care about her. He hadn’t had time for her, even though he had gone to extreme lengths to secure custody of her after the divorce from her mother. Gaining custody of her had been another battle to win. Another victory.
Was this his way of punishing her for never forgiving him for the way he had driven her mother to an early grave? Or had he been so ashamed of his only daughter living such a quiet spinsterish life he had decided to do something about it by tying her to a man she had no possible chance of attracting any other way?
The Valquez name was synonymous with wealth and prestige. The playboy polo set who partied as hard as they played. If and when the fast-living brothers decided to marry, it certainly wouldn’t be to someone like her.
Teddy brought her gaze back to the lawyer’s. ‘What’s in this for Alejandro? Why would he agree to such an arrangement?’
‘Your father bought some acreage off Alejandro’s father in Argentina twenty years ago to relieve financial pressure on the family after Paco Valquez suffered a polo accident and became a quadriplegic,’ Benson said. ‘Your father kept it in his possession all this time, even though Alejandro has made numerous offers to buy it back. The deeds of the property will be handed over to him upon your marriage.’
She was being exchanged for property? Handed over like a trophy? Like goods and chattels? How could her father do this to her? This wasn’t the Regency period. This was the twenty-first century. Women were supposed to choose their own husbands.
To fall in love.
To be loved back.
Teddy had secretly dreamed of having the fairy tale since her parents divorced so acrimoniously when she was seven. She believed in the power of love even though she hadn’t seen it modelled or experienced it herself. People were supposed to fall in love and stay in love. Not marry each other for prestige or property or financial gain.
How could she ignore the deepest yearnings of her heart to marry for any other reason than love? It would compromise every value she held dear. She refused to turn into a version of her mother, marrying a man for the social status and security he could give her and then suffering the shame of having everyone laugh at her when it all came unstuck.
There had to be a way out of this.
Teddy looked at the lawyer again. ‘What does Alejandro think about this? Has he been told?’
‘He is in what I would describe as rather a bind,’ the lawyer said.
‘Meaning?’
‘Your father has set things up so that if Alejandro refuses to marry you the property he wants will be sold.’
‘But surely a man with his sort of wealth could buy it when it goes on the market?’
The lawyer shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that is not possible. Your father has strictly stated that the property will be sold to a developer if Alejandro refuses to comply with the terms of the will. A local developer has already shown some interest and will snap up the property in a heartbeat as soon as it’s released. I would imagine Alejandro wouldn’t relinquish that land lightly, even if it meant marrying a perfect stranger. Looking at it like that, it’s a win-win for both of you.’
Teddy’s bile rose like frothing acid. Did her father’s lawyer—like everyone else—think she had no hope of finding a husband any other way? She pulled her shoulders back and gave the lawyer one of her trademark arctic looks. ‘You can tell Señor Valquez there is no possible circumstance I can think of where I would ever agree to marry him.’
* * *
‘Are you kidding me?’ Alejandro glared at the legal representative from Marlstone Incorporated in his London office.
‘If you want the Mendoza land Clark Marlstone bought off your father, then that’s what you have to do.’
‘He didn’t buy it off my father,’ Alejandro said through clenched teeth, ‘he stole it. He paid a fraction of what it was worth. He took advantage of my father’s financial situation after the accident. He manipulated things so he could get his hands on that land while making everyone think he was doing us a favour.’ Bastard.
‘Be that as it may, you have a chance to get it back without having to pay a single peso for it.’
Alejandro sucked in a lungful of air through his nostrils. He would have to pay for it all right. With his freedom. The thing he valued above all else. ‘I don’t even remember meeting Marlstone’s daughter.’ He glanced at the name and frowned. ‘Theodora, is it? Who is she? What’s she got to say about this, or is she the one behind it?’
He could already picture her. Pampered and spoilt. Another cheap little gold-digger wanting to marry up. A social climbing daddy’s girl who wanted her life made easy. He could just imagine how she had talked her ailing father into engineering things so she would be home free. Married to a rich trophy husband, all without having to bat a coquettish eyelid.
Not on his watch, damn it.
‘She’s as annoyed as you are,’ his lawyer said. ‘She intends to contest the will.’
As if. Alejandro knew the way women played all too well. Theodora Marlstone would protest and make a fuss for show. To put him off the scent of her avaricious motives. Of course she’d want to marry him. He was considered a Prize Catch. One of the most eligible bachelors in Argentina, if not the entire world. ‘What are her chances?’
‘Not good,’ the lawyer said. ‘The will is ironclad. Clark Marlstone wrote it while of sound mind. He got three doctors to confirm it, one imagines because he suspected one or both of you would resist his instructions and try and find a loophole. It would be a costly and lengthy exercise to try and overturn it. My advice is to do what it says and make the best of it. It’s only for six months.’
Easy for you to say.
Alejandro ploughed a hand through his hair. He already had too many responsibilities with his fostering of two street kids, Sofi and Jorge, providing food, shelter, education and a sense of family for them, or at least as far as it was possible for a bachelor to do. He didn’t need a wife to add to his troubles. Fifteen-year-old Jorge was still in that tricky stage of deciding whether to rebel or respect authority, reminding him of his younger brother Luiz at that age and the lengths he’d had to go to and the sacrifices he’d had to make to keep him from harm. While eighteen-year-old Sofi was a little more mature, she had recently expressed a desire to move to Buenos Aires to study hair and beauty. He wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea of her living in the big city without the close support he and the rest of his household staff provided for her.
Marrying would be a hard enough decision to make if he cared about someone enough to consider that sort of commitment. But how was he supposed to marry a perfect stranger? He felt antsy at the thought of marriage. Of being tied down. Of allowing someone the power to be there one minute and not there the next. Like his mother had been for his father. Proudly wearing his ring and rearing his sons one minute, bolting out of the gate to a new life in France, leaving the ring and divorce papers and two bewildered little boys behind the next.
Alejandro had tried commitment once and it had failed. Spectacularly. Even worse, he hadn’t seen it coming. It annoyed him that he had let what he felt block out what he knew. In his experience women wanted one thing and he’d been foolish to think otherwise. They wanted money and security. They did anything they could to get it. They fell
