The Valquez Bride. Melanie Milburne

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       CHAPTER THREE

      A COUPLE OF DAYS later Alejandro frowned as he clicked on a news link on his phone. There was a photograph of Teddy and a separate one of him with the caption: For Love or Money? Argentinian Playboy Desperate for Cash? The short piece was damning in every way imaginable. It speculated on their relationship, hinting at a soon-to-be-conducted private wedding. It questioned his motives for the alliance. It made him look like every type of cad intent on marrying an heiress for her fortune. There was no mention of Teddy’s motives. The journalist failed to mention that Alejandro had ten times the wealth of Teddy’s father. His business brand would be damaged. It was one thing being seen as a party-loving playboy but quite another to be labelled a cash-strapped cad. Shareholders would pull their funds out of the company. It would destabilise everything to have investors shifting their interests right now.

      How had this leaked? Had Teddy spoken to the press? Had she deliberately set out to make him look as ruthless and self-serving as she could?

      He’d thought he was getting to know her. He’d thought he was coming to understand her prickliness and coolness of manner as a defence mechanism rather than who she really was on the inside. He’d thought she was different, that she was an old-fashioned girl caught up in the machinations of her unprincipled father. He’d even liked her, damn it.

      He ground his teeth. She wanted a white wedding and was going about getting one come hell or high water. She was forcing him. Manipulating him.

      Two could play at that game.

      * * *

      ‘Don’t look out of the window,’ Audrey said to Teddy. ‘There are press everywhere. There’s even one in the hedge down by the gate. I saw the glint of his camera in the sunlight.’

      ‘What are they doing here?’

      Audrey pointed to the newspaper lying on the breakfast table. ‘My guess is your cousin’s been making mischief. He had his hopes on getting everything if you defaulted on the will. You’ve upset the applecart by agreeing to the terms. He didn’t think you’d do it.’

      Teddy chewed the right side of her mouth as she read the article. It wasn’t very flattering towards Alejandro. But it was even worse for her. It made her sound like a hideous witch the poor man had been forced to marry to keep him from the poorhouse.

      Her phone beeped from inside her pocket and she took it out to see Alejandro’s number come up on the screen. ‘Hello?’

      ‘I’m five minutes away,’ Alejandro said. ‘Pack a bag. We’re going to London.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘To buy a wedding dress. What else?’

      ‘But I thought—?’

      The phone snapped off.

      * * *

      Teddy was waiting for Alejandro in the morning room. She was standing with her back to the windows when he came in. Dressed in dark blue cotton trousers and a loose sweater and with her face free of make-up and her hair in a tight ponytail, she looked as if she was barely out of her teens. Her expression was cool and unaffected but her hand gripping her stick was white-knuckled. ‘I’m not going to London with you.’

      Alejandro wasn’t used to people ignoring his orders. When he said ‘jump’ people jumped. ‘I told you not to speak to the press.’