The Spaniard's Stolen Bride

“If you draw attention to yourself...”

“My reputation as a gambler, womanizer and reprobate will be compromised?”

She shrank in on herself, clearly realizing that she was defeated.

“I recommend that you get a good night’s sleep. For we are to be married as quickly as possible.”

“How?”

“I have already begun the paperwork for a license. It requires only your signature and then it is poised to be processed. After which I have arranged for an officiant to come and speak our vows to us. I am a traditionalist at heart. I could have simply had us married over the computer, but I find technology so cold.”

“I don’t think it’s technology. I rather think it’s your heart.”

He laughed. “No, darling. I don’t have a heart.”

“I just felt it beating.”

“You just felt the monster. Trying to escape.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LILIANA WAITED UNTIL she was certain that Diego was asleep. Or, if not asleep, then not roaming the house. She needed to figure out if there was some method that she could use to contact the outside world.

In all likelihood, there wasn’t.

And in fact, Diego would probably be insulted if she voiced that to him. “No, tesoro,” she intoned in a deep voice, “I would not be so sloppy as to leave an accessible landline.”

She blew out a breath and sneaked out of the bedroom, padding down the hall and then down the stairs. She knew there had to be an office down there. And perhaps, if she could find that, there would be a phone. A fax machine. Something.

She could hardly believe she had been kidnapped only a few hours ago. She felt as if it had been days. She felt as if she had been wearing this nightgown for her entire life.

She had looked in the closets and seen there were other clothes, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to put any of them on. Not even an alternate nightgown. It was too strange. She was not going to take something offered to her by a kidnapper and a blackmailer.

Her heart twisted.

That was the most difficult thing. That part of her had felt something for Diego. That she had thought there had been some mystical connection between them from the moment they’d met two years ago. And it had been a lie.

It’s just the monster trying to get out.

If this was him with his monster buried, then she really wouldn’t like to see him with the monster out.

She picked around the furniture downstairs, tiptoeing to one closed door after the other. Some rooms were empty, others holding dusty furniture that gave her some measure of hope. It was entirely possible he hadn’t scoured the place for methods of communication.

The man who put the thumbprint reader on the door didn’t look for a phone?

She ignored her mouthy inner bitch and pressed on.

She was crouched down below the desk when the door to the study opened.

“What exactly are you doing?”

She popped up, banging her head on the furniture, so hard that a white light burst behind her eyes. She rubbed at it furiously, whimpering as she tried to stand.

Suddenly, strong arms had come around her, were holding her close, pulling her against his body. “Do not hurt yourself,” he growled.

Heat spread through her like a fire, the strength in his hold shocking. She forgot to breathe, her head swimming, her body going weightless and floaty. From not breathing. Not from the look in those dark, stormy eyes. Not from staring down at those sculpted lips and wondering how it would feel if they...

She took a step back, stumbling slightly, but finding balance when she was some distance from him.

“Do not startle me,” she bit out.

“It was not my intention to startle you. Why are you snooping around?”

“I need to talk to my father.”

He laughed. “All you had to do was say so.”

“You’re going to let me talk to my father?”

“I imagine you have questions for him. It behooves me that he answer them. Because I am not lying to you. I know that you wish I were. But if you need to hear it from your father himself, then by all means.”

He held his cell phone out to her, and she took it, feeling suspicious. “I’m not even sure what time it is there.”

“Does it matter? You have been kidnapped, after all.”

“You’re not worried that my father is going to call the police?”

“My brother already has.”

“And you’re not worried...”

“So concerned for my feelings, tesoro. It is admirable, and a bit touching, but there really is no need. I am more rock than man.”

“Unsurprising.”

She dialed her father’s number, feeling self-conscious with Diego standing there staring at her. Her head still throbbed.

“Hello?”

“Father,” Liliana said. “I’ve been kidnapped.”

“How much money does he want?” her father asked, his voice clipped and tight, but not as surprised as she would’ve thought.

“I... He wants to marry me.”

“Are you having a last-minute fit about marrying Matías?”

“No,” she protested. “I’m not having a fit. I’m currently a victim of a crime.”

“What?”

“I was kidnapped. I told you. From Matías’s house.”

“Who has taken you?”

“Diego. Diego Navarro.”

The silence on the end of the phone suddenly became weighted. Tense. “What does he want?”

“To marry me,” she reiterated. “It’s complicated. But he said... He said I had to.”

“Why did he say that?” The fact that her father didn’t sound shocked concerned her more than just about anything else.

“He said he knows things about you. Things that could ruin you. He said... He said that he can destroy you. Your reputation. Your fortune. Everything. If it’s not true...”

“You must stay with him,” her father said. “You must give him what he asks for.”

Liliana felt like the world had dropped out from beneath her feet. “I... You can’t truly expect for me to marry my kidnapper?”

“One Navarro should be the same as the other. In any case, this one is much more dangerous.”

“He kidnapped me.”

“Has he harmed you?”

“I have been terrorized,” she said, ignoring the flare of amusement in Diego’s eyes when she said the word.

Honestly, she wanted to hit him.

“Has he put his hands on you in any way?” her father pressed.

“Other than when he carried me out of my bedroom window, no,” she admitted, reluctant to do so, because it was clear that somehow that seemed to absolve Diego from taking her against her will.

“I cannot tell you I have no reason for concern,” her father said. “I can only tell you that if you don’t wish to lose absolutely everything we have... You must marry him.”

“But I...”

“Your mother dearly loved our life together. She loved the company that she and I built together. To lose it would destroy her.”

But she’s dead. Liliana wanted to scream. She couldn’t. So she didn’t. Instead, she simply hung up the phone. With numb fingers, she handed it back to Diego.

“I assume he did not give you the answer that you required.”

“No.”

“I told you that you would not care for the answer.”

Her mind was spinning. “I don’t believe that you want a wife,” she said finally.

“Why exactly?”

“I don’t believe you want fidelity.”

“Well. I’ve never tried it for too terribly long. But I have managed it for a couple of years, at least.”

That admission surprised her. “Really?”

“It is not my past that is open for discussion. However, continue.”

“I’ll marry you,” she said. “I will marry you for exactly as long as we have to stay married. But then, I want money. To go and live my own life. I want to be free. Of you and of my father. Let his empire stand but help me be free of it. And once you don’t need me anymore...you can be free of me.”

She felt exhilarated. She had never conceived of doing anything quite so reckless. Of figuring out a way to tilt the scale so that she might benefit. Freedom. Not just from her father, but from a husband.

Finding out that her father could do such a thing to her. That he could manipulate her as he was doing now, so easily. Even as he was revealing himself to be a villain, bringing up her mother’s death. A death she had no control over. But one that she felt an immense amount of guilt over all the same. It was sobering. And immensely painful.

It made her reckless. It made her want something different. Made her want something more.

“I will not be satisfied with the marriage in name only,” he said, his obsidian eyes dark on hers.

She was afraid his gaze would burn right through her, and that his touch would reduce her to ash. What would it be like to be naked with someone? Naked with him.

It would be so overwhelming. So intimate. So impossibly close.

She’d spent her whole life feeling close to no one. The very idea made her tremble.

She shrank back. “You said you wouldn’t force yourself on me.”

“And I won’t. But I’m making it very clear, that while I may agree to a marriage with an end date, and while I have absolutely no issue providing you with a settlement, I do expect what I want. As I said, if I did not wish to marry you I would have simply kept you away from Matías. But I want you.” He moved closer to her, reminding her of a large, dangerous cat. “I have wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. Wanted to spoil all that innocent beauty that you carry around with you so effortlessly.” He didn’t move nearer to her. Didn’t touch her. And yet she felt him. As if his words had reached inside of her. “Do you know what I mean by that?” he asked.

She was trembling. From the inside out. And frankly, she didn’t quite know what he meant by that. But she refused to look so foolish.

“I suppose you’re a man. And you can’t help yourself.”

“Oh, it goes so far beyond me being a man and you being a woman. If it was only that, I could satisfy it with anyone. But you... You, Liliana, have bewitched me from the moment I first laid eyes on you and I find that unacceptable. I do not want without having. It is not in my nature.”

What difference would it make? Really. She had been willing to sleep with Matías. But then, she had been planning on staying married to him, but truly, she had already been planning on being with a man she didn’t love. Why not this one?

And you want him.

She ignored that voice.

The fact of the matter was the idea of being with him didn’t... It didn’t disgust her. And she was...curious. It was funny how she felt profoundly uncurious when it came to Matías. But there was something about Diego. A spark that was between them... Or at least, it lived inside of her. And it fascinated her. It made her want to know more. More about sexual attraction. About the reasons why people lost their minds in the pursuit of physical satisfaction. She understood it on a cerebral level.

She had read a great many books that depicted the acts. The feelings of lust.

And when the writing was particularly evocative she could feel those things resonating inside of her. She could imagine what it would feel like to have them for another person.

But this was different. Reckless. When those feelings were contained to a fantasy there was a safety in them.

But she was here, alone with Diego. And there was nothing to stop him from grabbing hold of her and having his way with her now.

That was the real trouble.

All those bold proclamations he’d made... Ultimately, he was right.

She did want him.

At least, she thought she did.

There was a layer of safety, of gauze between the sexual words she had read, and the experience itself. At least, she assumed so. You could read about the flavor of a peach, and get a sense for it, but it didn’t truly capture the way it felt to bite into the fruit. The thickness of the skin, the texture of the pulp. The way the juice felt as it ran down your chin. You could read about all those things, and not really understand. Words didn’t leave you full—they didn’t change things inside of you in the same way.

She had a feeling that the physical act would be something else entirely.

But if this was the start of her independence, if this was the beginning of the life that she would create for herself, then perhaps it was exactly the right time, and Diego was exactly the right man to begin this sort of exploration with.

A man that she chose—ignoring the fact that he had kidnapped her and demanded that she sleep with him—because she wanted him, and not because her father had selected him as a worthy husband.

As justifications went, it might be a little bit thin, but she was willing to go with it. And anyway, her options were limited. That was the simple fact of the matter.

The deal that Diego was offering was infinitely better than the... Well, the other deal he was offering. Wherein her family was disgraced, they lost all of their money, and she found herself without shelter and her father’s home, and without the shelter of a husband. Because Matías would have no need to marry her if her father’s business no longer mattered.

There was the matter of the inheritance, but he could find any number of women to help with that.

And Diego would simply kidnap a different one.

“You have a deal,” she said, tilting her chin upward. “But there is a condition. You’re not touching me until after our marriage vows are spoken.”

He laughed, a dark, dangerous sound that rolled over her like a tide. “Oh, that is not too difficult a thing, tesoro. We are to be married in the morning.”

She blinked. “How?”

“I told you. I have left nothing to chance. And really, it is morning now.”

“I don’t have a gown.”

“But you do. I’m very solicitous like that. I took the liberty of choosing exactly what I wished to see my bride in.”

“That’s...creepy. Do you know that?”

“Hmm.” He made a thoughtful noise. “I have kidnapped you out of your bedroom window, in spite of the fact that you were set to marry my brother. In spite of the fact that you have likely spent the past two weeks in his bed. I have been obsessed with you from the moment that I saw you and plotted a way to make you mine. Obviously I’m a bit creepy. And I’ve made my peace with it. Hence the kidnapping and arranged speedy marriage. Do you honestly think that pointing it out is going to shame me?”

“You’re...”

“A monster? I called myself that only moments ago. Why exactly do you think that will insult me.”

“A criminal,” she said.

“I’ve been called worse. If you’ve ever a mind to find out exactly what, feel free to peruse the internet.”

“I don’t have access to it.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy for you to peruse the internet. I just said that you could.”

“Perhaps I’m not that interested in you, Diego. If I was going to fight for internet access I would go online shopping instead of googling you.”

“There is no need for you to online shop. Everything you could possibly want is already here.”

“You don’t know my taste.”

He reached out, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know everything about you. Everything. I’ve looked at every photograph that exists of you that’s been published in public. I made a study of you every time I went to your father’s house. Every item of clothing in that closet fits you. Believe me. I have made a study of your curves.”

A shiver went down her spine. She should be mortified. Furious. And on some level, she was. But there was more. She felt... She didn’t even know. She had never been someone’s focus. Not like this. And while she knew he had other reasons for taking her, while she knew it served him in other ways, the fact remained that she did matter. He wanted her. Matías didn’t want her. He didn’t care. He certainly wouldn’t have kidnapped her out of the bedroom window. He simply would have found another woman. Diego made it sound as if he couldn’t. It was...

For a woman who had felt almost invisible for most of her life it was intoxicating in a way it should not be.

Perhaps her father had been right to protect her all this time. Maybe her natural inclination was to be drawn to darkness.

But you have no way of turning on the light, so you might as well accept it. You might as well live in it.

She didn’t see that she had another choice. Not now. Why fight when she couldn’t win?

“We need to sign an agreement,” she said.

“You’re not really in a position to be making demands,” he said, his voice dry.

“Yes,” she said, “I am. I have something you want.”

“By that you mean your body?”

“Yes. My body—” she tried to speak without trembling “—and my acquiescence to being your wife. I think I’m in a fantastic position to be making demands.”

“By all means, list them.”

“I want assurance that you will give me a settlement.” She named a sum. Outrageous. She was certain that he would tell her she could jump straight off the hillside manor and into the sea.

“Double it,” he said. “I’m a man of means, tesoro. I will hardly leave my ex-wife without access to designer clothing.”

“Generous of you,” she responded.

“Not at all. Of course, you should receive a healthy payment for time spent in my bed.”

Heat lashed her cheeks. “Don’t make it sound like that. You’re not paying for...for that.”

“Am I not? I find I would pay quite handsomely for access to that space between your thighs.”

She gritted her teeth, well aware that he was trying to be inflammatory. Or maybe, he wasn’t trying. Maybe it was simply who he was. But the man she had met at her father’s house had been a damn sight more charming than the one who stood before her now. But still, Diego, even in all his arrogance, even as he was, caused her pulse to race. And not only from anger.

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