The Latin Affair

Cover Page

About the Author

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

Bom in London, SOPHIE WESTON is a traveler by nature who started writing when she was five. She wrote her first romance recovering from illness, thinking her traveling was over. She was wrong, but she enjoyed it so much that she has carried on. These days she lives in the heart of the city with two demanding cats and a cherry tree—and travels the world looking for settings for her stories.

The Latin Affair

Sophie Weston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

‘YOU’RE a fraud, Nicky.’

Andrew Bolton thrust himself away from her and stood up.

In the half-dark of her sitting room, Nicky Piper clutched her elderly dressing gown round her. Andrew had arrived at midnight, bearing flowers and champagne. High on the success of a new contract and several hours celebrating it, he had woken her up, danced her sexily round her sitting room and then, laughing, carried her to the sofa.

Where they’d both come face to face with a truth they had been avoiding for months.

‘Face it, Nicky. You don’t want me.’ The honesty was brutal. ‘In your heart of hearts, you never have.’

Nicky ran her fingers through her loosened hair. In the light reflected from the street lamp outside her window stray fronds gleamed like diamonds. Even with all the gold leached out of it, the soft, curly mass was spectacular. Andrew eyed it broodingly.

‘Oh, boy, did I want you,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Gorgeous blonde. Legs to your eyebrows. Figure like a paradise houri.’

Nicky said nothing but her jaw ached with tension. Although she said nothing Andrew picked up on it at once. The look he sent her was wry.

‘I know. I know. I’m not supposed to mention it.’ His sigh sounded as if it was wrenched out of him. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Nicky. Why don’t you want anyone to notice? Even when they’re making love to you?’

Nicky shaded her eyes. This was truth indeed.

‘I—tried.’

Andrew swung round on her. ‘That’s the point,’ he said, suddenly fierce. ‘You’re not supposed to have to try.’

Nicky knew he was right. She hugged her knees to her chest, feeling guilty. She had so wanted to be in love with him. Until tonight she would have said she was. But all he had to do was to come to her when she was not expecting him and the façade cracked to pieces.

And suddenly there was the real Nicky—tense as a drum and armed to the teeth against invasion. And that was Andrew’s problem—for all their shared laughter, when he took her by surprise, Nicky turned and saw an invader.

She said, half to herself, ‘I didn’t realise.’

He sat down on the bamboo chair under the window and looked at her. In the sodium light from the street lamp his expression was sombre.

‘Someone has given you a real pasting, hasn’t he?’

‘No,’ said Nicky, horrified.

It couldn’t still hurt. It couldn’t. Not after all these years. She had been a child then. Now she was a woman, independent and in control of her life. She couldn’t still be in the power of something so stupid.

She knelt down in front of his chair and looked up into his face. ‘Andrew, I’m so sorry.’

He touched her cheek, quite without his usual passion, his eyes searching her shadowed face.

‘Have you ever been in love, Nicky?’

Nicky shrugged evasively. ‘I don’t know what you mean by love.’

‘I mean,’ said Andrew drily, ‘has there ever been a man you wanted to make love with? Without pretending.’

And, fast as a lightning strike, Nicky thought, He knows about Steve. Her whole body juddered with the shock of it. And in that moment she gave herself away.

‘I see,’ said Andrew at length.

Nicky pulled herself together. She stood up.

‘One adolescent crush,’ she said drily. She was glad to hear she sounded more like herself at last. ‘Very adolescent and very short-lived.’

Andrew watched her. ‘Returned?’

Nicky gave an unamused laugh. ‘He despised me,’ she said flatly. ‘Very understandable. Looking back, I despise myself.’ Her voice rasped.

Andrew was taken aback. ‘Isn’t that a bit extreme? For a teenage mistake?’

Nicky had told herself the same thing a million times. It made no difference. Every time she thought about Steve and what she had so nearly done with him, she wanted to hide.

‘I made a fool of myself,’ she said between her teeth. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you and me.’

‘Hasn’t it?’

He got up and touched her shoulder. Nicky’s shoulders went rigid. His hand fell.

‘You see?’ said Andrew tiredly. ‘It’s got everything to do with you and me. And any other man who tries to get near you.’

‘Don’t say that’, protested Nicky involuntarily.

He said in a low voice, ‘Nicky, I love you to bits but this is getting us nowhere.’

‘But—’

‘No!’ he said forcefully. ‘I don’t want a girlfriend who braces herself every time I touch her.’

‘I don’t!’

He turned her round to face him. For a long moment, he looked searchingly into her eyes. Even in the half-dark his expression said as clearly as words that he could still hear what she could. High on his triumph, Andrew had been too excited to give her time, thought Nicky. And in that fatal instant when he had carried her to the sofa all the ancient horrors had crowded in. She did not know which of them had been more shocked by her animal cry of rejection.

Now, as she remembered, Nicky’s hands flew to her burning cheeks.

Andrew said quietly, ‘I deserve better than that, Nicky.’

There was a long, agonised pause. Nicky’s hands fell.

‘I know,’ she said almost inaudibly.

‘And, frankly, so do you.’

He looked round for his jacket. It was where he had thrown it, on the floor. The bottle of champagne he had brought lay on its side, half crushing the bright chrysanthemums he had found at the late-night store. Nicky blinked back sudden tears.

‘I’m sorry.’

Andrew had behaved well but he was still smarting. ‘So am I.’

He went to the door, then turned and kissed her cheek, quickly, with a new and awkward formality. Nicky leaned against him, burying her face in his chest so she did not have to see the pain in his eyes. He touched her hair fleetingly.

‘If you want my advice, you’ll find the guy. Get him out of your system. Or you’ll never be free.’

He went.

Nicky put the chain on the door and leaned her back against it. She was too shaken for tears.

She had thought she loved Andrew. Well—she was too shaken for dishonesty as well—she had thought that Andrew would take her as close to love as she was ever likely to get. She had thought it would be enough. It had never occurred to her that she was cheating Andrew.

‘Now what?’ said Nicky aloud.

She had no idea of the answer.

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE morning, of course, things looked different. They always did, thought Nicky. There was a job to do, her brother to meet for lunch, the last sunshine of autumn to savour. The small things, as always, would carry her through.

‘I will survive,’ Nicky told her mirror.

The gorgeous reflection stared back, only partially convinced.

Why on earth do I look like this? she thought. Andrew was right when he said she was a fraud. Even in her sober business suit she looked the original party blonde. What was more, she always had. Nicky winced at the thought.

Of course, there had been changes over the years. When she was sixteen her skin had been golden with a Caribbean tan; her untamed hair used to be a sun-streaked lion’s mane. These days she was city-pale and her daffodil hair shone. But, in spite of her best efforts, it was never quite immaculate. Soft tendrils always escaped to lie enticingly against her long neck. Add to that a kissable mouth and wide, longlashed blue-grey eyes and it was not surprising that men looked at her and thought they had found their dream babe. Nicky bared her teeth at her reflection.

‘Some babe,’ she said bitterly.

She was still brooding when she got to work.

‘Hey, what did I do?’ said Martin de Vries in mock alarm.

Nicky jumped, conscience stricken. Martin was the boss of Springdown Kitchens and she was late for work. Now she’d compounded her sins by glaring at him. She shook her head ruefully.

‘Nothing. It’s just one of those Monday mornings, that’s all.’

Martin nodded briskly. ‘That’s a relief. I need to get off to the exhibition hall soon.’ But he hesitated. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

Damn, thought Nicky. Martin was an old friend of the family. Of course he could see right through the last twenty years to the six-year-old with scabby knees and pigtails. It gave him an unfair advantage.

She summoned up a bright smile. ‘I’m fine.’

Martin knew how to interpret that. He had daughters of his own. He nodded. ‘Boyfriend trouble,’ he diagnosed.

Nicky winced theatrically. ‘You sound like my mother.’

‘No, I don’t. I sound like a caring employer.’

‘My next job is going to be with a hard-hearted tycoon who doesn’t know a thing about his employees. And cares less,’ Nicky muttered.

Martin ignored that. ‘What’s happened, Nick? Did he do something unforgivable, like want to marry you?’

Nicky smacked her conscience back in its box and glared at him for real.

‘That’s my business. Get down to the Lifestyle Fair and sell some kitchens,’ she retorted.

Martin was torn. He was fond of Nicky. On the other hand he ran a vulnerable small business and the fair was the showcase of the year.

‘As long as it isn’t a crisis,’ he said, patently anxious to be reassured.

Nicky gave a small huff of fury. But then genuine affection took over.

‘No crisis,’ she said more gently. ‘Just something that’s been building up a long time. All under control.’

‘OK,’ said Martin, relieved. He went

Squaring up to the work on her desk, Nicky found that he had left her plenty to do. It was a relief. It took her mind off the uncomfortable truths Andrew had exposed last night.

Besides, she knew that what she was doing was worthwhile. Martin was an inspired salesman, whereas Nicky liked practical organisation. She had her head down over the specifications of a small hotel kitchen when a cup appeared in front of her.

‘Coffee,’ said Caroline Leith, Martin’s newest and most sophisticated assistant. ‘You’re going to need it.’

Nicky looked up. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Martin refused to take any phone calls before he left.’

Nicky’s heart sank. That meant clients who would already be annoyed when she called them back.

‘Who?’

Caroline consulted her notebook. ‘Two from Mr Tremain’s secretary. One from Weber Hotels. Three from Mrs Van Linden. All of them only wanted to talk to Martin.’ She grinned. ‘Mrs Van Linden positively refused to talk to you under any circumstances. What happened? You told her what you thought of her horrible kitchen? Or she’s seen how you look?’

Nicky raised her eyes to heaven. ‘What’s wrong with how I look?’ she said dangerously.

‘Nothing as long as you aren’t a trophy wife worried about the competition.’

Nicky frowned. Caroline chuckled, unabashed.

‘What do you expect, with a figure like yours?’ she said frankly. ‘It may be unfashionable to have all those curves but it sure as hell presses all the right male buttons.’

Nicky tensed. That was more or less exactly what Andrew had said last night. To say nothing of a man called Steve under a Caribbean moon… But the phone rang and broke that particular unwelcome train of thought.

Caroline answered it, listened, then put her hand over the receiver. ‘SOS. Sally’s in trouble. Sounds like she’s going to cry.’

Nicky frowned blackly. Sally was the ideal receptionist, unfailingly sunny even with the most difficult clients. Anyone who reduced her to tears needed to be put in their place without delay. She held out an imperative hand.

‘It’s Tremain,’ Caroline warned.

It gave Nicky pause for a moment. ‘Who?’

‘Tremain. Martin knows him personally. From the yacht club.’

Nicky scanned her memory. Nothing. She said so. ‘But he’s not going to bully Sally.’

‘Kid-gloves time,’ advised Caroline, surrendering the phone.

Nicky knew the warning tone was justified. She squared her shoulders and tried to remember the bit in her management course about dealing with difficult clients.

‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting—’ she began, uncharacteristically soothing.

‘Then don’t.’ It was impatient and very male. At once she knew why Sally had not been able to calm him down. Mr Tremain did not want to be calmed down. Mr Tremain wanted blood.

And, true to form, it made Nicky want to fight right back. She curbed her combative instinct but it was a close-run thing.

‘How can I—’

He did not let her finish. ‘Where’s de Vries?’

‘—help you?’ Sweet reason was not paying off. Well, then, she would give him a taste of her real reaction to a man who interrupted her twice. ‘What can I do for you?’ she finished, the frost showing.

Caroline did not go. Instead she propped herself up against a drawer of files and waited, prepared to be amused.

Mr Tremain was not impressed by Nicky’s chilly formality. ‘You can get me de Vries,’ he said grimly. ‘Now.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not poss—’

‘Now.’

Nicky could feel her fuse shortening. Caroline grinned. Nicky frowned her down and raised her voice. ‘If you would just let me finish—’

‘I haven’t got time to waste talking to lieutenants.’ Even allowing for the distortion of the telephone, the dismissive tone was an insult. Nicky’s fuse suddenly became very short indeed. And her frost dissolved into simple temper.

‘Then try listening,’ she flashed. ‘Martin de Vries is not here. I can ask him to call you when he gets back or you can talk to me now. Your choice. Frankly I don’t care which—but make up your mind. I haven’t got time to waste either.’

Across the office, Caroline raised her eyebrows. Oh, hell, thought Nicky, remembering the management course too late.

But at least her outburst seemed to give Tremain pause.

He said slowly, ‘Work closely with de Vries, do you?’

Nicky was all dignity. ‘Of course.’

‘So you’re fully briefed on everything that’s gone wrong with the blasted kitchen he sold me?’

‘Well, I would have to look at the file…’

‘And of course you’re empowered to agree on compensation?’ he went on sweetly.

Nicky knew quite well what he was doing. Silently she ground her teeth.

‘I would have to consult Mr de Vries,’ she conceded stiffly.

‘Quite.’ His tone was suddenly a lot less sweet. ‘So let’s stop playing games. We both know de Vries is ducking and weaving. Cut the feeble excuses, dig him out of wherever he’s hiding and put him on the line now.’

If Nicky did not like being dismissed, she positively hated being patronised.

She yelled, ‘I do not play games. I do not tell lies. And Martin isn’t here.’

And banged the phone down.

Caroline gave her a slow, mocking hand-clap. ‘That showed him.’

Nicky was steaming. ‘So it should. Bully,’ she threw at the phone, as if the man were there in person.

‘Esteban Tremain must be shivering in his shoes,’ murmured Caroline.

‘Quite right too,’ Nicky announced, militant. ‘He shouldn’t have tried to bully Sally. And he shouldn’t have talked to me like that I haven’t got the time to take a lot of rubbish from people who don’t listen. It’s too close to lunchtime.’

She glanced at her watch as she spoke. She had a date with her brother and Ben had been known to leave a restaurant if people kept him waiting.

‘Tell that to Martin when you explain how you handled his biggest problem client,’ Caroline said with feeling.

Nicky stared. ‘Biggest problem client? What are you talking about?’

‘You mean you don’t know who Esteban Tremain is?’

‘Never met the man in my life,’ said Nicky, adding darkly, ‘And, on present showing, I’ll be quite happy if that’s the way it stays.’

‘Stately home?’ prompted Caroline. ‘Cornwall? Try, gorgeous.’

‘Oh, please!’

‘You can’t have forgotten him. A Savile Row suit with muscles. When he came in to the showroom every woman in the place wandered by for a look.’

Nicky shook her head. ‘None of us is that sex-starved,’ she protested, trying not to laugh. ‘What is he? A film star?’

Caroline said in a practical tone, ‘No. Just tall, dark and smouldering with sex appeal. And threatening to sue Martin for every penny he’s got’.

‘What?’

She cocked a mocking eyebrow. ‘Come on, Nicky. The kitchen at Hallam Hall must have cost us more grief than any other contract this year.’

‘Hallam Hall!’ gasped Nicky, enlightened at last.

Now she knew exactly who Esteban Tremain was. And how much he could cost Springdown Kitchens if he put his mind to it.

‘Oh, my Lord,’ she said. ‘Get the file into my office now.’

Caroline ran.

Esteban Tremain looked at the suddenly buzzing telephone with disbelief. Nobody cut him off. Nobody. He began to punch buttons savagely. The door opened. ‘Er—’ said his secretary.

One glance was enough to tell her that he was in a temper. She did not think much of Francesca Moran’s chances of getting in to see him when he looked like that.

Esteban glared at her across the telephone.

‘What?’

‘Miss Moran,’ said Anne fast. Her tone was strictly neutral. ‘She’s been shopping. She wondered if you would like to take her to lunch.’

Esteban breathed hard.

Anne held her breath. When she’d come to work for him three years ago there had been plenty of people to warn her that Esteban would be impossible. He was a heart-breaker; he was a workaholic; he had a fiendish temper. She had learned that it was all true. Only he did not take any of it out on his secretary. Normally…

With an angry exclamation, he threw the telephone from him and flung out of his chair. Anne quietly restored the telephone to its cradle and waited.

Esteban strode up to the floor-length window. He thrust his hands into his pockets and glared out at the rain-lashed lawns. A muscle worked in his cheek.

Esteban wrestled with his temper. None of this was Anne’s fault, he reminded himself. He gave an explosive sigh and swung back to the room.

‘My regrets to Francesca,’ he said rapidly, not sounding regretful at all. ‘Anything else?’

Anne, the perfect secretary, did not protest. She just said carefully, ‘I’ll go along and tell her you’re too busy to see her, shall I?’

There was a small, sizzling pause.

‘She’s here?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘But I told her last time—’ He remembered again that it was not Anne’s fault and stopped. ‘Damn. ’

Esteban thought, then took one of his famous lightning decisions. ‘OK. You’d better wheel her in for a bit But not long.’

He reached for his jacket.

Esteban never received visitors in his shirt sleeves, Anne thought. Not even a lady he regularly spent the night with. Though she was not sure that Francesca Moran was in that category these days, in spite of the gossip or, indeed, the hints that Miss Moran herself let fall so heavily.

‘I’ll just clear a space,’ murmured Anne, again the perfect secretary, advancing on a tower of papers.

Esteban looked around his room in faint surprise. Apart from the papers that covered his desk, there were two large books open on the floor beside him and piles of more papers that needed his attention on every one of his comfortable chairs. He looked amused suddenly.

‘Don’t bother.’

‘But she’s got to have somewhere to sit.’

‘Why? It will only encourage her,’ said Esteban wickedly.

He flicked his lapels straight. Looking up, he gave her a conspiratorial grin.

‘Buzz me in five, max. Right?’

‘Right,’ said Anne.

Francesca Moran, she thought with satisfaction, would be back in the rainy garden a lot sooner than she expected. Anne did not like Francesca.

It would have been impossible to tell from Esteban’s manner whether he liked her or not. He kissed her on both exquisitely made up cheeks in welcome. But he adroitly avoided her move to deepen the embrace and retired behind the bulwark of his desk. Francesca accepted the rebuff as gracefully as if she had not recognised it. She took up a perch on the arm of an ancient leather chair and gave him a sweet smile.

‘We need to talk,’ she said caressingly.

Esteban raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’

Francesca’s myopic grey eyes made her look vague and fragile. It was misleading.

‘Yes. I was thinking all the time I was in Cornwall. It’s stupid for us to be like this. We ought to let bygones be bygones and pool our resources.’

Esteban’s poker face was famous. But for a moment he could not contain his astonishment. At once, he controlled his expression. But one corner of his mouth twitched.

‘Are you proposing to me, Francesca?’ he asked politely.

She was not disconcerted. She batted her eyelashes and gave him a smile of calculated charm.

‘Well, you’re not going to propose to me, are you?’

Esteban was surprised into laughing aloud. ‘You’re right there,’ he agreed, watching her with fascination.

Francesca shrugged. ‘So it’s up to me,’ she said with no sign of rancour. ‘You need a wife. It would be ideal.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t, you know,’ said Esteban. He was gentle but quite firm.

But Francesca, as he had learned in Gibraltar last year, did not recognise firmness when it meant someone not doing what she wanted.

‘It would be perfect,’ she said, unheeding. ‘The time is right for both of us.’

Esteban leaned back in his chair and surveyed her in disbelief. She smiled back, not discouraged. He decided to try another tack.

‘What makes you think I need a wife?’ he drawled.

She gestured round the untidy room. ‘You’re in a complete mess. You need someone to run the practical side of your life so that you can get on with your career.’

‘That’s what Anne does,’ he objected.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling. That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

‘Then explain,’ he said blandly.

Francesca refused to be annoyed. ‘You’re being silly,’ she said in an indulgent tone. ‘What about your private life? Where would you have been if I hadn’t gone down to Hallam Hall and sorted out those workmen?’

‘Ah. I wondered when that would come up,’ said Esteban with satisfaction.

Francesca frowned. ‘You would have been lost without me’, she said, her tone sharpening. ‘You were out of the country and those cowboys were getting away with murder.’

‘And I was grateful for your help but—’

Francesca regained her good humour. ‘I bet you haven’t even talked to the kitchen people yet.’