looked around, a strange tightness in his chest. “I had imagined I might. I felt it was the way to secure my hold on this place. Now I wonder if there is something else. It is perhaps best if I don’t marry.”
“You don’t want children?”
The very idea of something so small and helpless in his care made him feel a sense of unease. “If I had a son,” he said. “I believe he would spend most of the time in the company of his mother and also being raised away from me here on the rancho. I am here now because of the circumstances, but my primary obligations are in London.”
“I understand,” she said.
“But you do not approve.”
“I know what it is,” she said, raising her dark gaze to meet his, “to have a parent who’s not at all interested in your existence.”
“Sometimes that disinterest can be a kindness,” he said. “What was your time spent with your mother like?”
She ducked her head. “Difficult. She did not... She didn’t have the patience for me. And she despaired of my lack of beauty.”
“The only thing, I think, worse than being neglected by her would have been to spend more of your time in her company.”
She surprised him by laughing, her shoulders jolting forward as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “I suppose that’s true. And a much more honest assessment of the situation than I have allowed myself to, given the past. She’s terrible. And she’s gone off to Paris to live with a lover, and I hope she stays there.”
“She abandoned you? What were your prospects if you had not followed the horses here?”
“Homelessness. In that regard I did not lie to Juan when he hired me. I would have been tossed out onto the streets. There was no money. There was nowhere for me to go. No provision was made for me at all. I know that my father didn’t expect to die so young. I know he thought that he was going to fix everything. That there was still time. And I think he didn’t want me to know how difficult things were. How dire it had all become. He wanted to protect me.”
“Sadly, his version of protecting you left you vulnerable,” Matías said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
They paused in their talking for a moment when his household staff came in and delivered large bowls of paella.
Then they ate in silence for a moment before Camilla lifted her head and treated him to another look from that luminous dark gaze. “What ball are we going to next week?”
“It is a charity gala,” he responded. “It is where I will present you formally as my fiancée. Likely, it will be bigger than our actual wedding.”
“Well, yes. I can see how difficult it might be to get together a large wedding ceremony in the amount of time we have.”
“Well, the venue is already selected, and people have already been invited. It’s just that the bride has changed.”
She frowned. “That feels quite...reductive.”
“Well, the bride is not important to me. Only the marriage.”
She lifted a brow. “Well, in some ways I’m glad that Liliana escaped you in that case.”
“Liliana did not love me, either. She would hardly have been heartbroken by this.”
“I suppose she didn’t,” Camilla responded. “But she seemed... She seemed very sweet.”
He bit back an acidic laugh. “Apparently not.”
“Did she hurt you?” she asked.
“No,” he said, then again, more definitively. “No.” He had planned on marrying her, and he didn’t like his plans being upended. But hurt? No. That would necessitate that he’d had feelings for Liliana that went beyond vague appreciation of her beauty. And he did not. “I felt...protective of her. As she did seem sweet. Sheltered. But it always made me feel as though I was trying to corral a baby chick. One that was fragile and delicate and might break at any moment.”
Camilla squared her shoulders. “I am not so breakable.”
He appraised her for a moment. “I did not think you were.”
She lowered her head and he examined her features. Long, elegant neck, her strong jawline and the sweeping curve of her lips. She was actually quite the beauty. Her brows were dark and bold, her eyelashes no less so. She was the kind of woman a man would find himself hard-pressed to look away from once she had caught his attention.
The kind of woman who would stand out, a regal, steady creature in a room full of butterflies.
His gut tightened, and he had to acknowledge that he was beginning to find himself attracted to his fiancée.
“Do you know how to dance?” he asked, the question, and the need for an answer, suddenly occurring to him.
“A bit,” she said, hesitating. “I mean, we would dance at fiestas at the rancho. Informal gatherings. Always attended by all members of the staff. My father was...generous. Egalitarian.”
“You will find this gala to be anything but. It will be appallingly formal, and every woman in residence will be ready to pick you apart. Especially given the nature of our engagement. It would perhaps be best if you were as prepared as possible. I get the sense that while you grew up with a certain amount of privilege, it was not the same sort that Liliana possessed.”
A challenge lit her eyes. “I would suggest that my upbringing produced a much stronger person. My father allowed me to work. He allowed me to fail. He taught me to take chances. And he allowed me to work with the horses. It’s in our blood.”
“Having seen you with the horses, I believe it. But that is not going to help you when it comes to fending off attacks of a rather more feminine nature.”
“Why would these attacks be of a feminine nature?”
“Because jealousy is an ugly thing,” he said.
She frowned. “You’re quite obsessed with the idea that women are in love with you. Or, rather, on the verge of falling in love with you if the breeze blows in the wrong direction.”
“It has nothing to do with me,” he said. “Rather, my money, or the mystique of the Navarro family. The Navarro men.”
“I was under the impression that the men in your family did not have the best reputations.”
He shook his head. “That adds to it. Often. Good-looking men with dark pasts, desperately in need of reformation and something to spend their billions of dollars on.”
“That’s quite bleak.”
“You consider yourself above that temptation. Obviously. And yet, here you are, prepared to marry me for your financial benefit.”
She tilted her head to the side, her expression remaining steadfast. “And yet,” she said,
