The Secret He Must Claim

CHAPTER THREE

ELIN WEIGHED NEXT to nothing, Cortez discovered as he sprang forwards and caught her before she hit the floor. Her fragility was the first thing that had struck him when he’d seen her standing at the front of the church. Was her slender figure the result of dieting to be fashionably thin, or was there a more sinister reason? he wondered as he strode into the library with her in his arms.

Two days ago, pictures of her being carried out of a London nightclub had been plastered over the front pages of the tabloids. There had been speculation that she’d taken cocaine or another recreational drug, popular on the club scene. Is this proof that Elin has resumed her party lifestyle? had been one headline.

Cortez had been annoyed with himself for pandering to his curiosity and buying the newspaper to read the full story. The references to Elin’s party girl reputation of a year ago, before she had mysteriously dropped off the paparazzi’s radar for a few months, had made him shove the paper into the rubbish bin in disgust.

What the hell had possessed him to have sex with her when he’d unwittingly gatecrashed her party? The answer felt like a punch in his gut. The same punch that had made him catch his breath when he’d watched her dancing at her party. Desire. Uncontrollable, ferocious desire had shot through him like a lightning bolt.

Unbidden memories pushed into his mind of Elin wearing a low-cut red dress that barely covered her pert breasts. Her pale blonde hair fell in a silken curtain around her shoulders, framing her exquisite face with its elfin features and a wide mouth that was entirely sensual. The moment he’d seen her he’d been unable to take his eyes off her. Even knowing what she was—a spoilt little rich girl who cared about nothing other than where the next party was being held and—if the press stories about her were true—where she could get her next fix—hadn’t lessened his hunger for her.

It was a little over twelve months ago when he had come to England after he’d received the result of a DNA test which confirmed he was Ralph Saunderson’s son. Ralph had invited him to Cuckmere Hall, and Cortez had gone because he could not deny he was curious to meet his biological father, who had abandoned his mother when she was pregnant. He had already discovered that Ralph was wealthy and the Saundersons were an old aristocratic family.

Driving through the vast Cuckmere estate on his way up to the mansion, Cortez had felt bitter remembering how his mother had worked herself literally into an early grave. Thirty-five years ago, Marisol Ramos had been pregnant and alone, abandoned by her lover and shunned by her family in Spain. She had managed to establish a small vineyard in Andalucía and from almost as soon as Cortez could walk he had helped his mother tend the vines and harvest the grapes. The bodega had produced a fine sherry, but it couldn’t compete with the big sherry producers in the sherry triangle in south-west Spain. Life had been hard, and when his mother had died at the age of forty-two Cortez had been convinced that she’d simply felt too exhausted to carry on living.

When he had finally met Ralph Saunderson the only emotion he’d felt was anger that his father had consigned his mother to a life of poverty and hardship. At the time of his visit to Cuckmere Hall the English press had been full of stories about Ralph’s adopted son and daughter’s jet set lifestyle, in particular Elin’s wild partying. But the pictures of her in the newspapers and her photo on Ralph’s desk that had caught Cortez’s attention had not prepared him for the impact she had on him when he saw her dancing at her birthday party.

He jerked his mind from the past as Elin’s eyelashes fluttered open. For a few seconds she stared at him with her dark blue eyes that had reminded him of sapphires when he’d danced with her a year ago. He recalled how she had pressed her body up close to his. As close as she was now, except that then she had been soft and pliant in his arms and she’d parted her lush mouth in an invitation he had been unable to resist.

That should have been a warning, he thought grimly. He never had a problem resisting women. He was always in control and when he took a mistress it was always on his terms, with rules and boundaries established first. Falling into bed with Elin had broken every rule he’d imposed on himself since he’d fallen in love with Alandra in his early twenties and she had shattered his illusions about love and his own judgement.

‘What are you doing? Put me down.’

Cortez heard panic in Elin’s voice and he felt a stab of irritation when he lowered her onto the sofa and she immediately recoiled from him as if he were infected with a contagious disease. She hadn’t behaved like that a year ago, he brooded. She’d been all over him then. He walked across to the desk, where the butler had left a tray of drinks, and tried to dismiss the memory of Elin sprawled on a bed with her red dress rucked up around her waist and her pale thighs spread wide open.

‘Here,’ he said curtly, returning to hand her a glass of brandy.

She shook her head. ‘I never touch spirits and in fact I rarely drink alcohol at all.’

How could she look so damned innocent when he had irrefutable proof that she was far from it? He remembered how she had flirted with him at her birthday party and he had been blown away by her sexual allure.

Cortez’s anger with himself increased when he found he could not tear his eyes away from Elin. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. The black dress she was wearing was a classic style reminiscent of a previous era when women had looked effortlessly elegant. Her pale blonde hair was swept up into a chignon that emphasised the incredible bone structure of her face, with those high cheekbones and perfectly arched brows above the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. He felt a sudden tightness in his chest and to his fury he was powerless to control the almost painful throb of his sexual arousal.

‘If you were not drunk when you had to be carried out of a nightclub the other night, then perhaps the recent lurid tabloid headlines alleging that you have a drug habit are true,’ he drawled.

Colour stained her porcelain cheeks. ‘The press print a lot of lies about me, but the truth is that I fainted in the nightclub because I’ve been unwell recently. I felt wobbly just now because it was a huge shock to learn that my father had excluded me and my brother from his will, and named you—his illegitimate son that no one knew existed—as his heir.’ Elin’s voice was icy but her eyes flashed with fury as she got up from the sofa and faced him.

‘Did you go to the house in Kensington and gatecrash my party so you could gloat? Ralph must have told you a year ago that he intended to make you his heir. Wasn’t it enough to know you would inherit Cuckmere Hall, the house in London and the chairmanship of Saunderson’s Bank, and you decided you would take me too?’

Cortez gave a hard smile, because here at last was proof that she might look like an angel, with her golden beauty and that ridiculous air of innocence that made his gut twist, but she was just another blonde who had satisfied his libido for a few hours, and she was no different to all the other blondes who regarded sex as a bartering tool. No doubt if he had stuck around after they’d slept together, Elin would have issued demands the way all women did.

‘As a matter of fact I did not know about the will,’ he told her. ‘After I met my father for the first time at Cuckmere Hall I had planned to spend the night at a hotel in London, but Ralph suggested I could stay at his house in Kensington and gave me a key. He said that you and your brother were both abroad and the house would be empty. When I walked into your party I had every intention of leaving, but you begged me to dance with you.’

Cortez was fascinated by the tide of scarlet that swept along her high cheekbones. ‘I did not take anything that was not offered freely,’ he said harshly. ‘You invited me into your bedroom and made it clear that you wanted sex.’ He shrugged. ‘Knowing of your reputation, I don’t flatter myself that I was your first or last one-night stand.’

The colour receded from her face. ‘You really are a bastard, aren’t you? That night I was under the influence of a drug which impaired my judgement and caused me to behave in a way I would never normally have done. As for my reputation—’ she gave a short laugh ‘—you know nothing about me.’

There was a strained note of what he could almost believe was hurt in her voice that made Cortez feel uncomfortable. He had no reason to feel guilty, he assured himself. Elin had just admitted that she’d taken drugs at her party and implied that she’d had sex with him because she had been high. But he’d been unaware she’d taken any kind of substance or that her behaviour was out of character. Everything he’d read about her in the press suggested she’d had many previous sex partners.

Memories of that night were crystal-clear in his mind, despite the distance of a year. He remembered that when he had pulled her beneath him and thrust himself into her with a desperation he’d never felt before, she had tensed and caught her breath. Dios, she had been so tight and so goddamned hot that he’d almost come instantly. But then she’d wrapped her legs around his hips and matched his pace when he began to move. Passion had blazed between them and he’d dismissed the unlikely notion that she was sexually inexperienced.

Maybe it was an act she put on with other men, Cortez thought darkly. He had proof that he could not have been her first lover.

‘I know you have a child.’ He wondered why he felt a simmering rage at the thought of her slender body wrapped around another man. He had been shocked when he’d heard during the reading of Ralph’s will that Elin had a son. It was odd the media had not reported that she had a child.

‘Ralph stated in his will that he wished for you to marry and provide your son with a father. Are you in contact with your child’s father, and do you intend to marry him in order to claim your inheritance?’

He did not know why he had asked her when he really wasn’t interested in her private life. But he stared at her because he couldn’t help himself and waited tensely for her answer. He realised he was bracing himself for her to reply, but when she did he was unprepared for the shockwave that ripped through him.

‘You are my son’s father,’ she said in her soft voice that had haunted him for the past year.

For a split second he wondered if it was possible, but... ‘No.’ He dismissed the idea. ‘You can’t pin the blame on me. Although I can see why it would be convenient if I was the father of your child,’ he said sardonically. ‘I would feel duty-bound to marry you, and you need a husband in order to meet the terms of Ralph’s will. Marriage to me would give you not only a share of Saunderson’s Wines but also everything you had expected to inherit from my father. As my wife, you could continue to live here at Cuckmere Hall and enjoy the affluent lifestyle Ralph provided, until he named me as his heir.’

He smiled cynically when she shook her head. ‘I’m not a fool, querida. I always practice safe sex. Perhaps you were out of your mind from whatever substance you had taken at your birthday party, but I’ll prompt your memory and remind you that I used a condom. I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere for a husband and a father for your child.’

Elin swayed on her feet, whether for dramatic effect or because she hadn’t fully recovered from fainting a few minutes ago, Cortez did not know and he told himself he didn’t care. She swallowed before she spoke. ‘Only a fool would believe that contraception is one hundred per cent effective, and in our case it failed.’

She lifted her chin and met his gaze, and for some reason he was compelled to look away from her intense blue stare. ‘Believe me, hell will freeze over before I’d ever want to marry you,’ she said coldly. ‘Harry is yours, but I might have known you would shirk your responsibility for your son when you scuttled off without even having the decency to say goodbye after you’d had sex with me.’

‘You were in a deep sleep and I did not think you would appreciate me waking you,’ he bit out, incensed by her scathing tone and her insistence on continuing with what was undoubtedly a lie. He did not believe for a minute that he was the father of her child. Dios, after what had happened with Alandra he had taken care never to have unprotected sex.

Even so, he disliked the image Elin had presented of him hurrying out of her bedroom while she slept because he could not deny that was exactly what he’d done. He’d been rattled that she had made him lose control and he had left before he’d given in to the temptation to kiss her awake and make love to her again, slowly, taking his time to explore her beautiful body so that she gasped and moaned while he pleasured her.

Cortez swore silently as his body reacted predictably to his erotic thoughts, and he forced himself to focus on the present situation. He wasn’t surprised that Elin had played the oldest trick in the book to try to secure financial security for herself, after she’d learned that she and her brother had been excluded almost entirely from their adoptive father’s will. He could not imagine that ‘the party princess’—as one of the tabloids had nicknamed her—had ever held down a job. She needed a source of income, but what was surprising was how quickly she conceded defeat.

‘I’ve done my duty and informed you that you have a son,’ she said crisply. ‘I neither want nor expect anything from you, except for a few days’ grace while I arrange to move out of Cuckmere Hall.’ Her voice bore the faintest tremor and she pressed her lips together before she continued. ‘You are aware that Ralph left my brother and I each a property on the estate. But the cottages have been empty for several years and I don’t know what state they are in. I may need to have some renovation work done before I can take a baby to live there.’

He reminded himself that she did not deserve his compassion. She had enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, which had been denied to his mother and him when he was a child. But Ralph’s vile treatment of his mother was nothing to do with Elin, Cortez conceded. Nor was it her fault that she had grown up in the gracious surroundings of Cuckmere Hall, while he had spent his boyhood working in the vineyards in the blazing Spanish sun, helping his mother to eke out a living.

‘I’m going back to London to meet the board of Saunderson’s Bank this afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I have no plans to return to Sussex for a week or so. You and your brother can remain at Cuckmere Hall while you make arrangements to move into the cottages Ralph left you.’

‘I doubt Jarek will want to live in a cottage. He has his own home in London.’ She hesitated. ‘My brother had anticipated that he would become chairman of the bank. What will happen now? Will he continue in his current job?’

‘For the immediate future the situation will remain unchanged, until I have met the board of directors. When I have assessed all aspects of the bank’s business portfolio there are likely to be changes,’ he warned. ‘Ralph’s will was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you. I was informed of his death by Mr Carstairs and I attended the funeral to pay my respects to my father, even though he had never given my mother the respect she deserved.’

Cortez did not try to disguise his bitterness. His mother had been an angel and his greatest regret was that she had died before he’d become rich and successful and he hadn’t had the chance to make her life more comfortable.

‘It was a great shock to discover that my adoptive father had a secret son,’ Elin said quietly. ‘How did your mother meet Ralph?’

‘She worked as a maid here at Cuckmere Hall. My mother never spoke of my father or revealed his identity and I had no idea that I was Ralph’s son until I received a request for a DNA test. When I met Ralph he explained that he’d had an affair with my mother at the same time as he became engaged to Lorna Amhurst. He said his marriage was an arrangement to merge two banking families.’

Cortez frowned. ‘Ralph insisted that he gave my mother money when she told him she was pregnant. He assumed she returned to her family in Spain. But her family threw her out for having an illegitimate child and she brought me up on her own, with no money other than the small income she earned from growing grapes used for making sherry.

‘I don’t know why Ralph made me his heir, but I think it is unlikely that he wanted to make amends for abandoning me before I was born,’ he said cynically. ‘A more obvious reason is that, having ignored me—his biological son—for most of my life, Ralph was faced with leaving his personal fortune and Saunderson’s Bank to the mercy of his two adopted children who, despite the privileges of wealth and excellent education, have become spoiled brats in adulthood.’

Elin jerked her head back as if he had slapped her. Dios, how did this woman manage to make him feel as if he were a monster? Cortez thought frustratedly.

‘You know nothing about me or my brother,’ she said in a clipped voice that made him want to ruffle her cool composure and reveal the fire that he knew simmered beneath her air of refinement. ‘Jarek is a thousand times a better man than you could ever be.’

Finally he glimpsed a flicker of emotion on her face that up until now had been a serene mask. It was interesting that her brother was her weak spot, he mused. Everyone had an Achilles heel and he had made it his particular line of expertise to detect weaknesses in an opponent which he could ruthlessly use to his advantage. Although he was unlikely to ever need to use boardroom tactics with Elin. She did not have anything he wanted—apart from the face of an angel and a body that would tempt the most devout saint to sin, he thought with grim humour.

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