Stand-In Bride's Seduction

“Well, I was just thinking about what the governess said and how she phrased her curse. It’s as if she wanted to remind her lover of his family’s creed. Clearly, she felt he had not lived by it.”

“She had gone mad. Who knows what she was thinking any more? Now, enough of history.” Rey leaned forward and fixed her with a stare. “How about you tell me a little about your family? We’ve had so little opportunity to learn about ourselves beyond the obvious. I think it’s time we got to know one another a little better, don’t you?”

Her pupils dilated somewhat, before settling back to normal—the only visible sign of any fear. Oh, she was very good at this, he reluctantly acknowledged. If his suspicions hadn’t been roused and if the damning information on the Internet hadn’t been available, he’d never have suspected any different.

“What do you want to know?”

She was hedging; he knew it as surely as he knew the sun rose and fell each day. He reached across the table and gathered her left hand in his, his thumb gently swinging the diamond solitaire he’d put on her sister’s finger, back and forth.

“Siblings? Parents? What sort of things did you get up to growing up?”

To his surprise she smiled. “One sibling—a sister, one surviving parent and mischief, generally. What about you?”

So she was already trying to turn the tide of conversation back to him. He hid his irritation behind a laugh.

“Oh, mischief also, most definitely. My parents died in an avalanche many years ago. Abuelo had the joy of seeing my brothers and me through our teenage years. No doubt that has aged him unfairly.”

“I doubt that. If anything, I would imagine trying to keep you three in line kept him youthful. And from the way he is with you and your brothers, I’m sure he wouldn’t have it any other way. I am very sorry to hear you lost your parents so young, though.”

“Thank you. What about you? Tell me about your parents.” It would be too obvious if he asked about her sister right away—he wanted to ease her in to it. Get her to open up, let her guard down, perhaps show her true colors.

She smiled and her eyes took on a faraway look. “For as long as I can remember, they were constantly competing with one another. I suppose, to an outsider, it was a rather strange marriage but it seemed to work for them. They fed on one another’s need to be the best at everything. I think that’s why they encouraged my sister and me into competitive sport. Winning was everything. It didn’t matter if it was a game of cards, or the best vegetables, sport or anything. Sometimes they worked together to win against someone else, sometimes apart to compete against one another.

“It wasn’t always…easy at home. Anyway, Dad died suddenly a couple of years ago, complications from pneumonia. It came as a heck of a shock to us all but while Mum still grieves for him, she’s come to accept his death—and, with him gone, there’s no further fierce competition. She seems more settled than she did before. Happier to take life at a slower pace, I guess.”

“And your sister? What is she doing?”

Sarina’s lips parted and she started to speak but then hesitated. Obviously gathering her thoughts together.

“This and that. She was recently engaged but it didn’t work out.”

That was interesting—the newspaper article he’d read gave the impression that she was still engaged. Was she lying? No, it seemed more likely that the engagement had truly ended—perhaps because she didn’t manage to successfully fleece the poor idiot who’d asked her to marry him, Rey thought.

“She’s been working as a kind of Girl Friday for the past couple of years, basically a problem solver for people—she has a knack for sorting things out, raising business profiles where necessary and creating calm where there’s chaos—she’s a bit of a Jill of all trades, but I think she’s ready for a change now.”

“You two are close?”

“Very close,” she agreed and reached for her nearly empty wine glass.

“More wine?” he asked. Perhaps he could encourage her to be less guarded with her responses if she had a little more to drink.