His Inherited Bride. Jacqueline Baird

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СКАЧАТЬ let go of her arm a moment and turned to lock the office door, his firm lips twisting in a dry smile. He was quite sure she would not run away from him; she had too much to lose, and yet for years he had not thought badly of her.

      The car accident a few months after the aborted wedding had been just that, an accident, Rand had told himself at the time, and, though he had been devastated by the result, it had never entered his head to blame Jules. If anything he had felt slightly sorry for the girl. But he knew Señor Eiga had been convinced Enrique had been driving recklessly because he’d still been heartbroken over Jules, a hard-hearted young woman, and her own father had agreed with him.

      Privately Rand had thought if anyone had been to blame it had been Enrique for allowing his emotions to overcome his common sense. It was all right to be reckless with one’s own life, but not with somebody else’s.

      Rand’s opinion had begun to change when Jules had not contacted her father after he had called her to suggest she do so. Then he’d begun to wonder if the two old men had been right all along. Maybe Jules at eighteen had not been the innocent young girl he had thought. Then when she had never responded to his second call or the third, nor turned up for the funeral, he’d been virtually convinced of it, and his own anger and guilt had clicked in with a vengeance. Seeing the beautiful, sophisticated woman she had become, he was totally convinced, and any thought of trusting her was banished from his mind.

      Turning, he took her arm again, his hard, chiselled features schooled into a polite, sympathetic mask. ‘Your father’s death must have been unsettling even though you two were estranged at the time. Grief has a way of sneaking up on one, when one least expects it,’ he said softly, ushering her into the elevator.

      He was right. The night of her father’s funeral, alone in the house, she had cried her eyes out for the man who had given her life, recalling only the good times they had spent together. Carlos Diez had not been a bad man, Jules had finally acknowledged, simply a product of his environment, an environment totally different from the sleepy English market town she had grown up in.

      ‘Yes,’ she murmured, glancing up at him, and for a second he stared down into her brilliant green eyes, and she was suddenly aware of Rand’s hand on her arm, and the warmth of his large body reaching out to envelop her, his slight masculine fragrance teasing her nostrils. It made her breath catch in her throat, and her every muscle tense. She felt her breasts swell and the sudden tightening of her nipples, something that had never happened to her before. She was so shocked by her body’s treacherous reaction she shuddered, and, drawing in a deep unsteady breath, she swallowed hard. ‘Yes,’ she repeated.

      Rand felt the slight tremor and his eyes slid astutely over her bent head, the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, and his lips quirked at the corners in the briefest of satisfied smiles. The lovely Jules was not immune to him, he was sure. He was well aware of his effect on the opposite sex. He did not delude himself that just his face was his fortune; in his experience power and money were a much more potent aphrodisiac to the female of the species. Add a sophisticated expertise in the bedroom, and he knew without conceit he could please any woman he wanted. Not that he had bothered for quite some time, he suddenly realised.

      Well, that was about to change, he decided, his eyes glinting with the thrill of the chase as they skimmed over her shapely length. The next few days promised to be very interesting, and he set about putting Jules at her ease by letting go of her arm and leaning back against the lift wall.

      ‘I have to admit, Jules, I only visited Carlos a few times in the last eight years, mostly at the instigation of Ester, of course,’ he said smoothly. ‘She and my father still live in Italy and as Ester is not fit enough to undertake a long-haul flight, the unfortunate result of her imprisonment here decades ago, she also missed the funeral, but it never stopped her thinking about her only sibling.’

      His mention of the funeral was deliberate, but Jules ignored his comment.

      ‘And do you still live in Italy?’ she asked. With a bit of space between them she managed to speak reasonably steadily and, glancing up, her green eyes met amused black, and his firmly chiselled lips parted over gleaming white teeth in a mocking smile, letting her know he had noted her evasion, but he answered her question.

      ‘I visit the family home in Rome frequently, though I do have a place of my own at the coast. But my business takes me all over the world, so I have an apartment in New York, another here in Santiago, and yet another in Japan.’ His smile lightened. ‘Oh, and a beach house on the Gold Coast in Australia. I believe in controlling all my considerable assets personally,’ he said and her gaze slid involuntarily down over his impressive body. ‘I am very particular as to who I allow to check my assets.’

      She would have had to be as thick as a brick not to get his very obvious double entendre, but even so Jules felt the tell-tale flush of colour burn up her cheeks, and was mortified when she realised where she had been looking. Plus the quite unexpected heat curling in her belly did not help. She had never felt that kind of sexual curiosity about any man… Her head jerked up. Get back to the reason you are here, girl, she admonished herself.

      ‘Well, lucky you,’ Jules blurted. ‘It must be nice for you and your wife.’ She reminded herself he must be married by now. Maria would never have let him get away, but she could not bring herself to say the other woman’s name. ‘But some of us are not so fortunate, and that is really why I am here.’ At that moment the elevator doors slid open.

      Rand grasped her arm again and she shot a startled glance up at him and saw the flash of rage in the depths of his eyes and tensed. ‘I am not married, and you are fortunate to be alive,’ he declared forcefully, then as if sensing her unease he added. ‘We both are, so we should celebrate the fact,’ and with an elegant shrug of his broad shoulders concluded, ‘You are a long time dead, I believe is the English expression.’

      She must have imagined the anger in his eyes, because he was smiling down at her, encouraging her to share his humour. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, still reeling from the shock of discovering he had never married Maria after all. They had been engaged for at least four years that Jules knew of.

      ‘Come.’ His hand dropped from her arm and settled in the small of her back and urged her outside to where a chauffeur-driven car waited.

      In no time at all she was sitting in the back seat of a limousine with Rand at her side, and the driver was weaving the car through the midday traffic, and out into the countryside.

      ‘Where are we going to eat?’ Jules asked, the prolonged silence playing havoc with nerves strung so tightly that the tension was a frantic beat through her body. ‘We seem to have left the city,’ she mumbled, swallowing hard as the car took a bend and his hard-muscled thigh brushed against hers, with a resulting electric effect on her fragile control. She could not believe what was happening to her.

      Normally she was the most staid of women; in fact she was still a virgin. Somehow after the fiasco of her engagement to Enrique she had gone off the idea of sex and love altogether. Yet, glancing at Rand’s hard, chiselled profile, she found herself wondering what his lips would feel like on hers and tore her gaze away. But there was worse as she found herself watching his large elegant hand resting lightly on a strong thigh, and for a moment wished it were resting on hers. Where were all these crazy feelings coming from, for heaven’s sake? Surely it wasn’t just because she now knew he was single… She hadn’t even liked him as a teenager.

      ‘My surprise,’ Rand declared, slanting her a slow, intimate smile. Her heart missed a beat and for a moment she simply stared at him. ‘But I am sure you will like the place,’ his deep voice drawled, soothing and seductive. ‘And don’t worry, we can talk seriously later.’

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