‘I don’t want his damn money; I want to meet my half-brothers!’ Anton lashed out, and watched his mother flinch, despised himself for it, despised Ramirez for doing this to them all. His mother was right, he didn’t need to do anything. But, knowing that did not alter the fact that he felt bloody cheated—denied of the right to know so many things about himself.
He would not be denied this chance to know his own flesh and blood—no matter what the cost!
The cost.
His gaze flicked back to the papers spread out in front of him, green eyes glassing over as he re-read the paragraph in which Ramirez accused him of running out on a woman six years ago, leaving her in dire straits. He was insisting that Anton make reparation and was giving him six months in which to do it. He was then expected to turn up at some lawyer’s office in Rio with this woman as his wife, ripe with his child, or he would never know his brothers and Anton’s share in his birthright would go to her instead.
‘So w-what are you going to do?’ his mother questioned.
Anton didn’t hear her. He was too busy staring at the name typed in bold print that was leaping at him off the page—along with a vision of waist-length black hair with a sexy loose spiral twist framing a small heart-shaped face with a pointed little chin, a lush red provocative mouth, and a pair of she-devil fiery dark eyes that had a habit of turning into burning rubies when she was—
‘Anton…?’
His eyes lifted automatically at that appealing note in his mother’s voice, but he wasn’t seeing her because he was seeing that other woman who had been so instrumental in the making of him. His body was burning, filling with the deep grinding pulse of uncontrolled sexual power that had always been his response whenever he let—
‘Anton, please tell us what you intend to do about this!’ his mother begged.
‘Carry out his wishes,’ he heard himself utter, as cold and hard as death.
‘What—get married at some dead man’s behest?’ his uncle Max gasped in horror. ‘Are you crazy, boy?’
Stark staring mad—but up for it, Anton thought as the heat in him grew and grew. He was going to hunt down, trap and then marry the lying little tramp called Cristina Marques and make her life a sexual hell…
The old and sadly neglected book-lined room that had used to be her father’s sanctuary rang to the sound of raised voices and the fierce-eyed fury of one of its two occupants.
‘For goodness’ sake, Cristina, will you listen to me? If you—’
‘No, you listen.’ A small clenched fist made angry contact with the desk. ‘I said no!’
Sheer frustration threw Rodrigo Valentim back into his seat. ‘If you will not take my instruction,’ he sighed out impatiently, ‘then what am I doing here?’
‘You are here as my attorney to find a way to get me out of this!’
‘And I keep telling you,’ he enunciated tightly—but then this had been going on for ages now, and the longer it did the more angry both of them became—‘I cannot do that!’
Cristina straightened, her fine-boned slender figure giving no hint to the strength of the woman within. With a proud toss of her head she sent her long black tresses flying back from narrow shoulders. Eyes like flashing devils pierced Rodrigo Valentim with a defiant glare.
‘Then I will have to find myself a lawyer who can, will I not?’
Another loaded sigh and Rodrigo’s forty-years-in-the-business jaded expression suddenly gave way to a rueful smile. ‘If I believed it could make the difference then I would take you to one myself. Do you not understand, minha amiga?’ he pleaded. ‘Santa Rosa is all but bankrupt. If you do not agree to this offer it will die!’
It was like taking a whip to a wounded animal. Cristina’s pained little whimper crucified the tough lawyer’s ears. She turned away, tense fingers jumping up to burrow into the sleeves of a well-used sweater as she paced away from the desk. The window beckoned, drawing her hopeless gaze to the open pampas, where the gauchos roamed free and machismo still ruled.
Out there, where most of the other large estates had turned their land over to soya or wine, Santa Rosa was one of the few traditional working cattle ranches left functioning in this part of Brazil. A Marques had ruled here since her Portuguese ancestors had claimed the land and built this house she was standing in.
And here she stood, Cristina thought bleakly, the last Marques in a long invincible line—and a female, of all things.
A female who was being forced to face the demise of the Marques land, name and pride.
‘Your father should have let you run things years ago, then you would not be in this mess,’ Rodrigo gruffly pronounced. ‘He was a stubborn old fool.’
That word machismo echoed again, and Cristina’s lovely mouth stretched into a bitter, wry smile. The men in these parts did not defer to their women. Her father had preferred to turn a blind eye to what was happening around him and wait to die rather than hand a single decision about Santa Rosa over to her.
‘You need big investment to put this place back on its feet again,’ Rodrigo continued. ‘And you need it urgently. The Alagoas Consortium offer is more than generous for your purposes, querida.’
‘At an impossible price.’
The consortium wanted to scythe off a whole section of Santa Rosa, which would give them access to part of a subtropical forest that was of particular natural beauty—not that this was what interested them. The forest blocked the rest of the world from mile upon mile of white sandy beaches, making them impossible to reach by land at present. They aimed to buy the tract of land, then bulldoze the forest and build a road link to the Atlantic, where they planned to build skyscrapers along a beautiful and rare stretch of untouched coast.
‘When is there never a price?’ Rodrigo posed sadly. ‘You of all people should know this.’
Because she had paid a heavy price once before to save Santa Rosa. That ‘price’ was dead now, thank goodness. Along with the man who had been content to sell his daughter to gain a few extra years of comfort in his blindness to what was happening. Now here she stood with her eyes wide open, seeing all too clearly who must pay the price this time around. If she did accept the offer, the land, the people who lived on it and the forest would become the sacrifice.
‘How long do I have to make a decision?’ It stuck in her throat to ask the question and it showed in the husky tone of her voice.
‘They want the deal badly enough to wait only a little while,’ Rodrigo answered.