Bought by the Rich Man: Taken by the Highest Bidder / Bought by Her Latin Lover / Bought by the Billionaire. Jane Porter

what was your plan? To stay out here and freeze?”

      Sam looked away, rightly chastened. It had been foolish coming here. Foolish and dangerous. “I’d hoped in the morning to find the matches.”

      “And what were you going to eat? I’m certain you haven’t gone to a store for groceries.”

      “No.”

      He shook his head, looked as if he’d say more but changed topics. “Have you a fire laid then?” he asked, peeling off his coat.

      “Yes. Logs and kindling.”

      Aided by moonlight, he walked into the main room with its great stone hearth. The cottage was several hundred years old, with a low, beamed ceiling that once warm, kept it snug. Crouching next to the hearth, he shifted some of the split logs around, piled the dry kindling higher at the base of the logs then used a lighter from his pocket to spark the kindling.

      It took a few minutes before the kindling really caught, but soon the fire was blazing. Sam gratefully held her hands to the fire’s heat. “It was cold,” she confessed. “And I was worried. Thank you.”

      “You can ask for help,” he said.

      Her head lifted and she shot him a dubious look. “From you?” She rubbed her hands together before extending them again over the flickering gold flames. “The one that intended to return Gabby to Johann?”

      “I didn’t say I’d return her. I said I’d do what’s right.”

      “You must see that having Johann look after Gabby isn’t right. You must see that for yourself, you must see what he is—”

      “I do.”

      Her gut burned. “Then spare her heartbreak. You don’t have to care about me, or my feelings, but care about Gabriela’s feelings. Please don’t hurt her.”

      “I won’t.”

      “You don’t think taking a child from her home isn’t traumatic?”

      “But haven’t you just done the same? Haven’t you taken her from Monaco, the only home she’s ever known, dragged her across the English Channel, plopped her in a car, driven her for miles to where? Chester? Upton? Wherever we are?” He shook his head, expression grim. “From her perspective, this frozen gray place must seem like Timbuktu.”

      “It’s England, not Timbuktu.”

      “For an Italian child it’s the same thing.”

      Sam stood, straightened. “Her mother was Spanish, not Italian.”

      “Catalonian, actually.” Cristiano’s lashes dropped, concealing his dark eyes. “And I knew her mother quite well, so let’s avoid a who-knows-more competition.”

      They were both sitting close to the fire, speaking in hushed voice but this last pulled Sam up short, and she stared at Cristiano, mouth open. “You knew her mother?”

      “Yes.”

      Sam sucked in air, a great gulp but it didn’t fill her lungs, didn’t help, did nothing to dull the throbbing in the back of her head. “Before Johann?”

      “Yes.”

      Sam couldn’t look away from Cristiano’s taut features. “What happened?”

      “Life happened.” His expression was utterly blank, no emotion in his face or tone. “Gabriela’s mother moved on. But that’s not the issue now. The issue is you, running away with Gabriela—”

      “I took her on a trip. I can do that. I’m her stepmother.”

      “That’s right. Baroness van Bergen.” And he smiled, his teeth flashing white, but it was such a hard, unforgiving smile that Sam shivered inwardly.

      Cold or fear, she wondered? Or maybe it was more dread, because that’s what filled her stomach in hard heavy bricks. “I wish you wouldn’t call me Baroness anymore.”

      “What then?”

      “Samantha will do.”

      Cristiano’s head tipped and in the yellow-gold light of the fire he studied her through narrowed eyes. “You’re such a contradiction, Samantha. On one hand, you’re so very prim and proper, and then on the other you’ve this fierce spirit—”

      “Can you tell me more about Gabriela’s mother? Gabby used to ask about her. I never knew what to tell her.”

      “She was a film actress.”

      “Not that. More like, her personality. What was she like?”

      “Mercedes?” He paused, reflected. “Beautiful. Lively. She was a great deal of fun.”

      “Is Gabby very like her?”

      “I think Gabby’s a mix of her mother and father.”

      Sam turned, looked at Gabby where she slept on the couch cocooned in blankets. “I’ve wished for years that Gabriela had a different life. I’ve wished it were more stable, more predictable. I tried to give her everything. It’s one thing for an adult to struggle, but it’s another for a child.”

      “Has Gabriela suffered?”

      “I’m sure she has. We both have to a greater or lesser extent. There’s never enough money. Johann’s rarely home. He may be Gabby’s father, but he’s shown her little love and even less attention.”

      “Was he so different before you married him?”

      “No.”

      Cristiano watched her. “But you thought you’d marry him anyway, marry into a life of privilege?”

      “It’s never been a very privileged life. I worked hard.”

      “And I bet you just hated being a baroness.”

      “Yes, I did. It was false.”

      “False?”

      “Johann didn’t love me and I didn’t love him. It was a marriage of convenience, that and nothing more.”

      “Nothing more?”

      Her own lips curved, in an equally hard cynical smile. She’d changed so much since Charles died, he wouldn’t even recognize her if he was alive now. “Nothing more.” Shivering, she held her hands up to the flames to try to warm herself. “I was convenient to marry.”

      She leaned closer, stared into the flickering fire with its red and gold flames feeling the weight of years of secrets and silence on her. “You see, Mr. Bartolo, before I was the baroness, I was the van Bergens’ nanny.”

      “The nanny?” He sounded shocked.

      Sam looked at him, lips twisting wryly. “I’ve never told anyone before. Johann forbid me from telling people. He didn’t want anyone to know I’d been the hired help, but in private he never let me forget. It was one of the ways he ridiculed me—I was just a working girl, not an aristocrat like him.”

      “You should have left him,” Cristiano said flatly.

      “And what? Leave Gabby?” Sam drew a breath, her chest tender and glanced down at her hands bare of any rings. Johann had bought her a ring but he’d asked for it back when money got tight. “I couldn’t do that. Not then, not now, not ever.”

      “Why are you so devoted?”

      “I don’t know. I suppose Gabby needed someone to love her, and I—” She broke off, aware of how close she came to saying the words, and I needed someone to love. She finished the thought differently. “I like to be useful.”

      “Johann found you useful?”

      “I did what he needed me to do.”

      “Including keeping Mercedes’s family away.”