Stand-In Bride's Seduction

“Ah, yes, of course.” And just like that her happy mood shattered into a million shards. How many other metaphorical land mines would she step straight into before Sara came back? she wondered.

“Did you want to look at the tapas menu, or do you prefer to leave the choice in my hands?” Rey asked.

Rina waved a hand at the sheet he held between his long elegant fingers. “Oh, you go ahead. Surprise me.”

Rey beckoned to a waiter who came swiftly to take their order.

“And do you wish to have wine with your meal, also, señor?” the waiter asked politely.

“Sara? Do you want wine, or did you want to stay with your water?” Rey asked.

Rina had the impression he was expecting her to refuse wine. She thought it strange when she knew Sara enjoyed quality sparkling wines over anything else.

“Oh, wine, please. Do they have any of the Catalonian Cavas?”

There, even though her preference was for a full-bodied red, she could be more like Sara if she needed to be. She’d even remembered the district Sara had mentioned, in one of her e-mails, where she’d discovered a new favorite. Rey raised an eyebrow at her and placed the order with the waiter who nodded before leaving them at the table.

“I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong. You haven’t taken wine for a couple of weeks now.”

“Me? Oh, no. I’m fit as a horse.” Rina tried to keep a smile plastered on her face.

Sara had stopped drinking wine? That wasn’t like her at all. Maybe Rey was right. When Rina saw her at the airport, Sara had been a bit off-color. Ah, well, hopefully she would be able to get to the root of everything when she finally caught up with her twin. Rina settled back into her seat and decided a subject change was definitely in order. It was all too easy to slip unwarily into dangerous waters, like the wine.

“You were going to tell me about the curse?” she prompted.

“Ah, yes, the curse.” Rey sighed and leaned back in his chair, fixing his gaze at something in the distance across the harbor. “As I said before, it is not one of my family’s greatest moments. In fact, most of us would quite happily forget about the whole thing, but for some reason Abuelo has become fixated on the topic. It would probably be of benefit to all of us if you understood the background and helped to head him off from his ramblings.”

“Is it really that bad?” Rina asked, leaning forward to prop her elbows on the table and rest her chin on interlaced fingers.

Rey snorted. “As bad as it gets, though I have nothing else to compare it to. So, where to begin?”

“At the beginning, I suppose,” she encouraged softly. “Who made the curse, and why?”

“That bit’s easy. Three hundred years ago, one of my ancestors hired a governess to teach his three daughters. It’s the old story, I suppose. His wife was often sickly, and largely absent from his daily life. The governess was young and beautiful. The Baron was handsome and virile—a typical del Castillo trait,” he teased.

Rina felt her lips curve in an answering smile and she rolled her eyes at him. “And was he modest, too? Another del Castillo trait, I suppose?”

“Oh, of course.” Rey’s smile widened. “Anyway, to cut a long story short, over the years, he fathered three sons with her. At the same time, his long-suffering wife bore him three more daughters. He was determined to acknowledge his male heirs—his infant sons from the governess. So he forced his wife to acknowledge them as her own children, while substituting the girls for the governess’s babes.

“As a token of his esteem for his lover, and as the only way he could show his thanks for the gift of his sons, he set her up in the cottage where you now stay and gave her a necklace set with a massive ruby, known as La Verdad del Corazon.”

“The Heart’s Truth? Have I got that right?”

“Sí, it was a family heirloom.”

“He must have loved her very much to give her the necklace.”

“Well, that is under dispute. Apparently, the necklace—or more particularly the stone itself—was supposed to represent the family’s strength and prosperity. It was a gift which was to be endowed upon each new bride. Why he gave it to his lover, well, that is anyone’s guess.”