From destitute...

...to wearing the Spaniard’s diamond!

There’s something familiar about the penniless yet fiery woman Cristiano Velazquez saves from the Paris streets. Yes, the redheaded wildcat makes his blood run red-hot. But it’s not until he gives her a job cleaning his mansion that it hits him. She’s his nemesis’s long-lost daughter!

Securing Leonie’s hand in marriage would allow him to take the one thing his enemy cares about—just as he once took everything that mattered from Cristiano. His first step? Convincing his newest—most defiant—employee to meet him at the altar!

JACKIE ASHENDEN writes dark, emotional stories, with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr Jax, two kids and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their gutsy heroines she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband. To keep up to date with Jackie’s new releases and other news sign up to her newsletter at jackieashenden.com.

Also by Jackie Ashenden

Crowned at the Desert King’s Command

Shocking Italian Heirs miniseries

Demanding His Hidden Heir

Claiming His One-Night Child

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Spaniard’s Wedding Revenge

Jackie Ashenden

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09817-5

THE SPANIARD’S WEDDING REVENGE

© 2020 Jackie Ashenden

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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To Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon, and Leonie de Saint-Vire. Thanks for the inspiration!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAST THING Cristiano Velazquez—current duke of an ancient and largely forgotten dukedom in Spain, not to mention playboy extraordinaire—wanted to see at two in the morning as he rolled out of his favourite Paris club was a gang of youths crouched in front of his limo as it waited by the kerb. He wanted to hear the distinctive rattle and then hiss of a spray can even less.

God only knew where his driver André was, the lazy bastardo, but he certainly wasn’t here, guarding his limo like he should have been.

The two women on Cristiano’s arm made fearful noises, murmuring fretfully about bodyguards, but Cristiano had never been bothered with protection and he couldn’t be bothered now. Quite frankly, some nights he could use the excitement of a mugging, and at least the presence of a gang of Parisian street kids was something out of the ordinary.

Although it would have been better if they hadn’t been spray-painting his limo, of course.

Still, the youths were clearly bothering his lady-friends, and if he wanted to spend the rest of the night with both of them in his bed—which he fully intended to do—then he was going to have to handle the situation.

‘Allow me, ladies,’ he murmured, and strolled unhurriedly towards the assembled youths.

One of them must have seen him, because the kid said something sharp to the rest of his friends and abruptly they all scattered like a pack of wild dogs.

Except for the boy with the spray can, currently graffitiing a rude phrase across the passenger door.

The kid was crouched down, his slight frame swamped by a pair of dirty black jeans and a huge black hoodie with the hood drawn up. He didn’t seem to notice Cristiano’s approach, absorbed as he was in adding a final flourish to his artwork.

Cristiano paused behind him, admiring said ‘artwork’. ‘Very good. But you missed an “e”,’ he pointed out helpfully.

Instantly the kid sprang up from his crouch, throwing the spray can to the right and darting to the left.

But Cristiano was ready for him. He grabbed the back of the boy’s hoodie before the kid could escape and held on.

The boy was pulled up short, the hoodie slipping off his head. He made a grab for it, trying to pull it back up, but it was too late. A strand of bright hair escaped, the same pinky-red as apricots.

Cristiano froze. Unusual colour. Familiar in some way.

An old and forgotten memory stirred, and before he knew what he was doing he’d grabbed the boy’s narrow shoulders and spun him around, jerking his hood down at the same time.

A wealth of apricot-coloured hair tumbled down the boy’s back, framing a pale face with small, finely carved features and big eyes the deep violet-blue of cornflowers.

Not a boy. A girl.

No, a woman.

She said something foul in a voice completely at odds with the air of wide-eyed innocence she projected. A voice made for sex, husky and sweet, that went straight to his groin.

Not a problem. Everything went straight to his groin.

The grip he had on the back of her hoodie tightened.

She spat another curse at him and tried to wriggle out of his hold like a furious kitten.

Cristiano merely tightened his grip, studying her. She was quite strong for a little thing, not to mention feisty, and he really should let her go. Especially when he had other female company standing around behind him. Female company he actually wanted to spend time with tonight.

Then again, that familiarity was nagging at him, tugging at him as insistently as the girl was doing right now. That hair was familiar, and so were those eyes. And that lush little mouth...

Had he seen her before somewhere?

Had he slept with her, maybe?

But, no, surely not. She was dressed in dirty, baggy streetwear, and there was a feral, hungry look to her. He’d been in many dives around the world, and he recognised the look of a person who lived nowhere but the streets, and this young woman had that look.

She had the foul mouth that went along with it, too.

Not that he minded cursing. What he did mind was people spray-painting his limo and interrupting his evening.

‘Be still, gatita,’ he ordered. ‘Or I’ll call the police.’

At the mention of police she struggled harder, producing a knife from somewhere and waving it threateningly at him.

‘Let me go!’ she said, and added something rude to do with a very masculine part of his anatomy.

Definitely feisty, and probably more trouble than she was worth—especially with that knife waving around. She was pretty, but he wasn’t into expending effort on a woman who was resistant when he had plenty of willing ones who weren’t.

Then again, his tastes were...eclectic, and he liked difference. She was certainly that. A bit on the young side, though.

‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘Your customisation of my car I could have ignored. But you have interrupted my evening and scared my friends, and that I simply won’t stand for.’

She ignored him, spitting another curse and slashing at him with her knife.

‘And now we’re dealing with assault,’ Cristiano pointed out, not at all bothered by the knife, since it managed to miss him by miles.

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘You assaulting me!’

He sighed. He didn’t have a lot of patience for this kind of nonsense and now, since it was late—or early, depending on your point of reference—he wanted to get to bed, and not alone. He really needed to handle this unfortunate situation.

So let her go.

Well, he should. After he’d figured out why she was so familiar, because it was really starting to annoy him now.

Though that was going to be difficult with her still swinging wildly at him with a knife.

Amongst the many skills he’d become proficient in on his quest to fill the gaping emptiness inside him was a certain expertise in a couple of martial arts, so it wasn’t difficult for him to disarm her of her knife and then bundle her into his limo.

He got in after her and shut the door, locking it for good measure so that she was effectively confined.

Instantly she tried to get out, trying to get the doors to open. It wouldn’t work. Only he could open the doors from the inside when they were locked.

He said nothing, watching her as she tried futilely to escape. When it became clear to her that she couldn’t, she turned to him, a mix of fury and fear in her big cornflower-blue eyes.

‘Let me out,’ she demanded, breathless.

Cristiano leaned back in the seat opposite her and shoved his hands into the pockets of his expertly tailored black dress pants. It might have been a stupid move, since it wasn’t clear whether she had another knife on her somewhere, but he was betting she didn’t.

‘No,’ he said, studying her face.

Her jaw went rigid, her small figure stiff with tension. ‘Are you going to rape me?’

He blinked at the stark question, then had a brief internal debate about whether he should be annoyed she’d even had to ask—especially since the latter part of his life had largely been spent in the pursuit of pleasure, both his own and that of any partners he came into contact with.

But in the end it wasn’t worth getting uptight about. If she was indeed on the streets, then not being assaulted was likely to be one of her first concerns. Particularly when she’d been bundled into a car and locked in by a man much larger and stronger than she was.

‘No,’ he said flatly, so there could be no doubt. ‘That sounds like effort, and I try not to make any effort if I can possibly help it.’

She gazed at him suspiciously. ‘Then why did you shut me in this car?’

‘Because you tried to stab me with your knife.’

‘You could have just let me go.’

‘You were graffitiing my car. And it’s an expensive car. It’s going to cost me a lot of money to get it repainted.’

She gave him a look that was at once disdainful and pitying. ‘You can afford it, rich man.’

Unoffended, Cristiano tilted his head, studying her. ‘It’s true. I am rich. And, yes, I can afford to get it repainted. But it’s inconvenient to have to do so. You have inconvenienced me, gatita, and I do so hate to be inconvenienced. So, tell me, what are you going to do about it?’

‘I’m not going to do anything about it.’ She lifted her chin stubbornly. ‘Let me out, fils de pute.’

‘Such language,’ Cristiano reproved, entertained despite himself. ‘Where did you learn your manners?’

‘I’ll call the police myself. Tell them you’re holding me against my will.’

She dug into the voluminous pockets of her hoodie, brought out a battered-looking cellphone and held it up triumphantly. ‘Ten seconds to let me out and then I’m calling the emergency services.’

Cristiano was unmoved. ‘Go ahead. I know the police quite well. I’m sure you’ll be able to explain why you were crouching in front of my car, spray-painting foul language all over it, and then pulling a knife on me when I tried to stop you.’

She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

‘What’s your name?’ he went on. That nagging familiarity was still tugging at him. He’d seen her before—he was sure of it.

‘None of your business.’

Clearly she’d thought better of calling the police, because she lowered her hand disappearing her phone back into her hoodie.

‘Give me back my knife.’

Cristiano was amused. She was a brave little gatita, asking for the knife he’d only just disarmed her of after she’d tried to stab him with it. Brave to stand up to him, too—especially considering she was at a severe disadvantage. Not only physically but, given her dirty clothes and feral air, socially, too.

Then again, when you lived at the bottom of life’s barrel you had nothing to left to lose. He knew. He’d been there himself—if not physically then certainly in spirit.

‘Sadly, that’s not going to happen.’ He shifted, taking his hands out of his pockets and very slowly leaning forward, his elbows on his thighs, his fingers linked loosely between his knees.

A wary look crossed her face.

And that was good. She was right to be wary. Because he was losing his patience, and when he lost patience he was dangerous. Very dangerous indeed.

‘I’ll ask one more time,’ he said, letting a warning edge his voice. ‘What’s your name, gatita?’

The man sitting opposite Leonie—the rich bastard who’d scooped her up and put her in his limo—was scaring the living daylights out of her, and she wasn’t sure why.

He wasn’t being threatening. He was simply sitting there with his hands between his knees, eyes the same kind of green as deep, dense jungles staring unblinkingly at her.

He was dressed all in black, and she didn’t need to be rich to know that his clothes—black trousers and a plain black cotton shirt—had been made for him. Nothing else explained the way they fitted him so perfectly, framing wide shoulders and a broad chest, a lean waist and powerful thighs.

He reeked of money, this man. She could virtually smell it.

And not just money. He reeked of power, too. It was an almost physical force, pushing at her, crowding out all the air in the car and winding long fingers around her throat and squeezing.

There was another element to that power, though. An element she couldn’t identify.

It had something to do with his face, which was as beautiful as some of the carved angels on the tombs in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Yet that wasn’t quite it. He seemed warmer than an angel, so maybe more like a fallen one. Maybe a beautiful devil instead.

Night-black hair, straight brows and those intense green eyes...

No, he wasn’t an angel, and he wasn’t a devil, either. He seemed more vital than a mythical being. More...elemental, somehow.

He was a black panther in the jungle, watching her from the branch of a tree. All sleepy and lazy... Until he was ready to pounce.

That frightened her—but it didn’t feel like a threat she was familiar with. Sleeping on the streets of Paris had given her a very acute sense of threat, especially the threat of physical violence, and she wasn’t getting that from him.

No, it was something else.

‘Why do you want to know my name?’

She wasn’t going to just give it to him. She never gave her name to anyone unless she knew them. Over the past few years she’d developed a hearty distrust of most people and it had saved her on more than one occasion.

‘So you can call your friends in the police and get them to throw me in jail?’

She shouldn’t have vandalised the car, since as a rule she liked to keep a low profile—less chance of coming to anyone’s notice that way. But she’d been followed on her way to the little alley where she’d been hoping to bed down and, since being a woman on her own at night could be a problem, she’d attached herself to the crowd of homeless teenagers she’d been with earlier. They’d been out vandalising stuff and she’d had to prove herself willing to do the same in order to stay in their company. So she hadn’t hesitated to pick up the spray can.

To be fair, she hadn’t minded targeting this man’s limo. The rich never saw the people on the streets, and she rather liked the idea of forcing her existence to at least be acknowledged in some way. Even if it did involve the police.

‘No.’

His voice was very deep, with a warmth curling through it that made a part of her shiver right down low inside. There was a lilt to it, too...a faint, musical accent.

‘But you were vandalising my car. Your name is the least you can give me in recompense.’

Leonie frowned. What had he done with her knife? She wanted it back. She didn’t feel safe without it. ‘Why? Don’t you want money?’

He raised one perfect black brow. ‘Do you have any?’

‘No.’

The man shrugged one powerful shoulder in an elegant motion and she found her gaze drawn by the movement. To the way his shirt pulled tight across that shoulder, displaying the power of the muscles underneath.

How odd. She’d never looked at a man that way before, so why was she doing so now? Men were awful—especially rich men like this one. She knew all about them; her father was one of them and he’d thrown her and her mother out on the streets. So no wonder she’d taken an instant dislike to this guy—though maybe it was more hate than dislike.

Hate was the only word strong enough to describe the disturbingly intense feeling gathering inside her now.

‘Then, gatita,’ he said, in his dark, deep voice, ‘your name it will have to be.’

‘But I don’t want to give you that.’

Her jaw tightened. Resistance was the only thing she had on the streets and she clung to it stubbornly. Resistance to anything and everything that tried to push her down or squash her, grind her into the dirt of Paris’s ancient cobbles. Because if she didn’t resist then what else did she have? How would she even know she existed?

By spraying rude words on a limo?

Yes, if need be. It was all about the fight. That was all life was.

He gave another elegant shrug, as if it was all out of his hands. ‘Then sadly I must be recompensed for my inconvenience in other ways.’

Ah, of course. She understood this, at least. ‘I’m not paying you in sex. I’d rather die.’

His mouth twitched, which she found disconcerting. Normally men got angry when she refused them, but he didn’t seem angry at all. Only...amused.

For some reason she didn’t like it that he found her amusing.

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t,’ he said lazily. ‘I happen to be very good at it. No one has died having sex with me yet, for example.’

Leonie ignored the way her stomach fluttered. Perhaps that was hunger. She hadn’t eaten today, and although a day without food was fairly normal for her, she didn’t usually find herself chucked into a limo and kept prisoner by...whoever this man was.

‘But,’ he went on before she could argue, ‘I know what you’re talking about, and rest assured my recompense won’t be in the form of sex. Though I’m sure you are, in fact, very desirable.’

She gave him a dark look. ‘I am, actually. Why do you think I carry a knife?’

‘Of course. What man wouldn’t want a feral kitten?’

His mouth curved and she found herself staring at it. It had a nice shape, firm and beautifully carved.

She shook herself. Why was she staring at his mouth?

‘You’d be surprised what men want,’ she said, dragging her gaze to meet his, though quite frankly that wasn’t any better.

His amusement abruptly drained away, the lines of his perfect face hardening. He shifted, sitting back against the seat. ‘No. I would not.’

Leonie shivered, the interior of the car feeling suddenly cold. ‘What do you want, then? I can’t pay you, and I’m not telling you my name, so all you can do is call the police and have me prosecuted. And if you’re not going to do that, then isn’t it easier to let me go?’

‘But then how would I be recompensed for my inconvenience?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘No, I’m afraid, gatita, I can’t let you go.’ He paused, his green eyes considering. ‘I think I’m going to have to put you to work instead.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE LITTLE REDHEAD treated this suggestion without obvious enthusiasm—which Cristiano had expected.

He still didn’t know why exactly he’d said it. Because she was right. He could afford the paltry amount it would take to get his limo repainted. And as for his supposed inconvenience...

He glanced out through the window to the two lovely women he’d wanted to join him for the night. They were still out there, waiting for him to give them the word, though for once he felt a lessening of his own enthusiasm for their company.

It was a bit mystifying, since he never said no to anything or anyone—still less two beautiful women. Nevertheless, he found himself more interested in the little gatita sitting opposite him. She was a puzzle, and it had been too long since he’d had a puzzle.

He wanted her name. And the fact that she wouldn’t just give it to him was irritating. Especially when that familiarity kept tugging on him, rubbing against his consciousness like a burr in a blanket.

Women never denied him, and the fact that she had was annoying.

And then she’d muttered that thing about men, and he’d realised that letting her go meant letting her go back on the streets at two in the morning. Admittedly she’d been with a crowd earlier, but they’d all vanished, so she’d be on her own.

That she was used to looking after herself was obvious, but it didn’t mean he was going to let her. He wasn’t a gentleman, despite the fact that he came from an ancient line of Spanish nobility. Not in any way. But he was enough of a man that he couldn’t leave this young woman alone in the middle of the night.

Because, no, he wouldn’t be surprised at what men wanted from such a delectable little morsel such as herself. He was one of those men after all.

That left him with only one option: to keep hold of her in a way she’d accept.

He could, of course, simply ignore her protests and take her back to his Paris mansion and keep her there. But, again, dealing with the protests that would no doubt entail would be tiresome, and he preferred to avoid tiresome things. Things that left less time to do the things he liked doing. His own personal pleasure always took priority.

It would be easier all round if she agreed, therefore work it was.

If only he had something for her to do...

He had estates and a castillo back in Spain—which he avoided going to whenever possible—and numerous companies he’d invested his considerable fortune in. But he already had a number of staff managing all those things—and besides, they weren’t the kinds of things a Parisian street urchin could manage, no matter how feisty she was.

No, the only work he could conceivably give her was domestic, by adding her to his housekeeping staff. He already had a large contingent, but one more wouldn’t hurt. House-cleaning, at least, required no extensive training, and it would keep her close until he’d uncovered her mysteries.

Which he was going to do, since he currently had a dearth of mysteries in his life.

‘What kind of work?’ she asked, still suspicious.

‘I need someone to clean for me.’ He tilted his head, studying her. ‘I have a house in Paris that’s very large and needs attention. You may work out what you owe me for the car and my personal inconvenience there.’

‘But I—’

‘Did I mention that I have rooms set aside for my staff? You will be required to live on-site for the duration.’

‘Don’t guys like you already have a lot people doing your dirty work for you?’

‘Yes.’ Her scorn didn’t bother him. He tried not to let anything bother him, since it was very dangerous for all concerned when he was bothered. ‘But I could always do with one more. Plus, I pay my staff very well for doing my “dirty work”.’

At the mention of pay, something changed. Her eyes lost that wary look, and a calculating gleam sparked in their depths.

He knew that gleam and he knew it intimately. It was hunger. And not in the physical sense, of needing food, but in the sense of wanting something you could never have and wanting it desperately.

Money—she wanted money. And who could blame her when she didn’t have any? Money was power, and she didn’t have any of that, either, he’d bet.

Sure enough, she said, ‘Pay? You pay them?’

‘Of course. That’s why they’re my staff and not my slaves.’

She leaned forward all of a sudden, losing her wariness, all business now. Her violet eyes were focused very intently on him. ‘Would you pay me? Once I earned back for the car? Could I have a proper job?’

Something shifted in Cristiano’s gut. Something that, again, he was intimately familiar with.

She was lovely. And he could imagine her looking at him just like that, with a pretty flush to her pale cheeks and a flame in her eyes and all the beautiful hair spread over his pillow. Hungry for him as he buried himself inside her...

A nice thought, but a thought was what it would stay. She’d never be one of his partners. Apart from the fact that the distance between them in power, money and just about everything else could not have been more vast, she was also much younger than he was.

And he was betting she’d either had some bad experiences with men or she avoided men completely.

Again, dealing with all that sounded like work, and he tried to avoid work whenever he could. He didn’t want anything hard, anything difficult, and he avoided complications like the plague.

This small gatita was certainly a complication, but he found he was willing to expend a bit of effort on figuring out why she was so familiar to him. After all, it had been a while since he’d let himself be interested in something other than physical pleasure. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

‘Do you want a job?’ he asked, teasing her a little just because he could.

‘Yes, of course I want a job.’ Her gaze narrowed further. ‘How much do you pay?’

A good question—though he was sure she couldn’t afford to turn anything down.

‘My staff are the best and I pay them accordingly,’ he said, and named a sum that made her pretty eyes go round.

‘That much?’ All her earlier wariness and suspicion had dropped away. ‘You really pay people that much just to clean your house?’

‘It’s a very big house.’

‘And you’d pay me that?’

It wasn’t a lot of money—at least it wasn’t to him. But for her it was clearly a fortune. Then again, he suspected that a five-euro note left on the street would be a fortune for her.

‘Yes, I’d pay you that.’ He paused, studying her. ‘Where do you live? And what are you doing on the streets at two in the morning?’

Instantly her expression closed up, the light disappearing from her face, the shutters coming down behind her eyes. She sat back on the seat, putting distance between them and glancing out of the window.

‘I should go home. My...mother will be worried.’

Which didn’t answer his direct question but answered the ones he hadn’t voiced. Because she was lying. Her slight hesitation made him pretty certain she didn’t have a mother and neither did she have a home.

‘I think not,’ he said, watching her. ‘I think you should come directly back to my house and spend the night there. Then you can start work first thing tomorrow morning.’

‘I don’t want to come back to your house.’

‘Like I said, I have quarters for my staff and there will be more than enough room.’

‘But I—’

‘There will be no argument.’ Because he’d decided now, and once he made a decision he stuck to it. ‘You have two choices. Either you come back to my house tonight or you spend the night in a police cell.’

‘That’s not much of a choice,’ she said angrily.

‘Too bad. You were the one who decided spray-painting my car was a good idea, so these are the consequences.’ He liked her arguing with him, he realised. Probably too much—which was an issue. ‘So what’s it to be, gatita?’

She folded her arms. ‘Why do you keep calling me that?’

‘It means kitten in Spanish.’

‘I’m not a kitten.’

‘You’re small and feral and you tried to scratch me—of course you’re a kitten. And a wild one at that.’

She was silent a moment, not at all mollified. Then, ‘Why Spanish?’

‘Because I’m Spanish.’

‘Oh. What are you doing in Paris?’

He stared at her, letting her see a little of his edge. ‘That’s a lot of questions for a woman who won’t even give me her name.’

‘Why should I? You haven’t given me yours.’

That was true—he hadn’t. And why not? His name was an ancient and illustrious one, but one that would soon come to an end. He was the sole heir and he had no plans to produce another. No, the Velazquez line, the dukedom of San Lorenzo, would die with him and then be forgotten. Which was probably for the best, considering his dissolute lifestyle.

Your parents would be appalled.

They certainly would have been had they still been alive, but they weren’t. He had no one to impress, no one to live up to. There was only him and he didn’t care.

‘My name is Cristiano Velazquez, Fifteenth Duke of San Lorenzo,’ he said, because he had no reason to hide it. ‘And you may address me as Your Grace.’

A ripple of something crossed her face, though he couldn’t tell what it was. Then she frowned. ‘A duke? Cristiano Velazquez...?’ She said his name very slowly, as if tasting it.

He knew she hadn’t meant to do it in a seductive way, but he felt the seduction in it all the same. His name in her soft, sweet husky voice, said so carefully in French... As if that same sense of familiarity tugged at her the way it tugged at him.

But how would she know him? They’d never met—or at least not that he remembered. And he definitely hadn’t slept with her—that he was sure of. He might have had too many women to count, but he’d remember if he’d had her.

‘You’ve heard of me?’ he asked carefully, watching her face.

‘No... I don’t think so.’ She looked away. ‘Where is your house, then?’

Was she telling the truth? Had she, in fact, heard of him? Briefly he debated whether or not to push her. But it was late, and there were dark circles under her eyes, and suddenly she looked very small and fragile sitting there.

He should get her back to his place and tuck her into bed.

‘You’ll see.’ Moving over the seat towards the door, he opened it. ‘Stay here.’

Not that he gave her much choice, because he got out and shut it behind him again, locking it just in case she decided to make a desperate bid for freedom.

He made excuses to the two patiently waiting women, ensured they were taken care of for the evening, then went to find his recalcitrant driver, whom he eventually found in a nearby alley, playing some kind of dice game with a couple of the kids who’d been standing around his car.

How fortunate.

Getting his wallet out of his pocket, Cristiano extracted a note and brandished it at one of the youths. ‘You,’ he said shortly. ‘This is yours if you tell me the name of the woman with the pretty red hair who was spray-painting my car.’

The kid stared at the note, his mouth open. ‘Uh... Leonie,’ he muttered, and made a grab for the money.

So much for loyalty.

Cristiano jerked the note away before the boy could get it. ‘You didn’t give me a last name.’

The kid scowled. ‘I don’t know. No one knows anyone’s last name around here.’

Which was probably true.

He allowed the boy to take the money and then, with a meaningful jerk of his head towards the car for his driver’s benefit, he turned back to it himself.

Leonie. Leonie...

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his memory a bell rang.

Leonie blinked as a pair of big wrought-iron gates set into a tall stone wall opened and the car slid smoothly through them.

On the rare occasions when she’d ventured out of the area she lived in she’d seen places like this. Old buildings surrounded by high walls. Houses where the rich lived.

She’d once lived in a house like this herself, but it had been a long time ago and elsewhere, when she’d been a little kid. Before her father had kicked her and her mother out of their palatial mansion and life had changed drastically.

She still remembered what it had been like to have money, to have a roof over her head and clean clothes and food. Nice memories, but they’d been a lie, so she tried not to think about them. It was better not to remember such things because they only made her want what she could never have—and wanting things was always a bad thing.

She stared distrustfully out into the darkness, where the silhouette of a massive old house reared against the sky.

The driver came around the side of the car and opened the door. The duke gestured at her to get out.

She turned her distrustful attention to him.

A duke. An honest-to-God duke. He didn’t look like one—though she had no idea what dukes were supposed to look like. Maybe much older. Although, given the faint lines around his eyes and mouth, he was certainly a lot older than she was. Then again, his hair was still pitch-black so he couldn’t be that old.

His name had sounded faintly familiar to her, though she couldn’t think why. The fact that he was Spanish had given her a little kick, since she’d been born in Spain herself. In fact maybe she’d met him once before—back in Spain, before her father had got rid of her and her mother and her mother had dragged her to Paris.

Back when she’d been Leonie de Riero, the prized only daughter of Victor de Riero, with the blood of ancient Spanish aristocracy running in her veins.

Perhaps she knew this duke from then? Or perhaps not. She’d been very young, after all, and her memories of that time were dim.

Whatever he was, or had been, she didn’t want to remember those days. The present was the only thing she had, and she had to be on her guard at all times. Forgetting where she was and what was happening led to mistakes, and she’d already made enough of those since ending up on the streets.

If she hadn’t been so absorbed in getting the lettering just so as she’d graffitied his car, she wouldn’t be here after all.

You certainly wouldn’t have had a bed for the night, so maybe it wasn’t such a mistake?

That remained to be seen. Perhaps she should have fought harder to escape him. Then again, she hadn’t been able to resist the lure of a job—if he actually meant what he’d said, that was.

The duke lifted that perfect brow of his. ‘Are you going to get out? Or would you prefer to sit here all night? The car is quite comfortable, though I’m afraid the doors will have to stay locked.’

She gave him a ferocious glare. ‘Give me back my knife first.’ She liked to have some protection on her, just in case of treachery.

He remained impervious to her glare. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, gatita.’

Kitten. He kept calling her kitten. It was annoying.

‘I don’t trust you. And I don’t want to sleep in a strange place without some protection.’

His jungle-green gaze was very level and absolutely expressionless. ‘Fair enough.’ Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he extracted her knife and held it out, handle first.

She took it from him, the familiarity of the handle fitting into her palm making her feel slightly better. Briefly she debated whether or not to try and slash at him again, then bolt into the darkness. But she remembered the high walls surrounding the house. She wouldn’t be able to get over those, alas. She could refuse to get out and sleep in the car, but she didn’t like the idea of being locked in. No, it was the house or nothing.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Leonie pocketed her knife then slid out of the car. Behind her, the duke murmured something to his driver and then he was beside her, moving past her up the big stone steps to the front door of the mansion.

Some member of his staff was obviously still up, because the door opened, a pool of light shining out.

A minute later she found herself in a huge vaulted vestibule, with flights of stone steps curling up to the upper storeys and a massive, glittering chandelier lighting the echoing space. Thick silk rugs lay on the floor and there were pictures on the walls, and on the ceiling far above her head was a big painting of angels with white wings and golden haloes.

It was very warm inside.

She was used to being cold. She’d been cold ever since she was sixteen, coming home after school one day to the rundown apartment she’d shared with her mother only to find it empty, and a note from her mother on the rickety kitchen table informing Leonie that she’d gone and not to look for her.

Leonie hadn’t believed it at first. But her mother hadn’t come home that night, or the next, or the one after that, and eventually Leonie had had to accept that her mother wasn’t coming home at all. Leonie had been evicted from the apartment not long after that, and forced to live on the streets, where she’d felt like she’d become permanently cold.

But she hadn’t realised just how cold until now. Until the warmth from this place seeped up through the cracked soles of her sneakers and into her body, into her heart.

Immediately she wanted to go outside again—to run and never stop running. She couldn’t trust this warmth. She couldn’t let her guard down. It wasn’t safe.

Except the big front door had closed, and she knew it would be locked, and the duke was gesturing at her to follow the older woman who stood next to him, regarding her with some disgust, making her abruptly conscious of the holes in her jeans and the stains on the denim. Of the grimy hoodie that she’d stolen from a guy who’d taken it off to fight someone in the alleyway where she’d been sleeping one night. Of the paint stains on her hands.

She was dirty, and ragged, and she probably smelled since she hadn’t found anywhere to clean herself for weeks. No wonder this woman looked disgusted.

Leonie’s stomach clenched and she gripped the handle of her knife, scowling to cover the wave of vulnerability that had come over her. Never stop fighting. Never show weakness. That was the law of the streets.

‘Go with Camille,’ the duke said. ‘She will show you—’

‘No,’ Leonie said. ‘Just tell me where to go and I’ll find my own way there.’

Camille made a disapproving sound, then said something in a lilting musical language to the duke. He replied in the same language, his deep, rich voice making it sound as if he was caressing each word.

Leonie felt every one of her muscles tense in resistance. She couldn’t like the sound of his voice. She had to be on her guard at all times and not make any mistakes. And she didn’t want to go with this Camille woman and her disapproving stare.

Much to her surprise, however, with one last dark look in Leonie’s direction, the woman turned and vanished down one of the huge, echoing hallways that led off the entrance hall.

Without a word, the duke turned and headed towards the huge marble staircase. ‘Follow me,’ he said over his shoulder.

He didn’t pause and he didn’t wait, as if expecting her to follow him just as he’d said.

Leonie blinked. Why had he sent the other woman away? Was he just leaving her here? What if she somehow managed to get out through the door? What if she escaped down one of the corridors? What would he do? He wasn’t looking at her. Would he even know until she was gone?

Her heartbeat thumped wildly, adrenaline surging through her—both preludes to a very good bolt. And yet she wasn’t moving. She was standing there in this overwhelming, intimidating entrance hall, not running, watching a tall, powerful rich man go up the marble stairs.

He moved with economy and a lazy, athletic grace that reminded her even more strongly of a panther. It was mesmerising, for some reason. And when she found herself moving, it wasn’t towards the doorway or the corridor, it was towards him, following him almost helplessly.

Was this what had happened in that fairy-tale? Those children following the Pied Piper, drawn beyond their control by the music he made. Disappearing. Never to be seen again.

You’re an idiot. You have your knife. Pull yourself together.

This was true. And nothing had happened to her so far. Yes, he’d kept her locked in the car against her will, but he hadn’t hurt her. And apart from the moment when he’d grabbed her, he hadn’t touched her again.

She didn’t trust him, or his offer of a job, but it was either follow him or stay down here in the entrance hall, and that seemed cowardly. She wasn’t going to do that, either.

There was a slim possibility that he was telling the truth, and if so she needed to take advantage of it. If she was going to achieve her dream of having a little cottage of her own in the countryside, away from the city, away from danger, then he was her best chance of that happening.

Slowly Leonie moved after him, going up the winding marble staircase, trying to keep her attention on his strong back and not gawk at all the paintings on the walls, the carpets on the parquet floors, the vases of flowers on the small tables dotted here and there as they went down yet another wide and high-ceilinged corridor.

Windows let in the Parisian night and she caught glimpses of tall trees, hinting at a garden outside. She wanted to go and look through the glass, because it had been a long time since she’d seen a garden, but she didn’t dare. She had to keep the duke’s tall figure in sight.

Eventually, after leading her through a few more of those high-ceilinged corridors, he stopped outside a door and opened it, inclining his head for her to go on through.

He was standing quite near the doorway, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to get that close to him, but she didn’t want him to know it bothered her, either, so she slipped past him as quickly as she could. But not quickly enough to avoid catching a hint of his aftershave and the warmth of his powerful body as she brushed past him.

It was only an instant, but in that instant she was acutely aware of his height looming over her. Of the width of his broad shoulders and the stretch of the cotton across his muscled chest. Of the way he smelled spicy and warm and quite delicious.

A strange ripple of sensation went through her like an electric shock.

Disturbed, Leonie ignored it, concentrating instead on the room she’d stepped into.

It was very large, with tall windows that looked out on to trees. A thick pale carpet covered the floor, and up against one wall, facing the windows, was a very large bed, made up with a thick, soft-looking white quilt.

The duke moved past her, going over to the windows and drawing heavy pale silk curtains over the black glass, shutting out the night. The room was very warm, the carpet very soft under her feet, and she was conscious once again of how dirty she was.

She was going to leave stains all over this pretty pale bedroom. Surely he couldn’t mean for her to stay here? It didn’t look like a cleaner’s room. It was far too luxurious.

‘This can’t be where you put your staff,’ she said, frowning. ‘Why am I here?’

He adjusted the curtains with a small, precise movement, then turned around, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Not usually, no. But Camille didn’t have a room ready for you, so I thought you could use one of my guest bedrooms.’

‘Why? Why are you doing this?’

He tilted his head, gazing at her from underneath very long, thick black lashes. ‘Which particular “this” are you talking about?’

‘I mean this room. A job. A bed for the night. Why are you doing any of it? Why should you care?’

She hadn’t meant it to come out so accusingly, but she couldn’t help it. Men like him, with money and power, never did things without wanting something in return. Even charity usually came with strings. There were bound to be strings here, if only she could see them.

But the duke merely gave one of those elegant shrugs. ‘What else does one do with a feral kitten but look after it?’

‘I’m not a kitten,’ she said, for the second time that night.

His mouth curved and once again she felt that electric ripple of sensation move through her. It came to her very suddenly that this man was dangerous. And dangerous in a way she couldn’t name. He wasn’t a physical threat—though those strange little ripples of sensation definitely were—but definitely a threat of some kind.

‘No,’ he murmured, his gaze moving over her in a way that made heat rise in her cheeks. ‘You’re not, are you?’

She lifted her chin, discomfited and not liking it one bit. ‘And I didn’t ask you to look after me, either.’

‘Oh, if you think I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart you are mistaken.’ He strolled past her towards the door. ‘It’s entirely out of self-interest, believe me.’

‘Why? Just because I vandalised your car?’

Pausing by the door, he gave her a sweeping, enigmatic glance. ‘Among other things. The bathroom is through the door opposite. A shower or a bath wouldn’t go amiss, gatita.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, annoyed that he’d obviously noticed how dirty she was and how she must smell, and then annoyed further by her own annoyance—since why should she care if he’d noticed?

‘What else am I to call you?’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Especially since you won’t give me your name.’

Leonie pressed her lips together. He might have strong-armed her into staying in his house, but her name was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to force out of her. That was hers to give.

Again, he didn’t seem offended. He only smiled. ‘Then gatita it will have to be.’

And before she could say another word he walked out, closing the door carefully behind him.

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