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Her grandfather was dying. Six months to live. Maybe twelve at a stretch.
Dying!
Simone swiped away a tear from her cheek, stumbling a little as she ran between the rows of vines clinging to the mountainside. Her grandfather would hate it if he knew she was crying over him.
She stopped at the edge of the estate, where the recently erected fence marked the new border between her grandfather’s remaining property and the neighbouring Esquivel estate.
How could she make these last few months better for Felipe? How to ease the pain of all he had lost? There was nowhere near enough money to buy back the acreage. And, given the long-running rivalry between the two neighbouring families, there was no way the Esquivels were going to hand it back now they had seized such a powerful advantage.
Which left her with only one crazy option.
So crazy there was no way it could ever work.
But was she crazy enough to try?
TRISH MOREY is an Australian who’s also spent time living and working in New Zealand and England. Now she’s settled with her husband and four young daughters in a special part of South Australia, surrounded by orchards and bushland, and visited by the occasional koala and kangaroo. With a lifelong love of reading, she penned her first book at the age of eleven, after which life, career, and a growing family kept her busy until once again she could indulge her desire to create characters and stories—this time in romance. Having her work published is a dream come true.
Recent titles by the same author:
BARTERING HER INNOCENCE
THE SHEIKH’S LAST GAMBLE
DUTY AND THE BEAST
SECRETS OF CASTILLO DEL ARCO
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
A Price
Worth Paying?
Trish Morey
www.millsandboon.co.uk
A huge heartfelt thank you to Val, Julio, Matteo and Leti, Lyn and Phil, for sharing a wonderful part of the world with such delight and generosity of spirit. We had a brilliant time with you all in Spain, although it was way, way too short. Clearly we will just have to come back! I hope I have done justice to your fabulous part of the world and its people.
Heartfelt thanks must also go to Marion Lennox and Carol Marinelli and a wonderful place called Maytone where dreams happen and very often do come true. This one did:-)
And last but not least, with thanks to Joanne Grant. Thank you for your never-ending patience, guidance and enthusiasm during a year filled with all kinds of distractions and excitement and even the odd swim with dolphins. It’s a privilege to know you. Working with you is the bonus.
Trish
xxx
CHAPTER ONE
FELIPE WAS DYING. Six months to live. Maybe twelve at a stretch.
Dying!
Simone swiped away a tear from her cheek, stumbling a little as she ran between the rows of vines clinging to the mountainside. Her grandfather would hate it if he knew she was crying over him. ‘I am old,’ he’d said, when finally he’d let her learn the truth, ‘I’ve had my time. I have few regrets …’ But then his eyes had misted over and she’d seen the enormity of those ‘few’ regrets swirling in their watery depths.
The sorrow at losing his wife of fifty years to her battle with cancer.
The despair when his recently reconciled daughter and her husband—Simone’s parents—were lost in a joy flight crash whilst holidaying not three months later.
And the shame of succumbing to drink and then to the cards in the depths of his resultant depression, gambling away three-quarters of the estate before he was discovered and dragged bodily from the table by a friend before he could lose his own home.
It was the regret that was killing him. Oh yes, there was cancer too—that was doing its worst to eat away at his bones and shorten his life—but it was the regret that was sucking away his will to fight his disease and give in to it instead; regret that was telling him that there was no point because he had nothing left to live for.
And nothing anybody could say or do seemed to make a difference. Not when every time he looked out of his window he saw the vines that were no longer his, and he was reminded all over again of all that he had lost.
She stopped at the edge of the estate, where the recently erected fence marked the new border between her grandfather’s remaining property and the neighbouring Esquivel estate. Here, where there was a break between the rows of vines staked and trellised high above her head, she could look down over the spectacular coastline of northern Spain. Below her the town of Getaria nestled behind a rocky headland that jutted out into the Bay of Biscay. Beyond that the sea swelled in brilliant shades of blue that changed with the wind and with the sun, a view so unlike what she had at home in Australia that it took her breath away every time she looked at it.
She inhaled deeply of the salt-tinged air, the scene of terraced hills, the tiered vines, the ancient town below all too picture perfect to be real. It wouldn’t seem real when she was back home in Melbourne and living again in one of the cheap, outer-city student flats she was used to. But Melbourne and her deferred university studies would have to wait a bit longer. She’d come expecting to stay just a few weeks between semesters. Then Felipe had fallen ill and she’d promised to stay until he was back on his feet. But after this latest news, it was clear she wasn’t returning home any time soon. Because there was no way she could leave him now.
Dying.
Hadn’t there been enough death lately without losing Felipe too? She was only just getting to know him properly—the long-term rift between him and his daughter keeping the families apart ever since she was a child, Felipe and his wife here in Spain, their wayward daughter, her forbidden lover and their granddaughter living in self-imposed exile in Australia.
All those wasted years, only to be reunited now, when mere months remained.
How could she make those last few months better for Felipe? How to ease the pain of all he had lost? She shook her head, searching for answers as she gazed across the fence at the acres of vines that were once his and that now belonged to others, sensing the enormity of his loss, his guilt, his shame, and wishing there was some way she could make things better.
For there was no way to bring back his wife or his daughter and son-in-law.
There was no money to buy back the acreage he had lost.
And given the long-running rivalry between the two neighbouring families, there was no way the Esquivels were going to hand it back when they had seized such a powerful advantage.
Which left her with only one crazy option.
So crazy there was no way it could ever work.
But was she crazy enough to try?
‘You sacked her!’ Alesander Manuel Esquivel forgot all about the coffee he was about to pour and glared incredulously at his mother, who stood there with her hands folded meekly in front of her looking as cool and unflurried in the face of his outburst as a quintessential Mother Superior. Her composure only served to feed his outrage. ‘What the hell gave you the right to sack Bianca?’
‘You were gone the entire month,’ Isobel Esquivel countered coolly, ‘and you knew what a dreadful housekeeper she was before you left. This apartment was a pigsty. Of course I took the opportunity to sack her and engage a professional cleaner while you were gone. And just look around you,’ she said with a flourish of her diamond-encrusted fingers around the now spotless room. ‘I don’t know how you can possibly be so irritated.’
His mother thought him irritated? Now there was an understatement. After a fifteen-hour flight from California, he’d been looking forward to the simple pleasure of a hot shower before tumbling into bed and tumbling a willing woman beneath him in the process. He suppressed a growl. During her brief tenure, Bianca had proven to be particularly willing.
Finding his mother waiting for him in Bianca’s place had not been part of his plans. And so he dredged up a smile to go with the words he knew would irritate his mother right back. ‘You know as well as I do, Madre querida, that I didn’t employ Bianca for her cleaning skills.’
His mother sighed distastefully, turning her face towards the view afforded by the large glass windows that overlooked the Bahia de la Concha, the stunning bay that made San Sebastian famous. ‘You don’t have to be crude, Alesander,’ she said wearily, her back to her son. ‘I understand very well why you “employed” her. The point is, the longer she was here, the less interested you were in finding a wife.’
‘Oh, I assumed finding me a wife was your job.’
Her head snapped back around as the seemingly cool façade cracked. ‘This is not a joke, Alesander! You need to face up to your responsibilities. The Esquivel name goes back centuries. Do you intend to let it die out because you are too busy entertaining yourself with the latest puta-del-dia?’
‘I’m thirty-two years old, Madre. I think my breeding potential might be good for another few years yet.’
‘Perhaps, but don’t expect Ezmerelda de la Silva to wait for ever.’
‘Of course I would expect no such thing. That would be completely unreasonable.’
‘It would,’ his mother said speculatively, her eyes narrowing, but nowhere near enough to hide the hopeful sheen that glazed their surface. She took a tentative step closer to her son. ‘Do you mean to say you’ve come to your senses while you’ve been away and decided to settle down at last?’ She gave a tinkling little laugh, the sound so false it all but rattled against the windows. ‘Oh, Alesander, you might have said.’
‘I mean,’ he said, his lips curling at his mother’s pointless hopes, ‘there is no point in Ezmerelda waiting a moment longer when there is no way on this earth that I’m marrying her.’
His mother’s expression grew tight and hard as she crossed her arms and turned pointedly back towards the window. ‘You know our families have had an understanding ever since you were both children. Ezmerelda is the obvious choice for you.’
‘Your choice, not mine!’ He would sooner choose a shark for a wife than the likes of Ezmerelda de la Silva. She was a beauty, it was true, and once in his distant past he had been tempted, but he had soon learned there was no warmth to her, no fire, indeed nothing behind the polished façade, nothing but a cold fish who had been raised with the sole imperative to marry well.
Whether married or not, he would settle for nothing less than a hot-blooded woman to share his bed. Was it any wonder he had populated his bed with nothing less?
‘So what about grandchildren then?’ Isobel pleaded, changing tack, her hand flat over her heart. ‘If you won’t consider marrying for the sake of the family name, what about for my sake? When will you give me grandchildren of my own?’
It was Alesander’s turn to laugh. ‘You overplay your hand, Madre. I seem to recall you don’t like children all that much. At least, that’s how I remember it.’
The older woman sniffed. ‘You were raised to be the best,’ she said without a hint of remorse. ‘You were raised to be strong.’
‘Then is it any wonder I wish to make my own decisions?’
His mother suddenly looked so tightly wound he thought she might snap. ‘You cannot play this game forever, Alesander, no matter how much you seem to enjoy it. Next week it is Markel de la Silva’s sixtieth birthday celebration. Ezmerelda’s mother and I were hoping that you might accompany Ezmerelda to the party. Couldn’t you at least honour the friendship between our families by doing that much?’
To what end? To have the news of their ‘surprise’ betrothal announced the same night as some bizarre kind of birthday treat? He wouldn’t be surprised. His mother was particularly fond of concocting such treats. She would love to put him on the spot and force the issue.
‘How unfortunate. I do believe I’m busy that night.’
‘You have to be there! It would be a deliberate snub to the family not to appear.’
He sighed, suddenly tired of the sport of baiting his mother. Because of course he would be there. Markel de la Silva was a good man; a man he respected greatly. It wasn’t his fault his daughter took after her grasping mother.
‘Of course I will be there. But what part of “there is no way I’m marrying Ezmerelda”, did you not understand?’
‘Yes, you say that now, but you know there is no one else suitable and sooner or later you will have to fulfil your destiny as sole heir to the Esquivel estate,’ his mother said, giving up any pretence that securing a marriage between their two families wasn’t her ultimate goal. ‘When are you going to realise that?’
‘I can’t give you the answer you want but, rest assured, Madre, when I do decide to marry, you’ll be the first to know.’
His mother left then, all bristling indignation and pursed lips in a perfumed, perfectly coiffed package, her perfume lingering on the air along with his irritation long after she’d gone. He stared out of the same window Isobel had blindly stared out of a short time ago, but the view didn’t escape him. Between the mountains Igueldo and Urgull, with its huge statue of Christ looking down and blessing the city, sprouted the wooded Isla de Santa Clara, forming a magnificent backdrop to the finest city beach in Europe.
He’d bought this apartment some years ago sight unseen after yet another argument with his mother. At the time he’d simply wanted a bolt-hole away from the family estate in Getaria, a twenty-minute drive away.
He’d got more than a bolt-hole as it turned out. He’d got the best view in the city. Today the white sandy curve of the bay was less crowded than it had been when he had left a month ago at the height of summer, most tourists content in September’s milder weather to promenade around the Concha rather than swim in its protected waters.
His gaze focused in on the beach, the insistent ache in his groin returning. Bianca used to spend her days on the sand, working on her tan. To good effect, if he remembered correctly, even if his mother couldn’t see the advantages of long tanned limbs over a spotless floor.
He scanned the beach. Maybe Bianca was down there right now. He pulled his phone from his pocket and searched for her number. Isobel must have paid her extremely well for her to keep the news of her sudden eviction from him. But if she was still in the area …
Halfway to calling he paused, before repocketing the phone. What was he doing? It was one thing to have her waiting here for him. It was another entirely to go searching for her. Did he really want to give her the wrong idea? After all, she’d been almost at her use-by date as it was.
Bianca had known that. He’d made it plain when she’d started that she’d be looking for another position inside three months. Which probably explained why she’d gone so quietly. Because she’d always known the position was temporary.
Still he growled his displeasure as he tugged at his tie and pushed himself away from the windows. Because on top of having to find himself a new live-in cleaner, it meant that tonight he’d just have to settle for a cold shower.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WASN’T JUST crazy. It was insane.
Simone stood with her back to the bay and looked up at the building where Alesander Esquivel lived and felt cold chills up her spine despite the warm autumn sun. His apartment would have to be on the top floor, of course, and so far above her she wondered that she dared to think he would lower himself long enough to even let her in, let alone seriously consider her proposal.
And why should he, when it was the maddest idea she’d ever had? She’d get laughed out of San Sebastian, probably laughed out of Spain.
She almost turned and fled back along the Playa de la Concha to the bus station and her grandfather’s house in Getaria and certain refuge.
Almost.
Except what other choice did she have? Getting laughed out of the city, the country, was better than doing nothing. Doing nothing would mean sitting back and watching her grandfather’s life slide inexorably towards death, day by day.
Doing nothing was no choice at all. Not any longer.
How could she not even try?
She swallowed down air, the sea breeze that toyed with the layers of her favourite skirt flavoured with garlic and tomatoes and frying fish from a bayside restaurant. Her stomach rumbled a protest. She could not stand here simply waiting to cross this busy road for ever. Soon she must return to her grandfather’s simple house and prepare their evening meal. She had told him she needed to shop for the paella she had planned. He would be wondering why she was taking so long.
And suddenly the busy traffic parted and her legs were carrying her across the road, and the closer she got to the building, the larger and more imposing it looked, and the more fanciful her plan along with it.
She must be crazy.
It would never work.
He’d just stepped out of the shower when the buzzer to his apartment sounded. He growled as he lashed a towel around his hips, wondering what his mother had forgotten, but no, Isobel was not the sort to give advance warning, not since he’d once lent her the key she’d made a habit of forgetting to return.
So he chose to ignore it as he swiped up another towel to rub his hair. He did all his work at his city office or out at the Esquivel estate in Getaria. Nobody called on him here unless they were invited. And then the buzzer sounded again, longer this time, more insistent, clearly designed to get his attention.
And he stopped rubbing his hair and wondered. Had Bianca been waiting for his return, keeping a safe distance from his mother? She had known his travel plans. She’d known he was due back today.
Serendipity, he thought, because she could hardly read anything into one last night if she’d invited herself back. Why not enjoy one last night together for old time’s sake? And tomorrow or the next day, for that matter, he could tell her that her services were no longer required.
‘Bianca, hola,’ he said into the intercom, feeling a kick of interest from beneath his towel and thinking it fortuitous he wouldn’t have to waste any time getting undressed.
His greeting met with silence until, ‘It’s not Bianca,’ someone said in faltering Spanish, her husky voice tripping over her words and making a mess of what she was trying to say. ‘It’s Simone Hamilton, Felipe Otxoa’s granddaughter.’
He didn’t respond for a moment, his mind trying to join the dots. Did he even know Felipe had a granddaughter? They might be neighbours but it wasn’t as if they were friends. But no—he rubbed his brow—there was something he remembered—a daughter who had married an Australian—the one who had been killed in some kind of accident some months back. Was this their daughter, then? It could explain why she was murdering his language. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in English.
‘Please, Señor Esquivel,’ she said, and he could almost hear her sigh of relief as the words poured out, ‘I need to speak to you. It’s about Felipe.’
‘What about Felipe?’
‘Can I come up?’
‘Not until you tell me what this is about. What’s so important that you have to come to my apartment?’
‘Felipe, he’s … Well, he’s dying.’
He blinked. He’d heard talk at the estate that the old man wasn’t well. He wasn’t unmoved but Felipe was old and he hadn’t exactly been surprised at the news. He still didn’t see what it had to do with him.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but what do you expect me to do about it?’
He heard noises around her, of a family back fresh from the beach, the children being scolded by their mother for tracking sand back to one of the lower apartments, a father, grunting and grumpy and wearying of his so-called holiday and probably already dreaming about a return to the office. She tried to say something then, her words drowned out by the racket before she sighed and spoke louder. ‘Can I please come up and explain? It’s a bit awkward trying to discuss it like this.’
‘I’m still not sure what I can do for you.’
‘Please. I won’t stay long. But it’s important.’
Maybe to her. As far as he was concerned, Felipe had been a cantankerous old man for as long as he could remember and, whatever the distant reason for the feud between their two families, Felipe had done nothing to build any bridges over the intervening decades. But then, neither had his father during his lifetime. In a way it was a shame he hadn’t been alive the day some lucky gambler had knocked on Alesander’s door and offered him the acres of vines he’d won from Felipe in a game of cards. His father had been trying to buy the old man out for years.
He raked his fingers through his hair. The vines. That must be why the granddaughter was here. Had Felipe sent this hesitant little mouse with some sob story to plead for their return? He would have known he’d get short shrift if he tried such a tactic himself.
Maybe he should let her in long enough to tell her exactly that. He glanced down at his towel. Although now was hardly the time. ‘I’m not actually dressed for visitors. Call me at my office.’
‘My grandfather is dying, Señor Esquivel,’ she said before he cut the connection. ‘Do you really think I care what you are wearing?’ And the hesitant mouse with the husky drawl sounded as if she’d found a backbone, and suddenly his interest was piqued. Why not humour his neighbour’s granddaughter with five minutes of his time? It wasn’t as if it was going to cost him anything and it would give him a chance to see if the rest of her lived up to that husky voice.
‘In that case,’ he said, smiling to himself as he pressed the lift release, ‘you’d better come right up.’
Simone’s heart lurched as the lift door opened to the small lobby that marked the entrance to the top floor apartment, her mind still reeling with the unexpected success of making it this far, her senses still reeling from the sound of Alesander’s voice. Her research might have turned up his address and told her that Alesander Esquivel was San Sebastian’s most eligible bachelor, but it hadn’t warned her about his richly accented voice, or the way it could curl down the phone line and bury itself deep into her senses.
Yet even with that potent distraction, she’d somehow managed to keep her nerve and win an audience with the only man who could help her right now.
Alesander Esquivel, good-looking heir to the Esquivel fortune, according to her research, but then how he looked or how big his fortune was irrelevant. She was far more interested in the fact he was unmarried.
Thirty-two years old, with no wife and no fiancée, and he’d agreed to see her.
She dragged in air. It was a good start. Now all she had to do was get him to listen long enough to consider her plan.
‘Piece of cake,’ she whispered to herself, in blatant denial of the dampness of her palms as she swiped them on her skirt. And then there was nothing else for it but to press on the apartment’s buzzer and try to smile.
A smile that was whisked away, along with the door, somewhere between two snowy towels, one hooked around his neck, stark white against his black hair and golden skin, the other one lashed low over his hips.