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www.millsandboon.co.uk
For Anne Gracie, who introduced me to Diablo.
One fantastic author.
An even better friend.
Thanks, Anne, this one’s for you!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS much too late for a social call.
Briar Davenport crossed the entrance hall uneasily, the click of her heels on the dusty terrazzo tiles echoing in the lofty space while a premonition that all was not right in the world played havoc with her nerves.
Late-night visitors rarely meant good news.
The chimes rang out yet again and she reined in an unfamiliar urge to yell for whoever it was to hang on. But Davenports never yelled through doors—even when their senses were strained tight from trying to work out which family heirloom to send next to auction—it was bad enough that these days they were reduced to opening them.
Her hand hovered over the door handle for a moment while she took a deep breath, trying to calm her frayed nerves and think logically. It didn’t have to be bad news. Sooner or later their run of bad luck had to change. Why not tonight?
Then she pulled open the door and bad luck just got worse.
‘You!’
Diablo Barrentes leant into the open doorway, one arm propped high above her head, his black-clad torso arching over hers, and it was all she could do not to reel back from the sheer force of his hard-wired body. In the spill of the entry lighting he looked more like an extension of the night sky than a man—dark and filled with untold dangers. Tonight his shoulder-length black hair was pulled back into a short ponytail that did nothing to detract from his masculinity and everything to emphasize his dramatic buccaneer looks, but it was the flash of triumph in those black-lit eyes, the slight upturn at the corners of his full lips, that turned her thoughts to sudden panic and had her fingers itching to jam that piece of timber right back where it had come from.
Instead she forced herself to stand her ground, jagging her chin higher as if it might increase her already not insubstantial height. In heels her eyes fell but an inch short of his.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m surprised,’ he said, one side of his mouth rising higher as if amused by her efforts to match his height. ‘I half expected you to slam the door in my face.’
Oh, Lord, the last thing she needed was to be reminded of how much her fingers itched to do just that. Already her grip on the door had turned her knuckles white as she schooled her voice to clipped civility. ‘Then I don’t need to tell you you’re not welcome here.’
‘Still, I am here.’
Four words, four simple words, and yet spoken in the remnants of that rich Castilian accent like a threat. Fear tracked a spidery path through her veins.
‘Why?’
‘And how delightful to see you too, Briar,’ he said, ignoring her question while emphasizing her incivility. But being polite was hardly a concern to her right now. Not when his accent curled around her name as if he were devouring it.
As if he were devouring her.
She shivered. If he thought that, then he was definitely reading the wrong menu.
‘Believe me,’ she squeezed out, battling to keep her voice even, ‘the pleasure is all yours.’
He laughed, barely more than a chuckle, a low sound that rumbled, somehow insinuating itself into her flesh and right through to her bones.
‘Sí,’ he agreed, his eyes making no apology as they traversed her length, all the way from her eyes, searing a trail over her curves and down her designer denim-clad legs to her pink leather boots, and then all the way up again.
The slow way.
The hot way.
His eyes, heavy with raw heat and firm possession, finally returned to hers and it was all she could do to remember to breathe.
‘It’s been my pleasure, indeed,’ he murmured.
Anger bubbled to the surface with her very next intake of air, overtaking the slow sizzle his hooded gaze had left in its wake. How dared he look at her that way—as if he owned her? He had no right! Diablo Barrentes was kidding himself if he ever thought he would possess her. He’d never even come close.
Even so, she couldn’t stop herself crossing her arms over her chest. If her nipples looked anywhere near as rock-hard as they felt, he would be in no doubt as to how that seemingly lazy once-over had affected her, and she didn’t want him to know about it. She would rather not have to acknowledge that fact herself.
‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here.’
‘I’ve come to see your father.’
‘I doubt it. I seriously doubt my father would ever want to see you again—not after everything you’ve done to undermine his business and ruin our lives in the process.’
He shrugged, lifting his thick dark eyebrows in a way that told her he didn’t care what she thought, infuriating her even more.
‘Your doubts are not my concern. My business, however, is, and right now you are preventing me from conducting that business. So, if you’ll just move aside?’
She straightened, not budging an inch. ‘It’s late. And, even if it weren’t, you’re wasting your time. You’re the last person my father would want to do business with.’
His jaw shifted sideways as he leaned forward, his black eyes coming closer.
‘Then obviously you have no idea what your father is capable of.’
His warm breath brushed her face, testosterone laced with coffee overlaid with something far more potent—
Was it ruthlessness?
Or cruelty? And for the first time her fear became tangible. Now it wasn’t only the sight of him or the sound of his hard words in a smooth accent that she had to deal with; now she had the very essence of him assailing her lungs, assaulting her senses, testing her sanity.
And it was too much.
In spite of the balmy autumn night she could feel the heated moisture break out on her forehead; she could feel every muscle tightening in preparation for fight or flight.
What had brought this man here tonight? Why would he possibly think he would be offered entrée into their house—after doing his utmost to bring her family and two hundred years of history crumbling down with them?
Right now, it didn’t matter. Because there was one thing she registered instinctively—that, whatever this man was doing here, no good could come of it. And he’d made her family suffer enough as it was.
The answer was as patently simple as it was critical. Diablo Barrentes wouldn’t cross this threshold, not while she rode shotgun.
‘Briar? Who is it, dear?’
Surprised her mother was still awake, she still only let her head tilt slightly in the direction of her voice. There was no way she was taking her eyes off the dark nemesis before her. ‘It’s no one important. I’ve taken care of it.’ And with a rush of satisfaction she reached for the handle and attempted to ram the door home.
She didn’t even come close. Like a lightning bolt, his hand shot out, palm flat and long fingers outstretched, arresting the path of the heavy door dead. Then, with just one cast-iron shove, he pushed it right back and clean out of her grasp.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she cried out in both fury and shock as the door swung wildly past her, leaving him standing exposed in the open doorway like some angry black spider determined that its meal was not going to escape.
‘Briar!’ her mother cried, her voice tense and sharp as a rapier. ‘Let Mr Barrentes in.’
She turned to face her mother fully this time. ‘You can’t be serious. Not after—’
‘I am serious,’ the older woman said in barely more than a whisper, one arm held tight around her chest, the fingers of her other hand nervously clutching at her throat. ‘Your father’s been expecting him. Come in, Mr Barrentes. Cameron’s waiting for you in the library. I apologise for my daughter’s lack of decorum.’
Briar reeled as if she’d been slapped in the face. But her mother had a point. So much for her Davenport breeding; it had gone out the door the moment she’d opened it, no match at all for dealing with a man like Diablo.
‘It’s quite all right,’ he said, striding past Briar’s stunned form with barely an acknowledgement. ‘I find there’s nothing I enjoy more these days than a woman with spirit.’
Her mother closed her eyes and seemed to sway on her feet for a moment. ‘Quite,’ she said, after recovering her composure, not quite able or willing to meet her daughter’s concerned gaze. ‘Well, if you come this way, Mr Barrentes…’
‘What’s going on?’
Carolyn Davenport turned to her daughter, or rather almost to her, focusing on a point somewhere over her shoulder. ‘Perhaps you could close the door, dear; there’s a real chill in the air tonight. Then maybe you could get the men some coffee and brandy? I’m sure they have plenty to discuss.’
Her mother had to be kidding. If there was a chill in the air it had more to do with the black cloud she’d just admitted into the house rather than the ambient temperature. And be damned if she’d serve what little was left of the good brandy to the likes of Diablo Barrentes, the man who’d almost single-handedly cost one of the oldest and most respected Sydney families its fortune.
‘I’ll get my father anything he needs,’ she conceded, swinging the door closed, realising she was abandoning any hint of good breeding and yet unable to stop herself. ‘But I’m sorry, Mother, Diablo can fend for himself.’
Half an hour later she was still simmering over the presence of their unwanted guest when her mother found her sitting alone in the kitchen.
‘Has he gone?’ she asked.
Her mother shook her head and Briar felt her blood pressure spike before forcing her attention back to the screen. Not that she could concentrate when her head was full of one take-no-prisoners Spaniard. Damn the man! What could he possibly want of her father now? There was nothing left for him to take. Even the family home—the last remaining asset—was now mortgaged to the hilt.
‘What are you doing, sweetheart?’ her mother asked as she came around behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder and stroking with gentle pressure. Briar smiled as she leaned her head into the caress, feeling some of her tension dissipate under her mother’s touch.
‘It’s that schedule I’ve been working on, listing the furniture and artworks you and Dad decided you could bear to part with. I’ve spoken to the auctioneer and, rather than sending everything off in one big lot, it looks like if we send the right pieces to auction every two or three months, we’ll still have enough to meet our commitments.’
‘Oh? Is that right?’ Her mother’s hand stopped moving and she shifted to the stool alongside, the tight frown that marred her brow as she contemplated the detail of the spreadsheet’s contents adding at least ten years to her age.
And suddenly Briar regretted her earlier behaviour at the front door. Carolyn Davenport had been barely more than a shell of her former self lately, her skin pale and drawn, her emotions brittle. The stress of their money troubles was taking its toll on all of them, but on none more so than on her mother, who was still feeling the loss of her eldest child two years before. Almost too reluctant to venture downtown any more, she’d been constantly humiliated by the newspaper articles documenting the family’s downfall and the endless pitying looks from one-time society friends. And, despite the provocation of the most arrogant male in the world, Briar hadn’t helped the situation by behaving more like a teenager in a snit than the twenty-four-year-old woman she was.
With a few quick clicks of her finger, she saved the spreadsheet and closed down the computer. Being reminded of the family heirlooms that would soon no longer be theirs was no doubt the last thing her mother needed right now. ‘Don’t worry; I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. We’ll work our way through this, I know we will. And if that job I was promised at the gallery comes through, things will be even better.’
Her mother placed her hand over hers and patted it lightly. ‘You’re so good to do all of this. And with any luck we might not have to sell everything after all. Your father’s hoping there might just be another way out of this mess.’
Briar swivelled around to face her mother, her hands held palms up. ‘But what else is there? We’ve done the rounds of the banks and the financiers; we’ve tried everything going. I thought we’d run out of options.’
‘All except one,’ she said, her eyes taking on a sudden spark. ‘Just today it seems we’ve been offered something of a lifeline. The loans paid off and a settlement—a large one, enough for us to get the staff back and live like we used to, without having to sell everything and scrimp and save. It’ll be just like before—like nothing ever happened. Except…’ Her mother’s fast and furious speech ran down as she turned her head in the direction of the library, a look of bleakness extinguishing the spark, turning her eyes grey and cold, frosty needles ascended Briar’s spine.
‘Oh, no! You can’t mean Diablo? Please tell me this has nothing to do with why that man is here tonight.’
Her mother didn’t answer and despair pumped unchallenged through her system. She launched herself off her stool and put her hands up in protest. ‘But this is all his fault! He’s almost single-handedly brought about the downfall of the Davenport family. Why should he then turn around and offer help? It makes no sense. There’s nothing left for him to take.’
Her mother stood and came closer, tucking one renegade tendril of hair behind her daughter’s ear before running her hands down her arms, squeezing them at her elbows. ‘Right now we’re hardly in a position to be choosy.’
‘But he’s so awful! The way he swaggers around Sydney like he owns the place.’
Her mother raised her eyebrows on a breath. ‘Well, these days that’s probably somewhere close to the truth.’ She smiled weakly. ‘But just think, he can’t be all bad. He must have some redeeming features, don’t you think?’
Briar snorted. ‘They’re well and truly hidden if he has.’
‘And he is a very good-looking man.’
‘I guess, if you go for the bandit look.’ She frowned, the direction her mother’s arguments were taking suddenly niggling at her. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about Diablo Barrentes. The same Diablo Barrentes who has set out to bring down the Sydney establishment, and the Davenport family first and foremost. What’s it matter what he loo—’
‘Briar—’ her father’s gruff tones interrupted them from behind ‘—I’m glad you’re still up. Can you spare me a minute or two?’
She breathed a sigh of relief. Her father’s appearance meant Diablo must have gone at last, and good riddance to him. She was sick of feeling on tenterhooks in her own home. And at least now she might find out what was going on. If her father was planning on accepting help from Diablo, she’d have a few things to say about it first.
‘You go with your father,’ her mother urged, her smile too thin, too unconvincing, as she gestured towards the door. ‘We’ve finished anyway.’
She caught the loaded look that passed between her parents. Something was going on. Why didn’t her parents look happier if there was a lifeline in the offing?
Or were Barrentes’s terms too costly?
A sick feeling snaked in her gut. Nothing would surprise her. Diablo would be sure to want to stick the boot in now that he had her father down.
Damn the man. She’d do everything possible to ensure they could avoid his greedy clutches.
‘Actually,’ her mother piped up, catching her daughter’s hand in a sudden change of heart, ‘maybe I should come along with you.’
‘No!’ insisted Cameron, insinuating himself between the two women and breaking their grasp. ‘You stay here,’ he directed at his wife. ‘This won’t take long. And then I could probably use another coffee.’
‘So are you ever going to tell me what’s going on?’ Briar asked her father a few moments later, wishing he would say something—anything—as he led her through the house. His silence was unsettling. ‘What did Diablo want?’
Just outside the library he paused and turned to her, taking both her hands in his, the look on his face almost one of defeat, and this close up she was shocked to see how dark and heavy those circles under his eyes really were. It might be late but it was clear the stress of their circumstances was eating away at him, too. From inside the library the old grandfather clock ticked away the seconds ominously.
‘Briar,’ he said on a sigh, ‘before we go any further, I want you to know that I didn’t want this to happen, you have to believe that.’ He peered at her so intently she could feel his utter desperation, his bony hands cold and unsettlingly clammy around her own.
She swallowed. ‘You didn’t mean what to happen?’
‘I need you help,’ he continued, evading her question, ‘even though I know that what I am asking of you may be too much.’
‘It’s okay,’ she replied with a confidence she didn’t feel, squeezing his hands back. She tried desperately to raise a smile but a racing heart and a mind filled with shadows and creeping foreboding wouldn’t let her. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’
A dark flicker of movement wrenched her attention away from her father as a prickle of awareness skittered along her skin.
Diablo! So he hadn’t left after all! And now he stood leaning casually against the doorway. Although the look on his face was anything but.
Victory, his features proclaimed.
It was there in the dangerous glint in his eyes. It was there in the voracious tilt of his smile. And it was there in the menacing darkness of his attitude.
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Diablo announced, answering for her father, his teeth flashing dangerously as he levered himself away from the door and closer to her.
‘Your father merely expects you to marry me.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘IF THAT’S your idea of a joke, Mr Barrentes…’ Briar’s voice sounded strangely calm in spite of the explosions going off behind her eyes ‘…I’d say you were seriously overdue for a sense of humour transplant.’
He laughed. Or rather he rumbled, that low rolling sound that vibrated uncomfortably through her.
She bristled, trying to dispel the rush of heat that came with his proximity. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see the joke.’
His mouth quietened, his eyes stilled. On hers. ‘That’s because it is no joke. Your father has agreed that you will marry me.’
For a moment she was speechless. But only for a moment. Then it was her turn to laugh, wiping away his wild assertions with a sweep of one hand. ‘You’re crazy! Dad, tell him how ludicrous he sounds. There’s no way you’d ever expect me to do something so absurd as to marry someone like him.’ She looked at her father, inviting him to agree—imploring him to agree—but her father said nothing, his eyes more desolate than she’d ever seen them, and the laughter died on her lips just as hope died in her heart.
‘Briar,’ he said in the bare bones of a whisper, reaching for her shoulder, ‘you have to understand—’
A hitched moment of realisation passed and then, ‘No!’ She recoiled from both his touch and from what his eyes told her. ‘There’s nothing to understand.’
‘Please,’ her father pleaded, ‘before you mother hears us.’ He motioned them both into the room before closing the door behind them. ‘You must listen to me.’
Her mind a blur, she let herself be bustled inside the room before she turned on her father, blurting out just how she felt. ‘How can I listen when what you say makes no sense?’
‘And how can you say it makes no sense,’ Diablo argued from the sidelines, one arrogant eyebrow cocked, ‘if you don’t listen?’
She snapped her head around in his direction. ‘If I’d wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it.’
He didn’t look nonplussed. Far from it. In fact he looked altogether too pleased with himself as he leant back against her father’s desk, his hands planted wide either side of him, pulling his shirt taut across a muscled chest that looked far better than any man’s had a right to. The open V of his shirt revealed olive skin that was impossibly smooth, almost glossy, and a hint of dark chest hair. She forced her eyes higher, aware that she’d been staring. Her mother was right. Diablo Barrentes was one good-looking man. Why did someone so detestable have to be blessed with such good looks and such a killer body? There was clearly no justice in this world.
He smiled then, as if amused by what her face betrayed of her thoughts. ‘You are as prickly as your name suggests, my wild rose.’
‘I am not your wild rose! Don’t you understand? I don’t want to marry you. And there’s no way on earth you can make me.’
She turned her attention back to her father as another cog suddenly slipped into place. Suddenly her mother’s ‘he must have some redeeming features’ discussion made sense, though not the sudden secrecy. ‘What’s this really about? Why did you make us come into the library? Mother knows about this arrangement, doesn’t she?’
Her father looked grey. ‘She knows something of the proposal, it’s true.’
Briar’s gut churned. ‘Something of the proposal’? What more could there possibly be? What she was hearing already set her stomach roiling. And the very concept that her future had been mapped out by her own parents—the two people she’d always assumed loved her and wanted the best for her—was too much.
‘So you’ve discussed this then, between yourselves like some kind of domestic transaction. I can just imagine how the conversation went: “Shall we renovate the beach house? Maybe trade up to the new Mercedes? Oh, and while we’re at it, maybe we can marry Briar off to Diablo Barrentes.”’
She swivelled her head and firmly fixed Diablo in her sights. ‘You’ve worked out between yourselves that you’re going to marry me off to the person this family detests more than anyone in the world. How could you do that?’
Diablo didn’t flinch at her words, his eyes merely glinting menacingly. Her father, however, was getting more agitated.
‘Briar, calm down, we have no choice!’
‘There’s always a choice! Like I have a choice. Because there’s no way I’m marrying Diablo Barrentes. I wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth.’ She swung around in Diablo’s direction and looked square into his dark fathomless eyes. ‘I’d rather die!’
This time the merest tic in his cheek was the only indication that her words had met their mark. ‘It’s drama you studied at university, then,’ he delivered in a tone that told her how unimpressed he was with the proceedings. ‘I was obviously under a misapprehension.’
‘I studied fine arts,’ she hissed. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You surprise me, given you have such a flair for the dramatic.’
‘And you have such a flair for the insane! How could you possibly imagine I would marry you? What were you thinking? That you could marry your way into Sydney society? It won’t work. People aren’t going to forget how you rode roughshod over everyone in your path to get to where you are today.’
He surveyed her through half-hooded eyes that failed to hide those dark simmering depths. ‘You resent me for building my own fortune, instead of having it bestowed on me through some accident of birth like you and your kind?’