More Than A Millionaire (Contemporary Romance)

by Sophie Weston

  Felipe said soothingly, ‘You didn’t mean that, did you, Mama? Seriously, Abby, you needn’t worry about meeting undesirable types here. One of the business magazines did an article on him a couple of months ago. He must be a millionaire by now. He never had to—’

  ‘Look,’ interrupted the matriarch. ‘Now! Tell me that isn’t showing off. Go on, look!’

  They all looked.

  Emilio Diz dealt briskly with a workmanlike serve. The blond put the full force of his arm into his return. Even from the terrace they could see the way the dark man’s expression changed. Suddenly he was glittering with triumph. Then he was running backwards, lithe and sure-footed. The ball soared over the net, high and hard. Emilio Diz jumped, reaching. His body arced like a dolphin. In flight it was clear that the tanned limbs were pure muscle.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Annaluisa, forgetting her hostess manners in simple awe.

  Rosa Montijo sniffed. ‘Gypsy. He’s just trying to pretend he’s more than a millionaire. At Bruno’s expense.’

  There was a crack like the report of a gun. A shout of triumph rose from the throats of two dozen watchers.

  ‘He doesn’t have to pretend, Mama,’ said Felipe dryly, joining in the applause.

  The game was over. The two men were shaking hands over the net.

  ‘He could have given Bruno a chance,’ said the resentful grandmother. ‘He is your guest, after all.’

  ‘You don’t understand Emilio, Mama,’ said Felipe.

  The dark tennis player strode off the court. He was swinging his racquet as if impatient to get at the next challenge.

  The spectators gathered round Bruno, punching him on the back, shaking hands. But Abby, watching, saw that they were more careful of Emilio Diz. Or maybe they were just more respectful. They gave him a drink. They talked. But they didn’t touch him, those tactile, relaxed people who touched everyone.

  A confident redhead approached and batted her eyelashes at him. He looked amused and didn’t walk away. But Abby had the impression that he would walk away the moment he wanted to, gorgeous redhead or no.

  Felipe confirmed the feeling. He had taken off his sunglasses and was watching the dark star intently. ‘He doesn’t give anyone special treatment. Emilio plays to win,’ he said. He sounded just a little afraid.

  The afternoon party turned into a barbecue, as they so often did.

  ‘Do you want to borrow a dress, Abby?’ said Rosanna Montijo, trying hard. ‘We’ll be dancing afterward.’

  ‘Do you think I need to?’ asked Abby, trying in her turn.

  ‘You’d probably feel more comfortable. Well, I would in your place. The run up to Christmas is not exactly formal but the parties are, you know, sort of special. And anyway, people expect to dress up for Montijo parties.’

  Which Abby interpreted as, ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t turn up looking like a schoolgirl again and let us all down.’ She suppressed a sigh.

  ‘Then, thanks. Yes, please.’

  Rosanna took her off to her room and Abby tried hard to enjoy the dressing-up session with Rosanna and her two best friends. They tried to include her in the conversation. But she did not know any of the boys they were talking about. And the tactics they discussed made her go hot with sympathetic imaginary embarrassment.

  Then she heard a name she knew.

  ‘Is Emilio staying for the dance, Rosanita?’ said one of the friends, playing with her hair in front of Rosanna’s crowded dressing table.

  Rosanna was inside her walk-in closet. She poked her head out of the door. ‘Yes.’ She added in naughty Spanish, ‘He struggled but Papa told him he had to stay and meet the right people.’

  Abby translated the words in her head and nearly laughed aloud. She knew exactly how the tennis player felt. Maybe he was bad at mingling, too.

  ‘That means he’s the guest of honour, Abby,’ said the friend, translating kindly.

  She did not need to translate. Abby had prepared for this trip by applying herself hard to Spanish. If she had to learn a new language, she thought, it might just as well be one where there were audio tapes available. But ever since she arrived, all the Montijos and their friends had brushed aside her halting attempts to speak their language. Abby did not know whether that was because they were too courteous or too impatient to let her fumble. But it had depleted her small store of confidence even further.

  Rosanna emerged with a long burgundy dress. It was a sophisticated colour, too sophisticated for a sixteen-year-old, Abby thought at once. But they insisted that she try it on. So she did.

  It swirled nicely round her legs when she moved. Only then they insisted on her borrowing some high, strappy shoes and she did not dare to move any more.

  ‘I’ll fall off,’ she said, hanging on to bedpost.

  ‘Not if you practise. You can’t wear kitten heels with a dress like that,’ said Rosanna fairly.

  Abby tried to say that she did not want to wear the dress, either. There was a lot more wrong with it than the too subtle colour. It was more low cut than anything she had ever worn in her life. It made her feel uncomfortable. She said so. Rosanna gave her a shimmery scarf to wear with it but could barely hide her impatience.

  ‘Honestly, Abby, I don’t see the problem. It’s summer here, for heaven’s sake. Everyone wears low necklines in the summer. No one will even notice.’

  ‘I’ll notice,’ said Abby, dragging the designer fabric higher over her small breasts.

  A bootlace strap slid off her shoulder. She hauled it back. The front of the dress slid back to its former anchorage. She grabbed it with both hands. In the long mirror she looked flushed and stubborn and acutely uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, you can’t wear a T-shirt and shorts to a party,’ snapped Rosanna, losing patience. ‘Not in Argentina. Your father,’ she added, clinching it, ‘would really mind.’

  The others agreed. They turned a deaf ear to Abby’s reservations about the shoes, the straps, the sheer backlessness of the dress. They had done their best for her and now there were more interesting things to discuss.

  ‘My father says he’s going to go a long way,’ said the friend at the dressing table.

  The one painting her nails shrugged. ‘Who cares? He’s gorgeous now.’

  Abby was in no doubt who they were talking about.

  ‘My grandmother’s terrified he’ll seduce me.’ That was Rosanna in her underwear, inspecting her smooth legs.

  The others hooted. ‘Fat chance.’

  ‘Wish he’d seduce me.’

  ‘He’s got his own fan club, you know. My sister told me that in Paris last year, the girls followed him everywhere. Once even got into his bedroom at the hotel.’

  They all paused to consider the prospect, sighing enviously.

  ‘Well, tonight,’ said Rosanna with decision, ‘he’s going to seduce me or no one.’

  They teased her.

  ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘How are you going to manage that?’

  ‘I shall tell Papa,’ announced Rosanna superbly. ‘He wants Emilio to meet the right people? Fine. I’ve known the right people since I was born. I shall take him round and introduce him to everyone here. And then,’ her eyes went brooding, ‘he can thank me properly.’

  They all giggled.

  Abby eased out of the door.

  Nobody noticed.

  So later, as twilight began to fall and more guests arrived, Abby went out into the famous gardens and tried hard to lose herself behind a tree. It was not difficult. Rosanna had too many friends to greet to spend time making sure that Abby circulated. The young people went to the paddock where the great barbecue was alight, while the older, glamorous crowd went up to the house.

  The columned veranda glittered with diamonds and champagne and the tinkle of sophisticated laughter. No refuge with the older Montijos tonight then. Abby sighed and clutched the glamorous scarf round her as if it was a granny shawl. Oh, well, there had to be somewhere in the extensive grounds where she co
uld take refuge. She slid away.

  From his place on the terrace, Emilio Diz watched the girl with detached interest. She was not much more than a child. Not a Montijo, he thought. Not with clothes that fitted that badly. Her long arms and legs seemed out of her control, like a newly hatched crane fly. But she certainly knew what she wanted. She kept smiling and nodding to groups as she passed, but he could see that she did not let anyone delay her progress.

  Where was she heading with such determination? He speculated idly. Maybe she was going skinny-dipping in the creek Felipe Montijo had told him about. But no, he shook his head at the thought. You didn’t go skinny-dipping on a warm summer night alone, not even if you were still at the crane fly stage.

  Oh, God, he was so bored, he was making up stories about a teenager he did not even know. With an effort, he brought his attention back to the group of businessmen he had been invited to meet. They wanted to meet him and they wouldn’t for long. His celebrity was already on the wane. He had to capitalise on it before it died. He had a family to provide for, a growing family after Isabel’s bombshell.

  At the thought of his sister’s news, his mouth tightened. Isabel was not much older that that little crane fly girl. Maybe if he had been home more when she was as young as that girl out there, she would not be in the terrible mess she was now.

  Still, there was nothing he could do about that. All he could do was use his talents to provide for them the best way he could. Talents and contacts, he reminded himself, turning to look at his host’s hundred best friends. Designer dresses and diamonds, even at a barbecue. And they had all known each other all their lives.

  Make the most of it, he told himself dryly. If you don’t bring this deal off, you won’t be asked again. These people wouldn’t have had you past the gate three years ago. And they won’t again if you don’t make it. Listen and learn!

  CHAPTER TWO

  ABBY had found the rose grotto at the Hacienda Montijo almost by accident. It had been planted by a Montijo groom for a romantic bride who was missing Europe badly. The design owed more to illustrated fairy books than any classical garden. The bride, taken aback, had not had the heart to tell him that the rose beds at Versailles were neither so crowded nor so cobwebby. Soon enough, she had a baby and stopped missing her old home altogether. But the rose grotto was established and Montijos held on to what they owned. Gardeners pruned and weeded and replanted, even though the family never came there.

  To Abby it was heaven. Not as tangly and scented as the overgrown roses at home, of course. This garden was still properly cared for by professionals. But it was still recognisably natural. She sometimes thought that it was the only thing in this place that was, apart from the horses.

  Now she tucked herself onto a mossy stone seat and leaned back, inhaling the evening scents. Content at last, she felt her tense shoulders relax. Immediately both borrowed shoulder straps fell down her arms.

  ‘Blast, bother and blow,’ said Abby peacefully and left them there. There was, thank God, no one to see.

  She tipped her head back, dreaming…

  Emilio did not like champagne. It was the first thing he discovered after he won his first big tournament. The second thing was that it was impossible to sign all the autographs they wanted and hold a glass at the same time. The third was that, like it or not, able to write or not, you took a glass and you pretended to drink because that was what made the sponsors feel comfortable. And if they felt comfortable with you, they forgot you weren’t one of them.

  Not that he wanted to be one of them. But he wanted to do business with them. And this year was crucial if his ten year game plan was to work. In fact, this evening was probably crucial.

  So why was he so restless that he could hardly bear to listen to Felipe Montijo’s important guests? Why did he want to vault over the balustrade and follow the crane fly girl in her escape? Opportunity did not knock twice. He had to seize it with both hands. Concentrate, he told himself.

  He sipped the nasty stuff in his glass and bent his powerful attention on what his companion was saying about international wheat prices. The man was too polished to ask him for his autograph but Emilio recognised the look in his eyes, the curiosity about a celebrity. Well, he was a celebrity, for the moment. He had better be grateful and damn well make it work for him. He knew, none better, that it wouldn’t last.

  So he circulated, doing oil, bank software, and the prospects for the Argentine wine industry in the process. He gave out business cards and got rather more back. He stored the information for sifting tomorrow, giving thanks for his clear head and computer-accurate memory.

  Then his hostess summoned them all to sit at tables set out around the lawn. Tall flambeaux had been driven into the ground and, now that the sun was gone, they were lit. A band set up its music in front of the tennis court. There was laughter from the paddock where the barbecue meats were being cooked. Some of the younger crowd appeared on the lawn and began to dance. Not the crane fly girl, though, Emilio saw.

  He wondered where she was. Not chasing one of these callous young studs, he thought, conveniently forgetting that he was only a year older than Bruno Montijo. Emilio had been head of the household since long before his international tennis career started. He had never had anyone to mop up his mistakes for him, like golden Bruno.

  Now he thought: someone should make sure that the little crane fly was not deceived by Bruno or one of his cronies. These romantic summer nights, it was all too easy.

  He glanced round the tables casually. Bruno was not among the dancers, he saw. Nor was Miguel Santana, another high-octane, low-conscience charmer that Isabel had been out on the town with. Or several others.

  Emilio hesitated. But no one was paying any attention to him for the moment. And he had more than done his duty by his ten year plan. He stopped hesitating and escaped.

  He found the creek easily enough. There was a pretty circle of trees by a small dock. He could imagine people diving off it. But this evening it was deserted. The younger Montijos were either still eating or had started to dance.

  Where was she?

  He could not have said why he was searching for her. He told himself that it was because she looked uncertain, another stranger in the Montijos’ magnificent midst. Being a stranger had its dangers. Maybe she didn’t know the creek. Maybe she could have fallen in and needed rescuing.

  But it was not that and he knew it. Maybe it was that she looked as out of place as he was. Only in his case it did not show on the outside.

  Or maybe it was because Isabel had been an uncertain stranger and nobody had rescued her.

  Abby was utterly peaceful for the first time in days. She could hear the soft lap-lap of the creek, beyond the hedge of honey-tinged albas. The darkening sky was splashed with lemon and apricot at the horizon but the impatient stars were out already. In this wonderful clear air, they seemed so close, you could stretch up and touch them if you could bother to bestir yourself. And all around her was the scent of the roses.

  They were not roses she knew. There was a peppery pink and a deep, deep crimson that smelled like hot wine. As for the palomino coloured climbing rose that surged around her stone seat—she reached up and buried her nose in it. What did it smell of? Abby shut her eyes. Concentrating.

  Emilio found the grotto by accident. At first he thought it was just a gardener’s corner, hedged around to hide tools and a compost heap. But a perverse desire to see the decaying cabbage leaves of elegant Hacienda Montijo pushed him through the break in the hedge.

  To find what he had not admitted he was looking for! He stopped dead.

  She did not notice him at first, his crane fly girl. She had her nose buried in a big tatty rose. Its petals were the colour of French toast and its leaves were almost black. As he looked she raised her head and, eyes closed, inhaled luxuriously. Her oversophisticated dress was nearly falling off. But she was oblivious to everything but her rose.

  ‘Paper,’ she said aloud. ‘No—parc
hment. And something else. Cloves?’

  She opened her eyes and bent to take another connoisseur’s sniff. She never got there. She saw him. Her eyes widened in dismay.

  Well, at least she wasn’t going to ask him for his autograph, thought Emilio, trying to be amused. But he was not. That look piqued him. His time had not yet passed. People were still eager to welcome this celebrity. He did not like being toadied to, of course he didn’t, but he wasn’t used to people glaring at him as if he was an evil destroyer from another planet, either.

  He nearly said so. But at the last moment he changed tack and decided to use the legendary charm instead. If it worked on journalists and crowned heads, who saw a lot of world-class charm, it ought to work on this odd creature in her ill-fitting dress.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ he said with the crooked, rueful smile that the photographers loved.

  It did not appear to work. Emilio was taken aback.

  The girl frowned mightily. It looked fierce. But of course she must be having to translate in her head, he thought, suddenly understanding the significance of the words he had overheard. Now was she American? Canadian? Australian? English?

  He said forgivingly, ‘I’ll go,’ and waited for her to tell him to stay.

  She stood up and said with great care, ‘I thought I am—sorry, I thought I was alone.’

  All right, she wasn’t going to tell him to stay. But she probably did not have the vocabulary for it. He recognised the wooden accent.

  ‘English?’ said Emilio in that language, strolling in to the centre of the bower.

  She looked annoyed. ‘Yes. But I try to speak Spanish. I did a course before I came out here specially. Only no one will let me.’

  He selected another rose from the torrent and lifted it on one long finger.

  ‘That’s probably because your ideas are too interesting to get lost in first-grade vocabulary.’ He tried another smile. ‘What was it you said this thing smelled of? Parchment?’

  She nodded seriously.