CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
S UCCESS .
Dominico Estefan stared out at Melbourne’s skyline and basked in the glow of his latest acquisition. Whoever said success was sweet was way off the mark. Success was more fundamental than that. More elemental. Success was like sex. Intoxicating.
Addictive.
Dom Estefan was seriously addicted. He loved it when a plan came together. After weeks of circular negotiations and knockbacks, his bid had finally been accepted, and at a much lower price than he’d been prepared to pay. Cooper Industries, the small but promising private pharmaceutical company that he planned to transform into a global powerhouse, was his.
He glanced at his watch. Barely past nine a.m. and already it was shaping up to be a perfect day. And later, once all the dust had settled and he’d completed today’s meetings, there might be an opportunity to celebrate. He growled with satisfaction, and not without a modicum of anticipation. Because he might be in Melbourne, and half a world away from his home in San Sebastián, but he’d never had a problem finding willing, if not enthusiastic, company. In Dom’s world, there was never any shortage of enthusiastic company.
And he liked Australian women. Or he had, once, a long time ago.
What was her name?
Marianne.
The name came to him on a tendril of memory, drifting up from the darkest recesses of his mind, the name as fresh and newly minted as the girl had been, still a teenager, a free spirit with wild blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders and lights in her vivid green eyes. Their few months together had been the highlight of his time in Sydney. It had bent him out of shape when he’d had to return to Spain, not that he’d had a choice, and while there was still that lingering residue of guilt, he’d also had a sense he’d dodged a bullet.
He rested one hand against the window frame and gazed down at a tourist boat chugging along the ribbon of river far below until it disappeared under a road bridge.
What would she be doing now? No doubt she was married with a clutch of kids and living somewhere close to nature like she’d endlessly talked about. She’d been a novelty to him, a dreamer with her head in the clouds, and so different from the daughters and nieces the society senoras back in Spain had steered his way.
He snorted. Not that anything had changed there, except that now it was their granddaughters they were shepherding his way.
His phone buzzed and he pushed away from the window. He glanced at the screen and his spine turned to ice. His mother’s physician in San Sebastián calling? Now? One a.m. was far too late for a social call.
He swiped at the screen. ‘Hola?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ the doctor began.
‘My mother,’ Dom said, cutting to the chase. ‘How is she?’
‘I won’t sugarcoat it,’ the doctor said. ‘The latest treatments haven’t given us the results we hoped for. I’m sorry to tell you her condition is deteriorating. I’m going to recommend that her plan be changed to palliative care.’
Palliative care? But that meant…
‘How long—’ Dom began, his words turning to ash in his throat as he raked his fingers through his hair, mentally reckoning the time it would take to fly home. Forget about any kind of celebration. The last place he needed to be right now was the other side of the world when his mother needed him.
He’d known this moment was coming ever since her initial horrific diagnosis; known that it was inevitable that his mother would lose her battle with the inoperable cancer that was invading her cells and wasting her body. But that knowledge didn’t mean he was ready to lose her.
‘How long do you think she has?’
‘I wish I could answer that. It could be weeks. On the other hand, it could be days. There is no telling.’
Weeks? Days? He wasn’t ready for this. Knowing something was going to happen some time in the future was infinitely worse when there was a timeline attached to it, however uncertain that timeline might be.
‘What are you two wittering about? Hand me that phone.’
Dom started as his mother’s frail, yet still imperious voice rasped. ‘Mamá?’
The doctor sighed. ‘Rosaria insisted I call you tonight. She demanded she talk to you.’
‘Surely she should be sleeping? It’s the middle of the night there.’
‘In a perfect world, yes. Instead, Rosaria dozes. Except tonight she refuses to settle at all until she’s spoken to you.’
‘Are you going to stop bleating and give me that phone?’
Normally Dom would raise a smile at his mother’s haughty demands, but not tonight, when he knew that, for all her strength of spirit, her body was crumbling. It was unthinkable. To Dom, she’d always been a powerhouse, strong, indomitable. The only time he’d ever seen her falter was when his father had died, and she’d lost her beloved Roberto. She’d grieved then, long and hard, at times her grief threatening to overwhelm her. But slowly and surely, she’d come back from that. And instead of being crushed by her grief she’d grown stronger, adding the role of father to the already heavy burden of mother, lending her intellect to his while he grew into his new position as head of Estefan Inc. In Dom’s book she was a force of nature, which made what nature was doing to crush her all the crueller.
‘My son,’ he heard. ‘Is that you?’
‘It’s me, Mamá.’
She sighed. ‘At last. I thought I might die before that damned physician handed over the phone.’
Dom pressed his lips together. His mother’s condition was hardly a joking matter, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. ‘Dr Rodríguez is the best in the business, you know that.’
‘That may be true, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘I’m dying, Dominico.’
A dagger pierced his heart. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not, when it’s true?’
‘Because it’s not what you should be focusing on.’
‘I’m not focusing on it.’
‘Then why mention it?’
‘Because I want you to focus on it.’
As if he could focus on anything else right now, all thought of his most recent success blown out of contention.
‘How do you know that I’m not?’
‘Because otherwise you’d have already given me what I want. If you were a good son, you would have given me the grandchildren I have so longed for.’
‘Mamá,’ he protested, ‘it is not because I have sought to deny you grandchildren. I did not know you would become ill. I cannot change that now.’
‘No. What is done is done.’ She sniffed. ‘Or, in this case, what is undone is left undone.’
Dom dropped his head into one hand, his earlier high spirits deflated by both the physician’s prognosis of his mother’s worsening condition and her comprehensive evaluation of his failings as a son. It didn’t seem to matter to his mother that he had taken the business his father had bequeathed him at the tender age of twenty-two and expanded it tenfold. The myriad successes he’d had along the way didn’t seem to count. He had denied his mother the experience of becoming a grandmother and for that and that alone he was being judged.
‘Dominico!’ His mother’s thready shriek was like a slap to his head. ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here.’
‘Good. Because I am asking this one tiny thing now. Before I die.’
He winced. ‘Please stop talking that way.’
‘Why should I? We’re all going to die; I just have a clearer idea of when and why than most. But listen to me, that is why I’m asking you this.’
‘What is it you want, Mamá?’ he said, swallowing down on the lump in his throat.
She gave a long sigh, sounding suddenly resigned. ‘I want to see my son married before I die.’
‘What?’
‘After all,’ she continued, ignoring the interruption, ‘you’re not getting any younger. You’re forty-two years old. It’s not too much to ask, surely? It’s not like you’ve not had plenty of time to find a wife. In every picture I see of you in the papers you’re accompanied by some beauty. When are you going to settle down with one of them?’
Caramba! His mother had been angling for him to get married for more than a decade. It hadn’t happened, despite the women shoved in his path. He hadn’t been willing to marry any woman simply to keep his mother happy—not a woman more interested in the family fortune than him.
But there was more to it than that. He hadn’t gone looking for it. He’d witnessed his mother’s deep despair when his father had died. He’d seen the battle she’d fought to dig her way out of her life-sucking depression. He’d shared every day of it with her.
Why would he willingly want to jump into that shark tank? Why did he even need to? There were plenty of women who were more than happy with a brief fling—if not with the actual brevity…
But there was no point arguing with his mother now. No point upsetting her when she was already finding sleep difficult to come by. He schooled his voice to mellow. ‘And who says I haven’t found someone I want to settle down with?’
‘You have?’ His mother’s voice sounded as if it had received a jolt of electricity. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because it’s early days and I don’t want to frighten her off.’
‘Who is she? Anyone I know?’
Good question, Dom thought. Who the hell was she? ‘How about I fill you in when I get home? Meanwhile, it’s late, and you should be sleeping.’
‘You’re really getting married? You’ve really found someone special?’
‘You should rest,’ he heard the doctor say.
‘I can rest now,’ she said on a weary sigh. ‘My son is getting married.’
‘We’ll talk when I get home,’ Dom said with a sad smile. ‘I’ll fill you in on all the details then. Te quiero, Mamá . ’
‘My son… te quiero .’
He heard the sound of the doctor gently taking the phone. ‘Un momento, Dominico ,’ he said, before settling his mother into the pillows. Dom heard the snick of a door closing before the doctor spoke again. ‘Thank you for taking the call.’
‘Are you sure that she’s failing? She sounded much stronger than your prognosis would suggest.’
‘Don’t let that fool you. She is a strong woman and, if I may say, a woman on a mission. She refused to sleep until she had spoken to you and her efforts will have taken a toll. But Rosaria will sleep now, because of the assurance you gave her.’
But would Dom sleep? It was one thing to make a promise—another thing entirely to keep it when you had no idea how to make it happen.
‘And can I add,’ the doctor said, ‘congratulations.’
‘Gracias,’ Dom uttered, through a throat that might have been filled with gravel. He put down the phone, his heart heavy. If the doctor suspected Dom’s promise to his mother was nothing more than a cynical attempt at placating Rosaria and getting her to rest, he didn’t let on. But then, why would he care, so long as Dom came through and made his patient’s final weeks and days more comfortable?
Dom sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, his mind assessing what he needed to finish before he headed back to Spain and to his mother’s bedside for the however many days or weeks she had left. There was a meeting with his lawyers at ten to iron out any details, followed by a meeting at eleven that shouldn’t take more than five minutes, meaning he could be on the jet by mid-afternoon. His team could take care of any loose ends here.
And in the meantime, he had to find himself a bride.
Simple.
He snorted. His situation would be laughable if it weren’t true.
Because finding a suitable bride was going to be nowhere near as easy as finding a companion for the night. Sure, there were plenty of women he’d encountered who’d dropped not so subtle hints during their time together that the two of them would make the perfect couple, but none of them had convinced him and, frankly, their rank enthusiasm for the role of his wife had left him cold and more cynical than ever about finding a woman that he wanted to marry.
There were still more women he’d met who he knew would be more than happy to playact in the role of his bride for however long that took, especially if he offered the right kind of financial incentive. He’d be more than willing to compensate any woman handsomely if it meant his mother might go to her final rest without the worry of her son being left on the shelf.
But even that way came with complications. He didn’t want complications. He didn’t want a woman who wanted to be his wife, but neither did he want a woman who told him she was happy to act in the role, only to change her mind when her use-by date expired. Prenuptial agreements could only go so far, and he had no desire to have to resort to legal action to sort it out.
No, what he needed was a woman who didn’t want to be married to him. A woman who would only do it under sufferance, persuaded to marry him only because of a decent incentive, whether financial or otherwise. A woman who would nonetheless be more than prepared to blow him off the first opportunity she got.
Where the hell was Dom expected to find a woman like that?