sleepless nights panicking about finding the funds for the expensive upkeep of the stately mansion and grounds. She could concentrate on her art as well as provide a secure home for her loyal and loving staff.
But the thing that had decided her over all others was a phone call from her second cousin. Hugo had made his intentions clear. Marlstone Manor would be sold as soon as he took possession. He wanted the money. The house meant nothing to him. The staff meant even less.
Teddy figured a short-term marriage to Alejandro Valquez was the smaller price to pay. Being married to an attractive man who would not make any unnecessary demands on her because he said it was to be a paper marriage.
And you believed him? a voice inside her head asked.
Of course she did. Why wouldn’t she? She wasn’t the type of girl he would go for. His last girlfriend had been close to six foot tall with a willowy figure and waist-length blonde hair. And long legs, both in excellent working order.
Teddy pulled in a breath that caught at her throat as Alejandro’s firm purposeful footsteps sounded along the corridor. She had to get her mask in place. It wouldn’t do to show how unnerved she was about the arrangement she was about to enter into with him. She had to put her ice maiden face on. Assemble her features into the cool impassive face that told everyone she didn’t give a damn what they thought of her gait. She straightened her spine, put her shoulders back. Gripped her walking stick with a hand that was clammy. Nerves scraped at her stomach like scrabbling mice feet as the footsteps came closer. Her heart felt as if it was beating in her oesophagus as the door was pushed open and Alejandro came striding into the room. The room seemed to shrink as he brought in the scent of the outdoors—citrus and wood and danger.
His eyes did a lazy head to toe sweep of her figure before he greeted her with a nod. ‘Miss Marlstone.’
Teddy’s chin came up. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t like the way he mocked her with that glittering look in his pitch-black gaze. She had decided against dressing shabbily. But she hadn’t pulled out her best outfit, either. She’d settled for simple and casual—not much different from what he was wearing. Jeans and a cotton shirt, but she had draped a sweater across her shoulders because, in spite of the Indian summer they were experiencing, the late September weather was occasionally unpredictable. She hadn’t bothered with make-up because she rarely wore it. But now, with him looking at her with that indolent gaze, she wished she had layered it on with a trowel to disguise the traitorous blush she could feel crawling over her cheeks. ‘Señor Valquez.’
A corner of his mouth twitched as if he found her stiff formality amusing. ‘Am I to believe you’ve agreed to become my wife?’
She sent him a glowering look. ‘Your paper wife.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’re in under the time limit. Just.’
Something inside Teddy’s stomach dropped. ‘You surely wouldn’t expect me to agree to anything else? We’re all but strangers.’
His crooked smile was knee-weakening. ‘You don’t normally sleep with strangers?’
‘Certainly not.’ She wished she hadn’t sounded quite so priggish. ‘I mean...I like to get to know someone first. To see if we’re...erm...compatible.’
‘How many lovers have you had?’
Teddy’s eyes flared. ‘I beg your pardon?’
His eyes held hers. Dark. Probing. Intelligent. ‘Lovers. How many?’
She gave him an arch look. ‘How many have you had?’
The glint in his eyes made her stomach slip again. ‘Too many to count.’
Teddy could feel her blush burning across her cheeks like a spreading flame. Her mind was suddenly full of images of him with his beautiful bedmates, writhing and cavorting in passion, their perfect bodies in the throes of ecstasy. No hint of awkwardness or shame.
Her one and only sexual encounter had left her embarrassed and ashamed. She blamed herself for not recognising the way she had been set up. She should have known better. Men were all about the physical. They were turned on by the visual. It was how they were wired. How could she have thought Ross Jenner would be different? He had befriended her in her last year at art school and then betrayed her. He had boasted to his mates on social media about how he had done the deed with the girl no one else wanted. He had won a dare to sleep with her. He had been paid to do it. The memory of it still sat like a cold hard stone in her belly.
Teddy moved away from the heat of Alejandro’s dark gaze to the desk where Henry had set out a drinks tray. The one thing she could do on automatic pilot was to be a polite hostess, even if it made her grind her teeth to powdered chalk. ‘Would you care for a drink?’
‘Whisky. No ice.’
She poured the whisky into a crystal tumbler and silently handed it to him, careful not to come into contact with his fingers. She kept her gaze out of reach of his, staring at the button of his shirt as if it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
He was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. He dominated the room like a giant in a doll’s house. So tall her neck ached from keeping eye contact. So self-assured and so impossibly gorgeous her breath was having trouble moving in and out of her lungs.
He smelt delicious. The tang of his lemon and lime aftershave teased her nostrils, making her think of sun-drenched lemon groves.
And sex.
Teddy leaned on her stick as she turned to fix herself a drink. Since when did she think of sex? Hot, sweaty sex. Animal sex. Not with some weedy geek at art school who had won a bet.
Sex with a full-blooded man in his prime.
‘I would like us to be married as soon as possible.’
Her left hand shook as she poured a shot of brandy into a glass. ‘We have a month before the deadline.’
‘No point stalling. The sooner we marry, the sooner we end it.’
His comment shouldn’t have made her feel resentful. It shouldn’t have felt like an insult. She didn’t want to be married to him any longer than she had to. She would have said the same to him if she’d got in first. It was damned annoying she hadn’t. ‘Indeed.’ She gave him a gelid look. ‘I couldn’t have expressed it better myself.’
He moved to the windows to look at the view. ‘Nice place you have here. Have you lived here long?’
‘All my life.’
He turned and looked at her but because the sunlight was behind him his expression was masked by shadow. ‘You do realise you’ll have to come to Argentina with me.’ He didn’t pose it as a question but as a statement of fact.
Teddy gripped the crystal glass so tightly she thought it might explode in her hand. He wanted her to go with him? To live with him? She hadn’t planned on going anywhere. A paper marriage was just a signed piece of paper. She didn’t have to live with him. She just had to be married to him.
Didn’t she?
‘Surely that’s not necessary?’
‘You have
