Buch lesen: «A Mistress, A Scandal, A Ring»

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU MUST LEAVE NOW, senyorita.’

Jordan Walsh tipped her head back, and back some more, until she stared into the face of the uniformed security guard who towered over her.

‘I’m not leaving,’ she told him, making no move to vacate the chair she had occupied for over two hours in the waiting area of this vast marble foyer.

The big man’s eyebrows beetled together. ‘You must go. The building is closing.’

The building was the Vega Tower—a great big steel and glass monolith that rose from the heart of Barcelona’s thriving business district and dwarfed everything around it. It had cost one point two billion US dollars to construct, had taken two years and three months from foundation to completion, and comprised forty-four floors of bustling head office activity for one of Europe’s largest and most successful multinational conglomerates.

Jordan was well acquainted with these facts because she had picked up the glossy hardbound book titled The Vega Corporation: Sixty Years of Success off the low table beside her and, out of sheer boredom, read the entire thing from front cover to back. Twice.

‘I’m not leaving without an appointment to see Mr de la Vega,’ she said.

This was not news to the security man. She had made the same request on her arrival, and again an hour ago when it had become obvious that his call to the CEO’s assistant had garnered no result.

‘He is not available.’

‘Which is why I want to make an appointment,’ she explained with exaggerated patience. ‘So that I can see him when he is available.’

‘It is not possible,’ the man said, and with that he clamped a giant hand around her upper arm and hauled her to her feet.

Jordan gasped. ‘Wait!’ She braced her legs to resist, her flat rubber-soled shoes giving her feet a much-needed moment of purchase on the shiny marble. ‘You’re not seriously going to manhandle me out of the building?’

‘I am sorry, senyorita,’ he said, but the sidelong glance he sent her didn’t look apologetic so much as...pitying.

She bristled at the implication of that look. It wasn’t difficult to guess what he and his colleagues behind the desk were thinking. A man as wealthy and powerful as their boss must have an abundance of female admirers and hangers-on, and his staff were no doubt required to act as gatekeepers on occasion.

But Jordan was no jilted lover or wannabe mistress. ‘Please,’ she persisted, hating the desperate note that crept into her voice. ‘Can you just call his office one more time?’

Somebody must still be up there. Sure, it was almost six-thirty p.m., but didn’t working hours in Spain differ from the norm at home? And hadn’t she read an online article just yesterday in which the CEO was quoted as saying he not only worked long hours himself, but expected key members of his staff to do the same?

But the guard shook his head. ‘Call tomorrow,’ he said.

Jordan felt the sharp bite of frustration in her belly. She’d already phoned the day before, and the day before that. Each time she’d been stonewalled by the CEO’s uppity assistant. Which was why she had trekked across the city in the stifling mid-August heat this afternoon and shown up in person.

She planted her feet and locked her knees, but her strength was no match for the guard’s. He started walking and she was forced to stumble along beside him, clutching her tote bag and the shreds of her dignity as he marched her towards the automatic sliding glass doors.

Her heart lurched. A few more steps and she’d be out on the street, back to square one.

The glass doors parted before them, letting in a blast of hot air, and she thought of the envelope in her bag—the letter she’d carried ten thousand miles across the globe—and a crushing sense of failure engulfed her.

All because she couldn’t find her way to the top of this imposing corporate fortress to see one man.

Her body stiffened in protest. ‘I’m Mr de la Vega’s stepsister!’ she cried out, and the guard pulled up short, surprise making his grip slacken just enough so she could wrench herself free.

Around them the cavernous foyer came to a standstill, the other security personnel behind the desk and the few office workers making their way to and from the lifts having paused and fallen silent in the wake of her outburst.

A tidal wave of heat swept up her body and into her face. Doing her best to ignore the curious stares, she levelled her gaze at the guard and said quietly, ‘I’m sure neither his assistant—nor you—would like to inform him that you’ve turned me away.’

The man rubbed the back of his neck, his face screwed up in a grimace of indecision. Finally, he said in a gruff voice, ‘Please wait.’

He returned to the desk to make a phone call and two minutes later a tall, elegant woman wearing a sleek navy shift dress and high heels emerged from a lift. She looked to the guard, who steered her in Jordan’s direction with a tilt of his head.

Jordan saw the woman give her an assessing, narrow-eyed once-over before striding across the marble floor towards her.

‘Ms Walsh.’ Her tone was cool. ‘Mr de la Vega is extremely busy, but he is willing to give you ten minutes of his time.’

Her English was accented, but good, and Jordan recognised the voice at once. She was the assistant who’d screened her phone calls and refused to give her an appointment.

Jordan forced a smile and resisted asking if Mr de la Vega was sure he could spare a whole ten minutes from his extremely busy schedule. Instead she offered a gracious, ‘Thank you,’ but the woman had already pivoted on a spiked heel and started back across the foyer, leaving Jordan to follow.

The guard held the lift doors open and then boarded with them, taking a position at the rear as they hurtled upwards to the forty-fourth floor.

Jordan’s heart raced and her hands grew clammy. After all the careful thought she’d put into this, the endless days of agonising indecision, the time spent working out what she’d say when...if...this moment came, she hadn’t expected to feel quite so nervous.

But then it was no small thing she was about to do. She had no idea how Xavier de la Vega would receive her. How he’d react. She wasn’t sure how she’d react herself in his position.

She cast a critical glance at her reflection in the highly polished panels of the lift doors. In a sleeveless white blouse, khaki capris and a pair of comfy shoes, she looked plain and unremarkable next to the tall, stunning Spanish woman. Her one feature worthy of note—her long, copper-red hair—was pulled into a high, no-fuss ponytail, and the tinted moisturiser she’d rubbed into her skin that morning was the closest thing to make-up her face had seen in weeks.

The lift doors opened and all thoughts of her appearance were swiftly forgotten as she followed the other woman into a large suite of offices. They walked along a wide corridor and she was conscious of the guard trailing close behind them, of thick carpet underfoot, high walls hung with expensive artwork and a hushed atmosphere. But the escalating flutter of nerves in her belly made everything else a blur.

And then they entered a big corner office and every shred of her attention was snagged and held by the man sitting behind the massive oak desk.

Jordan had seen photos of him online. Not many, mind you. Unlike his younger brother, of whom there were literally hundreds of photos scattered across the Internet, Xavier de la Vega appeared to value his privacy. But as her breath caught and her hands inexplicably shook she realised those two-dimensional images had not in any way prepared her for a personal, up-close encounter with this devastatingly handsome man.

And his eyes.

Grey...just like Camila’s.

Her throat thickened and she had to swallow hard and blink fast to contain her emotion.

He stood, and she was struck by his height. Six foot at least, which surprised her. Her stepmother had been tiny, her figure perfectly proportioned but petite. By the time Jordan had turned sixteen she’d easily been able to rest her chin on top of Camila’s head when they’d hugged.

He walked around the desk and she saw that everything about him, from his neatly cropped black hair to his tailored grey suit and expensive-looking leather shoes, was immaculate. Even the full Windsor knot in his tie looked as if it had been flawlessly executed.

He had an air of authority about him—and something else she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Arrogance?

Impatience?

Her gaze went to the hard line of his jaw and then up to his high, intelligent forehead and slashing jet-black eyebrows.

Yes, she concluded with a touch of unease. This man looked as if he had little tolerance for weakness or compromise.

Suddenly she was conscious of the silence blanketing the room. Of the fact that he was returning her scrutiny with hard, narrowed eyes. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even step forward and offer to shake her hand in greeting. Which probably wasn’t a bad thing, given her hands now felt as damp as soggy dishrags.

His attention shifted to his assistant. ‘Gràcies, Lucia,’ he said, his voice deep and rich and undeniably masculine. ‘Leave us, please.’

He looked to the guard and said something in Spanish—or perhaps he spoke in Catalan, since she’d read that he spoke both languages fluently, along with English and French—and she tried to pretend her knees hadn’t just gone a little weak. She loved the romance languages, and despite his forbidding demeanour there was something indescribably sexy about the way Xavier de la Vega spoke in his native tongue.

The guard responded, but whatever he said it only drew a terse, dismissive word from his boss, and he quickly joined Lucia in vacating the room, closing the door on his way out.

Those grey eyes—a shade or two darker than Camila’s, she realised now—settled on her again.

‘My staff are concerned for my safety.’

It wasn’t the start to their conversation she’d anticipated. She blinked, confused. ‘Why?’

‘They believe you might pose a threat,’ he elaborated, watching her closely. ‘Do you, Ms Walsh?’

Her eyes widened. ‘A physical threat, you mean?’ The notion was so preposterous a little laugh bubbled up her throat. ‘Hardly.’

‘Indeed.’ His tone and the way his gaze raked over her, as though assessing her physical capabilities, implied that he too considered the idea ludicrous. ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asked abruptly.

‘No,’ she said, trying to ignore the disconcerting pulse of heat that fired through her body in the wake of his cursory appraisal. ‘Why would you think that?’

His penetrating gaze locked onto hers. ‘Journalists have a tendency to get creative in their attempts to access whomever they’re pursuing.’

She frowned. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’

‘You claim to be my stepsister.’

‘Ah...’ She felt her cheeks grow pink. ‘I can explain that...’

‘Can you, Ms Walsh?’ His tone was hard. ‘Because the last time I checked my parents were still happily married—to each other. To my knowledge, neither of them is hiding additional spouses or secret stepchildren.’

Her blush intensified. She had expected this to be tricky. It was why she’d put such careful thought into what she would say and how she’d say it if she ever got the chance. But now that she was here and he was standing before her, so much more imposing in the flesh than she’d imagined, she couldn’t recall a single one of the sentences she’d so painstakingly crafted in her mind.

She swallowed. ‘Um... Maybe we could sit down?’ she suggested.

For a long moment he didn’t move, just stood there staring at her, eyes narrowed to slits of silver-grey as if he were debating whether to have her thrown out or let her stay. Finally, just as her composure teetered on the brink of collapse, he gestured to a chair in front of his desk.

Relief pushed a smile onto her face. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and noted that he waited until she was seated before sitting in his own chair.

It was a simple, old-fashioned courtesy that made her warm to him a bit—until he opened his mouth again.

‘Start talking, Ms Walsh. I don’t have all evening.’

The smile evaporated from her face. Good grief. Was he this brusque with everyone? Or only with strangers who dared to ask for a piece of his precious time?

She sat up a little straighter and said, ‘Jordan.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘My first name is Jordan.’

He drummed the long, tapered fingers of his right hand on the top of the desk, then abruptly stopped, curling his hand into a loose fist. ‘Your accent—is it Australian?’

‘Yes. I’m from Melbourne.’

She paused, took a deep breath, then opened her tote bag and pulled out her red leather-bound journal. She undid the clasp and lifted the cover. The sealed envelope and the two photos she’d carefully tucked inside the journal were still there, safe and sound.

‘Until recently I lived there with my stepmother.’ She picked up one of the photos and held it out, her arm extended across the desk. ‘Camila Walsh.’

He glanced at the photo, but no flicker of recognition showed on his face. Jordan didn’t know why that should disappoint her. Of course he wouldn’t recognise her stepmother.

But her eyes...

Could he not see they were his eyes?

‘Her maiden name was Sanchez,’ she added. ‘She was originally from a small village north of here.’

‘Was?’

A stillness had come over him and Jordan hesitated, all the doubts she’d thought she’d laid to rest suddenly rearing up again, pushing at the walls of her resolve. For the past ten days she’d ridden a wave of certainty, firm in her belief that what she was doing was not only the right thing but a good thing.

After weeks of feeling lost and alone, adrift, with no job, nothing and no one left in the world to anchor her, she’d booked her flights to Spain almost with a sense of euphoria.

‘She died six weeks ago.’

Somehow she managed to say the words without her voice wobbling. She lowered her arm and stared down at the photo of her stepmother.

‘I am sorry for your loss.’

She looked up. The sentiment in his deep voice had sounded genuine. ‘Thank you.’

Her gaze meshed with his and the intensity of those sharp, intelligent eyes made her breath catch in her throat. She shifted a bit, unsettled by her escalating awareness of him. He was so handsome. So compelling. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. And that preternatural stillness in his body... It was disconcerting, making her think of the big, predatory cats in the wildlife documentaries her dad had loved to watch.

She took another deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth, the way Camila had taught her to do as a child to combat stress. He was waiting for her to speak—to spell out why she was here. Did he already have an inkling? She searched his face, but the chiselled features were impassive, giving nothing away.

Adopting the tone she often used at work when a mix of practicality and compassion was required, she said, ‘Camila was your birth mother.’

The statement landed between them like a burning stick of dynamite tossed into the room. Jordan braced herself for its impact, her whole body tensing, but if Xavier de la Vega was even mildly shocked he hid it well.

‘You have proof of this?’

She blinked at him. It was such a cool, controlled response—far less emotional than anything she’d expected—but she counselled herself not to read too much into it. At twenty-six years of age, and after five years of working as a trauma nurse, she’d seen people react in all kinds of ways in all sorts of life-altering situations. Often what showed on the surface belied the tumult within.

She slid the other photo from her journal across the desk to him. This one was older, its colours faded, the edges a little bit worn.

He leaned forward, gave the photo a cursory glance, then drew back. ‘This tells me nothing,’ he said dismissively.

Jordan withdrew her hand, leaving the photo on his desk. ‘It’s you,’ she said, and it gave her heart a funny little jolt to think that the tiny, innocent baby in the photo had grown into the powerful, intimidating man before her.

His frown sharpened and he flicked his hand towards the photo, the gesture faintly disdainful. ‘This child could be anyone.’

She reached forward and flipped the photo over. The blue ink on the back had faded with time, but Camila’s handwriting was still legible. ‘It says “Xavier”,’ she pointed out, and waited, sensing his reluctance to look again. When he did, she saw his eyes widen a fraction. ‘And the date of birth underneath... I believe it’s—’

‘Mine,’ he bit out, cutting her off before she could finish. He sat back, nostrils flaring, a white line of tension forming around his mouth. ‘It is no secret that I am adopted. An old photo with my forename and my birth date written on it proves nothing.’

‘Perhaps not,’ she conceded, determined to hold her nerve in the face of his denial and the hostility she sensed was gathering in him. ‘But my stepmother told me things. Details that only your adoptive parents or your birth mother could know.’

His eyes darkened, the grey irises no more than a glint of cold steel between the thick fringes of his ebony lashes. ‘Such as?’

Her lips felt bone-dry all of a sudden, and she moistened them with her tongue. ‘Thirty-five years ago Regina Martinez worked as a housekeeper for your parents,’ she began, carefully reciting the details Camila had shared with her for the first time just a month before she had died. ‘She had an eighteen-year-old unmarried niece who fell pregnant. At the time, your parents were considering adopting a child after your mother had had several miscarriages. A private adoption was arranged, and soon after you were born—at a private hospital here in Barcelona which your parents paid for—they took you home.’

And the young Camila had been devastated, even though she had done the only thing she could. The alternative—living as an unwed mother under her strict father’s roof in their small, conservative village—would have heaped as much misery and shame on her child’s life as on her own.

Knowing first-hand how it felt to be genuinely unwanted by one’s biological mother, Jordan hoped Xavier would see Camila’s decision not as an act of rejection or abandonment, but one of love.

She waited for him to say something. It was perfectly understandable that he might need a minute or two to process what she had told him. Something like this was—

‘What do you want, Ms Walsh?’

Her thoughts slammed to a halt, the question—not to mention the distinct chill in his voice—taking her by surprise. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Money?’

She stared at him. ‘Money?’ she echoed blankly.

His gaze was piercing, the colour of his eyes the dark pewter of storm clouds under his lowered brows. ‘It is common knowledge that my family is one of the wealthiest in Spain. You would not be the first to claim a tenuous connection in hopes of a hand-out.’

A hand-out? Her head snapped back as if he’d flung acid at her face. She gripped the edges of her journal, shock receding beneath a rush of indignation. ‘That is offensive,’ she choked out.

‘Quite,’ he agreed. ‘Which is why I will ask you again—what do you want, Ms Walsh?’

Jordan felt her heart begin to pound. How on earth could this arrogant, imperious man be her stepmother’s son?

Camila had been a kind, gentle soul, who’d always looked for the best in people despite the heartbreak she’d suffered early in her life.

Jordan looked at the envelope she’d placed with such reverent care between the pages of her journal. She’d carried the envelope halfway around the world and not once had she been tempted to snoop inside it. The letter it contained was private, sacred—the precious words of a dying woman to her son.

Lifting her chin, she looked him in the eye, letting him know he didn’t intimidate her—that she had nothing to feel ashamed about. She held up the envelope. ‘I came here to give you this.’

‘And what is “this”?’

‘A letter from your birth mother.’

‘Camila Walsh?’

‘Yes—your birth mother,’ she reiterated.

A muscle worked in his jaw. His gaze flicked to the photo that lay face-down on his desk, then back to her. ‘A claim which is, at present, unsubstantiated.’

Jordan let her hand fall back to her lap, her frustration so great she wanted to slap her palm against the top of his desk and demand to know why he was being so bloody-minded. Instead, she clamped her back teeth together and waited for the impulse to pass.

She was not someone who flew off the handle at the slightest provocation. She might have been saddled with her mother’s unruly flame-coloured hair but she hadn’t, thank goodness, inherited her fiery personality.

Suddenly she felt as cross with herself as she did with him. Why hadn’t she been better prepared for this kind of reaction? Had she imagined that because she and Camila had been close she would automatically feel some sort of instant kinship with this man?

Sadly, she had. She’d tucked her grief away in a safely locked compartment of her heart, donned those silly rose-coloured glasses she should have learnt to distrust years ago, and set off on her mission to deliver Camila’s letter and scatter her ashes in the homeland she’d left thirty-three years before.

It was the final thing Jordan would be able to do for her stepmom—for the woman whose love and kindness had helped to heal the wound Jordan’s mother had inflicted years earlier with her abrupt, unapologetic departure from her daughter’s life.

And, embarrassing though it was to admit it, Jordan had built up a little fantasy in her head—imagining herself striking up a friendship with Camila’s son, having a kind of stepsibling relationship with him—which, now that she was here, seemed totally laughable.

This was not a man she could imagine having such a relationship with. Girls did not look at their brothers and feel their skin prickle and heat or their mouths go dry.

He wasn’t even the sort of man she liked. In fact he was everything she disliked. Arrogant. Superior. Unfeeling. A self-appointed demigod in a power suit, ruling his kingdom from the top of his gilded tower.

And Jordan knew all about men with god complexes, didn’t she? She’d dated a surgeon whose ego was the size of the Sydney Opera House and then—even worse, because she should have known better—she’d moved in with him and decided she was in love.

Jamming the brakes on her runaway thoughts, she focused on the cold, handsome face of the man in front of her and made a snap decision. ‘I don’t think you’re ready for this letter, Mr de la Vega.’

And in that moment she knew she wasn’t ready to relinquish it—because what if he didn’t treat it with the respect it deserved? What if he threw it away without even reading it?

Stiffening her resolve, she tucked the envelope into her journal, then tore out a blank page from the back, pulled a pen from her tote bag and scribbled down her mobile number. ‘I’ll be staying at the Hostel Jardí across town for a few more days and then I’m travelling to Mallorca and then Madrid.’ She put the piece of paper on his desk. ‘If you want to reach me, here’s my number.’ She bundled her things back into her tote and slung the strap over her shoulder. ‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr de la Vega.’ And she turned to go.

‘Ms Walsh.’

His deep, commanding voice brought her to a standstill and her heart leapt with hope. Had he had an epiphany? Realised, perhaps, that he’d behaved abominably?

Breath held, she turned back...and her heart landed with a heavy thud of disappointment.

He was standing, arm extended, holding out the photo she’d left on his desk—the one of himself as a baby. ‘You forgot this.’

Releasing her breath, she shook her head. ‘It’s yours. Keep it—or throw it away. Up to you.’

She continued on to the door, and for a few agonising seconds her nerveless fingers fumbled with the handle while her nape prickled from the unsettling sensation of his gaze drilling into her back.

But he didn’t call her name again. Didn’t attempt to stop her.

As she walked past his assistant’s desk and the stunning Lucia half rose out of her chair, Jordan held up her palm. ‘I can see myself out, thanks.’

Her chest was so tight it wasn’t until she stepped onto the street forty-four storeys below that she felt able to draw a full, oxygen-laden breath into her lungs again.

But as she set off across the city no amount of deep breathing could lift the weight from her heart.

Damn him.

What was she supposed to do now with her stepmom’s letter?