Kitabı oku: «Modern Romance January Books 1-4», sayfa 10

CHAPTER NINE

MATÍAS SPENT THE next few days avoiding Camilla. He told himself that was not what he was doing, because he was no coward. Particularly not where women were concerned. He was a man who’d had ample and early access to the female form, who had never much seen the point in denying himself physical feminine company when the need arose itself.

However, he felt it best not to engage himself physically with Camilla Alvarez. Their fates were too linked. Their lives far too intertwined at the moment for his peace of mind.

When all was said and done, he wished to part with her as business partners might.

But that did not stop the yawning ache in his gut from making itself known.

They would get through tonight. Through the public presentation of them as an engaged couple. And then he would find himself a woman to deal with his physical desires.

As he had suspected, his brother had ensured that his marriage to Liliana became a headline the world over. In the days since her defection, it had become headline news.

And so he had to replace it with the headline of his own, and he was determined to do so tonight.

Another reason he could not afford a distraction.

He had to maintain control of himself. Even though the attraction that sparked between himself and Camilla was convenient when it came to presenting a front as an engaged couple, he could not afford to be anything but in absolute control of himself and his body.

He thought of the way she had fallen against him a few days ago during their dance lesson. The way she had tilted her face up toward him, her eyes fluttering closed. And it irked him that he couldn’t read her. That he could not tell whether it was innocent on her part, or whether she was, in fact, a skilled seductress.

That was the problem with her in general. The fact that she had tricked him as she had done when she had come to work for him meant he did not trust anything she did or said now. They were allied of a necessity, and he believed what it suited him to believe, but he also believed it entirely possible that she might have ulterior motives.

He was all right with that, as long as he was fully cognizant that it might be the case.

In order to be fully cognizant he had to keep his lower extremities out of the equation.

Everything was prepared for the trip down to the city. He had arranged to have his penthouse prepared, so the two of them could spend the night there after the ball ended.

He had asked that his staff arrange to have any personal items she might need brought there and installed for her.

He was now waiting in the antechamber of his family home, and she was late.

He looked down at his watch, then looked up at the stairs, filled with impatience. Surely, arriving at an appointed time was not difficult. Liliana certainly had never had any trouble with it.

But then Liliana was an accomplished socialite, and he knew that Camilla was not.

Still, he had an entire team of people aiding in her preparations. Surely, it could not be that difficult.

He heard footsteps and looked up, and was shocked by the level of intensity that hit him hard in the stomach.

Because there she was, bare-shouldered, wearing a strapless gown that conformed to her lithe figure, until it reached her hips, where it fanned out in a glorious blaze of glittering gold. Her short hair was adorned with a simple golden band that was fashioned to look like a vine.

That vision of her as a goddess of some sort was only cemented by this. And suddenly, he did not care if they were late.

Her brown eyes were wide, and he could not read the emotion in them as she descended the staircase, her gown swishing around her with each movement.

When she reached the bottom of the steps, she looked at him with deep uncertainty. “Do you like it?”

“The dress?”

“I suppose so.” Though she was keeping her tone flat, even, he could sense a vulnerability to her in that moment. One he found quite surprising.

“I like it on you,” he returned.

She looked down, and he took her arm, surprised by the softness of her skin. He examined her profile, the strong shape of her jaw, the sweet, supple curve of her lip.

She was a fascinating woman. And more and more he could not fathom he had ever believed her ruse.

He simply hadn’t looked.

It made him wonder what else he didn’t see. It made him wonder what else he had closed himself off to.

But then he supposed there was no real point in lingering on those thoughts.

It didn’t matter. He had her now. And he was going to get his part of the family fortune. Even if he was not going to have it all in its entirety. He would not be made a fool of by Diego. He would not allow his brother to win.

He might not be able to ensure his loss, but he could ensure he did not take it all.

And with Camilla on his arm tonight, he was likely to paint a very convincing picture of the entire scenario. It would be clear to anyone with eyes why he would have been tempted away from that pale, fragile woman he had found himself engaged to, drawn to this bright, vibrant creature.

She might not have the fame of Liliana Hart, might not possess a newsworthy family, but any man would be able to see why she was a temptation.

“The car is waiting,” he said, leading them both out of the house and toward the limousine that was waiting for them.

She stopped. “That seems a bit expected,” she commented.

“Please forgive me my expected limousine,” he said. “The sad thing about events like this is we must endeavor to be expected. We must fulfill the expectations of those in attendance. Otherwise, there is precious little point in attending at all.”

His driver opened the door for both of them, and they slid inside. Then, when they were safely ensconced, on the road and headed toward the city, she turned to him.

“Did your father do as expected?”

“No, my family has always made it their mission to do as little that was expected of them as possible. I have tried to be different. I was not taught the difference between right and wrong. Nobody attempted to teach me the value of integrity, and yet because of the deficit of it in my life I figured it out all the same. A man cannot live by his own rules, Camilla. A man must answer to a higher power. It is simply the way of it. If not, then he is bound to the whims of his own heart, his own desires. That ends in bad places. Dark places.”

“Your father was cruel to you...”

His chest tightened, the words screaming in his head, begging to be released while his whole body tensed for a battle to hold it back. There was something about her. Something that made it seem so easy to share things he had never told another soul.

Perhaps it was because when he’d first spoken freely to her he’d seen her as a boy. A member of his staff. He’d barely seen her at all.

In the darkness of the car, he physically couldn’t see her, and perhaps that was why he wanted to speak to her now. It was like confession. Whether or not it would be good for his soul, he couldn’t say.

“It is not that. Yes, my father was cruel to me. He was cruel to everyone he encountered. But my father killed my mother, Camilla.” The next words were torn, from somewhere deep inside him, with a pain he had no idea he still possessed the ability to feel. “It was not an accident.”

Camilla was frozen, her heart turning brittle in her chest, cracking from the inside out. His father had killed his mother? It seemed impossible. Impossible words issued from the most beautiful lips. He was every inch Prince Charming to her Cinderella tonight, and yet, she had not felt a sense of enchantment when she had descended down the stairs toward him.

Instead, she had only felt a sense of dread, a sense of being deficient. Because she could never be the woman he had chosen for himself in the first place. She could never be that kind of sweet, delicate beauty she knew that men like him—all men—preferred.

But now she questioned that feeling. She had assumed, of course, that she was the only one carrying around dark feelings. She was the only one beset by misgivings of any kind. Because how could a man who looked so sublime in a custom-made tux be carrying around any sort of weight in his chest?

And yet, his was the greatest of all.

“How do you know?” she asked, her words muted.

“I saw it,” he said, the words rough. “I saw him with my own eyes. You wonder how I can be so certain that Diego did not kill his wife. Because I spent my childhood with a man capable of such a thing. And while I think my brother is morally bankrupt, not unaffected by the life we led here at the rancho, I don’t believe he’s a killer. I looked into the eyes of a man who would do such a thing. I had been left to live with that man in the aftermath, while the local government bent over backward to cover it up, corruption and payoffs raining while Justice died a sad, horrible death alongside my mother. Diego is a villain. But he is not a killer.”

“Did Diego see...?”

“No,” he said, the words sharp. Hard. “I was the only one who was there that day. My father did not see it, either. I was frozen, up in a tree. I was...eight years old, I suppose.”

She could tell that he remembered everything. From his age to his exact position in the tree, his specific vantage point. But that he was going out of his way to keep it vague. To keep it easy.

That he was doing what he had to do to protect himself.

“I had been playing out in the olive groves, and I heard the sound of approaching horses. A chase. A game, I thought at first, except when I realized it was my father and my mother I knew it could not be. My father did not play games. At least, not the kind that anyone but himself could win.”

“Matías...”

“He shot her.” There was a very long silence after that. The only sound in the limo the tires on the road. She said nothing. Could do nothing but simply sit and wait. She was...horrorstruck. She wanted to hold him and she knew she could not. Should not. He wasn’t hers. And of course he never could be. But she wanted him to be. Oh, she wanted him to be now.

“She fell off the horse,” he said finally, his tone distant, pained, “or, the horse fell, and there was screaming. I do not think it was the gunshot that killed her, but the fall from the horse. When I said she broke her neck falling from a horse...that was in the official report, and I know they were covering up some of what happened. But I do think there was truth in it. The way that the horse toppled over after.” His words were hard, flat. “And I could not move. I was afraid that if I did he would kill me, too. I did try to tell the police. But the police chief said I was not to repeat that story. It was an accident. A terrible riding accident, as to be expected when people spent so much time with horses. An acknowledged risk, you see.”

Camilla pressed her hands against her chest, as if that might do something to calm her thundering heart. As if it might do something to dampen the horror she felt. “I’m so sorry. How could they do that to you? How could they do that to a child?”

“I don’t tell you this to make you sorry for me. It is done. There will be no justice for my mother, and there never can be. All the evidence is long gone and buried. Every police officer involved in the investigation moved on, retired. And my father is dead. My father is dead, so he cannot be arrested. I hope, very much, that he burns in hell for what he has done. As it is, he was killed by something so mundane as a stroke while he was in the company of no fewer than three prostitutes. If that end would have brought him shame, I would have considered it a partial form of justice, but the man had no shame at all. And so, I can only hope there is justice in the afterlife for him. For he did not suffer enough in this life.”

Her thoughts jumbled together, her heart full of immense pain. It was all starting to make sense. His need to redeem the rancho.

This place, the place where his mother had been killed, was a place of ghosts and demons for him. And she imagined that he was on a quest for redemption.

“And Diego...”

“I believe one of the more commonly held rumors. Which is that his wife caught him out in an affair and killed herself as a result.”

“He must feel...awful.”

“I don’t know that he possesses the capacity,” Matías said. “He’s a vain, selfish man. And while I don’t believe he would ever physically harm someone...he does it every day by living only to please himself.”

They made the rest of the drive in silence, and when the limo pulled up to the front of the well-lit hotel, the previous conversation from the car temporarily fled her mind as she felt a growing sense of nerves over what lay ahead.

Shallow, trivial in many ways in light of all that Matías had told her. But she was only human, a human who was about to be put on display in a room full of people, and then put on display yet again in the papers. Online. The world over. Not because of any interest in her, but because of the interest in Matías and the entire Navarro family.

Matías exited the car and she stayed in her seat, her eyes fixed upon the entry doors that were standing open, people filtering in and out wearing all manner of evening finery. Long gowns glittering beneath the spotlights.

She saw a beautiful blonde make her way down the stairs, a formfitting gown highlighting her voluptuous figure, her hair left loose and blowing in the warm evening breeze.

For the first time in quite a while, Camilla missed her hair. Wondered if Matías would find her more beautiful if she hadn’t cut it all off.

Then she frowned. She wasn’t supposed to care what Matías thought. This wasn’t about him. It was a business deal. She was the one who had said that. The one who had shaken hands with him as though they were in a board room. As though they had not been sitting in his family library, he coping with the betrayal of a fiancée, and she dressed as a boy.

The limousine door opened and Matías stood there, looming over her, tall, dark and perfectly dressed.

The sight of him took her breath away, and she was reminded why it was so difficult for her to keep the nature of the arrangement straight in her mind.

Because he was beautiful. So very beautiful and it didn’t matter that she was not a lovely enough woman to catch his attention. At least, it didn’t matter to her body.

It was shameful. The fact that she was not immune to him. That she would like to be disdainful of all his egotistical assertions that all women fell at his feet the moment they set eyes on him.

But she could not be disdainful because she was not immune in the least. And she was perilously close to falling at his feet.

So don’t.

She held on to that stern, internal admonishment as she reached out to take hold of his hand. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze, doing her best to appear confident.

Mercifully, she was wearing flat shoes, the nature of her long dress making heels unnecessary. They had an elegant, pointed toe and glittered gold just like her gown, and were easy to walk in.

With each step they took toward the ballroom her stomach tied itself in a slightly tighter knot.

She took a breath and imagined that instead of approaching a ballroom, she was approaching a barn. That all she would have to do was wrangle a two-ton animal, rather than dance before an audience of people who would be judging her, assessing her value.

She found that settling.

Horses were her confidence.

This was not.

And so she reminded herself who she was. That she could outride anyone here. That she possessed skills they could not possibly imagine. That she might, in fact, have a misstep tonight, but it would not change the fact that when it came to doing what she loved, no one could best her.

Somehow, that helped. Somehow, it infused her with a sense of confidence she had not known she could find here.

These men, these women, might well be the rulers of this domain, and she most certainly was not. But she had dominion over what she loved. And once she had completed this ruse with Matías, no one would ever be able to take it from her again.