Mistress of La Rioja

DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

There was a heartbeat of a pause while she considered the alternative. “I will,” she said in a low voice, thinking with a poignant longing how much like a wedding vow that sounded. But he was not offering her marriage. He wanted her, yes, and he was entrusting her with the care of his son. But not love. Not marriage.

His mistress and his son’s caregiver.

“You would leave all this behind?” he asked.

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Because of your son.” She faltered, and saw his face suddenly become closed.

“And…and for you, Luis.”

“But what for me, exactly, querida?” he questioned softly.

“I want you.”

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Mistress of La Rioja

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my darling TK, who has inspired more passion and romance than he will ever know…

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE phone chose precisely the wrong moment to ring. Up to her eyes in spreadsheets, Sophie gave a little groan of irritation as she clicked the button up. She still had masses to get through, which was why she had been in the office since the crack of dawn.

She normally worked from around eight until late—however late she needed to be to get the job done; no one could ever accuse Sophie of a lack of dedication, but for once she wanted to leave early. To spend an outrageously indolent time getting ready for a date. A hot date, too—with Oliver Duncan, owner of rival ad agency Duncan’s.

She wriggled her shoulders with anticipation—because she was about to spend the evening with one of London’s most eligible men and was currently the envy of all her single girlfriends!

‘Now, I did say I didn’t want to be disturbed, Narell,’ she joked in mock-stern tone, knowing full well that Narell was the best assistant in the world, so maybe it was important. It had better be!

But Narell’s voice sounded strained. ‘I’m afraid that this man wouldn’t take no for an answer. He insisted he speak to you.’

Sophie pulled a face.

‘Insisted, did he?’ she mused aloud. ‘I’m not sure I like men who insist! Who is it?’

‘It’s…it’s…’ Narell cleared her throat, as if she couldn’t quite believe the name she was saying. ‘It’s Don Luis de la Camara.’

Luis.

Luis!

Sophie gripped the desk as if holding on to it for dear life. How mad, how crazy—that just the mention of his name was enough to bring her out into a cold sweat.

She felt excitement. Gut-wrenching and stomach-melting excitement. And then, hard on the heels of excitement came guilt. She felt its icy heat pin-pricking at her brow.

Just what was it about Luis de la Camara? She knew what kind of man he was. Shallow and sexy and completely out of bounds, and yet here she was now, calm and rational Sophie—Sophie who was supposed to be excited at the thought of dating Oliver— only now her heart was racing like a speeding train as she stared at the phone. Oliver was forgotten, and in his place exploded the dark presence of the most formidable man she had ever met.

But she pulled herself together, wondering why the arrogant Spaniard was ringing her here, at work, and demanding to speak to her, no less!

Ruing the day that her cousin had ever married him, Sophie gave a reluctant nod. ‘OK, Narell. You can put him through.’

‘Right.’

There was a momentary pause and then Sophie heard the unmistakable voice of Luis de la Camara, pouring like rich, sensual honey down through the intercom, and despite her good intentions she felt the slow wash of awareness creeping colour across her pale cheeks. He’s married, she reminded herself, and he’s married to your cousin. A man you despise, remember?

But animosity was an acquired skill she had learned along the way. She had had to teach herself to hate him. Far better to hate a man than to admit that he excited you in a way which was as frightening as it was inappropriate. And how could you feel anything other than hate for a man who could look at a woman with pure, undiluted lust in his eyes—just days before he was due to be married to her cousin?

‘Soph-ie?’

He said her name as no one else did. The slight lilt to the voice, the faintest idiomatic Spanish accent which could send goosebumps all over your skin. She hastily clicked the switch down and grabbed the receiver—the last thing she wanted was the amplification of those dark, richly accented tones filling her office.

‘This is she,’ she answered crisply. She put her pen down. ‘Well, this is certainly a surprise, Luis.’ And how was that for understatement?

‘Yes.’

His voice sounded unfamiliar. Heavy. Hard. Burdened. And Sophie suddenly felt some ghastly premonition shiver its way over her skin as logic replaced her first instinctive reaction to hearing him. Her voice rose in fright. ‘What’s happened? Why are you ringing me at work?’

There was a moment of silence which only increased her foreboding, because Sophie had never heard Luis hesitate before. Indecision was not on his agenda. Some men were never at a loss for words and de la Camara was a prime example.

‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Are you sitting down?’

‘Yes! Luis, for God’s sake—tell me!’

In another world, another country away, Luis flinched. There was no easy way to say it, nothing he could do to ease the painful words. ‘It’s Miranda,’ he began slowly. ‘I am afraid to have to tell you, Sophie, that there has been a terrible accident. Your cousin…she has been killed. Murio en un accidente de coche,’ he finished on a note of disbelief, as if only repeating the words in his native tongue could make him believe the terrible truth himself.

A cry was torn from Sophie’s throat, so that she sounded like a wounded animal. ‘No!’

‘It is true,’ he said.

‘She’s dead? Miranda is dead?’ she questioned, as if, even now, he still had the opportunity to deny it. To make it go away.

‘Sì. I am sorry, Soph-ie. So very sorry.’

Buffeting against the sick feeling in her stomach, the words punched their way home.

Dead! Miranda dead? ‘But she can’t be dead!’ Sophie whimpered. How could a beautiful woman of twenty-five be no more? ‘Say it isn’t true, Luis.’

‘Do you not think that if I could I would?’ he said, and his deep voice sounded almost gentle as he carried on with the grim story. ‘She died in a car crash earlier today.’

‘No.’ She shuddered, and closed her eyes.

Until an even more horrific scenario reared its terrifying head and they snapped open again. ‘What about Teodoro?’ she cried, her heart clenching with fear as she thought about her adorable little nephew. ‘He—he wasn’t with her, was he?’

‘In the early hours of the morning?’ he questioned heavily. ‘No, Sophie, he was not with her. My son was tucked up in bed, safely asleep.’

‘Oh, thank God!’ she breathed, and, just as a great wave of grief pierced her like a dagger, so did his words imprint themselves on her consciousness.

If Teodoro was tucked up safely in bed, then what was Miranda doing out in the early hours of the morning—and how come Luis had not been injured? Unless…unless he had been injured. ‘Were you hurt yourself, Luis?’ she questioned unsteadily.

In the fan-cooled air of the vast hacienda, Luis’s hard, dark features set themselves into bleak and unforgiving lines. ‘I was not in the car,’ he said roughly.

Though her thoughts were fragmented by the enormity of what he had told her, Sophie frowned in confusion. Why not? she wondered. Why was Miranda travelling in the early hours without her family?

Her fingers clenched themselves into a tight little fist. The whys and the wheres and the hows were not appropriate—not now, not when the cold practicalities of death must be dealt with in as sympathetic a way as possible.

And Luis must be grieving—he must be. Despite the ups and downs of a marriage which Sophie knew had definitely not been made in heaven. His wife— the mother of his son—had met a tragically early end, and, no matter what had gone on before, Luis’s world had imploded.

Her own feelings about him didn’t count—not at a time like this. He was owed her condolences and not her hostility.

‘I’m…I’m so sorry,’ she said stiffly.

‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘I rang to tell you the news myself rather than having the police contact you. And to enquire whether you wish me to ring your grandmother…’

His words reminded her of the awful task which lay ahead—of telling her elderly and now frail grandmother what had happened. Sophie drew in a painful breath, thankful that her cousin’s parents had been spared the ordeal of learning the fate of their beautiful daughter. For wasn’t the premature death of a child the most terrible bereavement of all—even if they had treated Miranda with a kind of absent carelessness?

Miranda’s parents had been nomads at heart, inveterate travellers who had journeyed to all four corners of the earth, greedily seeking out new experiences, never growing tired of the adventure of the unexplored. Until one day when their light aircraft had plummeted out of the sky and into the unforgiving mountains. Miranda had been just seventeen at the time, and soon after that, she had begun to live as though there were no tomorrow.

And now there never would be, not for her.

‘No.’ Biting back her tears, Sophie slowly let the word out. ‘I will tell my grandmother myself, in person. It’ll be easier…’ She swallowed. She wouldn’t break down in front of him, she wouldn’t. ‘Less painful, coming from me.’ And try somehow to contact her own parents, who were having their own holiday of a lifetime, ensconced in luxury on some vast, ocean-going liner.

‘You’re sure?’ he questioned.

‘Yes.’

‘It will be…hard,’ he said, but his voice was un-characteristically soft now, soft as butter. ‘She is an old woman now.’

She steeled herself not to react to that murmuring voice, because it was vital that she remained impervious to Luis de la Camara—for all their sakes. ‘It is thoughtful of you to care.’

Did she mock him with that cool, unfathomable tone of hers? ‘Of course. She is family, Sophie—what did you expect?’

What did she expect? She didn’t know, and she wondered how he could ask her a question like that at a time like this.

She hadn’t expected her beloved Miranda to die so needlessly, or for her nephew to grow up without a mother, so far away from the land of her birth.

Teo.

Just the thought of him focused Sophie’s grief into energy and resolution. ‘Wh-when is the funeral?’

‘On Monday.’

Which gave her three days.

‘I’ll be there. I’ll fly out on Sunday.’

And, to Luis’s appalled horror, he felt the stirring of triumph and the impossible ache of knowing that soon he would see her once more, and he cursed the body which betrayed him so completely. ‘Contact my home or my office to let me know the times of your flight,’ he said tightly. ‘You will have to fly to Madrid and then take a connection on to Pamplona. I will arrange to have a car pick you up at the airport. Have you got that?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, thinking how in control he sounded, until she remembered that he was in control—always—and that, whatever happened, it was Luis de la Camara who was calling the shots.

‘Adios, Sophie,’ he drawled softly.

With a shaking hand, Sophie let the phone fall down into its cradle, and at the harsh finality of the sound reaction set in at last. She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, her mind spinning with disbelief as she thought of Miranda.

Her poor cousin—dying alone in a strange, foreign country! Poor, sweet Miranda—envied by so many women, solely because she was married to a man so universally desired. A man whose child she had borne, whose money she had enjoyed, but whose heart had always been tantalisingly locked away from her.

A man, moreover, whose black eyes glittered with such stark sexual promise that Sophie could not imagine that he would have been able to remain faithful for even the first year of marriage.

After all, she had ignored the unmistakable invitation she had read there, but that was because she loved Miranda. She doubted whether other women would have such scrupulous morals where Luis de la Camara was concerned.

And now a little baby would now have to grow up without a mother.

Sophie’s gaze was drawn to the silver-framed photo which stood in pride of place on her desk and she picked it up and studied it.

It showed Teodoro and it had been taken just before his first birthday, only a few short weeks ago. He was an adorable child, but Teodoro’s looks owed very little to her cousin’s exquisite blonde beauty. Instead his face was stamped with the magnificent dominance of his father’s colouring, and as she stared at it the image of his hard and handsome face came flooding back into her mind with bitter clarity.

Gleaming black eyes, fringed with sinfully thick lashes and hair which was as dark as the moonless night she had first met him. When she had virtually bumped into him in the deli at the end of her road and he had stopped dead, stared at her intensely, as if he knew her from somewhere, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

And the feeling had been mutual. When just for a moment her heart had leapt with a wild and unexpected joy. And an unmistakable lust which had set up a slow, sweet aching.

The kind of thing which wasn’t supposed to happen to sensible city girls who were cool and calm in matters of the heart.

Was it possible to fall in love in a split-second? she remembered helplessly thinking as she gazed at the proud, aristocratic features she seemed to have spent her whole life waiting for.

She’d seen his eyes darken, the heated flare of awareness which moved along the angular curve of his high cheekbones. His lush lips had unconsciously parted and she’d seen a thoroughly instinctive movement as his tongue flicked through to moisten them, and outrageously she had imagined that tongue on her body…in her body…

She had never been looked at with quite such insolent and arrogant appraisal before. He wants me, she’d thought, with the warm flooding of awareness. And I want him, too. She had found herself wondering whether she would be able to resist him if he touched her, while at the same time asking if she had completely taken leave of her senses.

And then Miranda had appeared, carrying a bottle of champagne, her mouth falling open in surprise. ‘Sophie! Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, and glanced up at him, not seeming to notice the brittle tension in the air which surrounded them. ‘What an amazing coincidence! We were just on our way to see you, weren’t we, darling?’

Darling?

With a jolt which went deeper than disappointment, Sophie registered dully that Miranda was possessively touching the arm of the tall, dark man with the glittering eyes and the softly gleaming lips. And the champagne…

‘Are you—are you celebrating something?’ she questioned with a sinking heart as she quickly realised exactly what they must be celebrating.

‘We sure are! Sophie—I’d like to introduce you to Don Luis de la Camara,’ Miranda announced proudly and then smiled up into the dark, shuttered face. ‘Luis—this is my cousin, Sophie Mills.’

‘Your cousin?’ he questioned with a frown, and his voice was as rich and dark as bitter chocolate. The predatory look had disappeared in an instant, and Sophie had seen the rueful shrug which replaced it, knowing that Don Luis de la Camara would never look at her in that way again. As the cousin of his wife-to-be, she was much too close to home to play around with. But a man who looked like that just days before his wedding would play around. Sophie recognised that with a blinding certainty and she hated him for it.

‘Well, we spent all our holidays together—so we’re more like sisters, really!’ Miranda smiled her wide, infectious smile. ‘Sophie—we’re getting married! Isn’t it wonderful? Luis has asked me to marry him!’

Sophie shuddered as she remembered the jealousy which had ripped through her. To be jealous of your own cousin! But she had forced a smile and hugged Miranda and given Luis her hand, all too aware of the warm tingle as their flesh touched. And he had bent and raised her fingertips to his mouth, in an old-fashioned and courtly style—faithful to the manner of the Spanish aristocrat he was, his black eyes seeming to mock and to tantalise her in tandem.

They had gone back to her flat and drunk champagne and chinked glasses and toasted the future. But while Miranda had fizzed with life the Spaniard had sat watchfully, choosing his words with care, looking so right and yet so wrong in Sophie’s flat and her world. Because he was Miranda’s, she had reminded herself. Miranda’s.

With an effort she pushed away the disturbing memories and forced herself back to the present. Concentrating on the image of the child in the photo instead of the potent sexuality of his father.

At least Teodoro’s face still had the softness of innocence and she could see little of the indomitable nature which so defined Luis.

She wondered what would happen to Teodoro now—whether his mother’s memory would be allowed to fade until it was so distant that it was almost forgotten. Sophie bit her lip. What chance would he have of learning about his mother and the land of his mother’s birth?

And suddenly a sense of duty dulled some of the raw edge of sorrow. Luis shall not take him from us entirely, she vowed. I will fight for the opportunity to get to know him as if he were my own! And he will know me, too. With a trembling hand, she buzzed through to Narell to ask her to book her flight to Spain.

And then she washed her face, dragged a comb through her hair and called Liam Hollingsworth into the office, who took one look at her and started.

‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself?’ he demanded. ‘Are you OK?’

Her voice still trembling slightly, she said, ‘Not really, no.’

‘For God’s sake, Sophie—what’s the matter? What’s happened to you?’

She framed the unbelievable words. ‘It’s my cousin, Miranda,’ she told him. ‘She’s been…killed in an accident. I’ve…I’ve got to go and break the news to my grandmother—’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘And th-then fly on to Spain to the funeral.’

‘Oh, honey!’ He was round her side of the desk in an instant, staring down at her with a look of dazed concern on his face as she began to cry. ‘Honey!’

‘Oh, Liam!’ she sobbed.

‘Come here,’ he said gently, and put his arms around her.

She allowed herself to cry a little more, but after a couple of moments she broke away and went to stand by the window, staring out at a world which no longer looked the same place. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said dully.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘I know very few facts. Just that she was in a car crash. I was too…too shocked to ask for any details, I guess.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Her husband, Luis—he rang me from Spain to tell me.’

He frowned. ‘That’s the millionaire guy—the one you can’t stand?’

‘That’s the one,’ she said tightly, thinking how much more complex the truth was than a simple case of not being able to stand the man.

‘And when’s the funeral?’

‘Monday. I’m flying out on Sunday.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, Liam, I don’t know if I can bear it.’

He nodded understandingly. ‘Well, it’ll be hard, but at least after that you need never meet again.’

Sophie shook her head. ‘But it isn’t that easy. I wish it was. I can’t just spirit Luis out of my life, however much I might want to. Don’t forget—he’s the father of my nephew, and I feel I owe it to Miranda, and to Teodoro…’ The words seemed to come from an unknown place deep inside her. ‘To fight for him.’

Liam stared at her. ‘Fight for him?’ he echoed. ‘You surely don’t mean you’re going to apply for custody, Sophie? You wouldn’t stand a hope in hell. Not if he’s as rich and as powerful as you say he is. And he is the father.’

Tiredly, Sophie rubbed at her temples. ‘I don’t know what I mean—other than knowing I have to get out there. To let Teo know that he has relatives, and that we care.’

‘And once the funeral is over? Will you come straight back?’