‘Don’t look at me,’ she said by way of greeting, hand covering her face as she zipped straight past him to the dressing room.
Just her presence was enough to lighten his mood. ‘Why not?’
‘Because you need the full effect for when I put the dress on.’ She shut the door behind her.
He opened it a touch so he could speak through the gap. ‘What’s that thing around your head?’
‘I told you not to look.’
‘But I like looking at you.’
‘Good. Because I like looking at you. Now go away.’ She shut the door again.
He opened it again. ‘I won’t look until you’re ready.’
‘You’d better not. Anyway, I have gossip.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yep. Celeste sent your cousins for beauty treatments too. The younger one...what’s her name?’
‘Cordelia.’
‘That’s the one. She was telling me that she saw Emiliano a month ago in England for some polo competition he was in. They went out for dinner and he basically spent the meal banging on about his horses. Apparently, he’s fallen out with one of his players and is going to find someone new to replace him for the American season.’
She skimmed past the small gap in the door. He only caught a brief glimpse but it was enough to distract him from what she was saying, mainly because she had only a pair of lacy black knickers on.
He adjusted his position so his back was to the wall by the door and tried not to imagine peeling those knickers off with his teeth.
Oblivious to the effect she was having on him, she continued. ‘Cordelia also mentioned the Delgado Group and how she’s going to ask you for a job. So that makes me wonder—why is she going to ask you for a job if Emiliano is poised to take over? And if Emiliano is planning to take over the Delgado Group, why is he going full-throttle for preparations for the next polo season when the current season isn’t finished yet and the takeover should be taking all his attention?’
Those were excellent questions, he conceded grimly, resting his head against the wall and expelling a long breath.
For the first time, Damián considered the validity of Mia’s suggestion that Celeste could be behind it all. It was a consideration that made his guts tighten unbearably.
Celeste couldn’t be behind it. That she had always loved Emiliano more than him was merely a statement of fact, but that didn’t mean she would actively conspire against him... Did it?
‘Are you okay?’ Mia called from behind the door. He heard the concern in her voice and closed his eyes as a wave of nausea swept through him.
He had to force his vocal cords to work. ‘Si. All good. Just impatient to see your beautiful face.’
‘Almost done.’
Less than a minute later, the door opened. If he hadn’t jumped out of the way it would have slammed into him.
Mia stood before him and spread her arms out. ‘Well? What do you think of the newly improved Mia Caldwell?’
What did he think?
For long moments he couldn’t breathe, let alone think. For those long moments the agony of imagining his mother’s betrayal was cast aside as his greedy eyes soaked in every inch of the sparkling beauty before him.
Her rose-pink dress, covered in silver and crystal jewels, was strapless and skimmed her cleavage to caress her beautiful body and fell to mid-thigh, displaying her gorgeous legs, which were a couple of shades darker than they’d been when he’d kissed her goodbye before her beauty treatments. Covering the dress was a sheer silk toga-style piece, which skimmed her shoulders and fastened at the waist with a diamond-encrusted button, then split to fall at her pretty feet. With sultry make-up, hair loose and tumbling in waves, the end result was something that managed to be both elegant and fun, which, to Damián’s mind, summed Mia up perfectly.
The glow in her eyes slowly dimmed. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
He swallowed and nodded. ‘You look...beautiful. Perfect.’
He looked beautiful too, Mia thought, her heart exploding as she drank in his raw masculinity. In his black velvet tuxedo, he looked so handsome it should be illegal.
But, the longer she stared into Damián’s dark eyes and saw the torture reflecting back at her, the heavier the weight in her chest grew until the torture became her own.
A swell of tears burned the back of her eyes and, using the pretext of squirting some perfume on, she hurried back into the dressing room so she could blink them away without destroying her make-up.
All day she’d kept a happy front. She’d turned the search for the missing documents into a thrilling adventure, imagining herself in some kind of spy movie. It had been easier to do that than confront the deep ache rooted in her chest, a pain so familiar she could hardly bear to acknowledge it.
It was the pain she used to carry when she feared she would lose Amy and when she’d been fearful for Amy.
She wasn’t afraid of losing Damián. Losing him was a given, written in black and white the fateful day she’d been summoned to him. She’d never imagined then that she would spend the eve of their parting desperately throwing herself into her task, terrified to give herself any time to think because the pain of what was to come for her was already too big to cope with.
But she was afraid for Damián too. Afraid he would never find those documents. Afraid he would find them. Afraid of his security expert finally retrieving the footage of the time of his father’s death and what that footage would reveal. Afraid of her hunch that his mother was behind it all. Of all the things she feared, that was at the forefront. Celeste might defy all the laws of nature when it came to mothering but surely there were limits? She prayed there were limits.
Something told her that by the end of the night there would be no more secrets.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DAMIÁN HAD TO give Celeste her due—she knew how to throw a party. There was a reason why invitations to her annual summer party were considered gold dust. Each year outdid the year before.
Tonight, hundreds of guests spilled out of the villa’s vast rooms, hundreds more basking in the evening warmth in its vast gardens. The guests, all so beautifully dressed now, would leave hours later much the worse for wear and stagger to their waiting cars or helicopters—the grounds had two helipads—clutching their goody bags. This year’s goody bags contained, amongst other delights, diamond-encrusted bracelets for the ladies and diamond-encrusted cufflinks with matching tiepins for the gentlemen. Anyone found selling or trading their gifts would be banned from attending again, a fate that had befallen a Hollywood superstar who’d made the mistake of listing the motorcycle he’d been given on an auction site. That had been the year each guest had been given a set of vehicle keys.
For two hours Damián and Mia mingled, slowly sipping their champagne while everyone else guzzled theirs, making small talk, avoiding the biggest bores where possible and generally looking as if they were having a marvellous time. Because that was expected. Everyone had to have a marvellous time.
Mia, as he’d known she would, threw herself into it. Having her by his side made the whole thing easier to endure and kept the demons inside his head at bay. If he wasn’t on such tenterhooks he would be enjoying himself. Who could fail to enjoy Mia’s company? She was vivacious and funny and in her element when under the spotlight, which, as the first woman he’d brought to one of his mother’s parties, she was. Everyone wanted to meet her. Everyone was curious about her.
Damian had introduced only one of his lovers to his family, his first serious lover many years ago, long before his relationship with Emiliano had detonated. He’d ended that relationship weeks later and decided not to introduce anyone else to his family until he found the perfect woman to settle down with. He hadn’t imagined then that well over a decade later he would still be looking for her. Choosy in forming relationships, he’d been even choos
ier at keeping them. One lover had ended the relationship because of his refusal to bring her to Celeste’s summer party. With hindsight, he could see he’d hurt her feelings. At the time, he’d assumed she was only with him for what she could get and so he hadn’t considered that she might have had any real feelings for him.
Perfect on paper though his lovers had been, that perfection had soon bored him. Until Mia had come into his life, he hadn’t understood the boredom for what it was, had just sensed when things weren’t working and ended the relationship.
Everything with Mia felt different. Better.
And then he remembered, with something akin to shock, that the only reason Mia was here was because he was paying her. That she’d become his lover was an accident.
Ice crept up his spine as he remembered that she wasn’t with him for him any more than his previous lovers had been. She desired him, that was not in dispute, but were his power and wealth her aphrodisiacs? Would she have looked twice at him if he were an ordinary man? Would her ready affection be more muted if she wasn’t surrounded by the trappings of his success?
She was an actress. A damn good one. Something he should not have forgotten.
The group they were talking with burst into laughter. Mia tugged at his hand, bringing him back to the here and now, and he joined in, not having a clue what he was supposed to be laughing at.
He looked into her smiling face, which couldn’t mask the concern in her eyes.
Was that concern real?
She said something that had them all barking out more laughter, and then she hooked an arm around Damián’s neck and kissed his cheek, a display of affection that punched through his chest and filled it with something that made him feel drunk.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said cheerfully to the group, ‘but I need to powder my nose.’
Her fingers lingered on his before she disappeared into the increasingly raucous throng.
The moment she left his sight, his chest tightened and he had to concentrate harder than ever to keep up with the conversation.
She returned within minutes but they were the longest minutes he’d endured in a very long time.
She smiled at everyone as she took his hand. ‘Apologies, but I need to steal Damián from you. He’s promised me a tour of the bell tower.’
The way she said it left no one in any doubt that she was dragging him away for less cultural purposes, and their knowing laughter echoed behind them as they walked away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in an undertone.
She looked over her shoulder then put a hand to his shoulder so she could whisper into his ear. ‘Your brother’s in the swimming pool with a load of women.’
He gazed into the bright blue eyes, saw the trepidation in them and exhaled slowly. Then he swallowed and nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’
Her mouth curved in understanding before she pressed a sweet, gentle kiss to his mouth. Even with his cynicism breathing freely, her kiss loosened the angst knotting in him.
For the next hour he needed to keep his growing cynicism on lockdown. He still needed Mia’s help for what came next.
Hands clasped together, they sidestepped dancing couples and waiting staff balancing trays of champagne and canapés, Damián making the ‘one minute’ sign to anyone who tried to catch his attention. Celeste, he knew, would be holding court as she always did in her special Art Room, where she displayed the best of her extensive collection, the pieces refreshed every year so no guest ever saw the same artworks displayed twice. He remembered her overseeing the packing of a Titian to replace it with the work of a graffiti artist. As far as he knew, the Titian was still stored in a vault in Switzerland. She thought it didn’t ‘fit’ in any of the other rooms.
With his brother and mother both busy, now was the perfect time to strike. They wouldn’t miss their presence.
Damián climbed the stairs two at a time, Mia hurrying alongside him. No one watching would have any doubt where they were going and what they intended to do when they got there.
Except when they got to the top of the stairs they turned left instead of right.
A chaise longue was one of the elegant pieces lining this particular corridor and they sat on it for a moment while Damián checked his phone, which he’d linked to the security system. As the screen was much smaller than the laptop, it was pointless aiming to split screen, but he set it for the camera in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs and gave it to Mia.
‘Stay here and keep watch.’ He didn’t have to tell her what to keep watch for.
‘Sure you don’t want me to search with you?’
His throat going dry, he shook his head. ‘It’s bad enough that I’m invading his privacy in this way without dragging you into it. Just keep watch for me. I won’t be long.’ Then he swallowed and met her apprehensive stare. ‘If I don’t find anything, I will search Celeste’s quarters.’
She closed her eyes and nodded her understanding but he could see from the frown etching her face that she felt as bad about what he was about to do as he did. And that she understood why he had to do it.
Or was that merely what she wanted him to think? That she was pushing aside her scruples—the very scruples he’d selected her for in the first place, thinking they were non-existent—for him?
He dug his fingers hard into the nape of his neck and ground his teeth together. Why was he doubting her, and why now, when it was imperative he keep his mind clear?
It was this place, he thought. The villa. And being with his family. It messed with his head.
‘Have you got the bug checker?’ she asked.
He patted his jacket pocket. He also had a kit to unlock doors if Emiliano had locked his. He hoped he’d paid good enough attention to Felipe’s instructions on how to use it.
Her shoulders rose. He could see the length of the breath that she took.
He put his hand on the door but found he couldn’t turn it. It wasn’t that the handle was stuck; it was that his hand didn’t want to co-operate.
‘Great time to develop a conscience,’ he muttered to the offending hand.
Nausea roiled again in his stomach. He forced his hand to work and turn the damned handle.
And that was when Mia suddenly shouted, ‘I think Felipe’s retrieved the footage! He’s sent you a video.’
* * *
Mia could hardly breathe. She couldn’t hear Damián breathing either.
He had the phone in his hand. The accompanying message was in Spanish. Whatever he read in that message made his hand shake. His thigh, pressed tightly to hers, juddered. She put a hand on it and gently squeezed.
He pressed play.
The footage started with Celeste carrying a glass of something that looked like Scotch out of her quarters. Rapid shots with time stamps in the bottom right hand corner showed her progress and then entry into the sun room, which she left less than a minute later, empty-handed. The next shot, time stamped thirty-one minutes later, showed her returning to the sun room. Four minutes after that the corridor suddenly filled with staff. Noise rang out of the phone in Damián’s hand, making her jump. Shouts. Calls for help.
Coldness crept through her bones as the realisation she was watching the afternoon of Eduardo Delgado’s death suddenly dawned on her.
The screen blurred before her eyes but she forced them back into focus to see the body, mercifully wrapped in a black body bag, being respectfully carried out of the villa.
And then the next shot came. Four hours later. The villa was dark. Eduardo’s private quarters. Celeste appeared. Unlocked the door. This time the footage stayed still, the timestamp ticking rapidly in the bottom right corner.
Mia pressed herself closer to Damián and covered her mouth, dreading what she feared would be shown next.
She couldn’t help the moan of despair that ripped out of her throat w
hen the heavy door opened again and Celeste stepped out. Under her arm, a pile of papers.
Whoever had retrieved the footage had zoomed in. Although the documents were written in Spanish, Damián’s sharp intake of breath told her they were looking at his father’s will.
And then the final cruelty. Celeste entering the drawing room with the documents and leaving two minutes later without them.
They had searched the drawing room that morning. It was the most sparsely furnished room in the whole villa. But it had a huge open fire. Eduardo had died in winter.
Damián could not breathe. The corridor was spinning around him, faster and faster, nausea rising from deep inside and lining his throat.
Blinking hard for focus, he rewound the video and forced himself to watch the damning footage again. Beside him, he felt Mia shaking.
The nausea abated. In its place was a lead weight, pushing down, numbing him.
‘What’s going on?’
Raising his head from the screen in his hand, Damián found his brother, his hair and tuxedo soaking wet, standing a foot away, looking him in the eye for the first time in a decade.
Wordlessly, he held the phone out to him.
Emiliano’s right brow rose in question but he took it from him.
‘You might want to sit down,’ Damián muttered.
Emiliano pressed his back against the wall and slithered down until he reached the floor. He pressed play.
The only sounds in the corridor were the heaviness of the Delgado brothers’ breathing and Mia’s quiet sobs.
What was she crying for? This was nothing to do with her. She was only here because he’d paid her.
When the shouts for help rang out of the phone, Emiliano flinched. A minute later, he put the phone on the floor and buried his face in his hands.
‘Answer me one thing,’ Damián said in their native tongue. ‘Were you in on it?’
The Billionaire's Cinderella Contract Page 14
