The Montoros Affair: The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation

* * *

“Patrick James Rowling!”

James groaned and thought about ducking out the door of the sunroom and escaping Casa Rowling through the back gate. When his father three-named him, the outcome was never fun nor in his favor.

Actually, any time his father spoke to him it was unpleasant. Even being in the same room with Patrick Rowling reminded James that his mother was dead and it was his father’s fault. Time healed all wounds—except the ones that never should have happened in the first place. If his father hadn’t yelled at his mum, she wouldn’t have left in tears that night back in Guildford. Then his mum’s single-car accident would never have happened. He and Will wouldn’t have become motherless seven-year-old boys. The fractured Rowling family wouldn’t have subsequently moved to Alma, where James didn’t know anyone but Will, who was too shell-shocked to do anything other than mumble for nearly a year.

But all of that had happened and James would never forgive or forget.

As a result, James and Patrick gave each other a wide berth by mutual unspoken agreement, but it was harder to do when under the same roof. James should really get his own place, but he still wasn’t sure if he planned to stay in Alma, so here he was.

Patrick Rowling, the man who’d named his first born after himself in a moment of pure narcissism, stormed into the sunroom and shoved a newspaper at James’s chest with a great deal more force than necessary. “Explain this.”

“This is commonly known as a newspaper.” James drew out the syllables, ladening them with as much sarcasm as possible. “Many civilized nations employ this archaic method of communicating information and events to subscribers. Shall I delve into the finer points of journalism, or are we square on the purpose of this news vehicle?”

His father’s face had grown a deeper, more satisfying shade of purple the longer James baited him. A thing of beauty. James moved his half-empty teacup out of the line of fire, in case of imminent explosion. It was Darjeeling and brewed perfectly.

“You can dispense with the smartass attitude. I’ve had more than enough of it from you to last a lifetime.”

What he really meant was that he’d had enough of James doing the opposite of what Patrick commanded. But if James toed the line, how could he make his father pay for his sins? Of course, his father could never truly pay in a lifetime. The sad part was that James might have settled for an apology from his father for all the horrible things he’d caused. Or at least a confession. Instead, his father heaped praises on Will the Perfect Son and generally pretended James didn’t exist.

Until James managed to get his attention by doing something beyond the pale. Like whatever had gotten the elder Rowling’s dander up this time.

His father poked the paper again. “There’s a rather risqué photo of you on the front page. Normally, I would brush it off as further proof you care nothing for propriety and only your own self-destruction. But as it’s a photo of you with your brother’s fiancée, I find it impossible to ignore.”

“What?” His brother had a fiancée? “What are you talking about?”

James shoved his father’s hand away and shifted the paper so he could see the front page. There it was, in full color. He whistled. What a gorgeous shot of Bella in his arms. Her hair all mussed and legs tangled in his. He might have to cut it out and frame it.

Wait... Bella was Will’s fiancée? This was news to James. Last he’d heard, Bella planned to see how things went before committing to marriage. Had Will even met Bella yet?

“Your timing is impeccable, as always. Now that we’re all caught up, please explain how you managed to create a scandal so quickly.” Dear old Dad crossed his arms over the paunch he liked to pretend gave him a stately demeanor, but in reality, only made him look dumpy.

Obviously they were nowhere near caught up.

“Maybe that’s Will—did you ever think of that?” James challenged mildly and went back to sipping his tea because he had a feeling he’d need the fortification.

“Your brother is with the Montoro princess as we speak and it’s their first meeting.”

Montoro princess. Really? James rolled his eyes. His father couldn’t be more pretentious if he tried. “If they hadn’t even met until today, how are they already engaged?”

Waving his hand with a snort, Patrick gave him a withering look. “Merely a formality. They will be engaged, mark my words. So as far as you’re concerned, she’s your brother’s fiancée. Will is quite determined to woo her and I’ve never seen him fail at anything he set his mind to.”

Despite what should be good news—his father had deliberately thrown the word fiancée in James’s face even though it wasn’t true—James’s gut twisted at the thought of Will and Bella together. Why, he couldn’t explain, when he’d been the one to suggest Bella should ring Will. Obviously, she’d taken his advice and rather quickly, too. He’d just run into her in town yesterday.

“Smashing. I hope they’re having a fantastic time and fall madly in love so they can give you lots of royal babies, since that’s the most important accomplishment a Rowling could hope to achieve.” The sentiment had started out sincerely but halfway through, disappointment had tilted his mood. James lived his life with few regrets but stepping aside so Will had a fair shot with Bella ranked as a decision he’d questioned more than once.

“Don’t change the subject. If you deliberately staged that picture with the princess to ruin your brother’s chances, the consequences will be dire,” his father warned.

James couldn’t quite bite back the laugh that burst out. “Oh, please, no. Perhaps you’ll disown me?”

What else could his father possibly do to him besides constantly express his displeasure in everything James did? Being signed with Real Madrid hadn’t rated a mention. Being named captain of the Alma World Cup team wasn’t worthy enough of a feat to get a comment.

Oh, but miss a goal—that had earned James an earful.

Patrick leaned forward, shoving his nose into James’s space and into his business all at the same time. “If you don’t stay away from the Montoro princess, I will personally ensure you never play football again.”

James scoffed. “You’re off your trolley. You have no power in my world.”

And neither did James, not now. It pricked at his temper that his father would choose that method to strike at him. Patrick clearly failed to comprehend his son’s life crisis if he didn’t already know that James had managed to thoroughly subvert his own career with no help from anyone.

The threat gave him a perverse desire to prove he could come back from the twin failures of a missed goal and a dropped contract. He needed to play, if for no other reason than to show everyone James Rowling couldn’t be kept down.

“Perhaps. Do you want to wager on that?”

James waved nonchalantly with one hand and clenched the other into a tight fist. What colossal nerve. A supreme act of will kept the fist in his lap, though letting it fly against the nearby wall might have ended the conversation quite effectively.

“Seems like pretty good odds to me, so don’t be surprised if I roll the dice with Bella.” He waggled his brows. “I think that picture is enough of an indicator that she fancies me, don’t you think?”

Which might have been true when the picture was snapped, but probably wasn’t now that he’d stepped aside. Will would be his charming self and Bella would realize that she could have the best of both worlds—the “right” Rowling and her father’s blessing. Probably better for everyone, all the way around.

Deep down, James didn’t believe that in the slightest. He and Bella had a spark between them, which wouldn’t vanish with a hundred warnings from the old geezer.

“The monarchy is in its fledgling stages.” Patrick hesitated for the first time since barging into the sunroom and James got the impression he was choosing his words carefully. “Rowling Energy has a unique opportunity to solidify our allegiance and favor through the tie of marriage. There is only one Montoro princess.”

“And only one heir to the company,” James said sourly. “I get it. Will’s the only one good enough for her.”

His father sighed. The weariness that carved lines into his face around his mouth had aged him quickly and added a vulnerability to his expression that James hadn’t been prepared for. Patrick had never been anything other than formidable for as long as James could remember.

“I would welcome you at Rowling Energy if you expressed but a smidgen of determination and interest.” Then his father hardened back into the corporate stooge he’d become since entering into the high stakes oil market. Dad had too many zeroes in his bank account balance to truly be in touch with his humanity. “Will has done both, with remarkable success. If you would think of someone other than yourself, you’d realize that Will has much to gain from this alliance. I will not be at the helm of Rowling forever. Will needs every advantage.”

Guilt. The best weapon. And it might have worked if James truly believed all that drivel. Marrying into the royal family was about his father’s ambition, not Will’s.

“Maybe we should let Bella sort it on her own, eh?” James suggested mildly. He didn’t mind losing to Will, as long as the contest was fair.

“There’s nothing to sort,” his father thundered, growing purple again. “Stay away from her. Period. No more risqué pictures. No more contact. Do not ruin this for your brother.”

To put the cap on his mandate, Patrick Rowling stormed from the sun-room in much the same manner as he entered it. Except now Bella Montoro had been transformed into the ripest forbidden fruit.

James had never met a scandal he didn’t want to dive headlong into, especially when it involved a gorgeous woman who clearly had the hots for him. Pissing his father off at the same time James introduced himself to the pleasures of Princess Bella was just a sweet bonus.

Four

Bella spent two wonderful hours catching up with her great aunt Isabella, but the sickly woman grew tired so easily. Coupled with the fact that Isabella’s advanced Parkinson’s disease meant she was bedridden, it was difficult for Bella to witness her once-vibrant aunt in this condition. Regardless, she kept a bright smile pasted on throughout their visit.

But even Bella could see it was time for her to leave lest she overtire Isabella.

Before she asked her aunt’s nurse to call a cab, Bella took Isabella’s hand and brought it to her cheek. “I’m glad you decided to come to Alma.”

“This is where I choose to die,” Isabella said simply with a half smile, the only facial expression she could still muster. “I will see Gabriel become king and my life will be complete.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

It was depressing and wretched to think of the world spinning on without Isabella, whom Bella loved unconditionally and vice versa. Her throat burned with grief and unreconciled anger over a circumstance she couldn’t change.

Geez, she’d been less upset when her mother had left. That had at least made sense. Parkinson’s disease did not.

“It is but truth. All of us must make our lives what we can in the time allotted to us.” Isabella paused, her voice catching. “Tell me. Have you visited the farmhouse yet?”

“What farmhouse?” Had her father mentioned something about a farmhouse and she’d been too busy ignoring him to remember? Shoot. She’d have done anything Isabella asked, even if the request came via her father.

“Oh, dear.” Her aunt closed her eyes for a moment. “No, I don’t believe I imagined it. It’s white. In the country. Aldeia Dormer. Very important. My mother told me and Rafael of it. My brother is gone, God rest his soul, so I’m telling you. You must find it and...”

Trailing off with a blank expression, Isabella sat silent for a moment, her hand shaking uncontrollably inside Bella’s as it often had even before her aunt’s disease had progressed to include forgetfulness and the inability to walk.

“I’ll find the farmhouse,” Bella promised. “What should I do when I find it?”

“The countryside is lovely in the spring,” her aunt said with bright cheer. “You take your young man with you and enjoy the ride.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bella smiled. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually have a “young man” in the sweet, old-fashioned sense that Isabella had meant? Bella had only mentioned Will because her father had apparently told Isabella all about the stupid arranged marriage. It was the first thing her aunt had asked after.

“Wear a red dress to the party tonight and take photographs.” Isabella closed her eyes and just when Bella thought she’d fallen asleep, she murmured, “Remember we all have a responsibility to our blood. And to Alma. I wish Rafael could be here to see his grandson take the throne.”

“Red dress it is,” Bella said, skipping over the royal responsibility part because she’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

Wasn’t it enough that she was going to the party as Will’s date when she’d rather be meeting James there? And if James happened to show, would it be so much of a crime if she danced with him once or twice? She’d still be Will’s date, just the way everyone wanted, but would also give herself the opportunity to find out if James had pawned her off on his brother because he didn’t like her or because of some other reason.

Guilt cramped her stomach as her aunt remained silent. Yeah, so maybe Bella considered it a possible bonus that she might run into James at the party. Was that so bad?

“Isabella, I—” Bella bit her lip before she spilled all her angst and doubt over what her father had asked her to do by giving Will a chance. Her aunt was tired and didn’t need to be burdened with Bella’s problems.

“The farmhouse. It’s part of the Montoro legacy, passed down from the original Rafael Montoro I, to his son Rafael II. And then to his son Rafael III. Remember the farmhouse, child,” her aunt wheezed out in the pause.

“I will.” Before she could change her mind again, Bella went for broke. “But I might take a different young man with me than the one my father wants me to marry. Would that be a bad thing?”

“You must make your own choices,” her aunt advised softly. “But beware. All choices have consequences. Be sure you are prepared to face them.”

Isabella’s shaking hand went slack as she slipped off into sleep for real this time. Bella took her leave reluctantly and slid into the waiting car her father had sent for her, wishing her aunt wasn’t so sick that they could only have half of a conversation.

What had Isabella meant by her warning? During the hour-long ride back to Playa Del Onda, Bella grappled with it. Unfortunately, she had a sinking feeling she knew precisely what her aunt had been attempting to tell her. Being born during a hurricane hadn’t infused Bella with a curse that meant she’d always leave broken hearts in her wake. It was her own decisions that had consequences, and if she wanted to be a better person than she’d been in Miami, she had to make different, more conscious choices.

Hurricane Bella couldn’t cut a swath through Alma, leaving broken pieces of her brother’s reign in her wake. Or broken pieces of her father’s agreement with Will’s father. Mentioning all of Bella’s ancestors hadn’t been an accident—Isabella wanted her to remember her roots.

Either she had try for real with Will and then tell him firmly it wasn’t going to work, or she had to skip the party. It wasn’t fair to anyone to go with the intention of running into James for any reason.

* * *

By the time the party rolled around, Bella was second-guessing the red dress. She’d never worn it before but distinctly remembered loving it when she’d tried it on at the boutique in Bal Harbour. Now that she had it on...the plunging neckline and high slit in the skirt revealed a shocking amount of flesh. But she’d promised Isabella she’d wear red, and it was too late to find another dress.

And honestly, she looked divine in it, so... Sexy red dress got the thumbs up. If she and Will were going to get along, he’d have to accept that she liked to feel beautiful in what she wore. This dress filled the bill. And then some. If a neckline that plunged all the way to the dress’s waistband caused a problem with Rowling’s business associates, better she and Will both find out now they weren’t a good match.

The chauffeur helped her into the back of the Montoro car. Thankfully, Will hadn’t offered to pick her up so she had an easy escape if need be. Please God, don’t let me need an escape.

Within ten minutes, the car had joined the line of Bentleys, Jaguars and limousines inching their way to the front steps of the Rowling mansion. Like the Montoros’ house, the Rowlings’ Playa Del Onda residence overlooked the bay. She smiled at the lovely sight of the darkened water dotted with lighted boats.

When Bella entered the double front doors, Will approached her immediately, as if he’d been waiting for her. His pleasant but slightly blank expression from earlier was still firmly in place and she bit back a groan. How long were they going to act like polite strangers?

Jaw set firmly, Will never glanced below her shoulders. Which sort of defeated the purpose of such a racy dress. What was the point of showing half her torso if a man wasn’t even going to look at it?

“Bella, so nice to see you again,” Will murmured and handed her a champagne flute. “That dress is stunning.”

Okay, he’d just earned back all the points that he’d lost. “Thanks. Nice to see you, too.”

His tuxedo, clearly custom-cut and very European, gave him a sophisticated look that set him slightly apart from the other male guests, most of whom were older and more portly. Will was easy on the eyes and commanded himself with confidence. She could do worse.

Will cleared his throat. “Did you have a nice afternoon?”

“Yes. You?”

“Dandy.”

She sipped her champagne as the conversation ground to a halt. Painfully. Gah, normally she thrived on conversation and loved exchanging observations, jokes, witty repartee. Something.

The hushed crowd murmured around them and the tinkle of chamber music floated between the snippets of dialogue, some in English, some in Spanish. Or Portuguese. Bella still couldn’t tell the difference between the two despite hearing Spanish spoken by Miami residents of Cuban descent for most of her life.

She spotted her cousin Juan Carlos Salazar across the room and nearly groaned. While they’d grown up together after his parents died, he’d always been too serious. Why wasn’t he in Del Sol managing something?

Of course, he looked up at that moment and their gazes met. He wove through the crowd to clasp Will’s hand and murmur his appreciation for the party to his hosts. Juan Carlos was the kind of guy who always did the right thing and at the same time, made everyone else look as if they were doing the wrong thing. It was a skill.

“Bella, are you enjoying the party?” he asked politely.

“Very much,” she lied, just as politely because she had skills, too, just not any that Juan Carlos would appreciate. “I saw Tía Isabella. I’m so glad she decided to come to Alma.”

“I am as well. Though she probably shouldn’t be traveling.” Juan Carlos frowned over his grandmother’s stubbornness, which Bella had always thought was one of her best traits. “Uncle Rafael tried to talk her out of it but she insisted.”

The Montoros all had a stubborn streak but Bella’s father took the cake. Time for a new subject. “How are things in the finance business?”

“Very well, thank you.” He shot Will a cryptic glance. “Better now that you’re in Alma working toward important alliances.”

She kept her eyes from rolling. Barely. “Yes, let’s hear it for alliances.”

Juan Carlos and Will launched into a conversation with too many five-syllable words for normal humans to understand, so Bella amused herself by scrutinizing Will as he talked, hoping to gather more clues about his real personality.

As he spoke to Juan Carlos, his attention wandered, and Bella watched him watch a diminutive dark-haired woman in serviceable gray exit by a side door well away from the partygoers. An unfamiliar snap in Will’s gaze had her wondering who the woman was. Or rather, who she was to Will. The woman’s dress clearly marked her as the help.

Will didn’t even seem to notice when Juan Carlos excused himself.

“Do you need to attend to a problem with the servants?” Bella inquired politely.

She’d gone to enough of her parents’ parties to know that a good host kept one eye on the buffet and the other on the bar. Which was why she liked attending parties, not throwing them.

“No. No problem,” Will said grimly and forced his gaze back to Bella’s face. But his mind was clearly elsewhere.

Which told her quite a bit more about the situation than Will probably intended. Perhaps the dark-haired woman represented at least a partial answer for why Will seemed both pained by Bella’s presence and alternatively agreeable to a marriage of convenience.

Bella had come to the party as requested by God and everyone and she deserved a chance with Will. He owed it to her, regardless of whether he had something going on with the diminutive maid.

“Look, Will—”

“Let’s dance.” He grabbed her hand and led her to the dance floor without waiting for an answer, off-loading their champagne glasses onto a waiter’s tray as they passed by.

Okay, then. Dancing happened to be one of her favorite things about parties, along with dressing up and laughing in a private corner with someone she planned to let strip her naked afterward.

For some reason, the thought of getting naked with Will made her skin crawl. Two out of three wasn’t bad, though, was it?

The quartet seated in the corner had switched from chamber music to a slightly less boring bossa nova– inspired piece. Not great, but she had half a chance of finding a groove at least.

Was this how the people of Alma partied? Or had the glitzy Miami social scene spoiled her? Surely not. Alma was one of the wealthiest countries in the European Union. What was she missing?

Halfway into the song, Will had yet to say a word and his impersonal hand at her waist might as well have belonged to an eighty-year-old grandfather. This might go down in history as the first time a man under thirty had danced with her and not used it as an excuse to pull her into his strong embrace. It was as if Will had actually wanted to dance or something.

None of this screamed, “I’m into you.”

Perhaps the problem with this party lay with the host, not the country. Will might need a little encouragement to loosen up.

When the interminably long dance finally ended, Bella smiled and fanned herself as if she’d grown overheated. “My, it’s a little warm in here.”

Will nodded. “I’ll get you another glass of champagne.”

Before he could disappear, she stopped him with a hand on his arm, deliberately leaning into it to make the point. “That’s okay. Let’s go out on the terrace and talk.”

The whole point was to get to know each other. The car trip hadn’t worked. Dancing hadn’t worked. They needed to try something else.

“Maybe in a few minutes,” Will said with a glance around the room at large. “After I’ve played the proper host.”

Disappointment pulled at her mouth but she refused to let a frown ruin her lipstick. “I hope you won’t mind if I escape the heat for a bit by myself.”

For a moment, she wondered if he’d really let her go. He’d invited her, after all, and hadn’t introduced her to one person yet. This was supposed to be a date, wasn’t it?

“Certainly.” Will inclined his head toward the double glass doors off the great room. “I’ll find you later.”

Fuming, Bella wound through the guests to the terrace—by herself!—and wondered when she’d lost her edge. Clearly a secluded terrace with a blonde American in half a dress didn’t appeal to Will Rowling. What did—dark-haired housekeepers?