MATÍAS SPENT THE next few days avoiding Camilla. He told himself that was not what he was doing, because he was no coward. Particularly not where women were concerned. He was a man who’d had ample and early access to the female form, who had never much seen the point in denying himself physical feminine company when the need arose itself.
However, he felt it best not to engage himself physically with Camilla Alvarez. Their fates were too linked. Their lives far too intertwined at the moment for his peace of mind.
When all was said and done, he wished to part with her as business partners might.
But that did not stop the yawning ache in his gut from making itself known.
They would get through tonight. Through the public presentation of them as an engaged couple. And then he would find himself a woman to deal with his physical desires.
As he had suspected, his brother had ensured that his marriage to Liliana became a headline the world over. In the days since her defection, it had become headline news.
And so he had to replace it with the headline of his own, and he was determined to do so tonight.
Another reason he could not afford a distraction.
He had to maintain control of himself. Even though the attraction that sparked between himself and Camilla was convenient when it came to presenting a front as an engaged couple, he could not afford to be anything but in absolute control of himself and his body.
He thought of the way she had fallen against him a few days ago during their dance lesson. The way she had tilted her face up toward him, her eyes fluttering closed. And it irked him that he couldn’t read her. That he could not tell whether it was innocent on her part, or whether she was, in fact, a skilled seductress.
That was the problem with her in general. The fact that she had tricked him as she had done when she had come to work for him meant he did not trust anything she did or said now. They were allied of a necessity, and he believed what it suited him to believe, but he also believed it entirely possible that she might have ulterior motives.
He was all right with that, as long as he was fully cognizant that it might be the case.
In order to be fully cognizant he had to keep his lower extremities out of the equation.
Everything was prepared for the trip down to the city. He had arranged to have his penthouse prepared, so the two of them could spend the night there after the ball ended.
He had asked that his staff arrange to have any personal items she might need brought there and installed for her.
He was now waiting in the antechamber of his family home, and she was late.
He looked down at his watch, then looked up at the stairs, filled with impatience. Surely, arriving at an appointed time was not difficult. Liliana certainly had never had any trouble with it.
But then Liliana was an accomplished socialite, and he knew that Camilla was not.
Still, he had an entire team of people aiding in her preparations. Surely, it could not be that difficult.
He heard footsteps and looked up, and was shocked by the level of intensity that hit him hard in the stomach.
Because there she was, bare-shouldered, wearing a strapless gown that conformed to her lithe figure, until it reached her hips, where it fanned out in a glorious blaze of glittering gold. Her short hair was adorned with a simple golden band that was fashioned to look like a vine.
That vision of her as a goddess of some sort was only cemented by this. And suddenly, he did not care if they were late.
Her brown eyes were wide, and he could not read the emotion in them as she descended the staircase, her gown swishing around her with each movement.
When she reached the bottom of the steps, she looked at him with deep uncertainty. “Do you like it?”
“The dress?”
“I suppose so.” Though she was keeping her tone flat, even, he could sense a vulnerability to her in that moment. One he found quite surprising.
“I like it on you,” he returned.
She looked down, and he took her arm, surprised by the softness of her skin. He examined her profile, the strong shape of her jaw, the sweet, supple curve of her lip.
She was a fascinating woman. And more and more he could not fathom he had ever believed her ruse.
He simply hadn’t looked.
It made him wonder what else he didn’t see. It made him wonder what else he had closed himself off to.
But then he supposed there was no real point in lingering on those thoughts.
It didn’t matter. He had her now. And he was going to get his part of the family fortune. Even if he was not going to have it all in its entirety. He would not be made a fool of by Diego. He would not allow his brother to win.
He might not be able to ensure his loss, but he could ensure he did not take it all.
And with Camilla on his arm tonight, he was likely to paint a very convincing picture of the entire scenario. It would be clear to anyone with eyes why he would have been tempted away from that pale, fragile woman he had found himself engaged to, drawn to this bright, vibrant creature.
She might not have the fame of Liliana Hart, might not possess a newsworthy family, but any man would be able to see why she was a temptation.
“The car is waiting,” he said, leading them both out of the house and toward the limousine that was waiting for them.
She stopped. “That seems a bit expected,” she commented.
“Please forgive me my expected limousine,” he said. “The sad thing about events like this is we must endeavor to be expected. We must fulfill the expectations of those in attendance. Otherwise, there is precious little point in attending at all.”
His driver opened the door for both of them, and they slid inside. Then, when they were safely ensconced, on the road and headed toward the city, she turned to him.
“Did your father do as expected?”
“No, my family has always made it their mission to do as little that was expected of them as possible. I have tried to be different. I was not taught the difference between right and wrong. Nobody attempted to teach me the value of integrity, and yet because of the deficit of it in my life I figured it out all the same. A man cannot live by his own rules, Camilla. A man must answer to a higher power. It is simply the way of it. If not, then he is bound to the whims of his own heart, his own desires. That ends in bad places. Dark places.”
“Your father was cruel to you...”
His chest tightened, the words screaming in his head, begging to be released while his whole body tensed for a battle to hold it back. There was something about her. Something that made it seem so easy to share things he had never told another soul.
Perhaps it was because when he’d first spoken freely to her he’d seen her as a boy. A member of his staff. He’d barely seen her at all.
In the darkness of the car, he physically couldn’t see her, and perhaps that was why he wanted to speak to her now. It was like confession. Whether or not it would be good for his soul, he couldn’t say.
“It is not that. Yes, my father was cruel to me. He was cruel to everyone he encountered. But my father killed my mother, Camilla.” The next words were torn, from somewhere deep inside him, with a pain he had no idea he still possessed the ability to feel. “It was not an accident.”
Camilla was frozen, her heart turning brittle in her chest, cracking from the inside out. His father had killed his mother? It seemed impossible. Impossible words issued from the most