Читать книгу To Marry For Duty - Rebecca Winters - Страница 7

“BUENOS dias, Señorita Piperre.”

When Nic rolled the “r” that way, Piper felt it resonate through every particle of her body. No matter how hard she tried to harden herself against his potent male presence, she failed.

“The last time I saw you, you were hiding in the bushes on your estate, waiting to spirit me away so Luc could do his worst to Olivia.”

At the time she’d hoped Nic had forgotten about his mourning period and would do his worst to her. After all, he’d removed the mourning band for a short while on the Piccione. Piper had been dying for him to kiss her.

Instead he’d led her to the family chapel with the priest in attendance. That’s where she’d found Greer and Max, in fact the whole Parma-Bourbon family, waiting to observe the imminent nuptials of the youngest Duchess triplet and the oldest son of the Duc de Falcon.

Nic must have been remembering that night too. He flashed her what she and her sisters called his Castilian smile, a dazzling white masculine smile that was his unique signature.

But as he’d once explained, Castilian was a misnomer since the Varano part of him was Italian, and the Pastrana side of him didn’t come from Castile. The Pastrana’s royal roots lay in that southern region of Spain known as Andalusia.

Through Piper’s sisters she’d learned that the Robles family also claimed a royal connection through the Spanish House of Bourbon, but never gained the Pastrana’s prominence.

“How come you’re slumming it in American waters? Has some urgent business brought you to the other side of the Atlantic?”

He lifted his proud, aristocratic head and shot her an enigmatic glance. She thought he looked leaner, a little more drawn, yet he was more gorgeous than ever. Piper wasn’t the type to faint, but if she were, she’d be lying flat as a pancake on the floor of her office!

“I’ve been in New York for the last few days because another piece of jewelry from the stolen collection showed up at Christie’s auction house. It turned out to be authentic.”

“Don’t tell me the Duchesse pendant has been unearthed at last?”

“No. A jeweled comb.”

Piper had forgotten all about the collection. If she and her sisters hadn’t worn their own Duchesse pendants to Italy on their first trip, they would never have known about the museum theft of another pendant identical to theirs, or have become involved with the three cousins.

She would never have met Nicolas de Pastrana.

No matter that he’d crushed her heart, the thought of not knowing him was so incomprehensible, she shivered.

Furious at her involuntary reaction to him she said, “If by any chance my sisters suggested you drop by here to persuade me to fly to Europe for a visit, you’ve wasted your precious time.”

He stood with his legs slightly apart, his strong tanned hands clasped in front of him. “Your sisters have no idea I’m here.”

She flashed him her arctic smile. “Since your period of mourning isn’t up until February, I’ll wager Nina’s family doesn’t know you’re here either.”

Piper had purposely introduced his dead fiancée’s name to remind him of the way he’d rejected her advances to him that hot afternoon after Max’s wedding.

When she’d tried to help him remove his tuxedo jacket and suggested they take a little nap in the grass by the old water wheel to cool off, he’d pushed her hands away.

After mocking her because she didn’t know how to behave in polite society with a man wearing a mourning band, he’d said he would excuse it on the grounds that she was one of the notorious Duchess triplets.

The hurt he’d inflicted would never go away. She would never forgive him.

He must have been reading her mind because he removed his suit jacket with effortless male grace, drawing her attention to the breadth of his shoulders. There was no band on the outside of his dove gray shirtsleeve either.

“As you can see, I’m no longer in mourning.”

“Don’t tell me— You had other business in New York, so you removed your arm band early. It couldn’t be because you’ve decided you’re ready to lie down and take that nap with me before you fly back to Marbella, could it?” She eyed him narrowly. “In my neck of the woods, that’s called cheating. It’s something I don’t do.”

Lines darkened Nic’s rugged features. Good. She’d hit a nerve, and she would go on pressing against it until she got rid of him.

“I’ve come to ask an important favor of you,” his voice grated.

“Really.” Flame licked her cheeks. “Does Nina’s sister Camilla know about this? I understand she’s waiting in the wings until next month when she expects to become your new fiancée.”

A tiny nerve throbbed along the ridge of Nic’s taut patrician jaw. It had to frustrate him that nothing in his personal life was sacred now that his cousins were married to her sisters.

“I’m here to talk about us.”

“Us?” she exploded. “There is no us! I got engaged in Sydney and know enough about polite society to play around with my own fiancé and no one else.”

A stunning stillness pervaded the atmosphere. Nic’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t believe you.”

Her heart almost palpitated out of her chest. “What don’t you believe? That I have principles? Or that I’m an engaged woman now?”

Enjoying this triumphant moment, she buzzed Don. It was a huge risk to take, but he knew all about her broken heart. She was depending on him to play along.

“Don?”

“Hi. I was just about to ask if you want to go to lunch at Alfie’s.”

Don got A-plus for that opening.

“I’d love it! First though, can you come in my office for a minute? We have a visitor from Spain, Nicolas de Pastrana, Greer’s and Olivia’s cousin. He’s here to ask me a favor. Since you and I got engaged in Sydney, I’d like the two of you to meet.”

“I’ll be right there,” Don said without missing a heartbeat. Bless the man.

The second her business partner breezed through the connecting door, Piper gravitated toward him and was given a loving hug. She looked up at him. “Honey? I was just telling Nic our news.”

As she turned to Nic, she purposely exposed her left hand for him to view the ring. A thrill of alarm passed through her body to see his fierce expression, showing a hint of the Mediterranean fire that flowed through his Andalusian veins.

“This is my fiancé, Don Jardine.”

Nic nodded to Don, not making an effort to shake his hand. “Jardine—weren’t you once involved with Greer?”

Piper reeled for a moment.

“We dated.”

At Don’s brief reply, Nic’s lips twisted in distaste before he impaled her with his dark, penetrating gaze. “All for one, and one for all. The Duchess motto,” his deep voice trailed.

Before she could credit it, he’d reached for her left hand. “A very nice ring, but it’s a little loose isn’t it?” With the agility of a magician he slipped it from her finger and lifted it to eye level for examination. “To Jan forever,” he read the inscription aloud.

Don gave Piper’s waist a “good luck, you’ll need it” squeeze before retreating to his office. Once she heard the click of the door Nic said, “He’s a pushover for the Duchesses of Kingston. I actually feel sorry for him.”

She stiffened. “That was a cruel thing for you to do in front of him.”

“No crueler than you asking your assistant to relinquish her ring because you’re the boss. I noticed it on her finger while she waited on me at the front desk.” He made a fist around it and put it in his pocket.

Piper might have known his eagle eye would catch her out in her blatant lie. Nothing got past him. “You’ve missed your calling as an undercover agent.”

“I was just going to say the same thing about you. More than ever I’m convinced you’re the only person who can help me.”

She let out an angry laugh and the movement caused the fine gold strands of her hair to settle around her jawline. “I bet Camilla doesn’t have a clue you’ve made this side trip to Kingston to dally with the last unattached, notorious Duchess triplet.”

“Camilla and her family will know soon enough,” the cryptic words dropped like icicles off a roof.

Though she was trembling with conflicting emotions, she would rather die than let him know it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I need your assistance. It’s important.”

“You said that before.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“If you’re talking money, forget it. You and your cousins may have bribed Signore Tozetti to lure Olivia back to Europe, but that kind of charade only works once. Don and I have our own business enterprise now. I prefer to earn my money the old-fashioned way.”

He moved closer, making it difficult for her to function or breathe. “I was thinking more along the lines of a baby.”

“A baby—”

“Yes. Both your sisters are expecting one in the near future. You could be too…”

Piper blinked in shock, trying desperately to connect the dots. What on earth was he getting at?

“If you’re insinuating I’ve been sleeping with Don, then you’re way off base! In the first place, neither of us has ever been interested in each other that way, and we would never do that to Greer.

“In the second place, if I were expecting Don’s baby, I certainly wouldn’t need your money. I’m doing just fine on my own.”

His sensual mouth broke into a condescending smile. “I’ve already satisfied myself about you and Jardine. I was thinking in terms of my giving you a baby.”

Piper couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “Why in the world would you think I want a baby, let alone yours?”

“Because I was in Luc’s office the day Olivia called you with her news. The speakerphone happened to be on.” Piper’s heartbeat picked up speed while she tried to recall her exact words. “The second your sister told you, you broke down in tears of happiness for her, then you said you thought she was the luckiest woman in the world.”

“Of course I said that!” Piper defended in the steadiest voice she could muster. “Olivia was fortunate enough to fall in love with a man who loved her and wanted to marry her. It’s the only way I would want to have a baby. By now you ought to know the Duchess sisters don’t sleep around.”

He cocked his dark head. “Once upon a time you invited me to take a nap in the grass with you.”

She gave him a fatuous smile. “That was different. I didn’t intend to sleep with you in the way you’re thinking. I was only having a little fun with you because I didn’t really believe you were in true mourning. Otherwise you would never have removed the band, not even to go undercover.”

Caught up in her emotions, she kept on talking faster and faster. “Since my purpose for being in Europe was to win a proposal from a Riviera playboy, then throw it back in his face, I decided to see if I could kiss one out of you for the sheer challenge of it.

“But it seems I underestimated your love for your deceased fiancée after all.” She shrugged her shoulders. “In any event none of it matters because it’s water in another ocean now.”

Shadows darkened his handsome face. “Not quite. Your instincts were right the first time. I never loved Nina Robles.”

Piper couldn’t be positive, but it sounded like he was telling the truth. She suspected that if he’d really been in love with Nina, he would have married her years before.

“So you wore the arm band a whole year to do penance for your sin?” she taunted.

“Yes,” came the surprisingly fierce rejoinder.

“Oh I see—” She flashed him another mocking smile. “Because you were born a royal, you were forced to enter into a loveless engagement and keep up the pretense. Poor Nicolas. In fairness to you, I don’t suppose most royal engagements are true love matches.”

“Some are,” he responded in a silky tone. “In my case the situation was complicated because my family and the Robles family are distantly related and have been very close over the years. A marriage between Nina and me was expected.

“Her untimely death has complicated things further because Señor Robles expects me to marry Camilla according to an old law.”

“Sounds Biblical to me.”

“That’s because it is,” he muttered. “My father is leaning heavily in that direction too.”

“So Camilla doesn’t appeal to you either?”

“No. I’m in love with someone else, but I can’t do anything about that because she’s not in love with me.”

Nic’s interest in another woman had to be the Parma-Bourbon’s best kept secret, otherwise her sisters would have heard about it. The devastating revelation drove Piper to her desk where she sat down before pain caused her to disintegrate right in front of him. He was so out of her reach.

In a wooden voice she said, “Why are you really here, Nic?”

“My official mourning period is over in three days. In order to foil both families’ future plans for me, I would like to arrive back in Marbella with a wife.”

“A wife, huh? Well you shouldn’t have any trouble. There must be a dozen eligible royal females who’ve had their eye on you for years.”

“None of them will do for what I have in mind. You’re the one titleless woman I could bring home that my family won’t be able to take exception to publicly, or ask me to renounce.”

“You mean I’m tolerable because my sisters are married to your cousins, therefore I win the prize by default?” she cried out, her face red hot.

“That’s part of it,” he came back quietly. “My parents have met you and find you charming. They know the history of the Duchess sisters, and are aware you and I have spent time together on two different occasions during my mourning perio—”

“Wait a minute,” she broke in. At this point she was so beside herself with anguish, she jumped to her feet again, then had to hold on to the edge of the desk for support. “That talk about a baby—you’re not suggesting we pretend we’ve been seeing each other on the sly, and now I’m pregnant with your—”

“There’d be no pretense if we got married and had a short honeymoon on our way back to Spain,” he interrupted. “By then we could tell the family it’s possible we’re expecting. That would make my marriage a fait accompli in every sense of the word.”

She shook her head. “No way— The favor you’re asking of me is impossible. Aside from the fact that I don’t like you, you’re in love with someone else!”

“Does that have to matter?”

His cold-blooded response left Piper nonplussed. “Obviously not to you, but it does to me. We’re not in love with each other, so it wouldn’t work. Furthermore I like my world just as it is. My career has taken off and I’m excited to see where it leads.

“Personally I can’t conceive of anything more absurd than the two of us parading around as man and wife in a loveless union just because you want to pull some stunt to get out of marrying Camilla, and I’m the nearest available pawn.”

After a period of uncomfortable quiet he said, “I understand how you feel.” His benign response managed to infuriate her even more. “My apologies for having asked something of you that is pure selfishness on my part and could even be dangerous. I won’t disturb you again.”

With one of those barely discernible yet imperious bows which was second nature to him, he started for the door.

That did it.

“Oh no you don’t!” She ran ahead of him and put her back to the door so he couldn’t leave. “You don’t drop a little bomb like that and then just walk out of here while I stagger around like a victim of shell-shock.”

Trying to catch her breath, she thought she detected a faint smile of satisfaction on his lips. Since he’d always found her amusing, she ought to be used to those horrible, patronizing looks he gave her. Unfortunately he’d only enflamed her.

She put her hands on her hips. “I knew there had to be some other reason you came all this way to see me. Explain dangerous. To whom?”

“To both of us. Naturally I’d provide security so no harm would ever come to you.”

Hairs prickled on the back of her neck once more. “Security?” Despite her bravado, the sudden oblique expression in his eyes gave rise to an uneasy feeling inside her.

“A necessary precaution,” he answered solemnly, trapping her eyes with his dark brown gaze. “But it’s a moot point now. Rest assured that if you had agreed to become my wife, you would have been helping the entire family. In time you would have known the full gratitude of the House of Parma-Bourbon.”

“I don’t want anyone’s gratitude!” Piper practically spit out the words. She wanted Nic’s love, but that wasn’t possible.

“Forgive me for having taken up your valuable time, Señorita Piperre.” He shrugged back into his elegant suit jacket. “I’ll let myself out.”

As he reached past her to open the door, their arms brushed, sending a current of electricity through her body. Her pain flew off the chart.

“Be sure to give Jan back her ring before you leave the building,” she cautioned in a brittle voice.

He paused in the entry, eyeing her through veiled lids. “But of course.”

But of course nothing!

Her eyes prickled behind their lids. She glared at the door he’d closed on his way out.

How dare he have the gall to invade her space like some arrogant Spanish nobleman from the past, expecting her to fall for his droit de seigneur routine with its own peculiar Pastrana twist.

Dangerous my foot!

Wild with hurt, she wheeled around and poked her head inside Don’s office. He looked up at her. “Something tells me I’m about to lose my business partner. Like I said, those Varano genes are fatal for the Duchess triplets.”

“You’re wrong, Don. He’s gone for good. I came in here to apologize for putting you in an untenable position. If you don’t mind, I’d rather work through my lunch hour.”

After closing the connecting door, she headed for her drafting table. Getting back to work was the one panacea that kept the pain at bay.

Forty-five minutes later Jan made an appearance. “I’m going to lunch with Jim now.”

Piper got up from her seat and walked over to the desk where she kept her purse. After pulling out a twenty dollar bill, she extended it to her assistant.

“Have lunch on me. It’s one of my ways of saying thank you for letting me borrow your ring.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Jan made no move to take it. “I was glad to be of help.” After a slight hesitation, “Did it help?”

“I’ll never have to worry about his bothering me again.”

“You must be the only woman in the world who wouldn’t want to be bothered by him.”

“Yes, well, you can stop salivating because beneath that gorgeous Spanish physique lurks a Machiavellian brain. He’s part Italian you know. Greer didn’t trust him the second we went on board the Piccione last June. I hate to admit it, but her instincts about that three-tongued Don Juan were right.”

“Three-tongued?”

“Yes. He can make love to a woman in French, Spanish and Italian.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Not at all. To my knowledge he speaks half a dozen romance languages fluently. Among his other, shall we say ‘nonsensual’ activities, he owns the Spanish-Portuguese Bank of Iberia, he’s a brilliant scholar of Latin and Arabic, and he has written several esoteric books on primogeniture and heraldry.”

“I didn’t think a man like him really existed.”

“Yeah, well, he’s an original all right.”

“What did he do that made you so furious?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“You’re kidding!” Jan cried out again. “You lucky thing…”

“Before you get too excited, let me explain he’s in love with a woman who doesn’t love him. I think it’s a lie. I bet it’s a titled woman who can’t get out of her marriage.

“Anyway, he needs to find another woman quick so he won’t have to marry the sister of his dead fiancée. He just emerged from a year’s official mourning.”

“You mean people actually do things like that anymore?”

“Apparently the Pastrana family does. Now Don Juan is on the loose again. Since he had to come to New York on business, he picked on the last Duchess triplet to help him out of his latest scrape. Oh—and get this—” Piper let out an angry laugh. “He said it could be dangerous!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t laugh. What if the sister of his dead fiancée is the jealous type? Remember when Jim and I went to see Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera last month? She was a scary, fiery woman. Maybe this sister is so possessive, she’ll try to scratch your eyes out. What’s her name?”

“Camilla.”

“It doesn’t sound good.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, he won’t darken our doorstep again so none of it matters. Go enjoy your lunch!”

“Thanks. Can I bring you something to eat?”

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

She expected Jan to leave, but she still hovered. “What’s the matter?” The subject of Don Juan was officially closed.

“Could I have my ring back? I’m afraid for Jim to see me without it.”

Piper felt the blood drain out of her face.

Slowly she staggered to her feet. “I—I don’t have it.” Jan looked stunned. “Nic does. What did he say to you on his way out?”

“He thanked me for my help and left.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No.”

Oh no. “Jan—”

Her assistant studied her for a moment. “I guess he didn’t like being turned down.”

“I’ll get your ring for you. I swear it,” Piper said through gritted teeth. She grabbed her purse. “Before you leave for lunch, will you tell Don I’ve gone home for a bite to eat? When I get back to the office I’ll have your ring with me.”

Piper stormed out into the freezing cold to start up the car.

But of course, Nic had said when she’d told him to return Jan’s ring. Machiavellian tendencies didn’t begin to cover his list of sins.

Nic parked in front of the house where Piper lived in the basement apartment. He had no idea how long his wait would be. A devilish smile broke the corner of his mouth. It all depended on when Jan asked for her ring back.

Suddenly he spotted the car Piper was driving in the rearview mirror of his rental car. Good. He’d wanted to get her away from the office before delivering the coup de grace.

She pulled directly behind him and got out. Through the side-view mirror he watched her start toward him.

Like his cousins who’d lived around dark-haired, dark-eyed Mediterranean women all their lives, he too had been captivated by the golden radiance of the Duchess triplets. He loved the way her hair swished around her flushed face like fine gold mesh. Even without the sun shining, it had a brilliance that drew his gaze.

He loved this particular triplet with her slender curves and jewel-like eyes. The first time he’d looked into them, he’d compared them to the shimmering blue-green waters of the Cinque Terre coastline where he and his cousins enjoyed sailing.

Since last June when she’d appeared on the Piccione, he’d only been able to look, not touch. It had taken every ounce of self-control to tamp down the ache that had leaped to life deep inside him.

Now that he’d flung the mourning band away, he felt reckless and so consumed with the need to hold and love her, he was trembling with that desire.

The object of his thoughts approached and knocked on the driver’s window without hesitation. He pressed the button to lower it.

A faint flowery fragrance from her skin and hair wafted past him. Much like an ember that unexpectedly bursts into flame, her scent ignited every primitive male yearning.

The voluptuous mouth he longed to devour was taut with anger, yet was no less beautiful to him.

“You had no right to drive away with Jan’s ring.”

“I agree. That’s why I gave it to your business partner to return to her. I told him to wait until you’d left the office.”

Her eyes set off a flash of incandescent color that rivaled the Northern Lights.

Ready for her next move which was to either return to her car or lock herself in her apartment, Nic levered himself out of the driver’s seat and caught up to her. Sheer need drove him to grasp her shoulders and pull her back against his chest.

The only other time he’d had this much physical contact with her was one evening last June when he and his cousins had kidnapped the girls during their attempt to escape on bikes.

Piper had been forced to sit on Nic’s lap in the back seat of a car. With the girls’ bikes on top of the car, the six of them piled inside for the half hour drive from the countryside beyond Genoa to the harbor.

Thirty minutes of ecstasy to feel her softly rounded warmth against his body. A lifetime of agony because he hadn’t been able to do anything about his needs.

Right now she was holding herself rigid, but he could feel her trembling. Because it was freezing out, he had no way of knowing if there wasn’t another reason for her condition.

“Please let go of me. People are watching us.”

“Let them. There’s a lot more I have to say to you, but we need the kind of privacy your office couldn’t afford us. You have two choices. Either we talk in your apartment, or my suite at the Kingston Hotel.”

“Not the hotel—” she fired.

“Very well. Let’s go inside your place then.” Her instinct for survival demanded she face him on her own turf. Since he’d always wanted to see where she lived, Nic couldn’t be more pleased.

After relishing the feel of her upper arms for one more moment, he removed his hands so he could follow her to the side steps leading down to her apartment.

She undid the lock. “I only have a few minutes before I have to get back for an important meeting with Don.”

“It’s been canceled. I already explained to him you wouldn’t be coming back today.”

Before she could slam the door in his face, he made a quick move inside the warm, inviting living room. Almost at once he came to a standstill in front of a large oil painting which could only be Piper’s parents in their latter years.

A long time ago he’d stashed the samples of her calendars in his library at Marbella. When he found himself wanting her too intensely, he would take them out of the drawer and examine her fabulous artwork to feel closer to her.

Yet looking at the painting on the wall, he realized she was a superb portrait painter too. It was a revelation to study the attractive faces and bodies of the two people responsible for bringing the Duchess triplets into the world.

He cleared his throat. “Odd how some couples in love grow to look like each other over the years. I can see many of their traits in you.”

She stood next to the coffee table with her arms folded like an adorable schoolteacher waiting for her kindergarten class to come to order.

“It’s déjà vu being pursued by one of the Varano cousins again. You’ve got me trapped, so let’s have it. Why have you really come, and what do you really want? Up until now it’s all been a bunch of gobbledygook.”

He couldn’t help smiling as he turned to face her. “Gobbledygook?”

“Don’t tell me one of Europe’s most renowned etymologists hasn’t heard that expression before.”

“I can’t say I have, but you’re right. I’ve been dancing around you until I could get you where I wanted you.”

Actually she wasn’t exactly where he wanted her yet, but being alone with her in this apartment constituted a major miracle and would do for starters.

“Certain information about the jewelry theft gleaned in New York has unearthed a startling new discovery.”

“And?” she prompted in a bored tone of voice. He could almost hear her tapping her foot, waiting for this to be over so she could boot him out the door. He had news for her…

“It turns out the accident that killed my fiancée in Cortina was no accident. I have every reason to believe the killer wanted both of us dead, but because of a quirk of fate that afternoon, Luc happened to be the one on that tram instead of me.”