The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride(13)

For some reason the sight of her kneeling before him filled Javier with impatience and, muttering an oath, he swung away from her. Common sense dictated that she was a selfish bitch who had coerced her father into abusing his position at the bank to fund her extravagant lifestyle. But she was so lovely. Dios, he could barely think straight when she looked at him with those huge, sapphire blue eyes. And she had spirit, he granted—she must love her father very much to have come here to plead his case. She deserved neither his respect nor sympathy, but to his annoyance he felt a begrudging sense of both.

An idea had filtered into his mind and refused to be ignored. He had no need of a cook or a cleaner, but he suddenly knew of a way that he could make use of her—and it was moral, he acknowledged, his mouth curving into a cynical smile as he remembered the stipulation she’d made.

‘Stand up, Miss Beresford,’ he said coolly, aware of a curious sensation in his chest as he watched her get shakily to her feet. ‘You say that you are prepared to work for me in return for me dropping legal proceedings against your father?’

‘Yes.’ Hope hammered in Grace’s chest, and she stumbled towards him. ‘I told you, I’ll do anything,’ she assured him eagerly.

The silence between them thrummed with tension until Javier finally spoke. ‘In that case I take it that you have no objection to being my wife?’

His unemotional statement knocked the world temporarily off its axis, and Grace dragged air into her lungs. ‘You’re joking, of course?’ she muttered bleakly when she could think straight. Tears stung her eyes. Since her father had been formally charged with fraud, she had clung to her wildly optimistic belief that she would succeed in persuading Javier to agree to settle out of court. The stark reality of defeat caused an agonising pain in her chest. Any minute now she would hear Javier’s mocking laughter, and she wished she could crawl away and die. But his next words brought her head up.

‘It’s not a joke. I’m in the unenviable position of having to find a wife before my next birthday—and remain married to her for a year,’ Javier informed her tersely.

‘And when is your birthday?’ Grace murmured dazedly.

‘Two months from now.’

‘So fairly urgent, then.’ The conversation, the whole situation, was verging on the surreal and Grace felt as though she had wandered into the pages of Alice in Wonderland.

Javier was watching her speculatively with his amazing golden eyes. Grace was aware of the frisson of sexual awareness that vibrated between them, and she licked her lips nervously. She seriously doubted she could handle the Duque de Herrera in any capacity and for a second she felt like fleeing. The note of command in his voice halted her.

‘Sit down, Miss Beresford—although now that we’re betrothed I suppose I’d better call you Grace.’

‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ she snapped, incensed by his authoritarian manner.

He gave her a bored glance. ‘I thought you were out of options?’

‘I am, but so it seems are you.’ Grace sank gratefully into a chair and fought to regain her composure. Some sixth sense told her that Javier’s expression of cool indifference belied his inner frustration. For some unexplained reason he had to find a wife and he was running out of time. It was possible that he needed her as much as she needed him, and that put her in a powerful bargaining position.

‘Why do you have to get married?’ she demanded.

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse to answer. His expression hardened so that his cheekbones were sharply visible beneath his skin, and his eyes glittered with sudden anger. ‘Under the terms of my grandfather’s will I must choose a wife, or lose control of El Banco de Herrera to my cousin,’ he told her in a voice laced with bitterness.

‘It sounds as if the bank is very important to you.’

‘It is my birthright, and the only thing that is important to me,’ Javier corrected her fiercely.

‘I see.’ Grace hesitated and then said, ‘From what I’ve heard, you have no shortage of women in your life. Why not ask one of them to marry you?’

‘Because there’d be hell to pay when the time came to get rid of them,’ he admitted in a blunt tone that made her wince. ‘The marriage will be a business proposition, nothing more, but mention the word “wedding” to most women and they seem to link it with the ridiculous notion of love.’

‘You’re afraid that if you choose one of your girlfriends they might fall in love with you?’ Grace said slowly as understanding dawned. ‘Your arrogance takes my breath away,’ she hissed, almost lost for words, ‘What makes you think you’re so damned special?’