Javier stood and extended a hand towards the elderly lawyer. ‘We’ll meet again two months from now and I will introduce you to my bride.’ Already he was making a mental checklist of his various mistresses, silently debating which of them could be persuaded to agree to the shortest marriage on record. He would have to offer a suitable financial incentive, he mused, the full amount only to be paid on the day of their divorce. He wanted no risk of a misunderstanding that the marriage could evolve into the ‘happy ever after’ variety.
Ramon Aguilar slowly rose to his feet. ‘I’ll look forward to it. And, on the anniversary of the first year of your marriage, I will be delighted to sign over full control of El Banco de Herrera to you. Until then, and assuming that you produce a bride before your birthday, you will continue in your role as acting president of the bank, but all major decisions regarding the bank’s business dealings will be subject to the agreement of myself and my legal team.’
‘A year!’ The crackling tension in the room splintered as Javier muttered a savage oath. He snatched Carlos Herrera’s last will and testament from the lawyer’s hands, skimmed the neatly typed words and finally threw the document down on the desk.
‘Your grandfather believed he was acting in the best interests of El Banco de Herrera.’ Ramon began a faltering explanation but stumbled to a halt beneath Javier’s icy stare.
The new Duque threw back his head and his lip curled into a sneering parody of a smile. ‘Make no mistake, Ramon,’ he growled. ‘I will take what is rightfully mine and nothing, certainly not the dictates of a ghost, will stop me.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE guidebook stated that El Castillo de Leon was a twelfth-century Moorish castle built high in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and overlooking the city of Granada. The road to the castle climbed ever steeper, and Grace was forced to change into a lower gear as she negotiated another hazardous bend. Any higher and she would be in the clouds, she thought as she stared up at the castle that seemed to cling perilously to the craggy rocks on which it was built.
In the distance the mountain peaks rose even higher and were still capped with snow but at this level the landscape was lush and green. It was raining. The dismal weather complemented her mood, Grace acknowledged bleakly.
‘For three days it has rained,’ the manager of her hotel had explained on her arrival in Granada. ‘It’s very unusual for this late in the spring—but you wait, tomorrow the sun will shine and it will make you happy.’
Little did the manager know that it would take a lot more than a change in the weather to lift her spirits, Grace thought with a sigh. For a moment she pictured her father, haggard and unshaven, slumped in a chair. The immaculately dressed, proud bank manager had crumbled before her eyes and in his place was a man who had reached the very end of his emotional limits.
‘There’s nothing you can do, sweetie,’ Angus had said, with a vain attempt at a smile. Even in his darkest hour he was still trying to protect his only child, Grace realised, and it had served to fuel her determination to do something.
It couldn’t be that bad, she’d insisted. Her father was her hero, the most wonderful man in the world, but the shocking scale of his embezzlement from the bank had left her reeling. She’d understood his reasons, of course. The years of watching her mother’s health and mobility deteriorate as motor neurone disease progressed had been utterly devastating. Angus had searched the world in his quest for a cure for the incurable. Anything, from Chinese herbal remedies, holistic healing and expensive treatments in the U.S., had been worth a try if it meant he could ease his adored wife’s suffering.
In the end it had all proved futile, and Susan Beresford had died two years ago, a few weeks before Grace’s twenty-first birthday. She’d had no idea until a few weeks ago that Angus had funded her mother’s care by gambling, or that his addiction had spiralled out of control and had led him to ‘borrow’ money to repay his debts from the Europa Bank, the British subsidiary of the Spanish banking house El Banco de Herrera.
‘I always planned to pay it back, I swear it,’ Angus had croaked when Grace had been unable to hide her shock at the enormity of what he had done. ‘One lucky break, that’s all I needed. I could have repaid the money, closed the false accounts I’d set up and no one would have known.’
But now they did. An eagle-eyed auditor had picked up irregularities that had triggered a deeper investigation, suspicions had been reported all the way up to the head of El Banco de Herrera, and Grace could only stand by and watch as her world and, more importantly, her father’s was brought crashing down.