The Spaniard's Untouched Bride
“They talk about you, too,” she said, realizing that this perhaps was not the best line of conversation. But she blamed her head injury. Also, the fact that when he was near it was difficult to breathe. And it made her feel dizzy.
“Do they?”
“They say you don’t... That you don’t hire women to work for you.”
It was a deadly game that she was playing. At least, it felt that way to her. But Matías never looked at her closely. He looked at her the way he did the rest of his staff. Dismissively, though, not unkindly. He was energetic, and always seemed to be looking around, his focus never bound to one place for too long.
She had a feeling that if he was to ever truly look at her he would see much more than she wanted him to.
“It’s true,” he said, inclining his head, his arrogant mouth curving upward.
“Wh-why is that? You don’t think women are good with horses?”
“Of course not,” he said, waving his hand. “The problem is, they always fall in love with me.”
The words hit Camilla in an uncomfortable space. Because she wasn’t neutral to him. Of course, she wasn’t in love. That was ludicrous. But she certainly wasn’t immune to him, and she could see how it was possible that women might position themselves to get a job at the rancho simply to gain access to him.
“Perhaps,” Matías said, “it is something you will understand when you’re older.”
Irritation prickled her face. “I understand it well enough now.”
Matías chuckled. “Of course.”
“That’s very closed-minded of you, actually,” she said.
Matías arched a brow. “Is it?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “There are some men who might fall in love with you, as well.”
He laughed at that. “I suppose that is a possibility, given that I am replete with charm. However, I have never gone up to my bedroom to find one of my male employees naked in residence.”
Her mouth dropped open, her cheeks growing warm. “Oh.”
“Indeed.”
She was starting to feel dizzy, and she let her head fall back to the arm of the settee, staring up at the ornate ceiling. The room was beginning to swirl around her. A confection of gold, blue and white.
“Cam,” Matías said. “Stay with me.”
She jerked upward. “Stay with you?”
She was feeling confused again. The differences between Cam and Camilla beginning to seem fuzzy. The reason for him asking her to stay becoming ambiguous in her mind.
“Don’t fall asleep,” he said.
She blinked. Of course. Of course that was what he was asking her to do. He wasn’t asking her to stay with him. As in...to stay in the house. As in, to be Camilla with him.
He didn’t know who she was. And frankly, she didn’t know who he was.
It had been much easier when he was nothing more than the faceless villain who had purchased her father’s horses. Who had taken advantage of the state of the rancho, and of her father’s debts.
He did not seem like a villain now. He was kind. And he cared about the horses. Also, surprisingly, he seemed to care whether or not she died. Though he had made it pretty clear that it was an investigation he wanted to avoid. But perhaps, he also cared whether or not she was dead.
It was strangely warming.
But then, that perhaps could also be the head injury.
Suddenly, the doors opened and the doctor and Juan came into the room. She was caught up in a flurry of being checked over, examined. But thank God, it seemed as though she wouldn’t have to go to a hospital. The doctor looked into her eyes and deemed them clear.
And then he ushered Juan and Matías from the room. The older man looked at her with a strange glint in his eyes.
“Your name?”
“Cam,” she responded.
“Age?”
She looked away. “Fourteen.”
“Have you any parents?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are you going to tell me the truth?” The older man looked at her with eyes that were far too piercing, far too knowing.
She shook her head, her throat growing dry. “That is as much of the truth as I can tell you.”
“I must tell you,” the doctor said. “I care a great deal for Matías. I treated him when he was a boy. When that father of his would injure him, give him a black eye, I was the one the staff would call to care for him, and I care for him still. I will not have him taken advantage of.”
“I don’t want to take advantage of him,” she said.
“I believe you. I’m not sure why. Only that I spend a great deal of my time taking care of people. Looking at people. That is the only reason your ruse has worked so far. People like Matías... They train themselves to never look at anyone too closely. But that is what I do. Examine people.”
“My head is all right?” she asked.
“Yes. Though I recommend you do not sleep outside. And that you don’t work out in the sun for a few days. I will speak to Matías about this.”
When the old doctor left the room her stomach twisted. What if he was lying? What if he was going to betray her? Tell her secret? Clearly, he had recognized that she was a woman and not a boy. He had no actual reason to trust her, no matter what he said. Except for some reason she also had a feeling that he would not lie when the truth would serve just as easily.
Because he’d had no reason to placate her. None at all. He could have raised the alarm immediately when he had realized that she was a woman, but instead he had sent Matías and Juan from the room.
Still, she picked at her fingernails, twisted her fingers, nerves overtaking her as she waited.
Matías came back in, his expression dark, stormy. “The doctor has recommended that I set up a room for you inside the house, at least for the next couple of nights. To make you more comfortable, and to ensure that you aren’t by yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling guilty now. Because this was becoming more than simply taking care of the horses. This was becoming something more.
He was extending hospitality to her now, and she was lying to him.
But it wasn’t to hurt him. It wasn’t to take advantage of him. It was for Fuego.
Yes, for Fuego, but also for her own damaged heart. Because she had lost so much, and she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of not having the horses, too.
She discovered fairly quickly that, in fact, a great many members of Matías’s household staff were women.
She looked quizzically at the elderly woman who led her to the bedroom. “He told me he didn’t hire women,” she commented.
“He does not hire young women,” she replied. “Particularly not to work with the horses. He is rarely home, but he is often out at the stables when he’s here. So, those are the people he interacts with most often.” She shook her head. “He had quite a few girls make appalling fools of themselves for him some years ago.”
Camilla took some sense of relief in that assurance as she put on the sweats that had been brought to her from her quarters. At least she hadn’t engaged in this ruse because of a false rumor.
That would have been truly untenable.
But she wasn’t going to concern herself with that. Not now. She settled herself into the bed—the softest thing she had felt against her skin in months—and tried to stay awake, simply because she felt comfortable, truly comfortable, in the way she had grown up for the first time in so long she wanted to bask in it.
But she couldn’t stay awake. And eventually, she gave in and let sleep pull her under.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS THE screams that woke him up. Then at first, he was convinced that he was dreaming. Dreaming of that day that was buried back in his mind, so deep, so far, that his waking consciousness would never dare dredge it up. But in his dreams...his dreams were all women and horses screaming.
But it took only a few moments for him to realize that it wasn’t screaming in his head. But in reality.
And he had one thought, only one thought, that the screams were coming from Liliana.
He tore himself out of bed and ran across the house, feeling a jumble of emotions, mixed memories combined with the reality of what was happening. Of course he should never have brought a woman here. Not one so delicate as she was.
Of course he should have known that the curse of the Navarro men—or rather, the women that they took as their own—would come to pass.
Ridiculous. She was having a nightmare, or, she had seen a spider. Something easily explainable. He was telling himself that as he made his way down the hall. But then he heard the screams of his housekeeper, and that was when true fear overtook him.
Heart raging, sweat beading on his back, he raced to Liliana’s room, only to discover that the door was flung open wide, as was the window, her lacy curtains blowing in the breeze. They were three floors up.
Surely, if Liliana wasn’t happy she wouldn’t resort to flinging herself out a window to escape him. All she would’ve had to do was ask.
That absurd thought wormed its way into his mind as he ran to the window and looked down below, half expecting to see her inert, white nightgown-clad form crumpled in the grass. But she was not there.
He looked across the broad expanse of lawn and saw her. That white, flowing figure—her nightgown and her pale blond hair—whipping in the breeze. But she was not alone. There was a black shadow that seemed to be consuming her, holding her fast.
Diego.
He knew it. Deep in his bones, he knew. His brother had stolen his bride.
And then, just like that, they were gone. Disappeared completely. Diego had Liliana.
He issued orders to his staff in rapid-fire Spanish, and only after a few moments did he see the boy standing there in the hall, his eyes wide, fear etched over his youthful face.
“Go back to bed,” he commanded.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Liliana has been taken,” he responded, not seeing any point in being dishonest.
The boy swore. “By who?”
“By my brother.”
Camilla still wasn’t allowed to go back to work because of her injury, and that meant that she was currently tied to the house, wandering the halls and feeling far too conspicuous.
But if anyone had been even close to looking at her before, they were not doing so now. Everyone was consumed with the search for Liliana Hart, who had been—it appeared—kidnapped out of her bedroom window by Matías’s older brother.
Diego Navarro.
And as that search waged on, Camilla had far too much time to simply sit and think. To wonder about the manner of man Diego was, and to attempt to piece it together with what kind of information she had gotten from the doctor. About what kind of man Matías’s father had been.
The old doctor had said that Matías had been injured by his father, and he had spoken of it as though it had been routine. Camilla could scarcely wrap her mind around that. Around such horror.
She tried to remember if she had ever heard anything about Matías’s father, but she couldn’t remember, as all of those rumors were obscured by those about his brother. People did talk about Diego. About how his pregnant wife had died, and how the circumstances had all seemed quite suspicious.
But of course, all of this had been done under the guise of saying prayers for the family, careful bits of gossip wrapped in concern.
Matías, for all that he had a reputation of being hard, also had a reputation for being good.
She had the feeling that none of the other Navarro men held such a claim.
She heard footsteps and scampered deeper into the library, where she was currently attempting to waste some hours. She settled into an armchair near the fireplace, grateful that the only light in the room came from the flames there and a small lamp positioned across the room.
Then she heard voices outside the door.
“Any word at all?” It was Matías’s voice.
“None,” came an unfamiliar response. “The grounds were searched thoroughly, but somehow, they seemed to have disappeared by the time we got to where the car was abandoned.”
Matías let out a derisive snort. “I imagine, knowing my brother, a helicopter was involved.”
Camilla raised her brows, putting her hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound that might give her away.
“You are certain it was your brother?”
“Oh, I am certain. There is little I would put beyond his boundaries.”
“I am sorry,” the other man said. “But if they are not in Spain any longer there isn’t much we can do. We have no leads.”
“And my brother has not resurfaced anywhere else in Europe yet,” Matías said. “I’ve been keeping watch on his various haunts. Or rather, having certain people in my employ do so. Diego seems to have gone underground.”
“We will do our very best. He will not be able to come back into the country without us knowing. That is certain.”
She heard footsteps, then she heard Matías muttering about the fact that he had likely gained entry into the country without their knowing this time. She could see that he had little confidence in law enforcement at the moment.
The door opened a crack, and Camilla sank farther back into the armchair, wishing that there was something she could hide behind. She didn’t want to be alone in a room with Matías again. It had been confronting enough when she had been lying there with a head injury. At least then he had been concerned for her well-being and had likely only been looking at her to figure out how injured she was.
She just didn’t want to encourage any more moments where he saw her clean, where he saw her in a domestic setting, without the sun in his eyes. Anything that might reveal her to him.
Plus, there was the simple fact that whenever she was in a room with him he made it feel so much smaller. And somehow he felt large. Something about that magnetism filling her chest, making her feel hollow, all at the same time.
She felt aches in places she was not normally conscious of, aches that she didn’t know a remedy for.
He made her aware that she was a woman. Much more aware than she had ever been in her life, and certainly more aware than she wanted to be when trying to pass for a boy.
“Cam,” Matías said, “I didn’t expect anyone to be in here.”
“Sorry,” she said, starting to stand. “I can go somewhere else.”
He waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I am sorry,” she said, “about Liliana.”
She was sorry. Sorry that the other woman had been taken, that she was likely afraid. No matter what Matías said she supposed it was entirely possible that Diego actually was a killer, in which case Liliana might be in actual danger.
But in many ways she wasn’t actually sorry that the other woman was gone. Which was awful. Except that he made her feel funny. Made her feel light-headed. Made her bones feel heavy.
“So am I,” he said, his tone fierce. “I must find her. There is no other option.”
“You will,” she said, “of course.” She knew that it was an unearned confidence, but it was clearly what he needed to hear. She wanted to tell him what he needed to hear. Wanted to make that arrogant mouth curve up into a smile again. Wanted his dark eyes to look at her with approval. Even if it could never be the kind of approval or appreciation that part of her seemed to crave.
It was such a strange thing. Being caught between the urge to avoid him and to seek him out. To build a connection between the two of them and to keep their interactions limited. She wasn’t sure that she would ever understand what she wanted from him.
“I’m certain this has to do with the estate. I should have known that if Diego had no intention of complying he would ensure that I could not.”
“Surely your grandfather will...”
He shook his head. “My grandfather is not a nice man. You must understand...the men in my family believe in taking what they want without asking. I am from a long line of villains, Cam.” He smiled, a dark, feral smile, highlighted by the flames in the fire. “No matter that I’ve tried to aim for something better. My grandfather doesn’t care about scruples. I’m not sure that he will be impressed with my story. In fact, I suspect that he will take Diego’s side. A man must take what he can. If he must take the rancho this way, I assume my abuelo will find this a creative solution.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said.
“Because you do not know my family. Truthfully,” he said, “I should have seen this coming. Historically, women who marry Navarro men never come out of it well.”
“You’re speaking of your sister-in-law?”
He looked at her, clearly trying to decide how much to say. And then he surprised her by taking a seat. His large hands gripped the ends of the armrests, and she found herself fascinated by them. By their strength, their sheer masculinity. She had been around men all of her life, and yet somehow he was something separate. A different kind of creature. So much more than anyone else had ever been.
“I am speaking of my sister-in-law,” he said, pausing for a moment. “And my mother.” He shifted in his chair, those powerful legs spread wide. There was something gripping about that posture. It was casual, nearly lazy, and yet she knew that at a moment’s notice he could spring into action. All of that leashed strength.
To say nothing of how boldly masculine it was. The way he spread his legs as if to draw attention to...
She blinked. There was no way she was looking there. She just wouldn’t.
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