Page 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER ONE

LAZARO SANCHEZ SURVEYED the glittering ballroom of one of Madrid’s most exclusive hotels A hotel that he owned Satisfaction and anticipation coursed through his veins Thisto this, to standing here in front of his peers

But they hadn’t always been his peers These people wouldn’t have recognised hier who’d roa to hts; showing tourists how to beat the queues intoout of bins when he couldn’t afford to buy food

The faut when he recalled those desperate days He’d run away from his last foster home when the father had cornered Lazaro in the bedroo his trousers down

Lazaro had jumped out of the first-floor

Froe of thirteen he’d fended for himself

The cruel irony of it all was that Lazaro hadn’t been orphaned, or abused by his parents so badly that he’d been removed from their care, like other kids who’d ended up in the foster homes He’d been abandoned into the system by his parents And, actually, his father was in this very rooht now Not that he would ever look him in the eye Or admit he was his father—even under duress

As for his mother, he’d only ever seen her a handful of times in his life, from a distance

The reason for that was because Lazaro Sanchez was the illegitimate result of an affair between two members of two of Spain’s oldest and et to royalty without being royal

The only way he’d found out about his parentage had been through a mixture of fluke and happenstance A careless social worker had left his file unattended one day and he’d seen his birth certificate and ated the had come up They were fake names

Then, while changing foster ho in the back of the car as two social workers had driven hi one of the, and then, as if she hadn’t been able to sit on the inforer, whisper to the other social worker the rumour about who his real parents were

Lazaro had clamped his eyes shut completely and frozen solid in the back of the car Even at that age he’d heard of the Torres family and the Salvadors They were two of Spain’sback to medieval times

When he’d had a chance he’d looked theh it had been just a rumour he’d known as soon as he’d seen a picture of his father when he’d been Lazaro’s age They were reen eyes

He’d taken to stalking the palatial properties belonging to the Torres family and the Salvadors in an exclusive suburb of Madrid Watching thes One in particular was an older boy on his father’s side—Gabriel Torres For some reason, Lazaro had fixated on hie

One day he’d seen the in a restaurant in the centre of Madrid, celebrating his half-brother Gabriel’s birthday

Lazaro had waited outside, and when they’d e in diamonds, the men in bespoke suits—Lazaro had darted forward and planted himself in front of his father and Gabriel

‘I’ with adrenalin as he’d looked up at the toweringat him as if he was an alien

It had all happened so fast Men had appeared from nowhere and Lazaro had found himself face-down in the dirt in an alleyway beside the restaurant His father had hauled him up by the hair and spat into his face

‘You are no son of ain you will pay for it’