‘I will go if you like.’
It was enough to make Anton’s head whip around. ‘You will remain right where I can see you, Miss Lane!’ he lanced at his so called private secretary.
Kinsella blanched at his tone. His mother gasped. They were all on their feet now and people were openly staring.
Frustration bit into him. This had all gone wrong. How had he let it go so wrong?
His mind shot back to the call from Max. Until then he had been firmly focused on what he was doing and why he was doing it. Everything had been running smoothly and under his control. Then Max’s call had arrived to muddy the waters, and the arrival of his mother had muddied them some more. The machinations of Kinsella, the burning leap of angry jealousy that had come with Max’s wisecrack about the Ordoniz widow—and seeing the stranger in the shopping mall when he thought he’d sharpened his focus. In truth, that was the moment he’d lost what bit of focus he’d had left.
This dinner was supposed to have been a trial by demonstration, aimed to show his mother and Kinsella Lane that, no matter what they thought or wanted or hoped to the contrary, he and Cristina were an inseparable item. Whatever else needed to be said should have taken place in private. Why would he want to turn it into a public scene? Why would he want to embarrass Cristina in front of anyone? She was the woman he was going to marry, the woman he—
Dear God. It hit him then, the one thing he had been carefully skirting around without actually grasping with both hands. It had been there staring at him from the moment he saw her across the crowded reception room. Further back, when he’d stood staring at her name typed in bold on a document and felt himself coming alive. He’d even fooled himself into thinking he was still in love with a memory when he’d watched her pose in her red dress, but it was no distant memory. It was here and now and so potent he could actually taste it!
He must have looked strange because his mother placed a hand on his arm to capture his attention, and when he looked at her he saw concern there, a mother’s instinctive understanding wrapped in dark-eyed remorse.
‘I will go and see if Cristina is all right,’ she said gently.
The letter. His mind spun. What was in the letter? Who was it from? Why would one look at the envelope make Cristina turn and run? His chest grew tight, as if a steel band was trying to squeeze down a searing hot desire to explode into panic. But there were other issues here that had to be dealt with—Kinsella Lane being the most pressing one.
He caught his mother’s hand as she went to follow Cristina. ‘She is the most important thing in the world to me, so you treat her with respect—understand?’
His mother pressed her lips together and nodded while the words he’d just uttered played a taunting echo inside his head.
Anton took in air, and by the time he had released it again and turned his attention to Kinsella he had himself back in control.
‘Right, let’s make this more formal, Miss Lane,’ he enunciated with ice-tipped authority. ‘We will take our business upstairs to the conference room, I think.’
Then he turned to stride across the restaurant, ignoring all the curious looks he was receiving and pausing by the maître d’ to sign a hastily produced bill for their ruined dinner. As he moved on towards the lifts he took out his cellphone to call his two executives to the conference room. He wanted witnesses to what was coming next.
‘Anton, please listen to me.’ Kinsella’s hand arrived on the sleeve of his jacket, the soft, slightly pleading tone in her voice making his skin start to creep. ‘You don’t understand. Your mother made it impossible for me to—’
‘You would be wise to keep your mouth shut until we gain privacy,’ he bit right across her, thinking Cristina was right; she did flutter around him like a fluffy moth. He swatted her hand away, then walked into the lift.
Cristina was sitting in a chair, staring at the unopened envelope she clutched in her fingers. It was addressed to Cristina Ordoniz, which was enough to turn her stomach, but what was really choking her of any ability to open the letter was the logo neatly printed on the corner of the envelope.
Javier Estes and Associates, it said. Advocates of Law.
Vaasco’s lawyers. How many of these awful white envelopes had she received in the months after Vaasco’s death? Each one of them had carried only bad news. Each one had turned her into this trembling, shaking person she was now.
But the letters had stopped a long time ago—long before her father had died. Why start again now? And why receive it hand-delivered right in the middle of a busy restaurant?
The only way to find out was to open it, she told herself, then swallowed and made her fingers break the seal and draw out the single sheet of paper that was inside.
Shock hit then—the kind of totally bewildering stunning shock that twisted her brain into complete knots. The letter was not to do with her late husband’s estate at all. Senhor Estes had more than one client—of course he did, she told herself. But—Enrique Ramirez?
Her stomach rolled and kept on rolling as she read in growing disbelief what it was she had been handed.
A bequest, it said, and named a figure that scrambled her brain all the more. Enrique Ramirez had bequeathed her just enough money to save Santa Rosa.
Just enough to pay off her debts.
Dared she believe it? The letter had been delivered in a very unconventional manner. Maybe it was a joke—a very sick joke. Maybe she would be wise checking out the source before she—
The door suddenly opened and she looked up just to stare as Luis’s mother walked in.
‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Scott-Lee questioned warily.
‘No.’ It was no use pretending she was when she wasn’t.
‘You feel ill? The letter—distressed you?’
The letter, Cristina thought, is a dream come true.
Except for one unattainable dream. ‘I think I need to go to my room,’ she whispered.
‘Of course,’ Luis’s mother said, walking towards her. ‘I will take you there—’ Then she stopped, hesitation in every line of her slender, elegant frame. ‘You know about Vaasco and me, don’t you?’ she thrust out suddenly.
Cristina nodded. ‘You were betrothed to him, but you had an affair with another man. This man.’
Cristina held out the letter. Pale as herself now, hands as unsteady as her own hands, Luis’s mother took the letter, lowered her eyes and began to read.
‘Ramirez again,’ she breathed after a long silence, then on a heavy sigh she folded into the chair next to Cristina’s.