‘All that was left is gone. It’s Diablo’s now. Everything. The house, the furniture. Everything.’
Fury took charge of her senses. She rose up and wheeled around. ‘You bastard!’ She moved closer. Never before had she had an urge to tear someone limb from limb but tonight was becoming a night for firsts. Her first arranged marriage. Her first fiancé. Why not her first homicide? She lifted one hand, resisting the desire to lash out at his smug face, instead curling it into a fist between them.
‘You scheming bastard. Not content to obliterate four generations of work, you couldn’t let up until you had taken every last thing, even our family home, and consigned us to the gutter. What a hero. Do you feel proud of yourself now?’
In the space of a blink he’d ensnared her wrist, the heat from his grip like a brand on her arm.
‘I’m offering a way to keep you all out of that gutter. I’ve told your father—he can keep the house and everything in it along with a sizeable lump of cash every year. All you have to do is be that good daughter your father seems to think you are. All you have to do is marry me and all your family’s unfortunate financial problems will be a thing of the past.’
The grip around her wrist tightened, forcing her towards him, closer to his dark eyes and his tight body and his masculine heat. If his gaze at the door had been sizzling hot, his hold and his closeness was like an incendiary device set to slow burn. Already her skin sizzled into life; how long would it take to get to flash-point?
‘Put like that, it seems you leave me no choice,’ she said through gritted teeth, watching his eyes flare with an anticipated victory.
‘I’m glad you’re willing to see reason at last,’ he said, loosening his grip.
‘Oh, yes, I see reason. I’ll take the gutter over you any day!’
She took advantage of his shock by wrenching her arm free, massaging the burning skin as she wheeled away.
‘You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for!’ Diablo countered. ‘You have no idea what it’s like to live in poverty, always desperate to find your next meal, never able to make ends meet, and with your pampered upbringing you won’t survive ten minutes out in the real world.’
She spun on her heel, lifted her chin determinedly. ‘Oh, we’ll survive.’
He scoffed. ‘What—you see yourself as the noble poor? Allow me to let you in on a secret—there are no noble poor. There are only the poor, the hungry and the desperate. There’s no place for nobility in that line-up. The gutter is no fairy tale romantic notion.’
She regarded him levelly. ‘What a coincidence,’ she mustered. ‘Neither, it seems, is marrying you.’ She turned to where her father still sat, looking like an empty shell of a man, a fallen ruler, vanquished and heartsick for what he’d lost, and pain for what he was feeling now encompassed her like a tide rolling in.
‘I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t do it. I just can’t marry him.’
Her father nodded his head and she knew that it was not in agreement but in resignation. He seemed to shrink before her eyes. ‘I understand,’ he croaked. ‘I should never have had to ask you. It’s all my fault—my fault. Now I just have to find a way of telling your mother that we no longer have a home.’
Briar’s heart plummeted.
‘Oh, God, you mean she doesn’t know? I thought she must have been in on this crazy idea.’
‘She doesn’t know we’ve lost Blaxlea. I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. But now…’
‘Oh, Dad, no…’
The grandfather clock clicked loudly in the ensuing silence as the mechanism for the chimes kicked in, the prelude for ringing out the midnight hour.
Diablo strode between them. ‘Can you do that to your mother, then? Deny her the chance to see out her days in this house rather than some doss-house? What kind of a daughter are you really?’
She said nothing, just let her eyes tell him how much she hated him while inside her heart ached for her mother. Because Diablo was right—how could she do that to her mother after what she’d been through? After losing Nat, then the business and along with it their fortune, to lose the family home would kill her.
‘I can see you need more time to think about it,’ Diablo decided. ‘So I’m prepared to give you one more chance. You have until the clock strikes twelve to decide once and for all. Marry me and your family live in comfort for the rest of their days. Turn me down and you’ll be out of this house by the end of the week.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Watch me,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if you have anything left to pack.’
‘Even you couldn’t be so cold-hearted!’
‘It’s not up to me any more,’ he said as the clock finished its chimes and made the first of twelve strikes. ‘It’s up to you what happens next. Luxury or poverty, it’s your call. Will you abandon your parents in their hour of need or will you restore your parents to the life they desire?’
The clock struck again. ‘That’s two,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re thinking.’
Oh, she was thinking all right. Panicked thoughts with no beginning and no end and no hope. And, between them all, the clock struck again.
Would it kill her to marry him? Maybe not, but there was no doubt it would definitely kill her mother to leave Blaxlea, her childhood home and the seat of her mother’s family for generations.
And would she ever forgive Briar for rejecting the financial lifeline that Diablo was now offering?
The clock struck again and she looked up in panic. Had she missed one? How much time was left? There was too much to consider.
Why, oh, why, did it all have to come down to her? Oh Nat, she pleaded, what should I do? But she knew without question that if her big brother had survived the crash that had cut short his life, he wouldn’t hesitate to help. He’d do whatever it took to help his parents out, even if it meant sacrificing his own career and his own future into the deal. So why did the thought of sacrificing her own chances seem so abhorrent? After all, all she had to do was to marry Diablo.
Marriage…
The clock sounded again, straining her nerves to breaking-point. It was almost time.
Marriage sounded so final. But then hadn’t she always planned on getting married one day? Indeed, she’d been groomed from the day she was born for being a society wife with a rich husband…Would it really matter if it was to Diablo? And it didn’t have to be for ever. He’d get sick of her before too long—she’d make sure of it—and then he’d have to agree to divorce her. How long would it take—one year? Two? She’d make sure there were no children to suffer in the fallout. And then she’d have her life back. It wouldn’t kill her. Marrying Diablo didn’t have to be a life sentence.
All too soon it was just an echo that rolled around the room. The clock had rung out for the last time. The witching hour was here—the time when bad things crawled out of the night and ruled supreme. Diablo, the Spanish devil, was nothing if not faithful to the
