the connection before now. And so on, and so on.
He was well aware that this was hardly big news—people discovered half-siblings all the time. What he wasn’t prepared for was the prospect of ignominious media intrusion into an area of his life that had always been shut away. Not acknowledged.
The only time the reality of his brothers had been acknowledged, it had been used to taunt him. To drive home the fact that he was not the chosen one. That he could trust no one. Ever. As much as he hated to admit it, the scar was still deep. He only had to think back to earlier that day to remember how it had felt to be so black and bitter next to their happiness and ease with the world. A world that had taught them they could trust. That mothers didn’t leave you behind.
Cesar cursed the maudlin direction of his thinking. Cursed himself again for having gone to Christakos’s wedding.
With this film on his estate his privacy was already being well and truly eroded. Now this.
And then another picture of Lexie caught Cesar’s eye and a headache started to throb behind his right temple. He feared that the reclusive life he’d lived for so long was about to slip out of his grasp unless he could do some serious damage limitation.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MISS ANDERSON? MR Da Silva would like to see you in his office, if you could spare a few minutes?’
Lexie knew it wasn’t really a question. It was an order, and she chafed at the autocracy, already imagining his dark, forbidding expression. He’d been a complete stranger to her less than a couple of hours ago, known only by his reputation and name, yet now his saturnine image was branded like a searing tattoo on her brain. His taste...
Hiding her reaction, Lexie just shrugged her shoulders lightly and smiled. ‘Sure.’
She followed the smartly dressed young woman down a long hallway. She’d just arrived back at the castillo from the camera tests and was dressed in her own clothes again. Worn jeans and sneakers. A dusky pink long-sleeved cashmere top, which suddenly felt way too clingy.
The make-up artist had scrubbed her face clean and she’d left her hair down, so now she had no armour at all. She hated the impulse she had to check her reflection.
Lexie hadn’t had much time yet to look around the castillo as she’d been busy since they’d arrived, doing rehearsals and fittings. It was massive, and very gothic. The overall impression was dark and forbidding. Oppressive. Not unlike its owner. Lexie smiled to herself but it was tight.
A stern housekeeper had shown her to her room when she’d arrived: dressed in black, hair pulled back in a tight, unforgiving bun. She might have stepped straight out of an oil masterpiece depicting the Spanish Inquisition era.
Lexie’s bedroom was part of an opulent suite of rooms complete with an elaborate four-poster bed. Reds and golds. Antique furniture. A chaise longue. While it wasn’t her style, she had to admit that it was helping her get into character for the film. She was playing a courtesan from the nineteenth century, who was torn between leaving her profession for her illegitimate son and a villainous lover who didn’t want to let her go.
It was a dark, tragic tale, and the director was acclaimed. This film was very important to her—and not just for professional and economic reasons. One scene in particular had compelled Lexie to say yes, as she had known it would be her own personal catharsis to act it out. But she didn’t want to think of that now.
After a series of soulless but financially beneficial action movies, this was Lexie’s first chance to remind people that she could actually act. And hopefully move away from that hideous Luscious Lexie image the tabloids had branded her with. Not entirely unjustly, she hated to admit.
The young woman stopped outside a massive door and knocked. Lexie’s mind emptied. Her heart went thump and her throat felt dry.
She heard the deep and curt ‘Sí?’ And then the woman was opening the door. Lexie felt as if she was nine again, being hauled up in front of the head nun at her school for some transgression.
But then Cesar Da Silva was standing in the doorway, filling it. The woman melted away. He’d changed. Washed. Lexie could smell his scent—that distinctive woodsy smell. But without the earthy musk of earlier. It was no less heady, though.
Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers should have made him appear more urbane. It didn’t. The material of his shirt was fine enough to see the darkness of his skin underneath. He stood back and held out an arm, stretching his shirt across his chest. Lexie saw defined hard muscles. Heat flooded between her legs.
‘Come in.’
Lexie straightened her spine and walked past him into a massive office.
She was momentarily distracted by its sheer grandeur as he closed the door behind them. It was shaped like an oval, with a parquet floor, and it had an ante-room that looked like a library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books upon books.
Something very private and poignant gripped her inside.
‘Please, take a seat.’
Da Silva had moved behind his desk, hands resting lightly on top, but not disguising his obvious tension. The desk was huge, awe-inspiring. A very serious affair, holding all sorts of computers and machines and phones.
And yet less than two hours ago she and this man had mutually combusted and she had been oblivious to who he was.
Feeling uncharacteristically awkward, she started, ‘Look, Mr Da Silva—’
‘I think we’ve gone beyond that, don’t you?’ His face was mirthless and hard.
Lexie wondered for a crazy moment what he would look like if he smiled. Genuinely smiled.
She burned inwardly at that rogue little thought, and in rejection of his autocratic tone. ‘I...well, yes.’
Her big slouchy handbag was slung over her shoulder. She let it slip down now, and held it in front of her like a shield. Something was telling her this wouldn’t be a quick meeting.
A bright colour caught her eye then, and she glanced down to see a photo of herself on the ground. Frowning, she bent to pick it up. When she registered the image, her insides roiled. She’d been twenty-one. Completely naive. Cringing inside with embarrassment. Not that you’d know it from the picture. She’d been hiding behind a well-developed wall of confidence and nonchalance that hadn’t come easily.
She held the picture between thumb and forefinger and looked at Cesar across the desk. He was totally unrepentant. Something hard settled into her gut. The awareness she had of his sheer masculine physicality made her feel like a fool. And very vulnerable—which she did not welcome. It had been a long time since she’d allowed anyone to make her feel that way.
Then she saw the open file and all the other cuttings and clippings and pictures. She didn’t have to read the lurid headlines to know what the characters said even from here, upside down. Luscious Lexie.
She went icy. Her bag slipped to the floor unnoticed.
‘What is this?’
‘This,’ Cesar da Silva offered tautly, ‘is your life, I believe.’
Lexie
