His Inherited Bride

‘Yes, well, thank you,’ she murmured, feeling more of a hypocrite by the second, ‘but I prefer not to talk about it.’ She lowered her eyes from his intent gaze, her mind in a state of flux. He must know why she was here, so why was he being so nice? Perhaps marriage and a few children had mellowed him, she thought.

CHAPTER TWO

THIS interview was not going at all as Jules had planned; she was not here to relive the past but to hopefully assure her mother’s future. ‘I did not come all this way to talk over the past. The present is more my concern,’ she said firmly.

‘Yes, of course, how foolish of me to think you might need sympathy. After all, you left Enrique virtually standing at the altar.’ Rand stepped back and with a lift of one broad shoulder added, ‘Why would you be worried about the death of an ex-fiancé, years ago, when you were not even concerned with the recent death of your own father?’

Jules’ head shot back up, her green eyes clashing with contemptuous black, her doubts of his sincerity confirmed, and she realised the gloves were off with a vengeance.

‘You know nothing of my relationship with my father.’ She leapt to her feet. ‘Or, rather lack of one,’ she added cynically. ‘And it really has nothing to do with you anyway.’

One of the few times Jules had had a conversation with her dad he had explained how years ago when his sister Ester had been a student she had got involved with a far left political party in Chile. After spending a term in prison for her beliefs, she had finally escaped to Europe. She had met and married an Italian widower with a four-year-old son, Randolfo, and never returned. Brother and sister held completely opposing political views, and they had been estranged for decades. Which with hindsight should have told Jules something about her dad’s character years ago, but it had taken her own engagement to reveal him in his true colours.

Jules seriously doubted her father would ever have contacted his sister, if she had not made the first move years later by asking her adult stepson to check up on her only sibling on her behalf. Carlos Diez had been a cold-hearted, manipulative man as Jules had discovered for herself.

‘It does have something to do with me in as much as I am the sole executor of your father’s will,’ Rand reminded her.

‘And of course your obvious concern must be looking after your stepmother Ester’s interest, I understand that,’ Jules shot back throwing caution to the wind. ‘But I don’t—’

‘Stop right there,’ Rand cut in. ‘I have no intention of discussing business with you on an empty stomach. Join me for lunch, and then we will talk.’

She didn’t want to join him for lunch; in fact she wanted to escape from his powerful presence as soon as humanly possible. But one look at the grim determination in his darkly attractive face, and she knew she had little choice in the matter. Rand Carducci was not a man to be pushed around by anyone, and, if she was to have any chance of getting what she had come for, she could not afford to antagonise the man. ‘Lunch would be nice,’ Jules agreed.

Nice was not a word Rand would have used. Jules had developed into a very beautiful woman, on the outside at least, but at the moment the red tinge to her cheeks and the angry confusion in her flashing green eyes told him all he needed to know. Jules was a gold-digging, heartless little witch and she knew what side her bread was buttered on.

His firm lips twisted in a cynical smile that did not reach his eyes. He might have had some lingering sympathy for the skinny kid he remembered, but the simmering sexuality of the woman before him did not evoke sympathy, but a much more basic emotion. She was the type who could get any man she wanted with a glance from her brilliant emerald eyes and probably did. Carlos Diez apart, Jules owed him personally—if Señor Eiga was to be believed she had indirectly cost him a fiancée. A long time ago, true, but not something Rand could easily forget.

It was in his power to make sure she did not get a cent and he was sorely tempted to do just that. But he was an astute businessman, with a multimillion-dollar corporation to run, and he had neither the time nor inclination to hang around in Chile longer than was necessary. He would settle with the woman for as little as possible. There were other people more worthy who had to be considered.

‘Good. I am glad you agree, and I do understand your concern over your father’s estate,’ Rand said smoothly, not by a flicker of an eyelash revealing the anger simmering inside him. ‘And I can assure you, you will get your just reward, trust me—’ cupping her elbow with one strong hand, he urged her towards the door ‘—but there is no great hurry. As you have taken advantage of the travel arrangements my PA arranged for you I gather you aren’t planning on going anywhere for the next week,’ he opined hardily. ‘And it is good to see you looking so well and with the past firmly behind you.’

‘Yes, well…’ Was that a compliment? Or was he being sarcastic yet again? Jules wondered. But, glancing at him, she added politely, ‘Thank you.’ What else could she say? She needed his help.

Rand’s glittering black eyes scanned her beautiful face, his strong jaw line clenching hard as he noted the evasiveness in her expressive eyes, exactly as he’d expected. When he had heard Jules had run away from her fiancé and her father, he had not been very surprised. She had seemed little more than a child to Rand when she’d got engaged, and far too immature for marriage. As for her father, Carlos, he had been a hard man to like. If it had not been for Ester, the only mother he had ever known and adored, asking him to visit the man when he was in Chile on business, he doubted he would naturally have made friends with Carlos Diez.

Rand 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.’

‘Yes, b…’ A long finger closed over her lips.

‘Relax, and prepare yourself for a gourmet delight,’ he told her. ‘As long as you like fish,’ he ended with a spark of rueful amusement in his tone.

‘Yes.’ She was fast becoming a yes-woman, Jules thought dryly. Most unlike her. But he really was a very compelling man. Strikingly attractive, add power and that aura of untouchability that only the seriously wealthy exuded, combined with one hundred per cent virile masculinity, and he was a walking aphrodisiac to any female from eight to eighty. Not a type that had ever impressed her in the past. Unfortunately for the first time in years Jules was forced to face the fact she was no exception, she conceded ruefully.

She had always thought of him as a dark, serious kind of man and yet he had a smile that she suspected could beguile any woman’s heart, even hers. She gave a small involuntary shake of her head. How had she never noticed before? she wondered in amazement. Maybe because in the past he had rarely smiled at her, but that wasn’t strictly true. He had on one occasion.

A memory of sitting on the paddock fence watching Enrique perform on his horse suddenly surfaced. Rand had strolled up beside her, and put a friendly arm around her waist. ‘Mind you don’t fall, kid,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t want you injured before Ester has a chance to know you or she will have my guts for garters—an English expression…no?’

She laughed at his funny accent, and then he asked her if she would mind if Ester wrote to her, explaining he had told his stepmother he had met her, and Ester had never known her brother had married or had a daughter until now.

Jules glibly answered, ‘Yes, fine, but I should warn you I’m not much of a letter-writer.’ She turned her head to look at him; his face was only inches from her own. ‘But I’ll add her to my Christmas card list.’ He ruffled her hair and said thanks and she recalled for a moment being dazzled by his smile, but putting it down to the bright sunshine…

The restaurant was everything Rand had said and more. A timber building set on stilts and with a long deck stretching out over the Pacific Ocean. They opted to eat outside and Jules took her seat and looked around her in awe. On the edge of a headland the sweeping view of a huge sandy beach and the sea gave the impression of being surrounded by water. ‘This place is incredible.’ She turned shining eyes up to Rand.

‘Good, I am glad you approve. Now let me get you a drink. Champagne by way of a celebration, perhaps—it has been a long time.’ One dark brow arched sardonically. ‘Some might say too long’. He still found it incredible she had not turned up for her own father’s funeral, and he wondered what excuse she would come up with. But he was not about to ask her. Not yet…

He had thought with each month that had passed after he had informed her of the codicil to her father’s will, as she had refused point-blank to have anything to do with it, that maybe the woman had a grain of integrity after all. At least she was consistent in ignoring her father in life and death. But when Jules had contacted his office just a few weeks before the deadline on claiming any inheritance ran out, he had realised cynically her initial refusal had obviously been a ploy not to sound too eager, and make him think better of her.

Well, it hadn’t worked; it simply confirmed what a hard, selfish woman she was. Carlos had maybe not been a good husband or father, but whether he had deserved a wife who had run out on him within a year of their marriage, taking his daughter with her and then divorcing him, was debatable.

To give Carlos his due, he had tried to make it up with his daughter years later by welcoming the teenage Jules into his home. When she had pleaded she was old enough to get engaged to Enrique, at the tender age of seventeen, Carlos had not objected, but had given her a big engagement party. The next year he had arranged a huge wedding at considerable expense, only to have his daughter run out on her fiancé, much the same as her mother had run out on him. In fact one could say it was Carlos Diez who had come off worse with his involvement with the English women all down the line.

Yet here this beautiful woman sat looking as cool as a cucumber, and after all she could get. Well, this time she was in for a rude awakening; Rand was going to make sure of that…

‘I was sorry I couldn’t make the funeral, but my mother wasn’t very well.’ Jules chose her words with care. She still had difficulty saying ‘cancer’ out loud, especially to a relative stranger. But she knew exactly what he was referring to by his ‘too long’. She could recognise sarcasm when she heard it. ‘And it was too short a notice to get out of an extremely important commitment I had already made.’ It was the truth; she had promised to stay with her mother while she was in hospital. But she did not want to offend the man when she was hoping to get money out of him so she did not elaborate.

Never mind her mother, it was probably down to some man, Rand thought cynically. Jules had dressed down her sensational figure, but to the discerning eye she was the epitome of female pulchritude, full breasted, a tiny waist and softly rounded hips plus long, shapely legs. He stirred uncomfortably on his chair, surprised by the stirring in his groin and resenting the effect she had on him, but masking it with a fulsome compliment.

‘I understand. An exquisitely beautiful young woman like you must have many more pressing calls on your time,’ he drawled silkily, and turned his attention to the waiter who had miraculously appeared at his side.

‘No champagne for me; a soft drink, please,’ Jules said coolly, not rising to the bait as he placed their order with the waiter in fluent Spanish. He really was a many-talented man but he was also a sarcastic swine; she didn’t believe his compliment for a moment. She had no illusions about her looks. Attractive, yes, but ‘exquisitely beautiful’ was overdoing the hyperbole just a tad even to try and charm the dimmest female.

A wry smile twisted her mouth. Jules considered herself a reasonably intelligent adult woman, with a good career doing what she loved. In life as in business luck and timing was everything. Sadly for her mother, she had had no say in when her illness had struck. Jules could think if only it had been a year or two later, and at her worst moments if only it had been just six weeks sooner, then Jules would not have invested all their capital and the bank loan in the house and business. But her real wish was if only her wonderful mother had never taken ill at all.

Bad timing… Whatever, the reality was she needed money and she needed it now and, whether she liked it or not, Rand was her only hope. Unfortunately he held the purse strings. She knew the amount she needed would barely dent the value of her father’s estate. But whether this autocratic man would give it to her, she was not so sure. Then any hope Jules had harboured that he might have forgotten about the past was dashed with his next words.

‘So.’ Rand returned his attention to her. ‘I have ordered the seafood special; take my word, you will love it. I do.’ He paused, and Jules felt her heart flutter in her breast, hypnotised by the smouldering warmth in his dark eyes. ‘I love this place.’ He leant back and waved an elegant hand in a gesture at the view and looked around. Released from the magnetic pull of his powerful gaze, Jules concentrated on steadying her breathing, but stifled a gasp of outrage as he continued. ‘I must admit I was surprised you gave up the opportunity to live in this wonderful climate with a wealthy father and the prospect of a handsome husband for the doubtful pleasures of the British climate. Dare I assume you have changed your mind?’ he prompted cynically.

He was doing it again, insulting her; did he take her for a fool or what? ‘No, I have not. People are more important than places,’ Jules said tightly.

‘Forgive me for saying so, but that sounds rather strange coming from a girl like you.’

‘You know nothing about me,’ Jules shot back, bristling with anger at his implication.

‘True.’ Rand leant back in his chair as the waiter appeared with a jug of juice and two glasses, eyeing Jules though narrowed eyes. Amazingly she looked quite genuine in her indignation. He had to admit she was one hell of an actress, and he wondered what else she was good at. He could see the rise and fall of her firm breast beneath the soft linen of her jacket, and again felt a sudden tightening in his groin area he had some difficulty controlling.

Leaning forward to allow his body to subside, he filled a glass with juice. ‘I am so embroiled in my work, I have trouble keeping track of the side issues.’ Rand straightened and held out the glass of orange juice. ‘But it is good to see you again.’

Jules felt the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Side issue’ said it all, which was all she ever had been to her father or any other man. She reached out and took the glass from him, his long fingers accidentally brushing hers, and felt the tingling effect of his touch right up her arm. But as she controlled her shock her green eyes clashed with deep brown. Was it mockery she saw in the dark depths?

‘Yes, well…’ She cleared her throat, refusing to let her simmering anger show. ‘Given you are so busy, perhaps we can combine lunch with business. I would hate to take up too much of your precious time,’ she suggested, taking control of the situation and, lifting the glass to her mouth, she took a long, cooling swallow.

‘As you like,’ Rand said with a dismissive shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘After all, I am here on behalf of your late father. Perhaps an enquiry on your part about his last illness would not go amiss,’ he prompted sardonically.

‘I had heard nothing from my father in seven years until you called to tell me he was ill. A heart attack, I believe you said, and I have no reason to disbelieve you,’ she offered. ‘For all I know he could have married again. I might even have a brother or sister I know nothing about,’ she suggested dryly, ‘but I am sure you can enlighten me.’ Rand was not going to intimidate her and she boldly held his dark gaze, her own expression, she hoped, one of cool concern.