Secrets of His Forbidden Cinderella

by Caitlin Crews

  It was all very well to have one child, the way his father had, and hope that the son he raised would be worthy of the gifts his birth accorded him. Teo had never been a gambler. He had no interest in risk. He planned to marry, produce an heir, and several spares besides. He did not wish to risk the possibility that the dukedom could fall to some far-flung cousin who had not been raised as he had been. Not if it was in his power to make it otherwise.

  And not only because he liked the idea of continuing the bloodline through his direct descendants. For while he was avowedly arrogant, he was not quite that arrogant. What he truly wished was to make certain that he would have the opportunity to teach his own children what it meant to be members of the de Luz family. He would teach them what it meant to him, and in so doing, connect them with that long sweep of history and myth that was a part of who they were.

  He wanted to fill them with as much gratitude as greatness.

  He’d seen his future so clearly, always.

  Even when his father had started his downward spiral into unsuitable women, it hadn’t changed Teo’s plans. How could it? He had never planned to look around for a wife until he was older, more settled and more capable of making certain that any wife he took would obey him as required. Because while Teo was fond of a spirited discussion when appropriate, there was only one true expert on the Marinceli legacy, and it was him. He’d accordingly spent a lot of time fashioning the perfect wife in his head, and she was not at all like the sensual redhead he’d indulged in last fall.

  Certainly not.

  His Duchess would be refined. Elegant in blood and action. Blameless, spotless and without a whisper of scandal attached to her name. Educated, dedicated and capable of assuming the duties that came with overseeing the Marinceli holdings and estates. He’d been thinking of a certain kind of heiress, bred for a life that looked like leisure—and certainly had its charms and compensations—but was often far more complicated than outsiders imagined.

  He had always planned to marry a woman like his own mother.

  His mother, who had given him softness where his father had given him duties. His mother, who had taught him the beauty of nature and how to find peace there no matter what. His mother, whom he had loved as fiercely as he loved the land and whom he had lost anyway.

  And then lost again when his father had chosen to wash away her memory with a woman who was little better than a common streetwalker.

  He had vowed he, by God, would honor his station and his mother’s memory alike.

  And now this. This...tragedy.

  Because it didn’t matter what Amelia Ransom said. Or what plans he might have made. The die was cast. She was carrying his child and that made her—her—the next Duchess of Marinceli.

  Losing the appropriate heiress he’d planned to install here, to reclaim his mother’s quiet glory in some small way, felt like losing her all over again.

  Teo would marry Amelia, because it could go no other way. There was no alternative. The Dukes of Marinceli might divorce—or arrange timely accidents, in some centuries—but only after the line was secured.

  And even then, rarely.

  He glared out at his grounds, stretching on as far as the eye could see in every direction. But if he was looking for an escape, it was futile.

  Teo had no choices here.

  And in truth, he supposed it didn’t matter. If he stepped back from his own reactions, there was something to be said for infusing an ancient family line with some literal new blood. Whatever else could be said about Americans, there was no denying that their brand of peasantry was...enterprising. The child would be hale and hardy and Teo would be on hand to guide him into his role as successor to the dukedom.

  The question was, what was he to do with this woman whom he was going to be forced to wed?

  He turned, his gaze falling on the crackling fire. Something popped, and a log collapsed into ash and soot. And she’d spoken of fairy tales, had she not? Called him Duke Charming, perhaps the most nauseating thing he’d ever heard.

  But as nauseated as the name made him, it did give him an idea.

  Amelia liked fairy tales. He could give her one. After all, she was playing a deep game here that she’d started last fall, dressed as someone else—and in his experience, no one came after him who wasn’t, ultimately, after his title. His wealth. His consequence, the very least.

  She’d lived here when she was younger and he couldn’t remember all the conversations that must have been had in her presence. About the dukedom, about Teo’s role, about all the expectations and history heaped upon him. But he knew they must have taken place.

  That made it hard to imagine that she didn’t already know how this would go.

  He would insist upon marrying her. He would insist on claiming his heir in the time-honored fashion, because outside the dukedom, it was the modern age—but here, always and forever, it was medieval. And the same rules applied now as had then.

  Teo was sure Amelia knew all this. That he would do what was necessary to secure his bloodline, always.

  But that didn’t mean he had to make it pleasant for her.

  If she wanted to play Cinderella games, he would be more than happy to oblige her.

  * * *

  Amelia had been taken off to one of the guest suites, carefully tucked away in the main part of the house, where a visitor could feel as if she was a part of things without ever straying into anything private.

  First she had seen Teo’s business manager, and a pair of lawyers, who had come in with perfunctory smiles and a sheaf of legal documents. Reading through those documents had taken more time than the actual physical she had also subjected herself to with the quietly competent doctor who’d accompanied them, and whom she recognized from her years here before.

  She wasn’t in any suspense. Amelia already knew who the father of her baby was.

  Still, she’d had to sit there and look suitably grave as a pack of disapproving men had given her news that wasn’t in any way news to her, but likely meant all kinds of things to them. Bless.

  Then they’d all taken themselves off to handle the actual purpose of their visit—telling tales to Teo—though none of them said that directly.

  “If you could wait here, madam,” Teo’s business manager murmured.

  And when the door shut behind him, Amelia was faced with a decision.

  The events of the morning were already a tumultuous jumble in her head. From the plane ride to that long drive to everything that had happened when she’d arrived here. She wanted to tell herself it all felt as if it had happened to someone else—

  But she could still feel him. Vividly.

  His taste was in her mouth again. She could feel that thick ridge of his need where their bodies had met. And she felt herself get soft and hot—even at the memory.

  It made a mockery of her attempts to tell herself that she was immune to him. That she had somehow vaccinated herself against all things Teo de Luz.

  And she was acutely aware, as she sat there in the elegantly appointed living room of the suite where they’d left her, that nothing was holding her here. All those legal documents that she’d signed had been about protecting Teo in the event that she was not carrying his child. Very few had addressed the possibility that she might be, because, of course, no one had imagined that could be a possibility.

  She’d known. And she’d told him. Now he had the additional proof he needed.

  Amelia had absolutely no reason to sit here waiting for him to make good on the vague threats he’d already made.

  But no matter how many times she thought the same thing, or told herself it was time to rise and go for the door, she didn’t.

  She waited.

  She waited, and she waited, her eyelids getting heavier by the moment. And she couldn’t have said when she fell asleep, exactly. One moment she wa
s sitting there, fretting about when and how she should leave this place—and for good this time—and the next she was waking up in a rush, confused and faintly irritable.

  The light in the room had changed, the shadows gone long and deep, and Teo stood over her. He stared down at her with a look on his face that she was tempted to call murderous.

  Amelia told herself it was nothing more than the dreams she’d been having, one more intense than the last. She sat up, rubbing at her face, and looked around as if she expected to find someone else in the room with them. But no one else was there and she realized that whatever noise there was, it must all be in her head.

  “What’s happening?” she asked hearing the sleep in her voice.

  The part of her that had been a notably awkward teenager in this same awe-inspiring house cringed at that, because if that was how she sounded, how must she look—but she had to shove that aside as best she could.

  “We’re having a baby,” Teo said, and this time, that aristocratic voice of his was grim. It instantly put her on alert. “Allow me to extend my felicitations, Miss Ransom.”

  She was already frowning, so it was easy enough to sit up straight and slip on into a full-on scowl. “I think it might be time to stop calling me Miss Ransom, don’t you? We didn’t only have sex, Teo. We actually made another human life. I think the intimacy barrier has been well and truly broken.”

  He smiled, but it was a mirthless thing. “I took the liberty of having my security detail locate the vehicle you used to sneak onto my property.”

  “I didn’t sneak. Just because no one regularly uses those old lanes doesn’t mean driving on them is an act of subterfuge, does it?”

  He ignored her. “I took the liberty of collecting your case.”

  She assumed he meant that he’d had a servant do it, as she couldn’t imagine the Duke of Marinceli toting luggage about the place, and normally she would have pointed that out. Made a joke out of it—or a weapon. But the shadows in the room seemed darker than they should have been, her head was still full of jagged anxiety dreams, and she stayed quiet.

  Teo studied her a moment, and it took all the self-control Amelia possessed to keep her hands from her face, to check for something embarrassing. “If you will follow me, we have a trip to take and it is already getting late.”

  He started for the door. Amelia stood automatically, then glanced out the windows. Sure enough, she’d slept most of the day away if the creeping dusk was any guide. And even though it was winter and sunset came early, it still seemed remarkably lazy on her part. She didn’t normally succumb to jet leg, really. She’d discovered that no matter where she went on the planet, come three thirty in the afternoon of whatever time zone she found herself in, she was ravenously hungry. Other than that, she normally acclimated fine.

  But everything was different in a pregnant body, she was discovering. She chose to be happy that the only symptom she was experiencing at the moment was some fatigue, here and there. It was better—anything was better—than the weeks upon weeks of nausea.

  She was hurrying after Teo, out in the hallway and trying to catch up to his long strides, before she bothered to ask herself why. She didn’t need to run around after him like a harried member of his vast staff. She didn’t have to do anything with him at all, for that matter.

  “Wait,” she said, throwing the word at his back. “Why did you collect my bag?” Teo didn’t stop walking. He didn’t even look back over his shoulder. And it was as if, now that she was moving, Amelia couldn’t quite bring herself to stop. “And what do you mean, we’re going on a trip?”

  “All will be revealed in good time,” Teo said, and there was something about the easy authority in his voice when he said it.

  It was comforting, almost. As if he had the answers, when Amelia had spent the whole of her life in the presence of adults who never had answers, even when she was a child. She’d always been the one sent off to do her level best to find whatever answers were required. Even the great and powerful men her mother married turned to her when the relationship went bad, as it always did. Amelia always knew it was coming when the stepfathers or lovers suddenly showed a marked interest in taking her out to dinner, or to coffee, or invited her on a long walk out of the blue. These things always led to uncomfortable questions about her mother’s favorite things. How best to talk to her. And as she got older, Amelia’s own take on the situation—that situation being her mother’s love life.

  Having never experienced the opportunity to show anyone blind obedience, because she’d never trusted anyone with even wide-eyed, considered obedience, Amelia really hadn’t understood how nice it was. Not to have to come up with the answers. Or a plan.

  To trust that he had everything under control. Including her.

  You probably shouldn’t find that liberating, she chastised herself.

  She followed Teo for miles and miles through the sprawling house. Then outside, briefly, to note the frigid slap of the January evening before climbing into a waiting car. Only then did it occur to her to ask herself—again—why this man made it seem perfectly reasonable to follow him off into the gathering night without the slightest idea where they were headed. Why she trusted him when she shouldn’t.

  But even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. The car pulled away, heading not toward the long drive that would lead them down to the gates and toward the village, but deeper into the property. And behind her, the magnificent house stood, lights blazing, el monstruo in all its glory.

  And she understood that no matter how unimpressed she pretended to be with the Nineteenth Duke of Marinceli, the fact remained that he was safe, relatively speaking. He had kept this house wholly itself, and inarguably beautiful, when it could so easily have been turned into a tourist attraction. A hotel or event space. Or any of the other things aristocrats fallen on hard times liked to do with the old, stately homes that had once been the seat of their families’ power.

  She couldn’t say she knew Teo well, only that she knew him in a variety of interesting ways. What she did know—what she’d known even as a teenager—was that he took his responsibilities very, very seriously.

  If he was driving her off into the night alone, she might have worried. But she was carrying his child. And Amelia had to think that made her precious cargo to a man like him. Whatever he had planned, it couldn’t be too bad.

  Or anyway, it certainly wouldn’t risk the child.

  So she was very sedate, really, as the car pulled up to the private jet that waited for them on the estate’s airfield. And it was the easiest thing in the world to climb aboard and settle herself inside, not at all surprised to find that Teo—unlike some of her mother’s past lovers, tacky unto their very souls—preferred a quiet elegance even here. Nothing garish or over the top. Simply the height of comfort augmented by his tremendous wealth.

  Because the more money a person had, the simpler the things they surrounded themselves with could be. If a person used it well, money was magic in reverse.

  It was a short flight, but then, this was Europe. Everything could be reached quickly enough, and she had no idea how to even begin to figure out where they were as the plane landed. It seemed remote, if the few, scattered lights out her window were any indication on the way down.

  Teo, who had disappeared into one of the staterooms for the flight, emerged. And she blinked, because unless she was hallucinating, the too-aristocratic-to-breathe Nineteenth Duke of Marinceli was...wearing jeans. And a T-shirt that she could only gape at before he tugged on the sort of wool sweater that looked better suited to northern fishermen than pampered Spanish dukes. He was even wearing winter boots, she realized in shock as she looked down at his feet.

  But he was gazing at her, his dark eyes simmering and steady at once, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of asking.

  Even if that meant she had to bite down hard o
n her own tongue.

  Amelia expected the usual pomp and circumstance when they climbed down the stairs from the plane to the ground, but she found herself instead on a remote, abandoned strip of land that barely qualified as an airfield. It was dark, but she still had the sense of mountains looming all around. And it was cold. Bitter and harsh, not simply raw.

  “Are we in the mountains?” she asked, as the cold cut into her. “Which mountains?”

  “Welcome to the Pyrenees,” Teo responded and he waited, there at the bottom of the jet’s steps, as Amelia buttoned up her heavy peacoat and shuddered deeper into it.

  And she didn’t feel quite as comfortable or trusting or safe as she had before. But she followed him as he strode off into what seemed like nothing but darkness, her heart walloping her ribs from the inside, because what other choice did she have?

  Luckily, all he was doing was walking over to an SUV that waited a little too far into the shadows for Amelia’s peace of mind. There were no people. There wasn’t even anything resembling an airport building. When she looked over her shoulder toward the plane, the jet was already pulling up its staircase, clearly readying itself to take off again.

  With a sudden, prickling sense of foreboding, Amelia wanted to turn and run back for that plane. It was in her like a scream, the need to do it, to escape, to do anything but subject herself—

  But she did nothing. And when Teo opened the passenger door of the SUV for her, with a mocking flourish, she even smiled.

  She didn’t smile again for some time.

  Because Teo took to what passed for a road and all Amelia could do was grip the handle set in the door of the car and pray for deliverance.

  The road wound around and around, barely wide enough for the car they were in at some points. The headlights picked up looming rock walls and catastrophic cliffs that tumbled down to God only knew where.

  Teo didn’t consult any directions. He simply drove, and she couldn’t tell if he knew exactly where they were going, or if he was on some kind of a suicide mission. But no. She was revising her opinion on whether or not he was a murderer, but she still didn’t think that he was likely to do away with... How had he put it? The heir to his dukedom. The Twentieth Duke of Marinceli, as a matter of fact.