direction! You meander through life, drifting from one dead-end job to another—have you no ambition?’
Not of the academic kind. There was no way she could compete with her older, cleverer, much praised and doted-upon brother, so she didn’t even try.
What her parents had never understood was that she did have an ambition. To fall in love, marry the man she loved, create a home together filled with warmth and love, and have children together. Children who would be equally adored and cherished, regardless of talent or lack thereof.
So far it was an unfulfilled ambition. The boys she’d dated in her teens had only been interested in one thing. Suspecting that because of her generous curves, and what James had once scathingly described as her ‘blond bimbo looks’, they’d clearly thought she would have been easy to get into bed and she’d steered clear, and put her secret ambition on hold until she’d met Marcus. She’d believed he was the one—that he really liked her, valued her. And he’d never tried to get her into the bedroom, which surely had to mean he’d respected her? In her mind’s eye she had pictured his tall blond figure waiting as she floated up the aisle.
Alarmingly, the remembered and now despised image faded, and a tall dark figure, stiff with Spanish pride, took its place. Izzy gulped, and blinked the fleeting mind picture away with extreme violence.
To add to her discomfiture, Miguel said from beside her, in an excruciatingly embarrassing coincidence, ‘My nephew really should cease his unemotional, businesslike arrangements with his occasional mistresses and take a wife. Las Palomas is exquisite, but sterile in its beauty. It needs a family to bring it to life. He will be there, waiting for us, and I shall tell him so. When the time is right.’ He chuckled, as if something had amused him.
Too mortified by the mental image her subconscious had thrown up to respond directly, she asked instead, just to change the subject, ‘You are familiar with his castle?’
‘I was born there,’ was his lightly dismissive response. ‘It has been in our family for many generations. I left to attend university in England, and after gaining my doctorate I lectured. America, mainly. I rarely visited my family, and after the deaths of my parents—one shortly following the other, sadly—I never went again. Roman, my brother who was Cayo’s father, had the use of Las Palomas while I preferred to live the quiet life of a humble scholar. The family have great wealth—’
‘Let me get this straight,’ Izzy butted in, wriggling round in her seat to face him more squarely, her brow pleated as she tried to follow what he was saying. Her voice was sharp with outrage on her old gentleman’s behalf. ‘You mean your brother got the lot—wealth and the castle and everything—and you got nothing?’
‘Good heavens, child! What gave you that idea? As the oldest son I inherited vast landed estates, while Roman took over the shipping business—which I believe Cayo has expanded massively since his father passed away. He also finds time to manage the income from my estates—investments and suchlike. I have never been interested in the acquisition of material wealth. I have annual meetings with Cayo and his money men, and although I am grateful for my nephew’s husbandry I must admit I find it all tedious. In any case,’ he added more cheerfully, ‘all I own will pass to Cayo in time, which is as it should be. The Garcia estates, properties and businesses will be under one ownership again, not divided.’
Her ready tongue stilled by Miguel’s disclosure, Izzy struggled to get her thoughts in order. She ignored her companion’s comments on the landmarks they were passing with aristocratic stateliness.
Despite all appearances the elderly man wasn’t dirt-poor, struggling to exist on a pittance. He had to be loaded!
For the first time since she had known him she wanted to shake him! So, okay, he wasn’t interested in money—given his other-worldliness, she could go along with that—but the thought of the way she’d boasted about her canniness in going to the market minutes before it closed to take advantage of stallholders who were virtually giving produce away made her feel such a fool. He might have taken the opportunity—and there had been many—to tell her that such frugality wasn’t necessary, or at least to enquire if the housekeeping allowance was so inadequate that it required such desperate measures.
She could forgive all that—laugh about it, even—but the misunderstanding had had dire consequences.
Cayo had believed those lies. Izzy Makepeace had been thrown out on her ear because she’d been trying to seduce a respectable banker and ensconce herself as his paid mistress, and next he’d heard she’d turned up as his wealthy uncle’s housekeeper.
Up to no good.
An impression she must have confirmed with her demand for billions of pounds! Letting him think that a mere pay-off wouldn’t satisfy her—that she was intent on getting her hands on his uncle’s fortune!
Apart from being fond of his elderly relative, and not wanting to see him falling into the clutches of a woman he saw as a mercenary gold-digger, he wouldn’t want to lose his inheritance.
Enough motive to explain his chilling threat that he’d make her regret the day she’d been born if she didn’t remove herself from his uncle’s vicinity. It came back to haunt her. He’d meant it! She was going to have to confront him with the facts—make him understand that she had believed all along that his eccentric uncle had nothing more substantial to live on than some measly pension or other. It was imperative she make him believe that in agreeing to work for the old gentleman she hadn’t had designs on a fortune she hadn’t even known existed.
‘We are arriving.’
The volume at which Miguel’s statement was delivered alerted her to the possibility that it wasn’t the first time he’d given that snippet of information. Izzy blinked and refocused her eyes. A high stone wall snaked down the mountainside, and they were entering a curving driveway that wound its way to a magnificent fortified palace—a statement of power and wealth if ever she saw one. Her stomach wriggled with a flock of hyperactive butterflies.
How was she going to convince the cynical owner of this lot that she was innocent of all accusations? Convince him so thoroughly that he’d rethink whatever devious plans he’d made in order to carry out his earlier threat when she’d already dug her grave with her too-ready tongue?
CHAPTER FIVE
AS THE stately car passed through a massive stone arch and drew to a well-bred halt in the inner courtyard, Cayo got to his feet and left the arbour-shaded carved stone bench, emerging into dazzling sunlight.
Phase one completed. The grim line of his mouth softened. His beloved mule-headed uncle was finally safely back where he belonged, to be surrounded by the comfort and luxury that was his birthright. His conscience could rest easily in that respect.
Phase two was yet to be started. The successful removal of one money-grabbing blonde. His thickly fringed dark eyes sharpened with steely intent, boding ill for anyone with the temerity to cross him.
Advancing, he forced a welcoming smile and watched his chauffeur step round to open a rear door. He handed the little gold-digger out before moving round to perform the same courtesy for his uncle.
Waiting in cynical expectation for her to trip eagerly to Miguel’s side, tuck her arm solicitously through his and simper up at him from her diminutive height, Cayo narrowed his eyes as instead of acting out the part he’d mentally assigned her she made a beeline across the courtyard to where he was standing.
Her
