Rafael's Contract Bride. Nina Milne

the back of the chair to bring her hand upwards—and then reality, mortification and the prospect of humiliation had her stepping backwards.

      What was she thinking? Acting. The man is acting, Cora.

      Something flashed across his face and was gone. ‘We can pull this off.’

      His words were a shade jerky and Cora forced her breathing to normal levels, prayed he couldn’t sense the accelerated rate of her pulse.

      ‘Your choice. Marry me...help me persuade Don Carlos it’s a real union. In return you get a shedload of cash’

      Cora tried to think. ‘Then what happens? A few weeks after a massive high-profile wedding we announce our divorce?’

      ‘Yup. We can make it an amicable split—say that we rushed into marriage and realised we weren’t compatible. There will probably be a tabloid furore, but they usually die down.’

      The idea made her insides curl in anticipated humiliation. As if anyone would believe the incompatibility story—the world would think that she hadn’t measured up, hadn’t been able to hold the attention of a man like Rafael Martinez. She would be able to add ‘failed wife’ to the résumé that already charted her failure as a daughter.

      His dark eyes surveyed her with a hint of impatience and she shrugged. ‘My tabloid experience is nil, so I’ll bow to your better knowledge.’ For that fee she could withstand a few days of paparazzi attention—the pay-off in parental approval would be worth it.

      ‘Good. After that you could afford a career break, but if you’d rather return to work I’m sure the Caversham-Martinez venture could use an administrator when it launches.’

      ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Because if all went to plan she would win back her job at Derwent Manor.

      ‘Or, if you preferred, I’m equally sure Ethan will take you back.’

      Her ahead awhirl with the surrealness of the situation, Cora tried to think. ‘Hold on. Ethan. I can’t leave Ethan and Ruby in the lurch. They took a risk taking me on in the first place, and...and they don’t even know I’m Lady Cora Derwent... He and Ruby think I am plain Cora Brookes.’

      ‘Once Ethan and Ruby are back we can explain our engagement and tell them who you really are. You can finish up this week in Cornwall and after that Ethan was going to send you on secondment elsewhere anyway. So you aren’t deserting the Caversham ship. They’ll understand. After all, their courtship was pretty whirlwind itself.’

      ‘Can’t we tell them the truth?’

      ‘No.’ Some reporter might get hold of them and Ruby couldn’t lie her way out of a paper bag. ‘Plus, the fewer people to know the truth the better.’

      ‘OK.’

      ‘So, any more questions?’

      ‘What if it doesn’t work? What if Don Carlos still won’t sell you the vineyard?’

      ‘You still get your money.’

      As her thoughts seethed and whirled she studied his expression, the tension to his jaw, the haunted look in the dark depths of his eyes that spoke of a fierce need. This meant a lot more to Rafael than a mere business deal. Because no matter how reasonably he was spinning this idea—so much so that for a moment Cora had been caught up in the threads of the tale—it did not make sense.

      ‘This is about more than a vineyard.’

      ‘This is all about the vineyard. But my motivations are irrelevant—I am offering you a job, an opportunity. The question is, do you want it?’

      For a long moment she stared at him, felt the sun soak her skin with warmth, and somewhere deep down inside her soul a remnant of the old Cora surfaced—the impulsive Cora, who still believed it was possible to even out the playing field with her siblings and win some love from her parents.

      ‘Yes,’ she said, and pulled out the chair, her tummy tumbling with a flotilla of acrobatic butterflies.

      * * *

      Tension seeped from Rafael’s shoulders as victory coursed through his veins. The plan had paid off. Every woman had a price, after all, and he’d known money was Cora’s Achilles’ heel.

      He pushed aside the small frisson of doubt. Turned out Cora was no different from those shallow women she’d dissed—cash and the promise of some luxurious living had been too much for her principles. Not that he would be fool enough to point that out. Yes, she had sat down, but she was still perched on the edge of the wooden slatted seat as if poised for flight.

      She chewed her lip, and there came another wave of doubt as his gaze snagged on that luscious bow. Again. Only minutes before the desire to kiss her, really kiss her, had nigh on overwhelmed him. Rafael blinked. It had been an aberration brought on by adrenalin, by the knowledge that he was on the brink of success. Nothing to do with Cora and her absurdly kissable lips at all.

      Focus.

      He topped up her wine and lifted his own glass. ‘To us,’ he declared.

      There was a moment of hesitation before she raised her glass and then replaced it on the table with a thunk.

      ‘So how will this work? Exactly?’

      ‘We announce our engagement; we organise a wedding. Pronto. We get married, I approach Don Carlos, secure the vineyard—marriage over. We move on to pastures new.’

      ‘Define “pronto”.’

      ‘Two to three weeks.’

      The potato she had just speared fell from her fork. ‘We can’t organise a wedding in that time. And anyway Don Carlos may not be able to make it at such short notice.’

      Rafael shook his head. ‘I can guarantee everyone will clear their diary for this. Lady Cora Derwent, from the highest echelons of English society, and Rafael Martinez, billionaire playboy from the gutters of London, get married after a romantic whirlwind courtship? I need the wedding to be soon—before Don Carlos sells the vineyard to someone else. Plus, a wedding shouts real commitment.’

      A troubled look entered her turquoise eyes and a small frown creased her brow—almost spelt out the word qualm. ‘Whereas this one’s shout-out should be “great big lie”.’

      Ah. Her principles were obviously making another play for a win.

      ‘Yes, it is a lie.’

      There was no disputing that and he wouldn’t try. But he didn’t give a damn—he understood her scruples, but when it came to immorality the Aiza clan had graduated cum sum laude and Rafael didn’t feel even a sliver of conscience at the way his moral compass pointed.

      ‘That doesn’t bother you?’

      She’d tipped her head to one side and for a second the judgement in her gaze flicked at him.

      ‘I totally disagree with Don Carlos’s principles, but it is his vineyard to sell to whomever he wants. This plan is a con.’

      The troubled look in her eyes intensified to one of distaste.

      No. This plan is my birthright. This is my retribution.

      The night he and his mother had left Spain was a blurred memory, seen through the eyes of a five-year-old, but he could still taste the fear—his mother’s and his own. Through all the tears and the pleas had been the presence of a man who had come to see ‘the whore’ with his own eyes. Of course then the word had meant nothing to him, but he’d sensed the man’s venom, had witnessed his delight in brutality and humiliation. Had watched those goons he’d brought terrorise his mother as they trashed her belongings.

      But until recently he hadn’t known the identity of the man he had dreamt about for long after their ignominious return to the London housing estate his mother had grown up on. Now, though, he did know—beyond the shadow of a doubt—and when he’d seen Don Carlos there had been a jolt of