JACQUELINE BAIRD – His Inherited Bride (страница 3)

She had only gone a few yards through the trees when she had stopped dead, and to this day she could not forget the sight that had met her eyes.

Enrique her fiancé, stark naked, with an equally naked Maria, Rand’s fiancée, and completely oblivious to her presence! There was not the slightest doubt about what they had been doing, and with nausea rising in her stomach she had run away.

Jules had made it back to the other side of the river before she’d collapsed on the bank crying her eyes out. That was how Maria had found her. Jules had slapped Maria’s hand away when she’d reached out to comfort her, and Maria had instantly guessed what had happened. ‘You saw us.’ Jules had not needed to confirm it. Maria had been able to see it in her face.

What had followed had been a painfully succinct lesson in life for Jules. Maria had informed her that she and Enrique had been lovers since the age of fourteen until her mother had found out and sent her to live in Santiago with an aunt. No one else knew of her relationship with Enrique, and no way did she want Jules revealing the truth to anyone, especially not her fiancé, Rand Carducci. He had financed her singing career and she had fully intended to marry him eventually, when she’d become tired of the music scene.

When Jules had said that was disgraceful, and if Maria married anyone it should be Enrique, because Jules certainly wasn’t going to marry him now, her teenage view of love had been killed stone-dead and the very thought of Enrique touching her turned her stomach.

Maria’s response had been a shake of her black head. ‘God, you are such an innocent. Surely you must have realised no hot-blooded Chilean male would be content to see his girlfriend for one month a year, and even then Enrique barely kissed you. Do you really think he is marrying you for anything other than your father’s ranch? Look around you—your father and Enrique’s have agreed between them you will inherit this and consequently, as your husband, Enrique. Two good properties amalgamated into one great one and the two families united. Grow up, girl, and face reality. Why do you think your father waited so many years before sending for you? Because he waited until you were of an age to be used,’ she told Jules cynically. ‘As for Enrique, he loves me, and he would marry me tomorrow if I agreed, but no way do I want to be stuck out in the country for the rest of my life. Rand is a much better bet, and I’ll get to travel the world in the lap of luxury.’

With the veil of innocence so brutally torn from her eyes Jules had been forced to face the fact that what Maria had told her made a horrible kind of sense. When they had finally parted Maria had elicited a promise from Jules that she would not mention her name in connection with Enrique.

Later Jules had told her father she was calling off the wedding because she had caught Enrique with another woman. He had told her not to be so silly, sex was not the same as the love between a married couple, and she would soon learn.

Jules had tried to argue, but had been finally silenced when her father had lost his temper and told her the truth. It had all been arranged with Señor Eiga that the two ranches would amalgamate when Jules married his son. As his only child and a female, it was her duty to do as she was told. If not he would cut her off without a penny.

It was then that she had finally seen her father for what he had been.

Remembering the episode again now still made Jules wince, mortified at her own blind innocence.

Rand saw the tightening of her full lips, but stared down at her making no effort to break the lengthening silence. He wasn’t surprised Jules was lost for words with what she had on her conscience. Idly he speculated what excuse she would come up with for her callous disregard of her father, but as she continued to avoid looking at him he found his anger rising. ‘I suppose you heard Enrique died in a car crash a few months later,’ he prompted with barely veiled contempt.

At the sound of Rand’s voice Jules blinked, banishing the hurtful memories to the back of her mind. ‘Enrique’s father sent me a note,’ she confirmed shortly. It had arrived via a solicitor, and it had been a shock. She recalled the hatred in the short one-liner, the gist of it being that it was her fault his son was dead. Enrique had been driving recklessly because Julia had broken his heart and his father hoped she rotted in hell!

A flash of rage sparkled in Rand’s black eyes. She knew about the car crash, the crash that had killed his fiancée as well as her ex, and yet she had the nerve to face him. God, she was hard, but, controlling his temper, he said, ‘Even though you had parted, it must have come as quite a shock to you.’

His large hand reached and squeezed her shoulder for a moment, and Jules felt the pressure of his fingers right through to the bone. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, surprised by his apparent if somewhat fierce gesture of comfort.

‘I am sorry. Forgive me for reminding you of your grief,’ he drawled softly.

From her sitting position she felt at a distinct disadvantage, his great frame towering over her, crowding her, and, lifting her chin, she looked up into his dark face. Was that sincerity in the night-black eyes that held hers? She wasn’t sure. He had the ‘sorry’ and the ‘forgive me’ in there—so why did she have the uneasy feeling she had just been insulted?

‘Yes, well, thank you,’ she murmured, feeling more of a hypocrite by the second, ‘but I prefer not to talk about it.’ She lowered her eyes from his intent gaze, her mind in a state of flux. He must know why she was here, so why was he being so nice? Perhaps marriage and a few children had mellowed him, she thought.

CHAPTER TWO

THIS interview was not going at all as Jules had planned; she was not here to relive the past but to hopefully assure her mother’s future. ‘I did not come all this way to talk over the past. The present is more my concern,’ she said firmly.

‘Yes, of course, how foolish of me to think you might need sympathy. After all, you left Enrique virtually standing at the altar.’ Rand stepped back and with a lift of one broad shoulder added, ‘Why would you be worried about the death of an ex-fiancé, years ago, when you were not even concerned with the recent death of your own father?’

Jules’ head shot back up, her green eyes clashing with contemptuous black, her doubts of his sincerity confirmed, and she realised the gloves were off with a vengeance.

‘You know nothing of my relationship with my father.’ She leapt to her feet. ‘Or, rather lack of one,’ she added cynically. ‘And it really has nothing to do with you anyway.’

One of the few times Jules had had a conversation with her dad he had explained how years ago when his sister Ester had been a student she had got involved with a far left political party in Chile. After spending a term in prison for her beliefs, she had finally escaped to Europe. She had met and married an Italian widower with a four-year-old son, Randolfo, and never returned. Brother and sister held completely opposing political views, and they had been estranged for decades. Which with hindsight should have told Jules something about her dad’s character years ago, but it had taken her own engagement to reveal him in his true colours.

Jules seriously doubted her father would ever have contacted his sister, if she had not made the first move years later by asking her adult stepson to check up on her only sibling on her behalf. Carlos Diez had been a cold-hearted, manipulative man as Jules had discovered for herself.

‘It does have something to do with me in as much as I am the sole executor of your father’s will,’ Rand reminded her.

‘And of course your obvious concern must be looking after your stepmother Ester’s interest, I understand that,’ Jules shot back throwing caution to the wind. ‘But I don’t—’

‘Stop right there,’ Rand cut in. ‘I have no intention of discussing business with you on an empty stomach. Join me for lunch, and then we will talk.’

She didn’t want to join him for lunch; in fact she wanted to escape from his powerful presence as soon as humanly possible. But one look at the grim determination in his darkly attractive face, and she knew she had little choice in the matter. Rand Carducci was not a man to be pushed around by anyone, and, if she was to have any chance of getting what she had come for, she could not afford to antagonise the man. ‘Lunch would be nice,’ Jules agreed.

Nice was not a word Rand would have used. Jules had developed into a very beautiful woman, on the outside at least, but at the moment the red tinge to her cheeks and the angry confusion in her flashing green eyes told him all he needed to know. Jules was a gold-digging, heartless little witch and she knew what side her bread was buttered on.

His firm lips twisted in a cynical smile that did not reach his eyes. He might have had some lingering sympathy for the skinny kid he remembered, but the simmering sexuality of the woman before him did not evoke sympathy, but a much more basic emotion. She was the type who could get any man she wanted with a glance from her brilliant emerald eyes and probably did. Carlos Diez apart, Jules owed him personally—if Señor Eiga was to be believed she had indirectly cost him a fiancée. A long time ago, true, but not something Rand could easily forget.