knew he was going to complete the story. Because wasn’t it a relief to let it out at last—like a bitter and poisonous mix which had been living inside him for too long, before finally bubbling to the surface?

  ‘No. It isn’t an easy subject to bring up, when you stop to think about it. So I just buried it. Deep.’ His voice was rough as he pushed out the words from lungs which suddenly felt dry. ‘You see, after my mother was sacked by your stepfather, she never worked again. I’d bought her a little house in the country and she grew vegetables and for a while she seemed almost happy. But then she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had a full-time carer living with her, and I used to visit her regularly.’ He paused and then nodded. ‘And even though I’d told myself countless times it couldn’t possibly be true, I couldn’t shake off the look on that man’s face when he told me about her. I kept telling myself it was none of my business. That how she had lived her life was nothing to do with me. I planned to say nothing and then, the day before she died, she turned to me and said, “You know, don’t you?”’

  He saw incomprehension and then shock on Emily’s face. ‘She guessed?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What did you say?’ she breathed.

  ‘I asked her what she meant.’

  You know what I mean, son. Her failing voice had come out as a reedy rasp. I’ve seen the empty expression in your eyes whenever you look at me that was never there before. Did you find out that I worked the streets when you were a little boy?

  ‘And?’

  He’d almost forgotten Emily was there. Alej’s vision cleared as he met her sapphire gaze. ‘What could I say? What could I tell her, other than the truth, when the truth was the only thing I could hold onto? And then she told me everything.’ His lips hardened as he spoke and suddenly he got an acrid taste in his mouth. He walked from the bedroom into the dining room, aware of Emily following him, before going over to the antique cabinet which would shortly be sold at auction and pouring two fingers of whisky into a crystal tumbler. He swallowed a fiery mouthful before holding his glass aloft. ‘Want one?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I want you to carry on with your story.’

  He gave a bitter smile as he put the glass down on the gleaming wood. ‘Hers was a not unusual tale and in many ways, I wasn’t making a moral judgement. You don’t have to stand on a street corner to sell sex for money—I know women who would promise pretty much anything if they thought they were going to get a diamond necklace out of it. But this was a very different version of reality from the one I’d been given when I was growing up.’

  Her voice was tentative. ‘Surely you wouldn’t have expected her to tell you the truth when you were a little boy?’

  ‘Of course not. I could understand why she would keep her prostitution a secret. She wasn’t the first young woman who would use her body to pay the bills and she certainly won’t be the last,’ he bit out. ‘But not why she felt the need to lie about the circumstances of my conception and about my father. When we moved from the favela and she found a job as housekeeper to your stepfather, she told me we wouldn’t be there long. She explained that my father was a rich and powerful man and one day he would return and rescue us and take us away from a life of servitude and we would live together happily on the acres of the pampas he called home.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Of course I did! Children tend to believe what their mothers tell them. And we both know what good liars women can be, don’t we, Emily?’ There was a pause as he flicked her a cynical look. ‘But she saved the best for last. The dramatic deathbed declaration which can never be challenged once the final breath has been taken. There was no rich and powerful papa. No father at all, as it happened—just a former client of hers, an itinerant rogue who used to beat her up.’ He swallowed. ‘But still she let him keep coming back for more. He was nothing but a thief and a con man who spent most of his time in prison and was killed by wrapping his motorbike round a tree—but not before making her pregnant with another child.’

  ‘Oh, Alej. That’s terrible,’ said Emily dazedly, blinking her eyelids rapidly as if she was trying to hold back tears. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He gave another bitter smile. ‘Funny, isn’t it? I always regretted being an only child, except then I discovered I wasn’t. That I have a younger brother. A child she had no hope of supporting, so she did what any self-respecting mother would do and sold him.’

  ‘What was that you said?’ Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way away as she stared at him in disbelief. ‘Are you telling me your mother had another baby and she sold it?’

  His jaw firmed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you.’

  ‘Oh, Alej—’

  ‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘Please spare me the kindness and compassion—the trembling lips and big, wet eyes. That’s not why I told you. And that’s it. That’s the story. There is no more.’

  ‘There must be.’ She walked over to the drinks cabinet and stood next to him, the delicate silk of her black dress making a soft, whispering sound and the faint scent of summer flowers drifting in the air as she reached him. ‘You have a brother, Alej. It may not be the ideal scenario—but that’s a wonderful thing, surely? You’ve got a sibling—which is more than I do. Someone whose gene pool you share. Someone you can have a unique relationship with. Have you managed to find him?’

  ‘No.’ Even Alej could hear how cold his voice sounded as he answered her question, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart. ‘I haven’t found him because I haven’t bothered looking for him. He was sold to a woman in America and that’s all I know.’

  ‘But surely you—’

  ‘There is no “surely” about it,’ he ground out. ‘I’m too old to believe in fairy stories, Emily. Do you really think I would track him down, so that we could have some great big family reunion? Do you honestly think he knows the background of the woman who gave birth to him? Even if he does, do you imagine that’s something he’s ever going to want to celebrate?
’

  Emily didn’t answer. Not straight away. Her head was too busy buzzing with the emotional repercussions of his shocking revelation. But one thing quickly became apparent—like the agitated and muddy water of a pond which finally grew still, so you were able to see the stones on the bottom. No wonder Alej was so cold and mistrusting. No wonder he thought all women lied. Because in his experience, they did. She’d told him lies herself, hadn’t she? Big, powerful lies. She’d told him she didn’t want him. That she’d wanted other men. She’d said that because she was scared—scared of her own feelings and her mother’s unpredictable behaviour. Scared of being hurt and scared of the future.

  Even now, she’d only given him half the truth, hadn’t she? She had been too much of a coward to take that final step and to tell him what was deep in her heart. And didn’t he need to hear that, now, when he was at his most vulnerable? When he must be aching and hurting deep inside, despite the proud expression on his face.

  ‘I also need to tell you something, Alej.’

  He withered her with a sardonic look. ‘Don’t tell me your mother was a hooker, too?’

  She didn’t respond to the jibe. ‘When I told you on our wedding day there had been no other man—’

  ‘It had conveniently slipped your mind that you might have forgotten to mention one or two?’ he suggested.

  She blanked his harsh sarcasm, because of course he would lash out at her—wouldn’t anyone have lashed out in the circumstances? But he hadn’t yet made sense of his past, she realised—and maybe in a way, she had been guilty of the same. ‘No. There has been no other man because...’ she swallowed ‘...because nobody ever came close to you. And what I felt for you, I’ve...I’ve never felt for anyone else.’

  She didn’t know what kind of reaction she had been expecting from this tentative revelation but it certainly wasn’t the one she got. All his icy composure had vanished and his face now blazed with sudden fury. ‘Is this pity you dole out to me now, Emily?’ he demanded savagely, angry green fire spitting from the depths of his eyes. ‘You think that because I have revealed my shameful parentage to you, I will grab at any crumb of affection which comes my way? That the illegitimate son of a hooker and a thief will be grateful for anything he can get?’

  She saw his pain and his anger and thanked whichever self-protective instinct had stopped her from coming right out and telling him she loved him. And wouldn’t logic rather than emotion serve her better than anything else right now? ‘I don’t care about your past!’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t care who your father was or what your mother did.’

  His face was a mask. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted your affirmation,’ he said coolly. ‘I only told you because you asked.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘THE THING IS, ALEJ—if you’re serious about going into politics, there are a couple of issues you really need to consider first.’

  Alej glanced up from the financial journal which was dancing unintelligibly before his eyes. Emily was standing on the other side of the room, pulling on a pair of silk panties, her curvy body illuminated by the morning sunlight, which was turning her hair to pure gold. He swallowed down the lust which was rising up inside him, a lust which seemed permanently outside his control. Last night before dinner he’d told her his dirty secret, expecting...what? He wasn’t sure—but it certainly hadn’t been her steadfast acceptance of the grim facts about his parentage as they’d come spilling out of him like dark poison.

  He felt his gut twist. He’d thought that knowledge of his past would drive her away. That he’d see her face contort with disgust, no matter how much she tried to keep it hidden. But instead she had remained calm. There had been no recriminations. No hurt expression at the way he had snapped at her. She’d just slid her feet into her new shoes and they’d gone out for dinner with Salvatore di Luca and his girlfriend and Emily had settled easily into her role of glowing newly-wed. She’d acted as if he hadn’t told her the sordid truth about his past, which had only reinforced his prejudices about her. Because maybe now she knew the whole truth about him, she imagined she was in a stronger bargaining position. His jaw tightened. Had she been seduced by the private jets and luxury hotels, the jewels and designer clothes he had provided for her—and decided she didn’t want to give them up without a fight? Was her love of material comfort greater than discovering that her husband was the son of a violent drunk and a prostitute?

  Yet when they’d had sex last night, she’d been as tender as ever he’d known her. She had held him tightly afterwards, her long fingers gently stroking through his hair in a way which had felt delicious. Dangerously delicious. He had pulled away from her afterwards and had lain there staring mutinously at the darkened ceiling. Was all that tenderness born out of compassion? he had wondered bitterly. Did she really think he needed her sympathy?

  ‘Alej?’ she was saying. ‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s not particularly easy to concentrate on anything when you’re doing a reverse striptease in front of me,’ he drawled.

  She was zipping up the sleek cream dress, which had also come from the Chanel shop, and he could see the sudden look of courage which crossed her face—as if she was about to say something he didn’t want to hear. ‘If you’re serious about going into politics,’ she said quietly, ‘aren’t you worried that some of the stuff about your mother will come out?’

  Half regretting his impetuousness in telling her, Alej shook his head. ‘Why should it? It never has before, not even when I announced I was leaving polo.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I suspect most of her clients will be dead by now and those who aren’t are hardly going to boast about consorting with a prostitute, are they? Even if they do make the connection.’

  ‘But it might,’ she persisted. ‘Especially if you’re entering politics, when every aspect of your past will be dragged into the daylight and raked over.’

  He shifted uncomfortably. ‘That’s just a risk I’m going to have to take.’

  ‘Unless you take control of it,’ she suggested.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Meaning, what?’

  She seemed to choose her words with care. ‘None of us should be defined by the things our parents have done. You are a good man, Alej, and you do good things. You have a charitable foundation—’

  ‘Like I told you before, I’m not asking for your affirmation,’ he said harshly.

  ‘And rather than living with the fear of disclosure,’ she continued firmly, ‘I want you to think about making some kind of announcement. If the information about your past comes from you, then it loses some of its power. I’m not suggesting you do it straight away—just think about it when you’re about to launch your campaign.’

  Once again Alej felt the sharp prick of conscience. He wished she would stop being so damned reasonable, because with each second that passed he was reminded of what had made him fall for her in the first place. Her softness. Her understanding. Her enthusiasm. But that was then, he reminded himself grimly, and this was now. It wasn’t going to be easy to do what he had to do and the longer this quasi-marriage went on, the harder it became. But he couldn’t give her up. Not yet. There was still too much of her soft sensuality for him to experience before that day came around. He swallowed. So maybe he should take her back to Argentina—to where it all began. To be alone with her and enjoy her over and over again, until his appetite was finally sated. Wouldn’t there be a delicious sense of irony to complete the circle that way?

  Pushing back the rumpled sheet, he got out of bed. ‘I’m having new flight plans drawn up with my pilot,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We’re heading for Argentina,’ he supplied coolly.

  Pausing mid-brush of her hair, she turned round from the mirror and blinked at him. ‘Already?’

  He shrugged. ‘Why not? We’re done here in Paris. Make sure you’re
packed and ready to go. We’ll be leaving this afternoon.’

  Emily turned away, determined to hide her hurt at his cold and commanding tone, just as she had hidden it yesterday when he had rejected her attempts to comfort him after he’d told her about his mother. But what had she expected—that a man so deeply scarred and traumatised by his terrible past would turn around and let her get close, just like that? Was she really that naïve?

  But she refused to do what she suspected Alej wanted her to do—to war with him just because he seemed determined to pick a fight. Because she couldn’t do that. She deeply regretted her past lies and the part she’d played in increasing his suspicion of women, and surely the only way she could make amends was to demonstrate her support for him in a quiet and caring way.

  So she was determinedly upbeat on the way to the airfield to Alej’s jet, and grateful for the large bedroom on board, which meant she was able to sleep for most of the night flight to Buenos Aires in the vast king-size bed. But Alej didn’t join her and every time her eyelids fluttered open it was to find her husband sitting working on his laptop, seemingly oblivious to the hours which were creeping away. As morning broke in a firework explosion of coral and golden sunrise, she saw that he’d fallen asleep in the chair.

  Sliding out of bed, she padded over to kiss his forehead and he awoke with a start, his gaze briefly disorientated before he seemed to gather his wits about himself. And not just his wits. He was hard for her and seemingly ready and so was she and she gave silent thanks that the plane’s crew had their own private quarters at the other end of the giant aircraft as he ripped off her little satin teddy. Pausing only to unzip himself and push his trousers down far enough to free himself, he impaled her completely before kissing away her startled gasp of pleasure as he bounced her up and down on his lap. Was this all she meant to him? she wondered, just before she succumbed to the pulsing tide of pleasure which beckoned.

  She was showered and dressed by the time their plane touched down—the faint flush of her cheeks and bright eyes the only outward sign of their lovemaking, though inside, her heart was pounding like mad. A chauffeur-driven car was waiting to take them to Alej’s estancia and Emily drank in the sight of the Argentinian countryside. Last time she had been here, it had been for a brief and flying visit—jolted by running into Alej again and marred by Joya’s ill health. This time it was different. Her head might be all over the place but in many ways she had found a curious kind of contentment, because didn’t she actually enjoy her husband’s company, as well as being completely bamboozled by the things he did to her in bed?