Kitabı oku: «One Night Of Consequences Collection», sayfa 45

CHAPTER ONE

MADDIE Vasquez stood in the shadows like a fugitive. Just yards away the plushest hotel in Mendoza rose in all its majestic colonial glory to face the imposing Plaza Indepencia. She reassured herself that she wasn’t actually a fugitive. She was just collecting herself … She could see the calibre of the crowd going into the foyer: monied and exclusive. The elite of Mendoza society.

The evening was melting into night and lights twinkled in bushes and trees nearby, lending the scene a fairy-tale air. Maddie’s soft mouth firmed and she tried to quell her staccato heartbeat. It had been a long time since she’d believed in fairy tales—if ever. She’d never harboured illusions about the dreamier side of life. A mother who saw you only as an accessory to be dressed up and paraded like a doll and a father who resented you for not being the son he’d lost would do that to a child.

Maddie shook her head, as if that could shake free the sudden melancholy assailing her, and at the same time her eye was caught by the almost silent arrival of a low-slung silver vehicle at the bottom of the main steps leading up to the hotel. Instinctively she drew back more. The car was clearly vintage and astronomically expensive. Her mouth dried and her palms grew sweaty—would it be …? The door was opened by a uniformed hotel doorman and a tall shape uncurled from the driving seat.

It was him.

Her heart stopped beating for a long moment.

Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas. The most successful vintner in Mendoza—and probably all of Argentina by now. Not to mention his expansion into French Bordeaux country, which ensured he had two vintages a year. In the notoriously fickle world of winemaking the de Rojas estate profits had tripled and quadrupled in recent years, and success oozed from every inch of his six-foot-four, broad-shouldered frame.

He was dressed in a black tuxedo, and Maddie could see his gorgeous yet stern and arrogant features as he cast a bored-looking glance around him. It skipped over where she was hiding like a thief, and when he looked away her heart stuttered back to life.

She dragged in a breath. She’d forgotten how startling his blue eyes were. He looked leaner. Darker. Sexier. His distinctive dark blond hair had always made it easy to mark him out from the crowd—not that his sheer charisma and good looks wouldn’t have marked him out anyway. He’d always been more than his looks … he’d always carried a tangible aura of power and sexual energy.

Another flash of movement made her drag her eyes away, and she saw a tall blonde beauty emerging from the other side of the car, helped by the conscientious doorman. As Maddie watched, the woman walked around to his side, her long fall of blonde hair shining almost as much as the floor-length silver lamé dress which outlined every slim curve of her body with a loving touch.

The woman linked her arm through his. Maddie couldn’t see the look they shared, but from the smile on the woman’s face she didn’t doubt it was hot. A sudden shaft of physical pain lanced her and Maddie put a hand to her belly in reaction. No, she begged mentally. She didn’t want him to affect her like this. She didn’t want him to affect her at all.

She’d wasted long teenage years dreaming about him, lusting after him, building daydreams around him. And that foolish dreaming had culminated in catastrophe and a fresh deepening of the generations-old hostility between their families. It had caused the rift to end all rifts. It had broken her own family apart. She’d realised all of her most fervent fantasies—but had also been thrown into a nightmare of horrific revelations.

The last time she’d seen Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas had been a few years ago, in a club in London. Their eyes had clashed across the thronged room, and she’d never forget the look of pure loathing on his face before he’d turned away and disappeared.

Sucking in deep breaths and praying for control, Maddie squared her shoulders. She couldn’t lurk in the shadows all night. She’d come to tell Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas that she was home and had no intention of selling out to him. Not now or ever. She held the long legacy of her family in her hands and it would not die with her. He had to know that—or he might put the same pressure on her as he’d done to her father, taking advantage of his physical and emotional weakness to encourage him to sell to his vastly more successful neighbour.

As much as she’d have loved to hide behind solicitors’ letters, she couldn’t afford to pay the legal fees. And she didn’t want de Rojas to think she was too scared to confront him herself. She tried to block out the last cataclysmic meeting they’d had—if she went down that road now she’d turn around for sure. She had to focus on the present. And the future.

She knew better than anyone just how ruthless the de Rojas family could be, but even she had blanched at the pressure Nicolás de Rojas had put on an ailing man. It was the kind of thing she’d have expected of his father, but somehow, despite everything, not of Nicolás … more fool her. She of all people should have known what to expect.

With a shaking hand she smoothed down the glittery black dress she wore. Maddie’s meagre budget since she’d left Argentina hadn’t run to buying party dresses. Tonight was the prestigious annual Mendoza Vintners’ Dinner, and she wouldn’t have been able to get close to the place if she didn’t look the part. Luckily she’d found some of her mother’s dresses that her father hadn’t destroyed in his rage eight years before …

At first it had looked modest enough—high-necked at the front. It was only when she’d had it on, aware that if she didn’t leave soon she’d miss her window of opportunity, that she’d realised it was backless—to just above her buttocks. All her mother’s other dresses needed serious dry-cleaning. This one had somehow miraculously been protected in a plastic covering. So it was this dress or nothing.

Maddie just wished that her mother had been less flamboyant—and taller. Maddie was five foot nine and the dress ended around her mid-thigh, showing lots of pale leg. Her unusual colouring of black hair, green eyes and pale skin was courtesy of a great-great-grandmother who had come to Argentina with a wave of Irish immigrants and subsequently married into the Vasquez family.

So now, as she finally stepped from the shadows outside the hotel and the gentle breeze whistled over her bare flesh, she felt ridiculously exposed. Mustering all the courage she would need for this encounter, she valiantly ignored the double-take glances of recognition she drew, and strode into the luxurious marbled lobby.

Nicolás Cristobal de Rojas stifled a yawn. He’d been working around the clock to ensure this year’s grapes would be ready to pick soon. After a mercurial summer, they would either have one of the best vintages on their hands or the worst. He grimaced slightly. He knew bringing in his vintage wasn’t the only excuse for driving himself like a demon. That work ethic was buried deep in his fraught childhood.

‘Really, darling,’ came a dry voice to his right, ‘am I that boring?’

Nic forced his attention back into the room and looked down at his date. He quirked a mocking smile. ‘Never.’

His blonde companion squeezed his arm playfully, ‘I think the ennui is getting to you, Nic. You need to go to Buenos Aires and have some fun—I don’t know how you stand it in this backwater.’ She shuddered theatrically, then said something about going to the powder room and disappeared with a sexy sway to her walk.

Nic was relieved to be immune to this very feminine display, and watched as male heads swivelled to watch her progress. He shook his head ruefully and thanked his lucky stars that Estella’s presence tonight might at least temporarily stave off the more determined of the Mendoza man-eaters. He was in no mood to humour the mercenary women he attracted in droves. His last lover had screamed hysterically at him for an hour and accused him of having no heart or soul. He had no desire to head down that path again any time soon.

He could do without sex if that was going to be the outcome. If truth be told, his last sexual encounters had all felt curiously … empty. Satisfying on one level only. And as for a more long-term relationship? He certainly had no intention of even thinking about that. The toxic relationship of his parents had cautioned him from an early age. He was going to choose a long-term partner with extreme care and diligence. Naturally there would be a long-term partner at some point in the future; he had a valuable legacy to pass on to the next generation, and he had no intention of breaking the precious cycle of inheritance.

Just then he saw a figure appear in the doorway to the ballroom. Inexplicably his skin tightened over his bones and the back of his neck prickled—the same way it had just now outside the hotel, when he’d felt as if he was being watched.

He couldn’t make out the woman’s features. He could only make out long, long shapely pale legs and a glittering short black dress which outlined a slender figure. But something about her was instantly familiar. In his gut. Midnight-black wavy hair was swept over one shoulder—and then he saw her head turn. Even from where he stood he could see a stillness enter her frame, and then she started to walk … directly towards him.

Ridiculously Nic felt the need to turn and leave. But he stood his ground. As she came closer and closer, weaving through the crowd, suspicion grew and formed in his head. It couldn’t be, he told himself. It’s been years … she was in London.

He was barely aware of the hushed murmurs surrounding him, growing louder as the woman finally came to a stop just a few feet away. Recognition and incredulity warred in his head. Along with the realisation that she was stunning. She had always been beautiful—slightly ethereal—but she’d matured into a true beauty since he’d seen her last. She was statuesque and slender and curvaceous all at once. An intoxicating package.

Nic hadn’t even realised that he’d given her such a thorough examination until his eyes met hers and he saw the pink flush in her pale cheeks. It had a direct effect on his body, causing a hot throb of desire in his groin.

The ennui he’d just been teased about was long gone. Too many emotions and sensations were starting to fizz in his gut—the dominant ones being acrid betrayal and humiliation. Still, after all these years. He retreated behind a cold wall of anger. Anything to douse this very unwelcome stabbing of desire. His eyes narrowed and clashed with eyes so green they looked like jewels. He had to exert every ounce of his iron control not to be flung back into time and remember what it had felt like almost to drown in those eyes. The problem was he had drowned.

‘Madalena Vasquez,’ he drawled, not a hint of his loss of composure in his voice, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

Maddie winced inwardly and fought to retain her composure. She could remember a time when he’d called her Maddie. The walk from the door to here had felt as if it had taken years, not seconds, and hadn’t been helped by the fact that her mother’s shoes were a size too big. She was aware of the hush surrounding them, and the whispers—none of which she could imagine were complimentary after the very public way her father had thrown her and her mother out eight years before.

Nicolás de Rojas’s mouth became a flat parody of a smile. ‘Please accept my condolences on the death of your father.’

Fire flashed up Maddie’s spine. ‘Let’s not pretend you care one iota,’ she hissed, mindful of the eavesdroppers. Nicolás de Rojas didn’t seem to be fazed by their audience at all, but the grief and futile anger she felt over her father’s death nearly choked her.

The man in front of her folded his arms across his formidable chest, making him look even more intimidating. Maddie’s skin itched uncomfortably where the dress revealed her back. Her hands were clenched to fists at her sides.

He shrugged negligently. ‘No, I can’t say I did care. But I can be polite at least.’

Maddie flushed at that. She’d seen in the papers that his father had died some years before. They were both products of generations who would have merrily danced on each other’s graves, yet it wasn’t in her to glory in someone’s death—even an enemy’s.

Awkwardly but sincerely, she said now, ‘I’m sorry about your father too.’

He arched a brow and his face tightened. ‘Are you going to extend that to my mother? She killed herself when she found out your mother and my father had had an affair for years … after your father told her.’

Maddie blanched to hear that Nicolás was aware of the affair. She saw in that instant how much anger his apparent civility was masking as his eyes flashed dangerously and white lines of tension bracketed his sensual mouth.

Her brain felt fuzzy. She shook her head. She’d had no idea her father had told his mother about the affair, or that she had taken her own life. ‘I didn’t know any of this …’

He dismissed her words with a slashing hand. ‘You wouldn’t, would you? You were so quick to leave and spend your family fortune running around Europe with your wastrel of a mother.’

Maddie felt sick. This was so much worse than she’d feared. She’d somehow naively imagined that she would say her few words to Nicolás de Rojas, he would respond with something at least civil, and that would be it. But the ancient feud between their families was alive and well and crackling between them—along with something else Maddie didn’t want to acknowledge.

Suddenly Nicolás de Rojas cast a quick glance around them and emitted a guttural curse. He took Maddie’s arm in one big hand. She was being summarily dragged to the other side of the room before she knew what was happening. He whirled her around to face him again in a quiet corner. This time all civility was stripped away, and his face was lean and stark with displeasure and anger.

Maddie yanked herself free and rubbed her tingling arm, determined not to let him see how shaken she was. ‘How dare you treat me like some recalcitrant child!’

‘I’ve asked you once already—what are you doing here, Vasquez? You’re not welcome.’

Maddie felt anger surge up at his sheer arrogance and remembered why she was there and what was at stake: her entire livelihood. She stepped forward, dropping her hand. ‘For your information I am just as welcome here as you, and I’ve come to tell you that my father didn’t give in to your pressure to sell and neither will I.’

Nicolás de Rojas sneered. ‘The only thing you own now is a piece of useless land full of gnarly vines. It’s an eyesore. Your estate hasn’t produced any wine of note for years.’

Maddie disguised the pain of knowing that her father had let it all go so spectacularly and spat back. ‘You and your father systematically pushed and squeezed him out of the market until he couldn’t possibly compete any more.’

His jaw clenched at that, and he bit out savagely, ‘It’s nothing more than was done to us time and time again. I’d love to tell you we spent all our time concocting ways to sabotage your business, but the Vasquez wines stopped selling because they were inferior—pure and simple. You did it to yourselves with no help from us.’

His words hit home with a dismaying ring of truth and Maddie took a hasty step back at his ferocity. She saw his eyes flash indignantly. Her reaction had more to do with his proximity and its effect on her body, and more disturbingly on her memories, than with his anger. She couldn’t halt a vivid flashback to when she’d pressed herself so close against him she could feel every taut sinew and muscle. And the evidence of his arousal for her. It had been intoxicating, thrilling. She’d wanted him so badly she’d been begging him to—

‘Here you are!’

Nic growled at the woman who had just appeared by their sides, ‘Not now, Estella.’

Maddie sent up silent thanks for the interruption and cast a quick glance to see the gorgeous blonde who had been with Nicolás outside the hotel. She backed away but Nicolás grabbed her arm again.

‘Estella, wait for me at the table,’ he bit out.

The young woman looked from him to Maddie with wide eyes, and then whistled softly before walking away, shaking her head. Maddie dimly thought that she seemed very easy-going for a lover, but then Nicolás was clamping his hands on her arms. Angrily she pulled herself free again, feeling very raw after that too-vivid memory. She was vaguely aware of her dress slipping down over one shoulder as she pulled away, and saw Nicolás’s eyes go there for a split second before something hot flashed in the blue depths.

Maddie spoke in a rush to stop herself responding to that look—which she must have imagined. This man felt nothing for her except hatred, pure and simple. ‘I came to tell you that I’m back and I won’t be selling the Vasquez estate. Even if I was do you really think I’d sell to a de Rojas after all we’ve been through? I’d burn it to the ground first. I intend to restore the Vasquez estate to its full glory.’

Nicolás stood tall, and then he barked out an incredulous laugh, head thrown back, revealing the strong column of his throat. When he looked down again Maddie felt a weakness invading her lower body—and a disturbing heat.

He shook his head. ‘You must have done quite the number on your father before he died to get him to leave it to you. After you and your mother left and people heard of the affair, no one expected to see either of you back again. I think people would have expected him to leave it to a dog on the street rather than either one of you.’

Maddie’s hands clenched. Pain bloomed inside her to think of that awful time and how angry her father had been—justifiably so. She gritted out, ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

It was as if he didn’t even hear her, though. He continued easily. ‘It was common knowledge your father didn’t have a peso to his name by the time he died. Is your mother’s Swiss financier husband financing this whim?’ His jaw tightened. ‘Or perhaps you’ve bagged yourself a rich husband? Did you find one in London? You were frequenting the right clubs the last time I saw you.’

Maddie’s insides burned with indignation. Her hands clenched even harder. ‘No, my mother is not financing anything. And I don’t have a rich husband, or boyfriend or lover. Not that it’s any concern of yours.’

Mock shock and disbelief crossed Nicolás’s face. ‘You mean to tell me that the spoiled Vasquez princess thinks she can waltz back home and turn a bankrupt wine estate around with no help or expertise? Is this your new hobby because the Cannes yacht parties were becoming boring?’

Maddie felt the red tide of rage rise within her. He had no idea how badly she’d fought to prove herself to her father —to prove that she could be as good as any man … as good as her poor dead brother. She’d never have that chance now, because he was dead too. And she would not let the legacy she’d been bequeathed die with her. She had to prove that she could do this. She would not let another man stand in her way as her father had.

Passion resonated in her voice. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, de Rojas. Stay out of my way and don’t expect a “For Sale” sign to go up—ever.’

Just as Maddie was backing away, wishing she wouldn’t have to present him with her naked back, he said chillingly, ‘I’ll give you two weeks until you run screaming out the door. You have no idea what it takes to run a successful wine business. You never worked a day in the vineyard while you were growing up. It’s been years since Vasquez produced a wine worth mentioning, and your father got carried away with his overpriced wines. You’re in over your head, Vasquez, and when you realise that it won’t matter what price tag you put on that sign because I’ll match it. Purely because I would relish knowing that your family is gone from here for good.’

Maddie hid the dart of hurt; he knew that she’d never worked a day in the vineyard because she’d told him once. It had been intimate information which would now be used against her.

He took a step closer and said chillingly, ‘So you see, eventually that estate will become part of the de Rojas brand … and by denying it you’re merely prolonging your own misery. Just think—within a week you could be back in London, sitting in the front row of a fashion show, with enough money to keep you satisfied for a long time. I’ll personally see to it that you have no cause to return here ever again.’

Maddie shook her head and tried to swallow the terrifying feeling of stepping off a ledge into the great unknown. She was hurt at the extent of this man’s hostility. It hurt more than it should, and that scared her to death.

She couldn’t help the emotional huskiness of her voice. ‘This is my home—just as much as it’s yours—and you will have to carry my dead body out before you get me to leave.’

Maddie was bitterly aware, despite her little assertion, that everything he said was right. Apart from his perception of what her life was like. Of that he had no idea, and she wasn’t about to enlighten him.

She backed away further and said, ‘Don’t come near my property, de Rojas … you or any of your people. You’re not welcome.’

He smiled mockingly. ‘I admire the act, Vasquez, and I look forward to seeing how long you can play the part.’

Maddie finally wrenched her gaze away from his and stalked off—but not before she almost stumbled in the too-big shoes. Gritting her teeth, she prayed silently all the way to the door that she would at least retain the dignity of not losing a shoe in front of the insufferably arrogant de Rojas and the gobsmacked crowd.

Maddie held her head high, and it was only when she finally reached her father’s battered Jeep in the car park and locked herself inside that shock hit her and she shook uncontrollably for long minutes.

The awful reality was that he was right—she was on a hiding to nothing, trying to make their estate work again. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try. Her father had made long-overdue amends with Maddie, and even though it had come so late, Maddie had always clung to the hope that she would hear from her father. She would have returned here years ago if he’d welcomed her back. For as long as she could remember she’d wanted nothing more than to work on the estate.

When she’d received the heartfelt letter from her ill father, with his outpouring of regret for his actions, Maddie hadn’t been able to help but respond to his plea to come home to try to save their estate from oblivion.

Maddie’s relationship with her father had never been close. He’d always made it clear he wanted sons, not a daughter, and had firmly believed that a woman’s place was in the home and not in the business of winemaking. But he’d made up for a lifetime of dismissiveness while on his deathbed, when he’d realised he might lose everything.

Maddie had been hoping and praying she’d make it home in time to see him, but he’d passed away while she was in the air on her initial flight to Buenos Aires. His solicitor had met her with the news, and she’d gone straight from the airport in Mendoza to his private and lonely funeral in the small family graveyard in the grounds of their estate.

She hadn’t even been able to get in touch with her mother, who was on a cruise somewhere with her fourth husband, who was some ten years her junior. She felt very alone now, when faced with the tangible animosity of Nicolás de Rojas and the seemingly insurmountable task of taking on the Vasquez estate.