LEONORA FLORES DE LA VEGA couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the man standing at the back of the crowd in the glittering ballroom. He towered over everyone around him, putting him at well over six feet.
He was also scowling, which only made his hawkish good looks even more forbidding and intimidating. And even from here Leonora was aware of his sheer masculine magnetism. As if there was an invisible thread tugging her attention to him whether she liked it or not.
She knew who Gabriel Ortega Cruz y Torres was. Everyone did. He came from one of Spain’s most noble and oldest families. They owned huge swathes of the country and generated an income from banking, vineyards and real estate—just to name a few enterprises.
He was an intensely private man, but even so he had a reputation for being as ruthless in the bedroom as he was in business. Single, he was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Europe, if not the world. But he appeared to be in no hurry to settle down. And when he did it would be with an undeniably well-connected woman who breathed the same rarefied air as he did.
And why should that even concern her? Leonora chastised herself. She might come from a family almost as well-connected as Gabriel’s, but there the similarity ended. Her family had lost their fortune, and had been subsisting on scraps and the funds from opening up their castillo just outside Madrid. It was an ignominious state of affairs. And one that was becoming increasingly unsustainable.
She had never spoken to Gabriel Torres and was never likely to. A man like him wouldn’t lower himself to consort with someone from a family of very faded glory. But she’d always been aware of him. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on him when he’d been about twenty-one and she’d been twelve. She’d watched him play polo—that had been before her family had lost everything due to her father’s gambling habit, a long-standing source of shame that had kept her parents from venturing out in public for years.
She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Gabriel that day. He’d been so vital. So alive. He and the horse had moved as one, with awesome athleticism and grace. But it had been the expression on his face that had caught her—so intense and focused.
She’d overheard one of the opposing team say, ‘Hey, Torres, lighten up. It’s just a friendly game.’
He’d said nothing, just glowered at the man. Leonora could remember feeling an ache near her heart, as if she’d wanted to soothe him somehow…make him smile.
Which was ridiculous.
She became aware of the hubbub in the ballroom. Of the hundreds of eyes looking at her. And suddenly she came out of her reverie and back into the present moment. A moment that was going to change her life for ever.
A spurt of panic clutched at her gut and she breathed through it.
She was doing this for her family. For Matías. She had no choice. She was their only hope of redemption.
A light sweat broke out on her palms as she forced her gaze away from the man at the back of the room and found the man she should be looking at. Her fiancé. Lazaro Sanchez. He was devilishly handsome, with overlong dark blond hair and mesmerisingly unusual green eyes. Tall. He was almost as tall as—
She shook her head briefly. No. She had to stop thinking about him. She was about to become engaged to this man. This man she hardly knew, if she was honest. They’d had some dates. She didn’t feel anything when she looked at him. Not like…him.
But Lazaro was kind and respectful. And, more importantly, he was prepared to bail her family out of their quagmire of debts and in so doing restore their respectability and secure Matías’s future. In return… Well, Leonora was cynical enough to recognise ruthless ambition when she saw it. Lazaro Sanchez wanted to marry her in order to achieve a level of acceptance into the world she inhabited. Her only currency now was as a trophy to someone like him and she had no choice but to accept it.
She noticed then that Lazaro had a glowering expression on his face, not unlike the one on Gabriel Torres’s. Something about that caught in Leonora’s mind, but before she could unpick what it meant she realised that one of Lazaro’s staff was making a motion, as if to say, It’s time.
She tried to get his attention, ‘Lazaro?’
He looked at her. Still glowering.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You look very fierce.’
His expression cleared. He held out a hand and she slipped hers into his. Nothing. No effect. She berated herself again. People in this world didn’t marry for love or chemistry. They married strategically. Exactly as she was doing.
‘Yes, fine…just a little preoccupied,’ he said.
Unable to help herself, Leonora glanced back across the room, and this time Gabriel Torres’s dark, compelling gaze met hers. A flash of heat went straight through her abdomen. Her fingers tightened reflexively around Lazaro’s.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.
A surge of guilt blasted her. How could she be so compelled by another man when she was about to commit publicly to this one? She looked at Lazaro and forced a smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
His hand tightened around hers. ‘I’m glad you have agreed to marry me, Leonora. I think we can have a good marriage, I think we can be…happy.’
Did he?
A semi-hysterical bubble rose up inside her. She had a sense of the massive room closing in around her, suffocating her. Lazaro let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her waist. The feeling of claustrophobia got worse.
His hand tightened on her waist, almost painfully, and Leonora hissed at him. ‘Lazaro—’
He looked at her with a strange expression on his face, his eyes burning.
‘You’re hurting me.’
Immediately he released his grip. ‘I’m sorry.’
Leonora forced a smile. The sooner they got this announcement over with, the sooner she could get out of this room and get some air. She resolutely forced herself to keep her eyes averted from where Gabriel Torres stood, towering over everyone else around him. Powerful. Magnetic. Disturbing.
A waiter approached with champagne and she took two glasses, handing one to Lazaro. She saw movement nearby and said, ‘Your advisors are making motions that it’s time to make the announcement. Ready?’
Lazaro looked at her, and she clung to the resolve she could see in his eyes.
He clinked his glass to hers. ‘Yes, let’s do it.’
He put his arm around her waist again and Leonora forced a smile through the lingering claustrophobia. He started speaking, but she didn’t really take in his words, letting them roll over her.
Against every effort, her eye was drawn back across the crowd to where Gabriel Torres stood. He was still watching her, with a disconcertingly intense gaze. Leonora started to tremble lightly under the force of it.
Suddenly a voice rang out. ‘Wait! Stop!’
It shook Leonora out of her trance. It was a woman, who’d pushed through the crowd near the dais. She was being held back by security guards. She was dressed like