Chapter One
Beatrix
The little Castilian church is packed to overflowing with members of Europe’s most important aristocratic families, as well as the rich and the famous, all crowding in to say their goodbyes to Antonio Veracruz, tenth Duke of Riego, and also my husband.
I’m standing in the tiny little church alcove I discovered a few moments ago, needing a minute or two to catch my breath and adjust my black widow’s veil over my face.
The veil is partly for show and partly to hide my dry eyes, though I’m wondering why I’m bothering with it, since no one believes I’m truly mourning Antonio.
I know what they all think of me, all the ancient noble families of Spain and the rest of Europe.
The rumours about me fill the gossip columns, internet forums, and social media posts.
They say I’m a gold digger, a sugar baby, an escort, a courtesan.
That I wrapped a poor old man’s heart around my little finger and took all his money.
I’ve even seen ‘black widow’ headlines and reports that I poisoned him to get my hands on the Veracruz estate…
Unfortunately for me, they’re right. Not that I poisoned him—no, he died from a sudden and catastrophic heart attack—but they’re right about the other thing. I am, in fact, a gold digger. Antonio knew that, though, and he was far from being a ‘poor old man’.
We met through a company that provides rich people with ‘companionship’. It’s not an escort service or anything salacious, and the ‘companionship’ it promises is real. There’s considerable vetting done if you want to register to be a ‘companion’ and many NDAs you have to sign.
I’d only just had my membership approved when I got a message from Antonio saying that he’d looked at my profile and wanted to meet me, with a view to my being his date at a charity fundraiser in London.
Not going to lie, I saw the words ‘Spanish duke’ and automatically said yes. I mean, when you have nothing except your looks, you can’t afford to be picky. You have to do what you can to survive.
So I put on the one nice dress I had, and went along to the fancy London hotel he was staying in.
We met in the bar and he bought me a drink.
We chatted—I had made sure to read up on winemaking, since that was his passion—and we got on well enough that I went as his date to the fundraiser, before joining him on holiday in Greece.
We married soon after that, but our marriage wasn’t about love.
Antonio wanted someone he trusted to take over his estate after his death, plus he was lonely and didn’t see why he couldn’t have companionship in his later years.
I was more than happy to provide that companionship if it meant my future would be taken care of.
It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, and one I would have been totally happy about if it wasn’t for one thing: Antonio’s son.
I lean back against the cold stone of the alcove and shut my eyes, trying to even out my breathing. All the condolences and regrets people keep murmuring to me are difficult to handle, because I know they’re all fake. No one means it. They all hate me.
I’m used to hate, though. It’s just another thing I’ve learned how to protect myself from, since growing up in a series of neglectful foster homes will do that to a person. You either armour yourself or you don’t survive, and luckily I know how to armour myself.
I’m going to need that armour today though, and not only to deal with a church full of people who view me with contempt, but also to deal with the other reason I’m here in this alcove, trying to get a breath.
Santiago Veracruz is here, Antonio’s only son. Who hates me.
I thought he wouldn’t come—I prayed he wouldn’t come—but of course my prayers haven’t been answered.
I don’t know why he’s here when he and his father hadn’t spoken for more than a year, and they had been estranged for much longer than that.
Perhaps to make sure his father is really dead?
Or maybe to stare at me hostilely the way he did the last time we met?
Though it’s probably about the will, and how Antonio cut him out of it, leaving him with nothing but an empty title, something Antonio didn’t discuss with me until just before he died.
I’m not sure why Santiago hates me so much—it’s not just about the will. It’s got something to do with Antonio’s acrimonious divorce from Santiago’s mother years ago probably, and the fact that Antonio married me.
I didn’t want to get involved in any family drama—the relationship between Antonio and his son had nothing to do with me—but I had no choice in the matter. Santiago involved me whether I wanted to be involved or not.
Then again, this wouldn’t have been quite so bad if he hadn’t been at that same London fundraiser that I attended with Antonio.
If we hadn’t locked eyes at the bar. If the taut, electric energy hadn’t sprung between us and if he hadn’t immediately come towards me with all his lethal, predatory grace…
I grit my teeth, trying to force those thoughts from my head.
I can’t think of him, I can’t. The service will be starting soon and I have to get my armour back in place, make sure there are no vulnerabilities. I can’t afford them, not when it comes to him, because he’ll use them against me to cause as much hurt as possible.
You’ve faced worse than him. Don’t be a coward and start hiding now.
It’s true, I have faced worse than him. While Antonio was alive I had some protection, but now that protection is gone and so all I have is myself.
It’s all I’ve always had, after all.
‘Ah, there you are,’ a deep, dark masculine voice says, cold contempt running through the words. ‘Practising your grieving-widow face?’
Every muscle in my body freezes and I open my eyes.
Of course, he’s found me. Of course.
Through the black lace of my veil, I can see Santiago Veracruz standing in the entrance of the little alcove, completely blocking the exit.
He’s over six-three, with a body all hard muscle and lean, tensile strength.
He’s dressed in funereal black, the suit handmade and tailored perfectly to draw attention to his gladiator’s shoulders, narrow waist and powerful thighs.
His face is a fallen angel’s, both beautiful and cruel, with sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, and a hard mouth.
His ink-black eyes are framed by thick, sooty lashes long enough to make a woman jealous, yet there’s nothing soft in the way he’s looking at me.
Nothing kind. He’s staring at me as if I’m dirt under his shoe.
I swallow, the gravitational force of his presence and the storm front of his hate almost palpable and pressing against me.
I haven’t seen him since that terrible incident a year ago, when he turned up at the estate not long after Antonio and I were married, to ‘pay his respects’, or at least that’s what Antonio told me.
I didn’t hear what was actually said, but I stood by the window and I could see Antonio and Santiago in the hacienda’s driveway, shouting at each other in Spanish.
Eventually, Santiago turned to leave and he caught sight of me, and his gaze was a black arrow, flaming with hate, aimed straight at my heart.
No, I know why he hates me. After that fundraiser, while I was in Greece with Antonio, I got a message from him.
He must have investigated who I was and somehow found my email address.
The message was short and sweet, asking for a meeting.
But even as I read the email, even though part of me wanted nothing more than to meet him and see if the electricity I’d felt at the bar that night was still there and still mutual, the practical part of me, the survivor, warned me not to.
That Santiago Veracruz had the power to ruin me, to make me his slave, and that’s not something I could allow.
The only power I’ve ever had is the power I have over myself, and the overwhelming attraction I felt for him that night felt like a threat to that power.
If I wanted to live the life I’d planned for myself, I had to avoid him like the plague.
Except I can’t avoid him right now, and even though Antonio isn’t here to defend me any more, I’m not going to let the loathing of one hateful man get under my skin, no matter how he looks at me. I know how to protect myself. I haven’t forgotten.
I push myself away from the wall and straighten, putting on the cold, hard mask that has been useful in the past when it comes to men. They don’t generally like an ice queen, and steer clear.
‘Santiago,’ I say coolly. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here.’
‘Whyever not?’ He raises one black brow. ‘I’m Antonio’s only child after all.’
‘So you’re here to…what exactly? Surely not to offer your condolences?’
‘No.’ His inky eyes glitter. ‘I only offer condolences to people who are genuinely grief-stricken, not those who perform for the crowd.’
Helpless anger simmers inside me. Normally I can manage my temper, but today is not a normal day. I didn’t love Antonio and he didn’t love me, but I’m upset that he’s dead and I don’t have the emotional energy to deal with Santiago’s snide comments along with everything else.
‘Interesting that you have thoughts about grief,’ I snap, unable to stop myself, ‘considering the last time you spoke to your father was a year ago and it was to shout at him.’
Santiago’s black gaze doesn’t even flicker. ‘Tell me, how does it feel to know that everyone in this church thinks you’re a murderess?’
I hate how his arrow hits its mark, no matter how well I armoured myself, and I hate how I want to shoot a few in return. I can’t resist, even as it betrays me. ‘How sweet,’ I say acidly. ‘I didn’t know you cared about my feelings.’
He lets out a short, hard laugh. ‘I don’t.’
‘So why are you here, then? If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re looking to replace your father in my bed.’ They’re careless, heedless words, and as soon as they’re out of my mouth I know I’ve made a mistake.
I shouldn’t have acknowledged the electricity that still hums between us, even though it’s been eighteen months since that night in London.
I haven’t forgotten. The electricity that I’ve never felt before or since, and never at all with Antonio.
An electricity I have no control over and no choice about, and that I can’t ever surrender to.
Fury leaps in Santiago’s black eyes and he takes a step towards me. ‘You wish,’ he says, low and hard, his Spanish accent making music of the threat. ‘No, Stepmother. I’ve come for something else.’
Stepmother? Really? Even though he’s technically correct, I’m twenty-five and a good ten years younger than he is. And the way he loads the word, with as much contempt as he can, disdain dripping from every syllable…
Yet even as he says the words, my mouth goes dry.
Because the smell of cold stone and incense is mixing with the warm, spicy scent that’s all Santiago, and all I can think about is that night at the bar when he stood close to me.
When that scent of his filled my head, and I regretted so much that I was here with someone else.
That someone else having been his father, though I didn’t know it then.
I swallow yet again, staring up at him through the black lace of my veil. I know why he’s here, of course I know. ‘This is about your inheritance, isn’t it?’
‘So sharp,’ he purrs. ‘You’ll cut yourself if you’re not careful.’
I ignore him. ‘Your father left everything to me. And you know that.’
He takes another step forward, and I find myself taking a step back, trying to keep some distance between us. He’s far too tall, looming over me, filling the alcove with his fierce, electric presence. ‘I do know that,’ he says silkily. ‘Mi padre was very clear.’
My heartbeat races and I hate the way I react to him.
I hate how my body is springing to attention exactly the way it did that night, my skin tightening, something needy and desperate throbbing between my legs.
Even when I saw him a year ago, through the window, the effect he had on me was the same.
But more than anything else, I hate how I feel as if I have no control over myself whenever he’s near. Because it’s dangerous to want things, especially things you can never and should never have.
‘So?’ I’m thankful for the veil that hides the sudden heat in my cheeks. ‘There’s nothing to discuss, Santiago.’
‘Mr Veracruz, if you please,’ he murmurs, looking down at me from his great height, his black eyes piercing me right through. ‘You have not earned the right to my first name.’
I can hear the beat of my heart in my head, a loud thump in my skull. ‘The service will be starting soon,’ I say, hoping my voice sounds as hard and flat as his. ‘So whatever you have to say—’
‘Whatever I have to say,’ he interrupts, stepping completely into the alcove and forcing me back against the stone wall, ‘I will say right now, right here, my fucking father and his service be damned.’
The cold stone is at my back and I’m conscious of the warmth of the man at my front. He’s like a furnace, radiating heat even as the flames in his black eyes are cold.
He lifts one hand and before I can stop him he flips back my widow’s veil and looks down at me. ‘Dry eyes,’ he murmurs. ‘I thought so.’
I want to snatch the veil back down to protect myself, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how badly he rattles me.
So instead I stare back, letting him see.
‘I’m sad he’s dead,’ I say, because there’s no point in pretending otherwise, not with him, ‘but Antonio and I didn’t love one another. We had an arrangement and that—’
‘If it was money you wanted, you could have had mine,’ Santiago snarls, suddenly fierce. He puts one hand on the stone either side of my head, slowly and deliberately, the black flames of his anger burning in his eyes. ‘But you didn’t want it, did you?’
I’m trembling, yet not with fright. Santiago is an intimidating man, but it’s not him I’m afraid of.
I’m afraid of this tense, burning thing between us, this irresistible pull, this need that I’ve never quite forgotten, no matter how hard I try.
The one I can’t ever talk about or name, because in the end it wasn’t him I chose. It was his father.
He’s too close and if he gets any closer I might lose myself, which again is why I didn’t choose him. Antonio was always the safer choice for me.
‘No,’ I say huskily. ‘I didn’t. I wanted your father, not you. Now get out of my face.’ I lift my hands, put them straight on his hard chest and push him away.
But he doesn’t move.
And then something between us catches fire.