Page 91 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘What does that have to do with being made welcome?’ Leaning across her, he put the map back into the glove compartment.

Sudden enlightenment hit. ‘The one who might poison you,’ she murmured softly. ‘The resident wicked witch—your father’s widow?’

‘You bet,’ he replied, shifting the car into gear.

‘And she—resents you?’ She tried to put it kindly, but still Luiz released a scornful laugh.

‘Wouldn’t you resent the man who has usurped your own son’s position in the family?’

His father had another son? Luiz had a half-brother? While she sat there absorbing this latest piece of news, Luiz spun the steering wheel and set them moving into the left-hand fork in the road. A long and dusty winding road lay ahead of them. With a surge of power Luiz accelerated along it. Top-of-the-range plush as the car was, custom-built for quality performance with optimum comfort as it was, the BMW could do nothing about the kind of atmosphere its occupants created for themselves. It proceeded to throb with a hundred questions one of them wanted to ask, mingling with answers the other was clearly reluctant to provide.

In

the end Caroline plumped for the most pressing question. ‘Why you instead of him?’ she queried.

‘Because I am the bastard and he is not?’ Luiz mockingly questioned the question.

Caroline flushed slightly at his blunt candour. Luiz might be possessive of his privacy now, but he had not been seven years ago. He had been very open then about his life as a fatherless child, living in a run-down tenement in the backstreets of New York with a mother who had struggled to make ends meet. She knew his mother had died when he was only nine years old and that Luiz had lived out the rest of his childhood in a state institution.

‘I was chosen because I possess a lot of individual wealth and the family itself is practically bankrupt.’

In other words, his father had named Luiz as his successor out of expediency rather than desire, she realised. It was no wonder Luiz sounded so bitter and cynical about the whole thing.

‘And your half-brother and his mother?’ she asked. ‘Where does it leave them in all of this?’

If it was at all possible, his expression turned even harder. ‘Out in the cold, as far as I am concerned. As they have kept me out in the cold for most of my life.’

No wonder he had left it so long without bothering to go and meet his inheritance face on, she grimly concluded. For Luiz was not a fool; he knew what he was going to find waiting for him. Which left begging just one more question she couldn’t leave unasked.

‘Our marriage?’ she prompted. ‘What has it to do with all of this?’

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. His mouth was tight, his eyes shot through with a hard glitter as they followed the snaking line of the road ahead. Then, ‘Our marriage is the means by which I put them in the cold,’ he replied. ‘For by my father’s decree they may continue to live in the castle only until I marry.’

His ruthless streak was showing again. And Caroline was beginning to feel sorry for Luiz’s new-found family. She had a horrible feeling they had no idea what kind of man it was who was coming to meet them today, or they would have packed their bags and got out before he arrived.

‘Ever heard of the word forgiveness?’ she advanced huskily.

‘Forgiveness is usually only given to those that want it,’ he replied.

Slick and shrewd though his reply was, it still made her shiver. She fell silent after that. And they didn’t speak again throughout the miles they ate up until they entered the sleepy little village of Los Aminos.

‘We’ll stop here for some lunch,’ Luiz decided.

Caroline didn’t demur. She was beginning to feel stiff and thirsty, and a break for lunch was a preferable option to keeping on driving towards she knew not what.

Luiz found a little café with wooden tables set outside beneath a faded blue awning. Pulling into the kerb, he climbed out of the car, then stood stretching taut muscles while he waited for Caroline to join him. The inn wasn’t what you would call a fashionable place, but the basket of bread and bowl of crisp salad they were served were fresh and tasty.

She asked for a Coke, and Luiz did the same, then they sat sharing the lunch between them as if they did this kind of thing all the time. But the silence was still there, pulsing between them.

Reaching for another thick chunk of bread, she asked, ‘How much further?’ in an effort to break the deadlock.

‘Same again,’ Luiz answered briefly, while reaching for some more bread himself.

She huffed out a weary sigh that turned into a yawn. The day was hot and the air was humid, and she had lied about sleeping well last night, so now she was beginning to feel the dragging effects of hardly any sleep at all.

‘Tired?’ Luiz asked.

‘It’s the heat,’ she blamed. ‘And the travelling. Where did you sleep last night?’

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