‘Oh, don’t be stuffy, Nick. What’s gone is gone. You should always make the most of what you’ve got.’
The rock-like principle on which Nadia Kilman/Steele/Manning/Lloyd/Hardwick/Condor had built her life. No shifting it. No changing it.
‘Of course, Mother. I look forward to seeing you and your necklace.’
Which would be shamelessly displayed around her neck the moment an opportune occasion presented itself. Since it was already mid-November, she didn’t have long to wait for the festive season to be in full swing.
Nick set the telephone receiver down and once more stared at the packet on his desk. Part of him wanted to drop it in the litter bin unopened, yet another part of him wanted to know what his father thought he was worth. With a sense of very dark cynicism, he decided it was best to know the finishing line so he could put it completely behind him.
He opened the packet.
It contained two letters.
Predictably enough, one was from a lawyer, Javier Estes, now handling the Ramirez estate. The other, surprisingly, was handwritten by Enrique and addressed very personally to Nick. Its content was stunning in its intimate knowledge of almost every detail of Nick’s life and the big punchline at the end of it put a seductively new and challenging spin on his world.
His mind was still intensely engaged with it when his PA opened the door between their offices and his mother made her entrance.
It was always an entrance.
Even at fifty-five…looking not a day over thirty-five, if that—she was the ultimate display of female beauty, with a lushly curved body that screamed sexy woman, and she certainly made the most of all she had.
Wherever she went in public, eyes swivelled to look and were instantly trapped into keeping on watching her because she was so very watchable, everything and everyone in her vicinity simply fading into insignificance. Miss Universe was still strutting her stuff with no encroachment whatsoever from the years that had passed since she’d won that title.
Her thick, wonderfully lustrous, long wavy hair looked like a rippling stream of dark brown silk, temptingly touchable. Her large, amber eyes had a hypnotic quality. Whenever she focused them on a man, he seemed to drown in them. Her nose was perfect. Her full-lipped sexy mouth was positively mesmerising, as were the flash of her gleaming white teeth.
And, of course, her long graceful neck was invariably adorned by dazzling jewellery which complemented her dazzling beauty and dazzling, up-to-the-minute, designer clothes. Today she was in black and white with just the right dramatic touches of red.
The moment the door behind her was closed, her hands were reaching out, gesturing for him to give her what she wanted. ‘Well…?’ It was a prod, delivered with a provocatively appealing smile.
Nick strolled around to the front of his desk and casually propped himself against it, viewing his mother with considerable cynical amusement as he delivered some news that might wilt her monstrous vanity.
‘I don’t think you’re the only woman who received an emerald necklace from Enrique Ramirez this morning.’
Her perfectly smooth brow defied its many Botox treatments and frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Apparently oats were being sown all around the world in my father’s polo-playing years. I have a half-brother in England, and another in the USA, both of whom have impressed my dear dead Dad every bit as much as I have, despite all three of us being his bastard sons. Which undoubtedly means he felt a debt of gratitude to their mothers, as well.’
‘Oh!’ She shrugged. Her mouth twisted into a wistful smile. ‘He really was quite irresistible. I have no doubt any woman would fall for him. But not so good for you, Nick. I guess this means Enrique has cut any inheritance for you three ways.’
The inheritance was irrelevant. Nick wanted to meet his half-brothers. And to do that, he had to fulfil a dead man’s crazy fantasy of reliving a different life through his illegitimate son…a life filled with real love and commitment, fidelity and fatherhood. It was either marry and have his wife at least pregnant within the next twelve months, or never learn anything more about his half-brothers.
That was the bare bones of Enrique’s wishes…his challenge to Nick.
Forget the rest.
Nick didn’t believe in love and marriage and happy families, but he could and would outwardly comply with those terms in order to get to a meeting with his half-brothers—his real blood family however fragmented it was, not step-siblings who came and went with his mother’s marriages. He wanted to meet Enrique Ramirez’s other by-blows, wanted to know if they were anything like himself, wanted to feel he was not alone.
‘There is no inheritance to be had,’ he lied, aware that his mother couldn’t help herself from plotting for it if he told her the truth. He smiled sardonically as he added, ‘My father has graciously granted me some knowledge of a family I went seeking when I was eighteen. What you might call too little, too late.’
‘Half-brothers…’ The Botox got another workout. ‘Are you going to go looking for them now?’
‘I don’t have any key to finding them. Unlike me they haven’t been aware that Enrique fathered them so the Ramirez name would mean nothing to them. I’ve been told their identities will be revealed to me when the estate is settled. I can wait. In the meantime, I’m going to get on with my business. If you’ll leave me to it…’
He strolled over to the door and opened it for her. ‘Thank you for your visit. I’m glad you’re happy with your necklace.’
‘You’re not disappointed, Nick?’
He shrugged. ‘He who expects nothing cannot be disappointed.’
‘Oh, you…’ She tapped his cheek in mock exasperation, her golden amber eyes looking for some chink in his cynical armour. ‘You should have fought Enrique for some recognition while he was still alive. You’ve always been too proud, Nick. Too independent.’
‘The product of my circumstances. Goodbye, Mother.’
With nothing to get her pretty teeth into, she accepted the exit line, undoubtedly eager now to get the emerald necklace valued to see how much she’d been worth to Enrique Ramirez. His mother was incredibly good at maths when it came to totting up the profit from each connection she’d made.
Left to himself again, Nick concentrated on formulating how best to get to the end he wanted without paying too much for it. He simply didn’t have enough information—no names, no descriptions, no ages—to try finding his half-brothers himself. The only guarantee of meeting them was to go down the route Enrique had laid down.