The Secret He Must Claim. Chantelle Shaw

‘You can’t pin the blame on me. Although I can see why it would be convenient if I was the father of your child,’ he said sardonically. ‘I would feel duty-bound to marry you, and you need a husband in order to meet the terms of Ralph’s will. Marriage to me would give you not only a share of Saunderson’s Wines but also everything you had expected to inherit from my father. As my wife, you could continue to live here at Cuckmere Hall and enjoy the affluent lifestyle Ralph provided, until he named me as his heir.’

      He smiled cynically when she shook her head. ‘I’m not a fool, querida. I always practice safe sex. Perhaps you were out of your mind from whatever substance you had taken at your birthday party, but I’ll prompt your memory and remind you that I used a condom. I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere for a husband and a father for your child.’

      Elin swayed on her feet, whether for dramatic effect or because she hadn’t fully recovered from fainting a few minutes ago, Cortez did not know and he told himself he didn’t care. She swallowed before she spoke. ‘Only a fool would believe that contraception is one hundred per cent effective, and in our case it failed.’

      She lifted her chin and met his gaze, and for some reason he was compelled to look away from her intense blue stare. ‘Believe me, hell will freeze over before I’d ever want to marry you,’ she said coldly. ‘Harry is yours, but I might have known you would shirk your responsibility for your son when you scuttled off without even having the decency to say goodbye after you’d had sex with me.’

      ‘You were in a deep sleep and I did not think you would appreciate me waking you,’ he bit out, incensed by her scathing tone and her insistence on continuing with what was undoubtedly a lie. He did not believe for a minute that he was the father of her child. Dios, after what had happened with Alandra he had taken care never to have unprotected sex.

      Even so, he disliked the image Elin had presented of him hurrying out of her bedroom while she slept because he could not deny that was exactly what he’d done. He’d been rattled that she had made him lose control and he had left before he’d given in to the temptation to kiss her awake and make love to her again, slowly, taking his time to explore her beautiful body so that she gasped and moaned while he pleasured her.

      Cortez swore silently as his body reacted predictably to his erotic thoughts, and he forced himself to focus on the present situation. He wasn’t surprised that Elin had played the oldest trick in the book to try to secure financial security for herself, after she’d learned that she and her brother had been excluded almost entirely from their adoptive father’s will. He could not imagine that ‘the party princess’—as one of the tabloids had nicknamed her—had ever held down a job. She needed a source of income, but what was surprising was how quickly she conceded defeat.

      ‘I’ve done my duty and informed you that you have a son,’ she said crisply. ‘I neither want nor expect anything from you, except for a few days’ grace while I arrange to move out of Cuckmere Hall.’ Her voice bore the faintest tremor and she pressed her lips together before she continued. ‘You are aware that Ralph left my brother and I each a property on the estate. But the cottages have been empty for several years and I don’t know what state they are in. I may need to have some renovation work done before I can take a baby to live there.’

      He reminded himself that she did not deserve his compassion. She had enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, which had been denied to his mother and him when he was a child. But Ralph’s vile treatment of his mother was nothing to do with Elin, Cortez conceded. Nor was it her fault that she had grown up in the gracious surroundings of Cuckmere Hall, while he had spent his boyhood working in the vineyards in the blazing Spanish sun, helping his mother to eke out a living.

      ‘I’m going back to London to meet the board of Saunderson’s Bank this afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I have no plans to return to Sussex for a week or so. You and your brother can remain at Cuckmere Hall while you make arrangements to move into the cottages Ralph left you.’

      ‘I doubt Jarek will want to live in a cottage. He has his own home in London.’ She hesitated. ‘My brother had anticipated that he would become chairman of the bank. What will happen now? Will he continue in his current job?’

      ‘For the immediate future the situation will remain unchanged, until I have met the board of directors. When I have assessed all aspects of the bank’s business portfolio there are likely to be changes,’ he warned. ‘Ralph’s will was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you. I was informed of his death by Mr Carstairs and I attended the funeral to pay my respects to my father, even though he had never given my mother the respect she deserved.’

      Cortez did not try to disguise his bitterness. His mother had been an angel and his greatest regret was that she had died before he’d become rich and successful and he hadn’t had the chance to make her life more comfortable.

      ‘It was a great shock to discover that my adoptive father had a secret son,’ Elin said quietly. ‘How did your mother meet Ralph?’

      ‘She worked as a maid here at Cuckmere Hall. My mother never spoke of my father or revealed his identity and I had no idea that I was Ralph’s son until I received a request for a DNA test. When I met Ralph he explained that he’d had an affair with my mother at the same time as he became engaged to Lorna Amhurst. He said his marriage was an arrangement to merge two banking families.’

      Cortez frowned. ‘Ralph insisted that he gave my mother money when she told him she was pregnant. He assumed she returned to her family in Spain. But her family threw her out for having an illegitimate child and she brought me up on her own, with no money other than the small income she earned from growing grapes used for making sherry.

      ‘I don’t know why Ralph made me his heir, but I think it is unlikely that he wanted to make amends for abandoning me before I was born,’ he said cynically. ‘A more obvious reason is that, having ignored me—his biological son—for most of my life, Ralph was faced with leaving his personal fortune and Saunderson’s Bank to the mercy of his two adopted children who, despite the privileges of wealth and excellent education, have become spoiled brats in adulthood.’

      Elin jerked her head back as if he had slapped her. Dios, how did this woman manage to make him feel as if he were a monster? Cortez thought frustratedly.

      ‘You know nothing about me or my brother,’ she said in a clipped voice that made him want to ruffle her cool composure and reveal the fire that he knew simmered beneath her air of refinement. ‘Jarek is a thousand times a better man than you could ever be.’

      Finally he glimpsed a flicker of emotion on her face that up until now had been a serene mask. It was interesting that her brother was her weak spot, he mused. Everyone had an Achilles heel and he had made it his particular line of expertise to detect weaknesses in an opponent which he could ruthlessly use to his advantage. Although he was unlikely to ever need to use boardroom tactics with Elin. She did not have anything he wanted—apart from the face of an angel and a body that would tempt the most devout saint to sin, he thought with grim humour.