A Mistress, A Scandal, A Ring. Angela Bissell

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      She paused, took a deep breath, then opened her tote bag and pulled out her red leather-bound journal. She undid the clasp and lifted the cover. The sealed envelope and the two photos she’d carefully tucked inside the journal were still there, safe and sound.

      ‘Until recently I lived there with my stepmother.’ She picked up one of the photos and held it out, her arm extended across the desk. ‘Camila Walsh.’

      He glanced at the photo, but no flicker of recognition showed on his face. Jordan didn’t know why that should disappoint her. Of course he wouldn’t recognise her stepmother.

      But her eyes...

      Could he not see they were his eyes?

      ‘Her maiden name was Sanchez,’ she added. ‘She was originally from a small village north of here.’

      ‘Was?’

      A stillness had come over him and Jordan hesitated, all the doubts she’d thought she’d laid to rest suddenly rearing up again, pushing at the walls of her resolve. For the past ten days she’d ridden a wave of certainty, firm in her belief that what she was doing was not only the right thing but a good thing.

      After weeks of feeling lost and alone, adrift, with no job, nothing and no one left in the world to anchor her, she’d booked her flights to Spain almost with a sense of euphoria.

      ‘She died six weeks ago.’

      Somehow she managed to say the words without her voice wobbling. She lowered her arm and stared down at the photo of her stepmother.

      ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

      She looked up. The sentiment in his deep voice had sounded genuine. ‘Thank you.’

      Her gaze meshed with his and the intensity of those sharp, intelligent eyes made her breath catch in her throat. She shifted a bit, unsettled by her escalating awareness of him. He was so handsome. So compelling. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. And that preternatural stillness in his body... It was disconcerting, making her think of the big, predatory cats in the wildlife documentaries her dad had loved to watch.

      She took another deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth, the way Camila had taught her to do as a child to combat stress. He was waiting for her to speak—to spell out why she was here. Did he already have an inkling? She searched his face, but the chiselled features were impassive, giving nothing away.

      Adopting the tone she often used at work when a mix of practicality and compassion was required, she said, ‘Camila was your birth mother.’

      The statement landed between them like a burning stick of dynamite tossed into the room. Jordan braced herself for its impact, her whole body tensing, but if Xavier de la Vega was even mildly shocked he hid it well.

      ‘You have proof of this?’

      She blinked at him. It was such a cool, controlled response—far less emotional than anything she’d expected—but she counselled herself not to read too much into it. At twenty-six years of age, and after five years of working as a trauma nurse, she’d seen people react in all kinds of ways in all sorts of life-altering situations. Often what showed on the surface belied the tumult within.

      She slid the other photo from her journal across the desk to him. This one was older, its colours faded, the edges a little bit worn.

      He leaned forward, gave the photo a cursory glance, then drew back. ‘This tells me nothing,’ he said dismissively.

      Jordan withdrew her hand, leaving the photo on his desk. ‘It’s you,’ she said, and it gave her heart a funny little jolt to think that the tiny, innocent baby in the photo had grown into the powerful, intimidating man before her.

      His frown sharpened and he flicked his hand towards the photo, the gesture faintly disdainful. ‘This child could be anyone.’

      She reached forward and flipped the photo over. The blue ink on the back had faded with time, but Camila’s handwriting was still legible. ‘It says “Xavier”,’ she pointed out, and waited, sensing his reluctance to look again. When he did, she saw his eyes widen a fraction. ‘And the date of birth underneath... I believe it’s—’

      ‘Mine,’ he bit out, cutting her off before she could finish. He sat back, nostrils flaring, a white line of tension forming around his mouth. ‘It is no secret that I am adopted. An old photo with my forename and my birth date written on it proves nothing.’

      ‘Perhaps not,’ she conceded, determined to hold her nerve in the face of his denial and the hostility she sensed was gathering in him. ‘But my stepmother told me things. Details that only your adoptive parents or your birth mother could know.’

      His eyes darkened, the grey irises no more than a glint of cold steel between the thick fringes of his ebony lashes. ‘Such as?’

      Her lips felt bone-dry all of a sudden, and she moistened them with her tongue. ‘Thirty-five years ago Regina Martinez worked as a housekeeper for your parents,’ she began, carefully reciting the details Camila had shared with her for the first time just a month before she had died. ‘She had an eighteen-year-old unmarried niece who fell pregnant. At the time, your parents were considering adopting a child after your mother had had several miscarriages. A private adoption was arranged, and soon after you were born—at a private hospital here in Barcelona which your parents paid for—they took you home.’

      And the young Camila had been devastated, even though she had done the only thing she could. The alternative—living as an unwed mother under her strict father’s roof in their small, conservative village—would have heaped as much misery and shame on her child’s life as on her own.

      Knowing first-hand how it felt to be genuinely unwanted by one’s biological mother, Jordan hoped Xavier would see Camila’s decision not as an act of rejection or abandonment, but one of love.

      She waited for him to say something. It was perfectly understandable that he might need a minute or two to process what she had told him. Something like this was—

      ‘What do you want, Ms Walsh?’

      Her thoughts slammed to a halt, the question—not to mention the distinct chill in his voice—taking her by surprise. ‘Excuse me?’

      ‘Money?’

      She stared at him. ‘Money?’ she echoed blankly.

      His gaze was piercing, the colour of his eyes the dark pewter of storm clouds under his lowered brows. ‘It is common knowledge that my family is one of the wealthiest in Spain. You would not be the first to claim a tenuous connection in hopes of a hand-out.’

      A hand-out? Her head snapped back as if he’d flung acid at her face. She gripped the edges of her journal, shock receding beneath a rush of indignation. ‘That is offensive,’ she choked out.

      ‘Quite,’ he agreed. ‘Which is why I will ask you again—what do you want, Ms Walsh?’

      Jordan felt her heart begin to pound. How on earth could this arrogant, imperious man be her stepmother’s son?

      Camila had been a kind, gentle soul, who’d always looked СКАЧАТЬ