‘So, who is this person? Is it a love child you abandoned and now want to bring out into the open?’
Such an accusation made it clear she’d researched him too and believed him to be as much of a playboy as his father had been. Maybe that was for the best. She didn’t seem the type to enter into brief affairs merely to satisfy a sexual attraction. This was a woman who would demand so much more from a lover, whatever her earlier protestations had been.
‘It is a love child, yes.’ He flaunted the truth before her, aware of the conclusions she was making.
‘I hate men like you.’ She snapped the words at him and he smiled lazily. He hadn’t fathered any children. That was something he’d been extremely careful of, but he enjoyed seeing the anger mix with contempt, filling her eyes, again letting him know exactly what she was thinking.
‘Not as much as I dislike women who jump to conclusions.’ He sat and watched the questions race across her face. ‘It is not my child.’
‘So if it’s not your love child, whose is it?’ Her fine brows rose elegantly in question and the satisfaction that danced in her eyes told him she thought he was lying.
‘As I have said, it is not mine.’ He wasn’t ready to give her the secret that had stayed hidden for so many years. All the times he’d tried to be the son his father had wanted had been in vain and now, with the discovery of Max, his half-brother, it had all become perfectly clear why.
‘You are going to have to tell me, if I am to trace this person.’ A haughty note had entered her voice. She thought she’d got him on the run, thought she now held the power. Never. But he’d allow her to think that. For a while at least.
‘It is my father’s son I wish to find.’
* * *
Lydia’s stomach plummeted. She’d been challenging him, pushing him to reveal his true self to her, and it had just backfired spectacularly. The fierce expression on his face warned her she’d gone too far, pushed too hard. Would he now revoke the offer, force her to find an extortionate amount of money to settle her father’s debt? Or worse, marry him?
Suddenly she was that awkward sixteen-year-old again being introduced to Raul by her father. She’d smiled at him, pleased to know that someone closer to her own age would be at the dinner party her father had insisted she attend with him, but Raul had looked down at her with barely concealed lack of interest.
Not that that had stopped the heady attraction she’d instantly had for him and she’d been glad she’d chosen the fitted black dress that had made her feel taller, more attractive and much more grown up. Stupidly, she’d hung on every word Raul had said as they’d been placed next to one another at the dinner table. She’d liked him—more than liked him—and had wanted him to notice her, to like her too. She’d wanted to be more than friends and had already wanted him to be the one she experienced her first kiss with.
All evening she’d tried everything to get his attention, even trying to use her classroom Spanish.
‘If you can’t say it correctly, don’t bother.’ The high and mighty put-down had done just that, crashing all the dreams of a friendship, or more, with him.
‘I don’t have much call to use the language,’ she’d retorted, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. How had she thought him nice? How had she even begun to imagine that he might like her, might want to be friends, go on a date?
‘Then I suggest you stick to your usual shopping and partying and give languages a miss.’
‘But I’m going to study languages at university,’ she’d replied with a gauche smile.
He’d looked at her then, his dark eyes locking with hers, and she’d held her breath, wondering if he was teasing her—teasing her because he liked her.
‘Don’t. You clearly don’t have any talent for Spanish, exactly what I’d expect from Daddy’s little princess who does nothing other than look pretty.’ The scathing tone of his voice as his gaze had travelled down her had left her in no doubt that he didn’t like her, that he despised her and all he thought she was.
She’d bit back a temper-fuelled retort and vowed that one day, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him and she’d do it fluently in his language. If he thought she was a spoilt little thing, that was fine by her, but her sense of injustice didn’t leave her, not even when she and her father left the dinner party. It had stayed with her, adding to all the insecurities her father had instilled in her.
Now she looked at Raul, ten years older, anger at what her father had done mixed with sympathy for this proud man. Her father’s deception, the way he’d forced her mother to leave with his detached and cold ways, his constant need to make the next million before losing it again, seemed minor compared to the family secret Raul had just revealed.
‘I’m sorry, I had no idea.’ Her voice softened, but it did nothing to the feral expression on Raul’s face. He was a man who didn’t show softer emotions, that much was clear.
‘I have only just discovered the existence of my half-brother. He and I are due to inherit from my father’s estate.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She was perplexed by the unveiling of the last few minutes. ‘Your father must have known about him, to have included such conditions in the will.’
‘He knew. He also knew that I wouldn’t want to marry anyone, least of all the daughter of one of his debtors.’
‘We have both been set up.’ Shock set in and the full implications of the situation she was in finally hit home. How could her father have been so cruel? How could he have used her like this? She could almost imagine him concocting this strange deal with Raul’s father. Two heartless men together.
‘It would appear so. My father knows that money will motivate me over marriage.’
She tried not to feel insulted, tried not to feel glad that there was a way out of this mess and once she was out of it she’d insist her father sold the properties to repay the debt that, as far as she was concerned, he would still have to Raul. Debts had to be honoured.
‘I need to find my brother, preferably without any media attention. I have no wish for the circus they can create or to expose my father’s weakness, which will push the company further into the wrong kind of spotlight, not to mention destroy my mother.’ His eyes were harder than ever, like a heavy thundercloud about to unleash its fury. Did he hate the brother he’d never met?
Questions raced through her mind, but one had to be asked. ‘So why trust me, someone you barely know, with such sensitive information?’
‘Because you’re as against the idea of marriage as I am and claim to have what I need. Added to that, you are your father’s only hope of clearing his debt without dragging his long-standing family name through the bankruptcy courts. That in itself should ensure your compliance with my request.’
He was right about that. If there had been another way to settle this she wouldn’t have even met with him today. Her relationship with her father was strained to say the least, but she didn’t want the family’s name brought into disrepute. Her grandmother might be elderly, but it would break her heart and after what her mother and father had done to her with their selfish actions she would never do anything
