Loe raamatut: «Redeemed By His Stolen Bride / Crowning His Convenient Princess»

CHAPTER ONE

LEONORA FLORES DE LA VEGA couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the man standing at the back of the crowd in the glittering ballroom. He towered over everyone around him, putting him at well over six feet.

He was also scowling, which only made his hawkish good looks even more forbidding and intimidating. And even from here Leonora was aware of his sheer masculine magnetism. As if there was an invisible thread tugging her attention to him whether she liked it or not.

She knew who Gabriel Ortega Cruz y Torres was. Everyone did. He came from one of Spain’s most noble and oldest families. They owned huge swathes of the country and generated an income from banking, vineyards and real estate—just to name a few enterprises.

He was an intensely private man, but even so he had a reputation for being as ruthless in the bedroom as he was in business. Single, he was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Europe, if not the world. But he appeared to be in no hurry to settle down. And when he did it would be with an undeniably well-connected woman who breathed the same rarefied air as he did.

And why should that even concern her? Leonora chastised herself. She might come from a family almost as well-connected as Gabriel’s, but there the similarity ended. Her family had lost their fortune, and had been subsisting on scraps and the funds from opening up their castillo just outside Madrid. It was an ignominious state of affairs. And one that was becoming increasingly unsustainable.

She had never spoken to Gabriel Torres and was never likely to. A man like him wouldn’t lower himself to consort with someone from a family of very faded glory. But she’d always been aware of him. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on him when he’d been about twenty-one and she’d been twelve. She’d watched him play polo—that had been before her family had lost everything due to her father’s gambling habit, a long-standing source of shame that had kept her parents from venturing out in public for years.

She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Gabriel that day. He’d been so vital. So alive. He and the horse had moved as one, with awesome athleticism and grace. But it had been the expression on his face that had caught her—so intense and focused.

She’d overheard one of the opposing team say, ‘Hey, Torres, lighten up. It’s just a friendly game.’

He’d said nothing, just glowered at the man. Leonora could remember feeling an ache near her heart, as if she’d wanted to soothe him somehow…make him smile.

Which was ridiculous.

She became aware of the hubbub in the ballroom. Of the hundreds of eyes looking at her. And suddenly she came out of her reverie and back into the present moment. A moment that was going to change her life for ever.

A spurt of panic clutched at her gut and she breathed through it.

She was doing this for her family. For Matías. She had no choice. She was their only hope of redemption.

A light sweat broke out on her palms as she forced her gaze away from the man at the back of the room and found the man she should be looking at. Her fiancé. Lazaro Sanchez. He was devilishly handsome, with overlong dark blond hair and mesmerisingly unusual green eyes. Tall. He was almost as tall as—

She shook her head briefly. No. She had to stop thinking about him. She was about to become engaged to this man. This man she hardly knew, if she was honest. They’d had some dates. She didn’t feel anything when she looked at him. Not like…him.

But Lazaro was kind and respectful. And, more importantly, he was prepared to bail her family out of their quagmire of debts and in so doing restore their respectability and secure Matías’s future. In return… Well, Leonora was cynical enough to recognise ruthless ambition when she saw it. Lazaro Sanchez wanted to marry her in order to achieve a level of acceptance into the world she inhabited. Her only currency now was as a trophy to someone like him and she had no choice but to accept it.

She noticed then that Lazaro had a glowering expression on his face, not unlike the one on Gabriel Torres’s. Something about that caught in Leonora’s mind, but before she could unpick what it meant she realised that one of Lazaro’s staff was making a motion, as if to say, It’s time.

She tried to get his attention, ‘Lazaro?’

He looked at her. Still glowering.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You look very fierce.’

His expression cleared. He held out a hand and she slipped hers into his. Nothing. No effect. She berated herself again. People in this world didn’t marry for love or chemistry. They married strategically. Exactly as she was doing.

‘Yes, fine…just a little preoccupied,’ he said.

Unable to help herself, Leonora glanced back across the room, and this time Gabriel Torres’s dark, compelling gaze met hers. A flash of heat went straight through her abdomen. Her fingers tightened reflexively around Lazaro’s.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.

A surge of guilt blasted her. How could she be so compelled by another man when she was about to commit publicly to this one? She looked at Lazaro and forced a smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

His hand tightened around hers. ‘I’m glad you have agreed to marry me, Leonora. I think we can have a good marriage, I think we can be…happy.’

Did he?

A semi-hysterical bubble rose up inside her. She had a sense of the massive room closing in around her, suffocating her. Lazaro let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her waist. The feeling of claustrophobia got worse.

His hand tightened on her waist, almost painfully, and Leonora hissed at him. ‘Lazaro—’

He looked at her with a strange expression on his face, his eyes burning.

‘You’re hurting me.’

Immediately he released his grip. ‘I’m sorry.’

Leonora forced a smile. The sooner they got this announcement over with, the sooner she could get out of this room and get some air. She resolutely forced herself to keep her eyes averted from where Gabriel Torres stood, towering over everyone else around him. Powerful. Magnetic. Disturbing.

A waiter approached with champagne and she took two glasses, handing one to Lazaro. She saw movement nearby and said, ‘Your advisors are making motions that it’s time to make the announcement. Ready?’

Lazaro looked at her, and she clung to the resolve she could see in his eyes.

He clinked his glass to hers. ‘Yes, let’s do it.’

He put his arm around her waist again and Leonora forced a smile through the lingering claustrophobia. He started speaking, but she didn’t really take in his words, letting them roll over her.

Against every effort, her eye was drawn back across the crowd to where Gabriel Torres stood. He was still watching her, with a disconcertingly intense gaze. Leonora started to tremble lightly under the force of it.

Suddenly a voice rang out. ‘Wait! Stop!’

It shook Leonora out of her trance. It was a woman, who’d pushed through the crowd near the dais. She was being held back by security guards. She was dressed like the wait staff, in a white shirt and black skirt. Vibrant red hair, up in a bun. She was very pretty. Bright blue eyes.

She was looking at Lazaro, and then she said, ‘You need to know something. I’m pregnant. With your child.’

For long seconds time was suspended, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion as Leonora felt Lazaro’s arm leave her waist. She watched as the woman said something else, not hearing what it was through the buzzing in her head.

Lazaro stepped down off the dais to talk to the woman, holding her arm. She looked very petite next to him. Vaguely, ridiculously, Leonora appreciated that they looked good together.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, and then the woman was being led away.

Lazaro turned back to look at her, his expression veering between shock, anger and contrition.

He came back up on to the dais and said something to the crowd—she wasn’t sure what. Too many feelings were rolling over her—chief of which, she was ashamed to admit, was a sense of relief. But that was quickly eclipsed when she looked around and saw the crowd whispering. Some people were looking at her with pity and others with something far less benign. A malicious glee at the fall of one of their own.

She’d tried to buy her way out of debt and shame and now she felt as exposed as if she were naked. And he was still there. At the back. Looking at her with a grim expression.

She turned away and saw Lazaro. She backed away and then she stopped. Maybe this was just some hideous case of mistaken identity.

‘Is it true?’

But Lazaro said nothing, and his silence said everything.

He looked guilty.

He held out a hand. ‘Leonora, please…let me explain.’

It was real.

She became aware of the burn of humiliation. She shook her head. ‘I can’t agree to marry you. Not now.’

She sent up a silent thank you that her parents weren’t there to witness this moment. Or Matías. He would see that she was upset and that would upset him.

She cast a look around, instinctively seeking an escape route. All she saw were judgemental eyes. Mocking eyes.

She looked at Lazaro for one last time, dismay and humiliation scoring her insides like a knife. ‘How could you do this to me? In front of all these people?’

Without waiting for a response, she put her glass down on the nearest surface and turned and fled, making for the nearest exit with no clue where to go.

The first thing she saw was a Ladies’ sign, and she followed it to the bathroom, which was mercifully empty. She locked herself into a stall and sat down on the closed toilet.

She was trembling, her heart pounding. She forced herself to take deep breaths, and just as she was starting to feel marginally calmer the door opened. It sounded as if at least three women were coming in, all chattering. About her and Lazaro.

‘Who’d marry her now? She’s so desperate she was willing to marry some nouveau riche billionaire…’

‘Where did Sanchez even come from?’

‘Some say he grew up on the streets.’

‘The de la Vegas can’t survive this. All they have is her and that brother of hers, who everyone knows is a—’

At the mention of Leonora’s beloved brother she opened the door and stepped out of the stall, coming face-to-face with the three gossipers. The chatter stopped instantly.

One blanched, one went red, but the other one was totally unrepentant. Leonora was too upset to speak. She just watched as they collected their things and walked out in silence, taking no sense of satisfaction in having routed them because she knew they’d only start gossiping again as soon as they were out of earshot.

She went over to the sink and put her hands on the counter, looking at herself in the mirror but only vaguely registering that her outward appearance—relatively calm—belied the storm inside. She could only give thanks that the women hadn’t witnessed her falling apart.

She took a deep breath and ran some cold water over her hands and wrists. She hoped that by the time she emerged there would be no one else waiting to witness her walk of shame.

At that instant a face popped into her head. Gabriel Torres. His hawk-like features were as vivid as if he were standing in front of her. She went hot and then cold at the thought of him having witnessed her public humiliation.

But she wouldn’t see him again. Because she wouldn’t be emerging in public for a long time.

She took a breath and steeled herself before heading back out and into the lobby, hoping for a discreet getaway.

Where was she?

Gabriel Torres looked left and right outside the function room, but there was no sign of the dark-haired woman in the long strapless red dress. The dress that clung to her elegant curves in a way that had made his blood pound for the first time in a long time. The compulsion to follow her prickled over his skin now; he wasn’t someone normally given to such impetuosity.

He had only come here this evening to see for himself what Lazaro Sanchez was up to, because he didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him. Especially when everything he did seemed to be designed personally to get under Gabriel’s skin. And because they were both involved in a very competitive and lucrative bid for a public project.

Recently Sanchez had even gone so far as to concoct a story that he and Gabriel were half-brothers. He’d accosted Gabriel at an event they’d both attended and when Gabriel had tried to walk away, disgusted at the insinuation that they could be related, Sanchez had stopped him, telling him of a day, many years before, when he had confronted Gabriel’s father, claiming to be his son.

To Gabriel’s surprise and shock he’d remembered the incident—and the skinny kid who had been waiting for them outside a restaurant in central Madrid. It had been his birthday—one of the very rare occasions when his dysfunctional family had put on a united front.

Gabriel had never been naïve about either of his parents. It was quite possible that his serially philandering father might have sired a bastard along the way. For a family like the Cruz y Torres, whose vast dynasty stretched back to the Middle Ages, such occurrences by opportunists were frequent and, frankly, to be expected.

So, for all he knew, Sanchez could be his brother but he suspected it was more likely to be a ruse to get under Gabriel’s skin.

Ironically enough, Gabriel’s father was at this event too, this evening, but Gabriel had ignored him. They barely tolerated each other at the best of times, and he’d had no doubt that the only reason his father had been there was probably the free-flowing booze or a woman.

Since Sanchez’s claim to be related to Gabriel, he’d been kept at a certain distance. But tonight had been one of his most audacious moves yet: announcing his engagement to one of Spain’s most well-connected women, whose own family rivalled Gabriel’s in lineage and legacy.

Marriage to someone like Leonora Flores de la Vega would elevate Sanchez to a place that would make it that much harder to ignore him. Gabriel had to hand it to him for sheer chutzpah.

Clearly he hadn’t been intending on marrying Leonora Flores for her money—her family were famously broke after her father’s well-documented gambling problems. Her worth came in her name and lineage.

Gabriel had heard the whispers in the crowd. Whispers that Sanchez had offered her a deal—he’d pay off her family debts and in return buy his way into the world he was so desperate to be a part of that he claimed to be Gabriel’s blood relation.

Gabriel didn’t know Leonora personally, but he knew of her, and their paths had crossed over the years at social events. But coming here this evening, seeing her standing up on that dais beside Sanchez, had reminded him that there was something about her that had always snagged his attention. He’d noticed it again this evening. Enough to distract him from Lazaro Sanchez.

Her beautiful face had been composed. Revealing nothing. Her long dark hair pulled back and sleek, showing off the exquisite bone structure of her face. Wide almond-shaped eyes. Dark lashes. A full mouth that hinted at a level of sensuality Gabriel sensed she wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

He’d racked his brains to think of the last time he’d seen her. It hadn’t been recent. She’d grown up in the meantime. Now she was a woman—and a stunningly beautiful woman at that.

Gabriel had found himself staring at her, willing her to look at him, needing her to look at him. And then she had. He’d felt the impact of that contact from across the room. An instantaneous jolt of sexual awareness surging through his blood.

She’d kept on looking at Gabriel and he’d seen the flicker of panic in her eyes. Along with something else far more potent.

She wanted him.

That awareness, together with seeing Sanchez’s arm around her waist, had caught at something unexpected inside Gabriel. Something hot and visceral. A sense of…possessiveness.

When Sanchez had announced their engagement, Gabriel had felt an inexplicable and almost overwhelming urge to disrupt proceedings, but just at that moment another voice had rung out. A voice coming from the petite red-haired woman near the dais, claiming to be pregnant with Sanchez’s child.

Leonora had fled, and Gabriel had watched her go, knowing immediately that he would go after her. He’d never felt such a primal pull towards anyone.

He’d looked at Sanchez and the animosity he’d felt towards the man had compelled him to mock him for his abortive attempt to buy respectability and for bringing his domestic dramas into the public domain.

But all thoughts of Sanchez were gone now, as he looked left and right for Leonora Flores.

She was gone.

An alien sensation stopped Gabriel in his tracks and he realised it was the sensation of something having slipped through his fingers.

For a man who generally obtained his every want and desire, it was unwelcome. And an unpleasant reminder that he was acting out of character. Pursuing a woman when he didn’t need to. If he wanted a woman that badly he could walk back into the room behind him and take his pick. But a new restlessness prickled under his skin. He didn’t want one of them. So eager, so desperate. He wanted her.

And then, as if answering his silent call, he saw her, standing behind the elaborate foliage screening the lobby and entrance from the rest of the hotel. He saw what she saw: a bank of waiting paparazzi outside the main door of the hotel, and no other means of escape.

There was no way he was going to let her out of his sight again. And if the opportunity presented itself to remind Sanchez of where he belonged, Gabriel would be a fool not to exploit it.

Leonora cursed silently. Between the fronds of the exotic plant she could see where the photographers were lined up, no doubt ready to capture the smiling couple emerging from the hotel. There was no other way out without going through the lobby. One way or another they would see her, either scuttling away as if she was the one in the wrong, or walking out without her new fiancé.

Just as she was steeling herself to run the gauntlet, she felt the back of her neck prickle with awareness and her skin tingled all over.

She turned around and Gabriel Ortega Cruz y Torres was standing a couple of feet away, looking at her. She gulped. He was even taller up close. Broader. Thick dark hair swept back off his forehead. Deep-set dark eyes. Strong brows. A patrician nose and a firm, unyielding mouth.

His bottom lip was surprisingly lush, though, softening the hard edges of his face and making her wonder what it would feel like to touch…kiss… She could imagine him lounging on jewel-coloured cushions, summoning his minions.

Summoning his lovers.

A wave of heat flashed through her body. She was losing it. She never imagined kissing men. She was a twenty-four-year-old virgin, because her life had revolved around her parents, the castle and her disabled brother. She’d been more of a mother than a sister to her brother, since their world had imploded after her father’s gambling excesses. She’d literally had no time for anything else. Anything normal. Like relationships.

Before she could even think of something to say Gabriel came forward and his scent reached her nostrils, sharp and infinitely masculine. Exotic.

‘Would you like me to get you out of here?’

His voice was deep and compelling.

Leonora’s response was swift and instinctive. She nodded.

‘We’ll go out through the main entrance. Don’t look left or right, just let me guide you.’

He plucked something out of his pocket and Leonora saw that it was a phone. He issued a curt instruction and put the phone back, his eyes never leaving hers.

‘My car is outside. Let’s go.’

Before Leonora knew what was happening Gabriel Torres had taken her elbow in his hand and they were already halfway across the lobby. Flashes erupted from outside, and as soon as they got through the doors there was a barrage of noise and calls.

‘Leonora! Where’s Lazaro Sanchez?’

Leonora ignored it all and followed Gabriel’s instructions, looking straight ahead.

A sleek low-slung silver bullet of a car was parked by the kerb and the doorman sprang aside as Gabriel helped her into the front passenger seat. The door was shut, cocooning her in expensive leather and metal and blissful silence, which was only broken briefly when Gabriel came around to the driver’s side and opened the door, settling himself into the car.

Within seconds they were moving through the throng of press, who had to part to let them through. Leonora flinched at the bright flashes from their cameras as the paparazzi pressed cameras up to the window to get their shots.

‘I should have tried to leave through a back entrance. I’ll be on every front page tomorrow.’

She felt Gabriel glance at her. ‘Why should you? You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’

Leonora’s heart was pounding. She saw Gabriel’s hand work the gearstick. Square-shaped long fingers. Short, blunt nails. Masculine.

Her lower body clenched.

‘You didn’t have to do this,’ she said.

Her voice was husky. She looked at Gabriel, whose jaw was tight.

‘It’s nothing. You shouldn’t have been thrown to the wolves like that.’

She got the impression that he was angry. On her behalf. She barely knew him. Her relief at being out of that situation was taking the edges off her own anger at Lazaro.

‘Well…thank you.’

She noticed then that they were driving through one of Madrid’s exclusive city enclaves. Leafy streets and chic cosmopolitan bars and restaurants. Expensive antique shops and designer boutiques. Elegant buildings mixed with new architecture.

Feeling embarrassed now, and thinking that Gabriel might be regretting his good deed, Leonora said, ‘You really don’t have to take me home. I’m the other way, anyway. I can jump out here and get a taxi.’

He shook his head and glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘Not if you don’t want them to follow you home, you can’t.’