The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride

Anton swore soundly.

‘Maria has taken a suite on the floor below yours, Anton. And the very helpful Miss Lane

arranged it.’

Kinsella had done all this behind his back? Anton was stunned and shattered.

‘I’ve been ringing you on and off all day, trying to warn you about this—did the secretary tell you? I bet she didn’t. I can read the tone of a machinating woman from thousands of miles away, and that one is dangerous. Do yourself a big favour and get rid of her. She’s a risk to your security.’

Anton eventually put down the phone on a string of tight curses. His mind was whirling at the flood of information his uncle had just fed into it. Kinsella had been passing on personal information about him to his own mother of all people? How had she got that information? Nobody attached to his entourage knew anything about his plans to marry Cristina! How had she heard, seen, picked up anything? Unless—

He remembered the file from his investigator, which he’d placed in the safe yesterday. Kinsella had been irritating the hell out of him since they’d arrived here in Rio, and Cristina had accused him of keeping Kinsella around as a lover within minutes of clapping eyes on her. He’d flicked the remarks away as unimportant when any man with sense knew he should never dismiss the uncanny power of the female instinct when it sensed a rival in its presence.

Had his not very private secretary been snooping where she should not look? Found out all she needed to know about Cristina and then calmly called up his mother to relay the information to her?

His mother.

His mind flipped to the next pending crisis. Reaching out, he snatched up the phone to ring down to Reception and find out the expected time of arrival of Maria Scott-Lee. The inner curses became progressively more colourful as that conversation was concluded.

Then he pulled himself together and stood for a few minutes, grimly sorting his priorities into some kind of order. By the time he’d done that he’d turned into the ice man.

As Cristina was the first to see.

He entered the bedroom like a bullet, strode up to where she was standing, staring out of the window, caught hold of her hand before she barely had a chance to turn round, and just hauled her out of the suite.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ she demanded as he tugged her inside the lift.

Swinging her into the far corner, he pinned her there with a hand pressed against the wall at either side of her startled face.

‘Why did you marry him?’ he delivered.

Cristina blinked, taken aback by the question. Then her eyes hooded over. ‘I have told you before. I will not discuss that with you.’

‘Why not?’

Folding her arms across her front, she stared down at her shoes and pinned her lips shut.

‘He was wealthy when you met him,’ Anton persisted. ‘He only started gambling the money away after you came into his life. Could the gambling have had something to do with the fact that you conveniently failed to give him a son?’

Cristina went as white as a sheet, but still refused to react in any other way.

He moved in closer. ‘Was the need to keep your gorgeous figure perfect worth what it cost you in the end, Cristina? When you finished up a poor widow who had to go back begging to her miserable father? Did he hold it against you that you had not produced a male grandson for him to leave Santa Rosa to? Or was that always your goal?’ he pushed on relentlessly. ‘Was the only way you could own your beloved Santa Rosa by making sure you would never produce a son?

‘Well, I’ve got news for you,’ he continued, when she still said nothing. ‘You will have my child whether or not you want it. Son or daughter. I have no preference. And Santa Rosa will be placed in trust for that child to inherit, because it will give me such pleasure to watch you lose the one thing that you covet the most!’

He kissed her then, using his hand in her hair to tug up her face and laying the kiss on her like a brand of hate. Tears were sparkling in her eyes by the time he straightened, her burning mouth working on the desire to just break down and weep. Luis looked at her as if he would love to strangle her right here in the lift—but the doors opened and he was grabbing her hand instead.

The lobby was busy. People everywhere—standing, sitting, moving about, checking out or checking in. Cristina blinked the hurt tears from her eyes and looked up at the hard-as-nails profile of this man she knew she would never forgive for saying what he just had.

And she would never forgive herself for giving him reason to say it.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked unsteadily.

‘Shopping,’ he answered.

Shopping…For a few short seconds the meaning of the word just refused to register in her bemused head. Then it did register. Luis had just destroyed her and now he was walking her into the swish shopping mall attached to the hotel as if it was perfectly acceptable to knock her down then take her on a shopping trip.

Cristina bit her teeth together and said nothing.