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Chapter One

ALEJANDRO NAVARRO VASQUEZ, the Conde Olivares, sat on his superb black stallion in the shade of an orange grove and surveyed the valley that had belonged to his ancestors for over five hundred years On this fine spring eous view enco thousands of acres of fertile earth and woodland He owned the land as far as the eye could see, but his lean, darkly handsorie almost two and a half years earlier

He was a landowner and wealthy, but his family—which every Spaniard cherished far beyond material riches—had been ripped asunder by his i, proud and successful as Alejandro, it was a bitter truth that undermined his every achievement He had followed his heart and not his head and he hadwo the price His half-brother, Marco, had taken a job in New York, cutting off all contact with his s Yet if Marco, whom Alejandro had helped to raise after their father’s premature death, had appeared before hier ed him back to his childhood home with sincerity and warm affection?

Alejandro swore under his breath as he pondered that ative answer that he would have had to give it However, when it caiveness in his heart, only outrage and aggression He nursed a far froainst the wife and the brother who had together betrayed his trust and his love Ever since Je his wishes to the last, Alejandro had burned with a desire for justice, even while his keen intelligence warned hi when it came to affairs of the heart

His roan of ile to protect his rare ed it out His ebony brows rose when he learned that the private detective he had hired to find Jemima had arrived to see hi ied to track down his estranged wife

‘My apologies for co to see you without an appointment, Your Excellency,’ the olderair of accomplishment ‘But I knew you would want to hear my news as soon as possible I have found the Condesa’

‘In England?’ Alejandro questioned and, having had that long-held suspicion confira furnished further details Then, unfortunately, at that point his er countess, entered the room A formidable presence, Doña Hortencia settled acid black eyes on the private detective and demanded to know if he had finally fulfilled the purpose of his hire At the news that he had, a rare shtened her expression

‘There is one a revealed in a reluctant tone of voice, evading the uncomfortably intense scrutiny of his noble hostess ‘The Condesa now has a child, a little boy of around two years of age’

Alejandro froze and a yawning silence greeted the detective’s startling announcement

The door opened again and his older sister, Beatriz, entered with a quiet apology to her brother for the interruption She was hushed into silence by her dolish witch who iven birth to a bastard’

Horrified at such an announcea, Beatriz shot her brother an appalled glance and hastened to offer the detective refreshe the subject to one less controversial His discomfited sister, Alejandro appreciated, would quite happily sit and discuss the weather nohile he, her ly tele fact fro his employer’s impatience, the detective handed Alejandro a slim file and hastily excused himself

‘A…child?’ Beatriz gasped in shock and consternation the instant the door had closed on the detective’s departure ‘But whose child?’

His profile set like granite, Alejandro answered his sister only with a dis It was certainly not his child, but for hinominy he had ever endured Yet another metaphorical nail in Jemima’s coffin, he conceded bitterly Jemima, he had learned the hard way, knew exactly how best to put a er Dios mio, another man’s child!

‘If only you had listened to me,’ Doña Hortencia la woest matrimonial prizes in Spain and you could have married anyone—’

‘I married Jemima,’ Alejandro pointed out tersely, for he had never had much time for the older woman’s melodrama

‘Only because she mesmerised you like the shah for her Thanks to her,on the other side of the world That she could have given birth to an illegiti thing I ever—’

‘Enough!’ Alejandro incised with crushing force to close out that carping voice ‘There is no point to such recriminations now What is done is done’

Doña Hortencia, her lined face full of anger and e ‘But it is not done yet, is it? You still haven’t begun divorce proceedings’

‘I will travel to England and see Jeements can be made,’ Alejandro pronounced

grittily

‘Send the family lawyer! There can be no need for you to land,’ his our

‘There is every need,’ Alejandro contradicted with all the quiet, unhesitating assurance of his rich, well-educated and extreround ‘Jemima is still my wife’

As Doña Hortencia broke into another barrage of loud objections Alejandro lost patience ‘I inform you of my intentions only as a matter of courtesy I do not require either your permission or your approval’

Alejandro retired to the privacy of his study and poured himself a stiff brandy A child? Jemima had had a child He was still in shock at that revelation, not least because he could hardly forget that his wife had miscarried his baby shortly before she’d left him That was how he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that this child, which she had given birth to since, then could not possibly be his So, was the boy Marco’s baby? Or soed with a distaste that slivered through his lean powerful frame like a knife blade

He leafed through the file but the facts were few Jee where she ran a florist’s shop For a ed wife memories threatened to overwhelence and self-discipline that were second nature to hiot involved with Jemima Grey in the first place?

He could make no excuses for his behaviour because he had freely acknowledged the huge and irrefutable differences between them even before he married her Of course, what had mesmerised him then—to borrow his mother’s expression—was Jemima’s superlative sex appeal Like many men, he had been more vulnerable to that teht be Possibly life prior to that point had spoiled him with too many easy female conquests His failure to keep a lid on his fierce sexual desire to possess Jemima’s pale slim body had proved to be his fatal weakness, he assured hie of time and the process of hard disillusione had obliterated Jemima’s desirability factor entirely

His ill-judged e had, after all, virtually destroyed his family circle But in the short term, Jemial wife; regardless of his feelings on that score she remained his responsibility As did her child, whom the laould deem to be his child until a divorce was finalised, Alejandro conceded, irate at that deland