The Spaniard's Wedding Revenge

That she was used to looking after herself was obvious, but it didn’t mean he was going to let her. He wasn’t a gentleman, despite the fact that he came from an ancient line of Spanish nobility. Not in any way. But he was enough of a man that he couldn’t leave this young woman alone in the middle of the night.

Because, no, he wouldn’t be surprised at what men wanted from such a delectable little morsel such as herself. He was one of those men after all.

That left him with only one option: to keep hold of her in a way she’d accept.

He could, of course, simply ignore her protests and take her back to his Paris mansion and keep her there. But, again, dealing with the protests that would no doubt entail would be tiresome, and he preferred to avoid tiresome things. Things that left less time to do the things he liked doing. His own personal pleasure always took priority.

It would be easier all round if she agreed, therefore work it was.

If only he had something for her to do...

He had estates and a castillo back in Spain—which he avoided going to whenever possible—and numerous companies he’d invested his considerable fortune in. But he already had a number of staff managing all those things—and besides, they weren’t the kinds of things a Parisian street urchin could manage, no matter how feisty she was.

No, the only work he could conceivably give her was domestic, by adding her to his housekeeping staff. He already had a large contingent, but one more wouldn’t hurt. House-cleaning, at least, required no extensive training, and it would keep her close until he’d uncovered her mysteries.

Which he was going to do, since he currently had a dearth of mysteries in his life.

‘What kind of work?’ she asked, still suspicious.

‘I need someone to clean for me.’ He tilted his head, studying her. ‘I have a house in Paris that’s very large and needs attention. You may work out what you owe me for the car and my personal inconvenience there.’

‘But I—’

‘Did I mention that I have rooms set aside for my staff? You will be required to live on-site for the duration.’

‘Don’t guys like you already have a lot people doing your dirty work for you?’

‘Yes.’ Her scorn didn’t bother him. He tried not to let anything bother him, since it was very dangerous for all concerned when he was bothered. ‘But I could always do with one more. Plus, I pay my staff very well for doing my “dirty work”.’

At the mention of pay, something changed. Her eyes lost that wary look, and a calculating gleam sparked in their depths.

He knew that gleam and he knew it intimately. It was hunger. And not in the physical sense, of needing food, but in the sense of wanting something you could never have and wanting it desperately.

Money—she wanted money. And who could blame her when she didn’t have any? Money was power, and she didn’t have any of that, either, he’d bet.

Sure enough, she said, ‘Pay? You pay them?’

‘Of course. That’s why they’re my staff and not my slaves.’

She leaned forward all of a sudden, losing her wariness, all business now. Her violet eyes were focused very intently on him. ‘Would you pay me? Once I earned back for the car? Could I have a proper job?’

Something shifted in Cristiano’s gut. Something that, again, he was intimately familiar with.

She was lovely. And he could imagine her looking at him just like that, with a pretty flush to her pale cheeks and a flame in her eyes and all the beautiful hair spread over his pillow. Hungry for him as he buried himself inside her...

A nice thought, but a thought was what it would stay. She’d never be one of his partners. Apart from the fact that the distance between them in power, money and just about everything else could not have been more vast, she was also much younger than he was.

And he was betting she’d either had some bad experiences with men or she avoided men completely.

Again, dealing with all that sounded like work, and he tried to avoid work whenever he could. He didn’t want anything hard, anything difficult, and he avoided complications like the plague.

This small gatita was certainly a complication, but he found he was willing to expend a bit of effort on figuring out why she was so familiar to him. After all, it had been a while since he’d let himself be interested in something other than physical pleasure. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

‘Do you want a job?’ he asked, teasing her a little just because he could.

‘Yes, of course I want a job.’ Her gaze narrowed further. ‘How much do you pay?’

A good question—though he was sure she couldn’t afford to turn anything down.

‘My staff are the best and I pay them accordingly,’ he said, and named a sum that made her pretty eyes go round.

‘That much?’ All her earlier wariness and suspicion had dropped away. ‘You really pay people that much just to clean your house?’

‘It’s a very big house.’

‘And you’d pay me that?’

It wasn’t a lot of money—at least it wasn’t to him. But for her it was clearly a fortune. Then again, he suspected that a five-euro note left on the street would be a fortune for her.

‘Yes, I’d pay you that.’ He paused, studying her. ‘Where do you live? And what are you doing on the streets at two in the morning?’

Instantly her expression closed up, the light disappearing from her face, the shutters coming down behind her eyes. She sat back on the seat, putting distance between them and glancing out of the window.

‘I should go home. My...mother will be worried.’

Which didn’t answer his direct question but answered the ones he hadn’t voiced. Because she was lying. Her slight hesitation made him pretty certain she didn’t have a mother and neither did she have a home.

‘I think not,’ he said, watching her. ‘I think you should come directly back to my house and spend the night there. Then you can start work first thing tomorrow morning.’

‘I don’t want to come back to your house.’

‘Like I said, I have quarters for my staff and there will be more than enough room.’

‘But I—’

‘There will be no argument.’ Because he’d decided now, and once he made a decision he stuck to it. ‘You have two choices. Either you come back to my house tonight or you spend the night in a police cell.’

‘That’s not much of a choice,’ she said angrily.

‘Too bad. You were the one who decided spray-painting my car was a good idea, so these are the consequences.’ He liked her arguing with him, he realised. Probably too much—which was an issue. ‘So what’s it to be, gatita?’

She folded her arms. ‘Why do you keep calling me that?’

‘It means kitten in Spanish.’

‘I’m not a kitten.’

‘You’re small and feral and you tried to scratch me—of course you’re a kitten. And a wild one at that.’

She was silent a moment, not at all mollified. Then, ‘Why Spanish?’

‘Because I’m Spanish.’

‘Oh. What are you doing in Paris?’

He stared at her, letting her see a little of his edge. ‘That’s a lot of questions for a woman who won’t even give me her name.’

‘Why should I? You haven’t given me yours.’

That was true—he hadn’t. And why not? His name was an ancient and illustrious one, but one that would soon come to an end. He was the sole heir and he had no plans to produce another. No, the Velazquez line, the dukedom of San Lorenzo, would die with him and then be forgotten. Which was probably for the best, considering his dissolute lifestyle.

Your parents would be appalled.

They certainly would have been had they still been alive, but they weren’t. He had no one to impress, no one to live up to. There was only him and he didn’t care.

‘My name is Cristiano Velazquez, Fifteenth Duke of San Lorenzo,’ he said, because he had no reason to hide it. ‘And you may address me as Your Grace.’

A ripple of something crossed her face, though he couldn’t tell what it was. Then she frowned. ‘A duke? Cristiano Velazquez...?’ She said his name very slowly, as if tasting it.

He knew she hadn’t meant to do it in a seductive way, but he felt the seduction in it all the same. His name in her soft, sweet husky voice, said so carefully in French... As if that same sense of familiarity tugged at her the way it tugged at him.

But how would she know him? They’d never met—or at least not that he remembered. And he definitely hadn’t slept with her—that he was sure of. He might have had too many women to count, but he’d remember if he’d had her.

‘You’ve heard of me?’ he asked carefully, watching her face.

‘No... I don’t think so.’ She looked away. ‘Where is your house, then?’

Was she telling the truth? Had she, in fact, heard of him? Briefly he debated whether or not to push her. But it was late, and there were dark circles under her eyes, and suddenly she looked very small and fragile sitting there.

He should get her back to his place and tuck her into bed.

‘You’ll see.’ Moving over the seat towards the door, he opened it. ‘Stay here.’

Not that he gave her much choice, because he got out and shut it behind him again, locking it just in case she decided to make a desperate bid for freedom.

He made excuses to the two patiently waiting women, ensured they were taken care of for the evening, then went to find his recalcitrant driver, whom he eventually found in a nearby alley, playing some kind of dice game with a couple of the kids who’d been standing around his car.

How fortunate.

Getting his wallet out of his pocket, Cristiano extracted a note and brandished it at one of the youths. ‘You,’ he said shortly. ‘This is yours if you tell me the name of the woman with the pretty red hair who was spray-painting my car.’

The kid stared at the note, his mouth open. ‘Uh... Leonie,’ he muttered, and made a grab for the money.

So much for loyalty.

Cristiano jerked the note away before the boy could get it. ‘You didn’t give me a last name.’

The kid scowled. ‘I don’t know. No one knows anyone’s last name around here.’

Which was probably true.

He allowed the boy to take the money and then, with a meaningful jerk of his head towards the car for his driver’s benefit, he turned back to it himself.

Leonie. Leonie...

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his memory a bell rang.

Leonie blinked as a pair of big wrought-iron gates set into a tall stone wall opened and the car slid smoothly through them.

On the rare occasions when she’d ventured out of the area she lived in she’d seen places like this. Old buildings surrounded by high walls. Houses where the rich lived.

She’d once lived in a house like this herself, but it had been a long time ago and elsewhere, when she’d been a little kid. Before her father had kicked her and her mother out of their palatial mansion and life had changed drastically.

She still remembered what it had been like to have money, to have a roof over her head and clean clothes and food. Nice memories, but they’d been a lie, so she tried not to think about them. It was better not to remember such things because they only made her want what she could never have—and wanting things was always a bad thing.

She stared distrustfully out into the darkness, where the silhouette of a massive old house reared against the sky.

The driver came around the side of the car and opened the door. The duke gestured at her to get out.

She turned her distrustful attention to him.

A duke. An honest-to-God duke. He didn’t look like one—though she had no idea what dukes were supposed to look like. Maybe much older. Although, given the faint lines around his eyes and mouth, he was certainly a lot older than she was. Then again, his hair was still pitch-black so he couldn’t be that old.

His name had sounded faintly familiar to her, though she couldn’t think why. The fact that he was Spanish had given her a little kick, since she’d been born in Spain herself. In fact maybe she’d met him once before—back in Spain, before her father had got rid of her and her mother and her mother had dragged her to Paris.

Back when she’d been Leonie de Riero, the prized only daughter of Victor de Riero, with the blood of ancient Spanish aristocracy running in her veins.

Perhaps she knew this duke from then? Or perhaps not. She’d been very young, after all, and her memories of that time were dim.

Whatever he was, or had been, she didn’t want to remember those days. The present was the only thing she had, and she had to be on her guard at all times. Forgetting where she was and what was happening led to mistakes, and she’d already made enough of those since ending up on the streets.

If she hadn’t been so absorbed in getting the lettering just so as she’d graffitied his car, she wouldn’t be here after all.

You certainly wouldn’t have had a bed for the night, so maybe it wasn’t such a mistake?

That remained to be seen. Perhaps she should have fought harder to escape him. Then again, she hadn’t been able to resist the lure of a job—if he actually meant what he’d said, that was.

The duke lifted that perfect brow of his. ‘Are you going to get out? Or would you prefer to sit here all night? The car is quite comfortable, though I’m afraid the doors will have to stay locked.’

She gave him a ferocious glare. ‘Give me back my knife first.’ She liked to have some protection on her, just in case of treachery.

He remained impervious to her glare. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, gatita.’

Kitten. He kept calling her kitten. It was annoying.

‘I don’t trust you. And I don’t want to sleep in a strange place without some protection.’

His jungle-green gaze was very level and absolutely expressionless. ‘Fair enough.’ Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he extracted her knife and held it out, handle first.

She took it from him, the familiarity of the handle fitting into her palm making her feel slightly better. Briefly she debated whether or not to try and slash at him again, then bolt into the darkness. But she remembered the high walls surrounding the house. She wouldn’t be able to get over those, alas. She could refuse to get out and sleep in the car, but she didn’t like the idea of being locked in. No, it was the house or nothing.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Leonie pocketed her knife then slid out of the car. Behind her, the duke murmured something to his driver and then he was beside her, moving past her up the big stone steps to the front door of the mansion.

Some member of his staff was obviously still up, because the door opened, a pool of light shining out.

A minute later she found herself in a huge vaulted vestibule, with flights of stone steps curling up to the upper storeys and a massive, glittering chandelier lighting the echoing space. Thick silk rugs lay on the floor and there were pictures on the walls, and on the ceiling far above her head was a big painting of angels with white wings and golden haloes.

It was very warm inside.

She was used to being cold. She’d been cold ever since she was sixteen, coming home after school one day to the rundown apartment she’d shared with her mother only to find it empty, and a note from her mother on the rickety kitchen table informing Leonie that she’d gone and not to look for her.

Leonie hadn’t believed it at first. But her mother hadn’t come home that night, or the next, or the one after that, and eventually Leonie had had to accept that her mother wasn’t coming home at all. Leonie had been evicted from the apartment not long after that, and forced to live on the streets, where she’d felt like she’d become permanently cold.

But she hadn’t realised just how cold until now. Until the warmth from this place seeped up through the cracked soles of her sneakers and into her body, into her heart.

Immediately she wanted to go outside again—to run and never stop running. She couldn’t trust this warmth. She couldn’t let her guard down. It wasn’t safe.

Except the big front door had closed, and she knew it would be locked, and the duke was gesturing at her to follow the older woman who stood next to him, regarding her with some disgust, making her abruptly conscious of the holes in her jeans and the stains on the denim. Of the grimy hoodie that she’d stolen from a guy who’d taken it off to fight someone in the alleyway where she’d been sleeping one night. Of the paint stains on her hands.

She was dirty, and ragged, and she probably smelled since she hadn’t found anywhere to clean herself for weeks. No wonder this woman looked disgusted.

Leonie’s stomach clenched and she gripped the handle of her knife, scowling to cover the wave of vulnerability that had come over her. Never stop fighting. Never show weakness. That was the law of the streets.

‘Go with Camille,’ the duke said. ‘She will show you—’

‘No,’ Leonie said. ‘Just tell me where to go and I’ll find my own way there.’

Camille made a disapproving sound, then said something in a lilting musical language to the duke. He replied in the same language, his deep, rich voice making it sound as if he was caressing each word.

Leonie felt every one of her muscles tense in resistance. She couldn’t like the sound of his voice. She had to be on her guard at all times and not make any mistakes. And she didn’t want to go with this Camille woman and her disapproving stare.

Much to her surprise, however, with one last dark look in Leonie’s direction, the woman turned and vanished down one of the huge, echoing hallways that led off the entrance hall.

Without a word, the duke turned and headed towards the huge marble staircase. ‘Follow me,’ he said over his shoulder.

He didn’t pause and he didn’t wait, as if expecting her to follow him just as he’d said.

Leonie blinked. Why had he sent the other woman away? Was he just leaving her here? What if she somehow managed to get out through the door? What if she escaped down one of the corridors? What would he do? He wasn’t looking at her. Would he even know until she was gone?

Her heartbeat thumped wildly, adrenaline surging through her—both preludes to a very good bolt. And yet she wasn’t moving. She was standing there in this overwhelming, intimidating entrance hall, not running, watching a tall, powerful rich man go up the marble stairs.

He moved with economy and a lazy, athletic grace that reminded her even more strongly of a panther. It was mesmerising, for some reason. And when she found herself moving, it wasn’t towards the doorway or the corridor, it was towards him, following him almost helplessly.

Was this what had happened in that fairy-tale? Those children following the Pied Piper, drawn beyond their control by the music he made. Disappearing. Never to be seen again.

You’re an idiot. You have your knife. Pull yourself together.

This was true. And nothing had happened to her so far. Yes, he’d kept her locked in the car against her will, but he hadn’t hurt her. And apart from the moment when he’d grabbed her, he hadn’t touched her again.

She didn’t trust him, or his offer of a job, but it was either follow him or stay down here in the entrance hall, and that seemed cowardly. She wasn’t going to do that, either.

There was a slim possibility that he was telling the truth, and if so she needed to take advantage of it. If she was going to achieve her dream of having a little cottage of her own in the countryside, away from the city, away from danger, then he was her best chance of that happening.

Slowly Leonie moved after him, going up the winding marble staircase, trying to keep her attention on his strong back and not gawk at all the paintings on the walls, the carpets on the parquet floors, the vases of flowers on the small tables dotted here and there as they went down yet another wide and high-ceilinged corridor.

Windows let in the Parisian night and she caught glimpses of tall trees, hinting at a garden outside. She wanted to go and look through the glass, because it had been a long time since she’d seen a garden, but she didn’t dare. She had to keep the duke’s tall figure in sight.

Eventually, after leading her through a few more of those high-ceilinged corridors, he stopped outside a door and opened it, inclining his head for her to go on through.

He was standing quite near the doorway, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to get that close to him, but she didn’t want him to know it bothered her, either, so she slipped past him as quickly as she could. But not quickly enough to avoid catching a hint of his aftershave and the warmth of his powerful body as she brushed past him.

It was only an instant, but in that instant she was acutely aware of his height looming over her. Of the width of his broad shoulders and the stretch of the cotton across his muscled chest. Of the way he smelled spicy and warm and quite delicious.

A strange ripple of sensation went through her like an electric shock.

Disturbed, Leonie ignored it, concentrating instead on the room she’d stepped into.

It was very large, with tall windows that looked out on to trees. A thick pale carpet covered the floor, and up against one wall, facing the windows, was a very large bed, made up with a thick, soft-looking white quilt.

The duke moved past her, going over to the windows and drawing heavy pale silk curtains over the black glass, shutting out the night. The room was very warm, the carpet very soft under her feet, and she was conscious once again of how dirty she was.

She was going to leave stains all over this pretty pale bedroom. Surely he couldn’t mean for her to stay here? It didn’t look like a cleaner’s room. It was far too luxurious.

‘This can’t be where you put your staff,’ she said, frowning. ‘Why am I here?’

He adjusted the curtains with a small, precise movement, then turned around, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Not usually, no. But Camille didn’t have a room ready for you, so I thought you could use one of my guest bedrooms.’

‘Why? Why are you doing this?’

He tilted his head, gazing at her from underneath very long, thick black lashes. ‘Which particular “this” are you talking about?’

‘I mean this room. A job. A bed for the night. Why are you doing any of it? Why should you care?’

She hadn’t meant it to come out so accusingly, but she couldn’t help it. Men like him, with money and power, never did things without wanting something in return. Even charity usually came with strings. There were bound to be strings here, if only she could see them.

But the duke merely gave one of those elegant shrugs. ‘What else does one do with a feral kitten but look after it?’

‘I’m not a kitten,’ she said, for the second time that night.

His mouth curved and once again she felt that electric ripple of sensation move through her. It came to her very suddenly that this man was dangerous. And dangerous in a way she couldn’t name. He wasn’t a physical threat—though those strange little ripples of sensation definitely were—but definitely a threat of some kind.

‘No,’ he murmured, his gaze moving over her in a way that made heat rise in her cheeks. ‘You’re not, are you?’

She lifted her chin, discomfited and not liking it one bit. ‘And I didn’t ask you to look after me, either.’

‘Oh, if you think I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart you are mistaken.’ He strolled past her towards the door. ‘It’s entirely out of self-interest, believe me.’

‘Why? Just because I vandalised your car?’

Pausing by the door, he gave her a sweeping, enigmatic glance. ‘Among other things. The bathroom is through the door opposite. A shower or a bath wouldn’t go amiss, gatita.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, annoyed that he’d obviously noticed how dirty she was and how she must smell, and then annoyed further by her own annoyance—since why should she care if he’d noticed?