The strapless red dress. She’d hoped its elegant simplicity would prove to be timeless, because it was many seasons out of date. She saw the glittering drop earrings hanging from her earlobes that looked like diamonds. But they weren’t diamonds at all. They were cubic zirconia. It was a long time since she’d worn any real family jewels. They’d all been sold by her father to get money for gambling.
She felt like a fraud, and the humiliation from earlier rose up again. She quickly downed the last of her drink, guiltily relishing the last dregs of comfort from the alcohol.
She turned to face Gabriel, avoiding his eye. ‘I should leave—go home. My mother and father will be worried.’
And Matías.
Just thinking of him made her heart hurt. What would happen to them now? If they lost the castle then that was it. They would have hit rock bottom with no way back. An entire dynasty and legacy wiped out through the actions of her father…
‘Don’t go yet.’
She looked at Gabriel. Her heart thumped hard. His face was all lean angles and harsh lines. And then softened by that ridiculously sensual mouth.
‘We’re still waiting for your things.’
Leonora was torn. She wanted to appear totally at ease and sophisticated, draping herself artfully on one of the sofas while wittily regaling Gabriel with inconsequential chatter. But that wasn’t her. Had never been her.
‘I can get them tomorrow. They’re not that important.’
She felt that the longer she stood there the quicker he’d see that he was having an effect on her.
He came closer and moved to take the empty glass from her hand. He put his fingers over hers. A deliberate move? The breath stuck in her throat. He was so…vital. Lazaro had never had this effect on her and she’d believed that it would make for a better marriage. No extreme feelings or wants.
Gabriel said, ‘The paparazzi will know for sure by now that your engagement wasn’t announced. They’ll be actively hunting you down. Waiting for you. You should call your parents—warn them to stay inside.’
Leonora swallowed. Gabriel’s fingers were still on hers. ‘But I can’t just…stay here.’
‘Of course you can.’ He took the glass out of her nerveless fingers and in the same motion, with his other hand, he handed her his phone. ‘Use this.’
It seemed to be a foregone conclusion. And she knew he was right. She couldn’t go back home now and face a barrage of lights and questions. Out of concern for Matías as much as anything else.
Leonora moved away from Gabriel and dialled her home number. Her mother answered, immediately concerned, and Leonora rushed to assure her that everything was okay. She filled her in on the broad strokes of what had happened and told her not to worry. She told her that she’d spend the night elsewhere, to draw the press away from the de la Vega home. Her mother sounded disappointed—and then just weary. They’d been here before, with the press camped outside.
When she’d ended the conversation, after checking that Matías was okay, Leonora handed the phone back.
Gabriel said, ‘Your brother is not well?’
Leonora gave a small tight smile. ‘He has…learning difficulties. Since birth. He’s home at the moment—from the school he attends just outside Madrid.’
The school that was paid for out of the receipts from tours around the Flores de la Vega castle. And with the money from the designer clothes and jewellery Leonora sold over the years online. The school that he loved and thrived in. The school that was offering him a real chance at a life in the outside world as he moved into adulthood.
The school that they would no longer be able to afford if they had to sell the castle—the only thing keeping them afloat in a sea of debts.
‘He picks up on moods and tension very acutely, so he’d be upset if he knew the press were outside, or if there was anything wrong with me.’
‘You’re close?’
Leonora looked at Gabriel, expecting to see the same look most people had when they heard about Matías, varying between mild disdain and salacious curiosity. Or pity. But Gabriel’s face and eyes held none of those things. Just a genuine question.
She nodded, feeling emotional. ‘The closest. He’s eighteen now, and when he was born I was six. He was like my baby more than my little brother.’
‘That would have been before your fortunes…changed.’
Leonora appreciated his attempt at tact. He was obviously referring to the fact that her parents had once been such fixtures on the Spanish social scene that they probably hadn’t been around much to parent. Making their fall from grace even more explosive. They’d gone down in a ball of flames and infamy when her father had been thrown out of the casino in Monte Carlo with his wife clinging to his coat, weeping uncontrollably.
That was one of the reasons for their reclusiveness these days. Her parents’ shame. Hence their desire and need for redemption. Through Leonora.
She diverted her mind from that and said, ‘Something like that. Yes.’ She looked away, embarrassed.
‘That was them—not you. You’re not like them.’
Leonora looked at him. Had he moved closer? The way he made her feel—the way he seemed to be looking deeper into her than anyone else ever had—made her prickly.
‘You don’t know that I don’t have a gambling habit.’
He seemed to consider this for a moment, and then he said, ‘True, I don’t. But I don’t believe you do.’
He was definitely closer now. Close enough for Leonora to see the stubble lining his jaw. And that his eyes had golden flecks—they weren’t just brown.
She shook her head. ‘Why are you doing this? Why do you care what happens to me? We’ve never met before this evening. I mean…not properly.’
Even with Leonora’s family connections they’d moved in a lesser sphere than the Torres family.
‘No. But our paths have crossed—even if just peripherally. I realised something this evening—I have always noticed you…on the edges. As if you’d prefer to disappear.’
Leonora blushed to think she’d been so transparent.
‘And I realised something else.’
She looked at him.
‘You have become a very beautiful woman.’
A tingling rush of heat coursed through her blood. The way he was looking at her was so…intense. She could almost feel it…as if he was touching her.
He took another step closer. Almost close enough now that she could imagine him bending down and pressing his mouth to hers.
Leonora was barely breathing. She was hot—so hot. All over. Deep down where no man had ever had any effect on her before.
‘I
