Valdez's Bartered Bride. Rachael Thomas

not sure I can trust you yet.’ He veered towards caution. She could take the secret he’d uncovered, which would blow his family wide open, and sell it to the press for a huge amount. Maybe not enough to clear her father’s debts, but it would still damage his business and his father’s, which was precariously positioned with share prices falling since his sudden death. He would not allow it to happen—whatever the cost. He was more than prepared to sacrifice his bachelor status—temporarily—to calm the nerves of the board.

      ‘Then you have wasted my time and yours.’ The crispness of each word jarred his senses and he quickly tried to rationalise the situation.

      With one call to the press she could destroy his family and his business, but it would ultimately drag her father into the limelight. She appeared to have as little desire for an arranged marriage as he did and even professed to have the skills and knowledge he needed to trace his half-brother. But would she be discreet?

      His father had been manipulative to the end. If Lydia successfully found Max, the half-brother he’d never known anything about, then he could claim the money, clear her debts and release them both from the need to marry. His father had excelled himself this time, but had his plan been to force him to marry or bring his unknown half-brother into the business?

      ‘Your father has a debt to pay, Lydia, and I am collecting it—from you. If you can indeed trace the person I am looking for, make contact without arousing the suspicion or interest of the media, then your father’s debt will be cleared immediately. Marriage in any form will not be necessary.’

      ‘If you are so against the idea of marriage too, why don’t you just pay it off now?’ That was exactly the question he’d put to Carlos and his legal team and even now he could feel the cold fear sink through him as he recalled Carlos’s reply.

      ‘Such an action will invalidate the will and your father’s business will no longer be yours. Failure of any kind to clear the debt will result in the business being sold.’

      He had to convince Lydia. There was no way he was letting anyone get his hands on a company he’d painstakingly expanded. ‘When I find the person I am looking for it unlocks funds, more than enough to clear your father’s debts.’

      ‘So this is all about money? Silly me, I thought you had sentimental reasons for wanting to find this person.’ The accusation in her eyes was clear, but she could think what she liked. He’d never have to see her again after this.

      ‘Yes, it’s about money—as all business is.’

      ‘So, who is this person? Is it a love child you abandoned and now want to bring out into the open?’

      Such an accusation made it clear she’d researched him too and believed him to be as much of a playboy as his father had been. Maybe that was for the best. She didn’t seem the type to enter into brief affairs merely to satisfy a sexual attraction. This was a woman who would demand so much more from a lover, whatever her earlier protestations had been.

      ‘It is a love child, yes.’ He flaunted the truth before her, aware of the conclusions she was making.

      ‘I hate men like you.’ She snapped the words at him and he smiled lazily. He hadn’t fathered any children. That was something he’d been extremely careful of, but he enjoyed seeing the anger mix with contempt, filling her eyes, again letting him know exactly what she was thinking.

      ‘Not as much as I dislike women who jump to conclusions.’ He sat and watched the questions race across her face. ‘It is not my child.’

      ‘So if it’s not your love child, whose is it?’ Her fine brows rose elegantly in question and the satisfaction that danced in her eyes told him she thought he was lying.

      ‘As I have said, it is not mine.’ He wasn’t ready to give her the secret that had stayed hidden for so many years. All the times he’d tried to be the son his father had wanted had been in vain and now, with the discovery of Max, his half-brother, it had all become perfectly clear why.

      ‘You are going to have to tell me, if I am to trace this person.’ A haughty note had entered her voice. She thought she’d got him on the run, thought she now held the power. Never. But he’d allow her to think that. For a while at least.

      ‘It is my father’s son I wish to find.’

      * * *

      Lydia’s stomach plummeted. She’d been challenging him, pushing him to reveal his true self to her, and it had just backfired spectacularly. The fierce expression on his face warned her she’d gone too far, pushed too hard. Would he now revoke the offer, force her to find an extortionate amount of money to settle her father’s debt? Or worse, marry him?

      Suddenly she was that awkward sixteen-year-old again being introduced to Raul by her father. She’d smiled at him, pleased to know that someone closer to her own age would be at the dinner party her father had insisted she attend with him, but Raul had looked down at her with barely concealed lack of interest.

      Not that that had stopped the heady attraction she’d instantly had for him and she’d been glad she’d chosen the fitted black dress that had made her feel taller, more attractive and much more grown up. Stupidly, she’d hung on every word Raul had said as they’d been placed next to one another at the dinner table. She’d liked him—more than liked him—and had wanted him to notice her, to like her too. She’d wanted to be more than friends and had already wanted him to be the one she experienced her first kiss with.

      All evening she’d tried everything to get his attention, even trying to use her classroom Spanish.

      ‘If you can’t say it correctly, don’t bother.’ The high and mighty put-down had done just that, crashing all the dreams of a friendship, or more, with him.

      ‘I don’t have much call to use the language,’ she’d retorted, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. How had she thought him nice? How had she even begun to imagine that he might like her, might want to be friends, go on a date?

      ‘Then I suggest you stick to your usual shopping and partying and give languages a miss.’

      ‘But I’m going to study languages at university,’ she’d replied with a gauche smile.

      He’d looked at her then, his dark eyes locking with hers, and she’d held her breath, wondering if he was teasing her—teasing her because he liked her.

      ‘Don’t. You clearly don’t have any talent for Spanish, exactly what I’d expect from Daddy’s little princess who does nothing other than look pretty.’ The scathing tone of his voice as his gaze had travelled down her had left her in no doubt that he didn’t like her, that he despised her and all he thought she was.

      She’d bit back a temper-fuelled retort and vowed that one day, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him and she’d do it fluently in his language. If he thought she was a spoilt little thing, that was fine by her, but her sense of injustice didn’t leave her, not even when she and her father left the dinner party. It had stayed with her, adding to all the insecurities her father had instilled in her.

      Now she looked at Raul, ten years older, anger at what her father had done mixed with sympathy for this proud man. Her father’s deception, the way he’d forced her mother to leave with his detached and cold ways, his constant need to make the next million before losing it again, seemed minor compared to the family secret Raul had just revealed.

      ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea.’ Her voice softened, but it did nothing to the feral expression on Raul’s face. He was a man who didn’t show softer emotions, that much was clear.

      ‘I have only just discovered the existence of my half-brother. He and I are due to inherit from my father’s estate.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’ She was perplexed by the unveiling of the last few minutes. ‘Your father must have known about him, to have included such conditions in the will.’

      ‘He knew. He also knew that I wouldn’t want to marry anyone, least of all the daughter