Talk to your father, Santos had said. And she’d planned to do that, determined to do that before she ever saw him again. But last night fate had intervened—she hadn’t been able to get through to her father, and Santos had come back to the house so unexpectedly …
So would anything have changed if she’d spoken to her father first? Her heart skipped a beat as she asked herself the question. She had let things run away with her last night. Was she going to have to regret being so impulsive? Had she made a terrible mistake?
How bad could it be?
‘Dad, I need to talk to you …’
But her father wasn’t listening.
‘Have you seen him? Have you seen Santos Cordero? He said he was on his way to you.’
‘He’s—’ Alexa began but her father cut right across her, wanting to speak first, determined to make her listen.
So she listened. And with every word that came from her father’s mouth she felt more of the blood draining from her face, the strength leaving her legs until she sagged against the wall for support.
How bad could it be? she had asked herself. And the answer to that was it could be the worst. The very worst.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALEXA HAD NO idea how long her father had been talking before he finally ground to a halt. She only knew that when he did she barely had enough strength or mental ability to say anything in reply. She could only manage something vague and unformed, something along the lines of yes, she understood. Yes, she saw that he had had no possible alternative, not one that would solve the situation, keep her stepmother from a total breakdown and himself out of gaol.
Out of gaol.
There it was. There was the very worst-case scenario summed up right there. She had always known that her father could be totally selfish, the wife he was devoted to even worse—but this!
Because of his own stupid actions—his stupid, illegal actions—Stanley Montague had risked not only his home and his income but also his own freedom. If Santos had prosecuted him then he would be in prison right now.
But the prosecution was still only a threat as long as Santos Cordero got what he wanted. And what he wanted was a link to the Montague name through marriage.
He had meant every single word he said when he had announced that her family owed him a wife.
I’ve come for you.
And all the time she listened to her father explaining and apologising, she knew that Santos was waiting in the kitchen with his coffee and his knowing smile. And his damn hateful, arrogant conviction that he had her right where he wanted her.
Or so he thought.
But he did, didn’t he? He had her exactly where he wanted her. Where he’d always wanted her right from the very start. He had her trapped, with nowhere to turn, no way out, no possible answer. Not unless she let everyone down, ruined her whole family, very likely drove her stepmother into a mental breakdown.
And sent her father to gaol for embezzlement.
There, now she’d admitted it to herself. Because that was what her father had admitted to her in the phone call. That he had been stupid, totally, crazily foolish. He’d squandered every last penny the Montague family owned—with a lot of help from her greedy, grasping stepmother, Alexa had no doubt. And then, to make matters worse, he’d ‘borrowed’ some money from a business deal he had been supposed to be planning, with Santos Cordero as his partner.
Alexa shook her head in despair, raking both hands through the fall of her hair and then rubbing the palms over her aching eyes. Only her father could call embezzling funds that had been meant for a business deal ‘borrowing.’ Only her father could have then spent that money, sending good money after bad, and so ended up in this terrible position.
And putting her into a far worse one.
She knew that her father’s weakness, his selfishness, should hurt her. That his betrayal of her to Santos should wound her terribly. But the truth was that nothing her father said or did could touch her because there wasn’t a spot on her heart that Santos hadn’t already devastated. And Santos’s callousness hurt far more than anything else.
‘One Montague bride is as good as any other when this was only meant to be a dynastic marriage …’ The callous words came back to haunt her from the night of the wedding that had never been.
‘I’ve come for you,’ he had said. And she had refused to believe that he had meant it. She’d even allowed herself to think, to dream, that he might actually be starting to feel something for her. That he had opened up to her because …
‘No!’
Alexa slammed her clenched fist against her mouth to hold back the cry of distress that almost escaped her.
No, there had to be some way out of this. She was not going to let this happen. One thing she was damn sure of was that she was not going down without a fight. Santos might think that he had what he wanted on a plate, but she’d see about that. Somehow.