Honour-Bound Groom / Cinderella & the CEO. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ his intention to enter a monastery. “Lanky little Loren Dubois?”

      “Maybe she’s changed.” Alex shrugged. It mattered little how she looked. Marrying her was his duty—his desires weren’t relevant. With any luck she’d be pregnant with his child within the first year of their marriage and too busy thereafter with the baby to put any real demands upon him.

      “But still, why would you choose her when you could have any woman alive as your wife?” Reynard entered the fray.

      Alex sighed. Between them his brothers were as tenacious as a pair of wolves after a wounded beast.

      “Why not? Marrying her will serve multiple purposes. Not only will it honor an agreement made between our late father and his friend, but it will also help relieve Abuelo’s concerns. And that’s not even mentioning what it will do for our public image. Let’s face it. The media will lap it up, especially if you leak the original betrothal story as an appetizer. They’ll make it read like a fairy tale.”

      “And what of Abuelo’s concerns about the next generation?” Reynard asked, one eyebrow raised. “Do you think your bride will be so happy to ensure our longevity? For all you know she may already be married.”

      “She’s not.”

      “And you know this because?”

      “Abuelo had an investigator keep tabs on her after Francois died. Since his stroke last year, the reports have come to me.”

      “So you’re serious about it then. You’re really going to go through with a twenty-five-year-old engagement to a woman you don’t even know anymore.”

      “I have to, unless you have any better suggestions. Rey?”

      Reynard shook his head. A short sharp movement of his head that bore witness to the frustration they all felt at the position they were in.

      “And you, Ben? Anything you can think of that will save our name and our fortunes, not to mention make Abuelo’s final years with us happier ones?”

      “You know there is nothing else,” Benedict replied, resignation to their combined fates painting stark lines on his face.

      “Then, my brothers, I’d like to propose a toast. To each of us and to the future del Castillo brides.”

      One

       New Zealand, now …

      “I have come to discuss the terms of our fathers’ agreement. It is time we marry.”

      From the second his sleek gray Eurocopter had landed on the helipad close to the house she’d wondered what had brought Alexander del Castillo here. Now she knew. She could hardly believe it.

      Loren Dubois studied the tall near stranger commanding the space of her mother’s formal sitting room. Her eyes drank in the sight of him after so long. Dressed all in black, his dark hair pushed back from his forehead and his brown-black eyes fixed firmly on her face, he should have been intimidating but instead she wondered whether she’d conjured up an age-old dream.

      Marry? Her heart jumped erratically in her chest and she tried to force it back to its usual slow and steady rhythm. Years ago, she’d have leaped at the opportunity, but now? With age had come caution. She wasn’t a love-struck teenager anymore. She’d seen firsthand what an unhappy alliance could do to a couple, as her parents’ tempestuous marriage had attested. She and Alexander del Castillo didn’t even know one another anymore. Yet, for some reason, the way he’d proposed marriage—in typical autocratic del Castillo fashion—made her go weak at the knees.

      She gave herself a swift reality check. Who was she kidding? He hadn’t proposed. He’d flat out told her, as if there was no question that she’d accept. It didn’t help that every fiber in her body wanted to do just that.

      Wait, she reminded herself. Slow down.

      It had been ten years since she’d laid eyes on him. Ten years since her fifteen-year-old heart had been broken and she’d been dragged to New Zealand by her mother after the divorce. A long time not to hear from someone by any standards, let alone from the man she had been betrothed to from the cradle.

      Even so, a part of her still wanted to leap at the suggestion. Loren took a steadying breath. Although their engagement had always been the stuff of fairy tales, she was determined to stay firmly rooted in the present.

      “Marry?” she responded, drawing her chin up slightly as if it could give her that extra height and lessen Alex’s dominance over her. “You arrive here with no prior warning—in fact, no contact at all since I left Isla Sagrado—and the first thing you say to me is that it’s time we marry? That’s a little precipitate, wouldn’t you say?”

      “Our betrothal has stood for a quarter of a century. I would say our marriage is past due.”

      There it was—that delicious hint of accent in his voice, characteristic of the Spanish-Franco blend of nationalities of their home country, Isla Sagrado. It was an accent she’d long since diluted with her time in New Zealand, yet from his lips the sound was like velvet stroking bare skin. Her body responded to the timbre of it even as she fought down the wave of longing that spiraled from her core. Had she missed him that much?

      Of course she had. That much and more. But she was grown-up now. A woman, not a child, nor a displaced bratty teen. Loren attempted to inject a fine thread of steel into her voice.

      “A betrothal that no one seriously expected to be fulfilled, surely.”

      Somehow she had to show him she wouldn’t be such a pushover. In all the time since she’d left Isla Sagrado he’d made no contact whatsoever. Not so much as a card at Christmas or her birthday. His indifference had hurt.

      “Are you saying that your father made such a gesture lightly when he offered your hand?”

      Loren laughed, the sound of it hollow even to her ears. She still missed her father with a physical ache, even though he’d been dead these past seven years. With him had gone her last link to Isla Sagrado and, she’d believed, to Alex. But now Alex was very much here and she didn’t know how to react. Stay strong, she told herself. Above all, stay strong. That’s the only way to earn the respect of a del Castillo.

      “A hand that was little more than three months old when it was promised to you—you yourself were only eight,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster.

      Alex moved a step toward her. She almost felt the air part to allow him passage; he had that kind of presence. Despite her inexperience with men of Alex’s caliber, it was one she responded to instinctively.

      Alex had always been magnetic, but the past ten years had seen a new maturity settle on his broad shoulders, together with a stronger and more determined line to his jaw. He looked older than the thirty-three years she knew him to be. Older and harder. Certainly not a man who took “no” for an answer.

      “I’m not eight anymore. And you—” he paused and ran his eyes over her body “—you are most certainly no longer a child.”

      Loren’s skin flared hot, as if he’d touched her with more than a glance. As if his long strong fingers had stroked her face, her throat, СКАЧАТЬ